A serial rapist in DeKalb County is still on the loose; an Atlanta bank robber told the teller he had a good reason for his crime; a tot in Tennessee is caught drunk with stolen gifts.  Find out why the boy wanted to get in trouble on today's KISS News Now!

• Despite an ongoing manhunt, a DeKalb County serial rapist is eluding police efforts to draw their net around him.  But in the meantime, they've captured other wanted fugitives.  Police believe the rapist is responsible for as many as six attacks, all in apartments on Hambrick Road in Stone Mountain.  He generally kicks in the door with a gun, covering his face with a t-shirt.  Three of the rapes have been conclusively linked by DNA.
  
  
• A DeKalb County deputy is being held without bond, accused of harboring a fugitive.  41-year-old Landria Odom, a nine year veteran of the DeKalb County Sheriff's Department, is charged with hindering the capture of a criminal and lying to police.  28-year-old Kirkland Smith, an armed robbery suspect, was captured at her house in east Atlanta.  Smith is on on bail.
  
  
• An Atlanta bank robber claimed he had a good reason for the stickup--he needed to pay his house note.  The man walked into the SunTrust on MLK Thursday, carrying a box wrapped in electrical tape.  He handed over a note reading, "Give me the money.  I need to pay my mortgage.  Merry Christmas."  The man claimed the box had a remote-controlled bomb.  He left it behind when he ran off with the cash.
  
  
• Democrats are having trouble coming up with the 60th vote needed to pass health insurance reform.  Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson is holding out for more restrictions on abortion coverage; Maine Republican Olympia Snowe says the Democratic goal to pass it before Christmas is unrealistic.
  
  
• A strange, sad story from Chattanooga.  A four-year-old boy left his mom's bed in the middle of the night--only to be found wandering his neighborhood, drinking a beer and wearing a little girl's dress he had stolen along with several other presents from under a neighbor's Christmas tree.  His mother, 21-year-old April Wright, said he was trying to get in trouble, saying he wanted to go to jail "because that's where Daddy is."  Wright and her husband are in the middle of a divorce.  The boy was hospitalized and treated for alcohol consumption.
  
  
• For 35 years, James Bain insisted he did not rape a 9-year-old boy.  Now, DNA has cleared him, and he's been freed from a Florida prison.  The 54-year-old says he has no hard feelings, because he has God.  He's entitled to $50,000 for each year of his wrongful conviction--that's $1.7 million.  The Innocence Project says Bain has spent more years behind bars than any of the other 246 inmates exonerated by DNA nationwide.  
  
  
• Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver ChrisHenry is being remembered as a huge talent who was determined to leave his troubled past behind and turn his life around. The 26-year-old Henry, who had multiple arrests during his five-year NFL career, died yesterday from injuries in what police are calling a domestic dispute with his fiancee.
  
  
• The head of a defunct Atlanta funeralhome defends the storage of cremated remains in an East Point storage facility.  Juanita Sellers Stone says the reason 96 sets of cremains from Sellers Brothers Funeral Home were being stored is because they were unclaimed--and they wanted to keep them accessible in case loved ones ever came looking.  A bankruptcy trustee says some of the cremains have been there for 25 years.
  
  
• Reeling from scandal, Georgia HouseRepublicans have selected Representative David Ralston of Blue Ridge as their nominee for speaker.  Ralston had tried to oust Glenn Richardson as speaker last year, questioning his temperament.  Richardson gave a tearful goodbye to his fellow GOPers, discussing his suicide attempt and saying he's asked God for forgiveness.  Richardson also took the blame for some of the party's recent troubles.  He's stepping down after a November suicide attempt and allegations by his ex-wife that he cheated on her with a lobbyist.
  
  
• A video of Miley Cyrus' nine-year-old sister Noah performing the Akon song "Smack That'' is the talk of the Internet.  Anyone who knows the Akon song knows what she's smacking and she's doing it in the video with Miley egging her on.  Noah dances, and the adults give her a big round of applause at the end.  One of the people who left messages under the video on YouTube says it was "waaay out of line for a child her age.''  What do you think about the dance?  Is it innocent, or too much for an elementary school girl?
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

   
• The KISS 104.1 weather forecast:  overcast, windy, rainy, with a high of 41; low Friday night, 36.  Saturday, breezy with sprinkles possible during the day, snow flurries possible at night.  High 42.  Sunday, partly cloudy, high of 43.