Meredith Kercher trial

When two police officers went to the home of Meredith Kercher on November 2, 2007, they had expected a routine call to return two stolen mobile phones which had been found in a nearby garden. Instead, what they were confronted with was a scene of horror and chaos.

By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter
Published: 11:25PM GMT 04 Dec 2009

Finding the front door open, a window broken and bloodstains in a bathroom, they forced open the locked door of Miss Kercher's bedroom to find her body in a pool of blood on the floor, mostly hidden under a duvet and naked except for a T-shirt yanked up around her armpits.

The injuries on her body suggested she had been forced to kneel, with her face pushed into the floor, and raped at knifepoint before being killed by a combination of strangulation and three deep stab wounds to her neck.

The murder immediately shattered the quaint image of Perugia as a quiet university town, and four days later the case would take an astonishing turn which left the whole of Italy in a state of shock.

Arturo de Felice, the local police chief, revealed that Miss Kercher had been killed by three people who had been high on drugs and tried to force her to take part in what was later described as a "satanic" group sex session, then held her down and stabbed her in the throat when she refused.

The murderers, he said, included a local bar owner and a 23-year-old student called Raffaele Sollecito, but what caused the biggest sensation was that the third killer was Miss Kercher's 20-year-old American flatmate, Amanda Knox.

"All three participated in this crime," said Mr de Felice. "The motive was sexual and the victim rebelled. She was a victim, pure and simple."

Over the following days, a series of leaks from the police suggested that not only had Knox participated in the murder, but she had instigated it, because there was bad blood between her and 21-year-old Miss Kercher following a series of arguments about Knox's promiscuity and her personal hygiene. A court would later be told that Knox was a "she-devil" who led her accomplices in "an unstoppable crescendo of violence".

In Italy, the suggestion that Knox, whose natural good looks were often referred to as "angelic", could be capable of such a despicable crime, became something of a national obsession, spawning thousands of newspaper and internet articles, endless TV debates and a best-selling book.

But after a two-year investigation and trial, and guilty verdicts against Knox and Sollecito, the truth of how Miss Kercher met her death remains frustratingly unclear in a case which is already heading to the appeal court and is likely to be disputed for years to come because of a police investigation which has been nothing short of chaotic at times.

One of the few undisputed facts is that Miss Kercher had spent the evening of November 1 at the home of her friend Sophie Purton, watching the romantic drama The Notebook before returning home at around 9pm, saying she was tired. Her flatmates were all staying elsewhere that night and she was alone in the house.

Her body was discovered at 1.15pm the next day, by which time Knox and her Italian boyfriend, Sollecito, had arrived at the house.

"It is something I never hope to see again," Sollecito told reporters the following day. "There was blood everywhere and I couldn't take it all in. My girlfriend (Knox) was crying and screaming, 'How could anyone do this?'"

Police were under immense pressure to solve the murder, and within three days suspicion had begun to fall on Knox, whose behaviour had struck police as distinctly odd when she was asked to give a witness statement.

While Miss Kercher's other friends had been distraught and tearful, Knox appeared entirely detached and showed no signs of distress, even performing cartwheels and doing the splits while she was waiting to be questioned.

She also changed her mind about where she had been on the night of the murder - at first she said she had been at Sollecito's flat, smoking marijuana and watching a film. Then she said she was confused and might have been at the flat at the same time as Miss Kercher. Put under pressure by police, who had discovered text messages on her phone to bar owner Patrick Lumumba, she eventually said she had been in the flat when Miss Kercher was murdered, and heard her scream after Mr Lumumba went into the bedroom with her.

Mr Lumumba was immediately arrested on suspicion of murder, as was Sollecito, whose shoes appeared to match a bloody footprint found at the scene.

But less than a fortnight later, the investigation took another incredible turn. Police announced that they were looking for a fourth suspect, a local drifter called Rudy Guede, whose DNA had been found all over the murder scene, including in a bloody fingerprint and in samples which showed he had either raped Miss Kercher or had consensual sex with her.

Guede, now 22, was convicted of murder and sexual assault at a fast-track trial last year, while Mr Lumumba, who had a cast-iron alibi, was released after police admitted he was entirely innocent.

Had the police got it completely wrong with their theory of a "sex game"? Knox's legal team certainly thought so, and expected her to be released after Guede - who said Knox was not at the flat at the time of the murder - was charged.

But police remained convinced more than one person was involved, and Knox's alibi didn't stack up. She claimed she had been at Sollecito's house on the night of the murder, but mobile phone records suggested she and Sollecito had been in the vicinity of the murder scene on the night in question, then turned their phones off for around three hours around the time the murder is thought to have been committed.

Sollecito, meanwhile, said he couldn't remember whether Knox had spent that night with him or not, and a number of witnesses described how the couple had behaved in a callous way after the murder, kissing, cuddling and laughing near the murder scene, then shopping for skimpy lingerie, when Sollecito reportedly told Knox: "You can put these on at home and we'll have wild sex."

It also transpired that before police had arrived at the house to find the body, Knox had been there, and had a shower despite telling friends the bathroom was bloodstained.

Both suspects also had a darker side - Knox had once written a short story about rape, which she had posted on the internet, and Sollecito had an obsession with knives and swords and collected Japanse manga comics, known for their violence and rape fantasies.

But the vital breakthrough came two months later, when DNA tests on a metal clip from a bra which had been torn off Miss Kercher during the violent attack yielded a sample of Sollecito's DNA, proving that he had been at the scene.

DNA evidence also began to close the net around Knox. A kitchen knife taken from a drawer in Sollecito's kitchen had Miss Kercher's DNA on the tip and Knox's DNA on the handle. Police were convinced they had found the murder weapon. Knox's DNA was also found to be mixed with Miss Kercher's in a bloodstained wash basin at the house, suggesting Knox had washed Miss Kercher's blood off her hands in the sink.

But after an 11-month trial, the reason for the murder remains an enigma. Having initially claimed the motive was sexual, the prosecution suggested it may have been a revenge attack by Knox, who "harboured hatred" for Miss Kercher because she had criticised her promiscuity and her personal hygiene. Meanwhile Rudy Guede has changed his story and said that Knox was at the house, and murdered Miss Kercher in a row over money.

Unless one of the convicted killers decides to confess, it seems the Kercher family will never know the full truth about how their daughter met such a terribly violent end.

Australian dives face-first into deadly peanut-sized jellyfish

An Australian man was fighting for his life on Friday after he dived face-first into a venomous jellyfish the size of a peanut in waters off north-east Australia.

Published: 8:53PM GMT 04 Dec 2009

The 29-year-old man, whose name has not been released, was flown to hospital, where doctors in the intensive care unit fought to treat the potentially fatal sting.

When he dove off the yacht off north-east Queensland on Thursday, the man was wearing a full-length "stinger suit," a lightweight version of a wet suit that covers everything but the face, feet and hands and is designed to protect against venomous jellyfish that are common in northern Australia's waters during the Southern Hemisphere summer.

But when he dove into the water near South Molle Island, he was immediately stung in the face by a potentially lethal Irukandji jellyfish, Central Queensland Helicopter Rescue Service spokeswoman Leonie Hansen said. He was taken back to the island, where a rescue team rushed to his aid.

"The crew said he was shivering and in shock and in a great deal of pain," Miss Hansen said.

The man, from Brisbane, was in serious condition on Friday at Mackay Base Hospital in Mackay, 600 miles north of the Queensland capital, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Australia is well known for its myriad deadly creatures, but the Irukandji remains relatively mysterious. It is a distant relative of the more notorious and widely feared box jellyfish, the sting of which can kill an adult within 2 minutes. But the Irukandji is virtually impossible to see and is tiny enough to pass through nets meant to keep jellyfish away from popular swimming spots.

The jellyfish's sting can lead to "Irukandji syndrome," a set of symptoms that includes shooting pains in the muscles and chest, vomiting, restlessness and anxiety. Some symptoms can last for more than a week, and the syndrome can occasionally lead to a rapid rise in blood pressure and heart failure.

In 2002, two tourists were killed in separate incidents after being stung by the tiny creatures off northeast Australia - the first recorded Irukandji fatalities. But because the jellyfish leave almost no mark on their victims, scientists believe they are responsible for many deaths that were attributed as drownings or heart attacks, said Lisa Gershwin, a marine biologist who has spent 11 years studying the animals.

