Occult Deaths

[James_H]

mentions of "satanism" have been cropping up in so many news stories recently... are we on the verge of another satanic panic scare?

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

mentions of "satanism" have been cropping up in so many news stories recently... are we on the verge of another satanic panic scare?

Very well spotted and as luck would have it you aren't the only person worrying about this:

Satan ate my brain

22/06/2004 11:50 - (SA)


Chris Roper

Every day, I read the stories on 12 of the top news sites across the world.

Starting with News24, of course. And every day, I'm amazed anew at some of the drivel that reporters are forced to report on.

Number one on my list this week: the tendency of journalists and police officials to cry "Satan!" every time they come across a crime involving an over-sexed, pimply adolescent with a candle fetish and a bad taste in music.

My current example comes from the sad story of a woman who hanged herself, or was hanged, from a tree in the Magaliesberg on Thursday. She was found on Saturday by a family out for a walk. Or, as the reporter describes it, "An attractive young woman hanging from a tree, a nylon rope around her neck. This was the horrific find of a family".

Now I'm sorry to point this out to journalist Ms Cindy Zeilhofer of the Pretoria News, but - what kind of sick person finds a three-day old body attractive? And as far as I know, with the possible exception of certain relationships formed with Piet Koornhof in the 90s, necrophilia is illegal in this country.

'Newsworthy'

We all know the answer to this one." Wrinkled old granny hanging from a tree" isn't half as newsworthy as "Sexy young girl with bulging eyeballs hanging from tree". "Fat widow with bad wig in court" isn't worth writing about, but "Young widow with peroxided highlights in court" is.

But this is the least irritating thing about the hanging story. This is the bit that really gets my goat (oh oh, shouldn't have admitted I've got a goat). "Burnt candles and a bottle of alcohol found near a piece of ground that had been cleared to make way for a circular rock structure brought members of the police Occult Related Crimes Unit to the scene."

Give me a break! Candles to see by, booze to pluck up courage, and a pile of rocks to jump off? And suddenly Satan is wandering around in the Magaliesberg? Surely he has enough to do down at SAFA?

The very fact that we have a Crimes Unit that apparently believes in Satan makes me laugh. And even if I also believed in Satan, I'd have to say - you can't even put Winnie Mandela behind bars, but you expect to clap the cuffs on Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness? Dream on, buddy.

'Proof'

My favourite bit of the hanging story is the quote by a local resident: "I've heard rumours of satanic rituals taking place on the mountain but I have personally never seen anything and I climb that mountain myself sometimes."

Well, there you have it: the absence of evidence PROVES that satanic rituals take place there. If they weren't Satanists, they'd have nothing to hide. This is an example of dross in a news story. The quote serves the function of legitimising the rumour of Satanism, even though its literal meaning is - there is no Satanism.

But without Satan, our news landscape would be a bleak and uninteresting place. A place where children kill because society has let them down, where Hansie Cronje steals because he's a greedy man, and where suburbanites indulge in weird sexual practices because they're bored out of their tiny little minds. Nope, we need Satan. It saves having to think about the real reasons why people do bad things.


-------------------------
Chris Roper has a degree in Religious Studies from the University of Cape Town. That has nothing to do with his views on Satan.

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1546293,00.html

I should probably split some of the Satanic murder cases to make a separtae thread and I suspect the issue will be clearer. Also see the 'Animal Attacks' thread - whenever some animals are found hacked up people start running around in circles claiming its evidence of Satanism.

Oddly they largely seem to originate in the US and I assume its part of the religious fundamentalism.

Emps

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

And if to prove the point:

Posted on Tue, Jun. 22, 2004


COUPLE AND DAUGHTER, 6, SLAIN IN TENNESSEE BY SIX EASTERN KENTUCKIANS

ASSOCIATED PRESS



GREENEVILLE, Tenn. - A federal judge has rejected the latest appeal from the ringleader of six young Eastern Kentuckians convicted of murdering three members of a Knox-ville family returning from a Jehovah's Witnesses conference in 1997.

Natasha Cornett, of Betsy Layne, has been fighting the conviction since she was sentenced six years ago to three consecutive life terms without parole plus 25 years in the slayings of Vidar and Delfina Lillelid and their daughter, Tabitha, 6.

She lost before the Greene County Circuit Court, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals and the Tennessee Supreme Court.

Last week she lost before U.S. District Judge Thomas Hull, who wrote in an order that any further appeal would be totally frivolous.

The Lillelids encountered the Kentuckians at an Interstate 81 rest area, were taken hostage and gunned down. The only survivor was the couple's son, Peter, 2, who was seriously wounded.

Two days later, the Kentuckians were caught in Arizona in the Lillelids' van.

In the weeks after the crime, some relatives and friends of the accused spoke about the suspects' interest in the occult. Cornett, who was 18 at the time, reportedly believed herself to be the daughter of Satan.

When the shooting stopped, part of the group "went over and laid their hands on the bodies to take their souls," prosecutor Berkeley Bell said.

All six pleaded guilty and were convicted of first-degree murder. Hull rejected Cornett's claim that she was coerced into the plea and that her attorneys were ineffective.

A similar appeal from co-defendant Edward Dean Mullins is pending in U.S. District Court in Greeneville.

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/local/8981092.htm

 

[Mythopoeika]

Do druids often get involved in black magic?
I think it's highly unlikely, and probably an imaginative fabrication by the press.

 

[Stormkhan]

The popular press like to link any fringe group together. In this case, the guy was both into the occult and a druid. The media caters for the general public, most of whom have little knowledge of the different fields of esoteric groups. So they lump "occult" in with New Age, Black Magic, Paganism, Wicca, Druids etc.etc. ad nauseam.

This latter term really sticks in my craw. There's "druids" which are members of an artificial club inspired by the Victorians inaccurate perception of antiquities (such as the white-robed middle class twits who feature prominently at Stonehenge on Midsummer). Then there's "druids" who believe in a New Age pagan religion called "druidism". Finally there's "druids" who are, in fact, the priests and priestesses of the Celtic religion and holders of old knowledge and ceremonies.

I know this thread isn't the place for discussion of the differences but the title "druid" is being used by the media as a catch-all term and it really gets me annoyed.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Occult murders

Orissa youth 'sacrifices' mother

India News > Bhubaneswar, July 21: In a bizarre incident, an Orissa youth beheaded his mother to "appease" a deity, police said Wednesday.

The family of Jara Tirki, 22, of Patagaon village in Sundergarh district had been upset over Tirki's keeping a fast for some days and performing some rituals at home for goddess Tarini, police said.

His mother Janga, 45, suspecting him to be under the influence of black magic, invited a witch doctor for his "treatment". The witch doctor performed some rituals and left after tying a ribbon on Jara's neck.

Jara was furious at this. On Monday night, when all the family members were fast asleep, he brought out an axe and hacked his mother to death. He offered the mother's head to the deity at home and worshipped for a while, officials said.

He later buried the head. The family informed some villagers, who locked Jara in his house and notified the police. Jara was arrested following the complaint.

"We are investigating the matter to find out if there is any other reason behind the murder," said a district police official.

http://www.123bharath.com/india-news/index.php?action=fullnews&id=3684

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Vietnam "ghost" killer gets 11 years in jail

Thu 22 July, 2004 12:23

HANOI (Reuters) - A court in Vietnam's Central Highlands has sentenced a tribal man to 11 years in jail for shooting dead his father-in-law because he thought the old man was possessed by a ghost, state media has reported.

The court in Daklak province heard that Y Pol Kso, a 35-year-old member of the Ede ethnic minority group, blamed his illness in recent years on his father-in-law, whom he thought was possessed by an evil spirit, said the Nguoi Lao Dong (Labourer) newspaper.

One evening last December, Y Pol borrowed a rifle from his brother and put a bullet into the head of his father-in-law, the paper said on Thursday without giving the age of the victim.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=551807&section=news

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Palatine man claims insanity in killing mom

By Kara Spak Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted 7/27/2004

As Kathryn Sneider's son beat her to death in January 2003, she cried out to him that she was his mother.

Karl Sneider didn't see it that way, his attorney said during the first day of his murder trial Monday.

"He knew she was the devil ... and he knew he had to kill the devil," said Barry Lloyd, an assistant public defender. "Karl described it as a battle of good and evil."

