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The Crime Ledger: October 22, 2026

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Thursday’s board runs from the upper deck of the George Washington Bridge to an appeal court in Fès. In New York, a retired NYPD detective is charged with murder in the road rage shooting of Con Edison worker Koran Irvine, and in Minnesota, Jack Ball was sentenced to life without parole for killing his pregnant sister, Bethany Israel, and her unborn child. The North American docket runs on from there: a not guilty plea in Seattle in the Tumbler Ridge conspiracy case, a death penalty notice in Payette, a convicted killer recaptured in Memphis, a 1986 cold case arrest in Spokane and a murder charge in Amos, Quebec. Latin America, Africa and the Middle East bring a ruling in Fès that annuls Abdelali Hamieddine’s prison sentence, prison terms for seven former police officers in Guatemala, the second Ronald Ojeda trial in Santiago, life terms for a cash-in-transit heist in Polokwane and death sentences in Damaturu and Doha Aramoun. In Europe, Belgium’s cassation court made Paolo Falzone’s 27 years final, a Madrid jury convicted two in the shooting of Natalia Silva, a prosecutor in Ingolstadt asked for life, a Sofia court ordered an early release and police in Bari arrested four over two mafia killings. Asia and Oceania close it out with a life term upheld in Seoul, 23 years in Cheongju, a life sentence in Whangārei and a police sergeant’s surrender in Surin.

Today’s Ledger covers 75 cases from 43 countries, from verdicts, sentences and appeal rulings to charges and arrests. Anyone charged but not convicted is presumed innocent.

Times are Eastern (ET) unless stated. Allegations come from prosecutors, police and court records as reported and are unproven unless a court has ruled.

United States and Canada

New York, New York: Retired NYPD Detective Charged With Murder in George Washington Bridge Road Rage Killing of Con Edison Worker

Location: Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Legal status: Charged. Victor Romero, 62, of Haverstraw, New York, was arrested Oct. 21, 2026, and charged with murder by the NYPD. He is presumed innocent. Arraignment details were not reported at last check.

A near miss on an entrance ramp, one bullet through a rear window, and a man dead at the wheel on the upper deck of the George Washington Bridge. That is the sequence police and law enforcement sources describe in the killing of Koran Irvine, 46, on Tuesday night, Oct. 20, 2026. By Wednesday a retired NYPD narcotics detective was in handcuffs.

The NYPD identified the accused as Victor Romero, 62, of Haverstraw in Rockland County, and confirmed he was charged with murder. He is presumed innocent, and his attorney was not immediately known.

Irvine, of Valley Cottage, also in Rockland County, was a Con Edison employee who had marked 20 years with the utility in September, ABC7 New York reported. He was married with two children. He was headed toward home when he was killed.

According to police, Irvine drove onto the bridge’s upper level from the West 179th Street ramp in Washington Heights. Surveillance video showed his blue Volkswagen Golf swerving into another lane and nearly colliding with a black Range Rover. Police allege the Range Rover’s driver sped up to catch the Volkswagen and fired a single shot. The bullet shattered the rear passenger side window. Law enforcement sources told NBC New York it appeared to strike the driver’s seat headrest before entering Irvine’s body. The Volkswagen hit the median and stopped. The Range Rover kept going.

Port Authority police, who lead on the span, received reports of a one vehicle crash mid span just after 7 p.m. Officers found Irvine unconscious and unresponsive. The NYPD said he had a gunshot wound to the back of his right shoulder; NBC New York’s sources said the bullet entered the shoulder and exited the neck, and CBS New York reported that Port Authority police initially described a head wound. He was taken to Englewood Hospital in New Jersey and pronounced dead. No one else was hurt.

The westbound upper level was shut for hours. Traffic backed up across the Bronx to the Major Deegan Expressway, and the Port Authority reported delays of up to 90 minutes heading into New York. Lanes began reopening just after midnight.

Detectives worked from cameras. ABC7 reported that the Range Rover was registered to a company that employs Romero as a driver for executives, and that he is believed to have been taking it home after dropping a passenger in Manhattan. Investigators found the vehicle parked outside his home in Haverstraw. On Wednesday morning detectives asked him to come in voluntarily to the 33rd Precinct, and he did. He was charged shortly after, ABC7 reported.

Police said the gun and the vehicle were recovered. According to NBC New York, investigators will test whether Romero’s gun fired the shot, and a bullet fragment recovered inside Irvine’s car was being analyzed. Romero’s house was “frozen” pending a search warrant.

Romero retired from the NYPD in 2001 after seven years on the force, Gothamist reported, citing police. ABC7 reported that he retired a year after he was shot in the hand and chest while off duty in 2000, when three armed robbers entered his family’s laundromat in East Flatbush, Brooklyn.

Neighbors in Valley Cottage described Irvine as quiet and generous, a man who kept chickens and welcomed new arrivals with eggs. “We’re in shock, and we are devastated for the family,” neighbor Hope Dorcelly told reporters. Con Edison called the killing “a senseless act of violence.”

The NYPD has not publicly released a full charging document. The charge is an accusation, and the case has not been presented in court.

Sources

Lakeville, Minnesota: Jack Ball Sentenced to Life Without Parole for Murdering Pregnant Sister Bethany Israel and Her Unborn Child

Location: Lakeville and Rosemount, Dakota County, Minnesota, USA

Legal status: Sentenced. Jack Joseph Ball, 25, who pleaded guilty Jan. 21, 2026, to premeditated first-degree murder and premeditated first-degree murder of an unborn child, and whose mental illness defense was rejected Oct. 20, was sentenced Oct. 22, 2026, to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Jack Joseph Ball will spend the rest of his life in prison for killing his sister, Bethany Ann Israel, and her unborn child. On Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, a Dakota County judge sentenced the 25-year-old Lakeville man to life without the possibility of parole on two counts of first-degree murder, according to the Dakota County Attorney’s Office, as reported by WCCO and KSTP.

Israel, 30, of Bloomington, was killed on May 23, 2024. The criminal complaint states she was between 17 and 18 weeks pregnant. KSTP, citing court records, said she was about four months pregnant.

How the case reached sentencing. Ball was first charged with two counts of second-degree murder. A Dakota County grand jury indicted him in January 2025 on two counts of premeditated first-degree murder and two counts of intentional second-degree murder. On Jan. 21, 2026, he pleaded guilty to premeditated first-degree murder and premeditated first-degree murder of an unborn child, in exchange for dismissal of the second-degree counts, FOX 9 reported. He asserted Minnesota’s mental illness defense, and the case went to a two-phase court trial heard by a judge without a jury.

On Tuesday, Oct. 20, Judge Bryce A.D. Ehrman rejected that defense and entered the guilty verdict, finding that Ball had not met his burden of proving it, the county attorney’s office said. KARE 11 reported that the judge acknowledged extensive evidence of mental illness and autism spectrum disorder but concluded Ball did not meet the legal standard. “The evidence overwhelmingly establishes that [Ball] understood the wrongfulness of the act when he killed Ms. Israel and her unborn child,” Ehrman wrote. Premeditated first-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life without parole in Minnesota, and Thursday’s hearing imposed it.

The night of the killing. According to court documents, Israel went to her younger brother’s home in Lakeville for dinner. When family members did not hear from her, their mother drove to the house, saw Ball leaving and went inside, where she found a large amount of blood. She called 911. The officer who arrived found bloody knives and dismembered remains inside the home, WCCO reported, citing the criminal complaint.

Police later spotted Ball’s vehicle in nearby Rosemount. A resident there reported that a home security camera had recorded a man placing what appeared to be a body part on their front step. Officers found Ball in a neighboring backyard with an apparent self-inflicted injury, court documents state. KSTP reported that a body part was found at a home in Rosemount. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled that Israel died of “complex homicidal violence,” MN Crime reported.

The journals. Investigators found several journals and handwritten notes in which Ball expressed anger toward his pregnant sister and wrote that she was “no longer innocent,” KSTP reported, citing court documents. According to the court’s findings reported Oct. 20, Ball admitted he began planning the killing in February 2024 and recorded those plans in journals. He arranged for his sister to visit when they would be alone and hid weapons in the house before she arrived. He also admitted he knew she was pregnant and intended to kill the unborn child. The judge wrote that the journals contained “detailed plans for murder” and that Ball “acted in accordance with those plans.”

Bethany Israel. Israel was married and expecting her child when she went to her brother’s house that evening. A GoFundMe fundraiser was organized for her family after her death, KSTP noted.

With the life sentence imposed, the criminal case in Dakota County is complete. The reports reviewed on Thursday did not say whether Ball intends to appeal.

Sources

Seattle, Washington: Accused Tumbler Ridge Co-Conspirator Pleads Not Guilty, Trial Set for Dec. 21

Location: U.S. District Court, Seattle, Washington, USA (shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada)

Legal status: Charged. James Cody Bryant, 30, of Bellingham, Washington, is charged with conspiracy to murder persons in a foreign country. Pleaded not guilty Oct. 22, 2026; bail denied; trial set for Dec. 21. Presumed innocent.

The American accused of helping plan the February massacre in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, pleaded not guilty Thursday, Oct. 22, in federal court in Seattle. James Cody Bryant, 30, of Bellingham, Washington, entered the plea at a brief arraignment before Magistrate Judge Michelle Peterson, The Canadian Press reported. Bryant uses female pronouns and goes by the name Melody. She has been denied bail, and her trial is scheduled to begin Dec. 21 before U.S. District Judge Kymberly K. Evanson. Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Greenberg is prosecuting the case, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The single count is conspiracy to murder persons in a foreign country, which carries a maximum of life in prison. A federal grand jury in the Western District of Washington returned the indictment on Oct. 14. The charges are allegations; Bryant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

The killing the indictment describes happened on Feb. 10, 2026. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, killed two relatives, then drove to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, where the shooter killed five children aged 12 and 13 and an educational assistant. The shooter set off an improvised explosive device that damaged the school and fired through locked doors trying to reach other classrooms, then exchanged gunfire with police before dying by suicide. The Canadian Press puts the total dead at eight. Others were seriously injured.

Prosecutors say the link to Bellingham surfaced soon after. Investigators learned Van Rootselaar had been in frequent contact with someone over Discord and identified that person as Bryant, according to records filed in the case. Law enforcement says it has obtained and reviewed thousands of messages between the two, spanning the six months before the attack.

The indictment lists the overt acts prosecutors allege Bryant took to advance the plan:

– As early as August 2025, she agreed to record the shooting and broadcast it online. – That August, she tested the live stream and confirmed it looked “solid.” – At various times, she advised the shooter on where to attack and what weapons to carry. – In January 2026, she tested the stream again and told Van Rootselaar it worked. – In late January, she sent money by PayPal to buy a lighter for use in an improvised explosive device. – On the day of the killings, she confirmed the stream was visible and later reported that it had gone down. – On several occasions, she acknowledged the planning was illegal and discussed ways to conceal their communications or the source of the stream.

The Canadian Press describes the effort as an attempted livestream. Prosecutors have not said publicly whether any footage reached viewers, or how many.

The case crosses a border and two legal systems. The shooter is dead and cannot be tried in Canada; the federal statute used here (18 U.S.C. 956) applies when a conspiracy to kill abroad is formed within U.S. jurisdiction and at least one conspirator commits an act in furtherance of it there. The FBI is leading the investigation with Homeland Security Investigations and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The Justice Department’s National Security Division is assisting the prosecution.

Thursday’s hearing was brief. Bryant appeared in a tan prison jumpsuit and dark-framed glasses, with her hair down to her waist, and was told she faces up to life in prison and US$250,000 in fines, according to The Canadian Press. The criminal complaint, as quoted by The Canadian Press, says that on the day of the attack Van Rootselaar told Bryant she had gone live with the stream, and that Bryant is alleged to have helped her start the family car before she drove to the school.

What prosecutors will have to prove in December is agreement and intent: that Bryant did not merely talk with the shooter but joined a plan to kill and acted to carry it out. The allegations remain untested.

Sources

Payette, Idaho: State Will Seek Death Penalty Against Mother Charged With Suffocating 18-Month-Old Twins; Defense Blames Vaccines

Location: Payette, Payette County, Idaho, USA

Legal status: Charged; capital notice filed. Andrea Shaw, 23, is charged by grand jury indictment with two counts of first-degree murder and has pleaded not guilty. The state filed notice of intent to seek the death penalty Oct. 16, 2026, first reported Oct. 20 and 21. Jury trial set for Jan. 11, 2027. She is presumed innocent.

