San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Child abuse suspect dies, hit by train
A Rohnert Park psychologist accused of possessing child porn and sexually abusing disabled children in his care has died, authorities said.
Keith Marcum, 68, died Tuesday after he was struck by a SMART train in south Santa Rosa in what Sonoma County sheriff ’s officials described as a suicide.
In April, Marcum was arrested and booked into the Sonoma County jail on charges including continuous sexual abuse of a child, sodomy by force, committing a forcible lewd act on a minor under 16 and possessing
more than 600 images of child pornography. He operated an inhome care facility in Rohnert Park for mentally and physically disabled children and adults for 30 years, police said. One of Marcum’s past residents alleged that the abuse started 10 years ago.
After his arrest, two more victims came forward and said Marcum had sexually abused them when they were 6 to 14 years old, police said. The abuse allegedly occurred from 1991 to 2007.
Detectives raided Marcum’s home on Brenda Way in Rohnert Park, where three patients were living, and found the child pornography.
Camp counselor sentenced for possessing child porn
A 21yearold camp counselor and babysitter will spend 30 years in prison for taking pictures of the children in his care as they undressed in camp cabins, pool locker rooms and other locations.
Ryan Michael Spencer filled a hard drive with more than 30,000 images and videos of child pornography and had hundreds of images on his iPhone, according to the Northern District Court of California in San Francisco. Some of the children were as young as 4.
One video saved onto Spencer’s iPhone shows him molesting a child he was babysitting, officials said. Investigators believe he molested at least two children he babysat “on several occasions,” raping one boy who was younger than 10 years old.
Detectives with the FBI initially starting investigating Spencer more than two years ago, when a witness told police officers that Spencer’s codefendant, Bryan Petersen, a chess coach and tutor in the Tiburon area, had child porn on his computer and Dropbox account.
The two men had repeatedly traded child pornography on the Kik Messenger mobile application from March 2015 until Spencer’s arrest in April 2017, officials said.
When FBI detectives scoured Spencer’s home in 2017, they found three electronic devices that were passwordprotected or encrypted, making them impossible to access without Spencer’s cooperation, officials said.
The court fined Spencer $1,000 every day that he refused to decrypt the devices for investigators. After 22 days of refusing a magistrate judge’s order — and racking up a $22,000 fine after being held in civil contempt by the court — he provided the passwords.
In addition to Spencer’s 30year prison term, United States District Judge Charles R. Breyer ordered him to be under a 15year term of supervised release and required him to pay restitution to the victims. The amount of restitution has yet to be determined, officials said.
Tech worker accused of violent LSD spree
A San Francisco tech worker has been charged with attempted murder in connection with a violent rampage fueled by four hits of LSD, officials said.
Betai Koffi, 32, is hospitalized at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, where he is recovering from gunshot wounds sustained after a Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy shot him three times on July 4 as he allegedly drove a stolen security guard truck toward the officer. Koffi was charged after waking up from a coma, with the left side of his body paralyzed.
Charges include five counts of assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of attempted murder, two counts of assault on an officer and one count of carjacking. His bail was set at $2.35 million.
While he was awake for the hearing, “how much he was able to take in, I don’t know yet,” said Koffi’s attorney, Stephen Gallenson. “It’s an incredibly sad situation. From everyone’s account, he was a great young man with a promising future.”
He apparently ingested LSD while celebrating the July Fourth holiday with five friends at a rental home in Bodega Bay and became delusional shortly after, Sonoma County officials said. When Koffi’s friends tried to stop him from leaving the home Thursday evening, he punched a woman twice, stabbed a man with a pencil, choked another man and punched a third man in the face, authorities said.
After getting into his rental car, Koffi allegedly hit a parked car and then drove toward another person before crashing into the home’s garage. Koffi stabbed a security guard with a landscape light, stole the guard’s truck and then hit two pedestrians, officials said.
A sheriff’s deputy and California Highway Patrol officer responded to the scene, and Koffi allegedly drove the security truck toward the officers, crashing into the CHP patrol car. Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy Jason Pasero fired several shots at Koffi, striking him three times, authorities said. Koffi was airlifted to a hospital.
Koffi is identified as a software engineer for YouTube on his LinkedIn profile. He previously worked for Microsoft and holds a master’s degree from Stanford University.
A plea hearing is set for Aug. 14.