‘Drugs and guns don’t mix as a 51-year-old Langley man found out the hard way.
The local man, who was known to police, is dead after accidentally shooting himself in the head while mishandling an Uzi-type gun at a well-known drug house on Thursday morning.
Around 2:10 a.m., Langley RCMP were called to 20217 82 Ave. in Willoughby.
The 51-year-old victim is a resident of the home along with a 33-year-old man and 56-year-old Langley woman. Police say the three had been using drugs and handling a pistol similar to an Uzi. The weapon is illegal in Canada.’
‘The mayor of a small town in Texas has resigned after secretly keeping her neighbour’s Shih Tzu while pretending it had died.
Neighbours had asked Alice Mayor Grace Saenz-Lopez to look after the dog, Puddles, during a holiday. She called them to say it was dead.
But the dog, which Ms Saenz-Lopez had renamed Panchito, was later seen at a dog groomer’s and at her sister’s home.
A custody hearing on Monday is expected to decide who keeps the pet.’
‘An overweight man who crushed his wife by sitting on her during an argument so severely that she later died has received a five-year jail sentence from a court in the central German city of Hildesheim.
The court found the 50-year-old bus driver, who weighed 128kg at the time of the incident, guilty of causing injury resulting in the death of his 46-year-old wife, who weighed 63kg.
In evidence the man acknowledged arguing with his wife but claimed he had fallen on her by mistake.
Expert evidence was heard that he must have sat on her for at least two minutes.’
‘A decapitated body has been found wrapped in a blood-stained duvet in a back street in north-west London.
A member of the public made the gruesome find behind a row of shops at Kingsgate Place in Kilburn.
The semi-naked body had been left in a gold coloured cage similar to the type used by supermarkets to move stock.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said the dead person is an adult male, but no head has been found and the victim has not been identified.’
‘Like most children her age, Jennifer Lloyd loves watching her favourite programmes on TV.
But when a scary bit is about to happen the ten-year-old has to leave the room quickly – because the sudden shock could kill her.
Jennifer is one of just six known sufferers of polyglandular Addison’s disease, which causes her to become ill whenever she is surprised or shocked.
The condition means she is unable to produce adrenaline in response to alarm or any sudden form of emotional or physical stress.
Instead her body goes into shock and her organs could shut down unless she receives medical treatment.’
‘Researchers at McMaster University have found a mechanism that explains why an infant’s ability to respond to oxygen deprivation after birth–or a hypoxic episode–is dramatically compromised by exposure to nicotine in the womb, even light to moderate amounts.
“While cigarette smoke contains many different compounds, we found there is a direct impact of one component, nicotine, on the ability of certain cells to detect and respond to oxygen deprivation,” says Josef Buttigieg, lead author and a PhD graduate student in the department of Biology. “When a baby is lying face down in bed, for example, it should sense a reduction in oxygen and move its head. But this arousal mechanism doesn’t work as it should in babies exposed to nicotine during pregnancy.”‘
‘A kinky sex escapade ended this week with the electrocution death of a Pennsylvania woman and the arrest of her husband for manslaughter. According to cops, Toby Taylor, 37, first claimed that his wife Kirsten was shocked by her hair dryer. But he then admitted that the couple was “into weird sexual behaviors,” according to a probable cause affidavit. Taylor then explained that he hooks clips to his wife’s nipples and “plugs the cord into a electric strip” and shocks her. On Wednesday evening, Taylor said, Kirsten removed her clothes, attached the clips, and shocked herself. He then picked up the electric strip and shocked her several more times, adding that he had placed a piece of electric tape over her mouth during the jolts. After the last shock, Kirsten, 29, “fell over on to her face.” Taylor initially thought his wife was joking, but quickly realized she was unconscious. He then dressed her in preparation for driving to the hospital, but instead called 911 when she stopped breathing. [..]’
‘A speeding motorist who killed a teenage cyclist is suing the boy’s parents over damage to his luxury car, the government says.
Enaitz Iriondo, 17, died instantly in August 2004 when businessman Tomas Delgado’s Audi A8 crashed into him at 100 mph near Haro in northern Spain, an Interior Ministry traffic report said. The speed limit was 55 mph. [..]