No one is disputing that Sneider beat, stabbed then decapitated his mother in one of the most grisly crimes in Palatine. But Lloyd argued Monday that Sneider, diagnosed after the killing as a paranoid schizophrenic, was insane when he did it.

If Sneider is found not guilty by reason of insanity, he could be sent to a state mental hospital instead of prison. That verdict would mean he was not aware that killing his mother was a crime.

Sneider, 28, chose a bench trial before Cook County Circuit Court Judge John Scotillo rather than a jury. The trial continues today.

According to Monday's testimony, Kathryn Sneider left work on Jan. 27, 2003, to check on her son. Arriving at her home, she urged him to seek help at a mental hospital, and he reacted violently. He knocked her to the ground with his fists before straddling her, grabbing a large kitchen knife and stabbing her, authorities said.

According to the testimony, he cut off her head and placed it on the front porch with the knife. He covered his mother's body with a jacket, then "washed" himself with a Bible and slept for a few hours.

When he awoke, he saw that a neighbor's car was unlocked and running. Palatine detective Kyle Ingebrigtsen said Sneider told him "this must have been a sign from God that he needed to get warm and leave the area."

Driving the stolen car on Northwest Tollway, Sneider spun out near Roselle Road. He jumped a fence and ran.

Though temperatures were below freezing, Sneider was wearing only socks, nylon shorts and a hooded sweatshirt. Carrying a Bible, he wandered into a Schaumburg couple's yard.

Believing Sneider was homeless, Robert Bacon invited him in to warm up, offering him hot tea and peanuts.

"He placed his hand on my head and chanted, 'Teach. Teach,'æ" Bacon said.

Sneider abruptly left Bacon's home and within minutes was apprehended at Hickory and Ela roads by state troopers investigating the spun-out car less than a mile away.

Initially arrested for the theft of the car, Sneider was quickly connected to his mother's killing.

Doctors initially found him mentally unfit to stand trial and are expected to testify that he was insane at the time of his mother's killing.

In court Monday, a dozen relatives of Kathryn Sneider listened to the testimony, frequently crying. At different moments during the testimony, Kathryn Sneider's father and her other son left the courtroom.

Sneider showed no emotion as he listened to the day's proceedings. Prior to the trial's start, he politely answered several procedural questions asked by Scotillo. He told the judge he had taken his medications that day, including a mood stabilizer, anti-depressant and anti-psychotic.

Trial: Doctors to testify about man's sanity at time of killing

http://www.dailyherald.com/search/main_story.asp?intid=3819550

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Grim and not for the faint at heart (athough that goes for this whole thread so........):

TV actress held after son hacked to death

August 16 2004 at 06:45AM

By Themba Sepotokele

A blood-splattered carpet and blood-stained axe on Sunday bore brutal testimony to the horror killing of a two-year-old boy - allegedly at the hand of his mother.

The 26-year-old woman - who has been seen on South African television screens in the top-rated SABC1 soap Generations, as well as the popular sitcom Emzini Wezinsizwa and the SABC2 drama Justice For All - was arrested on Sunday for murder.

The woman is said to have believed that her young son was "possessed by the devil" when she hacked him to death with an axe and gouged out his eyes with a screwdriver.

The horror continued when she then allegedly placed a hot iron on the eyeballs.

The tragic events took place on Sunday morning, after which the woman was said to have remained in the house with the body.

Hours later, relatives and friends found her sitting and singing in her bedroom while her son lay in a pool of blood.

The crime was discovered when a friend, who lives in the house, went to the actress' bedroom and came across the gruesome scene. She said she saw the child lying on the floor with a Bible placed on his head.

The friend then ran to tell the woman's brother, who lives in a room outside the main house.

Still wearing the gloves he put on to clean up his nephew's blood, the woman's brother stood motionless next to the gate as neighbours and relatives streamed to the house to offer their sympathy.

He told how he ran into his sister's bedroom and was shocked to find her singing while her son was lying in a pool of blood.

"His (the baby's) brain was scattered all over the floor and his eyes were gouged out. She had put a hot iron over the tiny eyes," he said.

The actress's aunt said her niece allegedly killed her son because she claimed he was possessed. "It is suspected that the child had HIV, hence she claimed that he was possessed."

A woman is expected to appear in the Soweto magistrate's court on Monday.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20040816060015893C743000

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Last update: August 17, 2004 at 6:54 AM

Three set free in ritual murder of Duluth woman

Robert Franklin, Star Tribune
August 17, 2004 MALAYSIA0817




Her daughter's last phone call came collect and from half a world away. Carolyn Ahmad had hired a lawyer to divorce her husband, she told her mother, Janice Bushell of Duluth. She was going to some sort of ceremony and would return to her home in Malaysia in time for supper.

Instead, Ahmad was murdered that day, perhaps as part of an occult scheme by people who hoped sacrificing her would inspire winning lottery numbers.

Ahmad, a Duluth native and mother of three children, died in November 1999. Her skeletal remains were found 19 months later.

On Monday, three people charged with her murder were freed by a judicial commissioner in northern Malaysia who ruled that prosecutors didn't have a solid case, the Associated Press reported.

The judge said prosecution witnesses provided conflicting testimony and were unable to establish the date, time and circumstances of Ahmad's death.

There are differing versions about what exactly happened, Bushell said Monday from Duluth, but no doubt about when Ahmad, 35, was killed -- two to three hours after that last phone call.

There was to be "some kind of a ceremony to help her with her marriage. She thought she was going be honored," Bushell said. "She was wearing some kind of outfit."

In one version of her death, someone put a lei around Ahmad's neck and strangled her with a cord hidden in it, Bushell said.

One of those believed involved was Shanmugavala Shanmuga, a Hindu medium who died in an auto accident three years ago, according to Malaysian authorities. His brother led authorities to Ahmad's shallow grave on an oil-palm plantation near an abandoned Hindu temple at Ipoh, Malaysia, about 100 miles north of Kuala Lumpur.

Authorities alleged that Ahmad was killed as part of a ritualistic ceremony, a sacrifice to obtain lottery tips from the Hindu goddess Kali.

Some Malaysians have held ceremonies to offer prayers and sacrifice goats in hopes of receiving lottery inspiration, the Associated Press reported.

Bushell said even her daughter's cell phone number may have been considered lucky. "Somebody took her cell phone," she said, and it kept taking messages "for quite a while."

The AP reported that prosecutors are expected to appeal the judge's freeing of the defendants, Ramasamy Palaniappan, 39; Michael Anthonysamy, 37, and Christopher Earthiam, 31.

They faced death by hanging if convicted.

Ahmad, daughter of Leslie and Janice Bushell, grew up in Duluth, where she attended Central High School. She studied to be a dental hygienist and met her husband, Roslan Ahmad, while they were students at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

They married in 1986 and subsequently settled in his native Malaysia.

Roslan Ahmad, manager of a private hospital in Ipoh, notified authorities three days after his wife went missing. In that last, 10-minute phone call, Janice Bushell said, her daughter talked about the impending divorce and her husband. "He told her he hadn't loved her for 10 years," she said.

Ahmad's family did not attend Monday's hearing, the AP reported.

The Bushells are left with family pictures of Carolyn, flowers from a memorial service they held for her, and memories.

"She was too trusting," her mother said.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/4930858.html

 

[ramonmercado]

Man on Quest for Knife-Proof Body Bleeds to Death

Man on Quest for Knife-Proof Body Bleeds to Death

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - A Tanzanian who went to a witch doctor in search of the power to resist bullets and knife attacks died when ritual cuts made on his body proved fatal.

He was one of four suspected robbers from a village in Kasulu district in western Tanzania who visited the witch doctor on a quest for magic, the African newspaper reported Tuesday.

The ritual included cutting their skin and rubbing in potions and powders.

The witch doctor fled after the man died Monday from profuse bleeding, the newspaper said, adding that the three survivors were arrested when they went to a hospital.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=2&u=/nm/20040824/od_nm/witchcraft_dc

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

I split this off and merged it here as it is soooo reminiscnet of the second post in this thread about the anti-bullet magic not working.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Edit: perhaps this would be better suited to the "irony" thread.

I split off all the 'occult' deaths from the strange deaths thread as they seemed to form an interesting subset.

