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Article Submitted by mostafa.redh . A woman has been arrested on suspicion of killing three of her own babies after their bodies were found in the family freezer by her grown-up children. The 44-year-old handed herself in to police in Germany on Sunday. Her children found the bodies as they looked for a frozen pizza while their parents were away for the weekend. The three infants are believed to have been born alive at some time in the 1980s but police do not yet know how they died. The woman, her 47-year-old husband and three children - two sons aged 18 and 22, and a 24-year-old daughter - have lived in Wenden in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia since 1984. Herbert Fingerhut, who is heading the police investigation, said: "It sounds unbelievable, but there are examples showing such things are possible." Autopsies were expected to be carried out to determine exactly how the children died. Police said it was believed they had been born alive, ruling out the possibility that they were still-births. Neighbours were said to have been stunned by news of the find and the subsequent arrest. Mayor of the town, Peter Brueser, said: "I've been mayor for 14 years, and this is definitely the worst day I've seen. "We will need a long time here to work through this." The grim discovery is the latest in a string of similar cases in Germany. In the worst case, a woman was convicted of manslaughter in 2006 and sentenced to the maximum 15 years in prison for killing eight of her newborn babies and burying them in flower pots and a fish tank in the garden of her parents' home near the German-Polish border. More recently, police in February were called to a home in northern Germany where a dead baby was discovered in the cellar. In January, a 28-year-old German woman was charged with manslaughter after the remains of three babies were discovered in her house and the home of a relative. That woman has denied killing the three babies. In January 2007, a 21-year-old admitted giving birth to three children and then hiding their bodies in her garage in the town of Thoerey in the eastern state of Thuringia. Source Image above:The house in Wenden, Germany, where three baby corpses were found.
BOSTON (CBS) ? Hadden Clark is a cross-dressing child killer who claimed to have buried victims on Cape Cod. It's hard to believe anyone would want to buy his used sweat socks, or his prison pillow case, but there it is -- online for $20. Keep browsing and you'll find artwork by John Wayne Gacy for $350. For $850, you can get a lock of Charles Manson's hair. It even comes with it a letter of authenticity from Mansion himself, CBS station WBZ-TV in New York reports. It's called murderabilia, and it's sold on several sites like MurderAuction.com. Prosecutor Abby Rivkind is not exactly a collector. "My first reaction was 'ewwww.' My second reaction was 'who would buy this?' My third reaction was, 'what kind of a person would sell this?'" Well, meet Todd Bohannon -- founder of MurderAuction.com. He's one of the country's largest collectors of serial killer artifacts. His fascination began at age 13. He saw the movie "Helter Skelter" and started writing letters to Charles Manson. Manson wrote back. Since then, he's written to 300 other killers and has made friends with many of them. He doesn't believe hawking items from people like Ted Bundy is a problem. How do you put a stop to this? Congress is getting involved by introducing a measure that would make it a felony for prisoners to mail items for interstate commerce. However, stopping those items from getting out won't be simple. And the penalties only affect the inmates, not the person buying the murderabilia and not the person selling it. Some states have taken their own action against murderabilia. Massachusetts hasn't yet. There is a bill sitting up on Beacon Hill to stop criminals from cashing in, but it's been around for a few years. Lawmakers have debated it, and it's gone nowhere. Source ...I've found my new favorite website.
TorrentSpy already shut its doors earlier this year, and even though the company’s founder Justin Bunnell insisted that it’s trying legal loss was not behind the decision to close down the site, it appeared to be the only feasible reason for TorrentSpy moving towards oblivion. After a defeating battle against the MPAA, TorrentSpy was out of tricks for continuing to fight against the American Hollywood structure. And if its own decision to shut things down wasn’t enough to do that, then the $110 million judgment against its parent company, Valence Media, may just do the trick, reports Slyck. Being hit with such a hefty sum, even after closing down the site, is a sure fire way to send a message to TorrentSpy–and beyond. This isn’t the first time the MPAA has beaten a dead horse. A legal suite against DVDr-core seemed to drag on for years longer than it needed to, even though the MPAA has likely dropped this particular lawsuit earlier this month. The MPAA wants to really make sure that there won’t be any ongoing issues with services like TorrentSpy, as an injunction was also ordered against the company. While Valence Media can retain possession of the site, the company is prohibited from indexing any copyrighted content. To top things off, the MPAA has been awarded statutory damages of $30,000 “per infringement pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 504(c), for each of the 3,699 infringements shown, for a total judgment in the amount of $110,970,000…” It just doesn’t pay to be a torrent company in the US. Do you think this will encourage others in the industry to give it up? Source And that's why we take copyright seriously, here at Spiked Humor. We want the site to live and shield it from million dollar lawsuits.
