`Nearly six months after authorities discovered the body of a missing New Jersey college student in a Pennsylvania landfill, investigators are now looking at whether his death was the tragic result of a game of hide-and-seek.
In a mass e-mail sent to students at The College of New Jersey on Wednesday, school officials asked if they knew of any students playing hide-and-seek in Wolfe Hall around the time John Fiocco Jr. went missing in March. Investigators also asked about Fiocco specifically.
“Do you have any knowledge of John Fiocco Jr. engaging in any such game on the ground floor of Wolfe Hall, within the compactor room or any nearby area, at any time?” the e-mail asks.
The circumstances over John Fiocco Jr.’s death remain cloudy.’
`The book, which was to have been published on November 30 by the News Corp-owned HarperCollins imprint ReganBooks, was touted as featuring Simpson discussing how he would have carried out the 1994 murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman, if he were the one responsible.
The book, titled If I Did It, was to have been preceded by a two-part Fox television interview of Simpson conducted by the publisher, Judith Regan. Fox, like HarperCollins, is a unit of News Corp.’
‘By the time doctors finally discovered what had poisoned Alexander Litvinenko, he had only three hours to live.
As he lay unconscious, his wife Marina holding his hand and his ten-year-old son, Anatoli, stroking his forehead, a laboratory test on a urine sample identified the lethal element polonium-210 as the silent killer ravaging his body. [..]
The revelations about polonium-210 provoked a new rush of conspiracy theories. Security experts said this was no crude grudge killing but was the work of assassins with likely access to a nuclear installation, not just to a radioactive isotope that could be acquired from medical waste.’
I used to work a bit with polonium-210. Never did me any harm. But I s’pose I was playing with only nanograms at a time and definitely not eating it. 🙂
`A girl of two was crushed to death by her father’s lorry driven by her 11-year-old brother, a court heard yesterday.
Crystal Collier’s father Gary, 37, watched in horror as the adored youngster he called “my princess” was repeatedly hit by the wheels of the skip truck.
He will be sentenced today after earlier admitting manslaughter through gross negligence, and faces jail.’
`Many people on the rundown northwest Atlanta street where Kathryn Johnston lived fortify their windows with metal bars and arm themselves for protection. Johnston, 92, was no exception. She was waiting with her gun on Tuesday night when a group of plainclothes officers with a warrant knocked down her door in a search for drugs, police said. She opened fire, wounding three officers, before being shot to death, police said.
Assistant Police Chief Alan Dreher called the killing “tragic and unfortunate” but said the officers were justified in returning fire.’
`Prosecutors in the Madrid train bombing case will seek prison terms of about 38,000 years for each of the seven prime defendants in the trial due to start next February, according to a prosecution order released Monday and viewed by CNN. [..]
The sentences sought were calculated based on murder charges against the seven prime defendants for each of the 191 people who died in the attacks on Madrid commuter trains on March 11, 2004, and also for the attempted murders of the 1,824 others who were wounded, the 232-page prosecution order said.
The trial is expected to last for months. The defendants — if convicted of all the charges — would serve only a maximum of 40 years in prison, under Spanish law, which prohibits the death penalty, the prosecution said.’
`Ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death by hanging today after being found guilty of crimes against humanity in ordering the deaths of 148 Shi’ite villagers.
If an automatic review of the death sentence fails, the former strongman will hang within 30 days.’
`A Marine pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice before testifying that his squad was ordered to execute a known insurgent who turned out to be a civilian. [..]
Three members of Jackson’s unit went into the village of Hamdaniya on April 26 and returned with a prisoner who was then shot by the side of a road on the orders of squad leader Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins, Jackson said.
“Sgt. Hutchins ordered us to get on line,” Jackson testified. “Everyone fired rounds, including myself, but I fired my rounds above him. I knew he was going to be shot, but I didn’t want to be the one to do it.”
Military judge Lt. Col. Joseph Lisiecki told Jackson that even if the man he had shot at was a known insurgent, it was still unlawful to kidnap and kill him.’
`A young woman’s rooftop suicide bid in Germany sparked a mass brawl between spectators encouraging the 21-year-old to jump and a group of homeless people trying to protect her, authorities said Tuesday. [..]
The homeless people were angered when some teenagers in the crowd of hundreds started yelling to the woman she should throw herself from the roof of the town hall of the southwestern town of Loerrach, said police spokesman Dietmar Ernst.