Two 18-month-old boys, Dallas and Tyson, were found dead in the bed they shared in a house on North Ninth Street in Payette, Idaho, in early May 2025. Their mother says vaccines killed them. The State of Idaho says she smothered them, and it now intends to ask a jury to sentence her to death.

Payette County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Ryon Sirucek filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty against Andrea Shaw, 23, on Friday, Oct. 16, 2026, KTVB reported from court documents. The filing became public this week. Shaw is charged with two counts of first-degree murder. She pleaded not guilty about a month before the notice and asked for a jury trial, which is set to begin Jan. 11, 2027. She is presumed innocent.

The notice lists four statutory aggravating circumstances the state says it will prove: that the murder was committed at the same time as another murder; that it was “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel, manifesting exceptional depravity”; that Shaw “exhibited utter disregard for human life”; and that she has a propensity to commit murder that makes her a continuing threat to society. Under Idaho’s procedure, a death sentence would require a separate penalty phase in which jurors must unanimously find at least one aggravator beyond a reasonable doubt, former Idaho Attorney General David LeRoy told KIVI.

The state’s case is suffocation. Payette County Prosecutor Mike Duke wrote in court documents that an autopsy revealed findings consistent with smothering and that suffocation “is the only conceivable explanation,” the Associated Press reported. Prosecutors told the court that medical experts ruled out heat, that Shaw gave inconsistent statements during the investigation, and that she acknowledged being inside the home when the children died, KTVB reported.

The defense case is vaccines and heat. According to court records cited by the AP, the twins were vaccinated eight days before they died, receiving hepatitis A, influenza and DTaP shots. The next day Shaw took them to an emergency room reporting lethargy and fever; a doctor attributed it to a vaccine reaction, and the boys were given Tylenol and a Popsicle and sent home. Prosecutors acknowledged the twins’ room would often reach 100 degrees but said the children had survived high temperatures before and that their time of death did not line up with the day’s peak heat. Medical experts cited by the AP say those vaccines are safe and effective.

Shaw’s attorney, Joseph Filicetti, called the death notice “outrageous.” He said the defense will move to dismiss, arguing the grand jury was not told that the county coroner found the cause of death undetermined but consistent with hyperthermia, and that the examining pathologists also listed the causes as undetermined. “They don’t have any motive, they don’t have any backstory, they don’t have any confession,” he told the AP. An Oct. 16 order allowed California attorney Richard Jaffe, whose practice includes vaccine litigation, to join the defense, KIVI reported.

Days after the deaths, Shaw appeared on an internet show produced by Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. She is a plaintiff in that group’s federal lawsuit against the American Academy of Pediatrics, which has asked the court to dismiss it.

A grand jury indicted Shaw on June 29, 2026, and she was arrested the next day. She gave birth to another child days before the arrest. At a July 14 hearing, Judge Kiley Stuchlik revoked her $2 million bond, citing concern for the newborn’s safety. She is held without bond. Sources differ on the date the twins were found: court records cited by the AP say May 1, 2025, and Payette police, cited by KTVB, said May 2.

Sources

Memphis, Tennessee: Man Convicted of Murder Who Walked Out of Jail Minutes After the Verdict Is Captured 13 Months Later

Location: Knights Trail, Hickory Hill, Memphis, Shelby County, Tennessee, USA

Legal status: Recaptured. Anthony Green, 25, convicted by a Shelby County jury on Sept. 24, 2025, of first-degree murder in the June 2020 killing of Octavious Atkins, 27, was arrested Oct. 21, 2026, by the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Marshals after being released in error the day of the verdict. Booked at 201 Poplar on first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and employing a firearm in a felony. Sentencing status not reported.

On Sept. 24, 2025, after a three-day trial, a Shelby County jury found Anthony Green, then 24, guilty of first-degree murder. Within the hour he was outside the county jail at 201 Poplar Avenue, a free man. On Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, more than a year later, sheriff’s deputies and U.S. Marshals caught him.

The killing behind the verdict happened in Whitehaven in June 2020. Memphis police said Octavious Atkins, 27, was sitting in his car at the intersection of Shelby Drive and Neely Road when Green pulled up in a white Mercedes SUV and opened fire, FOX13 reported in 2025. Atkins died at the scene. A 49-year-old man in another car was wounded. Officers later found the white Mercedes burning behind a building. Investigators identified Green, and he was arrested months later by a Mississippi Highway Patrol trooper.

Green’s walkout came down to paperwork. He had been booked on an unrelated misdemeanor theft charge the day before the verdict. Minutes after he was found guilty of murder, he posted a $2,500 bond on the theft case, and the jail let him go before the murder conviction and the revocation of his $500,000 murder bond were processed. His attorney, Brandon Hall, told FOX13 at the time that Green left 38 minutes after the conviction; FOX13’s Oct. 21, 2026, report puts it at 45 minutes. “Typically, my complaint is they’re holding my clients in there too long,” Hall said then. “They got him out in 30 or 40 minutes.”

The first explanation blamed the court clerk for failing to deliver the paperwork. Three days later, the sheriff’s office reversed itself. “Following a comprehensive and thorough investigation, it has been determined this was not the case,” the office said in a Sept. 27, 2025, statement. “Our review has conclusively found that the sheriff’s office was responsible for the procedural lapse. It appears a deputy failed to adhere to established protocols designed to ensure that all bonds were properly revoked when required.” The office apologized to the Criminal Court Clerk, said it took “full responsibility,” and promised retraining and stronger oversight. A new warrant charging Green with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and employing a firearm with intent to commit a felony was issued Sept. 25, 2025.

For 13 months he stayed out. According to the sheriff’s office, deputies and agents acting on tips executed a search warrant in the 3300 block of Knights Trail in Hickory Hill and took Green, now 25, into custody around 1:25 p.m. Wednesday. He was booked into 201 Poplar on first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and employing a firearm with intent to commit a felony, Action News 5 reported.

Neither report said whether Green has been sentenced on the 2025 conviction or when a sentencing hearing is set. FOX13 noted in 2025 that a first-degree murder conviction in Tennessee usually brings a life sentence.

The capture closes a lapse that left a man convicted of a street-corner killing loose in the same city for more than a year, and puts the case of Octavious Atkins back on track toward sentencing.

Sources

Spokane, Washington: Man, 74, Arrested for Second-Degree Murder in 1986 Strangling of Mary Ann Turner After DNA and Genetic Genealogy Work

Location: Spokane, Spokane County, Washington, USA

Legal status: Arrested. David J. Tibbett, 74, was booked into the Spokane County Jail on Oct. 21, 2026, for second-degree murder. Formal charging by prosecutors was not reported at last check. He is presumed innocent.

Nearly forty years after Mary Ann Turner was found dead in an alley on Spokane’s east side, police knocked on a door with a search warrant. On Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, detectives from the Spokane Police Department’s Major Crimes Unit and Special Investigations Unit served the warrant at the Spokane home of David J. Tibbett, 74, took him into custody, and booked him into the Spokane County Jail around 2:30 p.m. for second-degree murder, police said. He is presumed innocent.

The case begins at 7:38 a.m. on Nov. 4, 1986. Officers were sent to an alley near South Ivory Street and East Pacific Avenue on a report of a person down in the roadway. They found a dead woman nearby. She was identified as Turner, 32, and in the department’s words “it was evident to investigators she had been murdered.”

The Spokesman-Review, drawing on its own 2023 reporting, said Turner was found next to a garage with her scarf and sweater wrapped around her neck, with signs of a minor struggle on the ground. She carried no money and no driver’s license; her boyfriend identified her, according to a Spokane Daily Chronicle story from the time. Police in that era believed the killer drove Turner to the alley and then drove away. Witnesses had seen her get into a 1970s Ford Torino at about 2:30 a.m. in an area then known for prostitution.

How police got from a Torino sighting to a 74-year-old man in 2026: DNA evidence, combined with witness statements gathered early in the investigation, gave detectives probable cause, police said. The department credited the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab, the Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office and Othram, a private company that specializes in forensic genetic genealogy. Police said the arrest “is not possible” without those partners. They did not describe what biological evidence was tested or how Tibbett was linked to it.

Turner’s case sat alongside other 1980s killings of women in Spokane. The Spokesman-Review noted the 1984 stabbing of Debbi Finnern, which remains unsolved, and the killing of Ruby Doss, for which DNA tied Richard Aguirre, a former Pasco police officer, to the crime; Aguirre was found guilty in 2023 and sentenced in 2024 to 25 years. Police have not connected Tibbett to either case.

Turner’s life before that alley was hard. She grew up in California and entered foster care at 11 after her mother had a breakdown; her father was struck and killed by a train a year later, the Spokesman-Review reported. She raised a daughter, Manieka, for part of her life, and at the time of her death had been searching for the girl, who had run away at 16 and was later found in Seattle. Turner’s sister, Brenda Lee, said after the killing that Turner occasionally did sex work to eat. “It was like a way of survival for her,” Lee said. “It was not a regular thing.”

Police said the investigation into Turner’s death is ongoing. They did not release a booking photo, a motive, or any description of how Tibbett knew Turner, if he did. A booking for second-degree murder is not a conviction; the prosecuting attorney’s office has yet to publicly file or describe charges.

Sources

San Antonio, Texas: Guatemalan Organizer Gets 30 Years Over Tractor-Trailer Smuggling Run That Left 53 Dead

Location: San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas, USA (trailer found June 27, 2022)

Legal status: Sentenced. Rigoberto Ramon Miranda-Orozco, 39, of Guatemala, sentenced Oct. 20, 2026, by U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia to 30 years in federal prison after pleading guilty July 2 to alien smuggling conspiracy and aiding and abetting resulting in death and serious bodily injury.

On June 27, 2022, a tractor-trailer was found in San Antonio with dozens of people dead inside. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, it had traveled about 156 miles from Laredo in 90-degree heat with no working air conditioning in the trailer. First responders pronounced 48 people dead at the scene, and five more died at hospitals, for a total of 53. Officials have called it the country’s deadliest human smuggling event.

On Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia sentenced Rigoberto Ramon Miranda-Orozco, 39, a Guatemalan national, to 30 years in prison for his part in it. The Justice Department announced the sentence that day.

Miranda-Orozco was not in the truck. According to court documents described by the Justice Department, he conspired with other smugglers to move people from Guatemala through Mexico to the United States, and he admitted arranging his clients’ transportation and lodging across all three countries. Two of his clients, both from Guatemala, died in the trailer. A third suffered serious injuries and survived after a long hospital stay. U.S. Attorney Justin R. Simmons of the Western District of Texas said 21 of the dead were from Guatemala.

His indictment, as summarized by the Texas Tribune, describes an organization that charged people between $12,000 and $15,000 to be moved from Central America or Mexico to the United States. After the group crossed the border in the days before June 27, smugglers loaded them into the trailer and demanded their cellphones. They scattered an unknown powder inside to mask the scent of people from Border Patrol dogs at checkpoints. The driver headed up Interstate 35 toward San Antonio, and the air conditioner failed. “As the temperature inside the trailer rose, chaos ensued,” the indictment says. Some people “screamed and banged on the walls for help. Some passed out unconscious. Others clawed at the sides of the trailer attempting to escape.” The Justice Department release includes an image of claw marks inside the trailer.

The sources differ on some figures, and both versions are given here. The Texas Tribune says 66 people were loaded into the trailer and that the dead included eight children; the Justice Department says 64 and six juveniles. Both say at least one pregnant woman was among the dead.

Miranda-Orozco was indicted in 2024 on five counts. He was arrested in Guatemala in August 2024 on a U.S. extradition request, during a large-scale takedown in which Guatemalan authorities served multiple search and arrest warrants, and was extradited in March 2025. On July 2, 2026, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bring an alien into the United States resulting in death; aiding and abetting bringing an alien into the United States resulting in death; and aiding and abetting bringing an alien into the United States resulting in serious bodily injury.

His attorney, Alfonso Cabanas Jr., called the sentence “very tough,” the Texas Tribune reported, citing the Associated Press. Cabanas said his client was in Guatemala at the time, had no control over how the migrants would be moved to San Antonio, and did not know the air conditioning was failing. He said harsh punishments would not “make a dent” in such operations and called for comprehensive immigration reform.

