School caretaker killed lover after spiking omelet with sleeping pills

By Calvin Palmer

A school caretaker received a life sentence at the Old Bailey, London, today for killing his lover after spiking her omelet with sleeping pills.

Stephen Singer punched Dina Sharpe three times in the face and head, causing the brain damage from which she died, and then trapped her in a burning bedroom.

Judge Stephen Kramer said Singer had committed the murder to find a “chilling” solution to a complex love triangle and ordered he serve a minimum of 23 years in prison.

Singer, 37, was also jailed concurrently for 20 years for the attempted murder of a toddler in the flat, in Southwark, south London, and for six years for arson.

The judge praised neighbors who tried to save Sharpe, 39, a school cleaner, after she called for help from a window of the fourth-floor flat.

After breaking down her door, they rescued a 17-month-old boy from the flames.

The court was told that Singer had been having a three-year relationship with Sharpe while living with another woman.

When the woman found out about his affair, she threw him out of their home.

At the same time, Sharpe found out that Singer was trying to get back with his long-term partner.

On Sunday 2 August, Singer bought sleeping tablets and lighter fuel before going to Sharpe’s home.

After he calmly left and rode off on his motorcycle, Sharpe’s cries were heard and she was seen calling for help from a window.

He had planned the murder, grinding up sleeping pills earlier in the evening and trying to sedate Sharpe by adding them to an omelet he had cooked for her, and to her wine. He had set fire to the apartment to cover up his “calculating and callous” crime.

The judge told him: “You are a controlling person who was prepared chillingly to use aggression and deceit to take control of a complex triangle of your own making.”

Andrew Munday QC, prosecuting, said the boy, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, survived but had 75 percent burns and was still undergoing extensive plastic surgery.

He said Sharpe died from brain damage due to injuries to her head and face, not from the fire.

After her death, her blood was found to contain sleeping pills. Items from the flat were re-examined and the same drug was found in wine and in half an omelet.

“Not only did he spike the omelet, but also the wine,” said Munday.”He made an omelet but left his half. There was a plan by this defendant to cause her a fatal overdose or at least to incapacitate her.”

Outside court, Detective Chief Inspector Carl Mehta said: “This is an absolutely horrific case and the level of callousness and brutality used by Singer to plan and execute the murder is just unimaginable.”

[Based on a report by The Guardian.]

Police in South Carolina hunt for serial killer

By Calvin Palmer

Police in South Carolina today confirmed they are hunting for a serial killer after a man shot dead last night became the fourth murder in the past six days.

At a joint news conference held this morning by City of Gaffney Police Chief Rick Turner and Cherokee County Sheriff Bill Blanton, it emerged police have evidence to link the killings but would not provide details.

“Under the FBI definition of a serial killer,” Blanton said, “yes, we have a serial killer.”

The latest victim, businessman Stephen Tyler, 45,  was found in his furniture and appliance shop, Tyler Home Center, near downtown Gaffney around closing time yesterday.

Tyler’s 15-year-old daughter, Abby, was also shot and seriously wounded. They were found by a store employee.

Tyler was pronounced dead at the scene while Abby Tyler survived a reported gunshot wound to the head and was airlifted to Spartanburg Medical Center. No details were available on her condition.

The latest killing happened one day and about seven miles from where family members found the bodies of 83-year-old Hazel Linder and her 50-year-old daughter, Gena Linder Parker, bound and shot in Linder’s home.

Blanton would not say if Tyler and his daughter were also bound.

The killing spree began last Saturday about 10 miles from Tyler Home Center. Peach farmer Kline Cash, 63, was found shot in his living room. Investigators said he appeared to have been robbed.

It has not yet been determined if anything was taken in the latest killing, which took place less than a half-mile from the sheriff’s office, where at least 30 investigators were already working on the case.

Attention is focusing on the vehicle description from the June 27 incident, an early 1990s model Ford Explorer with faded gray or champagne-colored paint.

Blanton said a profiler has brought up the possibility that Tyler and his daughter were shot to taunt investigators, but he said his only concern is solving the case.