 

[Leaferne]

Emps: good call. :yeay:

I've deleted my earlier post as I saw Ramon was faster in posting the same story.

 

[TheQuixote]

Chinese "sorcerer" kills 10 then sells bodies
Thu August 26, 2004 04:11 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police have detained a "sorcerer" who killed 10 people and sold their bodies to bereaved families to cremate in the place of loved ones who were secretly buried, police and a state-run newspaper reports.

The 34-year-old man, surnamed Lin, strangled or poisoned the 10 villagers at his home, next to a temple, in the southern province of Guangdong, the Beijing Morning Post said on Thursday.

Chinese tradition, especially in rural villages, holds that burial brings peace to the dead and tombs are placed according to the laws of geomancy. But in a country of 1.3 billion people, the seemingly haphazard siting of graves wastes scarce farmland.

Since 1978, when China launched its reform drive, all levels of government have recommended cremation to save land.

"This region cremates its dead, but local people prefer to be buried in the ground. People bought the bodies to be cremated in place of their relatives," a police official told Reuters on Thursday.

Lin, whom the newspaper called a sorcerer locals consulted to communicate with spirits, sold the bodies for 1,000 to 8,000 yuan (67 to 538 pounds) to each, the newspaper quoted local police as saying.

Police caught Lin plying his trade in corpses in mid-August in the city of Shantou, it said.

Chinese newspapers, unrestrained by the contempt of court laws of the West, often quote police confirming guilt or a confession before a defendant has been charged or the case has gone to court.

Communist China considers itself free of mass violence. Its sensationalist but still self-censoring media tend to play down cases of serial murderers.

A Beijing taxi driver was executed in June for killing seven people, including four prostitutes.

Last year, China executed one of its worst serial killers in history, a man who murdered 67 people and raped two dozen women in a four-year spree.

© Reuters 2004.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=571812&section=news

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Sun, August 29, 2004


Devil's hatchet man

Farmhand said Satan and a fly told him to kill family with axe

By Bob Holliday




To friends, neighbours and his employer, Thomas Hreczkosy was a peace-loving, hard-working man. The perception changed Jan. 29, 1932, when Hreczkosy picked up an axe, killed a family of seven and became Manitoba's most prolific killer.

The sun was a couple of hours away from lighting up the Sitar farm near Elma, Man., when Nellie Kachur looked up from her chores and saw flames shooting from her neighbour's house. Her son Mike and husband Andrew rushed to the burning building, about 65 metres away.

Finding the back door locked from the inside and front door barricaded from the outside, the younger Kachur smashed his way into the smoke and flames and stumbled over the bodies of Martin Sitar and his wife Josephine, both 55.

As he dragged the bodies outside, he saw blood and gaping holes in their skulls and realized they were dead. Hearing groans, Kachur and his father re-entered the house to rescue Jennie, 7, and Paul, 4. The men were sickened by the ugly gashes in the children's heads.

BODY FALLS FROM SECOND FLOOR

Unable to re-enter, the men watched as the second floor collapsed and an adult's body fell into the flames. The men carried the children to their home and sent for a doctor in Whitemouth. As it happened, Dr. D. G. Denmark was at nearby Stony Hill School giving inoculations against diphtheria.

At 10:30 a.m., about four hours after the discovery of the fire, Denmark began a frantic struggle to save the children, but Jennie died in the doctor's arms.

Area farmers battled a January blizzard in an attempt to save the young boy's life. The sole survivor of the previous night's murderous rampage, Paul was placed in a horse-drawn sleigh to meet a special CNR train waiting about five kilometres east of Elma. Despite the heroic efforts, the boy died a few hours after arriving at St. Boniface Hospital.

When the fire was out, the scorched bodies of Frank, 29, Walter, 11, and Bert, 10, were recovered from the ruins.

The death toll would have been higher, but older son Stanley had been in Winnipeg looking for work.

He told investigators of a series of mishaps that tested his family since 1918 when their home burned to the ground. He also told of cattle and horses dying during good crop years. Other misfortunes included the 1927 hay stock that burnt mysteriously and the slashing of two horses in 1931.

But where was the hired hand, Thomas Hreczkosy?

He was the prime suspect. Why not? His body was not found in the ruins. And young Paul was heard to mutter: "Tom! What are you doing to us?" as he was taken from his flaming home.

Just when police were convinced the killer had perished in the cold, Hreczkosy was found four days later sitting on the CNR embankment near Contour Siding, about 16 kilometres east of massacre.

Robert Lawry, of Dugald, recognized the killer, who was weak from starvation but was warmly dressed.

While eating his first meal in four days, the killer told Lawry he'd been wandering through the bush since the fire, but gave no details.

While Hreczkosy gobbled a loaf of bread, two other men used the railway's communication system to contact the Whitemouth detachment of the Manitoba Provincial Police.

Constables P. A. Valdner and Octave Supeene saddled up and rode 15 kilometres to arrest the killer and place him on the train to Winnipeg. Valdner was the area officer. Supeene had been dispatched from headquarters to aid in the search for Hreczkosy.

Both officers were absorbed by the RCMP April 1 when the MPP was disbanded in an attempt to pare 5,000 from the provincial budget.

Supeene was the first to downplay the rumour the killer had barricaded the front door to block an escape route from the burning house.

The storm door was loose from its hinges and had been propped into place, Supeene told The Winnipeg Tribune. The prop may have been mistaken for a barricade.

Through an interpreter -- a Mr. Nemerovski, of Beausejour -- Hreczkosy spilled his guts to the officers.

"The Devil got into my heart before Christmas. The Devil told me to kill Martin Sitar and all the family and go away and hide in the bush," said the killer.

His bush shelter was found Feb. 8 about two kilometres from the farm. An axe, a cross-cut saw and an overcoat were found.

During Hreczkosy's trial at the end of March, court heard about a jailhouse confession.

Nick Darowec testified he spoke Galician when he received no response to his English greetings to the newcomer in the next cell.

"That farmer must have been a bad man?" asked Darowec.

"No he was all right," was the reply from Hreczkosy who said "I had a talk with my fly that I should kill that man at Christmas."

Hreczkosy explained he had "a small fly. I hid out in the bush. I had my fly with me."

Darowec was sure the man was insane.

'SOMETHING WRONG WITH HIM'

"He seemed to be a funny man. As soon as he told me about the fly I saw there was something wrong with him."

A letter written to his brother Stefan in Poland was read into evidence during the preliminary hearing held in Beausejour before Magistrate Charles H. Dixon.

"... The news is bad because I am sitting in court. In our language it means jail. Because I do not know what happened to me. And I do don't know myself what came to may head that I killed the whole family of Macko Sitar. I worked for Macko for a year and a half and it was good for me. And now some evil befell me and I can not figure out what led me to it, so I killed a whole family with an axe."

A guard also testified that Hreczkosy attempted suicide by hanging two days before the hearing.

Hreczkosy showed no emotion when found guilty and sentenced to hang on June 7 by Justice Adamson.

"What can I say?" Hreczkosy said through an interpreter.

"He did not seem to appreciate the fact that their (jury) report meant that he must die," reported The Tribune. "The decision created surprise in court. Most persons who had heard the proceedings expected that the prisoner would be judged insane."

On the day he was to meet the hangman, Thomas Hreczkosy was instead taken to Stony Mountain to begin a life sentence, his death sentence commuted by Ottawa.

The Sitar family is buried in the Stony Hill Cemetery.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/WinnipegSun/News/2004/08/29/607273.html

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Strikes me this is one of the possible problems with a lot of people' pick and mix attitude to modern religion:

Teen Suicides Linked to Witchcraft

Police say two Knox girls stepped in path of train Saturday



(WSBT) Two teenage girls from Knox are dead and police say witchcraft was involved. Investigators say 13-year-olds Sarah Casey and Debra Jean Kawaguchi stepped in front of a train Saturday near County Roads 800 East and 200 South.

Starke County Police say the girls took their lives because they thought they would be reincarnated. Now, police say they're investigating just how deep this it goes in the community, and they're asking outside experts for help.

Investigators say Casey and Kawaguchi got involved in WICCA, a form of withcraft, and the girls believed by committing suicide they would be reincarnated.