HAVANA - Looks like it will be close, but no giant cigar, for Cuba's stogie-rolling king Jose Castelar. The 64-year-old former world-record holder has teamed up with five assistants, using nearly 93 pounds (42 kilograms) of top-quality tobacco to assemble a 98-foot (30-meter) cigar. Castelar set Guinness Records for the world's longest cigars in 2001, 2003 and April 2005, when he completed a stogie measuring 20.41 meters, just shy of 67 feet. On Tuesday, he said he is shooting for a fourth title. But Castelar, who learned the art of cigar-making from an uncle at age 5, is likely to fall short this time: Guinness says Puerto Rican cigar-maker Patricio Pena crafted a whopping 41.2-meter (135-foot) stogie last year. Competition from cigar rollers in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico is stiff but friendly, driving Castelar to keep rolling. "I'm working to take it to the maximum," he said. "We'll be back in two years with a longer one." Still, in a colonial fortress across the bay from Havana's main drag, his team is now crafting a cigar so long and so thick — more than 2 inches (5 centimeters) across — it can never actually be smoked. Rolled for display at government-run cigar shops, it will be stored under glass, like others Castelar has made in previous years. It will take five, eight-hour days of work before this stogie is ready for unveiling on Friday at an international tourism fair, Castelar said. Hand-rolled cigars are one of communist Cuba's signature products. The island sold US$402 million- (euro260 million-) worth of them last year, with top markets in Spain, France, Germany and Switzerland. The United States is excluded because of its trade embargo against the island. Castelar actually prefers to smoke cigarettes, but his first assistant, Antonio Gonzalez, worked Tuesday with a thick Cuban stogie between his teeth. Made with three, progressively darker shades of bright brown tobacco and wrapped in newspaper for its own protection, their cigar stretched across 14 long tables lined up end-to-end. Markers indicated that in 2001, six such tables were needed to accommodate Castelar's super cigar, while his 2003 edition took up eight. By 2005, the cigar needed 11. The stogie is so long that, as Castelar calls out orders, Gonzalez must repeat them to four other men stationed at different points along the cigar, relaying commands down the chain as if the men were aboard a submarine. "Move forward!" Gonzalez barked, when it was time to roll one way, and then, "Let's go back!" But if rolling the giant cigar sounds hard, imagine smoking it. "The tobacco is smokable," Castelar joked, "but we're missing someone with the lungs for it." And maybe a blow torch to light it, too. Source
Parents Receive Frightening Three-Minute Message From Son in Afghanistan When the parents of soldier Stephen Phillips listened to the message from their son's cell phone replete with gunfire and shouting they feared the worst. "It made the hair stand up on the back of my head," said Phillip's step-father Jeff Petee. Phillips had accidentally called home during a firefight in Afghanistan. Having tried to reach his family in Otis, Ore., earlier that day, the phone's "redial" feature was activated as Phillips pressed against the cell phone mid-battle. Mother Sandie Petee found the three-minute message which ended with the words "incoming R-P-G!" In addition to the chaos and gunfire, what appears to be the soldiers identifying where enemy fire is coming from is also heard. "Back in the corner," someone shouts. Moments later, "We need more ammo." "The tape cuts off with 'incoming R-P-G!' so we started calling him and finally got a hold of him and found out that he was ok and that they survived," Petee said. Petee's daughter's fiancée is also a soldier though he is posted in Iraq. "I definitely think all the soldiers over there are heroes," he said. Source
WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Two women were hospitalized after a New Zealand cafe mistakenly served dishwashing liquid as mulled wine, a newspaper reported Tuesday. Chico's Restaurant Ltd. in the mountain resort of Queenstown on South Island pleaded guilty to a charge of selling food containing extraneous matter — the chemical sodium hydroxide — that caused injury, the Southland Times newspaper said. Prosecutor Sarah McKenzie told Queenstown District Court that the two women were taken to a hospital after drinking the liquid last July, the newspaper reported. Customer Sarah Ferguson had ordered a glass of "Mountain Thunder" mulled wine from Queenstown's Old Man Rock Cafe, owned by Chico's Restaurant Ltd. She spat out the liquid when she experienced a burning sensation on her lips and mouth. Cafe worker Bethany Sim offered to test the drink and suffered a similar reaction. "A check by cafe management indicated that a mulled wine container had unfortunately been filled with dishwashing detergent," McKenzie told the court. An investigation showed the two liquids had been mixed up after 5.2 gallons of dishwashing liquid was delivered in a container formerly used to hold "Mountain Thunder" mulled wine. The court heard Sim suffered burns and possible scaring of her throat and esophagus from the chemical mix. Under New Zealand's no-fault accident law, victims do not sue for damages. Instead, treatment costs and income loss are met by the nation's Accident Compensation scheme. The company will be sentenced next month and faces a possible fine. Source