“We had a 15-year-old girl shot and he killed an 83-year-old woman,” Blanton said. “The good people of this community don’t deserve that. And it doesn’t look like he shows much concern or remorse.”

The sheriff reminded people they have a right to protect themselves and asked them to call 911 to report anything suspicious. He also advised salesmen and others to avoid knocking on strangers’ doors with so many on heightened alert.

“People are going to start shooting at shadows,” Blanton said.

[Based on reports by the Associated Press and The Gaffney Ledger.]

Sunday school teacher accused of murdering child faces new charges

By Calvin Palmer

New charges have emerged in the case of the California Sunday school teacher accused of killing an eight-year-old girl.

Melissa Huckaby, 28, of Tracy, faces additional charges alleging that she gave a “harmful substance” to a child identified only as “Jane M. Doe” on January 17 and also mixing a harmful substance with food or drink given to Daniel Plowman in early March.

A charge of child endangerment and one count of furnishing someone a harmful substance relate to the January 17 incident when when a woman in the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park where Huckaby and Sandra also lived, claimed Huckaby took her seven-year-old child without her or her family’s permission.

Lora Polk, 41, said when the child was returned about two hours later, she was acting strange and was taken to the hospital, where doctor’s tested her and reportedly found she had muscle relaxants in her system.

Huckaby was in court yesterday to enter a plea to charges that she raped, kidnapped and murdered Sandra Cantu on March 27.

 A San Joaquin County Superior Court judge deferred the matter until June 12 after public defender Sam Behar asked for time to review the new charges filed by the prosecution on Thursday.

During the brief session in a packed courtroom, Huckaby sat calmly and did not speak except to answer “yes” when the judge asked whether she understood that the case was being further delayed.

She is accused of killing Sandra Cantu, her daughter’s playmate. Huckaby was also charged with the special circumstances of rape, kidnapping and lewd or lascivious conduct with a child under 14, which could make her eligible for the death penalty upon conviction.

Huckaby was arrested April 10, just days after Sandra’s body was found in a suitcase pulled from an irrigation pond near her home.

[Based on reports by the Los Angeles Times and San Jose Mercury News.]

Four U.S. citizens strangled, beaten and stabbed in Tijuana

By Calvin Palmer

Four U.S. citizens have been found strangled, beaten and stabbed in Tijuana, Mexican and U.S. officials said yesterday.

The two men and two women, from the San Diego and Chula Vista areas, were found in a van on Saturday but their identities were not confirmed until yesterday.

U.S. consular officials in Tijuana named the victims as Luis Games Chavez, 21; Oscar J. Garcia III, 23; Brianna Hernandez Aguilera, 19, and Carmen Ramos Chavez, 20.

All were U.S. citizens and Southern California residents, the consulate spokesman said. He declined to give specific hometowns or how long they had been in Mexico.

The state attorney general’s office in Baja California said Carmen Ramos Chavez was Mexican.

Bernard Gonzales, a spokesman for the Chula Vista Police Department, said a friend told the women’s parents they were headed to nightclubs in Tijuana on Thursday night. They were reported missing the next day when they did not answer their cell phones.

The circumstances of the deaths are still under investigation. No suspects are in custody.

[Based on reports by the Los Angeles Times and Associated Press.]

Brazilian stands trial accused of killing and dismembering British teenage girl

By Calvin Palmer

The trial of a Brazilian man who has confessed to the killing and dismembering of a British teenage girl opened today in Goiania, central Brazil.

Mohamed D’Ali Carvalho Santos, 20, became angry with 17-year-old Cara Marie Burke, of Southfields in south-west London  because she refused to marry him so he could apply for British residency and also threatened to tell his parents about his heavy drug use.

Police said the two were not boyfriend and girlfriend.

Santos alternately listened attentively and yawned as witnesses described how he killed Burke and stuffed her torso in a suitcase.

The prosecution is seeking the maximum penalty of 30 years.

The defense lawyer will argue for a reduced sentence on the grounds of Santos’ heavy drug use and mental problems.

State court records describe Santos as “a mentally perturbed, anti-social individual prone to having hallucinations”.

