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Wednesday's news in 5 minutes.

WARNING: The top story in this post deals with the rape and murder of a child.

1. A 10-year-old girl had an STD when she was raped and murdered, autopsy reveals.

A 10-year-old girl who was allegedly murdered by her mother’s boyfriend had an STD at the time of her death, an autopsy has revealed.

Victoria Martens had been raped before she was killed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a day after her 10th birthday on 23 August 2016.

Police say her mother, Michelle Martens, made the horrific admission that she enjoyed watching her daughter be raped and allegedly claimed she watched her boyfriend, Fabian Gonzales, and his cousin, Jessica Kelley, kill Victoria.

An autopsy report showed Victoria had human papillomavirus (HPV) at the time of her death, suggesting she had suffered sexual abuse before her murder, the Albuquerque Journal reports.

Detectives say the 35-year-old offered her daughter online to paedophiles who wanted to rape her and watched Gonzales and Kelly, both 32, doing so before Victoria was killed.

The autopsy also found Victoria had alcohol in her system, but no drugs.

Police found Victoria’s body dismembered and wrapped in a burning blanket in her mother’s northwest Albuquerque apartment on 24 August.

Martens, Gonzales and Kelley are in jail awaiting trial for Victoria’s murder, which is scheduled for October.

2. Security cameras may have captured dancer’s death.

British woman Stacey Tierney’s death at a Melbourne strip club should have been caught on camera, according to a former dancer at the club.

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The 29-year-old died at Dreams Gentlemen’s Club where she worked on December 18, but her body was not discovered until the next day.

Victoria Police have said she had been with several men who had access to the club, who may or may not have been there when Ms Tierney died.

The former Dreams dancer dismissed claims the private room where Ms Tierney was reportedly was not covered by CCTV cameras.

“My main concern is that it all sounds so dodgy … I don’t understand how all the reports saying she was in an area without surveillance?,” she told News.com.au.

“All the private rooms, the ‘lap rooms’, are covered.”

Police say they are awaiting toxicology reports and still do not know the cause of death.

3. Boy, 11, arrested for armed robbery after crime spree.

An 11-year-old boy has been arrested over a violent five-day crime spree which police halted on Tuesday.

The boy, along with a girl aged 15, a boy, 17, and a man, 26, were arrested after Police used stop sticks to burst the tyres of the stolen 4WD in Mill Park, north of Melbourne, the Herald Sun reports.

The four have been questioned over offences including car theft, aggravated burglary, and armed robbery.

Police will allege the crime spree began on January 5 at a home in Yallambie from which a SsangYong Musso 4WD was stolen. Burglaries in Mill Park and Bundoora followed.

A vehicle was carjacked in Preston by suspects who evaded police and attempted a ramming in Reservoir.

Two more homes in Mill Park were robbed on Tuesday morning and burglaries were committed at at least six properties across Melbourne.

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4. Sherri Papini spotted outside home as hunt for kidnappers continues.

The first photo of the California woman who was allegedly abducted while jogging then later was returned has emerged.

Sherri Papini was snapped outside her home on Saturday with her husband and two children, The New York Post reports.

No arrests have been made in the case, although Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko recently said the investigation remains a “top priority”.

5. Revelations Sussan Ley spent $13,000 piloting private planes.

Federal health minister Sussan Ley’s travel expense woes continue to pile up, with fresh revelations she spent $13,000 piloting private planes along busy routes.

Ms Ley, who is a licensed commercial pilot, charged $6300 to fly from Canberra to Melbourne in July 2014 and another $7000 to travel from Canberra to Adelaide in May 2015, The Age reports.

Ms Ley’s social media accounts indicate she was in the cockpit, the report claims.

On both occasions she was attending official ministerial business, however, she has not said why she chose private planes when flying aboard a commercial plan would have been much cheaper.

Ministerial guidelines say charters can only be used under special circumstances “such as where no scheduled commercial services exist or a minister would be unduly delayed by the use of scheduled services”.

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Ms Ley stood aside while her expenses are being investigated following revelations she bought a $795,000 apartment from a Liberal National Party donor during a tax-payer funded trip to the Gold Coast.

6. Eight-year-old boy drowns near Albury.

An eight-year-old boy has drowned in Lake Hume, near Albury, on Tuesday evening.

The boy was found after going missing from Kookaburra Point in Ebden just after 6.30pm, The Herald Sun reports.

Emergency service workers pulled the boy from the water and tried to resuscitate him, but he died at the scene.

The death is not being treated as suspicious and police will prepare a report for the coroner.

Ryan Van Ree was on the water with friends and family when he saw emergency service workers trying to save him.

“We weren’t sure what was happening but there were two or three paramedics crouched down at the edge of the water. It looked like they were performing CPR,” Mr Van Ree told the newspaper.

“There were lots of young families around and all the children were out of the water. Then we saw this lady, I think it may have been his mother, go down to the water. All we heard was this nerve-wracking bellow. It was awful. That’s when we knew something terrible had happened.”

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