“The homeless people started shouting at the kids not to say that, using some strong language,” Ernst said. “Morally speaking though, the homeless people were in the right.”
A punch-up involving around 40 people then ensued, during which time police managed to coax the woman back indoors — three and a half hours after her ordeal began.’
`A dead man had one final earthly act before moving on.
Fire officials said the six-hundred pound man was in being cremated when his body fluids were too much for the oven.
The body fluids seeped out onto the floor and ignited causing a fire at the Garner Funeral Home in Salt Lake City.
“Those fluids can be very flammable,” said Scott Freitag of the Salt Lake City fire department. “Sort of like a grease fire.” [..]
The crematorium is back in business and the funeral director said they’ll notify the family to assure them their loved one wasn’t harmed.’
`6) DROWN THEM IN A BARREL
Water is acceptable, but this method’s implied ostentation suggests something more sumptuous is required.
Mead, whisky or absinthe, should your budget stretch so far, are all worthy submergents. For less well-funded cults, Mateus rose and Daddies sauce will suffice if no-one’s checking the receipts.’
`Below is the complete collection of subpoenaed Georgia execution tapes, totaling more than eight hours of audio. These RealAudio files are transfers of the raw, unedited tapes. Some of the tapes begin after the execution has started or end before the procedure has been completed. Any gaps in the files exist on the original tapes themselves.’
`A nurse in the US killed a plastic surgery patient she had a 30-year grudge against because she stole her boyfriend when they were at school, prosecutors have said. Sandra Joyner’s death after a mini-facelift had been attributed to medical error. But five years later, nurse anaesthetist Sally Hill has been charged with poisoning her with a powerful painkiller.’
`A methadone-addicted mother stopped for a cigarette while attempting to resuscitate her baby as instructions were relayed on the phone from a triple 0 operator, a Supreme Court jury was told yesterday.
The mother, who cannot be named, sobbed in the dock during a harrowing replay of the emergency call, made from the Londonderry home of Michelle Sava on January 16, last year.’
`On Oct. 27, 2004, James Flemons walked into work with a homemade samurai sword and slashed his co-worker to death.
Prosecutors say Flemons, then 30, was angry because of constant bullying by the victim, Anthony Williams, and other co-workers at Peerless Metal Powders & Abrasive.
But Flemons’ lawyer says he is schizophrenic with a psychotic obsession with fantasy role-playing games, including Dungeons & Dragons.’
`The Te Uku-bred Barnevelder chick – hatched at Marlene Dickey’s property at the start of last month – has died.
But it wasn’t the extra legs that led to its death, more likely an extra anus, Mrs Dickey believes.
“He developed two bottoms and I think he got glugged up,” she said.’
`German Chancellor Angela Merkel called photos of German soldiers in Afghanistan playing with a skull “shocking and disgusting,” and Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said those involved will be dealt with harshly.
One image was published on the cover of the national tabloid Bild, under the words “Schock Fotos.”
In the picture, a soldier seems to be slightly smirking as he poses with the skull in his raised right hand. A black banner covers his face.
Other images show the skull displayed like an off-center hood ornament on the front of a jeep. Another picture shows a soldier holding the skull near his exposed penis.’
`The drug lords at war in central Mexico are no longer content with simply killing their enemies. They are putting their severed heads on public display.
In Michoacan, the home state of President-elect Felipe Calderon, 17 heads have turned up this year, many with bloodstained notes like the one found in the highlands town of Tepalcatepec in August: “See. Hear. Shut Up. If you want to stay alive.”
Many in Michoacan’s mountains and colonial cities are doing just that: They are tightlipped, their newspapers are censoring themselves and in one town, 18 out of 32 police officers quit saying they had received death threats from drug smugglers.’
`Workers at computer factories are at increased risk of dying of cancer. The largest study of its kind published today in the open access journal Environmental Health looks at over 30,000 deaths of workers who had been employed at IBM factories in the USA. The study reveals that IBM factory workers were more likely to have died of cancer, including brain, kidney or breast cancer and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, than the rest of the population.
The author of the study cannot link these deaths to any specific chemicals or other toxic exposures. The current study confirms previous, smaller studies and highlights clear health risks for workers in computer factories across the world.’