"We are going to talk to students to see if they know anything and to see if anybody else if involved," says Starke County Sheriff Bob Sims.

Friends of the victims at Knox Middle School say they know of other students who have also participated in what is sometimes called a religion.

"In school, I just had a girl tell me that she practiced witchcraft with them," says classmate Darienne Griffith.

Police are now looking for answers into a practice they didn't know even existed in their community.

WICCA is said to have a deep respect of nature and spirituality, but doesn't condone suicide.

http://www.wsbt.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=53&ArticleID=988

And why is Wicca capitalised?

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

I'm unsure if this should rather go in mass hysteria but as people are actually dropping down dead (which makes it more like a bone pointing death):

Village Deserted After Mysterious Deaths



August 20, 2004
Posted to the web August 20, 2004

Chrispin Inambao
Katima Mulilo

SEVENTEEN solar panels and a water tank are what make Makusi quite different from other thatched settlements whose people can only envy this infrastructure.

In fact, the Government erected the solar panel at Makusi Solar to power a water pump that caters for the needs of livestock and the 17 villages clustered around it.

A closer look reveals that most of the thatched huts at Makusi Solar, some 65 km outside Katima Mulilo, have crumbled and there is very little human activity going on.

Another closer look shows there are no free-ranging chickens, no dogs and no livestock foraging about.

The village is deserted apart from the people from nearby villages who jealously guard the solar panels and the water tanks that are solely meant for their use.

Volunteers from the 17 villages guard the facility around the clock, as they fear it might be vandalised. Women are tasked to do the daytime shift that is seemingly less risky.

The inhabitants of this once thriving village fled from what they strongly believe are supernatural activities that took place at Makusi and involved some genius of evil.

One morning a few months ago, three people and a dog died after they reportedly witnessed something spectral.

It all started with the dog that howled loudly and died on the spot. When an elderly woman Kahose Muhandu went to investigate the cause of the howling, she also screamed and died just some minutes after she staggered into her hut.

Survivors say the dog's howling was blood-curdling while the elderly woman's screams were spine-chil- ling.

And a minor Kubilwa Kubilwa, who witnessed the death of his grandmother, fell sick and he also died within a few minutes while another inquisitive villager paid dearly with her life just some minutes after she also tried to find out what the commotion in the other hut was all about.

A few minutes after the howling and after the dog had its last breath, three villagers lay dead at Makusi Solar in the Kaliyangile area in the Sibbinda Constituency in Caprivi, so the story goes.

Before the three villagers died, four others also lost their lives under highly mysterious circumstances at the village.

The seemingly unearthly happenings at the once thriving settlement were confirmed on Tuesday when New Era visited the village that has been deserted by those related to the victims. These seemingly spectral events were confirmed by Victor Bona and by his uncle Watson Kachelo, who is the headman at Makusi and who is still grief-stricken.

A health official at the State hospital at Katima Mulilo who is related to the victims also confirmed the stranger-than-fiction events that befell Makusi Solar.

The inhabitants of Makusi Solar are closely related to villagers under Kachelo at Makusi proper. Bona is a community leader who chairs a water-point committee.

He says villagers usually guard the facility at Makusi Solar with fear because of the unexplained deaths attributed to possible sorcery in the Kaliyangile area.

They have appealed to the Government to relocate the facility to a populated village because they say apart from living in fear, the villagers are not adequately attending to other communal activities such as cattle herding because they have to ensure the facility is guarded around the clock.

The villagers who are convinced Makusi is a target of supernatural activity say they do not have the money required to pay a traditional doctor to cleanse the settlement.

Traditional healers reportedly command fees of N 000 or even N 000 to perform a cleansing ritual that is apparently too "risky" a business even for seasoned herbsmen.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200408200648.html

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Alleged Witchcraft Forces Closure of School



September 8, 2004
Posted to the web September 8, 2004

Opuwo

ALLEGATIONS of witchcraft are doing the rounds at the Opuwo Primary School where the practice of the mysterious cult is so rife that 23 employees of the school's hostel have decided to down tools for fear of becoming victims.

The employees' strike follows the mysterious deaths of workers and learners at the primary school.

It is alleged that eleven people died while seven other employees became paralysed as a result of sorcery.

The accusing finger is being pointed in the direction of a female hostel employee. About 400 learners who were due to check into the hostel on Monday were shocked to find that there was no one to cook for them or even to clean for them.

The hostel at Opuwo Primary School also accommodates learners from Kameru Primary that is also in Opuwo.

The Hostel Inspector in Kunene Region, John Neumbo, has travelled to Opuwo to assess the situation. He was not keen to make any statements, except to say he would speak to the employees about Government's position with regard to the alleged practice of witchcraft.

Although witchcraft was a major concern for Neumbo, he was very worried that learners' studies would be negatively affected by the closure of the hostel.

He added that the matter was with the Permanent Secretary of Basic Education, Sport and Culture who was addressing the issue.

Meanwhile, the boycotting employees have demanded that the hostel premises and the suspected employee undergo a cleansing ritual involving a witchdoctor.

There are even suggestions that the suspect should be transferred to another school before the rest of the employees resume duties at Opuwo Primary. - Nampa

http://allafrica.com/stories/200409080590.html

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

If in doubt blame the Devil:

MOMSTER TOT-KILLERS: BLAME DAD & THE DEVIL, NOT US

Sat Oct 2, 2:47 AM ET

Local - New York Post

By DOUGLAS MONTERO and JENNIFER FERMINO

EXCLUSIVE The mother of the Harlem toddler beaten to death says her lesbian lover did the awful deed — but insists demons made her do it.


In a jailhouse interview, mom Zahira Matos told The Post she knew her lover, Carmen Molina, sometimes beat the 23-month-old child, Yovany Tellez Jr.

But Matos insists she didn't realize the seriousness until it was too late — when she found Yovany near death Sept. 19, when she returned home from a beer run.

Molina denies ever harming the child and insisted that they both saw a demonic "monster" in the apartment shortly before Yovany died.

Despite the horrifying crime that put the pair behind bars, they claim they're still in love.

Except for one handwritten note Matos managed to smuggle to Molina through another inmate, the women had no contact until they were both brought into the Rikers Island visiting room for separate interviews with Post reporters.

The women, dressed in identical drab gray jumpsuits with baby blue rosaries around their necks, told similar tales of witchcraft and demonic possession.

They barely noticed one another as they talked — each absorbed in her own misery.

Both women are charged with murder of the child just 17 days short of his second birthday.

Matos practically whispered her story in Spanish, and grew upset hearing the details of her son's funeral in Michigan, which the 20-year-old was not allowed to attend.

The stocky Molina seemed lost and despondent, at times staring at the floor. It was Molina, 32, who delivered the final, fatal blows to the boy, police say.

His leg and ribs were broken, his liver ruptured and his baby body — covered in bruises — bore testament to his sad little life.

The women say Yovany Tellez Sr., the boy's father, and his mother cast a satanic spell on them.

"They put a curse on us because they wanted us to be separated," Matos said.

Matos said she knew her girlfriend would lash out violently — at her and her son — but said it was the work of the devil.

Once the fury was over, Molina claimed to remember nothing, Matos said. She called it more evidence of demonic intervention.

Despite it all, Matos says she remains devoted to her lover of less than a year.

"I still love [Carmen]," she said. "After so long, you can't just fall out of love with someone."

Molina disputed Matos' claim that she would strike the child, saying she never hurt any child and worked hard to support Matos' three kids.

"I never touched him," she said. "I loved him. I love all her children. It's devastating."

As for the bruises that covered the boy, Molina said they were the result of "normal" toddler tumbles.

Molina claimed that she confessed to the crime only after she was forced to stand in an interrogation room for hours, on a sore leg, unable to go to the bathroom or eat.

"I would have told the cop I killed his partner if that's what he wanted," she said, tearing up.

"I would have confessed to anything to get out of that room." The cops taunted her, she said, saying, "You'll like it in jail, there's plenty of women for you there."

She kept asking for a lawyer, but never got one, she said, until after she confessed.

Molina insists that the "curse" that destroyed them was cast during the first weeks of September.

It was then the city-owned apartment became filled with mice, clouds of black moths and cockroaches, she said.

