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Suspects prayed to 'alligator god' to destroy evidence

Murder Trial
© Rafael OlmedaRobert Mackey, right, is accused of murdering Lorraine Hatzakorzian and dumping her head in the Everglades. He is flanked by defense lawyers John George (to his right) and Louis C. Pironti (to his left, partly visible).
At least once a day, Robert Mackey and Paul Trucchio would pray to "the alligator god" that a human head, the only evidence of the brutal murder they committed, would be devoured by a reptile in the Everglades, two witnesses told jurors Thursday.

The witnesses, former roommates of the suspects during their 2007 stay in Volusia County, said Mackey and Trucchio each confessed to murdering Lorraine Hatzakorzian, 41, dismembering her, and tossing her head into an Everglades canal, where it was discovered near a boat ramp in western Broward County on April 28, 2007.

The head was the only part of the victim's body that was ever found, and even though no one knows where the victim met her demise, the location of her head resulted in a murder trial in Broward.

Mackey, 44, faces life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder or 30 years if convicted of being an accessory after-the-fact. He cannot be convicted of both crimes. Trucchio was sentenced to 30 years in prison after pleading no contest to the murder charge a year ago.

Prosecutors say Mackey and Trucchio beat Hatzakorzian to death when she tried to get away from them, then used their tree-trimming tools to cut her head off. Witnesses Doug Stine and Louis Caroleo, who roomed with Mackey and Trucchio in Port Orange from May to July 2007, each said they heard the men confess to the crime and discuss how they could get away with it.

Eye 2

Drunk uncle 'chopped up 18-month-old niece then roasted body parts in the oven' while looking after toddler for her mother

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Horrific: An 18-month-old girl was chopped up by her drunk uncle
A drunk uncle chopped up his 18-month-old niece then roasted her body parts in an oven, police said today.

Andrey Gadzhiev's sister Elena Titova, 29, had left him caring for the toddler for 15 minutes while she visited a neighbour.

When she returned there was no sign of the child and her intoxicated brother could not explain what had happened to her.

Info

Tortoise found alive in locked store room after thirty years

Tortoise
© The Independent, UK
A family in Brazil have expressed their joy at finding their pet tortoise, Manuela, more than thirty years after she went missing.

She disappeared from the Almeida family home in Rio de Janeiro in 1982 and was never found despite an extensive and thorough search.

The family assumed she must have escaped through the front door, after builders who were working on the house at the time had left it open.

It was only after their father Leonel died earlier this month that the family started tidying and sorting his locked store room and made the discovery.

Leandro, Leonel's son, was clearing out boxes from his father's locked second-floor store room, and was throwing out what he thought was just a box with an old record player, when a neighbour pointed out the tortoise.

Arrow Down

Law catches up with Batman of Buenos Aires

Batman?
© NZ HeraldOscar Lefosse is a former cop who served from 1986 to 1996. His gun licence expired a year ago.
A self-styled Buenos Aires superhero who fought crime armed only with a costume, mask and pepper spray is now on weapons charges.

Thanks to an alleged shootout with muggers, the superhero has been charged with carrying an unlicensed gun, police said.

The man who called himself Menganno - Spanish for Joe Blow - and became famous in Argentine media is actually Oscar Lefosse, 43, a former cop who served from 1986 to 1996. It turns out his gun licence expired a year ago.

On Tuesday, Lefosse told police that three petty criminals opened fire on his car as he drove with his wife. He returned fire with his Glock pistol.

On his Facebook page, "Menganno" - 33,000 followers - posted a photo of what he said was his bullet-ridden car.

Bizarro Earth

A rape a minute, a thousand corpses a year

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© India Today/ZUMA PressPeople at a rally in Kolkata, India light candles to honor a 23-year old gang rape victim.
Here in the United States, where there is a reported rape every 6.2 minutes, and one in five women will be raped in her lifetime, the rape and gruesome murder of a young woman on a bus in New Delhi on December 16th was treated as an exceptional incident. The story of the alleged rape of an unconscious teenager by members of the Steubenville High School football team was still unfolding, and gang rapes aren't that unusual here either. Take your pick: some of the 20 men who gang-raped an 11-year-old in Cleveland, Texas, were sentenced in November, while the instigator of the gang rape of a 16-year-old in Richmond, California, was sentenced in October, and four men who gang-raped a 15-year-old near New Orleans were sentenced in April, though the six men who gang-raped a 14-year-old in Chicago last fall are still at large. Not that I actually went out looking for incidents: they're everywhere in the news, though no one adds them up and indicates that there might actually be a pattern.