“This sentencing delivers a measure of accountability for a tragedy that claimed 53 lives and devastated multiple families,” said John A. Condon, acting executive associate director of Homeland Security Investigations, which led the U.S. investigation. Nearly 20 people in the United States and Guatemala have now been convicted in connection with the deaths, the Tribune reported, citing the AP.

Sources

Evansville, Indiana: Brother Who Fled to Spain Gets 120 Years for Murder-for-Hire Shooting That Killed Olivia Huggler, 18

Location: Evansville, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, USA

Legal status: Sentenced. Samuel Huggler, convicted by a jury in August 2026 of aiding or inducing murder and aiding or inducing attempted murder, was sentenced Oct. 21, 2026, to a total of 120 years. He told the judge he intends to appeal.

The target, according to the man who pulled the trigger, was a brother. The orders were to kill him and anyone who saw it. Three of Samuel Huggler’s siblings were shot. His sister, Olivia Huggler, 18, died of her wounds. Brothers Jonathan and Joseph Huggler survived with severe injuries.

On Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, a Vanderburgh County court sentenced Samuel Huggler to a total of 120 years in the Indiana Department of Correction, WFIE and WEHT reported. He must register as a violent offender, and the court ordered no contact with his siblings and his parents. After the sentence was pronounced, Huggler told the judge he wishes to appeal.

WFIE reported component terms of 60 years on count one, 20 years on count five and 35 years on count six; officials put the total at 120 years. The station’s published figures sum to 115, and the remaining term was not specified in coverage available at publication.

The trial in August set out the state’s theory. Prosecutors said Huggler hired Daniel Alvey to shoot his brother Jonathan and any witnesses. Alvey, charged as the triggerman, testified for more than two hours that Huggler hired him and told him to kill not only the brother but any other witnesses, WEHT reported. Prosecutors told jurors the motive was a bad relationship between Samuel and Jonathan, and that Alvey owed Huggler thousands of dollars, creating a power imbalance between them. A digital forensics expert walked jurors through phone records and messages, including calls and texts Alvey made after the killing, and the state argued the two men planned the shooting weeks in advance.

The defense called no witnesses. In closing, it told jurors that Alvey had lied to investigators, that Alvey stole the murder weapon from Huggler rather than being handed it, and that much of the state’s case was “preposterous.”

Just before 10 p.m. on Aug. 27, jurors returned guilty verdicts on count one, aiding or inducing murder, and counts four through six, aiding or inducing attempted murder, according to WFIE and WNIN. They acquitted him on counts two and three, conspiracy to commit murder. In a second phase the next day, WFIE reported, the jury did not recommend life without parole. Coverage of Wednesday’s hearing described the convictions differently; the August verdict reports are the record used here.

The case took the long way to a courtroom. Charges against Huggler were dropped in 2022 and later refiled, WNIN reported. By then he had left the country. Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Diana Moers said her office pursued an international arrest warrant to Spain, working with officials in Washington, Spanish authorities and the FBI. Federal authorities captured him in Spain and returned him to Indiana. The Evansville Courier & Press described the shooting as five years old and the flight as more than two years before the sentence.

At Wednesday’s hearing, family members testified and asked for the maximum, saying he remains a danger to them. “They’re an extremely brave family,” Moers told WFIE. “They had a lot of vulnerability in court and telling their truth at the trial.” She added: “Justice is never truly served in any of these cases because you can’t bring someone back.”

Sources

Bethpage, New York: Pennsylvania Gunman Gets 23 Years to Life for Killing Jorge Vazquez Outside Hotel Over a Fight He Was Not In

Location: Bethpage, Nassau County, Long Island, New York, USA

Legal status: Sentenced. Sgroilin Santana, 23, of Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, who pleaded guilty Sept. 15, 2026, to second-degree murder, second-degree attempted murder and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, was sentenced Oct. 21, 2026, to 23 years to life. Co-defendant Alexander Garcia, 40, is charged with second-degree murder and conspiracy and is presumed innocent.

The quarrel was not his. On April 2, 2025, Jorge Vazquez, 35, a construction worker from Tampa, Florida, got into a physical altercation at a Nassau County job site with a co-worker, Alexander Garcia, of Reading, Pennsylvania. Garcia was the father of Sgroilin Santana’s girlfriend. That same afternoon, prosecutors said, Santana was driven from Pennsylvania to Long Island to settle it.

On Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, Santana, now 23, of Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to 23 years to life in prison, Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly announced. He had pleaded guilty on Sept. 15 before Judge Robert Bogle to second-degree murder, an A-I felony; second-degree attempted murder; and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

According to the district attorney, Vazquez was staying at the Extended Stay America hotel on Oyster Bay Road in Bethpage while he worked on a nearby construction project. Santana entered the hotel parking lot at about 9:30 p.m. and shot Vazquez multiple times in the torso and abdomen. He also fired at a second person, who was not hit. Then, prosecutors said, he fled the state with Alexander Garcia.

Nassau County police received a 911 call for a man shot at the hotel at about 9:40 p.m. Officers found Vazquez on the sidewalk near the entrance with multiple gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Detectives from the Nassau County Police Department’s Homicide Squad identified the defendants through surveillance video and other evidence, the DA said. Working with the Pennsylvania State Police and the Tamaqua Police Department, they found Santana in Tamaqua, a Schuylkill County borough, on April 30, 2025. State troopers took him into custody, and he was extradited to Nassau County on May 15, 2025. Garcia was arrested in Reading on May 14, 2025, extradited, and arraigned on May 29, 2025, on second-degree murder, second-degree conspiracy and third-degree criminal possession of a weapon. He is awaiting trial and is presumed innocent. Daily Voice reported his next court date as Thursday, Oct. 22.

Daily Voice also reported that a second Pennsylvania resident, Jaslynn Garcia, who was 19 when she was arrested alongside Santana, is awaiting trial on second-degree murder and conspiracy charges, with a hearing set for Oct. 27. The district attorney’s sentencing release does not mention her. She is presumed innocent.

“Sgroilin Santana used cold-blooded violence to settle an argument that did not even involve him and stole the life of beloved husband and father Jorge Vazquez,” Donnelly said. “The defendant attempted to evade the consequences by fleeing the state, but our commitment to justice does not stop at Nassau County’s border.” She called his actions “violent and cowardly.”

Vazquez’s family set up a GoFundMe after his death, Daily Voice reported. It raised a little more than $6,000.

Senior Litigation Counsel Tracy Keeton of the DA’s Homicide Bureau prosecuted the case. Santana was represented by Joseph Lopiccolo. Garcia is represented by John Healy.

The sentence closes one of three prosecutions arising from a single construction site fight. The man whose argument started it has yet to stand trial.

Sources

Coal Hill, Arkansas: Jury Gives Life Plus 15 Years to Man Who Shot Walker Kenneth Michaels, 68, in City Park Because He “Flinched”

Location: Coal Hill, Johnson County, Arkansas, USA

Legal status: Convicted and sentenced. A Johnson County jury found Colton T. Contant, 26, guilty of first-degree murder on Oct. 20, 2026, and sentenced him to life in prison plus 15 years for a firearm enhancement.

Kenneth E. Michaels, 68, of Clarksville drove to Coal Hill City Park to walk the trail. According to the prosecutor, a man he did not know walked up to his parked car carrying a .38 revolver, opened the passenger door, and shot him twice. The man later told detectives Michaels had “flinched.”

On Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, a Johnson County jury found that man, Colton T. Contant, 26, of Coal Hill, guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced him to life in prison, with 15 more years added because he used a firearm, the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and 5NEWS reported. Trial had opened the day before.

The killing happened on Nov. 11, 2025. Johnson County dispatch received reports of gunshots and a person on the ground at Coal Hill City Park. A Coal Hill police officer found Michaels dead at about 3:30 p.m., according to Arkansas State Police. He had been shot twice. Witnesses told officers the shooter was running away and gave a description, and police identified him as Contant, the arrest warrant affidavit says.

After his arrest, according to the affidavit, Contant told detectives he approached Michaels’ car and opened the passenger side door as Michaels was opening the driver’s door. Michaels flinched, Contant said, so he shot him once in the chest area and again in the back as he was falling, then fled. Investigators later found the .38 revolver Contant said he used, along with spent casings and the jacket he wore that day, in a camper on the property where he lived. Prosecuting Attorney Jeff Phillips said Contant’s fingerprints were also found on the passenger side of Michaels’ car.

“It literally was a random act of violence where the victim was just in the park to walk the walking trail and the defendant brought a gun to the park and didn’t like the way he looked and said that he ‘flinched’ at him, whatever that means, and he shot him two times in the chest area,” said Phillips, prosecuting attorney for the 5th Judicial District, which covers Pope, Johnson and Franklin counties. He called the case “extremely straightforward” and said robbery was not a motive: Michaels had a few hundred dollars in his wallet, and it was not taken. “The guy showed basically no emotion and no remorse,” Phillips said.

Contant’s mental state became a pretrial question. In December 2025, after a fitness to proceed exam, he was involuntarily committed for evaluation and treatment, court records show. A licensed professional counselor who screened him on Dec. 23 found him “actively delusional and psychotic.” In mid-January he was found restored to fitness after treatment at the Arkansas State Hospital, and the case moved toward trial.

Phillips said that after the killing people on social media spread claims about Michaels that were not true, trying to supply a reason. “They were trying to make it make sense because of the fact that it was so random and senseless,” he said. “It’s something that you would never expect to happen in a small town like Coal Hill at the city park.”

Sources

Dover, Delaware: Two Men Charged With First-Degree Murder in Shooting of Nasir Cox After Delaware State Homecoming; New Law Keeps Their Names Secret

Location: Dover, Kent County, Delaware, USA

Legal status: Charged. Two men, aged 22 and 18, are charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, three counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, four counts of first-degree reckless endangering and carrying a concealed deadly weapon. The 22-year-old was arrested Oct. 16, 2026; the 18-year-old was arrested Oct. 21 in Snow Hill, Maryland, pending extradition. Police did not release their names. Both are presumed innocent.

Delaware State University’s homecoming ended early on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026. Students and visitors were required to end events and leave campus at about 6 p.m., Dover police said, and thousands spilled into the shopping centers along U.S. Route 13. More than 50 officers from Dover, New Castle County, Wilmington, Smyrna, Camden and the Delaware State Police were already working the corridor, handling fights, disorderly calls and reports of shots fired at multiple locations.

At about 9:19 p.m., officers trying to control a crowd in one parking lot heard several gunshots and saw people running from the Dover Commons shopping center lot in the 1200 block of North DuPont Highway. They found a 21-year-old man shot in the upper body. While treating him, they found a second man with gunshot wounds: Nasir Cox, 22, of Philadelphia. Route 13 between the campus and the shopping centers was gridlocked with cars and people, and police said that would have delayed ambulances, so officers drove both men to Bayhealth’s Kent Campus in police vehicles. Cox died. The 21-year-old was hospitalized in stable condition, police said.

On Wednesday night, Oct. 21, Dover police announced two arrests. Detectives had identified a 22-year-old Dover man as one of the suspected shooters and obtained warrants for his arrest and a search of his home. At about 1:10 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 16, the department’s Special Operations Response Team, its drugs and vice unit and its Criminal Investigations Unit, backed by the U.S. Marshals Service First State Fugitive Task Force and state police, surrounded a house in the 500 block of Crawford Avenue. The man came out after officers announced themselves and was arrested without incident. Inside, police said, they recovered a 9mm handgun, ammunition, and clothing and accessories matching what was worn during the shooting.

Detectives identified an 18-year-old as the second suspected shooter. Information suggested he might be in Sussex County or on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. On Oct. 21 the Marshals Service’s Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force in Salisbury found him at a residence in Snow Hill, Maryland. He was taken into custody without incident and is being held in Maryland pending extradition. Police initially described him as 17, then issued a correction: he is 18, and was 18 on the night of the shooting.

Both men face the same charges: first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, three counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, four counts of first-degree reckless endangering, and carrying a concealed deadly weapon. Both are presumed innocent.

Their names were withheld under a statute that took effect the same day as the second arrest. According to the department, Delaware’s House Bill 59, effective Oct. 21, 2026, limits law enforcement’s release of names and photographs, including mugshots. For adults, the information may be released only when the charge is a felony and disclosure is necessary to protect public safety. Lt. Mark Hoffman, the department’s spokesperson, cited the law in withholding the names, Bay to Bay News reported.

