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Strange Crimes

ramonmercado said:
They've been captured. Some details of odd behaviour released.

An Oxford University employee suspected in a murder has been arrested alongside his alleged accomplice, a US professor, Chicago police have said.

Andrew Warren, a senior treasury assistant at Somerville College, and Professor Wyndham Lathem of Northwestern University were detained separately in California, more than 3,200km (2,000 miles) from the crime scene, a spokesman said on Friday.

Warren was in San Francisco while Lathem was in Oakland, US Marshals inspector Ed Farrel told the Chicago Tribune. It was not immediately clear how Lathem and Warren had travelled to California.

The men are suspects in the fatal stabbing of a 26-year-old man, Trenton Cornell-Duranleau, in Lathem’s Chicago apartment on 27 July. ...

Police had released few details of the investigation. However, they said on Friday that on the day of the killing – but before the body was discovered – Lathem and Warren drove about 128km (80 miles) north-west to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where one of them made a $1,000 cash donation to the public library there in Cornell-Duranleau’s name. Lake Geneva police said the man making the donation did not give his name. “I’ve never seen where suspects in a homicide would make a donation in the victim’s name,” said Lieutenant Edward Gritzner.

Police said Lathem had a personal relationship with Cornell-Duranleau, who moved to Chicago from the Grand Rapids, Michigan, area after receiving his cosmetology licence ...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...ornia-chicago-stabbing?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
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It's all looking very odd, isn't it?
I had an idea it was a gay menage-a-trois from the initial reports.
 
ramonmercado said:
my stereotypical opinions about male cosmetologists
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I'm assuming that it could be said by some that they're quite-superficial people. Although they'll probably often put a brave face on. It.

And some of them may just be make-up people (but there may be no foundation for saying that).

They might be those who imperfectly-affect to effect effective affectations (infinitely ineffectually) upon imperfections that are, on reflection, a confection of fiction, an infective affliction of dissatisfaction. Fact.
 
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Kidnapped model Chloe Ayling 'slept next to her kidnapper and went shoe shopping with him'

Long story short, Ms Ayling claims to have been lured to Italy for a photoshoot and then abducted, drugged, imprisoned and told she was about the be auctioned off as a sex slave on the Dark Web.

In the meantime she went shopping with her abductor for shoes and groceries. Understandably, there are doubts about her story. Is is a publicity stunt?

Some women who've been kidnapped and kept captive do win their abductors' trust enough to be allowed to shop so they can escape. This takes a good while though, certainly not within the time frame we're seeing here. Hmmm.
 
escargot1 said:
Kidnapped model Chloe Ayling 'slept next to her kidnapper and went shoe shopping with him'

Long story short, Ms Ayling claims to have been lured to Italy for a photoshoot and then abducted, drugged, imprisoned and told she was about the be auctioned off as a sex slave on the Dark Web.

In the meantime she went shopping with her abductor for shoes and groceries. Understandably, there are doubts about her story. Is is a publicity stunt?

Some women who've been kidnapped and kept captive do win their abductors' trust enough to be allowed to shop so they can escape. This takes a good while though, certainly not within the time frame we're seeing here. Hmmm.
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The Stockholm syndrome named after the Patty Hearst incident but yes, it doesn't normally happen that quickly ..
 
Swifty said:
The Stockholm syndrome named after the Patty Hearst incident but yes, it doesn't normally happen that quickly ..
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I thought the whole 'Stockholm syndrome' idea had been mostly debunked as isolated incidents of captors and captive forming a bond, rather than something which happen de-facto every time.
 
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Coal said:
I thought the whole 'Stockholm syndrome' idea had been mostly debunked as isolated incidents of captors and captive forming a bond, rather than something which happen de-facto every time.
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No idea .. I've never 'fallen in love' with a kidnapper but the syndrome was firstly named after that incident .. John Waters was a fan of Patty and later on (after her release from prison) used her as a bit part actor in 'Serial Mom' .. I think she was in another of his films as well ..
 
escargot1 said:
Kidnapped model Chloe Ayling 'slept next to her kidnapper and went shoe shopping with him'

Long story short, Ms Ayling claims to have been lured to Italy for a photoshoot and then abducted, drugged, imprisoned and told she was about the be auctioned off as a sex slave on the Dark Web.

In the meantime she went shopping with her abductor for shoes and groceries. Understandably, there are doubts about her story. Is is a publicity stunt?