Police say Santos killed Burke with a butcher’s knife on July 25 and then went to a funk concert before returning to his apartment to cut up her body. He stuffed her torso in a suitcase, which he hid on the banks of a river near Goiania.

Santos allegedly sent his brother a text message saying “the bitch is in the bag.” The message, found in Santos’ cell phone, was written in English, accompanied by a smiley face, police said.

The cell phone also contained photos of Burke’s severed head and torso.

Santos scattered other body parts near another river. Police spent the following days searching for the teenager’s head, arms and legs, recovering the last part of her body in another river on August 6.

Burke’s remains were finally flown to London in September after Brazilian authorities had made sure they would not be required as evidence in a trial.

In court today, Santos’ aunt, Jeane Lucia de Sousa, testified that her nephew is normal when not using drugs but is addicted to cocaine and resorted to sniffing cooking gas to get high when he had no money to buy drugs.

“He’s a calm person when he’s not on drugs, but when he uses drugs he turns aggressive,” she said.

Santos’ girlfriend, Helen de Matos, said he regrets killing the teenager and wants to enter drug treatment so he can get a reduced sentence and spend time with his son before the boy becomes an adult.

The baby was born in March, and was conceived when Matos had a conjugal visit with Santos in jail after his arrest last year.

Santos is expected to be sentenced later today.

[Based on reports by the Associated Press and Press Association.]

British financial adviser dies two weeks after Bahamas shooting

By Calvin Palmer

The British financial adviser ambushed on his way to work in The Bahamas and shot in the head has died in hospital.

Hywel Jones, 55, had spent the last two weeks on a life support machine at the Princess Margaret Hospital. He died late on Friday.

Jones was shot in the back of the head execution style on April 22 as he arrived at his Britannia Investment Group office on West Bay Street in Gambier Village, New Providence Island.

Two weeks earlier he reported he had been assaulted.

The gunman who fled on a motorbike has not been apprehended.

Police have launched a murder investigation but do not have a motive for the killing, although they believe Jones was the intended target.

Last year, Canadian officials were investigating the Britannia Investment Group for a fraudulent tax scheme, which totaled over $100 million.

Jones was also embroiled in a legal dispute with former Free National Movement (FNM) Member of Parliament (MP) Lester Turnquest, who was once an associate of Britannia.

Turnquest severed ties with the company two years ago, after he secured a judgment of nearly $3 million against the company.

On Sunday, Mr. Turnquest offered his condolences to Mr. Jones’ family.

Jones was originally from North Wales and moved to the Caribbean in the 1990s. He worked in the finance sector in the United Kingdom and Jamaica before setting up Britannia Investment Group in The Bahamas in 1996.

He was a former director of both The Bankers Association of The Bahamas and The Bahamas Institute of Bankers.

[Based on reports by The Freeport News and The Bahama Journal.]

German war game fanatic infatuated by redhead stabbed her boyfriend 86 times

By Calvin Palmer

A German computer game fanatic who became infatuated with the girlfriend of a British student and stabbed him to death was found guilty of murder at Nottingham Crown Court today and sentenced to life in prison.

David Heiss, 21, became obsessed with 21-year-old redhead Joanna Witton after meeting her through the war gaming Web site she ran with Matthew Pyke from their flat above the Orange Tree pub in Nottingham city center.

He forced his way into the flat and stabbed Pyke 86 times. In his dying moments, the 20-year-old managed to write DAV, the first three letters of Heiss’s first name, in his own blood on the side of his computer to alert police to his killer’s identity.

Heiss travelled to England twice to see Witton before returning for the fatal visit in September last year. In June, the couple had confronted Heiss, telling him that he “crept them out” and blocking him from their Warscentral Web site.

Mr Justice Keith said that Heiss had remained in denial about the murder.

“I have no doubt that at some stage you decided that Matthew had to die, and that your killing of him involved a substantial degree of both planning and premeditation, which is a significant aggravating factor.

“You may not have had a clear idea in your own mind by the time you bought your return ticket on September 11, but I’m sure you thought that Matthew had to be removed following the chatroom conversation that you had with him on September 14.