There is, however, a pattern of violence against women that's broad and deep and horrific and incessantly overlooked. Occasionally, a case involving a celebrity or lurid details in a particular case get a lot of attention in the media, but such cases are treated as anomalies, while the abundance of incidental news items about violence against women in this country, in other countries, on every continent including Antarctica, constitute a kind of background wallpaper for the news.

Attention

German soldiers are growing boobs on one side of their bodies

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© DPA
An elite military Guards battalion is growing boobs because of the way they drill, a shock military medical report had revealed in Germany.

Dozens of soldiers in the Wachbataillon unit - which performs close drill displays at official events - are said to be stricken with a condition which stimulates male mammary glands.

Experts say the repeated slapping of the soldiers' heavy rifles in the same spot on the left side of their chests during drills has stimulated the glands to produce hormones, causing boobs to sprout on one side only.

Sheriff

Prostitute accepts undercover cop's invitation to meet inside police station

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© mug shot via KATU
Authorities say a 20-year-old Portland woman drove 50 miles to reach the man she thought was her client after being solicited for prostitution through phone and text messages.

But there was something unusual about the destination: It was the Salem Police Department.

Camcorder

CCTV reveals store's treatment of teenage shoplifter

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The CCTV footage shows Amine Ahnini being restrained after returning the food he had stolen
Asylum seeker says he bit Sainsbury's security guard because he could not breathe after being grabbed around the neck.

A teenage asylum seeker has said he feared he was going to die after he was pinned to the ground, grabbed around the neck and restrained by five people in a Sainsbury's supermarket after he stole a sandwich.

Amine Ahnini, from Algeria, who was 18 at the time of the incident in May last year, was challenged by a security guard as he left the Canterbury store with a sandwich and a few other food items. He admitted he had not paid for them, saying he was starving and had no money.

While there are no official figures, Data is not routinely collected but there is anecdotal evidence from charities and police forces that there has been a rise in thefts linked to hunger.

Ahnini agreed to go back into the store with the guard and return the items. CCTV footage shows that after he had put the food down the guard grabbed him and pushed him to the ground. Other employees and a member of the public helped the guard restrain him. The guard said he acted because he feared the 18-year-old was going to assault him.

Bad Guys

Feds: 'Ex-Marine' with 'right-wing' manifesto built bombs for cocaine, hoarded assault weapons

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A Colorado man, who said that he was an ex-Marine and claimed a "right-wing declaration of independence/constitutionalist political manifesto," built improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to trade for cocaine and hoarded several military-style assault weapons that may have been converted to machine guns, the Department of Justice said on Thursday.

According to an affidavit, federal agents with the Bureau of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) raided the home of Richard Lawrence Sandberg in Jefferson County on Thursday after he provided an undercover agent with homemade bombs.

After receiving a tip from a Denver Police Department detective, ATF Special Agent Shane Abraham contacted Sandberg and told him he needed an explosive device to protect a building. Sandberg, who claimed to be "former Special Ops Recon SS Marine Corps," allegedly said that he was in possession of "incendiary" or "napalm" explosives, but the devices were wrong for the job. The suspect then recommended a "frag" - or fragmentation device - and suggested that he could provide something that was also waterproof.

Cult

Scientology scion: 'Cult' uses the most 'devious, systematic brainwashing' ever

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Jamie DeWolf, grandson of Scientology found L. Ron Hubbard
The great-grandson of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard spoke to Current TV host Cenk Uygur on Thursday night and shared a stark warning about what he called one of the most "devious, systematic brainwashing systems that's ever been invented."

Claiming that Scientology is designed to play on the "narcissism" of supposedly intelligent people, Jamie DeWolf said members are taught to believe that they will soon be able to travel through space and time and remember all of their alien souls. "It's like a pyramid of self-mastery, and as you move up this pyramid you receive God-like status," he explained.

"And then as you continue up this pyramid you become more and more insulated, more and more watched, more and more guided by Scientologists themselves, and then they have handlers. They also specifically direct themselves to acquire celebrities, and that's been a policy ever since L. Ron first exploded with 'Dianetics.' Even Elvis himself turned down Scientology in its early days."