Boston Blotter: Child Abuse Alleged, Human Trafficking Investigated and a Man Threatens Homicide

-- The story of Haleigh Poutre, the 14-year-old girl who, in 2005, was brought by her parents to a Westfield hospital in a vegetative state could not be more crushing. The girl has finally emerged from her coma, defying predictions that she would never reawake. (The Massachusetts Department of Social Services, for one, wanted to shut off her feeding tube.) Police interviewed her from her pediatric unit bed yesterday and have revealed a story of longstanding and brutal domestic abuse. Poutre's adoptive mother, Holli Strickland, was accused of the worst abuse, according to authorities, but her stepfather, Jason Strickland, was not left off the hook.

The pair were arrested in 2005 after they brought Poutre to the hospital covered in bruises, claiming that she had fallen victim to the flu. Within a day of her release on bail, Holli Strickland died alongside her grandmother in a bizarre murder-suicide. Jason Strickland, 34, faces several assault charges. [Globe]

-- Boston police have been tracking pimps and prostitutes using Craigslist and other classified ads providers, and have uncovered what appears to be a massive human trafficking operation, involving dozens of East Asian prostitutes who are funneled through Flushing, NY to Boston. [BU Daily Free Press]

-- A Watertown man was arrested Saturday on charges that he threatened to kill his girlfriend and blow up the MetroWest Medical Center. [MetroWest Daily News]

All charges alleged until proven under law.