Occult Deaths

[Mighty_Emperor]

Jodi trial shown 'Satanic' jotter

The jury in the Jodi Jones murder trial has been shown her boyfriend's school jotter, which was covered in Satanic slogans.

Luke Mitchell, who is now 16, and denies killing the Midlothian teenager, handed in an essay with references to the Devil, a court heard.

His former teacher told the High Court in Edinburgh she was concerned about an essay entitled Pain and Suffering.

It questioned God's existence and said the world needed Satanic people.

The teenager, who was 14 at the time Jodi died, has lodged two special defences, one of alibi and one of incrimination.

Geraldine Mackie, 41, taught Mr Mitchell in his third year at St David's Roman Catholic High School in Dalkeith.

She expressed concern about his English essay which said: "People like you need Satanic people like me to keep the balance."

Mrs Mackie showed the court Mr Mitchell's English jotter which had the numbers 666 and references to the devil on the front cover.

This is an assortment of rubbish on a kid's jotter, isn't it?
Donald Findlay
Defence counsel

The word Satan was written across the back of the jotter with the phrase: "I have tasted the devil's green blood."

She told prosecuting advocate Alan Turnbull QC that she referred the teenager to a guidance teacher after he wrote the essay, the first time she had taken the step with a pupil in 15 years as a teacher.

In another essay, Mr Mitchell wrote: "So what if I am a Goth in a Catholic school? So what if I dress in baggy clothes?

"Just because I am more violent than others and cut myself, does that justify some pompous git of a teacher to refer me to a psychiatrist?

"Just because I have chosen to follow the teachings of Satan doesn't mean I need psychiatric help."

Defence advocate, Donald Findlay, QC, suggested that Mr Mitchell was just another rebellious pupil.

Mrs Mackie said: "Well, from my point of view I was quite concerned about him and the nature of his rebellion."

A passage in an essay read: "How can anyone be good because without evil there can be no good, so it must be good to be evil."

Four-letter insults

Mr Findlay said: "It seems to be pretty thoughtful for his tender years."

The QC showed the court words scrawled on the back of Mr Mitchell's school jotters which included four-letter insults levelled at the Queen and the world and another profane demand that people "stay out of my mind".

Mr Findlay asked: "This is an assortment of rubbish on a kid's jotter, isn't it?"

Mrs Mackie replied: "Yes."

The court also heard extracts from Jodi Jones' diary where she'd written she thought she was in love with Luke Mitchell.

Michelle Tierney, 17, a former classmate of Mr Mitchell's, told the court he said he had imagined himself getting "stoned" and killing someone.

She said Mr Mitchell said it would be funny, before he stubbed a cigarette out on his hand.

Mr Mitchell denies murdering his 14-year-old girlfriend Jodi last June.

The trial before Lord Nimmo Smith continues.

---------------------
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/u ... 042321.stm

Published: 2004/11/25 17:56:20 GMT

© BBC MMIV

JODI JONES MURDER TRIAL: YOU NEED SATANIC PEOPLE LIKE ME TO HELP BALANCE

Nov 26 2004

Accused's essay worried his teacher

By Gordon Mcilwraith

MURDER accused Luke Mitchell wrote a disturbing school essay praising Satan, it was revealed yesterday.

It was supposed to be a short story about the end of the world for his English class.

But the teenager referred to shaking hands with the Devil and described Lucifer as a fallen angel.

He also wrote: 'People like you need Satanic people like me to keep the balance.'

His teacher was so worried about the essay - written six months before Jodi Jones was killed - that she suggested Mitchell should get help.

And in another essay he said: 'Whose business is it anyway if I cut myself just because I am more violent than others.'

In several jotters he scribbled his favourite quote from the late Nirvana rock star Kurt Cobain: 'The finest day I ever had was when tomorrow never came.'

The High Court in Edinburgh also heard that Mitchell, now 16, told a girl he could imagine himself getting stoned and killing someone and how funny it would be.

But Donald Findlay, QC, defending, suggested some of Mitchell's words contained sound ideas and were thought-provoking.

He believed they might have been merely the writings of a rebellious teenager.

Geraldine Mackie, 41, who teaches English at St David's High School in Dalkeith, said Mitchell was a third year pupil in her class.

She described him as being 'quite rebellious' and became concerned when he handed in an essay in January last year.

She continued: 'Some of the tone I found worrying. It was the first time I had ever referred on a piece of writing to the guidance staff.

'Quite a few things in it I found a little bit disturbing.'

Advocate depute Alan Turnbull, QC, prosecuting, then read part of the essay which said: 'If God forgives everyone then why the need to be sent to Hell?

'If you ask me, God's just a futile excuse at most for a bunch of fools to go around annoying others who want nothing to do with them.

'Are these people insane? Open your eyes.

'People like you need Satanic people like me to help the balance.

'Once you shake hands with the Devil you then have truly experienced life. Lucifer is a fallen angel.'

Mrs Mackie agreed he had has also written several other things on the cover of jotters including '666', 'SATAN' and 'Master Lead Us Into Hell.'

Mr Turnbull then produced another of Mitchell's jotters which had written on it: 'I offer my flesh, blood and soul to the dark god of Hell.' On yet another he wrote: 'I have tasted the Devil's green blood.'

Mrs Mackie said on a separate occasion she had asked the class to write an essay discussing whether geriatrics should be allowed to die.

This time, part of Mitchell's work said: 'So what if I am a Goth at a Catholic school.

'So what if I dress in baggy clothes and like different music. Whose business is it other than my own if I cut myself? Just because I am more violent than others does that justify some pompous git of a teacher referring me to a psychologist.

'Just because I have chosen to follow the teachings of Satan doesn't mean I need psychiatric help.

'Just because my favourite saying is 'the finest day I ever had was when tomorrow never came' doesn't qualify me as having a troubled life.'

Cross-examined by Mr Findlay, she agreed that some of Mitchell's essay on the end of the world was quite thought-provoking, especially for a 14-year-old boy.

Mr Findlay said: 'We seem to have a young man who, on a view of it, raises challenging views and original questions about the worth of a belief in God.'

She also accepted his description of what was written on Mitchell's jotters as an 'assortment of rubbish.'

Earlier, 17-year-old Michelle Tierney recalled a remark Mitchell made when she and a friend met in a park early last year. She said: 'He said he could imagine himself going out and getting stoned and killing someone and how funny it would be.

'I didn't think it was funny at all. He didn't go into any detail or anything.'

Mitchell, who was smoking a cigarette, then stubbed it out on the back of his hand.

Fellow pupil Richard Travers, 16, who was in Mitchell's form class, remembered once seeing him playing with a knife.

Mitchell made a hand movement across his neck and remarked that was the way to slit a person's throat.

Mitchell denies murdering 14-year-old Jodi on June 30 last year at an area near Roan's Dyke path in Dalkeith, Midlothian, by slashing her with a knife.

He has lodged defences of alibi and incrimination to the murder allegation.

Mitchell has also pleaded not guilty to carrying a knife or knives and supplying cannabis.

Jodi's mum, Judith, is expected to give evidence today.

Source

 

[Anonymous]

mortal talk

we are all mortals, we live and life is us.
if we wanna understand why things happen, that
dont in our life... we must bring our life to those things.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Pardon?

-------------
Anyway onwards:

Shaman admits poisoning seven clients seeking fortune

National News - December 09, 2004

Nana Rukmana, The Jakarta Post/Cirebon

Police disclosed on Wednesday that the police had discovered the motive behind the deaths of seven people seeking good fortune via supernatural means in Tegal regency.

Iskandar, a shaman and the main suspect in the case, has confessed to police investigators that he put poison in the 'magic potions' he gave his victims, who were his clients,

According to Iskandar, 42, he had decided to kill the clients as he was fed up with their attitude. He claimed that the clients had repeatedly reminded him of his earlier promises that he could make them very rich. The clients also demanded that he return their money, amounting to Rp 10 million (US$1,111) per client. The shaman had earlier requested the money from his clients, saying that he would return Rp 1 billion each to them.

The murders began when nine clients, from various parts of Tegal regency, Central Java, met the shaman on the evening of last Wednesday in Kupu subdistrict, where Rofi'i, a client, lives. During the meeting, the nine were requested by Iskandar to participate in various rituals and to drink the potion, which had been "blessed" by him.

The magic potion had to be consumed on Thursday night (a sacred time for the Javanese), said Iskandar.

The clients drank the beverage separately in their homes a day later, and five of them, including a husband and wife, died as a result. Two others, Suwirjo, 53 and Ning Tati, 50, another husband-and-wife couple, were found dead later on Thursday near the local cemetery in Kejambon subdistrict, Tegal regency. Two others survived the poisoning attempt after being admitted to the local hospital.

Source

 

[Anonymous]

sorry... random quips of a daft mortal

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

'devil told me to kill'

A DEVOTED husband strangled his wheelchair-bound wife because he thought she was the devil.

'Demonic voices' drove Brendan Courtney, 50, of Heeley Road, St Annes, to kill his wife of more than 25 years, Preston Crown Court heard.

Courtney, a paranoid schizophrenic, pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility at a hearing last year.

Today, he was ordered to be indefinitely detained under the mental health act.