ILLINOIS- An artist says the only way he can truly express himself is by legally changing his name to "In God We Trust." Yes. First name, "In God." Last name, "We Trust." School bus driver and amateur artist Steve Kreuscher of Zion will appear in a Lake County court June 13, hoping the judge will grant his request. "I want this with all my heart," says the 57-year-old father of four. Kreuscher, a Christian who gave up on organized religion 20 years ago, said the new name would symbolize the story of his life. "I've had to trust God through incredibly hard times," he said. Going through an "extremely painful" divorce, bouts of severe depression, money problems and a life-threatening home invasion, he believes God protected him through it all. He's also worried atheists might finally be successful in having the phrase "In God We Trust" removed from U.S. currency. "Those words are an endangered species," Kreuscher said. "You might take it off the money, but you can't take away my name." He remembers when the phrase "God Reigns" was removed from the Zion city seal in 1992 after the courts deemed it as unconstitutional. Kreuscher is confident the judge will allow the change and believes his request won't violate the regulations. Northbrook attorney Alan Pearlman, who has handled hundreds of name change cases, said he's not aware of any specific list of rules. But he said a judge can deny names that are racial slurs or considered obscene. If they violate trademarks, or duplicate the name of a celebrity, they would likely be rejected. "I doubt a judge would let you change your name to Brad Pitt," he said. Living celebrities might not be copied, but mythical characters are apparently fair game. In 1997, Robert Rion of Mundelein succeeded in having his name changed to Santa Claus. Pearlman said the most common reasons people change their names is divorce and adoption. The county charges $246 for the petition. In addition, it requires the person to publish a legal notice in the newspaper three times. That could cost as much as $150. "That will be the best $400 I've ever spent," Kreuscher said. He said he would love to be able to sign his artwork with the new moniker. Inspired by the work of Salvador Dali and M.C. Escher, Kreuscher said he creates surrealistic images using colored pencils. "'In God We Trust' fully expresses who I am as an artist and a person," he said. "You don't know how bad I want this." More Interesting Legal Name Changes: Santa Claus: Robert Rion of Mundelein, 1997 GoVeg.com: Karin Robertson of Virginia, 2003 Megatron: Michael Burrows of Washington, 2007 Optimus Prime: Scott Nall of Ohio, 2001 Pro-Life: Marvin Richardson of Idaho, 2008 Low Tax: Byron Looper of Tennessee, 1998 Jesus Christ: Jose Espinal of New York, 2005 Source
South Chicago Heights- When he dies, a wooden coffin just won't do. It doesn't match Bill Bramanti's big personality. He wants something people will remember him by. So the Glenwood village administrator ordered a specially made coffin that bears the design of something he knows well: a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer can. Bill Bramanti, Glenwood village administrator, picked out his coffin and had it painted to resemble a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer can, Bramanti's favorite brand. For now, he plans to use the coffin as a cooler during family parties. (Mary Compton/SouthtownStar) "I actually fit, because I got in here," said Bramanti - 5 feet 9 inches tall and about 280 pounds - leaning on the silver casket with a can of PBR in his hand. Bramanti isn't dying. He just wants to be prepared. "I'm going to use it as a cooler until I really need it," said Bramanti, 67. "You see, I'm going to get my money's worth. Hopefully I get to use it many times." The silver coffin is laminated with the design of a red, white and blue PBR beer can. The inside contains a black liner to prevent seepage so Bramanti can store cold brews in it until he winds up inside. On Saturday, it was filled with ice and PBR. Bramanti thinks it can fit about 15 cases of beer and 150 pounds of ice. Bramanti said he doesn't yet know how much the coffin will cost. He'll have to shell out $2,000 for the artwork. Source, Source Have any interesting articles you'd like to share? Article Request Thread.
Article Submitted by Violetninja420. TUNIS, Tunisia, April 27 (UPI) -- A Tunisian family alleges their daughter was raped during a telephone conversation with a man, a lawyer for the family said. The 30-year-old man said he never touched the young woman. But he acknowledged he heard her scream while they were "totally into" an erotic telephone conversation -- and that she reported bleeding, Al Arabiya reported. Maha al-Metebaa, a lawyer representing the family, told the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabs the case needs careful investigation because of its unprecedented allegations. He said a medical examination had determined that the woman, 20, was no longer a virgin. "The intercourse did take place with all its details but verbally only," he said. "The sexual act did not really happen because the physical proximity factor is not there, yet it happened because there is a direct physical impact – the loss of virginity." Source Have any interesting articles you'd like to share? Article Request Thread.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Inmates in 58 county jails across New York are getting playing cards with the pictures of missing persons in hopes the photos will jog memories and help solve cold cases. Under a state Senate pilot program, 7,200 decks of cards are being sent to the jails. They include telephone numbers of tip lines that offer rewards to anyone -- including prisoners -- who provide information about the crimes. The cards were paid for with a $10,000 grant from Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno from funds he controls. "This program seeks to go right to the source of crime, providing incarcerated criminals information via playing cards who, in turn, may have credible information or leads that help solve these crimes," Bruno said in a statement A spokesman for Bruno said a similar scheme in Florida prisons had resulted in leads that helped close old cases. Source Image above: A playing card from Florida.