Delaware

Delaware judge cites 'evil' and 'extreme cruelty' in sentencing couple for torturing their sons

Published

2 years ago

March 5, 2024

Delaware judge cites 'evil' and 'extreme cruelty' in sentencing couple for torturing their sons

DOVER, Delaware — A Delaware woman who was convicted of torturing her two stepsons with the knowledge and help of their father was sentenced last week to 106 years in prison by a judge who called the abuse “the most extensive and persistent evil” he has ever seen.

Mary Vinson, 46, pleaded guilty last year to 30 felony counts including kidnapping, child abuse, strangulation and reckless endangering. She had faced a minimum sentence of 30 years and a maximum of 444 years.

Mary Vinson, 46, who was sentenced Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024 (Delaware Dept. of Justice via AP)

“I didn’t want to hurt them,” Vinson said before sentencing, taking issue with the litany of horrors outlined by prosecutor Erik Towne and with the state’s suggestion that she was “a monster.”

“It didn’t start out that way,” she said. “I loved those boys like they were my own.”

The boys’ father, Charles Vinson, 37, was also sentenced Thursday, to 49 years. He pleaded guilty to 12 felony counts and had faced a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of 158 years.

Charles Vinson, 37, who was sentenced Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024 (Delaware Dept. Of Justice via AP)

Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Clarke rejected defense requests to impose the minimum sentences, citing among other things the extreme cruelty of the crimes.

Video from surveillance cameras that monitored the large closet where the boys were kept naked and starving in horrific conditions did not tell the entire story of their suffering, the judge said.

“It will be impossible for them to forget the evil done to them,” said Clarke, who refused a prosecution request to show some of the video excerpts in court. “They will carry this with them for the rest of their lives.”

Defense attorney John Malik said Charles Vinson did not like conflict and felt manipulated by his wife: “He was in the middle between his wife and his kids, and admits that he failed his sons.”

The judge noted that, while Charles Vinson was not the primary offender, he enabled the abuse, facilitated it and sometimes participated.

Charles Vinson said he took full responsibility for his actions and accepted the consequences of his “poor decisions” regarding his sons.

“I failed them, and I feel ashamed of myself to be called a father,” Vinson said.

According to prosecutors, the boys were abused over a period of 20 months starting in early 2020. One was 9 to 10 years old at the time, while the other was abused between the ages of 11 and 13.

Both were hospitalized several times for severe malnutrition, with one requiring a hospital stay of almost a month. The Division of Family Services finally took custody of the boys in October 2021.

Authorities said the abuse included making the boys stand motionless for long periods of time, withholding food and water, force-feeding, and beating and strangling them. Prosecutor Kristin Dewalt said they were forced to wash themselves with the same water used to clean up their urine and feces.

“The torture Mrs. Vinson inflicted on these children is almost indescribable,” Towne said.

Mark Hudson, representing the Office of the Child Advocate, said the boys are in foster care and doing markedly better, but they are still dealing with issues. Attempts at placing them with permanent families have proven unsuccessful, he said, with potential adopting parents declining to move forward after learning of the boys’ history.

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Delaware

Wilmington’s first homicide of 2026 claims life of 19-year-old

Published

1 hour ago

January 9, 2026

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Wilmington’s first homicide of 2026 claims life of 19-year-old

A 19-year-old man was shot dead in Wilmington’s Southbridge neighborhood in the early hours of Jan. 9, police said.

Wilmington officers arriving to the 200 block of S. Claymont St. about 3:30 a.m. found the teen there.

The teen, whom police have not named, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Anyone with information about this shooting should contact Wilmington Police Detective Derek Haines at (302) 576-3656. People can also provide information to Delaware Crime Stoppers at (800) TIP-3333 or delawarecrimestoppers.com.

Violence by the numbers

This is the first homicide reported this year in Delaware, which last year saw a slight drop in all violent killings.

Delaware police reported 52 people being killed in violent crimes in 2025, a drop of nearly 12% when compared with 59 people killed in 2024, according to a Delaware Online/The News Journal database.