“These arrests reflect the persistence, investigative skill, and professionalism required to bring a complex and challenging case to this stage,” said Police Chief Thomas Johnson Jr. Police have not described a motive or any connection between the suspects and the victims. They asked anyone with photos or video from the area that night to come forward.

Sources

Gladstone, Oregon: Son Who Believed His Mother Was “Possessed” Convicted of Murdering Her After She Moved to Evict Him

Location: Southeast Cason Road, Gladstone, Clackamas County, Oregon, USA

Legal status: Convicted. Ronald Joseph Kirk, 38, found guilty by a Clackamas County jury on Oct. 20, 2026, of second-degree murder and felon in possession of a firearm in the death of his mother, Rosa Leyva, 61. Sentencing set for 9 a.m. Nov. 4; he faces life with a 25-year minimum.

Rosa Leyva was due at work early on Nov. 26, 2024. When she did not arrive, her coworkers called her, and so did family and friends. She did not answer. According to court testimony summarized by the Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office, the people who knew her were worried for a specific reason: they knew her son, Ronald Joseph Kirk, who lived with her, was volatile, dangerous and frequently drunk or high on methamphetamine.

When Gladstone police arrived that day for a welfare check at Leyva’s small home on Southeast Cason Road, Kirk answered the door. Asked about his mother, he told officers she was inside and had not been conscious for about a day. Officers found Leyva, 61, sitting at her dining room table in front of her laptop, a full glass of wine before her. She had been shot once in the head. Her body was covered with pillowcases. Investigators determined she died around 6:45 p.m. on Nov. 25.

Kirk “sat there with his mother’s dead body for a full day,” Senior Deputy District Attorney Rusty Amos told jurors.

On Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, a Clackamas County jury convicted Kirk, now 38, of second-degree murder and of being a felon in possession of a firearm. The district attorney’s office announced the verdict Oct. 21. He is scheduled to be sentenced at 9 a.m. Nov. 4 and faces life in prison with a minimum of 25 years.

The prosecution laid out weeks of escalating fear. Leyva had “a relentless devotion to her son,” Amos said, but by early November 2024 she had had enough of his drinking, drug use, explosive temper and bizarre behavior. When intoxicated, prosecutors said, Kirk became obsessed with exorcism and demonic possession, and in the weeks before her death Leyva told a close friend that Kirk believed she was possessed. About a month before the killing, according to the district attorney’s office, Kirk left a voicemail for his own son claiming Leyva was possessed and that he had “almost” put a bullet in her head the day before. KPTV, summarizing prosecutors, described the voicemail as left for Leyva; this card follows the district attorney’s release.

Leyva, who had worried Kirk would harm himself or others, decided to evict him and told him so. On Nov. 8, 2024, she texted him: “You need to leave. I don’t want anyone in my house.” Kirk had no job, no money and nowhere to go, and his mother was his sole support. “His world was collapsing,” Amos told jurors.

Gladstone police had contact with Leyva on Nov. 8 and Nov. 11, 2024, the release said, as she sought help and grew increasingly fearful of her son’s drug-fueled behavior. Jurors saw a Nov. 11 home surveillance video of the two. “You’re higher than a kite. Get some help. Please,” Leyva tells him in it.

Two weeks later she was dead. Leyva was “the one person who was always there for him,” Amos said in closing, and Kirk returned her love with “one bullet to the head, murder.”

Amos and Deputy District Attorney Grace Hoffa prosecuted the case, Clackamas County Circuit Court case 24CR62810. The release did not describe Kirk’s defense at trial.

Sources

Hopewell, Virginia: Alford Plea, 17 Years in 2019 Thanksgiving Drive-By That Killed Richmond Fire Lt. Ashley Berry as She Shielded Her Son

Location: Sunnyside Avenue, Hopewell, Virginia, USA

Legal status: Sentenced. Darrell Donnell Taylor Jr., 34, entered an Alford plea on four charges in Hopewell Circuit Court on Oct. 21, 2026, and was sentenced to 17 years active under a plea agreement, to begin after he completes a prior sentence in January 2028.

On Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28, 2019, Richmond Fire Lt. Ashley Berry, 33, was leaving a holiday dinner at a group of townhomes on Sunnyside Avenue in Hopewell when shots were fired from a passing vehicle. Hopewell police found her with multiple gunshot wounds, and she died at a hospital. Her father, Waverly Berry, told 12 On Your Side weeks later that she had shielded her 5-year-old son from the bullets. Prosecutors said she had nothing to do with the dispute behind the shooting and was not the intended target.

Almost seven years later, on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, Darrell Donnell Taylor Jr., 34, entered an Alford plea in Hopewell Circuit Court to four charges in her death and was sentenced to 17 years of active prison time, the term set by his plea agreement. Under an Alford plea, a defendant does not admit guilt but accepts that the evidence is sufficient for a conviction. A grand jury had indicted Taylor on Aug. 8, 2023.

Prosecutors said Taylor was hired for a few hundred dollars to carry out a drive-by shooting as part of an ongoing feud between two groups, WTVR reported. It was never established in court whether he was the driver or the gunman, though his defense attorney said witness testimony would have indicated he was the driver.

The judge, in imposing the agreed sentence, said he felt it should have been more, and said he hoped Taylor could be rehabilitated in prison and that the sentence would give the family some closure, according to WTVR. Taylor was offered the chance to address the court and said nothing, 12 On Your Side reported.

The 17 years do not begin right away. Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Jessica Bailey said Taylor is still serving a sentence on a prior case, and the new term will start after that one ends in January 2028.

Family and friends gave victim impact statements. Waverly Berry turned to speak directly to Taylor, telling him his daughter was a human being just like him and that he had stopped her from living out her purpose. “It doesn’t just affect her,” he said, according to WTVR. “The family is bigger than what y’all are seeing tonight.” He recalled a determined 3-year-old who learned to ride a bike by watching her older sister, and the same drive years later when she competed against more than 3,000 applicants to become a firefighter. After court he described mixed emotions. “To me, the closure really brings a sigh of relief,” he said. “I do feel bad for the young man, but I know God has a better opportunity for all of us.”

Chenice Brown-Johnson, Berry’s best friend, said she was on the phone with Berry moments before the shooting. She told Taylor in court that she forgave him. “It’s the God in me, but it’s also who Ashley was,” she said. “Ashley was a very forgiving person, a very selfless person.” Outside, she described Berry as “a public servant, a firefighter, fire marshal,” and a mentor. “It’s an enormous loss because it doesn’t make any sense to why it even occurred.”

“Today means that we get some pieces of closure,” Brown-Johnson said. “You never get over it, but this helps you move through it.”

Waverly Berry said the family will carry on her legacy through her children.

Sources

Anahola, Kauai: Twice Convicted of Murder, Vicente Hilario Takes 20 Years for Manslaughter in 2010 Lookout Killing of Aureo Moore

Location: Anahola Beach Park lookout, Kauai, Hawaii, USA

Legal status: Sentenced. Vicente Hilario, twice convicted of first-degree murder at trial, was convicted of manslaughter under a stipulated agreement and sentenced to 20 years by the Fifth Circuit Court on Oct. 21, 2026. In custody since 2010.

On Dec. 17, 2010, Aureo Moore was shot to death at the lookout above Anahola Beach Park. Two separate juries have since convicted Vicente Hilario of first-degree murder for that killing. On Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, nearly 16 years later, the case ended with neither of those verdicts. The Fifth Circuit Court approved a stipulated agreement under which Hilario stands convicted of manslaughter and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The prosecution’s account of the killing, as summarized by Kauai Now, is stark. Prosecutors said Hilario lured Moore to the lookout and shot him six times. Moore had accused Hilario and his friend, Kyle Akau, of robbing him of pills four months earlier. According to prosecutors, Hilario’s motive was to stop Moore from testifying against Akau in the robbery trial, which was scheduled to begin in 10 days.

The first trial ended in a first-degree murder conviction, and Hilario, then 26, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. That conviction did not survive appeal. An appellate court found he had been denied the right to approach the bench during jury selection, and it was overturned.

At the second trial, in 2023, Hilario, then 36, represented himself. A jury convicted him again on its third day of deliberations, this time of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, intimidating a witness, retaliating against a witness and bribery of a witness, Kauai Now reported.

That second conviction was also vulnerable, according to the Kauai County Office of the Prosecuting Attorney. In its Oct. 21 news release, the office said that after the second trial “several issues were raised concerning Hilario’s constitutional rights.” After evaluating those issues and the case’s procedural history, the parties agreed to a manslaughter conviction and a 20-year term. The release did not detail what the constitutional issues were.

Prosecuting Attorney Rebecca Like explained the decision in terms of appellate risk. “Two juries have returned guilty verdicts in this case. Our responsibility as prosecutors requires us to carefully assess constitutional issues that may affect whether a conviction can stand on appeal,” she said. “This agreement holds Mr. Hilario accountable through a manslaughter conviction and a substantial prison sentence while reducing the uncertainty of further litigation. We recognize the profound loss suffered by Aureo Moore’s loved ones and the many years they have endured these proceedings.”

Hilario has been in custody since his arrest in 2010, according to Kauai Now. The prosecutor’s office acknowledged the work of Kauai Police Department officers and civilian staff on the investigation and prosecution. Neither the release nor the news reports published how much of the 20-year term Hilario’s 16 years in custody will cover, or when he could be released, and this card does not estimate it.

The outcome leaves a notable record: a man found guilty of first-degree murder by two juries, sentenced once to life without parole, now serving a fixed 20-year manslaughter sentence. For Moore’s family, the agreement ends a case that began when he was killed at a public beach lookout ten days before he was due to testify, and that has run through two trials, an appeal and a negotiated end.

Hawaii News Now also reported the agreement. Some outlets spell the defendant’s first name “Vincente”; the prosecutor’s office spells it “Vicente.”

Sources

Lawrence, Kansas: Olathe Man Charged With Second-Degree Murder in 3 A.M. Downtown Shooting of Gabe Moreno, 23

Location: Downtown Lawrence, Douglas County, Kansas, USA

Legal status: Charged. Daileon Maurice Thomas, 23, of Olathe, Kansas, was charged Oct. 21, 2026, in Douglas County District Court with second-degree murder. Bond was set at $500,000; next court date Oct. 27. He is presumed innocent.

Police say the two men had no known connection. One is dead and the other is charged with killing him.

At about 3 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026, Lawrence police were called to the area of 7th and New Hampshire streets, a block off Massachusetts Street in the heart of downtown, on reports of gunshots. In a parking lot in the 700 block of New Hampshire Street they found Victor Gabriel Moreno, 23. Officers and paramedics tried to save him, the Lawrence Times reported. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators recovered shell casings and had surveillance video from the area, KMBC reported.

Moreno went by Gabe. He was raised by his grandmother, Marian, and her partner, Cliff Phillips, who adopted him when he was very young. “He was the light of my life, to be sure,” Phillips told KMBC. “This is my son.” Moreno had a 4-year-old son. His aunt, Angel Benton, told KCTV5 he greeted her the same way every time he came through the door: “hey auntie, I love you.” Accounts differ on where he lived: KCTV5 described his family as being from Overland Park, and the Lawrence Times identified him as a Lawrence resident. Adela Solis, who taught him from third through fifth grade at Lawrence’s Cordley Elementary School, went to the parking lot on Monday. “He was honest. He was loyal,” she said.

On Sunday evening Police Chief Rich Lockhart said detectives had “some really good leads.” Within about 41 hours they had a suspect in a cell. Police spokeswoman Laura McCabe told the Journal-World that investigators used public video, private video, license plate readers and witness accounts to reconstruct the sequence of events, identify the people involved and find the suspect. Daileon Maurice Thomas, 23, of Olathe, was arrested without incident and booked into the Douglas County jail just after 8 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 19, on suspicion of first-degree murder. Police said they also recovered the firearm they believe was used. They told the Journal-World they had no evidence the two men knew each other before that night.

The formal charge came in lower than the booking. On Wednesday morning, Oct. 21, prosecutors filed one count of second-degree murder in Douglas County District Court, the Journal-World and KCTV5 reported. The Olathe Daily Digest, citing the Lawrence Times, reported that Thomas had been held without bond as of Tuesday. At his first appearance Wednesday afternoon, a judge set bond at $500,000. He is due back in court on Oct. 27.

