Society's ChildS


Eye 1

Another sick psychopath: Son, 22, gutted his own mother and disemboweled with a poker because he believed she had ruined his life

Joshua Gardner
Daily Mail, UK
Fri, 27 Dec 2013 09:16 UTC
  • Robert Owen Rankin awoke the day after Christmas intent on murdering his mother in their Connecticut home
  • Rankin told police he sliced his mother from the belly button up before pulling out her intestines 'to see if there was a baby in her stomach'
  • Margaret Rohner, 45, was found naked and stabbed in the abdomen at the bottom of the stairs in her home
  • Rankin has been put on suicide watch at in his Connecticut jail cell at his attorney's request

A 22-year-old Connecticut man has admitted to police he used a fire poker and then a buck knife to ruthlessly gut his own mother and pull out her intestines on Thursday.

A chilling police report shows that Robert Owen Rankin of Deep River didn't know exactly what all the guts and gore he pulled from his mother Margaret Rohner, 45, were, but he knew why he was doing it.

'I don't know exactly what the stuff was, like octopus tentacles,' he would coolly recount to police. 'I killed my mother because she is pretty much responsible for everything that has gone wrong in my life.'
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People

Society's Breakdown: No beer led to ceramic squirrel stabbing


Fox News / Associated Press
Sat, 28 Dec 2013 01:12 UTC
squirrel
© unknown
South Carolina authorities say a 44-year-old woman angry at a man for returning home without beer on Christmas beat and stabbed him with a ceramic squirrel.

The Charleston County Sheriff's office says in a report that deputies found a man covered with blood when they arrived at Helen Williams' North Charleston home early Wednesday. She told investigators the man fell and cut himself, but couldn't explain why her hands and clothes were also bloody.

Deputies say the man said Williams was so angry when he returned without beer because stores were closed on Christmas Eve that she grabbed a ceramic squirrel, beat him in the head, then stabbed him in the shoulder and chest.

Williams was in jail Friday and charged with criminal domestic violence. It wasn't known if she had a lawyer.
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Question

Chinese billionaire And French winemaker die in helicopter crash while celebrating chateau sale

Rory Mulholland
Business Insider
Tue, 24 Dec 2013 12:21 UTC
Image
© AFP/Mehdi FedouachChinese billionaire Lam Kok (2nd R) and his wife with James Gregoire (2nd L), the former owner of the Chateau, photographed less than an hour before the helicopter crash.
France has stepped up its search for the two missing businessmen and their interpreter after the body of the Chinese billionaire's son is pulled from wreckage

A massive search continued for the bodies of a Chinese billionaire and a French winemaker who died in a helicopter crash after going on a flight to celebrate the sale of an historic Bordeaux chateau.

Police have found only the body of hotel magnate Lam Kok's 12-year-old son, whose remains were pulled out of the wreckage after the helicopter plunged on Friday into the Dordogne river in the southwest of the country.

Mr Kok's interpreter was also on board the aircraft piloted by Mr Gregoire, who was taking the Chinese businessman on a tour of the Chateau de La Riviere estate he had just purchased from him for a reported £25 million.

Police helicopters with thermal imaging cameras were hunting for the three missing bodies, while divers probed the fast-flowing Dordogne and more than 100 gendarmes with sniffer dogs searched the riverbanks.

The body of the yellow-and-black Robinson R44 helicopter was due to be lifted from the water on Monday. Officials said it would likely take weeks for the cause of the crash to be determined.
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Attention

Humans acting like maddened beasts: Woman threatened to kill Walmart worker over price of skateboard

Daniel Dahm
ClickOrlando.com
Fri, 27 Dec 2013 11:37 UTC
walmart
© unknown
A 45-year-old woman was arrested on allegations of threatening to kill a Walmart sales associate over the price of a skateboard.

Maria Desimone was arrested in the incident, which occurred December 20 at the Walmart at 1040 Malabar Road in Palm Bay.

According to police, the associate was assisting another customer when Desimone approached her and was upset about the price of a skateboard. Desimone began cursing at the woman and swung the board as if she was going to hit her, police said.

The sales associate pointed her finger at Desimone, who then threatened to kill her, according to police.

The associate called for a manager, and Desimone went to her car and left the store, police said.

She was later arrested on battery charges.

No other details were released.
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House

Social collapse accelerates: Shelters fill as rent aid disappears

Michael Howard Saul
The Wall Street Journal
Fri, 27 Dec 2013 09:26 UTC
new york homeless
© The Wall Street Journal
New York City homeless shelters - swelling with record-high populations not seen since the Great Depression - are increasingly being sought out by people who participated in a now-defunct rent-subsidy program designed to reduce homelessness, according to a report to be released Saturday.

The author of the report, the Coalition for the Homeless, a nonprofit advocacy group, held up the report as evidence that homeless families need longer-term government help with rent to stay out of the shelter system. Since the rental-payment program, known as Advantage, was canceled by Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration after state budget cuts in June 2011, the city's homeless shelter system population has grown to its highest-ever levels: 52,000 people, including 22,000 children.

As of August, the coalition report found, 49.4% of family placements in the Advantage program had returned to the shelter system, climbing from 24.5% nearly three years ago. The numbers rose rapidly as subsidies ran out in 2012, with more than 300 families a month seeking shelter from the city during that summer after losing their rent subsidies. In 2013, more than 200 such families were entering shelters each month, the report said.