“I don’t believe you brought the knife with you because you decided to kill yourself with it, but you brought it with you to kill Matthew and then make it look as if he had killed himself.”

The judge added: “For your premeditated and carefully-planned murder, as well as its ferocity, I consider that you should not be released by the parole board until you have served 18 years in prison.”

After flying into Birmingham International on September 18, Heiss took a train to Nottingham, arriving shortly before 1am and slept behind the air-conditioning unit on the roof of the flat Pyke and Witton shared

The next morning Witton left for work shortly before 7:00 a.m. Heiss then forced his way into the flat and launched the ferocious attack on Pyke.

Grisly pictures seen by the jury showed the trail of blood from the doorway and splattered walls, as well as on shoes and trainers and finally on the bedroom floor.

It is thought the fatal wound was to Mr Pyke’s left lung but his injuries also included damage to his chest and liver.

Heiss told the court he only meant to give Pyke a “beating” but used the knife in self-defense when the pair started scuffling.

After the attack, Heiss changed into another set of clothes and tried to make it look like a robbery. He removed several items from the flat and then flew straight back to Germany, arriving back at his home in Limburg near Frankfurt just 16 hours after he had left. Police found his blood stained clothes in a suitcase under his bed, along with a suicide note he had penned as if written by Pyke.

Detective Chief Inspector Tony Heydon said the brutality of the attack and the clinical planning involved had made it the most harrowing case he had investigated.

“In my view, David Heiss is the most callous, cold-hearted individual I have dealt with. Throughout the trial he has failed to display any emotion about what he has done, despite the clear effect it has had on everyone else involved, and has lied continuously in an effort to escape justice.

“It is chilling that even at the end of his evidence, he agreed that he still had not given up hope of being with Joanna. I’m delighted the jury saw through these lies and found him guilty of Matthew’s murder.

“While this is an extremely unusual case, one thing is clear and that is that Heiss used the internet to harass and stalk Joanna and Matthew.

“He eventually found out where they lived and other information about them that enabled him to carry out his plans, and we should all consider the amount of personal information we share on web systems like MSN and on internet forums.”

[Based on reports by The Times, Daily Mail and East Anglia Daily Times.]

Former soldier found guilty of rape and murder of Iraqi girl

By Calvin Palmer

A former soldier was today found guilty of raping and murdering a 14-year-old Iraqi girl after killing her parents and younger sister.

Steven Dale Green, 24, of Midland, Texas, was discharged from the Army for a personality disorder before he was charged with the Iraq crimes and was tried as a civilian in a U.S. District Court in Kentucky.

Green now faces a possible death sentence when the sentencing phase of his trial starts on Monday.

His attorney Darren Wolff said outside the court the defense never denied Green’s involvement.

“The goal has always been to save our client’s life,” Wolff said. “And, now we’re going to go to the most important phase, which is the sentencing phase and we’re going to accomplish that goal.”

Wolff had asked the jury to consider the “context” of war, saying soldiers in Green’s unit of the 101st Airborne Division lacked leadership and received little help from the Army to deal with the loss of friends in combat.

In closing arguments, lead prosecutor Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa Ford said the March 12, 2006, crime was planned and premeditated. “This was a crime that was committed in cold blood,” she said.

Prosecutors told jurors that the plot against the family was hatched among Green and fellow soldiers who were playing cards and drinking whiskey at a checkpoint. Talk turned to having sex with Iraqi women, when one soldier mentioned the al-Janabi family, who lived nearby.

Three other soldiers are serving time in military prison for their roles in the attack, and testified against Green at his trial.

[Based on a report by the Associated Press.]

Body parts murder victim was stabbed in the back

By Calvin Palmer

The man whose dismembered body was scattered across two English counties was stabbed in the back with a large knife, police said today.

The identity of the man is still not known but police have established he was aged between 45 and 65, was 5ft 6ins to 5ft 10ins and weighed up to 240 pounds.

His badly decomposed torso was found in a green Gullivers suitcase on Saturday in Gore Lane, near the A10 in Standon, east Hertfordshire, and was the latest in a series of grim discoveries across Leicestershire and Hertfordshire.