In Kansas, second-degree murder covers an intentional killing without premeditation, or a killing committed recklessly under circumstances showing extreme indifference to human life. The reports available do not specify which form prosecutors charged. Police have not released a motive or described what happened between the two men before the shots were fired, and no charging affidavit had been made public in the reports reviewed.

Thomas is presumed innocent. The investigative account above comes from police statements; none of it has been tested in court. Police have asked anyone with video from the area that morning to contact them.

Sources

Lexington, Kentucky: Parolee Gets 45 Years, Stacked on Old Arson Term, for 2021 Downtown Murder of Raymar Webb

Location: Downtown Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky, USA

Legal status: Sentenced. Brandon Dockery, 37, convicted by a Fayette County jury in August 2026 of murder, six counts of first-degree wanton endangerment and possession of a handgun by a convicted felon, was sentenced Oct. 21, 2026, to 45 years, consecutive to a prior sentence. He has 30 days from written judgment to appeal; restitution hearing set for Oct. 28.

In November 2020, the Kentucky Parole Board let Brandon Dockery out. He was serving a 45-year sentence for a 2010 Lexington apartment fire that brought convictions for second-degree arson, two counts of attempted murder and five counts of wanton endangerment. At a 2020 parole hearing, LEX18 reported, he told the board he had changed and was committed to making better decisions. Seven months later, in June 2021, Raymar Webb, 30, was shot near West Short Street and North Mill Street in downtown Lexington and died at a hospital.

On Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, a Fayette County judge sentenced Dockery, now 37, to 45 years for Webb’s murder, the term recommended by the jury that convicted him in August after about six hours of deliberation. The judge ordered it to run consecutively to the old arson sentence. Dockery is not eligible for probation, WKYT reported.

Prosecutors had asked for more. The Commonwealth wanted a total of 70 years, citing the seriousness of the crime, the fact that Dockery was on parole, and his conduct when police came to arrest him. “This egregious crime happened when he was out on parole,” the Commonwealth said, according to WKYT. “He senselessly killed Webb and shot at a police officer when he went to arrest him.” The judge followed the jury and imposed what LEX18 described as the maximum 45 years on the new case.

Before sentence was pronounced, Dockery spoke at length. He described a childhood of abuse, violence and bullying, the killing of his father, and a move from Chicago to Kentucky, and argued that the trauma produced mental health problems the justice system ignores before handing down long sentences. “The trauma destroyed my mind,” he said, according to WKYT. “I’m being punished because of a mental health condition. I’m sorry for the loss. I’m sorry for every member of the community. I’m not a monster.” He told the court he will appeal, asserting his defense should have called other experts and that he wanted an MRI.

Webb’s family answered him. His twin sister, Contessa Webb, addressed Dockery directly: “You took my twin brother from this world, Brandon, but you didn’t take my brother from me. He’s in my heart. He’s in my memories.” She told the court her brother would be remembered for who he was, not how he died. The mother of Webb’s children, identified as Esha Banks by LEX18 and as Aeisha Banks by WKYT, described him as her life partner, a devoted father and a group leader at Toyota. She was pregnant with their daughter when he was killed; they had planned a gender reveal for that same day. He never learned whether the baby was a boy or a girl. “Brandon Dockery should’ve never been released from prison in the first place,” she said.

That argument, about the 2020 parole decision, is why the case drew wide attention in Lexington. The parole board’s release of a man serving 45 years for an arson with attempted murder convictions became part of the public record of Webb’s killing. With Wednesday’s sentence, the new 45 years begins only after the old one is served.

A restitution issue remains open and is set for a hearing on Oct. 28 at 2 p.m. Dockery has 30 days from entry of the written judgment to appeal.

Sources

Los Angeles, California: Hemet Smuggling Boss Pleads Guilty to Kidnapping Migrants and Holding Them for Ransom

Location: Burbank, Koreatown and Los Angeles County, California, USA (case in U.S. District Court, Los Angeles)

Legal status: Convicted by guilty plea, Oct. 21, 2026. Miguel Angel Avila, 24, of Hemet, and Omar Avila Salmeron, 43, of South Los Angeles, pleaded guilty to kidnapping and smuggling counts; sentencing Feb. 18, 2027. Three co-defendants have also pleaded guilty and await sentencing.

The four migrants had already crossed into the United States when, according to federal prosecutors, they became inventory. On Wednesday, Oct. 21, the man who ran the operation admitted it in federal court in Los Angeles.

Miguel Angel Avila, 24, of Hemet, known by the aliases “Fredo,” “Quavo,” “Marcos” and “Papitas,” pleaded guilty to one count of kidnapping, one count of conspiracy to transport illegal aliens and two counts of transporting illegal aliens for private financial gain, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said. His co-defendant Omar Avila Salmeron, 43, of South Los Angeles, known as “Simón Hernández,” “Andres” and “El Palatero,” pleaded guilty to the same four counts plus a firearms charge. Investigators found nearly 50 guns, along with gun parts and ammunition, at his home, prosecutors said. Both men have been in custody since the summer of 2024.

According to the plea agreements, Avila ran a smuggling ring out of Hemet, in Riverside County, from July 2022 to April 2023. Salmeron joined in October 2022. The ring moved people through the country, recruited drivers and helped migrants stay in the United States unlawfully. Patch, citing the plea agreement, reported that it moved more than 100 people.

Then, in March 2023, it turned to kidnapping. Prosecutors say Avila sent co-defendant Jose Alfredo Moreno Gonzalez, 23, of Oak Hills, to a predetermined spot in Arizona. There, Moreno Gonzalez took four migrants and drove them to a restaurant in Burbank. Co-defendant Jose Jaime Garcia, 23, of San Jacinto, took custody of them and brought them to a nearby Airbnb.

Avila, Garcia and co-defendant Gabriel Becerra, 24, of Palmdale, held the four overnight. Avila used the hostages’ own phones to call their relatives and demand money for their release, prosecutors said. One hostage was handed to Salmeron, who kept up the demands on that victim’s family.

The other three were moved to a motel room. One climbed out through a second-story bathroom window and ran. Avila and an accomplice chased him into a store in Koreatown. Inside, according to the plea agreement, Avila body-slammed him, put him in a chokehold and punched him repeatedly in the face, then took him back. Patch reported that when police were called, Avila and his accomplice returned to the motel, collected their belongings and left with the other hostages.

Avila, Garcia and Becerra then tied the hands of two remaining hostages, moved them to a second Airbnb and confined them to a room, threatening violence if they tried to escape. Later the three drove one hostage to a gas station, where his brother handed over $11,000 in cash in exchange for his release. Patch placed that exchange in San Bernardino County on March 23, 2023. Prosecutors have not publicly said what became of every hostage or whether other families paid.

The case was built by the U.S. Border Patrol, Homeland Security Investigations and the Los Angeles Police Department. It is prosecuted by the Major Crimes Section in Los Angeles with an assistant U.S. attorney from the Southern District of California.

U.S. District Judge Fernando M. Olguin set sentencing for both men for Feb. 18, 2027. Each faces a statutory maximum of life in federal prison. Patch reported that under Avila’s plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to recommend no more than 20 years for him. Garcia, Becerra and Moreno Gonzalez have pleaded guilty to kidnapping, conspiracy and transporting charges and await sentencing. Avila’s attorney could not be reached for comment, Patch reported.

Sources

North Hollywood, California: Glendale Firefighter Ordered to Stand Trial in Ax Killing of Wife Mayra Jimenez, a Third-Grade Teacher

Location: North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Legal status: Held to answer. After a preliminary hearing on Oct. 21, 2026, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Theresa McGonigle ordered Andrew Jimenez to stand trial on a murder charge with an allegation that he used an ax. He remains jailed without bail; arraignment set for Nov. 4, 2026. He is presumed innocent.

On Jan. 21, 2026, Andrew Jimenez walked into a Los Angeles police station in Glassell Park with three other family members and asked officers to check on his house. Officers went to the home in the 5600 block of Satsuma Avenue in North Hollywood. In the couple’s bedroom they found his wife, Mayra Jimenez, 46, a third-grade teacher at Wilshire Park Elementary School in Koreatown.

On Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, after a preliminary hearing, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Theresa McGonigle found sufficient cause to send the case against Andrew Jimenez to trial, City News Service reported. He is charged with murder with an allegation that he used an ax. He remains jailed without bail and is due back at the downtown courthouse for arraignment on Nov. 4. He is presumed innocent. Jimenez, a firefighter and paramedic with the Glendale Fire Department since April 2008, was placed on administrative leave after his arrest. He turns 46 on Thursday.

The testimony was blunt. “There was blood all over,” LAPD Detective Erica Pedroza said of the scene. Asked whether the victim could be identified from her DMV photo, Detective Jason Haggis answered: “Quite frankly, her face was gone.” She was identified by fingerprints. According to stipulations presented in court, she suffered about 32 chop wounds, 25 of them to the head, face and neck, and injuries that included internal decapitation at the neck. An ax was found leaning against the bed, covered in blood. There were no signs of forced entry.

Prosecutors argued motive. Deputy District Attorney Kelsey McKeever-Unger told the court the “motive was expressed for the murder before the murder.” Haggis testified that the victim’s brother-in-law told him that, at a hockey game shortly before the killing, Jimenez said his wife was cheating on him and showed screenshots from her phone that he believed proved it. The brother-in-law said the images did not look like infidelity to him; the next day, he said, Jimenez texted that it was a big misunderstanding. A notebook Jimenez’s son gave police as a possible diary appeared to be a work notebook, the detective said, and he found nothing in it suggesting infidelity. Police were unable to locate Jimenez’s phone, which, according to Haggis, moved around the area after Jimenez was already in custody.

Deputy Public Defender Mark Carrillo asked the judge to dismiss the charge for insufficient evidence. The judge declined. A preliminary hearing sets a lower bar than trial: the question was only whether there is enough evidence to require Jimenez to stand trial, not whether he is guilty.

On the day of the killing, LAPD said its investigation showed that the victim and the suspect were married and that it was “an incident of domestic violence.” District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in January that the case was “a devastating reminder of the persistent scourge of intimate partner violence,” adding that “no one, including those sworn to protect others, is above the law.” Jimenez pleaded not guilty in April, KESQ reported.

The Los Angeles Unified School District called Mayra Jimenez “a beloved teacher, colleague, and friend.” Her school held a vigil days after her death, and students and colleagues remembered her as a dedicated educator who made class fun, NBC Los Angeles reported. Crisis counselors were sent to Wilshire Park Elementary.

Sources

Osceola, Wisconsin: Husband Sentenced to Life for Killing Wife Margaret Ler’che, Found Under a Blanket in Their Basement

Location: Osceola, Polk County, Wisconsin, USA

Legal status: Sentenced. Jared Ler’che, who pleaded no contest to first-degree intentional homicide in July 2026 and was found guilty, was sentenced Oct. 21, 2026, in Polk County Circuit Court to life in prison.

Margaret Ler’che had already sent her two children ahead to Iowa. She was packing up the house in Osceola, in western Wisconsin, and her father spent the afternoon helping her box her things, according to court documents. She never arrived where she was expected. On Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, a Polk County judge sentenced her husband, Jared Ler’che, to life in prison for killing her in January 2024.

Ler’che pleaded no contest to first-degree intentional homicide at a July 28 hearing before Polk County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Anderson, who accepted the plea and found him guilty, the Osceola Sun reported. A no contest plea does not admit guilt but accepts the conviction and penalty. The charge originally carried a domestic abuse modifier. Before the plea, Ler’che withdrew a plea of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. A judge had found him competent in 2024, WQOW reported, and the case ran more than two years through competency evaluations, motions and pretrial hearings before a planned October jury trial was cancelled.

The account of the night comes from the criminal complaint. Margaret’s father asked the Polk County Sheriff’s Office for a welfare check when she failed to arrive and could not be reached by phone. The couple had been having marital problems, he told officers, and Margaret and the two children had been living in Iowa for about three months.

Around ten minutes after he called, St. Paul dispatch contacted Polk County: Jared Ler’che had called a Minnesota crisis line. He said he was driving around with his two children and having thoughts of suicide, the complaint said.