Some women who've been kidnapped and kept captive do win their abductors' trust enough to be allowed to shop so they can escape. This takes a good while though, certainly not within the time frame we're seeing here. Hmmm.
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I've had my doubts but I still tend to believe her. She says she was told that she was under constant observation when outdoors and may have believed that. The international gang may not exist and the kidnapper could be just a lone fantasist.
 
ramonmercado said:
I've had my doubts but I still tend to believe her. She says she was told that she was under constant observation when outdoors and may have believed that. The international gang may not exist and the kidnapper could be just a lone fantasist.
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Yup, so while the abduction was genuine nothing else was? That seems likely.
It's not harmless though (not that I think you're saying it is) as there are aggravating factors. for a start, she reckons she had an injection in the forearm. That's a very serious assault.
 
Swifty said:
The Stockholm syndrome named after the Patty Hearst incident but yes, it doesn't normally happen that quickly ..
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The label 'Stockholm syndrome' arose in relation to hostages taken in a 1973 bank robbery in Stockholm - the year before Patty Hearst was abducted.
 
Latest theories about the undeniable tendency for hostages and captives to appear to identify with abductors are that it is pure self-preservation. Hostages don't always toe the line but they often seem shrewd enough to know when to conform and when not to.
 
escargot1 said:
Latest theories about the undeniable tendency for hostages and captives to appear to identify with abductors are that it is pure self-preservation. Hostages don't always toe the line but they often seem shrewd enough to know when to conform and when not to.
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Agreed ...

It's a no-brainer (IMHO) to see certain hostage behaviors in the course of the hostage situation as tactical maneuvers to keep the situation stable / safe. Play along; don't rock the boat; etc.

The most remarkable aspects of the 1973 Stockholm case that led to publicizing it as an odd syndrome occurred after the hostage situation had ended. The former hostages not only declined to testify against their captor in court, but went so far as to proactively raise funds for his defense.

Since the 1970's the notion of Stockholm syndrome seems to have been watered down so as to encompass mere sympathy rather than the outright support it originally connoted.
 
It gets weirder. The abductor apparently did it to get money for cancer treatment but changed his mind after meeting her. Although he had apparently met her before.

The alleged captor of British model Chloe Ayling held her because he needed to raise money for cancer treatment, Italian police documents have revealed.

In his police testimony, Lucasz Herba said he got involved with the group behind the alleged kidnap near Milan because he had leukaemia.
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Man fined for pretending to be a ghost in Portsmouth grave yard ... it would have been stranger if he was doing it in a Tescos or something surely ? ..

ghostboner.jpg


https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...etery-anthony-stallard?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
 
Daft behaviour I know, but they weren't doing any harm.
 
Of course, I'm forgetting...the police are now there to protect our feelings.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Of course, I'm forgetting...the police are now there to protect our feelings.
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Just stop and think for a moment: your best friend/relative died last week, you're visiting his/her grave. An asshole jumps out and starts pretending to be a ghost. He continues with this behaviour towards other people after being asked to stop. You shouldn't have to put up with this in a graveyard.

Yes, imho it is an appropriate case for the police and the court has agreed with that.
 
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'Fun' times in a Russian high security prison .. as you do ..

 
ramonmercado said:
They've been captured. Some details of odd behaviour released.

An Oxford University employee suspected in a murder has been arrested alongside his alleged accomplice, a US professor, Chicago police have said.

Andrew Warren, a senior treasury assistant at Somerville College, and Professor Wyndham Lathem of Northwestern University were detained separately in California, more than 3,200km (2,000 miles) from the crime scene, a spokesman said on Friday.

Warren was in San Francisco while Lathem was in Oakland, US Marshals inspector Ed Farrel told the Chicago Tribune. It was not immediately clear how Lathem and Warren had travelled to California.

The men are suspects in the fatal stabbing of a 26-year-old man, Trenton Cornell-Duranleau, in Lathem’s Chicago apartment on 27 July. ...

Police had released few details of the investigation. However, they said on Friday that on the day of the killing – but before the body was discovered – Lathem and Warren drove about 128km (80 miles) north-west to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where one of them made a $1,000 cash donation to the public library there in Cornell-Duranleau’s name. Lake Geneva police said the man making the donation did not give his name. “I’ve never seen where suspects in a homicide would make a donation in the victim’s name,” said Lieutenant Edward Gritzner.

Police said Lathem had a personal relationship with Cornell-Duranleau, who moved to Chicago from the Grand Rapids, Michigan, area after receiving his cosmetology licence ...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...ornia-chicago-stabbing?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
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An update: still no real explanation but police say: We have information to suggest there was tension in the relationship between Dr Lathem and the victim. Also, Warren: left the UK on 24 July for the US and was reported missing to UK police a day later, two days before Mr Cornell-Duranleau's body was found. Curiouser & curiouser.:

An ex-employee of Oxford University who is accused along with a US professor of killing a Chicago man has appeared in court for the first time since his arrest.