When asked if her brother, who visited Molina earlier, believed her paranormal tale, she stared into the reporter's eyes for seconds — unblinking and expressionless — before launching into a description of santeria.

She never answered the question.

The grandmother, Maria Barroso, scoffed at the supernatural allegations.

"Why am I going to cast a spell that kills my own grandson?" she said. "They're looking to blame anyone they can for the death of my grandson."

Matos said it's not her fault — she was out buying beer and returned home to find a bruise on Yovany's forehead and his leg twisted.

"Carmen said he fell," she explained.

Together, the women concocted a splint using wood from the crib of Yovany's two-month-old sister Kimberly, and wrapped his small leg in gauze, said Matos.

Then, she said, she put Kimberly and her oldest child, Yahmliz, 3, down for the night.

"I heard [Yovany] whining so I went in to check on him," said Matos. "I pulled the blanket off and he was covered in blood from the waist down."

"I don't know what happened to Yovany. I didn't know he was that hurt. I don't know why I'm here."

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Family kills girl in cult rite

From correspondents in Bangkok

October 5, 2004

A 10-year-old Thai girl died after her throat was allegedly repeatedly slashed by her mother, grandmother and two aunts in a ritual to rid her of an evil spirit, police said today.

Prapasorn Jiamcharoen was found dead in a pool of blood with multiple slash wounds to her neck as the women chanted upstairs to a Hindu goddess they had built a cult around, police said.

"We suspected they committed the crime in a trance-like state without even knowing what they have done," Police Colonel Surachai Kuandechakupt told AFP.

He said the women had used a meat cleaver to hack at Prapasorn's throat and hair - which was ceremonially soaked in a bowl - before burning the girl's clothes and mattress.

Colonel Surachai said the women raged at the police who arrested them and accused them of ruining the ceremony at the family home in Ratchaburi province southwest of Bangkok.

The family had boasted of their ability to contact gods and spirits to neighbours, who told police they were too scared to associate with the family, the Bangkok Post reported.

About 95 per cent of Thais are Buddhist but a strong animist tradition remains, with "spirit doctors" who say they can help people get rid of curses and ghosts widespread across the country.

--------------
AFP

http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1274&storyid=2041746

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Satanism creates debate

George Ntonya

The road traffic accident that killed 27 people on the spot at Linthipe III in Dedza district on August 6, 2004 has ignited wild rumours that the accident was the work of satanic worshippers.

Probably, for the first time in the country people are freer now to discuss Satanism — which is associated with weird occurrences and shrouded in top secrecy. Some people are even confessing publicly they practised Satanism at one point in their life.

The Roman Catholic Church sponsored Radio Alinafe of Lilongwe Diocese has for the past weeks been running an interview with a boy who claimed to have resigned from Satanism. The boy has been telling listeners how he and his fellow Satanists used to do bizarre things like drinking human blood and they conducted their rituals in the Indian Ocean at night.

Having listened to the boy one would see a thin line separating Satanism — worshipping of the devil from witchcraft. Witchcraft is the performing of magic to make bad things happen.

Although the boy never mentioned names in the radio interview, he claimed some of the respected Malawians, including some members of the clergy, practise Satanism. Some of them have become rich or popular because of Satanism, he added.

A female primary school teacher in Lilongwe [name withheld] threatened to deal with her debtor three months ago if he could not pay back her money by a set date.

“If you don’t give me my money by Thursday, you’ll see what will happen to you. For your information, I am Satanist,” the teacher threatened in a handwritten letter to the debtor. Ironically, her fellow teachers and neighbours know her as a senior member of one of the mainstream Christian denominations.

On August 15, 2004 The Sunday Times carried a letter in which the writer claimed that the Linthipe III road traffic accident was the creation of Satanists. He said that the Satanists were expected to hold a secret conference in Lilongwe City and were looking for human blood for their rituals. But the writer did not indicate how the Satanists would collect the blood.

Evangelist Mark Kambalazaza also attributed the mysterious attack on Blantyre Secondary School (BSS) pupils early this year to Satanism. Unknown assailants attacked the pupils at night while they were asleep, leaving some of them bruised. Some of the pupils ended up admitted to Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH).

Kambalazaza told The Nation of June 11, 2004 that Satanism is more powerful than witchcraft, saying that only special prayers [to God in the name of Jesus) could stop the mysterious attacks at the school.

Until the time of the Linthipe accident stories of Satanism in the country were isolated and people could hardly speak about it in public for fear of unknown ill fate. But the story is different now.

A girl who got admitted to Kamuzu Central Hospital almost the same time the Linthipe III accident took place attracted the attention of other patients when she claimed to be Satanist and linked the accident to Satanism.

Nurses who listened to the girl’s confessions refused to grant a news interview days after the girl had been discharged, saying they were afraid she would attack them mysteriously.

“I have heard a lot of weird things about Satanists so I do not want to say anything about this girl,” said one of the nurses, a few days after the girl was discharge.

Workers at the hospital said a Catholic nun offered to take the girl to a Sisters’ house to conduct special prayers for her but things did not work out.

Information sourced from the Internet indicates that Satanists believe that there is no heaven for the righteous or hell where sinners will roast or perish. Neither do they believe in the Buddha’s reincarnations, any myths of Judaism, Islam or Upanishad. “They are irrelevant and silly ideas”.

Longman dictionary of contemporary English describes Satan as the Devil, considered as the chief evil power or as God’s opponent. It also defines Satanism as the worshipping of the Devil.

A police officer who saw the letter by the teacher who claimed to be Satanist, doubted the authenticity of those who claim to be Satanists, saying real Satanists are likely to keep their acts under the carpet, the way witches or wizards do.

According to him, some people may claim to be Satanists simply to scare others who they would like to see intimidated.

Some information indicates that Satanists are different from Devil worshippers, although some Devil worshippers claim to be Satanists.

http://www.nationmalawi.com/articles.asp?articleID=9072

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

And on the other side of the coin:

Kill accused 'thought he was Christ'

By Kylie Williams and Tara Raven
11oct04

A MAN accused of murdering an elderly Sydney woman believed he was the reincarnation of Christ and was responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US and the Bali bombings.

Greg Philip Matthew Kinloch, 35, today pleaded not guilty in the NSW Supreme Court to the murder of June Mary Booth on the grounds of diminished responsibility because of mental illness.

Kinloch's mother Madeleine Kinloch told the court today that at the time of the killing her son thought he was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and felt responsible for the September 11 attacks in New York as well as the Bali bombings.

Mrs Booth, a 72-year-old retired school headmistress and charity worker, was walking home through Greenwood Park, North Ryde, about 2.30pm (AEST) on August 28 last year when she was attacked by Kinloch.

"There is no disputing in this case that the accused killed Mrs Booth ... the only case to dispute is his mental state at the time," Kinloch's counsel John Stratton, SC, said.






Mrs Kinloch said her son first started displaying signs of a mental illness at the age of 19 after a traumatic breakup with a girlfriend.

He was also smoking cannabis heavily at the time, she said.

"He tried to commit suicide, he tried to cut his wrists," she said.

In 1999, he would intermittently stay with his parents, who had recently reconciled, at their Laguna home and again started showing signs of mental illness, this time schizophrenia, the court heard.

"He became emotionally and physically detached from us," she said.

Although he had trained and worked as a civil engineer, he became unemployed and when not staying with his parents lived off the streets in Sydney, she said.

Mrs Kinloch said her son started getting eccentric ideas about the Bible and "thought he was the reincarnation of Jesus".

When the September 11 attacks in the US and the Bali bombings occurred he blamed himself, she said.

"He was distraught, (he thought) he was responsible for it," she said of the terror attacks.

"Anytime anything bad happened he felt he was responsible."

She said Kinloch also had to stop reading the newspapers and watching television because he thought he was getting messages from them.

Mrs Kinloch said since her son had been treated in the psychiatric hospital at Long Bay Jail he was "human" again.

However she said "there's a long way to go" before he would be back to being the son she once knew.

But crown prosecutor Paul Lynch said Kinloch could still tell right from wrong at the time of the murder, despite his mental illness.

He said the attack on Mrs Booth was random and unprovoked.

"It was a completely unprovoked and random attack," Mr Lynch said.