Investigators went to the home and found him gone. They spoke to him briefly through a Ring doorbell camera; he refused to come back. After several calls he agreed to meet them at the Kwik Trip in Osceola, where he was taken into custody and the children were confirmed safe.

Inside the house, officers followed blood in the stairwell down to the basement. Margaret Ler’che was under a blanket. According to the complaint, she had been shot in the back of the head, had injuries consistent with blunt force trauma, and had a charging cord wrapped around her neck. A .22 rifle lay on the floor beside her, with .22 caliber shell casings nearby.

On the sentence’s parole terms, the sources differ in a way worth noting. WCCO reported that Ler’che will be eligible for parole after 33 years. The Osceola Sun reported in August that both sides had reached a joint recommendation under which he would become eligible for extended supervision after 25 years of confinement. The final eligibility date set by the court is reported here as WCCO gave it, with that earlier recommendation attributed. In Wisconsin, a life sentence for first-degree intentional homicide is mandatory; the judge sets when, if ever, the defendant may petition for release.

Ler’che was 43 at the time of the July plea, WQOW reported. Nothing in the public record released so far describes a motive beyond the marital breakdown described by Margaret’s father.

Sources

St. Louis, Missouri: Second Man Charged With First-Degree Murder in Robbery Killing of Justin Holmes, 18, Shot Over a Bag

Location: West End, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Legal status: Charged. Zahrell Jackson (20 per police and KSDK, 22 per First Alert 4) is charged with first-degree murder, first-degree robbery, unlawful use of a weapon and three counts of armed criminal action; charges reported Oct. 21, 2026. Darius Malachi Azari Nelson, 19, charged earlier, pleaded not guilty Oct. 9. Both held without bond and presumed innocent.

“You took my son’s life over a bag,” Ashley McCalister said at a vigil in Penrose Park in September. Her son, Justin Holmes, had graduated from Confluence Academy High School and was enrolled at Ranken Technical College. He was a month away from turning 19.

On Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, St. Louis outlets reported that a second man has been charged with first-degree murder in Holmes’s death. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department said a 20-year-old man was arrested on Oct. 19 and charged with first-degree murder, three counts of armed criminal action, first-degree robbery and unlawful use of a weapon, with bond not allowed. KSDK and First Alert 4 identified him from court records as Zahrell Jackson. KSDK and police give his age as 20; First Alert 4 reported 22.

The first man charged, Darius Malachi Azari Nelson, 19, faces first-degree murder, first-degree robbery and two counts of armed criminal action. He pleaded not guilty on Oct. 9, according to court records cited by First Alert 4. Both men are held without bond. Both are presumed innocent.

According to police, just after 8 p.m. on Sept. 4, District 5 officers were sent to a shooting after an 18-year-old was dropped off at a hospital with multiple gunshot wounds. Officers traced the scene to the 5900 block of Plymouth Avenue in the West End. Despite efforts by hospital staff, Holmes died.

What happened on Plymouth Avenue is laid out in a probable cause statement described by First Alert 4. It alleges that Jackson and Nelson planned to rob Holmes. Holmes and two friends had left a party and were giving an acquaintance a ride home, KSDK reported. Nelson was in the back seat beside Holmes and, according to the statement, told the driver to drop him off near the intersection of Plymouth and Oakley. Jackson and another suspect were waiting there. As Holmes got out, Nelson grabbed his bag, a struggle followed, and Nelson shot and killed him, the statement alleges. Jackson, or possibly a third suspect, then fired a shot at the car.

The statement also sets out the evidence against Jackson as police describe it. He told detectives that the cell phone number used to plan the robbery by text was not his, even though the phone was in his possession when he was arrested. He said he was not at the scene; cell phone data placed him there, the statement says. KSDK reported that three people tried to take Holmes’s bag. Police have not announced charges against a third person or said whether one has been identified.

Holmes’s grandmother, Rosetta Harvey, led the September vigil and balloon release with his mother. “He was a special child,” she told KSDK. “He made you laugh. He made you cry. He was full of joy and he loved everybody.”

In Missouri, first-degree murder carries either life without parole or death; armed criminal action adds a consecutive prison term for each count. The Circuit Attorney’s Office, which reviewed the case and issued the charges against Nelson, has not publicly said whether it will seek the death penalty against either man.

The account of the robbery comes from police filings and has not been tested in court.

Sources

Sylvania, Ohio: Son-in-Law Pleads Guilty to Aggravated Murder in Crowbar Killing of Marcia VanDruten, 68

Location: Sylvania, Lucas County, Ohio, USA

Legal status: Convicted by guilty plea. Jonathan Schmidt, 36, pleaded guilty Oct. 21, 2026, in Lucas County Common Pleas Court to aggravated murder and aggravated burglary. Five remaining charges are to be dismissed at sentencing, set for Nov. 23, 2026.

The plan was in his phone. According to prosecutors, Jonathan Schmidt opened a note on March 25, 2026, and last edited it March 28. It laid out when his estranged wife, Kinsey, would be away and when her mother would be home alone. Three weeks later, on April 15, Marcia VanDruten, 68, was beaten to death in the living room of her home in Sylvania, Ohio.

On Wednesday, Oct. 21, Schmidt, 36, withdrew his not guilty pleas before Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Michael Goulding and pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated murder and one count of aggravated burglary. Prosecutors will ask the court to dismiss five other charges at sentencing. Schmidt also agreed to be classified as a violent offender. Prosecutors told the judge VanDruten’s family agreed with the resolution. A trial set for Dec. 7 is off.

Before accepting the plea, the court heard what the state would have proved, as laid out by Assistant Prosecutor Michael Loisel and reported by WTOL 11.

The motive sat in family court. Schmidt and his wife were in a contentious divorce and custody fight, and VanDruten had been subpoenaed by Schmidt’s divorce attorney and had submitted an affidavit. A witness told investigators that in December 2025 Schmidt said he could not promise he would not hurt VanDruten or her daughter, and talked about buying a crowbar. Another witness said he expressed a desire to kill her that same month. Prosecutors described earlier episodes in which Schmidt had to be restrained while holding a crowbar. In the note on his phone, prosecutors said, he also considered a disguise, killing himself, or setting the house on fire afterward.

On April 15, surveillance video showed him at a Lowe’s on Central Avenue buying a hammer and two crowbars. Flock license plate cameras and other video tracked his red Toyota Corolla into VanDruten’s neighborhood. A camera behind the house recorded audio: breaking glass, then VanDruten screaming Schmidt’s name and calling for her husband. Then the screaming stopped.

Investigators found the window in a back door smashed. VanDruten was in her living room with a crowbar on top of her body. Blood spatter reached the window blinds and a kitchen table, some of it about seven feet from where she lay. The Lucas County Coroner’s Office ruled the death a homicide by multiple blunt force injuries; prosecutors said she was struck repeatedly and likely stomped. All three tools from Lowe’s were recovered at the house.

The confessions came quickly, according to the state. Schmidt’s mother called police to report him driving erratically. When Sylvania officers went to his parents’ home, he phoned his father, and an officer’s body camera recorded him admitting he had severely beaten VanDruten. He also contacted a friend who was an off duty law enforcement officer and, prosecutors said, told him he bought the weapons, attacked VanDruten as she sat in a chair, and kept hitting her until she stopped making noise. A message sent after the attack, read in court, mocked her death.

Monroe County, Michigan, sheriff’s deputies arrested Schmidt the morning of April 16 at the LaSalle Bar in LaSalle, Michigan, still in clothing seen on surveillance video, with glass shards in his hood and pockets. The Lowe’s receipt was in his car. DNA from both Schmidt and VanDruten was found on a crowbar, and blood with both profiles was on his pants.

Aggravated murder in Ohio carries life without parole, or life with parole eligibility after 20, 25 or 30 years, plus time for the burglary count. Prosecuting Attorney Julia Bates said digital evidence “played an important role.” Sentencing is set for 9 a.m. Nov. 23.

Sources

Tacoma, Washington: Brothers and 19-Year-Old Woman Charged With First-Degree Murder in Garage Shooting That Killed Josiah Midgyett, 16

Location: Downtown Tacoma, Pierce County, Washington, USA

Legal status: Charged. Jose Preston Leon Campos, 18, Davion Deandre Dante Campos, 20, and Alina Itzel Guillen, 19, are charged with first-degree murder and first-degree assault; the brothers also face unlawful firearm possession counts. Not guilty pleas were entered for all three on Oct. 21, 2026. They are presumed innocent.

The fourth floor of a downtown Tacoma parking garage, 2:23 a.m. on a Sunday. A crowd had gathered at the Commerce Street Station garage when, according to court documents, as many as five masked gunmen opened fire. When Tacoma police arrived on Oct. 18, 2026, they found 16-year-old Josiah Midgyett with life-threatening wounds. Officers tried to save him. He died where he fell. Prosecutors say nine other people were assaulted in the gunfire.

On Wednesday, Oct. 21, the Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office filed first-degree murder charges against three people: brothers Jose Preston Leon Campos, 18, and Davion Deandre Dante Campos, 20, and Alina Itzel Guillen, 19. All three appeared in Pierce County Superior Court the same day, and not guilty pleas were entered on their behalf. They are presumed innocent.

The charging documents, as reported by KOMO News, list two counts of first-degree murder for each defendant, which reflects alternative theories of the same killing, plus multiple counts of first-degree assault. KIRO 7 reported nine assault counts against Jose Campos. Davion Campos is also charged with first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm, and Jose Campos with second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Lisa Wagner wrote in a court declaration that Jose Campos “has prior felony convictions and is prohibited from owning or possessing a firearm.”

Prosecutors allege the three, acting as principals or accomplices, were armed with multiple firearms: a rifle, an AK-47 variant known as a Draco, and at least two pistols. Each murder and assault count carries a maximum of life in prison and a $50,000 fine, the prosecutor’s office said.

The state’s theory is retaliation. According to probable cause documents described by KOMO, police received a tip that referenced two brothers, one of whom had been shot in the hand on Saturday night. Police believed that matched Jose Campos. The tipster told police the garage shooting was payback for that wound. In court, Wagner pointed the judge to the bandage on Jose Campos’s arm. “As you can see from the arm, this defendant was the one who was shot the night before, which leads detectives to believe that this was a retaliatory shooting,” she said, according to KIRO 7. “He’s certainly shown on surveillance video being one of the ones armed and with a mask.”

Police arrested Jose Campos in east Tacoma on Monday, Oct. 19. Davion Campos and Guillen were arrested in Yelm. All three were booked into the Pierce County Jail.

Before bail was set, Midgyett’s mother addressed the court. “I would just like no bail,” she told the judge, KIRO 7 reported. Prosecutors asked for $5 million for each brother and $1.5 million for Guillen, and the judge granted those amounts. Defense attorney Jeff Kim asked the court to enter not guilty pleas on all counts for Jose Campos. KIRO 7 reported that Jose Campos blew a kiss to the gallery as he was led out.

The arithmetic remains open. Witnesses described up to five masked shooters. Three people are charged. Tacoma police declined to say whether they are searching for more suspects.

Everything above about the defendants’ roles comes from charging papers and prosecutors’ statements in court. None of it has been tested at trial.

Sources

Tallahassee, Florida: Two Men Get Mandatory Life for Zip-Tie Kidnapping and Carr Lake Killing of Bainbridge Man Artez Moore

Location: Carr Lake, north Leon County, Florida, USA

Legal status: Sentenced. Rayvon Moten, 35, and Roy Senior, 34, convicted by a Leon County jury on Oct. 20, 2026, of first-degree murder and kidnapping to facilitate a felony, sentenced to mandatory life. Moten also sentenced as a prison releasee reoffender. A third man, Anthony Jenkins, remains charged and is presumed innocent; next court date Nov. 4.

On the morning of Nov. 9, 2023, the body of Artez Moore of Bainbridge, Georgia, was found in marshes near the Cedar Hill Landing boat dock on Carr Lake, in north Leon County. An autopsy found he had been bound with zip ties and died of three gunshot wounds, according to the 2nd Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office as reported by the Tallahassee Democrat. WCTV reported that deputies first treated the death as suspicious after finding him in the 400 block of Cedar Hill Road, and that the zip ties indicated he had been held against his will.

On Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, after a five-day trial and a little more than three hours of deliberation, a Leon County jury found Rayvon Moten, 35, and Roy Senior, 34, guilty of first-degree murder and kidnapping to facilitate a felony. Both were sentenced to mandatory life in prison. Moten was also sentenced as a prison releasee reoffender, the state attorney’s office said.