Passing sentence, Judge Peter Openshaw QC, said Courtney killed his wife in 'brutal and terrible circumstances.' He added: "The reality is he (Courtney) may be detained for very many years and it may never be safe to release him."

Howard Bentham QC, prosecuting, told the court that Courtney, a former postman, was devoted to his wife and acted as her full time carer when she was hit by a muscle wasting disease.

The disease left Mrs Courtney, 47, dependant on others and while the couple's two adult children did what they could, it was their father who bore the brunt of the caring responsibilities.

But this put a lot of stress on the defendant and he would regularly empty drawers and clean the house for no reason as he struggled to come to terms with his own illness, the court heard.

On the morning of July 19, the couple's daughter, Louise, went to the family home to check on her parents and found her father sat in the front room next to her mother, whom he said was sleeping.

Mrs Courtney looked pale and had blood on her nose and lips so Louise called the police and ambulance. She was pronounced dead at the scene and Mr Courtney was arrested.

A Home Office pathologist found Mrs Courtney had been strangled and had a number of other injuries to her body.

Mr Bentham told the court that in his police interview, Courtney denied killing his wife and spoke of three demonic voices in his head.

He agreed that he had put his arm across her throat but said it was not his wife, it was a devil.

Mr Bentham said: "Courtney said it was not his wife, he said it was a very evil person and that his wife was not dead, just sleeping."

John Jones QC, defending, told the court: "The defendant loved his wife dearly and dedicated his life to her care and wellbeing.

Chaos

"Quite clearly he was unable to cope.

"Where others perceived complete chaos in the house, his perception was that he was organising cleaning and looking after his wife.

"Nothing could be further from that."

After reading detailed medical reports Judge Openshaw added: "Mr Courtney has a long psychiatric history and has for a number of years suffered gross delusions and intrusions on his mental state.

"On the night of July 18/19 subject to the delusion that his wife was possessed by a devil he killed her in the most brutal and terrible circumstances."

-----------------
07 February 2005

Source

 

[MrRING]

Just saw a special on filmmaker Allen Ross, killed by his girlfriend who was the leader of something called the Samaritan Foundation, which believed in dowsing the future...

The Story of Allen Ross

In 1995 Chicago-area filmmaker Allen Ross disappeared. For about five years his body went undiscovered, and the mystery of his disappearance went unsolved. A long-time collaborator and friend of Ross, Christian Bauer worked to make a documentary about his friend and to uncover clues in a case that had gone cold.

The following offers a brief recounting of Allen Ross’s life and the events following his murder. If you have followed the press coverage closely, then this piece probably will not tell you anything new. But if you are looking for some background, then this story will provide a quick overview.

Beginnings
Allen Ross was born in 1953 and raised in Naperville, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. He first discovered filmmaking during his senior year at Naperville Central High School, and he later studied it at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Ross went on to a fairly successful career. He worked as an editor for Wild Kingdom, and he directed his own projects such as Ordinary Conversations about Extraordinary Matters (1993). In 1976, along with several others, he founded the Chicago Filmmakers and taught film classes in windy city.

Ross also worked as a camera operator for other directors, including German documentarian Christian Bauer. The two met in 1988 while working in a documentary about Chicago, and they eventually worked on seven films together.

Uprooting
While teaching a film class, Ross met Linda Greene, whom he quickly married and with whom he moved to Guthrie, Oklahoma, in 1993. This came a surprise to people close to the filmmaker, who had not been married before and who had called the Chicago area home for most of his life.

Linda Greene was no ordinary woman. She founded the Samaritan Foundation, an organization suspected of having connections with David Koresh and the Branch Davidians. Before her marriage to Ross, she had had five other husbands. Friends suspect he got pulled into Greene’s bizarre cult.

In 1995 the couple moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Missing
On October 16, 1995, Ross called his father from St. Louis, where he was working on a feature-length documentary about the Mississippi River for German television. After that, he was never heard from again.

It took two searches almost five years apart to find the body.

The police first searched the house at 303 E. 17th in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1995 at the suggestion of Denis Greene, Linda’s former husband before Ross. They turned up nothing and eventually the case went cold and unsolved for almost five years.

Searching
In May 2000 Christian Bauer and Gaylon Emerzian began making Missing Allen. Since the case of Ross’s death had not been solved by police at that point, the filmmakers hired private investigators to help them. The film became a quest to solve the mystery.

Bauer funded the film with money from his own pocket and from a German film foundation. At one point MSNBC showed interest in the documentary, but those plans fell through, along with hopes for funding.

During the course of filming, Devin Williams, a production assistant, found Ross’s 16mm camera. This discovery led police to search the Cheyenne house again.

On July 17, 2000, police repeated the search and found the body buried in the dirt and concrete of the crawlspace. Ross had been shot in the head and had massive skull fractures. According to Police Lt. Bill Stanford, “The first clue was a shoe poking up from the dirt.” Stanford has no explanation for why nothing was found the first time.

Identifying the body was difficult. The police first tried to match dental records, but there was only one tooth, so it only provided a preliminary match in late October 2000. DNA testing provided the final proof.

Allen Ross was buried next to his father, Laurdis.

Closure?
So who killed Allen Ross?

According the Denis Greene, Linda confessed to him killing Ross in 1996. Nothing came of those allegations, and Linda Greene died March 18, 2002, at age 50 of natural causes.

Cheyenne police later charged Julia Williams with being an accessory after the fact. She purportedly helped bury the body and hide the murder weapon, which still has not been found.

Bauer’s film Missing Allen screened at several festivals, including Hot Docs, Montreal International Festival of New Cinema and New Media, and San Jose Cinequest. It was met with positive reception, though the film currently is not available on home video.

By 2001 Bauer had made 29 documentary films, but he insisted that Missing Allen would be his last. “Anything else,” he says, “would be a step back.”

http://www.realityfilm.com/allenross.php

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Henk gets life sentence

BY LEAH THORSEN / Lincoln Journal Star

PAPILLION — He didn't want to give the murderer another chance to grandstand. So when Cass County Attorney Nathan Cox addressed the judge on Friday, he asked that the proceedings move quickly.
Ivan Henk

They did. The 10-minute hearing ended with Sarpy County District Court Judge William Zastera sentencing Ivan Henk to life in prison without parole for murdering his 4-year-old son, Brendan Gonzalez.

The shackled Henk said little as his sentence was handed down.

When he walked into the courtroom, he looked at Brendan's mother, Rebecca Gonzalez, and said he'd never see her again.

"Thank God," she shot back.

Later in the hearing, the judge offered Henk a chance to speak.

"No, thanks," Henk replied, mumbling that he was ready to go to prison.

Brendan, who last was seen with Henk, vanished Jan. 6, 2003, from Plattsmouth.

That June, Henk led police to a Bellevue apartment trash bin where he said he had dumped Brendan's body. DNA tests performed on dried blood found in the bin showed the blood was Brendan's.

That bin was emptied into the Sarpy County landfill.

Searchers spent seven weeks combing the landfill in the hopes of finding Brendan's remains but never found the boy's body.

As part of an agreement hashed out last month, Henk pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in exchange for prosecutors agreeing not to pursue the death penalty.

"I thought I was going to feel much better," Gonzalez said after Friday's sentencing.

Nothing will be better until Brendan's remains are out of the landfill, she said.

"That truly would be the end," agreed Plattsmouth Police Chief Brian Paulsen, who also attended the sentencing.

Paulsen said he's certain Henk decapitated Brendan.

But he still has many questions for Henk and plans to write him in prison to ask for a meeting.

Most of all, Paulsen said, he wants to know how Henk could have killed a 4-year-old child.

Henk's attorney, Jerry Soucie, on Friday offered some explanation for his client's actions.

Henk was abused as a child, the attorney said. His mother died when he was 10, and his father was a paranoid schizophrenic, Soucie said.

These factors would have been used as a defense had the case gone to trial, he said.

Soucie has 30 days to appeal the sentence but said he did not know if he would file such an appeal.

Henk's mental condition has long been in question.

In April 2003, he shouted in a crowded courtroom that he'd killed Brendan because the boy was the Antichrist and had "666" tattooed on his forehead.

According to court documents, Henk believed his son had the power to sap his strength and make demons circle his bedroom.

Henk also believed he'd been subjected to "weird injections" as a small child, the documents stated.

Gonzalez said she didn't buy any of that — lots of people have rough childhoods and never kill their children.

She said Henk was calculating and manipulative but certainly not crazy.

And now, she said, it's time to look forward.

Later this month, she'll graduate with a 4.0 grade-point average from the ITT Technical Institute in Omaha with an associate's degree in applied science in electronics.

And she'll continue her fight to begin another landfill search, though authorities have said another such search is unlikely.

But she's undeterred and said she plans to mount a nationwide campaign to drum up support to keep searching for her son's body.

Said Gonzalez: "I owe it to Brendan."

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

No jail for Santeria priestess

BY CHRISENA COLEMAN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

A Santeria priestess who accidentally killed a Bronx woman by setting her ablaze during a ritual cleansing was sentenced to five years' probation yesterday, despite cries from the victim's family for jail time.