The judge alone trial will continue tomorrow.

http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,11042251%5E1702,00.html

Messianic delsuions are relatively common as are Antichrist ones - it'd be fun to get a bunch of them together and get them to argue it out.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Diary of alleged satanic gang leader sheds light on murders

13.10.2004 3.20 pm By PETER POPHAM in Rome

The publication yesterday of chilling diary entries by the alleged leader of a satanic gang accused of three murders in a small town outside Milan, has helped to shed light on a gruesome case that has shocked Italy.

The group of heavy metal fans from Varese are facing prosecutors this week to answer questions in connection with the deaths of three of their companions in what the diary extracts describe as drug-fuelled orgies.

The horrific killings came to light earlier this year, and the Italian public has looked on aghast as details apparently linking the young men and women not merely to raucous rock music but to devil worship and black masses were breathlessly reported.

The discovery of the body of Mariangela Pezzotta, buried in a shallow grave after being shot in January, led police to the gang, and to the discovery that two other members of the group, Fabio Tollis and Chiara Marino, had been killed back in 1998 and their bodies buried in a wood.

The killings were grisly, but the evidence linking them to satanic rites seemed thin, based more on a readiness on the part of Italian media to believe the worst of these hirsute outlaws who had clearly turned their back on society's norms.

But now one of the alleged leaders of the group, Andrea Volpe, has turned state's evidence, and pages from a notebook he kept during the years when he and his associates were terrorising each other have been leaked to the press.

They indicate that if the gang members were not fully paid up black magicians, they at least believed that they were performing rites of some kind.

The notebook contains what appear to be snatches of lyrics for nasty songs - "blood and death, blood raining down, blood bathing all my body, blood thirsty for blood" - "we are nasty individuals, we plague people and we play with their lives" - "we don't know pity, we know only hatred and evil" - "crush those who are our friends, or who would like to be but aren't up to it, crush them then laugh."

But they also contain pages and pages on how the group's "rites" must be conducted, and the dangers to be avoided.

"Madness is always one of the risks," the notes warn. "It's necessary to maintain concentration on hatred..."

"The two leaders who direct the rite must act separately and not listen to each other..."

The bag which contained the notebook also held items such as teeth, nails and human hair which police believe had a ritual purpose.

In his first appearance in court this week, Mr Volpe described the bizarre celebration held in a lonely chalet in January of this year which culminated in him and another of the accused, Elisabetta Ballarin, shooting Mariangela Pezzotta, Volpe's former girlfriend.

"Mariangela's death happened during dinner," Volpe told the prosecutor.

"I asked Elisabetta" - Volpe's girlfriend at the time of the shooting - "to take the rifle and make sure that Mariangela did not leave the room. Before killing her we toasted each other in champagne, all together."

Mariangela, who is said to have known about the previous murders committed by the group and had threatened to make them public, seems to have understood where the evening was leading: both Volpe and Pezzotta were armed, both under the influence of drugs.

Finally in her terror Mariangela broke down, screaming at her former boyfriend that he had given her "ten years of hell" - whereupon Volpe shot her in the face.

He then telephoned Niccola Sapone, the plumber who is the group's alleged leader, also in court this week, and told him "We're going to drink the beer" - code for telling him the deed had been done.

Sapone ran over to the isolated chalet where the shooting had occurred, Volpe said, only to discover that the unfortunate Mariangela was still alive.

"This is disgusting," he railed at them, "you don't even know how to kill someone" - then finished her off with a shovel.

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

THAILAND

Thailand to tackle occult killings

Posted Wed, 13 Oct 2004

Thailand to tackle kingdom's supernatural obsession after occult killing The Thai government announced plans on Wednesday to tackle the kingdom's obsession with the supernatural following the brutal slaying of a young girl by her family in an occult ritual.

The government said it would launch a public awareness campaign to rid the nation of non-traditional supernatural beliefs, and would require all people working as psychics or mystical healers to report to local officials.

The crackdown was sparked by the horrific murder of a 12-year-old Thai girl last week who allegedly had her throat repeatedly slashed by her mother, grandmother and two aunts in a ritual to rid her of an evil spirit.

Police found Prapasorn Jiamcharoen dead in a pool of blood with multiple slash wounds to her neck as the women chanted upstairs to a Hindu goddess they had built a cult around.

"We will not force people to change their beliefs by law but we will educate them that some beliefs, like killing people, are a crime and it is not the right think to do," Thaweesin Wisanuyothin of the Thai Department of Mental Health told AFP.

"There are some groups of people who are just criminals and they want to take advantage of people by providing false beliefs," he said.

Interior ministry officials were set to begin investigating psychics linked to illegal activities such as fraud, while the culture ministry and department of mental health would focus on education, according to the Bangkok Post.

About 95 percent of Thais are Buddhist but a strong animist tradition remains, with "spirit doctors" across the country who say they can help rid people of curses and ghosts.

Thaweesin said the campaign would only target non-traditional beliefs deemed to be dangerous or detrimental to people.

"Most beliefs are good because this means people are solving their own mental problems," said Thaweesin.

http://iafrica.com/news/worldnews/353118.htm

 

[Leaferne]

13 years for Satanic killing

A biker gang member has been sentenced to 13-years in prison after pleading guilty in a satanic killing in Ottawa.

Nelson Carey will serve the sentence concurrently with a nine-year sentence for robbery that began in 1997.

The 28-year old pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder in the grisly 1999 killing of Eric Thorne.

31-year-old Yan Osborne was given a life sentence in 2000 for the killing, which he described as a satanic human sacrifice.

----

More details from the Ottawa Citizen:

A biker gang member was sentenced to 13 years in prison yesterday after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit murder in the grisly June 1999 killing and dismemberment of Eric Thorne in Gatineau.

Nelson Carey, 28, was to have been tried for first-degree murder this week in the satanic killing of Mr. Thorne, 25. Mr. Carey's sentence will be served concurrently with a nine-year sentence for robbery he has been serving since 1997.

The killer, Yan Osborne, known as the Butcher of Gatineau, said he worshipped Satan and claimed he planned the murder as a satanic "human sacrifice." Mr. Osborne, 31, received a life sentence for the killing in 2000.

Assistant Crown attorney Genevieve Depassille said evidence presented in court yesterday showed Mr. Carey told Mr. Osborne, while both were in prison, that he wanted Mr. Thorne killed. Ms. Depassille said there was no evidence to show that the murder was done for money.

Investigators determined the motive was a dispute over a woman.

"The new girlfriend of Mr. Carey was the old girlfriend of Mr. Thorne," Ms. Depassille said. Mr. Carey "was using her to get him drugs in jail in 1999."

In a letter introduced in court during Mr. Osborne's trial in 2000, Mr. Carey threatened to have Mr. Thorne killed for beating and threatening his ex-girlfriend, who had become close to Mr. Carey. "You have threatened my future wife ... and in doing so, have declared war against me," Mr. Carey wrote. "We are dreaming of seeing you in newspapers with '7' holes in your body."

During his trial, Mr. Osborne coldly confessed, saying that Mr. Thorne was meant to be a human sacrifice to Satan.

Mr. Osborne described smashing the victim's head repeatedly with a metal bar and jumping on the body in a fit of joy as blood splattered on the walls.

He later drank the victim's blood, then sawed his body into six pieces, using a knife to decorate them.

The Crown prosecutor at the time told reporters he believed Mr. Osborne concocted the macabre story to distract attention from his connections to a Rock Machine biker gang member the prosecution believed ordered the hit.

"What I wanted to do with that moron (Mr. Thorne) was make a human sacrifice. But you can't do a sacrifice with a dead body," Mr. Osborne said.

He said he had participated in satanic rituals for years.

Mr. Thorne was killed on June 10, 1999.

But because of a slight overdose of the hallucinogenic drug PCP, Mr. Osborne said, it was nearly two days later before he got around to drinking his former friend's blood and sawing his body into pieces.

After the dismemberment, he took Mr. Thorne's head and propped it on a table while he ate his dinner.

"I got hungry, so I made pork chops," Mr. Osborne told the court.

"I grabbed the head, and put it on the table (because) I didn't have anybody to talk to. I told him I was happy to have killed him because he was ugly.

"I don't have a remorseful conscience," he added.

