Family Values

Ahh, the Minnesota family. Cornerstone of a thriving society.

Meet the Yahnkes:

Three members of a family from Frost, Minn. were charged this morning with manufacturing and possessing explosive devices found at their home near the Iowa border.

The four were arrested Tuesday after authorities found 114 explosive devices and more than 20 pounds of explosive materials inside the family’s home and buried in their yard.

Police say they have linked the family to a half-dozen mailbox explosions in rural Freeborn County over the past few months and the bombing of a portable toilet in Albert Lea, Minn. during hte past week.

"At this point, we don't have any indication that they were targeting any people," said deputy Mike Gormley, with the Faribault County Sheriff's Office. "We're not sure if this was for fun or if they had other things in mind."

And then meet the Kerschbaums:

Ben T. Kerschbaum, accused of helping to keep two 16-year-old girls captive in a St. Paul home where they allegedly were beaten and sexually abused, was charged Wednesday with aiding and abetting kidnapping and false imprisonment.

Kerschbaum, 30, allegedly forced the girls to smoke crack cocaine and take sleeping pills to keep them compliant while they were held captive in the house he shared with his wife, Lamiea Shellike Kerschbaum.

While held in the couple's home in January and February, the girls were often stripped and locked in closets, and taken out only to be beaten or whipped, to perform sex acts and to do housework, according to the criminal complaints filed by the Ramsey County attorney's office.

Lamiea Kerschbaum was charged last week with kidnapping and false imprisonment. Her 16-year-old son, Darnell Ishmel Singleton, was charged in juvenile court with four counts of kidnapping for prostitution purposes.