I didn't see this article posted unless I accidentally missed it!
Murder case to be built even though boy missing
When a Fremont man and his fiancee are called to court this week in connection with the apparent slaying of their disabled 5-year-old foster son, prosecutors will be moving forward even though his body hasn't been found.
Louis Ross, 38, and his fiancee, Jennifer Campbell, 33, who have not been charged in the case, are the latest in a string of East Bay homicide suspects against whom police have built a case without a body.
Ross is being held without bail at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin on suspicion of murdering Hasanni Campbell, while Jennifer Campbell is being held in lieu of $15,000 bail on suspicion of being an accessory in the case.
Hasanni, who has cerebral palsy, was reported missing Aug. 10 after Ross said he vanished at a Rockridge neighborhood shoe store in Oakland where Campbell, the boy's aunt, worked.
Circumstantial evidence helped convict Hans Reiser of first-degree murder in the 2006 slaying of his estranged wife, Nina, in the Oakland hills. His sentence was later reduced for leading police to her body.
Eric Mora, 53, was charged with murdering Cynthia Alonzo, 48, who failed to show up at a Thanksgiving dinner with her family in San Francisco in 2004. He remains in jail.
Hasanni's case presents its own unique challenges.
Adult victims who go missing presumably leave a trail. Prosecutors often tell juries that the evidence points to death when an adult fails to show up to work, visits friends, or use a credit card.
In Hasanni's case, prosecutors plan to prove the boy was murdered in part because no one has seen him since he disappeared Aug. 10, and Ross allegedly sent an expletive-laden text message to Campbell threatening to leave the boy alone on a BART platform.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/29/BANQ19FT4B.DTL