The most common Irukandji measures just 0.4 inches in length and has tentacles as thin as a strand of hair that can grow up to 3 feet, Miss Gershwin said.

There is no antivenom, and people generally do not realise that they have been stung at first. The initial sting causes little pain, and it may be up to half an hour before a victim starts to feel the effects.

But those effects, Miss Gershwin says, can ultimately be disastrous, with some stings causing blood pressures to soar as high as 280 over 180.

The creatures are found worldwide, from North Wales to Cape Town in South Africa, Miss Gershwin said.

Texas executes man at centre of mental disability row

Defence attorneys for Bobby Wayne Woods argued for state to spare inmate following low scores on IQ tests

Friday 4 December 2009 15.28 GMT

Texas has executed a child killer at the centre of a bitter dispute over what defines legal mental impairment after several courts ruled that he could be put to death despite a low IQ.

Bobby Wayne Woods, 44, was killed by lethal injection for raping and murdering his girlfriend's 11-year-old daughter after the US supreme court denied a last minute appeal by lawyers who argued that the condemned man fell within a ruling by the same court in 2002 that the mentally impaired could not be sentenced to death.

After being told that the supreme court had refused to intervene, Woods' last words were: "Bye. I'm ready."

Tests on Woods in prison put his IQ as low as 68, below the widely accepted cut off for mental impairment of 70. However, in pursuing the death penalty, the state fell back on other tests conducted when he was a child that put his IQ as high as 86.

Maurie Levin, a University of Texas law professor who represented Woods, said that he is "transparently childlike and simple" and described the execution as "a travesty".

Despite the supreme court ruling seven years ago barring the death penalty for the mentally impaired, individual states are left to decide what defines severe learning disabilities. The court said that an IQ test of "around 70" was an indicator but did not set a specific test.

Recent studies have shown that men with IQ scores lower than 70 have been executed in several states, including Texas and Alabama.

Earlier this week, the Texas board of pardons and paroles, voted unanimously that Woods, who has been described as barely literate, should be executed. The Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott, argued to the supreme court that the IQ tests on Woods were unreliable.

"The only experts to ever conclude that Woods was mentally retarded did so after he had committed this murder and had motivation to underperform," he said.

Richard Hattox, who prosecuted Woods, defended the execution.

"Woods testified, and the jury watched him reason and think and debate with me and his own lawyers," he said. "If he was going to claim mental retardation, having him testify was a mistake, because that took away any doubt."

Woods raped and slit the throat of Sarah Patterson after abducting her with her brother, Cody. The boy was badly beaten but survived.

The children's mother, Schwana Patterson, was refused permission to watch the execution because she served a prison sentence for failing to protect her daughter from sexual abuse by Woods.

Woods was the 24th person executed by Texas this year.

“Islam’s real face, what the world should know”

Fuck all fundamentalists in every religious organization over the world... You are an Abomination!

J.A.C.



“Religion is regarded by the common people as true,
by the wise as false,
and by the rulers as useful.”

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4-65 AD) -

Hanged Men

Double Indemnity (1944)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Double Indemnity (1944) is an American film noir directed by Billy Wilder. It starred Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson and was based on James M. Cain's 1935 novella of the same title, adapted for film by Wilder and Raymond Chandler.

The story was based on a 1927 crime perpetrated by a married Queens woman and her lover. Ruth Snyder persuaded her boyfriend, Judd Gray, to kill her husband Albert after having her spouse take out a big insurance policy—with a double-indemnity clause. The murderers were quickly identified and arrested.

The term Double indemnity refers to a clause in certain life insurance policies where the insuring company agrees to pay twice the standard amount in cases of accidental death.

Plot

Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) is a successful insurance salesman for Pacific All-Risk returning to his office building in downtown Los Angeles late one night. Neff, clearly in pain, sits down at his desk and tells the whole story into a Dictaphone for his colleague Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), a claims adjuster.

He first meets the sultry Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) during a routine house call to renew an automobile insurance policy for her husband. A flirtation develops, at least until Neff hears Phyllis wonder how she could take out a policy on her husband's life without him knowing it. Neff realises she intends to murder her husband and wants no part of it.

Phyllis pursues Neff to his own home, and persuades him that the two of them, together, should kill her husband. Neff knows all the tricks of his trade and comes up with a plan in which Phyllis's husband will die an unlikely death, in this case falling from a moving train. Pacific All-Risk will therefore be required, by the 'double indemnity' clause in the insurance policy, to pay the widow twice the normal amount.

Keyes, a tenacious investigator, does not suspect foul play at first, but eventually concludes that the Dietrichson woman and an unknown accomplice must be behind the husband's death. He has no reason to be suspicious of Neff, someone he has worked with for quite some time and views with great affection.

Neff is not only worried about Keyes. The victim's daughter, Lola (Jean Heather), comes to him convinced that her stepmother Phyllis is behind her father's death because Lola's mother also died under suspicious circumstances when Phyllis was her nurse. Neff begins to care about what might happen to Lola, both of whose parents have been murdered.

Then he learns Phyllis is seeing Lola's boyfriend behind her back. Trying to save himself and no longer caring about the money, Neff believes the only way out is to make the police think Phyllis and Lola's boyfriend did the murder, which is what Keyes now believes anyway. When Neff and Phyllis meet, she tells him she has been seeing Lola's boyfriend only to provoke him into killing the suspicious Lola in a jealous rage. Neff, now wholly disgusted, is about to kill Phyllis when she shoots him first. Neff is badly wounded but still standing and walks towards her, telling her to shoot again. Phyllis does not shoot and he takes the gun from her. She says she never loved him "until a minute ago, when I couldn't fire that second shot" and had been using him all along. Neff coldly says he does not believe this new ploy. Phyllis hugs him tightly but then pulls away and looks pleadingly at him when she feels the gun pressed against her side. Neff says "Goodbye, baby," then shoots twice and kills her.

Neff drives to his office where he dictates his full confession to Keyes, who arrives and hears enough of the confession to understand everything. Neff tells Keyes he is going to Mexico rather than face a death sentence but collapses to the floor before he can reach the elevator.

Cast

Fred MacMurray as Walter Neff
Barbara Stanwyck as Phyllis Dietrichson
Edward G. Robinson as Barton Keyes
Porter Hall as Mr Jackson
Jean Heather as Lola Dietrichson
Tom Powers as Mr Dietrichson
Byron Barr as Nino Zachetti
Richard Gaines as Edward S. Norton, Jr.
Fortunio Bonanova as Sam Garlopis
John Philliber as Joe Peters

Production

Wilder shot an alternate ending to the film (to appease censors), featuring Neff paying for his crime by going to the gas chamber. This footage is lost, but stills of the scene still exist. Chandler appears in a fleeting cameo, glancing up from a novel he is reading as Neff walks past on the sidewalk.

Locations

Exteriors for the Dietrichson home used in the film were shot at a 3,200-square-foot, Spanish Colonial Revival house built in 1927 and located in the Beachwood Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles.[3] The production team copied the interior of the house almost exactly for the film on a soundstage.

Former British soldier faces death by firing squad in Congo

Former British soldier, Joshua French, is facing death by firing squad in the DR Congo after losing his appeal against a murder conviction.

Published: 7:20PM GMT 03 Dec 2009

French, 27, who has dual British and Norwegian nationality, and his friend Tjostolv Moland, 28, a former Norwegian soldier, were convicted of killing a taxi driver and spying.

Both men deny the murder of Abedi Kasongo, 47, a taxi driver who was shot in the head outside Kisangani in May. They claim unknown gunmen ambushed them as they were being transported in the car through a dense rainforest.

A military appeal court also ordered both men to pay £300 million in compensation before their execution.

Human rights group Reprieve claims the two men have suffered a series of miscarriages of justice since their arrest, including beatings and mock executions.

It said that during the reading of yesterday's judgment, the judge complained the interpreter was too slow and asked him to stop translating.

It also sayd Mr Moland has been suffering from cerebral malaria and hallucinations and believes he has spiritual contact with a pygmy.

Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve director, said: "Today, in the farce that substitutes for military justice in the DRC, the judge wanted to dispense with translators.