The case was built on a trail of vehicles, cameras and phones. Investigators found Moore’s car abandoned near Ox Bottom Road and Covey Crossing. That led them to toll road camera video showing another vehicle following Moore’s car on Orchard Pond Parkway early on Nov. 9. That second vehicle belonged to Anthony Jenkins. Detectives then identified Moten, who is Jenkins’ brother-in-law, and Senior, a friend of Moten, as suspects. Phone records showed Moore had spoken with Senior several times that night, and cellphone location analysis placed phones belonging to Senior, Jenkins and Moten in places consistent with Moore’s movements, prosecutors said.

Jenkins, who was charged in the killing and was initially expected to stand trial alongside the other two, instead testified against them. According to his testimony as described by prosecutors, Moten asked him whether he was interested in committing a robbery. Jenkins said he picked up Moten in Columbus, Georgia, on Nov. 8, then drove to a Waffle House on Apalachee Parkway in Tallahassee to pick up Senior, who had his young son with him. The group traveled to Bainbridge and met Moore.

Jenkins told jurors that Moten stayed with Moore in a field in the woods while Jenkins and Senior went to collect drugs and cash from Moore’s family members. Prosecutors said Jenkins was sent to those homes at Senior’s direction; the amount collected was not disclosed. Jenkins testified that after they returned, Senior drove Moore’s vehicle while Jenkins followed in another car to Carr Lake, where Moore was shot and killed. Investigators had determined the three men met Moore around 11 p.m. the night before his body was found.

The prosecution called 25 witnesses. The defense called none. Assistant State Attorney Rachel Jankowski prosecuted the case. Attorneys Charles Lammers and David Collins represented the defendants, and Circuit Judge J. Lee Marsh presided.

Jenkins’ own case is unresolved. He remains charged, is presumed innocent, and his next court date is Nov. 4, WCTV reported. Neither outlet reported what, if any, agreement accompanied his testimony.

For Moore’s family in Bainbridge, the verdict closes the trial phase nearly three years after he was taken from southwest Georgia and killed at a north Florida lake. Both life sentences were mandatory, according to the state attorney’s office.

Sources

Amos, Quebec: Man, 35, Charged With Second-Degree Murder in Death of Roddy Cris Ruperthouse, Found in Downtown Parking Structure

Location: Amos, Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Quebec, Canada

Legal status: Charged. Maxime Vézina, 35, of Amos, is charged with second-degree murder and appeared by video Oct. 21, 2026. He remains detained and returns to court Dec. 14, 2026. He is presumed innocent.

The call came around 7 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026: a person unconscious in a parking structure on 1re Avenue, in downtown Amos. The man was taken to hospital and pronounced dead. Sûreté du Québec investigators first treated it as a suspicious death. By Tuesday they were calling it a homicide. By Wednesday a 35-year-old local man was charged with murder.

The dead man was Roddy Cris Ruperthouse, 36, originally from Pikogan, the Abitibiwinni First Nation community just outside Amos. The SQ described him as a person without a fixed address, the Journal de Montréal reported. The Journal de Montréal wrote that he was nothing like a career criminal. Police have not disclosed the nature of his injuries, saying only that they did not want to compromise the investigation.

On Tuesday afternoon, Oct. 20, SQ spokesperson Nancy Fournier confirmed that investigators had arrested a man in his thirties and were questioning him. “I don’t have more details,” she said, according to the Journal de Montréal. On Wednesday morning, Oct. 21, Maxime Vézina, 35, of Amos, appeared by videoconference before the court at Amos and was charged with second-degree murder, Radio-Canada reported. Under the Criminal Code, Radio-Canada noted, second-degree murder applies to an intentional killing that was not planned and deliberate. Vézina is represented by lawyer William Roy. He remains in custody and is due back in court on Dec. 14. He is presumed innocent.

The Journal de Montréal reported that Vézina had recently been released from prison. In the fall of 2024 he was sentenced to 24 months for conspiracy, breaking and entering to commit an indictable offence, and being an occupant of a vehicle in which there was a firearm, the paper reported; with credit for pre-trial custody, he had 18 months left to serve at the time of that sentence. Those earlier convictions have no bearing on the presumption of innocence in the new charge.

No motive has been released, and no account of how the two men may have known each other has been made public. Radio-Canada reported that no further information had emerged on the events leading to Ruperthouse’s death.

The killing landed hard in Pikogan. On Monday evening, Oct. 19, community members gathered with candles in the parking structure where Ruperthouse was found, Mon Abitibi reported. The Abitibiwinni First Nation said it would not comment during the mourning period out of respect for the family. The City of Amos sent condolences in a written statement and said it would leave communication to the authorities “without commenting or speculating on the circumstances.” Sébastien D’Astous, the member of the National Assembly for Abitibi-Ouest and a former mayor of Amos, wrote on social media that “in moments like this, solidarity, respect and compassion take on their full meaning.” The local health centre reminded residents that support services were available.

When the arrest was confirmed on Tuesday, no one had been charged or named. Wednesday’s formal charge and first appearance are the first court steps in the case. The SQ’s crimes against the person unit leads the investigation.

Sources

Latin America and Africa

Fès, Morocco: Appeal court annuls prison sentence of PJD figure Abdelali Hamieddine over 1993 killing of student Aït El Jid, citing res judicata

Location: Fès, Morocco (criminal appeals chamber, Fès Court of Appeal)

Legal status: First-instance conviction annulled on appeal on Thursday 22 October 2026. The criminal appeals chamber of the Fès Court of Appeal overturned the July 2023 ruling (three years’ imprisonment for complicity in assault and wounding causing death without intent), declared the public prosecution extinguished because the matter had already been judged (res judicata), and declared itself without jurisdiction over the civil claims. Moroccan outlets describe the ruling as an acquittal. The reports reviewed did not say whether the prosecution or the family will seek review by the Court of Cassation.

The criminal appeals chamber of the Fès Court of Appeal on Thursday afternoon, 22 October 2026, annulled the prison sentence handed to Abdelali Hamieddine, a leading figure in the Justice and Development Party (PJD), over the 1993 death of leftist student Mohamed Benaïssa Aït El Jid. The court declared the public prosecution against him extinguished on the ground that the case had already been judged, known in Moroccan law as “sabqiyat al-batt” (res judicata), and said it had no jurisdiction over the civil claims, Express TV and Alnahar reported. Alnahar headlined the ruling as an acquittal. Express TV described it as the cancellation of the prison sentence and the end of a new stage of litigation in a file that has run for more than three decades.

What the ruling does. The decision cancels the first-instance judgment of July 2023. That ruling had convicted Hamieddine of complicity in assault and wounding causing death without intent to cause it, sentenced him to three years in prison without suspension, and ordered him to pay 20,000 dirhams to each of the civil parties, Express TV reported. At the appeal stage he was prosecuted while free, on the original accusation of participation in premeditated murder. The res judicata objection was one of the main legal arguments his defence raised throughout the case, and the appeals chamber accepted it. Alnahar wrote that the court relied on the defence’s argument that the acts attributed to Hamieddine had already been the subject of a court ruling.

The decision came after the court extended its deliberations at the previous hearing, on Thursday 15 October, to this week’s session. That hearing lasted about 11 hours and ended with the accused being given the last word, Express TV reported. On Thursday morning the presiding judge, counsellor Azz El Arab Amziane, had told the court the verdict would come at the end of the session, Le360 reported.

The killing. Aït El Jid, a student of the leftist “basiste” current, died of injuries suffered during violent clashes between student factions at Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University in Fès in early 1993. In 1994 Hamieddine was convicted of taking part in a brawl that resulted in a death. The prosecution later closed two complaints filed by the civil party, in 2012 and 2013, on the ground that the matter had already been judged. In 2017 Hassan Aït El Jid filed a new direct complaint, and the case was reopened.

First instance. On 11 July 2023, the first-instance criminal chamber of the Fès Court of Appeal, presided over by counsellor Mohamed Lahya, convicted Hamieddine and sentenced him to three years in prison. It reclassified the charge as complicity in assault and wounding causing death without intent to cause it, and ordered him to pay civil damages to the victim’s heirs, Fès News reported. Hamieddine appealed.

The appeal hearing. The appeal was argued at a marathon session on Thursday 15 October that ran more than 11 hours. The court ruled the case ready to proceed despite the absence of the main witness, El Khammar El Hadioui, who had submitted a three-day medical certificate, and of the civil parties. It joined the defence’s procedural objections to the merits and questioned Hamieddine. He denied taking part in the killing and called the family’s complaint malicious, saying the courts had already ruled on the matter, Fès News reported. The presiding judge confronted him with a judicial police report dated 27 February 1993.

The defence. Hamieddine’s lawyers argued res judicata and said there were no new facts to justify a retrial. Mohamed Chahbi, bâtonnier of the Casablanca bar, called his client the victim of the case. He pointed to what he said were 15 different statements El Hadioui gave between 1993 and 2023, each adding new details about who was accused. Omar Heloui of the Fès bar asked the court to overturn the first-instance ruling and acquit. He said a 1993 police report containing a sketch of the crime scene, and information about two people accused of the killing, had been altered during the proceedings.

The family. Lawyer Ouazzani Benabdellah, for the Aït El Jid family, argued that Hamieddine was being tried on new facts that had emerged in the file, so res judicata could not apply, Telquel reported.

PJD leaders attended the 15 October hearing in support, among them Abdellah Bouanou, a member of the party’s general secretariat and a member of parliament, and the MP Mohamed Khiyi. On 15 October Hamieddine arrived at court with his wife, Boutaina El Karouri, and Mohamed Zouhair, the party’s regional secretary, according to Le360.

The ruling closes the appeal stage of one of Morocco’s longest-running and most politically charged criminal cases. Hamieddine has always denied taking part in the killing.

Sources

San Andrés Itzapa, Guatemala: Seven former police officers sentenced over the 2024 custody killings of Nelson Santamaría and Eldin Choc Xi

Location: San Andrés Itzapa, Chimaltenango, Guatemala (Tribunal de Mayor Riesgo B, Guatemala City)

Legal status: Convicted at first instance. Sentences handed down 21 October 2026 (evening, Guatemala time): two former officers 60 years each and one 30 years for extrajudicial execution; four others 8 to 11 years in combined terms for lesser offences. A reparations hearing is set for 23 October. Appeals remain open.

A Guatemalan high-risk court has convicted seven former officers of the Policía Nacional Civil (PNC) over the deaths of two men who were arrested for causing a disturbance in San Andrés Itzapa, Chimaltenango, on 18 April 2024 and never came out of police hands alive. Judge María Eugenia Castellanos read the sentences of the Tribunal de Mayor Riesgo B on the evening of Wednesday, 21 October 2026.

The victims were Milton Nelson Santamaría, who held Salvadoran and Canadian nationality, and Eldin Leonel Choc Xi, a Guatemalan, 28 at the time of his disappearance. Spanish agency Europa Press described them as a couple; the prosecution and the Guatemalan outlets quoted here describe them as two men detained together.

The sentences. According to Prensa Libre and La Hora, which both reported the reading in court: – Former subinspector Edy Leonel Vásquez Rabanales: 60 years without commutation for extrajudicial execution, 30 years for each victim. La Hora reported the court found he led the beatings. – Freddy (also spelled Fredi) Santiago Velásquez Pérez: 60 years without commutation for extrajudicial execution, 30 years per victim. – Mauricio Abraham Contreras Salán: 30 years for the extrajudicial execution of Santamaría. Prensa Libre reported he was acquitted over the death of Choc Xi. – Yorleni Lisbeth Macario Ramos and Yulisa Nabely Ayala Yol: five years each for breach of duty, after the court reduced the charge from extrajudicial execution, plus three years per victim for discrimination, six years in total on that count. La Hora gave the combined total as 11 years each. – Ángel Mario Roquel Sajbochol: five years for obstructing a criminal investigation and five for breach of duty, plus a fine of 1,000 quetzales for failing to report a crime. He was acquitted of failing to render aid. – Jeremías Jacobo Rojas: five years for abuse of authority and three for illegal detention, after the court changed the breach of duty charge. He was acquitted of denial of assistance.