On March 22 a left leg and foot were found in a green holdall, similar to the one containing the torso, in a lay-by on the A507 in Cottered, Hertfordshire.

A week later an arm, dismembered at the elbow and wrist, was discovered on a grass verge in Wheathampstead, about a 40-minute drive from Cottered.

Two days later, on March 31, a farmer discovered the head near a cemetery in Asfordby, Leicestershire — about 95 miles from Wheathampstead via the M1 and A606.

A motorist then found a right leg in a lay-by near the A10 Puckeridge bypass in Hertfordshire on April 7.

The only body parts still missing are the hands, which the police believe may have been permanently disposed of in an effort to hamper attempts to identify the victim.

A post-mortem examination found that he suffered from eczema, skin discoloration around the ankle and fungal infection in his toenails. He is also said to have had two front teeth missing for a couple of years. The man’s shoe size is believed to be between a seven and a nine.

The victim was naked and he did not have any identifying tattoos or operational scars. However, he did fracture his left leg when he was between 10-25-years-old.

A search of DNA databases has failed to identify the man and police are consulting the National Missing Persons Bureau to see if they can find anyone matching his description.

Experts are working to recreate a clay reconstruction of the man’s face in the hope that will assist our efforts to identify him. Police have also brought in crime mapping experts and behavioral psychologists.

More than 100 officers are working on the investigation, known as Operation Athena, including detectives from Leicestershire and the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire major crime units.

Detective Chief Inspector Michael Hanlon, from the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit, said it was one of the “most horrific” crimes he had dealt with.

“This is a very exceptional crime not just within Hertfordshire but within the UK,” Hanlon said. “Quite lengthy steps have been taken to avoid us knowing who this man is.”

Police believe the victim was killed in the 48 hours before the first discovery of a body part on March 22. All the body parts were dumped at the same time.

[Based on reports by The Times and The Daily Telegraph.]

Huckaby may face rape and lascivious conduct allegations

By Calvin Palmer

The woman suspected of killing an eight-year-old Californian girl may also face rape and molestation allegations, prosecutors said today.

Sunday school teacher Melissa Huckaby, 28, was arrested on Friday on suspicion of kidnapping and murdering Sandra Cantu.

Cantu’s body was found last Monday in a suitcase that had been dumped in an irrigation pond two miles from her home at Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park in Tracy.

Formal charges have not yet been filed, but San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Robert Himmelblau said that a murder charge against Huckaby could include the special circumstances of rape with a foreign object, lewd and lascivious conduct with a child and murder in the course of a kidnapping.

A conviction on any of the special circumstances would make Huckaby eligible for the death penalty or life in prison without parole, Himmelblau said.

The district attorney’s office has not determined whether it will seek the death penalty.

Sandra disappeared on March 27 and was missing for 10 days before farmworkers draining an irrigation pond found the suitcase containing her body.

Police have not said how, where or why Sandra was killed. The girl was a playmate of Huckaby’s five-year-old daughter, Madison.

Sources close to the investigation said today that Sandra was killed at the Clover Road Baptist Church, where Huckaby teaches Sunday school and her grandfather, Lane Lawless, is pastor.

The church is two blocks from the mobile home park where Sandra lived and where Huckaby resides with Lawless and his wife Connie.

Police  and FBI agents searched the church buildings at least twice in the days before Huckaby was arrested.

An autopsy has been carried out by San Joaquin County coroner’s office but its conclusions will not be released until the results of toxicology tests are known in a couple of weeks.

Himmelblau refused to provide details on any evidence leading prosecutors to consider the sexual assault allegations.

“I was hoping that wasn’t the case,” Sandra’s aunt, Angie Chavez, said through tears. “I’m in shock. The whole thing is unimaginable.”

Huckaby is scheduled to be arraigned tomorrow in Stockton.

She remains in custody without bail at the San Joaquin County Jail, where her mental health is being monitored. She has not been allowed visitors.

[Based on a report by the Associated Press and the San Francisco Chronicle.]