"Apparently Joshua French did not have to understand the process that led to his death sentence.

"The 'legal process' has so far included torturing Joshua, parading him around town in front of lynch mobs, and forcing him to sign statements under threat of death."

French was born in Norway to a British father and Norwegian mother, but grew up in Margate, Kent. He moved back to Norway when his parents divorced, but returned to Britain aged 20 and served in the British Army. He also served in the Norwegian Army where he met Moland.

They both left the Norwegian Army in 2007 and worked as security guards in various places, including the Gulf of Aden where they guarded against pirates.

Hellish hairy sea monster cast ashore

A strange ugly sea monster was cast ashore in Guinea.

The partially decomposed monster has 4 paws, a tail and long fur

The scientists who examined the creature said that they had already seen such animals before, but they have no clue to their definition.

'Church of Tiger' website disbands over golfer's 'sins'

This is how insane people are, setting up a fucking church for a dickhead who plays golf...!?!
Playing sports means your IQ doesn't pass that of a plastic bag...

Man, I hate fucking people... TRULY.

J.A.C.

Thu Dec 3, 2:17 PM

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - The transgressions of Tiger Woods have proved too much to take for one of the golf superstar's most fanatical fans who is now disbanding a church set up in praise of the sports icon.

John Ziegler, the pastor of the "First Church of Tiger Woods" -- www.tigerwoodsisgod.com -- has announced in a statement on the blog that the organization is being dissolved because of the golfer's "personal sins."

The church, whose home page has now been rechristened "The Damnation of Tiger Woods,"was launched by radio host Ziegler in 1996 to "celebrate the emergence of the 'true messiah.'"

However the lurid revelations that have swirled around Woods since last week have left Ziegler so disenchanted that he is now ending his church, which has its own "Prayer for Tiger" and "Ten Tiger Commandments."

"After several days of evaluation, I have decided to disband the First Church of Tiger Woods," Ziegler wrote.

"Tiger is clearly no longer deserving of being seen as a role model or a hero and he has needlessly squandered his unique potential to be a positive force in our country and the world.

"While I am relatively sure that Tiger will make a comeback from this sad episode and that there will be great moments for him in the future, I personally am done with Tiger Woods."

However Ziegler's reaction appears to fly in the face of the 10th of the "Tiger commandments" -- "Thou shall pay no attention to Tiger's apparent flaws."

At abuse trial, girl says father forced her to eat insects

Posted: Wednesday, December 2, 2009 6:30 pm

A teenager whose parents are accused of routinely beating her testified that she was starved at home, forced to eat insects and was once ordered by her father to eat a dead mouse.

The girl, now 15, testified at the child abuse trial of her father, Porfirio Olivas, both from the witness stand Wednesday and in video recordings taken in October 2008 at Safe Harbor, a local agency that helps law enforcement interview children who have been the victims of physical and sexual abuse.

The girl's horror stories about living at her parents' town of Madison apartment were backed by the testimony Wednesday of her mother, Minerva Lopez, 33, who pleaded no contest last month to six counts of child abuse.

The girl described how her father made her eat cockroaches and a spider and forced her to eat a mouse that was caught in a trap. Although she first told authorities she ate the mouse, she later said she only told her parents that she had eaten it to avoid punishment, but actually hid it when nobody was looking.

Olivas, 39, is likely to testify Thursday, said his attorney, Ron Benavides. Olivas is charged with 23 counts of various forms of child abuse and one count of second-degree sexual assault.

The girl also recalled how her father forced her naked into a large plastic bag that he then duct-taped to her waist. Her head and torso were covered with another bag that was also taped down. When the girl chewed through the bag for air, she said, her father put tape over her mouth and nose. He said he was going to throw her into a lake.

The girl said she fought for air and managed to free herself from the bags.

She also said her father strangled her at least twice, one time lifting her off the floor by her neck. The girl and her mother also recounted how Olivas once threw the girl's 3-year-old brother against a table, breaking his leg. The injury was explained to doctors as having happened while he played, both testified.

Sex abuser John McConaghy is 'too fat for prison'

Last updated at 14:54 GMT, Thursday, 3 December 2009

A 66-year-old church elder convicted of indecently assaulting a child will not be sent to jail because his obesity means his health is "precarious".

John William McConaghy, from Urbal Road, Dervock in County Antrim, was found guilty of indecent assault.

The judge at Antrim Crown Court said McConaghy would normally be sent to prison, but he was suspending the two and a half-year jail term.

He said McConaghy's circumstances were "wholly exceptional."

Judge David Smyth said McConaghy's lack of mobility and ulcerated legs, together with the need for frequent dressings and the arrangements that would be needed to accommodate him in jail amounted to "wholly exception circumstances".

The jail term was suspended for three years and a £10,000 fine was also imposed.

During a 10-day trial in October McConaghy's victim, who is now 44, said she was indecently assaulted from the age of around 10 until she was 18.

'Not happy'

She said that she was assaulted so often it became "the norm".

She said McConaghey's abuse "petered out" as she reached adulthood and struck back at him, scratching his face as she fought him off.

Speaking after the sentencing the woman said was "not happy" he was freed, but nevertheless understood the reason why.

"I am happy with the sentence he got, I think that was a fair sentence, but I am not happy with the suspension of it, but I understand the reason for it on medical grounds."

She added that she was glad she had pursued the case against him, "because everybody now knows, church elder or not, what he is".

Police Focus on Maurice Clemmons Accomplices After Cop Killer Fatally Shot

By NEAL KARLINSKY and SARAH NETTER
Dec. 1, 2009

Hours after the gunman accused of killing four Washington cops was gunned down in a confrontation with a lone officer on patrol, investigators have rolled up a growing network of friends and families who helped the shooter evade arrest for two days.

Police in Pierce County have so far made four arrests and expect more by the day's end. They say friends and family provided suspected cop killer Maurice Clemmons, 37, with cell phones, money, hideouts and car rides -- even calling in fake tips to throw police off his trail.

Due in court today are Douglas Davis, Eddie Davis and Rickey Hinton. Police have not said what their connection is to Clemmons, but all are charged with four counts of first-degree criminal assistance, a charge applied to those accused of aiding a murder suspect. Bail was initially set for all three at $20,000.

Clemmons' sister, police said today, was also one of the people detained in Pierce County, which has jurisdiction over the shooting of the Lakewood officers at a coffee shop. She is accused of helping provide her brother with medical treatment for a gunshot wound to the abdomen he suffered in the coffee shop shoot out.

Clemmons was killed early today after a confrontation with Seattle police officer Benjamin L. Kelly, who was on patrol alone.

Seattle Police Detective Renee Witt told ABCNews.com today that that officer "fired several times" and that they believe Clemmons was hit at least twice.

Peru's Fat-Stealing Gang: Crime or Cover-Up?

By Lucien Chauvin / Lima Tuesday, Dec. 01, 2009

Updated: Dec. 1, 2009

Much of the world was shocked and titillated by news of alleged fat-stealing murderers in the Peruvian jungle. But the story may have a much more sinister underbelly. Could the allegation of homicidal liposuction possibly be a smokescreen to distract attention from other crimes, including, some local journalists say, the existence of a death squad that may be operating within the country's national police?

The existence of marauding fat stealers was made public mid-November by General Felix Murga, head of the national police's criminal-investigation division, and Colonel Jorge Mejia, who leads the antikidnapping unit. The Murga-Mejia team said the gang may have killed dozens of people over the past three decades and showed off two dirty bottles containing a yellowish goop they said was human fat that had been harvested for sale to European buyers in the cosmetics business. Three people have been arrested and the search continues for at least six other fat removers.

The police dubbed the gang the pishtacos, based on colonial folklore of a tall, white male who wears a broad-rimmed hat and roams the highlands, stealing the fat — and sometimes the eyes — of unsuspecting travelers. The pishtaco is equivalent to Bigfoot in the U.S. northwest or the chupacabra in the southwest. Everyone has a tale, but the creature remains elusive.

In this case, also elusive are the Italian nationals whom the police claim were paying $60,000 a gallon for unprocessed human fat; nowhere to be found, too, were the dozens of headless, fatless bodies supposedly dangling in a clandestine fat-rendering laboratory.