"My sister's life was taken away, and she is never coming home," said Miriam Perez. "We spend each day empty inside and crying endless tears."

"It's just not right for the defendant to walk," she added. "It's upsetting knowing she will walk out [on] the streets and is free to do this to someone else."

Mildred Sanchez, 62, of the Bronx pleaded guilty to one count of criminally negligent homicide in the Feb. 24, 2004, death of 32-year-old Minerva Perez.

Perez, who was HIV positive, was killed during a Santeria ritual that involved the use of a candle, highly flammable Florida Water cologne and a combination of vodka and perfume that Sanchez used to ward off demons.

Perez was naked and bathing in the flammable liquid when it ignited. She sustained second- and third-degree burns over most of her body. The medical examiner ruled the cause of death was a combination of an asthma attack from smoke inhalation and the burns.

Bronx Supreme Court Justice Troy Webber called Perez's death a tragic accident and said Sanchez "will be monitored by probation to ensure it will not happen again."

Sanchez sat nervously through her sentencing. Her attorney, Ed Dudley, said Sanchez "is sorry for what happened and has taken responsibility" for her actions.

---------------------
Originally published on April 15, 2005

Source

 

[lopaka]

Case of the Slain Fortuneteller Holds Detective Spellbound

May 8, 2005

Dana Parsons

Tim Vu knows he shouldn't take the job home with him, but when you're a detective working the kind of murder case he's on, it's hard not to. Especially when seasoned detectives from other departments want to know what's going on.

"This is one of those cases you go into homicide for," Vu says.

What he means is that murders often have a familiar plot line — the domestic dispute that goes haywire, the gang grievance that gets settled on the street. But nowhere in his seven years as a detective in the Westminster Police Department had he run across the kind handed to him two weeks ago.

For any detective who thrives on putting pieces together and immersing himself in the world of the victims, the stabbing deaths of Ha Jade Smith and her daughter, Anita Nhi Vo, present a tantalizing puzzle. The investigation has introduced Vu, 34, to a part of Asian culture he didn't know as well as he thought and to characters he never expected to be relying on for help in cracking a double-murder case.

Like, the witches who have contacted him. And the warlock. And the psychic.

They've emerged because Smith, 52, was identified in the days after her death as a fortuneteller. Vu is convinced she also was a witch — meaning she would have been seen by some potential patrons as capable of casting spells. Paying someone to cast a spell could cost as much as $15,000, he says, adding another potential motive for a killer who might have known Smith had that kind of cash in her home or, possibly, was unhappy about a spell that didn't work.

Mind you, Vu isn't touting either of those as a definitive theory. That's because there's also the matter of the white paint that covered both victims' heads and hands. Vu is trying to determine what that means — or even, he says, if it might be a red herring. "Is it something the suspects did just to throw us off?" he asks, rhetorically. "That's in the back of our minds."

What he's telling me, as we're talking on his day off Friday, is that all of these clues — or non-clues — swirl around in his brain. "You walk in and there are these bodies in the house," he says. "Your job is to basically work your way backward to find out what happened to them."

No matter where the trail leads, it already has taken Vu, who emigrated from Vietnam with his family in 1975, on a journey through his own people's culture.

While he's learned a bit more about witchcraft and ritual killings, he says it's mostly been the subject of fortunetelling that has involved him "and how that plays a role in the Asian community. I was under the belief that somehow it was kind of taboo, that people didn't want other people to know they see a fortuneteller."

Instead, he learned, that for some, "It's a societal norm. It's not seen as unusual."

I ask if, as a Vietnamese man, he'd been unaware of that. "I knew it existed, but what I've come to find out in talking to [fortunetelling] customers, is that they get it almost like therapy."

And so while Vu would describe himself as part of a younger generation of Vietnamese who have assimilated into American culture, the investigation also led him to the past. "I understand Asian culture to a certain degree," he says, "but some of what we're talking about is, I guess, old country." In other words, while seeing fortunetellers isn't an anomaly in Vietnamese culture, neither is it thought of as a modern-day tradition.

In that same vein, Vu says, an older man who once taught in Vietnam has given him "quite an education on certain cultural aspects and how that may apply to the significance of white paint. And that's something I did not know about."

Experts told The Times last week that white can signify mourning or rites of passage, but said it had no obvious meaning in a double-murder case.

Vu believes Smith and her daughter, a 23-year-old Orange Coast College student, were not random victims. But he's still thrashing about as to whether the motive was money or jewelry believed to be in the home, which was ransacked, or something more personal.

"This case is unique," Vu says. "I haven't come across anybody else who's had a case in which the victims' heads and hands were covered in paint. I've had calls from colleagues in other departments too. They feel kind of fascinated by that. It's just not something that happens."

That interest must add to the pressure of solving it. Pressure is always there in double-murders, and while Vu comes across as a cool-headed cop, he concedes that this case has approached the 24/7 level of perpetual thought. "It's hard to separate these cases when you walk out the door that day and just forget about them," he says, "because you're constantly thinking about your next move and how you're going to play this thing out."

Sounds like a heartburn formula for a man who wants to maintain a private life with his wife and two young children. "Some days," Vu says, "it's very challenging to try and keep it in perspective. At the end of the day, you still have a personal life and you try your best to separate the two, but sometimes it's difficult, because you get so consumed with your work that you sometimes forget you need to leave some of that at work."

The case is 2 weeks old but Vu doesn't think the investigation is flagging. Anyone with information can phone police at (714) 898-3315, Ext. 529.

Vu knows he has a high-profile whodunit on his hands. He says he has a gut feeling he'll crack it. And yes, he concedes that without the white paint and the fortunetelling angles, the case "probably goes down as just another unfortunate double-homicide, home-invasion robbery that you investigate."

But those angles are there. So, in what is bad news for who did it, this case won't go away.

"The fortunetelling and the witchcraft are interesting," Vu says, "but the bottom line is: We have two people murdered in their home. At the end of the day, that's what we're trying to do, to find out who killed this mom and daughter.

"The other stuff that comes with it might help explain the motive down the road, but our goal is to find out who did this heinous crime and arrest them."

*

Dana Parsons' can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at [email protected]..

Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

SOURCE

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

This is a weird one (there is also a picture on that page which looks odd):

Beast kills 9, injures 11 in Dedza

by Joseph Langa, 14 June 2005 - 11:10:56


At least nine people have been killed and 11 others seriously injured when an identified wild beast terrorised three villages in Chief Chilikumwendo’s area, Dedza, 70 kilometres south of Lilongwe, in the early hours of Monday, police have confirmed.

Seven of the deceased are 50-year-old man Laison Letela, an eight-year-old girl Mtayizana Kalibande, four-year-old boy Bikoko Gobede, a baby identified as Lunjikani, 45-year-old man Jalasi Joseph, 40-year-old woman Nafokani Machitala and seven-year-old boy Madalitso Yosefe.

The beast also attacked livestock, killed goats and chickens.
Police deputy public relations officer Kelvin Maigwa said in an interview the beast terrorised Chimbola, Mbiyani and Sizinthela villages around 2 AM (0000GMT) and killed six people and wounded 11 others.

Two others died at the hospital while one was killed when the beast, believed to be a rabid hyena, attacked more people near Dzalanyama where it also killed one around 11AM (0900GMT) same day.

An official at Dedza District Hospital said bodies of the nine people were brought to the hospital for postmortem around 10 AM (0800GMT) and later released for burial.

He said almost all the bodies came with parts like legs, stomachs, hands and buttocks missing, while others had heads completely chopped.

“It’s very pathetic. In some cases the police only recovered heads, chests, legs and hands in pieces,” said the official. “We don’t know what sort of creature it is that can attack so many people within the same night.”

He said eight of the casualties were referred to Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe.

When our reporters visited the hospital around 5PM (1500GMT) on Monday, five of the victims were still unconscious.

An eyewitness and guardian to one of the victims, Kazako Lidisoni, said the beast had features of a hyena with a strong smell.

Other guardians said villagers used pangas and spears to try to kill the beast as it was feeding on some bodies but surprisingly it could not be killed.

Assistant director of parks and wildlife Haxwell Jamusana said the situation in the district was tense and that people were living in fear because they believed that the beast will return.

“According to villagers, the beast was breaking the doors and pouncing on anyone in the house before rushing to the nearest house or kraal,” he said.

He advised people to sleep in groups in houses with strong doors, adding that hunters have already been deployed in the area and more would be sent on Tuesday.

Jamusana, who also visited those at the hospital, said some of the casualties had their necks, shoulders, noses or mouth eaten up.

“I have seen someone with whole flesh removed. We believe it is a rabid hyena. That’s typical of its attacks,” he said.

Maigwa said the police have also deployed armed police officers in the area to hunt the beast with assistance from game rangers.

www.nationmalawi.com/articles.asp?articleID=11110

Dedza beast shot dead 8 victims buried in mass grave

by Joseph Langa, 15 June 2005 - 14:15:12


Scores of villagers in T/A Chilikumwendo’s area in Dedza jubilated on Tuesday evening as the police and game rangers fired over a hundred shots to kill the notorious beast which has killed nine people and injured 13 others. The 13 include two who were attacked on Tuesday.