Delgado, whose insurance company paid Iriondo’s parents $48,500 in compensation for their son’s life, filed a suit in late 2006 to recover $29,400 in damages to his car and car rental costs, the ministry traffic report said.
“It’s the only way I have to claim my money back,” Delgado was quoted as saying by the newspaper El Pais, which first reported the story on Friday. El Pais said a ruling was expected next week.
Iriondo’s parents were shocked.’
‘Would you believe it’s possible to narrow the reasons we won’t miss Bush down to 42? No, but it’s a start. We all know the penalty for forgetting history – after all, we’ve been through two Bushes! To get things started, here is a particularly infamous quote for each year of his presidency, from the sadly hilarious to the infuriatingly tragic: [..]
“There’s only one person who hugs the mothers and the widows, the wives and the kids upon the death of their loved one. Others hug but having committed the troops, I’ve got an additional responsibility to hug and that’s me and I know what it’s like.” [..]
“I couldn’t imagine somebody like Osama bin Laden understanding the joy of Hanukkah.” [..]
“I’m the commander — see, I don’t need to explain — I do not need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being president.”‘
‘A radical Baptist church in Kansas known for picketing the funerals of soldiers who perished in Iraq said it intends to protest Heath Ledger’s memorial service with signs claiming the actor died and is in Hell because he played a gay character in “Brokeback Mountain.”
Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka said that she and other members will picket Ledger’s United States memorial services, not those held in his native Australia.
“You cannot live in defiance of God,” she said. “He got on that big screen with a big, fat message: God is a liar and it’s OK to be gay.” [..]
“Heath Ledger is now in Hell, and has begun serving his eternal sentence there,” the Westboro Baptist announcement says.’
I’m not usually a fan of violence, but there are just some people who need a really hard smack in the face. Several smacks in the face, actually.
Followup to Heath Ledger, Actor, Is Found Dead at 28 and Jury Awards Father Nearly $11 Million in Funeral Protesters Case.
‘An 81-year old man in the small Chilean village of Angol shocked his grieving relatives by waking up in his coffin at his own wake, local media said on Sunday.
When Feliberto Carrasco’s family members discovered his body limp and cold, they were convinced that the octogenarian’s hour had come, so they immediately called a funeral home, not a doctor.
Carrasco was dressed in his finest suit for the wake, and his relatives gathered to bid him a final farewell. [..]
The man who “rose from the dead” said he was not in any pain, and only asked for a glass of water.’
‘A small town has been rocked by the copycat suicides of seven young people.
Local people fear the hangings are linked to a chilling internet cult.
Within 24 hours of the latest death last week, two friends of the teenage girl had also attempted suicide.
Yesterday police took computer equipment from 17-year-old Natasha Randall’s home in Bridgend, South Wales.
Detectives confirmed they are investigating a possible suicide chain – the seven dead are all linked in some way although they did not all know each other.
Several of them posted personal profiles on the social networking internet site Bebo.’
‘China has systematically covered up the accidental deaths of at least 10 workers, and perhaps many more, in a rush to construct the futuristic “bird’s nest” stadium in Beijing for this summer’s Olympic Games.
The estimates are drawn from dozens of interviews conducted over six months, under a guarantee of anonymity, with employees from the huge building site in a northern district of the capital.
Witnesses have told The Sunday Times of seeing workers plummet to their deaths from the perilous heights of the stadium [..]
The bodies were swiftly removed by police, who sealed off accident scenes with orange tape and cleared other workers from the area while the dead were loaded into police vehicles, witnesses said.
Managers and police ordered the workers not to mention the deaths to anyone and not to talk about the accidents among themselves.’
‘The actor Heath Ledger was found dead this afternoon in an apartment in Manhattan, according to the New York City police. Signs pointed to a suicide or an accidental overdose, police sources said. Mr. Ledger was 28.
At 3:31 p.m., according to the police, a masseuse arrived at the fourth-floor apartment of the building, at 421 Broome Street, between Crosby and Lafayette Streets in SoHo, for an appointment with Mr. Ledger. The masseuse was let in to the home by a housekeeper, who then knocked on the door of the bedroom Mr. Ledger was in. When no one answered, the housekeeper and the masseuse opened the bedroom and found Mr. Ledger naked and unconscious on a bed, with sleeping pills — both prescription medication and nonprescription — on a night table. They moved his body to the floor and attempted to revive him, but he did not respond. They immediately called the authorities.’