While the story made for spectacular news reports, the account was quickly questioned by doctors, security experts and even others in the national police. By the end of November, police authorities and not the fat thieves were the ones under the microscope.

First, the basic facts about human fat are at odds with the story. Fat does not last very long outside the body and would be of little use once stored in dirty, returnable bottles of Inca Kola, Peru's electric yellow, bubble gum–flavored soda. Says Dr. Roni Luna, a plastic surgeon in Lima: "Human fat has no value. It can be removed from one part of a person's body and injected into another part of the same person, but that's it. Anyone who has taken a rudimentary class in human biology can tell you that decomposition would happen within 30 minutes or less."

Luna scoffed at the police's description of the gang beheading its victims, hanging the corpses upside down and coaxing out the fat with votive candles similar to those lit in Catholic churches to ask saints for favors. The police investigation included an artist's depiction of this fat-harvesting process — a scientific impossibility.

Dr. William Mitchell, an anthropology professor at New Jersey's Monmouth University who has studied the pishtaco myth in Peru's central highlands, says the current story is so ludicrous that he nearly dropped the phone when his son called to tell him the news. "My first reaction was, 'What?' This story is so crazy that the only thing I could imagine was that the police officers either believed the tale of someone trying to cover up a crime or they were trying to cover up something themselves," says Mitchell. The daily La Republica reported on Nov. 30 that the police authorities in Huanuco, where the fat stealers supposedly operated, found out about the case from the press conference the same way as the rest of Peru.

The alleged ring operated in a well-known drug production and transit zone, with cocaine passing through on the way to the Peruvian coast and then to Europe or the U.S. by boat. (The price supposedly paid for a gallon of fat would fetch about six times what the equivalent amount in cocaine would on the local market.) Peru is the world's second largest cocaine producer after Colombia, with a capacity to produce around 300 metric tons of cocaine annually from its coca crops.

The possibility of some kind of cover-up became part of the public debate because of the fate of an article by the investigative journalist Ricardo Uceda, published in the monthly magazine Poder. Uceda's story detailed the supposed operation of a death squad within the police unit in the northern city of Trujillo. He documented 46 criminals shot to death by police officers in 2007 and 2008 in the city, which has a population hovering around 800,000. But the allegations of the pishtaco gang surfaced at about the time Uceda's article was going to press. For several days, the murderous fat stealers hogged the headlines.

On Nov. 29, Peru's media had caught up to Uceda's explosive allegations and news magazines were filled with speculation of a cover-up, focusing primarily on Interior Minister Octavio Salazar, whose office oversees the police. Salazar is a retired police general who used to head the force's Trujillo detachment. TV news shows, dailies and blogs were abuzz not with news of fat-stealing but of a "grease-screen," which is how Patricia del Rio of the daily Peru 21 described what many now say is a bizarre cover-up. Both liberal and conservative media have followed del Rio's lead, debating out loud why the national police would time the allegations of fat-stealing just as Uceda's report was coming out.

Carlos Basombrio, who served as a Deputy Interior Minister mid-decade, speculated that the fat-stealing episode could actually be a smokescreen cooked up in the Interior Ministry to steer attention away from the explosive Trujillo case. Spokespeople in Salazar's office said the minister could not comment on the pishtaco case because it was part of a police investigation. However, they added that all the talk in the media about a cover-up fed into a political climate heating up with the approach of the 2010 local elections. Still, one of Salazar's predecessors, Fernando Rospigliosi, called the pishtaco case "brilliant for its level of stupidity. It is so ridiculous it should not be discussed."

Update: On Dec. 1, the head of the national police put General Felix Murga on leave. It was Murga who made the announcement of the existence of the fat-stealing gang in mid-November. Interior Minister Octavio Salazar told reporters that he could not say if such a band of criminals existed.

Walk home led to nightmare accident

12:30pm Thursday 3rd December 2009
By Faye Dickson

A RAGLAN man says he is lucky to be alive after being hit by a car as he walked home following a night out.

Mikey Carver, 21, from Great Oak, suffered a broken leg, injuries to his head and neck, and bruised ribs when he was knocked over on the B4598 near Clytha on November 25.

He spent five nights at Abergavenny’s Nevill Hall Hospital and had his leg pinned, but is now at home recovering.

Although he will be unable to walk for at least six weeks, he said he feels lucky to be alive.

Mr Carver does not remember much about the accident, because he was knocked unconscious and did not wake up until he was in hospital, but police told his mother, Lois, 44, that he had gone through the car’s windscreen.

The accident was a major setback for Mr Carver, who spent seven years in a wheelchair with a degenerative hip disease and was due to have a hip replacement within the next few months.

He was diagnosed with Perthes disease at the age of nine, putting an end to his rugby dreams and preventing him from attending Croesyceilog Comprehensive School because it did not have wheelchair access.

Mr Carver, who until then had played prop for Llanyrafon Primary School and Cwmbran Rugby Club, was devastated when doctors told him he would never be able to play sport again because a lack of blood in his thigh bone was causing his hip joint to collapse.

He started using a wheelchair and was tutored at home for six months, but later joined Fairwater Comprehensive School.

When he was 16, he spent six months learning to walk again with the help of a physiotherapist.

He needed a hip replacement, but doctors wanted to wait until he was fully grown, so they delayed the operation until he turned 21.

Mr Carver celebrated his 21st birthday last month and met with doctors to discuss the operation a week before the accident.

He does not know how long it will now be delayed for and is frustrated by the setback.

"I really wanted to get it over and done with," he said.

Mr Carver said he will be unable to go to work, as an administration assistant at a C&M Plant in Pontypool, for around two months while he recovers.

Man stabs himself to death in Ukrainian church

27 Mar, 04:24 PM

A man has stripped naked and stabbed himself to death during service in a church in Ukrainian Spaso-Uspensky monastery, Russian web-site Life.ru reported on Friday.

The incident took place in the church that keeps the relics of St. Kuksha of Odessa. Several monks carried the suicide victim out of the building and called for an ambulance. The man died in hospital on the same day without regaining conscience and could not explain the reasons behind the move.

Later, church representatives said that the suicide victim had suffered from a mental disease, repeatedly attempted to kill himself, and his body was covered in numerous scars.

After the incident the church was sanctified again by the Odessa Mitropolitan.

Dying man robbed in ER waiting room

Dec. 1, 2009 12:13 PM
Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA - Police say three people who noticed a Philadelphia school counselor unconscious and dying in an emergency waiting room robbed him instead of going for help.

Police say 63-year-old Joaquin Rivera spent nearly 80 minutes waiting in an emergency room after complaining of pain down his side. But they say he died of an apparent heart attack at Aria Health's Frankford Campus before seeing a triage nurse.

Surveillance video shows three people talking with Rivera before he passed out and then taking his wristwatch.

Police arrested 44-year-old Richard Alten at the hospital and are seeking his companions, whom Capt. John McGinnis described as homeless addicts. Alten's public defender has declined to comment.

Aria Health also declined to comment, citing the criminal investigation and patient confidentiality.

Might is Right (extracts)

In this arid wilderness of steel and stone, I raise up my voice that you may hear. To the East and to the West I beckon. To the North and to the South I show a sign proclaiming: Death to the weakling, wealth to the strong! Open your eyes that you may see , O men of mildewed minds; and listen to me, ye laborious millions! For I stand forth to challenge the wisdom of the world - to interrogate the "laws" of man and of "God".

I request reasons for your golden rule, and ask the why and wherefore of your Ten Commands. Before none of your printed idols do I bend in acquiescence, and he who saith "thou shalt" to me is my mortal foe. I demand proof over all things and accepts with reservations even that which is true. I dip my forefinger in the watery blood of your impotent, mad redeemer and write over his thorn-torn brow: The true prince of evil - the king of the slaves.

No hoary falsehood shall be a truth to me; no cult or dogma shall encramp my pen. I break away from all conventions. Alone, untrammelled. I raise up in stern invasion the standard of the strong. I gaze into the glassy eye of your fearsome Jehovah and pluck him by the beard; I uplift a broad-axe and split open his worm-eaten skull.