The beast was killed around 1500GMT after the police and rangers were tipped by one villager that it was biting pails, livestock and anything in sight in Kanjelwa Village.

The police and rangers found the beast hiding in a house where they fired several bullets as the villagers shouted on top of their voices in grief and jubilation.

“Ee! ufe unandiphera mayi anga iwe, unatiphera ana athu iwe!” (Yes! Die you killed my mother, you killed our children), shouted the villagers.
The rangers and police quickly identified the beast as a hyena but the villagers insisted it was not a natural beast but a spirit of one of the villagers (name withheld) “who has resurrected”.

The beast caused uncertainty and fear among the villagers who camped like refugees at the nearby Chidewere Primary School and Village Headman Chombola’s house guarded by police and rangers.

Villagers were spotted on several feeder roads carrying some belongings joining their friends at the school and the village headman’s house.

Headmaster MacKalex Banda said they started camping at the school on Sunday night on empty stomachs because they left all their food stuffs behind.

The villagers could not believe it when they were told that the animal was dead and scrambled to see the digital picture of the dead animal in Nation’s camera.

In Chombola village area, where eight people were killed, some villagers had no choice but to sleep on top of granaries and houses on Monday night for fear that the beast would return.

Stafford Malunga who lost his 18-year-old son said he had no choice but to sleep on top of his maize granary as some of his friends had done because he had a sad experience to see his son dying in his hands.

“My son was attacked on the stomach and I had to hold his intestines the whole morning until he died. He told me that he was dying, but there was nothing I could do. I wished him well and told him this was not an ordinary beast,” said Malunga.

Another villager, Leonard Kadzamira, said he opted to sleep on top of the house with his friends because they believed that the beast would return and did not want to take chances even with the police around.

Villlage headman Chombola, who lost a sister and niece, said he was attacked on the leg as he tried to kill the beast with an axe and a steel bar while it was feeding on a child.

“I tried my best but it could not be killed. Instead it turned on me and grabbed my leg before rushing to the nearest house where it attacked our grandmother and killed two children,” said Chombola who is at Dedza District Hospital.

The beast, which came from caves in the nearby Mpita Hills, returned to the villages in the early hours of Tuesday and attacked two people who were also taken to the hospital.

The eight deceased people were buried in a mass grave in five coffins on Tuesday morning and the villagers had to contribute money for the coffins.

T/A Chilikumwendo and the area’s Member of Parliament Nelson Chuthi described the situation as pathetic, saying it has never happened before.
Police Public Relations officer in Dedza Ramsy Mushani said the police will continue guarding the area until the villagers have settled down.

But the villagers blamed the police and rangers for taking the beast away, suggesting they should have organised a viewing ceremony for the people to see and believe that it was dead.

www.nationmalawi.com/articles.asp?articleID=11131

Thats an awful lot of people killed and injured. Some of those missing body parts sound like the kinds of things that might be removed for muti - wait for mass hysteria about shape shifting witch doctors.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Murder Defendant Says Victim Told Her He Had Pact With Satan

POSTED: 5:41 pm EDT July 12, 2005
UPDATED: 5:55 pm EDT July 12, 2005

TAVARES, Fla. -- The Lake County mother accused of killing her son-in-law said he told her he had a pact with Satan. Lorri Worley testified Tuesday afternoon.

Worley said she stabbed Josh Blankenship after he gleefully told her about forcing her daughter to overdose on drugs and his pact with Satan. Prosecutors, though, said she killed him to keep her grandchild from being raised by who she thought was a Satan worshiper.

With her chains on her legs, and cuffs on her hands Tuesday, Worley told a jury today about the night she shoved a knife into her son-in-law's chest.

"I said, 'You're not doing it deep enough,' and I pushed it," Worley said in court.

Her daughter had just died from an overdose of cocaine. Kelly and Josh Blankenship used to dress in all black, even at their wedding. He also had a tattoo of Satan.

The day after his wife died, Worley said Josh told her he knocked Kelly out and injected her with the drug. Worley said Josh was cutting himself, was laughing and said Kelly was going to be happy, she was going to be with Satan and he had a pact with her that he was going to go with her, too.

Worley said the words made her heart feel like it was going to explode, so she helped him kill himself. Josh was left with 50 stab wounds.

But, prosecutors made mince meat out of Worley in court. She had told investigators, the night of the crime, that Josh had threatened his baby. The baby, Wednesday, was named after the Adams Family character, but she wasn't home that night. Prosecutors theorize Worley just wanted custody of the baby.

This comes after testimony from the medical examiner who said it's highly unlikely someone could stab themself anywhere near 50 times, and from someone who recently met with Worley at the jail and said Worley confessed to murder.

Closing arguments should be Wednesday.

---------------
Copyright 2005 by wftv.com.

www.wftv.com/news/4715010/detail.html

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Occult practitioner kills, drinks blood

Indo-Asian News Service
Raipur, October 17, 2005



Witchcraft drove a member of the Chhattisgarh home guards to kill a youth and drink his blood in a bid to cure his mental illness, police said on Monday.

Amit Soni, 28, told police that he had been practising witchcraft for some time and had killed Chhaganlal Sahu in Mahasamund district at midnight on October 12, according to district police chief Dipanshu Kabra.

"Amit, a regular worshipper of goddess Kali, killed Chhaganlal on Wednesday but was arrested after two days. He revealed during police interrogation that he committed the crime and drank Chhaganlal's blood to get over his mental illness," Kabra said.

Soni belonged to a poor family that lived in Mahasamund, 75 km from Chhattisgarh state capital Raipur.

Witchcraft is a common practice in remote areas of Chhattisgarh, mainly among tribals.

The rising crime graph against women in rural areas is often attributed to witchcraft. This prompted the state government to adopt the Witchcraft Atrocities (Prevention) Act in July 2005.

The provisions of the law are very strict and one of its clauses ensures five years of rigorous imprisonment for anyone convicted of branding women as witches and harassing them.

www.hindustantimes.com/news/7242_1521718,00180008.htm

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Interesting article looking at it from various angles:

Black magic, murder and madness in Satanist South Africa

The fixation with the occult dates back to apartheid, writes Gavin du Venage in Cape Town
November 21, 2005


A CHURCH custodian is murdered in the dead of night and his mutilated corpse, bearing vicious stab wounds to his head and side mimicking those of Jesus Christ on the cross, is left in front of the altar.

On the ground, in the victim's blood, is written the word "Satun" (sic).

The Halloween slaying of 53-year-old Charles Jacobs, janitor at the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints in the quiet, church-going town of Paarl, east of Cape Town, is the latest in a long string of murders that reflect an obsession with Satanism that goes back deep into South Africa's apartheid past.

Jacobs's murder, inevitably dubbed the "crucifixion killing", was probably just a botched burglary, police say. But to relatives in the town, it was the work of the devil.

His brother, Ivor, who found the body, describes the scene at the church as "a place filled with evil. We saw a dark spot on the floor. The word 'Satun' was written in my brother's blood".

In South Africa, where murder is commonplace, the killing's satanic overtones made it exceptional. Official police denials of any occult link, and claims that descriptions of Jacobs's injuries were wildly exaggerated, have been drowned out.

To the police, the lurid crucifixion elements were nothing more than clumsy attempts to disguise the motives for the killing.

"The robbers who broke into the church probably did not expect to find anyone there," said police spokesman Billy Jones.

"It was just a robbery gone wrong. There was no occult involvement."

Two men have already been arrested: a defrocked priest whom Mormon elders fired after they discovered he had lied about being ordained, and a local unemployed man.

The "crucifixion killing" is only the latest to be proclaimed occult-linked and reflects the unique hold Satanism has on the South African psyche. In September this year, Willem Mouers, a deranged Western Cape farm worker, slit his three-year-old daughter's throat, hours after telling neighbours about "dark forces" that haunted him.

Unable to explain his mental breakdown, local residents turned to the only answer they believed would fit: that he was possessed.

When several pet dogs were slaughtered in an affluent Pretoria suburb in June, locals interpreted it as proof that a satanic coven was loose in the capital.

The fact that the pet killings took place at the winter solstice, a high point in the occult calendar, seemed the clincher. "Pets' death linked to Satanism" ran the headline in the Pretoria News.

The belief that malevolent dark forces lurk on the periphery, waiting to strike, runs deep in white South African society. Last year M Web, the country's largest internet service provider, offered a package that would allow users to block internet access to sites that included occult subjects.

The belief of lurking occultism goes back to the apartheid era when a blend of Christian fundamentalism and virulent anti-Communism fostered free-ranging paranoia, particularly among whites. In the 1980s, at the height of the liberation war, wandering preachers would visit all-white schools to warn children of the dangers of Satanism and, through a convoluted logic, its links to Communism.

Using props such as KISS album covers, candle stubs and other paraphernalia "recovered" from covens' lairs, these preachers would frighten and perhaps unintentionally titillate their captive audience with lurid descriptions of black mass, blood sacrifice and uninhibited sex.

Satanism was taken so seriously that the South African police set up an anti-occult unit.

The Occult Related Crime Unit was set up in 1992 under Superintendent Kobus Jonker. Jonker grew legendary as the country's top occult-hunter, dubbed in the press as "The hound of God", "God's detective" and "Donker (dark) Jonker".