‘A Berlin burglar’s break-in took an unexpected turn when he stumbled upon a corpse and felt compelled to call the police.
“He called to say he’d just broken into a flat and found a dead body,” said a spokeswoman for Berlin police Thursday. “He gave the address of the place and then hung up.”
Officers discovered the 64-year-old resident of the flat dead in his bedroom. The man had passed away about two weeks ago, and authorities are not treating the death as suspicious.
The burglar has not been heard of since. Local media said he fled the apartment empty-handed, but police could not confirm this.’
‘A former warlord known as General Butt Naked has confessed to Liberia’s post-conflict reconciliation commission that his men killed 20,000 people during the country’s civil war.
The commander earned his nom de guerre for charging into battle dressed only in his boots
The feared rebel commander earned his nom de guerre for charging into battle dressed only in his boots, at the head of a gang of fighters known as the Butt Naked Battalion.
The nude gunmen became known for terrorising villagers and sacrificing children whose hearts they would eat before going into battle during Liberia’s 14-year on-off civil war which ended in 2003. [..]
Mr Blayee returned from exile in Ghana, where he is now an evangelical Christian preacher, to face Liberia’s truth and reconciliation commission last week.’
‘Honolulu police said they are investigating the death of a baby on the H-1 Freeway.
Witnesses said that they saw a man throw the infant from the Miller Street pedestrian overpass, but police said they are not sure if the child was alive or dead when the man threw the child. It appears the child was hit by at least two cars, officials said. [..]
The man was wearing hospital scrubs. Officials from Queen’s Medical Center, which is located near the scene, said he is not a patient.
As the man was taken away by police, he yelled, “Thank you for everything” to KITV camera crews. [..]
Police said they are not sure where the infant came from, and they are checking local day care facilities in the area to see if anyone is missing a child.’
‘A soldier has been arrested in the Zimbabwean town of Chitungwiza for beheading his five-year-old son, clubbing his mother-in-law to death and attempting to kill his stepdaughter, reports said. [..]
He is reported to have had an argument with his wife in the early hours of the morning. She ran out of their bedroom and the soldier then turned on other members of the family.
“Sibanda allegedly took a hoe, which he used to slay his mother-in-law. He proceeded to chop off his son’s head using the same hoe,” police spokesman Andrew Phiri said.
“We shot him in the leg after he slit and pulled out his dead son’s intestines,” Phiri told the Sunday Mail.’
‘A 480-pound Martin County woman has died after emergency workers tried to remove her from the couch where she had remained for about six years.
Gayle Laverne Grinds, 40, died Wednesday, after a failed six-hour effort to dislodge her from the couch in her home. Workers say the home was filthy, and Grinds was too large to get up from the couch to even use the bathroom. [..]
Emergency workers had to remove some sliding glass doors and lift the couch, with Grinds still on it, to a trailer behind a pickup truck. Removing her from the couch would be too painful, since her body was grafted to the fabric. After years of staying put, her skin had literally become one with the sofa and had to be surgically removed.
She died at Martin Memorial Hospital South, still attached to the couch.’
‘John and Martha Hucko were found dead in their Colonial Park Drive home on Tuesday night. Police said the couple had intravenous lines with a barbiturate hooked to their ankles, and Demerol was found near the bodies.
Police said the couple’s daughter called them after receiving a suicide note from her father.
The case is being treated as murder-suicide or double-suicide, pending the results of autopsies and toxicology tests, police said.
John Hucko was a dentist and a former anesthesiologist. He had a dental office on Brownsville Road, and his wife worked there as an assistant.’
‘The Sixties were an era of extreme reality. I miss the smell of tear gas. I miss the fear of getting beaten.’
‘Marcos Gomez-Romero told sheriff’s detectives he wanted a son.
Every time he looked at his baby girl, Gomez-Romero said he grew annoyed and angry because she was not the boy he had hoped for.
Gomez-Romero told detectives that abusing his daughter, Ariana Lizeth Rodriguez-Romero, became such a “habit” that he slapped her while she slept.
Ariana died Christmas Day. She was 4 months old. [..]
“Gomez-Romero made it clear that his anger and hostility towards his daughter was due to the fact that she was a girl and he had wanted a son,” the sheriff’s report said.’