Mr. Thorne's body parts were found stuffed into garbage bags in the bathroom of a Maloney Boulevard apartment in Gatineau.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Genuinely weird stuff:

Now, the Pelosi Trial Invokes a Realm of the Supernatural

By PATRICK HEALY

Published: November 5, 2004

RIVERHEAD, N.Y., Nov. 4 - The murder case against Daniel Pelosi, the Long Island electrician accused of murdering the multimillionaire R. Theodore Ammon, was already plenty bizarre, with tales of 0,000 hotel bills, secret surveillance systems and stolen human ashes.

But on Thursday, it entered the realm of the occult.

Mr. Pelosi's lawyer, Gerald Shargel, argued in court that members of Mr. Pelosi's family had turned on the suspect, testifying against him because they believed they had been cursed. They accused Mr. Ammon's estranged wife, Generosa, of being a witch, Mr. Shargel said. Ms. Ammon married Mr. Pelosi three months after her husband was fatally beaten in his East Hampton home in October 2001.

"The whole witchcraft story explains in exquisite detail that we're dealing with some unusual people," Mr. Shargel said outside State Supreme Court here.

The Ammons had been mired in a bitter divorce when Mr. Pelosi entered the picture, hired as a contractor to help renovate an Upper East Side town house where Ms. Ammon had planned to live with her two children. Mr. Pelosi and Ms. Ammon began an affair.

Many in Mr. Pelosi's family did not like Ms. Ammon and suspected that the marriage was one of Mr. Pelosi's "get-rich" schemes, family members have testified. But after Mr. Pelosi's older brother, James, a New York City police officer, died suddenly in March 2002, the family began to blame Ms. Ammon for the death, Mr. Shargel said.

Certain signs pointed to witchcraft, he said.

Some family members saw the face of a demon appear in a photo of Mr. Pelosi's dead brother, deep in the folds of an American flag in the backdrop, he said. And one of Mr. Pelosi's sisters saw a pair of Ms. Ammon's shoes beside a tree in a family member's backyard, he said, and took their presence to be a sign of witchcraft.

"The spell stuff starts as soon as the brother dies," Mr. Shargel said outside court. "The devil enters when she sees the shoes."

Mr. Shargel brought up the talk of witchcraft as Mr. Pelosi's sister Barbara Lukert testified that she had seen her brother at her home in Center Moriches hours before Mr. Ammon was thought to have been killed. When Mr. Shargel questioned Ms. Lukert about the demonic shoes, the prosecutor, Janet Albertson, cut in.

Ms. Albertson argued that Ms. Lukert could not testify about other family members' suspicions about Ms. Ammon having supernatural powers because of rules preventing hearsay testimony.

Mr. Shargel said that the stories show that Mr. Pelosi's family members, many of whom are prosecution witnesses, are biased against Mr. Pelosi.

A decision on whether the testimony would be allowed was expected on Monday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/nyregion/05pelosi.html

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Judge to decide on withcraft in Pelosi trial


November 8, 2004, 11:21 AM EST

The judge in Daniel Pelosi's murder trial today is expected to decide how allegations of magic spells and curses will play a role in the trial.

The mystical twist came on Thursday, when Pelosi's lawyer told the judge that his client's family believed Pelosi's wife, Generosa Ammon, was the devil, and that she had cast a spell on their entire family.

The lawyer, Gerald Shargel of Manhattan, said that several months after Generosa Ammon's first husband, Theodore Ammon, was killed in October 2001, one of Pelosi's sisters spotted a pair of Generosa Ammon's shoes beside a tree outside her home. The sister took this to be a sign that Generosa Ammon had caused the death of a brother, James Pelosi, in March 2002 from a seizure.

The allegations of magic spells and curses set off a flurry of legal parrying that State Supreme Court Justice Robert W. Doyle said he would resolve after seeing legal briefs from both sides.

The bizarre claims came as Shargel began to question Pelosi's sister Barbara Lukert, a prosecution witness, about why Pelosi's relationship with Generosa Ammon had driven a wedge between him and some relatives.

Prosecutor Janet Albertson objected to his question about the spell. The jury was excused for the day, and Lukert was led from the courtroom before a heated exchange erupted between Albertson and Shargel.

Pelosi, who married Generosa Ammon after Theodore Ammon's death, is accused of murder.

-----------------
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Scary stuff:

Sword death haunts workers

Witnesses describe frenzied attack, shock that followed

November 22, 2004

BY BEN SCHMITT
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

The metal worker stood over a circular metal grinder, sharpening a 3-foot-long, silver-colored rod.

His coworkers paid him no mind.

"We had gotten off early that night," recalled laborer Henry Tabb. "I went to punch out and I heard a grinding noise. I started to go back there and saw his back turned to me. He was wearing a green hoodie. He was back there grinding something. I didn't know what it was."

The next night was Oct. 27. A lunar eclipse blotted out the moon.

The workers at the Peerless Metal Powders & Abrasives plant in southwest Detroit would soon learn exactly what their coworker James Flemons had fashioned 24 hours earlier.

It was a sword.

They say Flemons, 30, attacked a 43-year-old colleague, Anthony Williams of Detroit, with the weapon, killing him.

That night, Tabb recalls standing mesmerized as Flemons chased Williams through the plant, striking him repeatedly.

"James was hitting him in the back of the neck with that sword," he said. "He just kept doing it and doing it. Then he reached down and rolled him over on his back and again started hitting on his neck."

At one point, Tabb tried to intervene with a shovel.

"Man, what are you doing?" Tabb screamed to Flemons.

Flemons turned around and calmly uttered: "Stay out of my business."

Police said by the time Flemons finished, Williams was nearly decapitated.

The vision of the attack keeps Tabb, 45, up at night. When he recounts it, he cries.

Tabb is seeking counseling to cope with his shock. But there's still one detail that puzzles him.

"The strangest thing is that I wasn't afraid for me," he said recently from his apartment on Fort Street in southwest Detroit. "It was like James was just focused on Anthony. I just don't know why."

Candles and crossbones

How Flemons got to the point of a first-degree murder charge for allegedly hacking to death a coworker on the shop floor in front of at least three other witnesses remains a mystery.

But he was strange, his coworkers said.

They said he painted his nails black. He burned candles at work. He talked about occult and fantasy games like Dungeons & Dragons.

"But I really thought it was all an act," said Keith Odom, 45, of Detroit, who quit after the slaying because he didn't feel he could continue there. "James said a lot of strange things, satanic foolishness. I brushed it off."

Benedict Aguilar runs a ramshackle religious supplies store near the plant named Benedict's Gift Shop. Flemons visited the store weekly, perusing the colored candles, statues, incense and semiprecious stones. He lived just across an I-75 bridge, at the Hotel Yorba, on West Lafayette.

"He said he knew all about different religions and was pretty advanced, so he created his own religion," Aguilar said. "He knew what he was buying. He said he took what he wanted out of different religions and put into one."

Flemons purchased one item regularly for his home altar: a large black candle in glass. It cost $1.79 and was emblazoned with a skull and crossbones. Its slogan read: "Death Unto My Enemies."

"He said his relatives were doing evil things to him," Aguilar said. "He said he needed protection. I meet a lot of people in here, so that wasn't very shocking to me."

The dynamic between Flemons and his family remains unclear. Family members refused to comment after a recent court hearing at which he was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation before a Jan. 19 hearing. He is being evaluated at the Center for Forensic Psychiatry in Ypsilanti.

Flemons was convicted in 1999 for attacking his uncle, Charles Flemons, now deceased, at a home on Lexington in Detroit. He was also charged with attacking an arresting Detroit police officer in the incident.

Flemons' weapon: a 4-foot long, chrome-plated samurai sword. He kept it in his bedroom.

Neither victim was seriously injured, but Flemons spent six months on a home tether and served two years of probation.

"His family has some fairly strongly held and traditional Christian beliefs, so they didn't know what to make of him," said Flemons' attorney, David Roby of Southgate. "It's not that they aren't supportive of him. I just don't know if they understand him. They are more toward the power of prayer than psychiatric intervention."

Roby said he's considering an insanity defense. He is not aware of any previous psychiatric care.

"Once you scratch the surface with him, the depth of his psychosis is obvious," Roby said.

Harassment allegations

In Flemons' two statements to police, he said a barrage of bullying and harassment by his coworkers caused him to snap.