While the number of people killed in homicides statewide is down, the number of people killed by gunfire in Delaware was up in 2025 for the third year in a row.

According to the Delaware Online database, 47 were shot dead in Delaware last year. That was one more victim (46) than in 2024, three more (44) than in 2023 and nine more (38) than in 2022.

Despite the increase in gun-related deaths, there were fewer people shot last year in Delaware for the second year in a row.

Police reported 164 people being shot last year in Delaware. The previous year saw 195 people shot and police reported 210 people being shot in 2023.

This was the fewest people shot in Delaware since 2018, when police reported 146 people being shot statewide.

Send tips or story ideas to Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299 or eparra@delawareonline.com.

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Delaware

MERR responds to dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach

Published

13 hours ago

January 9, 2026

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MERR responds to dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach

A dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach on Jan. 8, according to the nonprofit Marine Education Research and Rehabilitation Institute.

The juvenile male was first seen Jan. 6, floating at sea about 2 miles off the Indian River Inlet, a MERR Facebook post said. The bloated 30-foot whale ultimately beached near a private community in the early afternoon of Jan. 8, the post said.

MERR is attempting to coordinate with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control to get equipment to move the whale out of the water and onto the beach to perform a necropsy, the post said. Right now, there isn’t enough information to determine a cause of death.

Delaware saw at least three dead whales last year, in the Indian River Bay, at Delaware Seashore State Park and at Pigeon Point. The first two were humpbacks, while the Pigeon Point whale was a fin whale.

A necropsy on the Delaware Seashore whale found blunt force trauma across its back, indicating it may have been struck by a ship, MERR Director Suzanne Thurman said.

Recently, on Jan. 4, a dead fin whale was found on the bow of a ship at the Gloucester Marine Terminal in New Jersey, which is located in the Port of Philadelphia on the Delaware River.

Shannon Marvel McNaught reports on southern Delaware and beyond. Reach her at smcnaught@gannett.com or on Facebook.

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Delaware

Pa. man accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from Delco cemetery

Published

1 day ago

January 8, 2026

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Pa. man accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from Delco cemetery

A Pennsylvania man is accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from a cemetery in Delaware County.

Jonathan Gerlach, 34, of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, is charged with abuse of corpse, criminal mischief, burglary and other related offenses, Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse revealed on Thursday, Jan. 8.

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Between November 2025 and Jan. 6, 2026, 26 mausoleums and underground burial sites had been burglarized or desecrated at Mount Moriah Cemetery, which stretches from Yeadon Borough, Pennsylvania, to Philadelphia, investigators said.

As police investigated the thefts, they caught Gerlach desecrating a monument at the cemetery on Tuesday, Jan. 6, according to officials. Gerlach was taken into custody and investigators executed a search warrant at his home in Ephrata.

During the search, investigators recovered 100 human skeletons from Gerlach’s home as well as eight more human remains inside a storage locker, according to Rouse.

“Detectives walked into a horror movie come to life the other night guys,” Rouse said. “This is an unbelievable scene that no one involved – from myself to the detectives to the medical examiners that are now trying to piece together what they are looking at, quite literally – none of them have ever seen anything like this before.”

Rouse said some of the stolen skeletons are hundreds of years old.

“We are trying to figure out exactly what we are looking at,” Rouse said. “We quite simply at this juncture are not able to date and identify all of them.”

Rouse also said some of the skeletons are of infants and children.

“It is truly, in the most literal sense of the word, horrific,” Rouse said. “I grieve for those who are upset by this who are going through it who are trying to figure out if it is in fact their loved one or their child because we found remains that we believe to be months old infants among those that he had collected. Our hearts go out to every family that is impacted by this.”

Sources also told NBC10 the thefts are related to a similar case in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Investigators said they are looking at Gerlach’s online community — including his social media groups and Facebook page — to determine if people were buying, selling, or trading the remains.

Gerlach is currently in custody at the Delaware County Prison after failing to post $1 million bail. Online court records don’t list an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

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