The coalition estimated that the cost of housing these families in the shelter system was $287 million more than paying their rent through Advantage.

The coalition said its report, titled "The Revolving Door Keeps Spinning," was based on city government data obtained from a Freedom of Information Law request.
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Arrow Down

Sick: Teen cut off man's head as Christmas 'present' to Aunt


CBS Chicago
Fri, 27 Dec 2013 01:28 UTC
valdez
© Chicago PoliceAlexis Valdez
A teen charged with killing his aunt's boyfriend allegedly cut off the victim's head and left it on his aunt's bed "as a present" on Christmas Day, according to prosecutors.

Alexis Valdez, 18, has been charged with first-degree murder, for allegedly killing 41-year-old Silvestre Diaz-Hernandez inside a basement apartment in the 2500 block of North Kildare Avenue early Christmas morning.

At a bond hearing Thursday afternoon, prosecutors unveiled a gruesome story in an attempt to keep Valdez detained. They say he had been living with his aunt and her boyfriend and was supposed to be helping pay the bills, but he had stopped working. After several arguments about the expenses, Valdez was asked to move out.
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X

Freight train carrying nuclear waste derails near Paris


Irish Independent
Mon, 23 Dec 2013 04:15 UTC
Image
A train convoy of CASTOR containers, which carry radioactive nuclear waste, passes by in Flottemanville
A rail freight wagon carrying nuclear waste derailed at a depot in Drancy, 3 km (2 miles) northeast of Paris on Monday, the mayor of the town said.

There was no leakage of nuclear waste, Jean-Christophe Lagarde said by telephone.

"Today at 1605 (1505 GMT), a freight car transporting radioactive material derailed in Drancy station," said the mayor, who is also a member of parliament for the French centrist UDI party.

About 4,000 freight wagons carrying radioactive or chemical waste pass through the station each year, Lagarde said, calling the incident "intolerable".

France's "Europe Ecologie Les Verts" (EELV) Green party called for an end to the transportation of radioactive waste through urban areas and busy stations following the incident.
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Cow

Best of the Web: SWAT team raids sustainable community

Clark Kent
Hang the Bankers
Sun, 22 Dec 2013 20:20 UTC
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At around seven thirty last Friday morning, inhabitants of The Garden of Eden, a small Intentional Community based on Sustainability, were awakened by a SWAT raid conducted by the City of Arlington for suspicion of being a full fledged marijuana growth and trafficking operation. Ultimately only a single arrest was made based on unrelated outstanding traffic violations,a handful of citations were given for city code violations, and zero drug related violations were found.

The entire operation lasted about 10 hours and involved many dozens of city officials, SWAT team, police officers, and code compliance employees, and numerous official vehicles including dozens of police cars and several specialized vehicles that were involved in the "abatement" operation. Witnesses say that there were helicopters and unmanned flying drones circling the property in the days prior to the raid that are presumed to have been a part of the intelligence gathering. The combined expenses for the raid itself and the collection of information leading up to the fruitless raid are estimated in the tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars.

All 8 adults present in the house were initially handcuffed at gunpoint by heavily armed SWAT officers, including the mother of a 22 month old and a two week old baby who was separated from her children during the raid. The majority of police activity on the day of the raid included mowing the grass, the forcible destruction of both wild and cultivated plants like blackberries, lamb's quarters and okra, and the removal of other varied materials from around the premises such as pallets, tires and cardboard that the Community members say they had collected for use in sustainability projects. No marijuana or other drugs were found on site and the inhabitants of the premises were all unarmed.
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Target

Utah couple sues online retailer behind $3,500 negative review fine

Arturo Garcia
Raw Story
Fri, 27 Dec 2013 19:00 UTC
Image
A Utah couple filed a $75,000 suit against the online retailer KlearGear.com in response to the company hurting their credit with a $3,500 fine over a negative review nearly five years ago.

CNN reported on Thursday that the advocacy group Public Citizen filed the lawsuit on behalf of John and Jen Palmer, who have been fighting with Klear Gear since the company failed to deliver an order in 2008.

In response, Jen Palmer criticized the company on Ripoff Report, only to be notified last year that they had allegedly broken Klear Gear's "non-disparagement clause," which "prohibits [customers] from taking any action that negatively impacts Kleargear.com, its reputation, products, services, management or employees."

"This is fraud," Jen Palmer said at the time. "They're blackmailing us for telling the truth."
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Bizarro Earth

Gay couple banned from dancing to country music together, but hip-hop is okay

David Edwards
Raw Story
Thu, 26 Dec 2013 18:31 UTC
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The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas is backing two Texas men who say that they were recently kicked out of a South Texas night club for dancing to country music instead of hip-hop or rap.

Justin Meyer, 21, explained to the Victoria Advocate that management at Cactus Canyon told them on Saturday night that there was a policy against men dancing together to country music.

However, Meyer said that he later discover that the club had no such policy.

"I don't like that we were lied to," he remarked. "The confrontation never would have happened if they hadn't lied about the policy."

Meyer's boyfriend, 30-year-old James Douglas, said that the couple was finishing a dance to the song "Cowboys and Angels" on Saturday night when they were told that they were violating club policy and posed a safety risk.

"Why is it not OK for me to dance with my boyfriend when there are girls here who dance together all the time?" Douglas recalled asking.
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