Somerville College's Andrew Warren, 56, and Professor Wyndham Lathem, 42, are facing murder charges after a 26-year-old hairdresser was found dead in Lathem's apartment on 27 July.

Warren appeared in a court in San Francisco, the city where he handed himself in on 4 August after eight days on the run with Lathem, who surrendered himself in the Californian city of Oakland.

Warren, who appeared wearing an orange prison sweatshirt and jogging bottoms, quietly confirmed to the judge that he will accept a public lawyer, as he cannot afford his own. ...

http://news.sky.com/story/oxford-uni-worker-in-court-on-us-murder-charge-10984505
 
The author did it, or at least that's what the police suspect.

The guilty secret: Chinese crime writer arrested for four cold-case murders
Liu Yongbiao had talked of plans for book about killer author who evades capture but police say he is now a suspect in multiple decades-old murders
Tom Phillips in Beijing Wednesday 16 August 2017 08.57 BSTLast modified on Wednesday 16 August 2017 12.08 BST

In the introduction to his novel The Guilty Secret, Chinese writer Liu Yongbiao revealed he had already started work on a follow-up he hoped would prove a literary sensation: a suspense-filled, cold-case detective drama about a ravishing female author who evades capture despite committing a string of grisly murders.

He would call it The Beautiful Writer who Killed.

This week it emerged there could be more to Liu’s book project than mere fiction, after he was taken into custody for allegedly bludgeoning four people to death more than two decades ago.

“I’ve been waiting for you here all this time,” the storyteller reportedly told police when they appeared on his doorstep in east China in the early hours of last Friday.

According to the Chinese news website Sixth Tone, Liu was admitted to the China Writers’ Association in 2013 and had one book, a work of historical fiction, turned into a 50-episode television series.

In the preface to his second to last novel, The Guilty Secret, Liu told readers his ambition was for The Beautiful Writer who Killed to also be adapted for the big screen.

But now it is alleged that the defining moment in his life – and those of the four victims – came on the night of 29 November 1995. ...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ret-chinese-writer-arrested-cold-case-murders
 
Was he inspired by TV's Jessica Fletcher, the most notorious and prolific serial killer on the small screen?

Obviously, if he's guilty, forget that joke.
 
min_bannister said:
It gets weirder. The abductor apparently did it to get money for cancer treatment but changed his mind after meeting her. Although he had apparently met her before.
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More developments. There may have been more than one person involved in the abduction.

The brother of the alleged captor of British model Chloe Ayling is to fight extradition to Italy, Westminster Magistrates' Court has heard.

Michal Konrad Herba, 36, appeared in court for an extradition hearing following his arrest in Tividale, West Midlands, on Wednesday.

He is the brother of Lukasz Pawel Herba who is being held by Italian police over the alleged kidnap in Milan.

Michal Herba denies involvement. The case was adjourned until 25 September.

Prosecutor Florence Iveson told the court that he was suspected of kidnapping and unlawfully detaining Ms Ayling in a "joint enterprise" with his brother and other "unidentified persons". ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40965280
 
This was probably a more common offence in days of yore.

A man has admitted being drunk in charge of a horse and cart.

Robin Milner, 49, of Sherburn in Elmet, was arrested near the Swan Hotel, Low Street, South Milford at about 20:00 BST on 30 July.

He told York Magistrates' Court he had "participated in a few beers" at a christening earlier in the day and had not realised he had drunk so many.

Milner was given a conditional discharge for six months and ordered to pay £105 in costs. ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-40976327
 
ramonmercado said:
An update: still no real explanation but police say: We have information to suggest there was tension in the relationship between Dr Lathem and the victim. Also, Warren: left the UK on 24 July for the US and was reported missing to UK police a day later, two days before Mr Cornell-Duranleau's body was found. Curiouser & curiouser.:

An ex-employee of Oxford University who is accused along with a US professor of killing a Chicago man has appeared in court for the first time since his arrest.

Somerville College's Andrew Warren, 56, and Professor Wyndham Lathem, 42, are facing murder charges after a 26-year-old hairdresser was found dead in Lathem's apartment on 27 July.

Warren appeared in a court in San Francisco, the city where he handed himself in on 4 August after eight days on the run with Lathem, who surrendered himself in the Californian city of Oakland.

Warren, who appeared wearing an orange prison sweatshirt and jogging bottoms, quietly confirmed to the judge that he will accept a public lawyer, as he cannot afford his own. ...

http://news.sky.com/story/oxford-uni-worker-in-court-on-us-murder-charge-10984505
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Update: Warren now formally charged with murder.