‘A married couple who died in the Central Australian outback used the last of their water on a leaking car radiator, the sole survivor of the tragedy has told police. [..]
A ground search had been mounted to find the man and his two companions after a report was made to police about 9pm (CST) on Sunday that an overdue party was missing after setting off from the Aboriginal community of Kintore.
The man, believed to be aged between 60 and 70, told police that the Pajero station wagon they had been travelling in broke down 116km from Nyirripi two days earlier.
The group then ran out of water after using it to fill up a leaking radiator, he said.’
‘A pet dog missed the family’s dead cat so much that he dug up his grave and brought the body back into the house.
When Oscar’s owners woke up the next morning they discovered the dog curled up beside Arthur, the late cat, in his basket.
His owners, Robert Bell, 73, and his wife, Mavis, of Wigan, Greater Manchester, believe that the dog had licked the cat clean before falling asleep. [..]
Oscar, an 18-month-old Lancashire Heeler, had watched Mr Bell dig a grave in the garden and then lower the cat into the hole.Mr Bell said: “He had managed to climb out through the cat flap in the night, obviously with the intent to get Arthur back. Bearing in mind that Arthur was a huge cat, Oscar must have used all the strength he could muster.’
‘An Iraqi soldier has opened fire on American troops, killing two and wounding three others, US and Iraqi officials have said.
The incident happened during a joint patrol in the north on 26 December, but fuller details have only now emerged.
An Iraqi general said the patrol had come under fire from gunmen in the city of Mosul, but his soldier had “abused” the situation and shot the Americans. [..]
He said the Iraqi serviceman had been “an insurgent infiltrator”. He was arrested and is being questioned.’
‘Friends and family of a 21-year-old who police say was killed and mutilated by her boyfriend tried on Monday to put aside the grisly details of her death, while police said the man described his actions as being compelled by God.
Christopher Lee McCuin, 25, made his initial court appearance on Monday after being charged with capital murder in the death of Jana Shearer. Police say they found an ear boiling in a pot on a stovetop at the crime scene, and a hunk of flesh on a plate and impaled on a fork at the kitchen table.
“You can’t sleep. You can’t think straight anymore,” said Amy Gage, Shearer’s friend and neighbor. “Then you just keep finding out more and more. It’s the most difficult thing anyone can go through.”‘
‘A Russian man has been charged with killing two friends with an axe after he walked in on them cutting up his pet dog for food at his home in eastern Siberia, local prosecutors said today.
Alexander Yermilov, 40, “caught two friends with the body of his beloved dog, which they had cut up for meat” when he returned to his home one evening in December, the prosecutor’s office in the town of Chita said in a statement.
“Flying into a rage, the dog’s owner grabbed an axe from the floor and began to strike his uninvited guests on the head,” the statement said.
Yermilov then called the police to explain what had happened. He has been charged with two counts of murder and is in police custody, the statement said.’
‘Two New York men wheeled the corpse of their friend around midtown Manhattan in an office chair in a failed attempt to cash his $US355 ($405) Social Security cheque, police said.
Virgilio Cintron, 66, had died of natural causes when two of his friends, David Dalaia and James O’Hare, both aged 65, brought him to a cheque-cashing store in the Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood.
“They were trying to pass him off as still being alive,” police spokesman Paul Browne said.’
‘One of the longest-serving stars on hit TV drama The Bill, Jeff Stewart, has tried to kill himself after being sacked from the show.
Stewart, who played the popular character PC Reg Hollis, slashed his wrists after being told his contract would not be renewed, The Sun newspaper reported.
The 52-year-old actor was the only original 1984 cast member left on the show, which is one of ABC TV’s most popular programs.
Stewart cut his wrists in his dressing room at the south London studios where the show is filmed but then telephoned for help.
Security staff found him and called an ambulance.’
‘Mourners shivering in a chapel are to be kept warm using “body heat” generated from cremating their loved ones.
The idea will be tried at a crematorium near Manchester where grieving friends and relatives have complained of the cold during services.
Tameside council will use heat from cremating bodies to keep the mourners warm at Dukinfield Crematorium.
Town hall chiefs say the heat generated will be enough to power the boiler and light the chapel. But they admit it is a “sensitive” issue and have promised to consult clergy and the wider community.’