The unit was disbanded in 1997 after human rights groups protested that the country's post-apartheid constitution guaranteed religious freedom, a definition broad enough to include Satanists, should they exist.

But the South African police have continued to keep a webpage devoted to Satanism and the occult, and Jonker is still the police's resident occult expert.

He declined to be interviewed.

An ex-colleague, James Lottering, a former detective who ran the occult unit's Eastern Cape branch and resigned after the unit's disbandment, still occasionally consults with his colleague.

These days, Lottering conducts exorcisms from a church in the coastal city of Port Elizabeth. He now calls himself a pastor but his bull neck, cropped hair and penetrating eyes make him seem far more like the cop he was than a man of the cloth.

"A normal policeman cannot really investigate these cases because he does not have the background. So they have consultants to help," he explained.

Building a case against a Satanist is challenging. "If a person commits a crime and says 'Satan made me do it', by law, that person must produce the demon to testify on his behalf in court.

"But that, of course, he cannot do. The court cannot take the word of every person that claims to be demon-possessed."

Instead, Lottering and his colleagues would settle for building a criminal prosecution but also sparing time to try and save the possessed man's soul. "If a person is demon-possessed, ja, I can help him free himself of this thing but I can't help him in court."

Lottering was also once a member of the apartheid Government's feared security police, when hunting Communists, not Satanists, was a priority. To some, the switch from hunting Communists to hunting Satanists is not surprising.

"The only thing worse than having an enemy is not having one," says University of the Witwatersrand psychologist Gavin Ivey, who has published a paper on the phenomenon.

"These guys are just a waste of taxpayers' money."

Dr Ivey points out that Satanism-seeking is an especially Afrikaans phenomenon, and points to a society long accustomed to using religion as its method of interpreting reality.

In the past, Communists were anti-church and therefore the legitimate, and hidden, enemy.

Today -- with Communists sitting as members of the post-apartheid parliament -- Satanists, real and imagined, are the new subversives. Dr Ivey said: "As one enemy disappears, another has to be conjured up."

www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/st ... 77,00.html

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Indian cult kills children for goddess

'Holy men' blamed for inciting dozens of deaths

Dan McDougall in Khurja, India
Sunday March 5, 2006
The Observer

A painted image of the Hindu goddess Kali is propped up against a stone in the dirt, her long red tongue goading terrified worshippers into submission. From one of her eight flailing arms a severed head dangles, her neck is adorned by a necklace of bleached human skulls.

There are bloodstains on the cracked wall behind the terrible postcard-size image and, around the dark room, splattered gore on the heavy wooden furniture. These dark marks bear witness to a child sacrificed in the name of the abominable goddess.

Through the doorway, in the distance, colourfully dressed women are bent double, toiling in the fields, their faces worn and wrinkled from the sun, their hands cracked from digging at the dry earth from dawn until dusk.

It's an intolerable life in the remote village of Barha, a squalid collection of mud-bricked farmers' dwellings in the heart of the impoverished province of Khurja, Uttar Pradesh. This corner of rural India is a lawless place of superstitions and deep prejudice. The region, known for its sugarcane, is a tortuous eight-hour drive from Delhi and a lifetime away from the 21st century.

In Bulandshahr, the nearest town of any description, locals whispered darkly of happenings in Barha. Their advice was unanimous: 'Don't go. It is an evil place. The people there are cursed.'

Sumitra Bushan, 43, who lived in Barha for most of her life, certainly thought she was cursed. Her husband had long abandoned her, leaving her with debts and a life of servitude in the sugarcane fields. Her sons, Satbir, 27, and Sanjay, 23, were regarded as layabouts. Life was bad but then the nightmares and terrifying visions of Kali allegedly began, not just for Sumitra but her entire family.

She consulted a tantrik, a travelling 'holy man' who came to the village occasionally, dispensing advice and putrid medicines from the rusty amulets around his neck.

His guidance to Sumitra was to slaughter a chicken at the entrance to her home and offer the blood and remains to the goddess. She did so but the nightmares continued and she began waking up screaming in the heat of the night and returned to the priest. 'For the sake of your family,' he told her, 'you must sacrifice another, a boy from your village.'

Ten days ago Sumitra and her two sons crept to their neighbour's home and abducted three-year-old Aakash Singh as he slept. They dragged him into their home and the eldest son performed a puja ceremony, reciting a mantra and waving incense. Sumitra smeared sandalwood paste and globules of ghee over the terrified child's body. The two men then used a knife to slice off the child's nose, ears and hands before laying him, bleeding, in front of Kali's image.

In the morning Sumitra told villagers she had found Aakash's body outside her house. But they attacked and beat her sons who allegedly confessed. 'I killed the boy so my mother could be safe,' Sanjay screamed. All three are now in prison, having escaped lynch mob justice. The tantrik has yet to be found.

Police in Khurja say dozens of sacrifices have been made over the past six months. Last month, in a village near Barha, a woman hacked her neighbour's three-year-old to death after a tantrik promised unlimited riches. In another case, a couple desperate for a son had a six-year-old kidnapped and then, as the tantrik chanted mantras, mutilated the child. The woman completed the ritual by washing in the child's blood.

'It's because of blind superstitions and rampant illiteracy that this woman sacrificed this boy,' said Khurja police officer AK Singh. 'It's happened before and will happen again but there is little we can do to stop it. In most situations it's an open and shut case. It isn't difficult to elicit confessions - normally the villagers or the families of the victims do that for us. This has been going on for centuries; these people are living in the dark ages.'

According to an unofficial tally by the local newspaper, there have been 28 human sacrifices in western Uttar Pradesh in the last four months. Four tantrik priests have been jailed and scores of others forced to flee.

The killings have focused attention on Tantrism, an amalgam of mystical practices that grew out of Hinduism. Tantrism also has adherents among Buddhists and Muslims and, increasingly, in the West, where it is associated with yoga or sexual techniques. It has millions of followers across India, where it originated between the fifth and ninth centuries. Tantrik priests are consulted on everything from marital to bowel problems.

Many blame the turn to the occult on the increasing economic gap between rural and urban India, in particular the spiralling debts of cotton and tobacco farmers, linked with high costs of hybrid seed and pesticides, that has led to record numbers of farmers committing suicide.

According to Sanal Edamaruku, president of the Indian Rationalist Association, human sacrifice affects most of northern India. 'Modern India is home to hundreds of millions who can't read or write, but who often seek refuge from life's realities through astrology or the magical arts of shamans. Unfortunately these people focus their horrific attention on society's weaker members, mainly women and children who are easier to handle and kidnap.'

Tantriks caught up in the crackdown in Uttar Pradesh say their reputation is being destroyed by an insane minority. 'Human sacrifices have been made in this region since time immemorial,' says Prashant, a tantrik who runs a small 'practice' from his concrete shell of a home on the outskirts of Bulandshahr. 'People come to me with all sorts of ailments. I recommend simply pujas and very rarely animal sacrifices.'

In her squalid home Ritu Singh rocks back and forth, beating her chest in grief. She has been mourning since the day her son Aakash's body was discovered in a sewer outside Sumitra Bushan's home. Her husband, Rajbir, said: 'We expect them to be jailed or fined but they won't spend longer than a few years in prison for what they have done. They were my neighbours, they ate in our house. The Tantrik who made them do this has disappeared, they will never find him.'

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/st ... 10,00.html

 

[ramonmercado]

Horror of India's child sacrifice

Horror of India's child sacrifice
By Navdip Dhariwal
BBC News, Uttar Pradesh, India



In India's remote northern villages it feels as if little has changed. The communities remain forgotten and woefully undeveloped, with low literacy and abject poverty.

They are conditions that for decades have bred superstition and a deep-rooted belief in the occult.

The village of Barha in the state of Uttar Pradesh is only a three-hour car drive from the capital Delhi. Yet here evil medieval practices have made their ugly presence known.

Lured with sweets

I was led by locals to a house that is kept under lock and key. They refuse to enter it.


"They [the tantrics] play on people's fears and superstitions - it is crazy"
S Raju
Campaigning journalist

Peering through the window bars you can see the eerie dark room inside, with peeling posters of Hindu gods adorning the walls and bundles of discarded bed clothes.

In one corner is the evidence we had come to find: blood-splattered walls and stained bricks.

It is the place where a little boy's life was ritually sacrificed.

Those who tortured and killed Akash Singh did so in a depraved belief - that the boy's death would offer them a better life.

"The woman who did this was crazed," the villagers say. "Akash was friends with all our children... We still cannot believe what happened here."

Akash's distraught mother discovered her son's mutilated body. The family was told he was lured away with sweets and begged his captors to set him free.

"First they cut out his tongue," his grandmother Harpyari told me. "Then they cut off his nose, then his ears. They chopped off his fingers. They killed him slowly."

'Profiting from fear'

The woman who abducted Akash lived just a few doors away. She claimed to be suffering from terrible nightmares and visions.


It was then she turned for guidance to a tantric, or holy man. It was under his instruction that she brutally sacrificed the boy - offering his blood and remains to the Hindu goddess of destruction.