I blast out the ghastly contents of philosophic whited sepulchers and laugh with sardonic wrath! Then, reaching up the festering and varnished facades of your haughtiest moral dogmas, I write thereon in letters of blazing scorn: "Lo and behold, all this is fraud!" I deny all thing! I question all things! And yet! And yet! Gather around me, O ye death-defiant, and the Earth itself shall be thine, to have and to hold. Behold the crucifix; what does it symbolize? Pallid incompetence hanging on a tree.

All ethics, politics, and philosophies are pure assumptions, built upon assumptions. They rest on no sure basis. They are but shadowy castles-in-the-air erected by day-dreamers, or by rogues, upon nursery fables. It is time they were firmly planted upon an enduring foundation. This can never be accomplished until the racial mind has first been thoroughly cleansed and drastically disinfected of its depraved, alien, and demoralizing concepts of right and wrong. In no human brain can sufficient space be found for the relentless logic of hard fact, until all pre-existing delusions have been finally annihilated. Half-measures are of no avail; we must go down to the very roots and tear them out, even to the last fibre. We must be, like nature, hard, cruel, relentless.

Too long the dead hand has been permitted to sterilize living thought. Too long right and wrong, good and evil have been inverted by false prophets. In the days that are at hand, neither creed nor code must be accepted upon authority - human, superhuman, or "divine". Morality and conventionalism are for subordinates. Religions and constitutions and all arbitrary principles, every mortal theorem, must be deliberately put to the question. No moral dogma must be taken for granted, no standard of measurement deified. There is nothing inherently sacred about moral codes. Like the wooden idols of long ago, they are all the work of human hands; and what man has made, man can destroy.

He who is slow to believe anything and everything is of great understanding, for belief in one false principle is the beginning of all unwisdom. The chief duty of every new age is to upraise new men to determine its liberties, to lead it towards material success - to rend the rusty padlocks and chains of dead custom that always prevent healthy expansion. Theories and ideals and constitutions that may have meant life, hope, and freedom for our ancestors may now mean destruction, slavery, and dishonor to us. As environments change, no human ideal standeth sure.

Whenever, therefore, a lie has built unto itself a throne, let it be assailed without pity and without regret; for under the dominance of an inconvenient falsehood, no nation can permanently prosper. Let established sophisms be dethroned, rooted out, burnt, and destroyed - for they are a standing menace to all true nobility of thought and action. Whatever alleged "truth" is proven by results to be but an empty fiction, let it be unceremoniously flung into the outer darkness, among the dead gods, dead empires, dead philosophies, and other useless lumber and wreckage.

The most dangerous of all enthroned lies is the holy, the sanctified, the privileged lie - the lie that everyone believes to be a model truth. It is the fruitful mother of all other popular errors and delusions. It is hydra-headed. It has a thousand roots. It is a social cancer. The lie that is known to be a lie is half-eradicated. But the lie that even intelligent persons regard as a sacred fact - the lie that has been inculcated around a mother's knee - is more dangerous to contend against than a creeping pestilence. Popular lies have ever been the most potent enemies of personal liberty. There is only one way to deal with them: Cut them out, to the very core, just as cancers are. Exterminate them root and branch, or they will surely eat us all up. Annihilate them, or they will us. Half and half remedies are of no avail.

However, when a lie has gone too far - when it has taken up its abode in the very tissues, bones, and brains of a people, then all remedies are useless. Even the lancet is of no avail. Repentance of past misdeeds cannot "save" decadents from extermination. The fatal bolt is shot, and into the fiery furnace of wholesale slavery they must go, to be there righteously consumed. From their ashes something new, something nobler, may possibly evolve; but even that is the merest optimistic supposition.

In nature the wages of sin are always death. Nature does not love the wrong-doer, but endeavors in every way to destroy him. Her curse is on the brow of the "meek and lowly". Her blessing is on the very heart's blood of the strong and the brave. Only Jews and Christs and other degenerates think that rejuvenation can ever come through law and prayer. "All the tears of the martyrs" might just well have never been shed.

"Love one another", you say, is the supreme law. But what power has made it so? Upon what rational authority does the gospel of love rest? Is it even possible of practice, and what would result from its universal application to active affairs? Why should I not hate mine enemies and hunt them down like the wild beasts they are? If I "love" them, does that not place me at their mercy? Is it natural for enemies to "do good" unto each other? And what is "good"? Can the torn and bloody victim "love" the blood-splashed jaws that rend him limb from limb? Are we not all predatory animals by instinct? If humans ceased wholly from preying upon each other, could they continue to exist?

"Love your enemies and do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you" is the despicable philosophy of the spaniel that rolls upon its back when kicked. Obey it, O reader, and you and your posterity to the tenth generation shall be irretrievably and literally damned. They shall be hewers of wood and carriers of water: degenerates, Gibeonites. But hate your enemies with a whole heart. If a man smite you on one cheek, smash him down! Smite him hip and thigh, for self-preservation is the highest law. He who turns the other cheek is a cowardly dog - a Christian dog.

Give him blow for blow, scorn for scorn, doom for doom - with compound interest liberally added thereunto! Eye for eye, tooth for tooth - aye four-fold, a hundred-fold! Make yourself a Terror to your adversary; and when he goeth his way, he will possess much additional wisdom to ruminate over. Thus shall you make yourself respected in all the walks of life, and your spirit - your immortal spirit - shall live: not in an intangible paradise, but in the brains and thews of your aggressive and unconquerable sons. After all, the true proof of manhood is a splendid progeny; and it is a scientific axiom that the timid animal transmits timidity to its descendants.

If men lived "like brothers" and had no powerful enemies to contend with and surpass, they would rapidly lose all their best qualities - like certain oceanic birds that lose the use of their wings because they do not have to fly from pursuing beasts of prey. If all men had treated each other with brotherly love since the beginning, what would have been the result now? If there had been no wars, no rivalry, no competition, no kingship, no slavery, no survival of the toughest, no racial extermination, truly what a festering "hell fenced in" this old globe would be!

If this struggle is ordained of us, why not enter into it with kindly courage, with dauntless delight? Why not go forward daring all things, to conquer or to die? Is it not better to perish than to serve? "Liberty or death" is not a meaningless phrase. No, it is of tremendous import to those who - comprehend. What is death that it should make cowards of us all? What is life that it should be valued so highly? there are worse things than death, and among them is a life of dishonor. All men lead dishonorable lives who serve a master with hand or brain. Life itself is but a spark in the gloom that flashes out and disappears. Why therefore not make the most of it here and now - here and now! There is no "Heaven of glory bright", and no Hell where sinners roast. There is no Right; there is no Wrong - nor God - nor Son - nor Ghost. Death endeth all for every man. For every "son of thunder": Then be a Lion in the path, And don't be trampled under.

For us there is no rest - no Kingdom of Indolence, either on this Earth or beyond the skies - no Isles of the Blest - no Elysian Fields - no garden of the Hesperides. No! No! All these magical legends are but fanciful waking dreams - fiction of mortals of yore. Here and now is our day of torment! Here and now is our day of joy! Here and now is our opportunity! Choose ye this day, this hour, for no Redeemer liveth.

Every attempt made to organize the future must necessarily collapse. The present is our domain, and our chief duty is to take immediate possession thereof upon strict business principles. Strive therefore against them that strive against you, and war against them that war against thine. Lay hold of shield and buckler or their equivalents; stand up! Be a terrible one in thine own defense. Raise up also the clenched hand, and stop the way of them that would persecute you. Say unto thine own heart and soul: "I, even I, am my own redeemer."

Let them be hurled back to confusion and infamy, who devise thine undoing. Let them be as chaff before the cyclone, and let the Angel of Death pursue them, nay, overtake them. In a pit they have hidden a trap for thy feet; into that very destruction let them fall. Then, exultant, "sound the loud timbrel". Rejoice! Rejoice! in thine own salvation. Then all thy bones shall say pridefully, "Who is like unto me? Have I not delivered myself by mine own brain? Have I not been too strong for mine adversaries? Have I not spoiled them that would have spoiled me?

Blessed are the strong for they shall possess the Earth. Cursed are the weak, for they shall inherit the yoke.

Blessed are the powerful, for they shall be reverenced among men. Cursed are the feeble, for they shall be blotted out.

Blessed are the bold, for they shall be masters of the world. Cursed are the righteously humble, for they shall be trodden under hoofs.

Blessed are the victorious, for victory is the basis of right. Cursed are the vanquished, for they shall be vassals forever.