An Oxford University employee has been charged with murdering a 26-year-old in Chicago.

Somerville College's Andrew Warren, 56, and US professor Wyndham Lathem, 42, are accused of fatally stabbing Trenton Cornell-Duranleau in Mr Lathem's flat.

Chicago Police charged the pair with first-degree murder after they were returned to the city from California ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40990029
 
ramonmercado said:
Update: Warren now formally charged with murder.

An Oxford University employee has been charged with murdering a 26-year-old in Chicago.

Somerville College's Andrew Warren, 56, and US professor Wyndham Lathem, 42, are accused of fatally stabbing Trenton Cornell-Duranleau in Mr Lathem's flat.

Chicago Police charged the pair with first-degree murder after they were returned to the city from California ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40990029
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It looks as if both of the accused were involved in a dark fetish fantasy which became all too real.

CHICAGO (AP) — The fatal stabbing of a hairstylist in Chicago was part of a sexual fantasy hatched in an online chatroom between a Northwestern University professor and an Oxford University employee, whose plan included killing someone and then themselves, prosecutors told a Cook County judge Sunday at a bond hearing for the men.

An Illinois prosecutor shared disturbing new details about the July 27 slaying, describing to the court how Trenton James Cornell-Duranleau, the 26-year-old boyfriend of since-fired microbiology professor Wyndham Lathem, was stabbed 70 times at Lathem's Chicago condo and with such brutality that he was nearly decapitated. His throat was slit and pulmonary artery torn.

Lathem, 46, had communicated for months before with Andrew Warren, 56, about "carrying out their sexual fantasies of killing others and then themselves," Natosha Toller, an assistant Cook County state's Attorney, told the court. While the prosecutor used the plural in talking about the alleged fantasy to kill, she did not say there were other victims. ...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/prosecut...t-sexual-fantasy-192556000.html?.tsrc=fauxdal
 
Nuns on the run!

The FBI is searching for two women who tried to rob a bank in the US state of Pennsylvania dressed as nuns.

One of the women brandished a gun as she demanded money during the incident at a bank in the town of Tannersville on Monday.

Both were wearing black nun's habits and veils and one was wearing sunglasses.

They are believed to have fled when one of the bank tellers operated an alarm.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41096513?ocid=socialflow_twitter
 
Might be a baby ripper case, not clear yet.

A couple in North Dakota are facing murder charges over allegations they killed a pregnant woman to claim her baby as their own.

Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind, 22, was eight months pregnant when she went missing on 19 August.

Her body was found by kayakers in Red River on Sunday, wrapped in plastic and trapped by a log, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.

Her death has been preliminarily ruled a homicide, according to Fargo police.

Thirty-two-year-old William Hoehn and 38-year-old Brooke Crews are in custody.

They have told police differing accounts of how they came to be caring for a healthy two-day-old newborn after Ms LaFontaine-Greywind visited their apartment on the day she went missing.

The discovery of her body brings an end to the eight-day-long search for the expectant mother and nursing assistant, which included hundreds of volunteers, search dogs, and local, state and federal law enforcement officers.

Police presume the baby is Ms LaFontaine-Greywind's daughter, but DNA test results are pending.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41089866
 
Lock up your chickens!

Outrage as French authorities warn of Jewish 'chicken thieves'
Implication in authorities' letter described as 'outrageous, insulting and slanderous'


  • French Jews have responded angrily after a local district warned farmers to be wary of chickens being stolen in the run up to Yom Kippur for use in an atonement ceremony.

    The French department of Hauts-de-Seine, a western district of Paris, sent an e-mail to all owners of cattle and poultry earlier this month warning them to exercise “the utmost vigilance” in the run up to the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Adha and the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.

    Prior to Yom Kippur, orthodox Jews perform a ceremony known as kapparot – atonement. While the ceremony can be performed while waving money around ones head, the traditional form of the ceremony involves waving a chicken instead. After they are waved, the chickens are slaughtered. The Muslim ceremony of Eid-al-Adha involves the slaughter of a “beast of the herd”, usually a sheep.

    As reported by Le Parisien, the letter, from the Hauts-de-seine Department of Population Protection (DDPP), told owners about the two festivals and urged them “not to let the animals wander, as malicious people may try to capture them for clandestine slaughter”. Late last week, Francis Kalifat, the President of the Council of Jewish Institutions in France (Crif), described the department’s letter as “outrageous, insulting and slanderous”.
    https://www.thejc.com/news/world/kapparot-chickens-1.443501

 
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