There are temples across India that are devoted to the goddess. Childless couples, the impoverished and sick visit to pray that she can cure them.

Animal sacrifice is central to worship - but humans have not been temple victims since ancient times.

We were met with a hostile reception at the temple in Meerut. The high priest did not want us to see the ritual slaughter.

Tantrics like him clearly have an overwhelming grip on their followers. Often they are profiting from people's fears. In extreme cases others have instructed their followers to kill.

Crackdown campaign

S Raju is a journalist for the Hindustan Times and has been reporting on child sacrifice cases since 1997 in western Uttar Pradesh. He has reported on 38 similar cases.

In one incident he says a tantric told a young man that if he hanged and killed a small boy and lit a fire at his feet the smoke from the ritual could be used to lure the pretty village girl he had his eye on.

He has been campaigning for a crackdown on the practice of tantrics, alarmed at what he has seen.

"The masses need to be educated and dissuaded from following these men," he said. "They play on people's fears and superstitions - it is crazy."

Unreported

We visited the jail where those accused of murdering Akash were being held.

The prison warden told us of over 200 cases of child sacrifice in these parts over the last seven years.

He admitted many of the cases go unreported because the police are reluctant to tarnish the image of their state. He told us incidents of child sacrifice are often covered up.

Many of those killers are behind bars - but, chillingly, others poisoned by the same sinister beliefs remain at large.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/w ... 903390.stm

Published: 2006/04/12 14:48:25 GMT

© BBC MMVI

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Source says dad charged in girl's death cited devil

By Angela Rozas
Tribune staff reporter
Published March 31, 2006

A Clarendon Hills man charged with killing his 8-year-old daughter told authorities she was the devil and he had to kill her to save the world, a law enforcement source said Thursday.

Neil J. Lofquist, 40, talked to authorities for 14 hours, including breaks, after the killing of Lauren Lofquist on Sunday, and gave a detailed statement that was videotaped, the source said.

The family on Thursday announced funeral arrangements for Lauren, who they said was a goalkeeper for the AYSO soccer club and a member of Brownie Troop 1489, the Community Presbyterian Church LOGOS Program and the Clarendon Hills Little League.

In the statement, Lofquist, speaking clearly and calmly, said he saw signs of the devil in his daughter and saw the number "666" in a card game they were playing, the source said. Lofquist told authorities he would not hurt his 6-year-old son because he was "the chosen one," the source said.

In charging Lofquist on Monday, police said he choked and stabbed Lauren in the family's home and submerged her head in a toilet in an upstairs bathroom. His wife and son were downstairs, police said, and left the home after Lofquist said he needed to go to the hospital. The family asked a neighbor to watch Lauren, and the sitter discovered her in an upstairs bathroom.

Lofquist's wife told investigators he had been acting strangely for three to four weeks, the source said.

Investigators are awaiting DNA tests of evidence collected from the girl's autopsy to determine whether to bring more charges against Lofquist, law enforcement sources said.

Prosecutors have said they will request a psychiatric evaluation, and attorney Terry Ekl, who will represent Lofquist, said he, too, would ask for an evaluation.

"We will be making decisions very soon as to whether we'll assert an insanity defense," Ekl said.

Lofquist, who is being held without bail in DuPage County Jail, is expected in court Monday.

Lauren's visitation is scheduled from 2 to 8 p.m. Saturday in Gibbons Elliston, 60 S. Grant St. Hinsdale. The funeral service will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday in Notre Dame Church, Clarendon Hills.

----------

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

PTSD? There have been other killings by soldiers returning from Iraq.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Investigators testify of mutilation of woman's body at soldier's trial

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


FORT LEWIS, Wash.

Investigators who arrived at the home of a decorated Army soldier found the body of the man's wife mutilated with a pentagram carved into her flesh and blood-smeared messages in the kitchen.

Spc. Brandon Bare, 20, of Wilkesboro, N.C., has since been charged with premeditated murder in the death of his wife Nabila, 18. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Bare's court-martial continued yesterday, a day after a military jury heard opening statements from Army prosecutors.

Bare's wife was found in the couple's kitchen on July 12, 2005, stabbed at least 71 times.

Randy Mullins, a civilian evidence specialist, testified that there were seven knives arranged on the floor around the dead woman's head, "in kind of a halo format." A meat cleaver was in her throat.

Lead prosecutor Capt. Scott DiRocco said that the woman was naked and had a pentagram carved into her stomach, on which rested a note that read, "'Til death do us part." On the refrigerator, there was a bloody message: "Satan said she deserved it."

DiRocco said that the couple met when Bare arrived at Fort Lewis in November 2003. The two married before Bare, a machine-gunner with the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, was sent to Iraq in October 2004.

Bare had been in Iraq less than a year when he was sent home to recuperate from injuries suffered in a grenade attack March 24, 2005, on his Stryker brigade unit in Mosul.

The killing occurred about three months after Bare returned to Fort Lewis and was awarded a Purple Heart for his injuries.

The couple's relationship began to sour that March, DiRocco said.

In his confession, given a day after the killing, Bare said he thought about strangling his wife and had considered a meat cleaver as a possible weapon.

Bare's wife was using the couple's computer when Bare grabbed a meat cleaver and attacked her. Bare went upstairs to clean himself off and returned to snap 25 pictures of her body.

In his opening statement, defense attorney Capt. Patrick O'Brien said that Bare's wife had been having an affair with another soldier. On the night of the killing, O'Brien said, she had been e-mailing the other man as Bare pleaded with her to stay in the marriage.

"This was not a cold-blooded killing. It was not a premeditated murder," O'Brien said. "This was a killing done in the heat of intense passion."

Michael Collins, a nurse and case manager at Madigan Army Medical Center, testified that Bare came to him the morning of the killing and said he had killed his wife.

Collins said that Bare told him that he remembered kissing his wife good night, but when he woke the next morning, she was dead.

Source

 

[rynner2]

Re: Charles Walton - An Unsolved Occult Murder

An unsolved mystery from February 14th 1945 when Charles Walton, a 74 year old farm labourer from Lower Quinton in Warwickshire, well-liked if eccentric but certainly no known enemies was murdered in an occult fashion. With no known motive, or witnesses in an otherwise sleepy rural village, Robert Fabian, a famous Detective Superintendent from London attempted to solve the case but came up against a wall of silence and constant hints of witchcraft.

I'm just reading a mystery story, set in the 21st century, which has the Meon Hill 'sacrifice' as its background:
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/c/jud ... in-bud.htm

The original post
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewt ... 527#109527
quotes a website saying:
"He had been brutally murdered with his own trouncing hook, which still lay embedded in his throat, and then pinned to the ground with his hayfork."

But in Cook's book (she claims the facts of the murder are accurate) an author's note states:
"A billhook had been driven through his chest and a hayfork through his throat."

Someone has their facts wrong!


(The modern story is about anti-GM crop protestors - no doubt someone is going to come to a grisly end!)

 

[ramonmercado]

Pakistani couple charged with 'occult killing' of baby
map

A couple in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi have been charged with murdering their baby daughter as part of an alleged "black magic" ritual.

Officers found the body of the four-month-old girl buried in the couple's house, a court heard. Doctors say it had been there for about four days.

They believe the couple were planning to murder their second daughter, a girl of three, who police found tied up.

Superstitious rituals are not uncommon in Pakistan, but rarely lead to murder.

'Semi-conscious'

Police raided the house in the poor Karachi neighbourhood of Korangi after a tip-off that it was being used by suspected militants as a safe house.

"When nobody answered the door, we broke into the house in the presence of some elders," local police chief Rana Mehmood Pervez told the BBC Urdu service.

A 40-year-old cobbler named as Nadim who rented the house was overpowered after resisting arrest, Mr Mehmood said.

Inside the only room of the house, a three-year-old girl, identified as Maryam, was lying on the floor with her hands and feet tied, he said.

"She was in a semi-conscious state, and her mother, Sana, was sitting beside her."

The BBC's Riaz Sohail in Karachi says the couple had lit a number of candles around the child, which police believe was part of some magic ritual. Police also found printed material containing black magic chants and other information.

The room was filled with the smell of rotting flesh, Mr Mehmood said.

"There was some loose ground where the child was lying, so we dug it up and found the body of four-month-old Fazeelat," he said.

'Evil forces'

Nadim and his wife said "ill-wishers" had put them under a "black magic" spell, police told the BBC.

To ward off the spell, they had contacted a "pir" - or faith healer - in the north-western city of Dera Ismail Khan, and were following his instructions, Mr Mehmood said. He said Nadim had told police that "evil forces" wanted to take Fazeelat away.

A doctor who carried out a post mortem at Karachi's Jinnah hospital said she had been dead for about four days.

Mr Mehmood said he believed the couple would have killed their other daughter as well.

The two accused appeared in court on Tuesday and were remanded for two weeks for further questioning.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8455370.stm

 

[ramonmercado]

Indian children may have been 'sacrificed'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8573986.stm

By Prachi Pinglay
BBC News, Mumbai

Map

Five children poisoned to death in a village in India may have been "sacrificed", police say.

They say that the children were killed in Maharashtra state by a childless couple in a suspected black magic ritual to enable them to conceive.