`A convicted killer facing lethal injection beat the executioner to it Thursday, committing suicide by slitting his throat and arm with a blade in his Texas death row cell 15 hours before he was supposed to die.
Michael Dewayne Johnson, 29, was found in a pool of blood by officers making routine checks on him every 15 minutes, authorities said. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Johnson apparently scrawled words in blood on the wall of his cell, but prison officials would not say what he wrote.’
`A woman who stabbed her young granddaughter 62 times with a butcher knife after she received “spiritual messages from the geese flying overhead” has been determined to be criminally insane by the state mental hospital.’
`A lovesick 16-year-old girl crashed her car into an oncoming vehicle in a suicide attempt, counting down the moments before impact in text messages sent to the female classmate who spurned her, authorities say. The girl survived; a woman in the other car was killed.
The teenager, Louise Egan Brunstad, was charged Thursday with murder in the Oct. 4 wreck. [..]
Howard said it was unclear whether the classmate the messages were intended for responded to them or even read them, either as they were sent or afterward.’
`Two people were killed and seven seriously wounded in Uganda when an artillery round blew up as a man tried to melt it down for scrap metal, police said on Saturday.
Police cordoned off the area where the shell was found, searching for other munitions after the incident, which happened on Thursday in Amuria, a remote part of the once war-ravaged eastern Teso region.
“We understand this man picked up a shell and tried to melt it for scrap. He put it in the fire and it exploded,” Francis Agwoka, acting police chief for the region, told Reuters by telephone.’
`A man let his four-year-old child steer his car at up to 150 kph before ploughing into a group of teenagers, killing six of them, a court has been told.
Thomas Graham Towle, 35, also stank of alcohol in the hours after the crash and had been cheating in his methadone program in the days before, prosecutor Jeremy Rapke QC told Mildura Magistrates’ Court. [..]
He is facing 17 charges including six of culpable driving causing death, over the alleged hit-and-run on February 18 in Cardross, near Mildura.’
`One of Britain’s most experienced journalists was unlawfully killed by U.S. soldiers in Iraq, an inquest into his death ruled on Friday, prompting calls for the perpetrators to be tried for war crimes.
Veteran war correspondent Terry Lloyd, 50, who worked for ITN, was killed in March 2003 in southern Iraq as he reported from the front line during the first few days of the U.S.-led invasion.
“He was fired on by American soldiers as a minibus carried wounded people away,” Coroner Andrew Walker said at the conclusion of the inquest, which U.S. soldiers declined to attend.’
`Police have shot and killed a 45kg, 1.5-metre emu that tormented drivers on a busy American highway.
Police in Illinois shot the bird on Monday out of fear that it could cause a fatal accident, after six reports that the big bird had wandered onto the highway.
Authorities said they had no idea where the bird came from.’
`Mammalian species are known to last an average of 2.5 million years before being snuffed out, but nobody had been able to figure out why. The reason, it turns out, may be linked to regular wobbles in Earth’s orbit.
Jan van Dam from Utrecht University in the Netherlands and colleagues reached this conclusion after studying the fossil record of rodents from central Spain over a 22-million-year span. This showed a link between rodent extinction events and the climate record.’
‘A group of ethnic Tibetans trying to flee Tibet were shot dead by Chinese troops on September 30, at a Himalayan pass near the border of China and Nepal (Tibet is an “autonomous region” of China, having been taken over by the PRC in the 1950s). Reports are emerging that Communist party officials have attempted to silence witnesses, including Western trekkers who were in the area when the killing occurred.’
And if you care, here’s Exclusive footage of Chinese soldiers shooting at Tibetan pilgrims.
`A Bulgarian woman who killed her son was released from prison because of terminal cancer. She then went home and killed her husband, police said Tuesday.
The 57-year-old was sentenced to 15 years in jail for killing her 29-year-old son with a garden hoe in April 2005 while he was sleeping.
Last month, authorities judged her to be in the final stages of cancer and let her go home, where she stabbed her husband in the throat with a knife.
“It was established she was in the last stage of cancer, she had it all over her body,” said a spokeswoman for the Bourgas regional police.
“They presumed she was feeling bad and she would treat herself and rest. But nothing of the kind. She got aggressive and … she killed her husband.”‘
Audio clip of some guy messing with a telemarketer.
see it here »