He said workers referred to him as Crazy Mother expletive, instead of by his name.

Roby said workers constantly pelted him with metal that was lying around the plant, which manufactures the metal dust in brakes.

"He would get beaned with metal, and the other guys would just smirk at him," Roby said. "He was subjected to an awful lot of abuse."

Coworkers Odom and Tabb have different versions.

"That's all bull, man," Odom said. "There wasn't anyone harassing him."

Tabb said: "There was no animosity between James and any of us. I never saw Anthony saying anything wrong to him. That Tuesday night, the night before, we were all just kicking it, talking and stuff."

Odom acknowledged some workers called Flemons "Fingers" because of the black fingernail polish he wore.

The victim's cousin, Allen Williams, 34, said Anthony Williams had been working at the plant for about a year. Anthony Williams was an ex-convict who served 10 years in prison on a larceny conviction, which violated an earlier probation sentence on a drug charge. He got out in 2002 and looked up his cousin Allen, a Detroit cop.

"He was getting his life together and staying out of trouble," Allen Williams said. "That's all we talked about. He just wanted to make the best of the rest of his life. He was clean. He came over once or twice a week. We'd sit down and watch the Lions. He was settled down, just living and not bothering anybody. I just don't believe that bullying part."

Anthony Williams' mother, Lela Singleton, who lives in Cleveland, visited the plant after the slaying.

"There's got to be more to this story," she said. "A supervisor told me Anthony had only been working with the suspect for a short period of time. But my other question is, how did that place let him carry a weapon around like that?"

Peerless officials and owner Paul Tousley declined comment for this story.

Tabb has a theory about the harassment allegations.

"Maybe it was in James' mind," he said. "Or he made it up after he realized what he'd done."

Minutes before Flemons allegedly took a sword to Williams' head, he grabbed a hunk of metal from the shop floor and handed it to Williams, who tossed it to the floor and asked, "What's this for?"

Flemons walked away, Tabb said.

"Then he came back swinging this piece of metal, like a sword," Tabb said.

After the attack, workers ran across the street to a coney island and called police.

They watched Flemons walk out of the shop onto Livernois and down Fort Street to a convenience store. He bought a 32-ounce bottle of Budweiser and a cigar. He had the sword in his hand.

While Flemons was at the store, a coney island employee ran to the plant to check on Williams. He was dead.

Flemons returned and set the sword down on a window ledge, Odom said. Flemons went back inside. Odom said the other workers stood on Livernois and peered inside a large door that opens onto a dark chamber containing machinery, a furnace with a visible flame and a large pile of metal filings. They watched as Flemons spread Williams' arms out, almost in a crucifixion-like pose.

Then Flemons went outside and sat down next to his car, waiting for the police, sipping the beer and smoking the cigar. When they arrived, he lifted his shirt to show that he had no weapon and put his hands behind his back.

The aftermath

Odom quit his $8-an-hour job at Peerless shortly after the slaying.

Tabb still works there. But it's tough.

"I can't even walk near the spot where Anthony's body was," he said. "I can't drive a Hi-Lo over there. I'll drive all the way around the building just to avoid that area."

Tabb said grief counselors visited the plant Nov. 11 and recommended that he see a psychiatrist.

"I struggle to talk about it because it brings it all back to me," Tabb said, crying. "I can't sleep, man. I still can't believe that it happened right in front of my face."

Odom, who saw Williams' bloodied body, said he's having trouble sleeping, too.

"When I lay down, I think about things, and wonder whether it could have been me," he said. "I don't know why he chose Anthony. I don't know of any reason why he killed that man. It just seems like a complete waste of two lives."

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Mentally ill man killed 'possessed' uncle

23/11/2004 - 13:18:09

A mentally ill man who killed his uncle because he believed he was possessed by the devil was found guilty but insane at the Central Criminal Court today.

John McInerney, 52, from Bell Harbour, Co Clare, was charged with the murder of 82-year-old Sean Daly on April 30 last year.

The jury heard evidence that McInerney was a schizophrenic who had been admitted to psychiatric hospitals on 16 different occasions. On the night before the murder, he became extremely restless when he heard noises in the street outside the home he shared with his uncle and his elderly mother.

He believed the devil was trying to break into the house and armed himself with an axe and a stick with eight notches, which he believed had special powers.

In the morning he was still disturbed and wanted to go to a nearby Friary to explain the experience he had.

His mother became alarmed and left the house, where Sean Daly was still sleeping in bed. McInerney then carried out a frenzied attack on the elderly man, using a hand axe, a splitting axe, the stick with eight notches and a pitchfork.

He told a neighbour afterwards: “I had to do it, I had to do it, the devil was in him.”

After a one-hour trial, the jury returned an instant verdict of guilty but insane. Mr Justice Paul Carney ordered that McInerney be detained in the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum, Co Dublin.

McInerney was arrested on the day of the murder and brought to Limerick prison. He was assessed there by two doctors and transferred to the central mental hospital the next day.

The jury heard evidence from Dr Henry Gerard Kennedy, who is a forensic psychiatrist and also the clinical director of the hospital. He interviewed McInerney and examined his records at the hospital and photocopies of his records from the local hospital in Ennis, Co Clare.

Dr Kennedy said McInerney had schizophrenia, which was the most severe of all mental illnesses. He said it affected up to one person in every thousand of the population and caused a severe impairment of mental facilities.

“It leads to delusion and hallucinations and hearing voices when there’s nobody there.

“It’s characterised also by an instability of emotional life, not connecting with what’s going on in the real world,” he said.

He said at the time of the murder McInerney was severely ill, deluded, quite probably hallucinating and in a disturbed emotional state.

Senior counsel for the defence Patrick McEntee, asked Dr Kennedy what McInerney’s mental capacity was at the time of the murder.

“He was labouring under a defect of reason from disease of the mind, the disease being schizophrenia.”

He added that the 52-year-old believed he was doing something right by killing his uncle as he thought his uncle was possessed by the devil.

“He was in such a mental state because of his delusional beliefs that he could not think of any alternative possibility,” said Dr Kennedy.

He added that McInerney had attacked his uncle with a variety of blows. “The extent of the blows is something you see in someone who is in a highly aroused emotional estate, when far more force is used than is necessary.”

Mr McEntee asked him if it would have been possible for McInerney to stop carrying out the attack on his uncle. “I think his capacity to do so was tantamount to being absent,” said Dr Kennedy.

McInerney had disappeared from his home one month before the killing. On St Patrick’s Day neighbours found him standing on a high altar of a ruined monastery holding a pitch fork and a can of “holy water”.

Dr Kennedy said McInerney had been trying to ward off the devil and had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital that day. He was released on April 14 and his condition deteriorated.

He became worried about his dog which he believed to be possessed by the devil. He killed the dog with similar implements to those used in the killing of Sean Daly.

He also began a ritual of placing an axe under the hold bible so that its special religious power would enter the weapon.

Dr Kennedy said that he did not believe McInerney was deceiving him about his condition. He told the jury that the man was now taking a large number of medications including antidepressants, anti-psychotic drugs and tranquillisers.

Gerard Kearns who lived in a house 150 yards away said he had been called to the scene by McInerney’s mother.

“She said she thought John had killed Jack (Sean),” he said.

He brought McInerney into his house and called the gardaí. McInerney then arrived at the house in a distressed state, looking for his mother.

“Oh sure he was nowhere. He was trembling like a leaf and there was all blood on his clothes and shoes,” said Mr Kearns.

“He hadn’t a clue what it was. Just as long as his mother was safe, he was happy.”

He told Mr McEntee there was not a doubt in his mind that McInerney did not know what he was doing or saying. Mr McEntee told the jury that all the evidence pointed towards the fact the McInerney was legally insane.

He said it was a tragic case in which McInerney had killed his own uncle who had moved into the house to protect him after his father died.

The jury should not be concerned that a guilty but insane verdict would allow McInerney to be released prematurely from the central mental hospital.

“They (the patients) will be detained there until such time as ever they cease to be a danger to themselves and others,” he said.

Mr Justice Paul Carney said the usual murder trial would run for three weeks and his concluding address would last for two hours. But he noted that this case was different.

After his short address outlining the option, the jury found McInerney guilty but insane.

Source