The couple and parents of the accused husband have been arrested. Officials say post-mortem results are awaited.

Black magic is sometimes carried out in poorer parts of India by people who believe it will provide benefits.

These can include helping childless women to bear children and producing more rainfall.

'Foul play'

Police say they are looking for the tantrik, or witch doctor, who advised the couple to "sacrifice" 11 children in accordance with black magic rituals.

They say that Vitthal and Vandana Mokle were married for 12 years but were unable to conceive despite frequently visiting doctors.

Investigating Officer Sheikh Abdul Rauf told the BBC that after initial inquiries they suspected foul play in the deaths of the children.

"The first death occurred in December 2009 and the most recent one was in March," he said.

"After speaking to villagers we investigated the Mokle family's role. The parents of Vitthal have also been arrested as they seem to be part of this plan.

"The prima facie case is that they poisoned six children - only one survived but he is unable to speak."

All the children were aged between two and four and were related to each other.

Initially residents of the village of Digras - close to the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra - thought the deaths were because of snake bites as the children showed typical symptoms - such as frothing in the mouth and vomiting.

The village has a population of about 300 people living in approximately 30 to 40 houses.

Officials say that they are awaiting post-mortem reports on the deaths - and until then it is not possible to ascertain the exact circumstances of the deaths.

 

[ramonmercado]

India 'human sacrifice' suspected in West Bengal temple
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8624269.stm

By Subir Bhaumik
BBC News, Calcutta

Map

The severed head and torso of a man has been found in a temple in the Indian state of West Bengal in what the police say is a case of "human sacrifice".

The head and the body were found at the local temple to the goddess Kali near Chotomakdampur village in the western district of Birbhum.

Police say they have detained a tribal villager for questioning.

Human sacrifice is illegal in India. But a few cases do occur in remote and underdeveloped regions.

"This man has been sacrificed to propitiate the gods," said local official Kalyan Mukherjee.

"This is a shame for Bengal where the ruling Left coalition claim they have eradicated social evils and combated superstition," an opposition leader Samir Kumar Ray said.

Though human sacrifice has long been banned in India, some people, mostly the poor and illiterate, fall under the influence of "witch doctors" in the hope of reversing their fortunes.

 

[ramonmercado]

Uganda's child sacrifice scourge
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/wee ... 51810.html
JODY CLARKE in Jinja, Uganda

Sat, May 01, 2010

Twenty-nine people, including 15 children, were killed as ritual sacrifices in Uganda last year, yet none the perpetrators has been brought to justice

CAROLINE LIKISO would have been nine years old this year. But on January 22nd, while she was playing with friends outside her home, a neighbour put a chloroform-soaked cloth over her mouth and disappeared with her. Four days later, her body was found dumped in the bush. Her throat had been slit and her tongue removed.

“We used to go to the same church as the neighbour,” says Caroline’s mother, Rose, a Catholic. “But a factory owner offered them 18 million shillings (€6,500) to get the tongue. He needed a sacrifice to get his new wax candle machines moving.”

Ritual murders are on the rise in Uganda and, according to a US state department report released this month, children are commonly the victims. The number of people killed in human sacrifice increased from three in 2007 to 25 in 2008 and 29 in 2009, say the Ugandan police. Of those 29, 15 were children.

They include Moses Ogen, aged one. In April last year, he was found in Paromo village in Gulu district with his face mutilated. In August, the castrated body of Solomon Otiti, aged three, was discovered in Apac, northern Uganda. Both were the apparent victims of ritual sacrifice.

They are just a few of the many cases. A study conducted by Uganda’s ministry of gender, labour and social development late last year revealed that most cases of child sacrifice do not find their way to the police. And even when they do, the perpetrators are rarely punished. Caroline’s alleged killers were released on a police bond of four million shillings (€1,400). And the factory owner, although he went into hiding, is back in Jinja, untouched by the authorities.

By the end of January this year, 125 suspected perpetrators of human sacrifice had been arrested and 54 taken to court, charged with criminal offences such as murder and kidnap. However, there have yet to be any convictions, despite the fact that Uganda’s 1957 Witchcraft Act prohibits acts of witchcraft which involve threatening others with death.

“I thought the police would put them in a national prison for a long time” says Rose, sitting by a sewing machine in the front room of her red-brick bungalow. “Now I feel I can do nothing. I have lost hope.”

On the walls, there are four Catholic calendars, three of them showing images of the Ugandan Martyrs, a group of Christians burned to death by King Mwanga II between 1885 and 1887 for refusing to renounce their religion. One of them, St Kizito, was just 14 years old.

Poverty, weak legislation and an influx of violent Nigerian films showcasing the rich rewards on offer to anyone sacrificing a human being have all been cited as reasons behind the rise in cases of human sacrifice. But the problem can also be linked to traditional healers or witch doctors, whose numbers have sprouted in recent years and who are keen to offer brutally simple solutions to people’s problems. “Every two kilometres you see a sign for a traditional healer,” says Haruna Mawa, a spokesman for the child protection agency, ANPPCAN. “There are no rules governing them, so you even see Nigerians and Congolese coming into the country claiming they are healers.”

IN A MUD HUT, decorated with crude clay paintings of hyenas, camels and other animals, Matia Sabath, 27, is summoning the spirits with a blackened elephant tusk. The ceiling is made out of cardboard boxes, and in the middle of the room is a variety of shillelagh-like sticks. On top of one is a voodoo doll, which looks not all that dissimilar to a Barbie figurine.

“This is a clinic,” he says, shuffling seeds in a woven basket through the palm of his right hand. “People come here for healing when they are sick.” Sabath, a Christian, says that: “God will not take me as a devil worshipper as the spirits I use are accredited by God.” However, he admits that “competition is high”. And with competition come unscrupulous traders.

“Uganda is a very poor country,” explains Trevor Solomon, a local journalist. “People look for easy ways out of their situation, and there is no shortage of traditional healers willing to help them. And that means that there is a lot of competition for customers.”

Once consulted only at night and in secrecy, witch doctors are now an open part of Ugandan society, advertising in newspapers and on radio, and becoming increasingly media-savvy.

It’s 8.30pm on Sunday, and Dr Ssdiamo Nukassa is the main guest on African Culture, a phone-in radio show broadcast by Bugos 96FM in Jinja, a town more often associated with adventure sports. Dressed in a grey Umbro shirt, white runners and a baseball cap, the 28-year-old belies the conventional image you might have of a witch doctor. But as a succession of calls comes in, it is clear that Nukassa, despite his youth, is not lacking in fans, or confidence in his own abilities. To all questions – “Can you heal my wife, she bleeds?”, “Can you heal madness?”, “Can you protect my livestock from being stolen?”, “Can you cure HIV?” – he responds yes.

“The powers from the spirits help me heal people,” says Nukassa, sitting down to talk after his radio appearance. “To make the right selection of herbs, the spirits torment me and tell me the right ingredients to cure disease.”

With no legislation governing people such as Nukassa, it’s impossible to say whether his work is genuine or not. He says he is appalled by child sacrifice, and that the people who perform it are out to discredit the work he and others do. “Those people, when they fail to cure someone, they say kill a person, thinking they won’t do it,” he says. “It is a gamble.”

But given the number of calls Nukassa has received, it is clear that Ugandans hold traditional doctors in high regard. One reason for this is poverty.

Although the number of people living below the poverty line has decreased in Uganda, the majority of people still work as subsistence farmers. Around Jinja, that means using their six acres or so to grow sugar cane for local plantation owners, at 40,000 shillings (€14) a tonne. It’s not an easy life, and people are open to manipulation.

Moses Waligo grows sugar cane and potatoes on a small patch of land about 10km from Jinja, and would grow more but for the amount of money he has spent on witch doctors. In 1997, his father, Kabelega Lawrance, 40, went missing following a bust-up with his daughter. Since then, his son has been paying traditional healers to try to bring him back.

“People said, if you pay money he will come back,” he says. “We tried four times, but nothing. I spent 100,000 shillings (€35) the first time. The last time we had to sell our land and pay 200,000.”

Waligo is now looking for another 200,000 shillings, after he saw a friend become possessed with a spirit around a camp fire last year. “They said it is the spirit of your father. The spirit is talking. One person used sign language and another person interpreted. They said he was killed and his tongue cut out so he couldn’t talk. That’s why he was using sign language.”

Waligo believes that unless he goes to the witch doctor, who will tell him here to find his father’s body, neither he nor his children or grandchildren will ever settle. “We failed because we have no money,” he says.

Last year, the US spent $500,000 (€375,000) training 2,000 Ugandan police to investigate offences related to human trafficking, including human sacrifice. But as long as there are no convictions, unscrupulous witch doctors will think that they can act with impunity, according to Haruna Mawa. “What kind of message does that send out?” he asks.

With a lack of political will to tackle the problem, many parents have taken the protection of their children into their own hands. Witch doctors don’t kill children who have had circumcisions or their ears pierced, says Mawa, so many parents have taken it upon themselves to make sure their children have both.

For Rose, protecting her three remaining children is now her top priority. She keeps them mostly in the house, even though the family who allegedly killed Caroline have fled the area, chased away by an angry mob. Denied justice, she says she has forgiven them in her heart. “Now I have to leave things in the hands of God.”