Blessed are the battle-blooded. Beauty shall smile upon them. Cursed are the poor in spirit, for they shall be spat upon.

Blessed are the audacious, for they have imbibed true wisdom. Cursed are the obedient, for they shall breed creeplings.

Blessed are the iron-handed; the unfit shall flee before them. Cursed are the haters of battle; subjugation is their portion.

Blessed are the death-defiant; their days shall be long in the land. Cursed are the feeble-brained, for they shall perish amidst plenty.

Blessed are the destroyers of false hope; they are the true Messiahs. Cursed are the God-adorers; they shall be shorn sheep!

Blessed are the valiant, for they shall obtain great treasure. Cursed are the believers in Good and Evil, for they are frightened by shadows.

Blessed are those who believe in Nothing; never shall it terrorize their minds. Cursed are the "lambs of God"; they shall be bled "whiter than snow".

Blessed is the man who has powerful enemies; they shall make him a hero. Cursed is he who "doeth good" unto others; he shall be despised.

Blessed the man whose foot is swift to serve a friend; he is a friend indeed. Cursed are the organizers of charities; they are propagators of plagues.

Blessed are the wise and brave, for in the struggle they shall win. Cursed are the unfit, for they shall be righteously exterminated.

Blessed are the sires of noble maidens; they are the salt of the earth. Cursed are the mothers of strumous tenderlings, for they shall be shamed.

Blessed are the mighty-minded, for they shall ride the whirlwinds. Cursed are they who teach lies for truth and truth for lies, for they are -- an abomination.

Blessed are the unmerciful; their posterity shall own the world. Cursed are the famous wiselings; their seed shall perish off the Earth.

Thrice cursed are the vile, for they shall serve and suffer.

Police: Man lies about robbery over fear of wife

Tue Dec 1, 9:07 pm ET

PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. – A Panama City Beach man reportedly admitted to deputies that he lied about being robbed so he wouldn't have to tell his wife that he spent the money. The Bay County Sheriff's Office reported that a 30-year-old man was arrested and charged Friday with making a false report.

According to a report, the man called 911 from a Panama City Beach store and claimed that he was getting into his car when a man dressed in black hit him and took $100 in cash. But the store's surveillance video showed the man walk out of the store, sit in his car for a short time and then go back inside to use the phone.

After deputies showed the man the video, he acknowledged that he hadn't actually been robbed.

The man was released from jail Saturday on $750 bail.

Jesus Christ dumped from jury pool for disruption

Tue Dec 1, 9:07 pm ET

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Court officials say a Birmingham woman who changed her name to Jesus Christ didn't live up to it when she reported for jury duty this week. The woman, previously named Dorothy Lola Killingworth, was sent to Judge Clyde Jones's courtroom for a criminal case Monday.

Court officials told The Birmingham News Tuesday that the 59-year-old was excused because she was disruptive and kept asking questions instead of answering them.

Efforts to reach Christ for comment were unsuccessful.

Court administrator Sandra Turner said people there were shocked when the woman insisted her name was Jesus Christ and some potential jurors laughed out loud when her name was called.

But Turner said unlike some Jefferson County residents, Christ didn't try to get out of jury duty and was "perfectly happy to serve."

Teenager convicted of fire murder

Last updated at 14:38 GMT, Wednesday, 2 December 2009

A teenager who killed his girlfriend by dousing her in petrol and setting her alight has been found guilty of murder.

Stewart Blackburn, 18, was convicted by a unanimous verdict after a 10-day trial at the High Court in Livingston.

His girlfriend Jessica McCagh, 17, died in hospital on 25 April after the attack at the Arbroath flat she shared with Blackburn.

Jessica's parents said their daughter had been murdered in a "terrible and terrifying way".

"We want to thank the police and the prosecution for bringing Blackburn to justice today for his wicked actions," they said.

"We also want to thank Ricci Foreman for trying to save Jessica - we will always be grateful to him for his bravery.

"Jessica was the baby of the family. We miss everything about her and we always will."

The court heard evidence which suggested that after an argument Blackburn had poured petrol over his victim, set it alight and held a door closed to prevent Jessica escaping from the blaze in the bedroom.

He had claimed that the fire started from burning embers dropping from a cannabis cigarette.

But expert witnesses told the court that was very unlikely and produced evidence to indicate the petrol must have been lit by a naked flame.

The attack left Jessica, a former pupil at Arbroath High School, with burns on up to 85% of her body. She died later the same day at Dundee's Ninewells Hospital.

The court heard that her final words, spoken to her father hours earlier, were: "I don't want to die, dad - I love you."

Blackburn - who will be sentenced next month - denied murder but had admitted culpable homicide.

Judge Lord Bracadale said he had shown a degree of wickedness that would "deeply disturb" all right-thinking people.

Prosecutor Frank Mulholland QC described Blackburn's crime as a "barbaric and evil act against a defenceless young woman".

Speaking after the verdict, Tom Dysart, area procurator fiscal for Tayside, said it was a crime that had "provoked outrage" in Arbroath and across Scotland.

"Jessica's family and friends not only have to live with her tragic loss, but also to carry the knowledge of the terrible circumstances in which she died.

"I hope that they can take some comfort from the jury's verdict, and from the fact that Stewart Blackburn has now been brought to justice."

Det Insp Iain Wales, who led the murder inquiry, said Blackburn showed "no concern about Jessica whatsoever".

"It is impossible for us to truly comprehend what Jessica endured," he said.

"What I am sure of, however, is that Blackburn fully understood the consequences of his actions, acted without a glimmer of fear or compassion and ultimately showed a contemptible disregard for the agonies of someone he claimed to care for.

"Jessica was a young girl on the threshold of adulthood - someone with everything to live for. It is a tragedy when a young life is ended so suddenly and so utterly needlessly."

Neighbour Denise Stephenson described Blackburn as being violent and said she often heard him arguing with Jessica.

"He was pretty vicious, but I didn't expect him to go to the lengths that he did," she added.

"Poor Jessica."

Women stabbed in bridge assault

Last updated at 12:44 GMT, Wednesday, 2 December 2009

Two women are in hospital after suffering serious stab wounds in an attack on a bridge in Cheshire.

They were assaulted on the Runcorn-Widnes bridge at 2220 GMT on Tuesday. Passing motorists, who witnessed the stabbing, contacted the police.

Fifteen minutes after the victims, aged 19 and 44, were attacked, a third woman was punched at a house in Runcorn.

An 18-year-old man has been arrested in the Halton Road area on suspicion of attempted murder and assault.

The two stabbing victims are in Whiston hospital in a stable condition. The third woman, aged 45, was taken to hospital with facial injuries but has since been discharged.

Police had closed the Liverpool-bound lane on the bridge overnight, but all four lanes are now open.

The footbridge is still closed to pedestrians.

Pedestrians crossing the River Mersey are being taken over the bridge in small groups accompanied by officers.

Anyone with information about the attacks asked to contact police.

Man killed in 'brutal' stabbing

Last updated at 14:55 GMT, Wednesday, 2 December 2009

A man has been stabbed to death in what police described as a "brutal attack" at his Greater Manchester home.

The body of Kevin Fielding, 41, who had Asperger's Syndrome and was epileptic, was found at his flat on Cameron Street, Bury, on Monday morning.

He had failed to turn up for a support group outing in Manchester on Friday night and police believe he might have been dead for several days.

A 23-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder.

Mr Fielding, who was supported by social services and his family, would regularly attend functions supported by social workers, police said.

He was due to attend his support group's Friday night outing to the big wheel in Manchester city centre, but failed to appear.

Greater Manchester Police want to trace anyone who saw Mr Fielding in the days before he was found at 1015 GMT on Monday.

Det Supt Julian Ross said he was a "completely innocent victim".

"There is no clear motive for this brutal attack.

"Kevin kept to himself and just got on with his life, but for some reason, someone has chosen to take that life away," said the detective.

"We need to work out Kevin's movements prior to his death and I would ask if anyone has seen him in the last few days to please get in touch.

"Incidents like this are thankfully rare, but that is no comfort for Kevin's friends and family.

"This was a senseless attack on an innocent man and we are working hard to find the person responsible but we need the public's help."

Officers from the local neighbourhood policing team have been out in the area to provide reassurance and support to the community.