 

[ramonmercado]

Black magic murder: Fury in India over killing of anti-superstition activist
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 77611.html
Narendra Dabholkar received threats for his work against mysticism and spirituality
MAJID MOHAMED Author Biography WEDNESDAY 21 AUGUST 2013

Students are marching through the streets in the Indian city of Pune to protest against the killing of an outspoken campaigner against religious superstition and black magic.

Narendra Dabholkar, 67, was gunned down in daylight while taking a morning walk on the Omkareshwar Temple bridge on Tuesday. Two attackers on a motorcycle fired four shots from close range, according to reports.

Hundreds of chanting students and activists are marching through the streets of Pune to protest the murder in Pune. Mr Dabholkar battled for decades against superstition and black magic.

Police have released a sketch of one suspect and are searching for two men on a motorcycle who are believed to have carried out the killing.

"We do not know who is involved in this and we are probing the case from all angles without ruling out any possibility," a police official told reporters.

Mr Dabholkar founded the Maharashtra Blind Faith Eradication Committee and had been been receiving death threats for his decades of work against mysticism and practices involving animal or, more rarely, human sacrifice.

His friend and fellow activist, Deepak Girme, said Mr Dabholkar had been receiving the threats since he began travelling by public buses to hundreds of villages around Maharashtra state to lecture against superstitions, religious extremism.

"He would say he was a medical doctor but that superstition was a bigger disease causing a lot of harm, especially to the poor and the gullible," Mr Girme said. "He wanted to expose the people who cheat the poor in the name of gods, who promise false cures for cancer or do black magic to perform so-called miracles."

"Half of India is hungry, half is uneducated. These babas and gurus who preach all this humbug, it doesn't translate into betterment of society. It's like the Dark Ages in Europe."

The organisation urged the Maharashtra state government to pass long-stalled legislation to ban such practices.

On Tuesday the chief minister of the state expressed his grief at the murder and announced a reward for any information. The killing comes days after the state government said it would introduce a controversial anti-superstition bill, according to media reports.

 

[kamalktk]

Black magic murder: Fury in India over killing of anti-superstition activist

Narendra Dabholkar, 67, was gunned down in daylight while taking a morning walk on the Omkareshwar Temple bridge on Tuesday. Two attackers on a motorcycle fired four shots from close range, according to reports.

Shouldn't they have been able to black magic him dead?

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Not so much a 'black magic murder', more an assassination.

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/18/the_assassination_of_an_atheist_partner/

The assassination of an atheist

For over two decades, Dr. Narendra Dabholkar worked to overcome superstition in India. And it cost him his life


Salon (originally published on Alternet). By Greta Christina. Sep 18, 2013

A great skeptical leader has been assassinated.

This didn’t happen in a tyrannical theocracy. This happened in a modern, supposedly secular nation, with no state religion, and with first-class programs of science and medicine. And still, for the crime of criticizing religious beliefs, questioning them, and subjecting them to scientific scrutiny, a great skeptical leader was gunned down on the street in broad daylight.

For over two decades, Dr. Narendra Dabholkardedicated his life to overcoming superstition in India. Originally a medical doctor, Dabholkar spent years exposing religious charlatans, quacks, frauds, purveyors of “miracle cures,” and other con artists preying on gullibility, desperation, and trust. An activist against caste discrimination in India, and an advocate for women’s rights and environmentalism, Dabholkar’s commitment to social justice was expansive and enduring. But it was his work against superstition that earned him his fame.

India is a huge, hugely diverse country, and much of it — particularly the south — is thoroughly modern, urban, and largely secular. But much of the country — particularly the north — is saturated with self-proclaimed sorcerers, faith healers, fortune tellers, psychics, gurus, godmen, and other spiritual profiteers. In parts of the country, people are beaten, mutilated or murdered for being suspected of witchcraft, and there are even rare cases of human sacrifice – including thesacrifice of children – in rituals meant to appease the gods.

Throughout this country, Dabholkar traveled to towns and villages, investigating claims of miracles and magic, revealing the physical reality behind the tricks — and organizing travelling troops of activists to do the same. He didn’t try to persuade people out of the very idea of religious belief, but he was an open atheist, proud and unapologetic. He was the founder of the Committee for Eradication of Superstition in Maharashtra (Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti). He fought for years for the passage of a controversial anti-black-magic bill in India.

And it was his work against superstition that almost certainly cost him his life. On August 20, at seven in the morning during his morning walk, two men ran up to him on the street, shot him four times, and drove off on motorbikes that had been parked nearby. He was 67. As of this writing, there has been one arrest made in the case — Sandeep Shinde, a member of the hard-line right-wing Hindu organization Sanatan Sanstha.

...

More at link.

 

[OneWingedBird]

Shouldn't they have been able to black magic him dead?

Maybe they tried that first and it didn't work.

But I agree, there is something really quite perverted about the logic there.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Shouldn't they have been able to black magic him dead?

Maybe they tried that first and it didn't work.

But I agree, there is something really quite perverted about the logic there.

It's pretty clear from the article, not only was Dr Dabholkar undermining a fairly prosperous paranormal economy, but also the local Hindu fundie political agenda.

 

[ramonmercado]

Anti-black magic activist Dabholkar killing: Two held
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-25278729

In this Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2013 photo, people pay last respects to anti-superstition activist Narendra Dabholkar who was killed in Pune, India

There was widespread anger and grief at the killing of Mr Dabholkar

Police in western India have arrested two men in connection with the killing of an activist who campaigned against superstition and black magic.

The suspects were arrested almost four months after Narendra Dabholkar was shot dead in Maharashtra state.

Mr Dabholkar, who was 67, was a former doctor who spent decades denouncing what he called "fraudulent" practices by gurus and spiritual leaders.

His killing sparked widespread protests by Indian anti-superstition activists.

It also prompted Maharashtra state to introduce moves to ban black magic and superstition.

Narendra Dabholkar
Narendra Dabholkar had openly criticised India's so-called "godmen"
The legislation, initially adopted as an ordinance, is due to be debated by the state parliament to make it permanent.

Mr Dabholkar was shot dead by gunmen on a motorcycle in the city of Pune on 20 August.

The suspects, who have not been named, were arrested in the resort state of Goa on Friday, and later transferred to Pune for questioning, police said.

Critics accused Mr Dabholkar of being anti-religion in a country where mysticism is venerated. But in an interview with the AFP news agency two years ago he rejected such charges.

"The Indian constitution allows freedom of worship and nobody can take that away," he said. "This is about fraudulent and exploitative practices."

Mr Dabholkar's organisation, the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (Committee for the Eradication of Blind Faith), was known for criticising some of India's "godmen" - the self-styled Hindu ascetics who claim to perform miracles and are revered by many.

He also campaigned against animal sacrifices used in certain rituals.

 

[Mythopoeika]

Obviously their evil magic wasn't enough - they had to use a gun to kill him.

 

[ramonmercado]

Nigerian 'House of Horror' riot in Ibadan
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26721112

Police officers try to control a crowd outside an abandoned building in Ibadan on 24 March, after the discovery of rotting bodies and skeletons inside

Anger in the crowd outside the property has risen since the grim discovery on Saturday

Rioting has erupted outside a building in Nigeria where human remains were found at the weekend.

At least 20 people are reported to have been injured when dozens were prevented from entering the property - dubbed the "House of Horror".

Police have cordoned off the abandoned house in the south-western city of Ibadan since Saturday.

Locals suspect black magic rituals were behind the scores of skeletons and rotting corpses found there.

Reports say several severely malnourished people were also found wandering in the bush near the building, and that at least 15 others were found shackled inside.

"We want to rescue our people who are still underground and crying for help. But the police are saying no and we are angry," one rioter said.

Policemen guard the abandoned building where rotting bodies and skeletons were found
Locals believed the run-down building was being used by a construction company
A state-owned bus that was vandalised by an angry crowd outside the "House of Horrors"
The rioters also attacked vehicles
A large crowd pray for those suspected to have been killed by kidnappers at the abandoned building
Crowds outside the building have been praying for the alleged victims
The governor of Oyo State Abiola Ajimobi speaks outside the "House of Horror"
"Those behind this dastardly act will be punished by God," said State Governor Abiola Ajimobi
Human skulls lie on the path outside the building where rotting bodies and skeletons were discovered
Body parts have also been discovered in the grounds of the building
Some rioters were reported to have been carrying sticks and machetes.

The find came after a group of motorcycle taxi riders reported that some of their members had gone missing and were believed to have been abducted.

Kidnapping victims in Nigeria are sometimes tortured or sacrificed in black magic rituals, and local media have reported the sale of human body parts across the country.

Witnesses reported swarms of flies and an overpowering stench. Clothes and personal belongings were also seen at the property.

Local media say human body parts were being sold to customers who came to the premises at night-time.

Oyo state governor Abiola Ajumobi visited the scene on Monday and assured residents that those responsible would be punished.

"Those behind this dastardly act will be punished by God. We too will punish them when we get them," he said.

Police said on Sunday that six people, including five security guards allegedly armed with guns, bows and arrows, were arrested at the scene.