Detectives are continuing to question the arrested man.

Woman Injured in Power Tool Sex Toy Encounter

By MATTHEW STABLEY

LEXINGTON PARK, Md. -- Some sexual experimentation landed a southern Maryland woman in a hospital with injuries tough to imagine and even more difficult to forget.

Maryland State Police airlifted the 27-year-old woman to Prince George's County Hospital Center early Sunday morning after she was injured in an incident involving a sex toy attached to a saber saw blade, TheBayNet.com first reported.

The man who called 911 about the incident admitted attaching the sex toy to the saw and then using the high-powered, homemade device on his partner, according to the St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office.

The saw cut through the plastic toy and wounded the woman, according to TheBayNet.com. The injuries were severe enough for medevac, but the woman was released from the hospital Monday and is recovering from her unusual injuries.

Investigators talked to the woman, who told them she suffered the injuries during a consensual act and that she and her partner were trying something new and no crime was committed, the sheriff's office said.

Man paid teens to inject drugs into penis

AAP December 01, 2009 2:49PM

THE Queensland attorney-general has sought a harsher sentence on appeal for a former sex educator for crimes he committed 20 years ago, after it emerged he reoffended by paying teenage boys to inject medication into his penis.

In November 2008, David Leslie Wharton, 68, a retired primary school teacher, sex educator and child carer, was sentenced to three years' prison, suspended after six months, after pleading guilty to crimes he committed 20 years previously.

At the time, the court heard that in 1988 and 1989, Wharton groomed a boy, 14, into stripping off and exercising for him.

In the Court of Appeal today, Director of Public Prosecutions Tony Moynihan SC, acting for the attorney-general, said Wharton had received leniency in 2008 because the judge believed he had not reoffended since the offence.

However, Mr Moynihan SC told the Brisbane court that in September 2009 Wharton pleaded guilty to numerous charges of indecent treatment of a child, relating to offences which occurred between December 2004 and July 2008.

These offences showed Wharton had not been rehabilitated and should be factored into his 2008 prison sentence, Mr Moynihan SC argued.

The court heard that between 2004 and 2008 Wharton took several teenage boys on camping trips and offered them money to inject erectile dysfunction medication directly into his penis.

The court heard the boys were offered alcohol to go on the camping trips and that he conducted child-sex offences "that weren't particularly invasive".

Because they were considered "lower end" offences, the sentencing judge ordered Wharton's prison term be suspended after 114 days, which was the time he had spent in pre-sentence custody.

In the court today, Mark Green, Wharton's legal aid lawyer, argued for the suspended sentence to remain the same, as Wharton's perceived rehabilitation was not the only mitigating factor during his 2008 sentencing.

He argued that since the offence 20 years ago, one of the victims had confronted Wharton and his wife and held them at gunpoint, before firing off a shot.

"There is also leniency given when an offender suffers some retribution at the hands of the victim," Mr Green said.

Mr Moynihan SC has requested the three-year head sentence be increased to five years, and be suspended after 18 months.

Wharton has already served a total of nine-and-a-half months for all offences, meaning Wharton would then have to serve a further eight-and-a-half months.

The Court of Appeal has reserved its decision.

Snake in a bind after eating its own tail

By Claire Bates
Last updated at 4:08 PM on 01st December 2009

A pet snake got itself in a bit of a bind after it mistook its own tail for a tasty dinner.

Reggie the King snake soon realised his mistake after chomping down on his back end but then couldn't release himself after his teeth had taken hold.

Luckily the hungry reptile's owner arrived on the scene before the snake began to digest its own body, and rushed him to the vet.

'Its backward facing teeth were acting like a ratchet,' vet Bob Reynolds from Faygate, West Sussex told the Mail Online.

'The snake had also dislocated its jaw in its attempt to get its mouth around the tail and this isn't easy to reverse.'

Mr Reynolds was able to gently untangle Reggie by prising its jaws open a little wider and sliding the teeth off the flesh using a probe. The whole operation took only half an hour.

'I have never seen a case like it, although I have head about it happening,' the reptiles expert said.

'There is a temptation for a snake-eater like this one to lunge at its own tail, especially if kept in a small enclosure. They can't spread themselves out and think their tails are another snake.'

Luckily the tip of the 18-year-old snake's tail hadn't entered its stomach so it hadn't come to any harm. All Reggie was left nursing was perhaps wounded pride.

King snakes range from southern Canada down to South America. They can grow up to seven feet and live up to 20 years in the wild, but can live much longer as pets.

The constrictors hunt a variety of prey from rodents to birds and other snakes... and at times even themselves.

Wis. would-be robber arrives too late to rob bank

Mon Nov 30, 10:55 pm ET

WAUKESHA, Wis. – Maybe the bank robber needed the money to buy a watch. It would seem he needed one after arriving six minutes after the Guardian Credit Union in Waukesha closed. Police said a man wearing a ski mask entered the first set of doors at 5:36 p.m. Wednesday with a gun, apparently not realizing the bank was closed.

The second set of doors was locked and police were called but the man left before they arrived.

Waukesha Police Sgt. Jerry Habanek told The Freeman in Waukesha that police are reviewing security tapes and investigating. He said the robber could have planned poorly or possibly had another reason, like getting tied up in traffic.

Man 'disappointed' at failure to behead friend

AAP November 30, 2009 2:43PM

A MAN who hacked into his best friend's head with a machete later told police he was disappointed he failed to behead him, a court has been told.

The Queensland Supreme Court was today told that Sialaoa Faolua, 40, of Inala, had gone to 39-year-old Hay Saka's Carole Park home on January 4, 2008, with the intention of cutting off his head.

The court was told the men, who had grown up together in Samoa, had fallen out three weeks earlier when Mr Faolua got drunk and picked a fight with one of Mr Saka's friends.

Mr Saka had broken up the fight and tried to drive Mr Faolua home, but ended up kicking him out of the car when Mr Faolua continued to be aggressive.

Mr Faolua drove to Mr Saka's house later that night to confront him again, and the two men quickly became involved in a physical fight on the front lawn, during which Mr Saka hit Mr Faolua in the head with a plastic cricket bat.

Prosecutor Dennis Kinsella said the pair did not see each other again until January 4, when Mr Faolua drove to Mr Saka's house with the intention of killing him.

The court was told Mr Saka was drinking in the carport with two friends when Mr Faolua attacked him with a one-metre long machete.

Mr Kinsella said Mr Faolua struck Mr Saka at least three times in the head and left shoulder, causing serious injuries that have left him with some continuing nerve damage and pain.

Mr Faolua also sliced the hand of one of Mr Saka's friends, who tried to come to his rescue, the court heard.

The court was told Mr Faolua later told police he had been trying to cut off his friend's head and that he was disappointed he had failed in his mission.

After today pleading guilty to attempted murder, he apologised to Mr Saka and his family.

Mr Faolua also pleaded guilty to one count of wounding.

He was sentenced to 12 years' jail, with a serious violent offence declaration.

Under Queensland law, he is required to serve 80 per cent of his sentence.

Mr Faolua has already spent 695 days in pre-sentence custody.

Rat-eating plant discovered in Philippines

A carnivorous pitcher plant that eats rats and insects has been discovered in the Philippines and named after Sir David Attenborough.

By Chris Irvine
Published: 11:52AM BST 17 Aug 2009

The plant is among the largest of all pitchers and is believed to be the largest meat-eating shrub, dissolving rats with acid-like enzymes.

The team of botanists, led by British experts Stewart McPherson and Alastair Robinson, found the plant on Mount Victoria in the Philippines.

They were inspired to search for the plant after word that it is existed came from two Christian missionaries who described seeing a large carnivorous pitcher in 2000 after they climbed the mountain.

Mr McPherson, of Poole Dorset, said: "The plant produces spectacular traps which catch not only insects, but also rodents. It is remarkable that it remained undiscovered until the 21st century."

The team, which found the plant in 2007 following a two-month expedition, published details of their discovery in the Botanical Journal of Linnean Society earlier this year following a three-year study of all 120 species of pitcher plant.

They decided to name the plant Nepenthes attenboroughii, after the wildlife broadcaster Sir David.

"My team and I named it in honour of Sir David whose work has inspired generations toward a better understanding of the beauty and diversity of the natural world," added Mr McPherson.

Sir David, 83, said: "I was contacted by the team shortly after the discovery and they asked if they could name it after me. I was delighted and told them, 'Thank you very much'.

"I'm absolutely flattered. This is a remarkable species the largest of its kind. I'm told it can catch rats then eat them with its digestive enzymes. It's certainly capable of that."

Man Called "Face of Evil' Gets Death for Murdering Two Girlfriends

KTLA News
9:24 AM PST, November 25, 2009

LONG BEACH -- A man convicted of murdering his girlfriend because she refused to dispose of his previous girlfriend's body has been sentenced to death.

Calling the defendant "a savage beast" and "the face of evil," Superior Court Judge Joan Comparet-Cassani on Tuesday sentenced 28-year-old Santiago Martinez to die by lethal injection.

The jury recommended on Oct. 29 that Martinez be put to death rather than given life without parole.

It took jurors only 30 minutes to reach the unanimous verdict in the case against Martinez.

Martinez was first convicted in 2005 of killing one girlfriend, then convicted last year of killing a second girlfriend when she refused to help Martinez dispose of the first victim's remains.

The first murder victim, Christina Wilkerson, 28, of Long Beach, was stabbed 20 times in the face, neck and body, then shot point blank with a .22 rifle on March 18, 2003. Martinez was sentenced to more than 50 years to life in prison for her death.

He was convicted last November for the murder of Myra Orozco, 24, of Long Beach.

Prosecutors say Orozco was stabbed and slashed close to 30 times in the face, neck and body before Martinez pushed the mortally wounded woman from the car they were sitting in, then ran over her on March 30, 2003.

Authorities believe that Wilkerson was killed out of jealousy and that Orozco was killed after refusing to help Martinez hide evidence from the first killing.

The jury in that case convicted Martinez of first degree murder and the special circumstance of committing multiple murders, paving the way for the possibility of the death penalty.

Before handing down the sentence, the judge dismissed a motion for a new trial and an automatic motion asking for the recommended death sentence to be reduced to a prison term.

Woman charged over Bairnsdale stabbing of Toni Davison

Megan McNaught From: Herald Sun December 01, 2009 10:00PM

A WOMAN has been remanded in jail accused of murder over the bizarre stabbing of a disabled Bairnsdale woman.
Homicide detectives claimed 23-year-old Bairnsdale woman Amber Brooke Cooper attacked legally blind woman Toni Davison as she walked her dogs on Friday.

Police raided an address in Bairnsdale, allegedly seizing a blood-stained pair of black jeans and a carving knife with a spot of blood on it.

Police later seized a pair of shoes with an apparent blood stain.

Detective Senior Constable David Leveridge of the homicide squad told the hearing the victim was stabbed in the neck and died at the scene despite the efforts of witnesses and paramedics.

"A number of witnesses observed the accused walking away from the scene,'' Sen Const Leveridge said.

The incident took place close to Cooper's house, he said.

Cooper was transported to Melbourne and remanded after an out-of-court hearing.

She was charged with one count of murder. She was remanded to appear at Melbourne Magistrate's Court on Wednesday morning.

Ms Cooper said she was a diagnosed schizophrenic and was taking medication.

The son of Ms Davison, 65, said he was relieved an arrest had been made although he was still seeking an answer to his mother's death.

Chris Blackham-Davison said he was still unaware of any motivation there could have been to kill his mother.

"I don't know how I would feel if I knew the person," Mr Blackham-Davison said.

"I want to know why someone killed my mother. I think the whole community wants to know the answer."

"It's tragic this happened to such a warm and lovely person. She really cared for people."

"Throughout my life she has given me so much."

Ms Davison was legally blind and had been an activist for people with disabilities.

She was to meet up with her Darwin-based son in Sydney on Monday, who was to undergo an operation to correct his hearing.

Town lives in fear of marauding camels

AAP November 25, 2009 7:17PM

RESIDENTS in a small central Australian community are being held hostage by a herd of thirsty, marauding camels.

Docker River, 500km south west of Alice Springs, has been inundated by thousands of feral camels in recent weeks.

The Northern Territory Government today said it would conduct an emergency cull of some 6000 feral camels.

As well as the camels smashing water infrastructure in their hunt for moisture, the quality of drinking water in the town is being threatened by the decaying bodies of camels that have been trampled by their herd.

The camels have over-run the airport, making it near impossible for aircraft to land or for medical emergency evacuations to take place.

MacDonnell Shire Council chief executive officer, Graham Taylor said many members of the community were too frightened to leave their homes.

Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
.End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
"The social and psychological impacts on some people about being contained in homes and not being able to step out, so there will be some cost factors for the community there,'' he said in Alice Springs today.

Mr Taylor said residents were not overly concerned when about 30 camels came into the town looking for water a few weeks ago, but that fear had grown as numbers increased steadily day by day.

"We need to get the risk and that threat away from the people.''

NT Local Government Minister Rob Knight said the camels would be mustered away from the town by helicopters before being shot.

"The community of Docker River is under siege by 6000 marauding, wild camels,'' he said.

"They're actually coming up to the houses taking water off the overflow from the rooftop air-conditioning.

"This is a very critical situation out there, it's very unusual and it needs urgent action.''

Mr Knight said the camel carcasses would be left in the desert to decay.

"We don't have the luxury of time because the herd is getting bigger.''

NT Environment Minister Karl Hampton said he hoped the emergency response, which will be activated next week to help the 350 residents in Docker River, would set a bench mark for the Federal Government's $19 million nation camel action plan.

Mr Hampton could not provide any details of the proposed national scheme.

"Maybe it will give us an idea of how we should tackle the bigger or broader problem,'' he said.
``We need to look at whether there are economic benefits of what we can do with camels.''

It is understood the long-term federal camel action plan will be released for public consultation in December.

Man 'turned lover, 15, into prostitute'

04:30 AEST Thu Nov 26 By ninemsn staff

A man has been arrested in the US for allegedly luring his 15-year-old girlfriend from Mexico, turning her into a sex slave and then letting their baby die.

Authorities say Domingo Salazar, from New York, is an illegal Mexican immigrant who brought in several women from Mexico and forced them to become prostitutes, the New York Post reports. The 33-year-old began a relationship with the young teen while he was in Mexico and paid a people smuggler to bring her to the US in 2007.

When the girl arrived at his home in Brooklyn she gave birth to their baby.

Salazar then allegedly began forcing the girl to work as a prostitute, making her have sex with up to 15 clients a day.

Police say Salazar and his wife regularly beat the girl, sometimes with a brick.

The girl's baby became sick in January last year but Salazar allegedly refused to let her take the child to a hospital.

The baby died and Salazar is accused of making the grieving mother put the infant's body in a bucket which was then filled over with cement and hidden in a backyard shed.

The girl is now in protective custody.

Man commits suicide after disappearance of prized bull semen stocks

(Mainichi Japan) November 25, 2009

IKI, Nagasaki -- Both the prefecture and the Japan Agricultural Cooperative (JA) branch here are investigating after some 1,300 tubes of prized bull semen went missing and a person connected with the material committed suicide.

A prefectural inquiry discovered the frozen semen -- valued at 1,220-510 yen per tube for a total loss of about 1.5 million yen -- was missing in August, and JA Iki has set up a special investigative committee to try and shed light on the disappearance.

According to the prefecture's animal husbandry section, the 0.5 cc tubes of semen -- certified by the Nagasaki Japanese beef promotion committee as stock for breeding Nagasaki-branded beef -- are sold at 14 locations throughout the prefecture. After the theft of frozen bull semen in Miyazaki Prefecture in April, Nagasaki Prefecture conducted its own survey of the 14 sales points from July through November. When JA Iki was surveyed on Aug. 11-12, authorities discovered the branch was about 1,300 tubes short of its official stock of some 4,200.

After the prefecture pointed out the shortfall, JA Iki set up a special investigation committee on Nov. 6. However, a 38-year-old employee responsible for managing the stock of frozen semen was found hanged on Nov. 3. Police judged the death a suicide. There was no suicide note.

"Improper management may have occurred, and we believe the man who committed suicide new something of the circumstances," JA Iki stated, and continues to investigate in conjunction with prefectural authorities.