The court revoked the alternative measures that had kept Velásquez, Contreras, Roquel and Rojas out of jail and ordered them taken straight into custody, La Hora reported. Ayala and Macario stay on extended alternative measures; the court removed their electronic monitoring and set them to sign in biometrically every 30 days.

What the prosecution said happened. The Public Ministry’s human rights prosecutors told the court the two men were arrested by PNC officers on 18 April 2024, accused of creating a public disturbance, and taken to the police substation in San Andrés Itzapa, where they were beaten. Santamaría died from a blow while he was inside the substation, according to the indictment summarised by Prensa Libre. Prosecutors said the officers then worked out a story with emergency responders that he had been found in the street and died on arrival at a medical centre.

The forensic agency INACIF gave Santamaría’s cause of death in April 2024 as exsanguinating haemorrhage from a ruptured abdominal aorta, secondary to blunt trauma to the chest and abdomen. At the time the Public Ministry said that, according to complaints and its reconstruction of events, he had been “beaten to death” at the substation.

Choc Xi vanished. Prosecutors said he was driven to an isolated stretch of the road between San Andrés Itzapa and San Miguel Dueñas, Sacatepéquez, where he was strangled and several of his fingers were cut off. Residents searched the surrounding mountains for him for days. On 21 April 2024, angered by the lack of answers, townspeople set fire to the PNC substation. Four officers were arrested in the first days and sent to Mariscal Zavala prison; the substation’s subinspector was then reported to be on the run.

The court’s reasoning. La Hora reported the judges called the crime “despicable,” but said the failure was not of state controls: the officers lied to get around those controls and hide what they had done. The court found that not every act charged fitted the crime of extrajudicial execution, which is why several counts were reclassified.

The families. “We did it,” said a brother of Choc Xi outside court, telling La Hora it had not been an easy road. Another brother, Henry Choc Xi, told Prensa Libre that “justice was done.” The reparations hearing on Friday, 23 October, will decide what the convicted officers owe the victims’ families and the Guatemalan state.

Sources

Santiago, Chile: Second trial over the kidnapping and murder of Venezuelan dissident Ronald Ojeda opens with 16 accused from Tren de Aragua cell

Location: Centro de Justicia, Santiago, Chile (Sexto Tribunal de Juicio Oral en lo Penal de Santiago)

Legal status: Second oral trial opened Wednesday 21 October 2026 after a one-day delay; two of 18 accused had their cases definitively dismissed (sobreseimiento definitivo) on double-jeopardy grounds, leaving 16 on trial. Reading of the indictment and prosecution opening statements were scheduled for Thursday 22 October. All presumed innocent. One earlier defendant, Maickel Villegas, has been sentenced to 20 years.

The second criminal trial over the kidnapping and murder of Ronald Ojeda, a former Venezuelan army lieutenant and dissident living in Chile, opened at Santiago’s Centro de Justicia on Wednesday 21 October 2026. On its first day, the court dismissed the cases against two of the 18 accused, leaving 16 men on trial. All are Venezuelan nationals and alleged members of Los Piratas de Aragua, the Chilean cell of the Tren de Aragua gang, Cooperativa reported. Not all 16 face direct charges over Ojeda’s kidnapping and death. Some are accused only of criminal association. All are presumed innocent.

A day lost to Zoom. The trial was due to start on Tuesday 20 October but collapsed over connection problems. Germán Apablaza, the public defender who represents 15 of the accused, told the court the defendants had been unable to speak privately with their lawyers. The court had offered individual connections in separate rooms to protect the defendants’ right to consult counsel, he said. “Those conditions were not met: in the prisons there were rooms shared by more than five accused, who could not even hear some basic questions put by the court.” The defence asked for a postponement, and the start was moved to 9 a.m. on Wednesday.

Two dismissed. On Wednesday the court accepted a defence argument based on ne bis in idem, the rule that no one may be tried twice for the same offence, and definitively dismissed two defendants. “My client and the other accused were convicted by another court of guarantees for the same offence for which they are accused here, which is the offence of criminal association,” public defender Pedro Narváez said. “Now they have to serve the sentence of the court where they were previously sentenced, and of the total of 18 accused in the case, 16 now remain.” Alejandra Valdivieso, the lawyer for Ojeda’s family, said they did not oppose the request because it was procedurally correct. “We intend to prove in this oral trial that the accused who are charged today be found guilty,” she said. The family’s aim, she said, is to show that “all of them had a key role in carrying out this kidnapping with homicide.”

The broader case. Juan Carlos Manríquez, another lawyer for the family, stressed that the defendants face more than one case. “Remember there is an indictment for criminal organisation; others relating to extortion, homicides and kidnappings; another chapter on the kidnapping and homicide of Lieutenant Ojeda; and also a context and an intent of belonging to a dangerous criminal association,” he said.

The first conviction. So far the case has a single sentenced defendant from a trial, Cooperativa reports. Maickel David Villegas Rodríguez, extradited from Costa Rica, was found guilty on 1 October 2026 by the Segundo Tribunal de Juicio Oral en lo Penal de Santiago of kidnapping with homicide, and later sentenced to 20 years. According to the prosecution’s case at that trial, as reported by La Tercera, Villegas carried out four hours of surveillance before the kidnapping and was outside the building when men posing as police went in. He left two minutes after the abduction and later helped rescue three of those involved when their vehicle broke down at kilometre 20 of the Costanera Norte. Regional prosecutor Héctor Barros called him someone who “provided cover to the criminal structure” from “the lowest operational links.” At the time Barros said the second trial would include “those who materially carried out the act and those who also took part in hiding his body in the Santa Marta encampment.” A third case, against alleged leaders extradited later, remains open.

Sources

Polokwane, South Africa: Four men get life terms plus 116 years for Klaserie Road cash-in-transit heist that killed a G4S guard

Location: Klaserie Road, Limpopo, South Africa (Polokwane High Court)

Legal status: Convicted and sentenced 21 October 2026 on charges including two counts of robbery with aggravating circumstances and five counts of murder; each received multiple life terms plus 116 years, partly concurrent. All four had pleaded not guilty. Appeal routes remain open.

The Polokwane High Court has sentenced four men to multiple life terms and an additional 116 years each for a cash-in-transit robbery on the Klaserie Road in Limpopo in September 2023. The attack killed a G4S employee, and four of the gang died in a shootout as they fled. The National Prosecuting Authority announced the sentences on 21 October 2026, and IOL reported them on 22 October, saying they were handed down on Wednesday.

The men. The four are Victor Mhlanga, 31, and David Frimino Matola, 55, both Mozambican nationals; Solomon Moyo, 31, a Zimbabwean national; and Blessing Masilela, 36, from Tembisa. IOL spells the second man’s surname Motola; this card follows the NPA’s Matola.

How many life terms. The two accounts differ. The NPA statement, headed “Five life terms plus 116 years,” says the court imposed five life terms plus 116 years. IOL says six life sentences plus 116 years for each man. The NPA says the court ordered some of the sentences to run concurrently; IOL says the sentences were ordered to run concurrently. Under South African law, life sentences run concurrently with each other and with any fixed terms in any case. The court also declared all four unfit to possess firearms.

The convictions. The four were found guilty of two counts of robbery with aggravating circumstances, five counts of murder, attempted murder, two counts of possession of unlicensed firearms and ammunition, two counts of possession of prohibited firearms, possession of explosives, malicious damage to property and possession of suspected stolen property. The three foreign nationals were also convicted of contravening the Immigration Act. All four had pleaded not guilty to every charge, the NPA says.

The attack. According to the evidence before the court as summarised by the NPA, on 20 September 2023 the gang attacked a G4S security vehicle carrying money from Mpumalanga to Tzaneen along the Klaserie Road. Armed with firearms and explosives, they opened fire on the cash van and its escort vehicle, killing G4S employee Mokgetsi Jim Teffo. They forced the van to stop, blew it open with explosives and took more than R600,000 in cash along with the guards’ firearms.

As they fled, there was an exchange of gunfire involving the gang and civilians on the road, the NPA says. Four other suspects were killed: David Chabalala, Rhine Legoabe, Jabu Rumpell Fakude and Prince Lucky Makamu. Those four deaths account for the five murder convictions alongside Teffo’s. The NPA statement does not spell out the legal basis, but South African courts can convict surviving robbers of the murder of accomplices killed during a robbery, under the doctrine of common purpose. The four accused were later arrested at different locations.

Sentencing argument. In aggravation of sentence, State Advocate Norman Makhubele told the court that cash-in-transit robberies were prevalent in Limpopo and had fallen since the accused were arrested. He argued that their personal circumstances did not amount to the “substantial and compelling circumstances” that would let the court depart from the prescribed minimum sentence of life imprisonment. The court also heard of the impact on Teffo’s family, including three children left without their father.

Limpopo Director of Public Prosecutions Ivy Thenga said the sentences “reflect the seriousness of cash-in-transit robberies and their devastating impact on communities, economic activity, and public safety,” and “send a strong message that those who commit violent and organised crimes will be prosecuted vigorously.”

Sources

Salvador, Brazil: Fourth man convicted in the 2023 killing of quilombola leader Mãe Bernadete

Location: Simões Filho and Salvador, Bahia, Brazil (Fórum Ruy Barbosa, 1st Jury Court of Salvador)

Legal status: Convicted by jury of aggravated homicide on 21 October 2026. Sentenced to 23 years and nine months in a closed regime according to UOL, citing the Bahia court; g1 reported 23 years. Provisional execution of the sentence ordered. Appeal possible. One co-accused awaits a trial date.

A jury in Salvador on Wednesday, 21 October 2026, convicted Sérgio Ferreira de Jesus of aggravated homicide for his part in the killing of Mãe Bernadete, the quilombola leader and Candomblé priestess (ialorixá) shot 25 times inside her home in the Pitanga dos Palmares quilombo, Simões Filho, on 17 August 2023. He is the fourth person convicted in the case.

UOL, citing the Bahia Court of Justice, reported the sentence as 23 years and nine months, to begin in a closed regime; g1 and TV Bahia reported 23 years. Judge Gelzi Maria Almeida Souza Matos of the 1st Jury Court of Salvador presided at the Fórum Ruy Barbosa in the Nazaré district. Ferreira de Jesus had been held in pre-trial detention since September 2023, and the court ordered provisional execution of the sentence.

What the jury found. The jurors accepted the Public Ministry’s case and recognised the aggravating circumstances argued in the trial: base motive, cruel means, the victim’s inability to defend herself and use of a prohibited firearm, UOL reported. Two prosecution witnesses and four defence witnesses were heard. The defence’s position was not reported.

His alleged role. According to the investigation summarised by g1, Ferreira de Jesus received the mobile phones stolen from Mãe Bernadete and her relatives on the day of the killing. Police also say he was one of the people who planned the murder after a falling out with the priestess, which g1 describes as stemming from a reprimand she gave him, and that he showed the gunmen the best route to her house.

The killing. Mãe Bernadete was inside her home with three of her grandchildren when two men wearing helmets came in, sent the young people out of the living room and opened fire, g1 reported. According to the indictment filed by Gaeco, the state’s organised crime unit, and summarised by UOL, Josevan Dionísio dos Santos ordered the grandchildren into a bedroom and gathered up the phones of everyone present. When Mãe Bernadete refused to sit down, he fired the first shot. She was hit 25 times. Investigators used witness statements and geolocation data from the stolen phones to build the case, which was run as Operação Pacific.

At the time she was under the protection of the Military Police through the Bahia Department of Justice and Human Rights programme for human rights defenders, and had been for at least two years, g1 reported. Police concluded the killing was ordered by a local drug trafficking boss because of her opposition to the gang’s expansion in the community.

The other defendants. According to g1 and UOL: – Marílio dos Santos, described by police as the area’s trafficking boss and the man who ordered the killing, was convicted on 14 April 2026 and sentenced to 29 years and nine months. He was a fugitive at the time but tried because he had a lawyer. He was shot dead two days later in an exchange of fire with police in rural Catu, about 100 km from Salvador. – Arielson da Conceição dos Santos, named as a gunman, was convicted on 14 April 2026 and sentenced to 40 years, five months and 22 days, including for robbery. – Josevan Dionísio dos Santos, known as “BZ” or “Buzuim,” also named as a gunman, was convicted on 13 October 2026 and sentenced to 28 years. He was arrested in September 2025 after holding his partner and two children hostage in Simões Filho. – Ydney Carlos dos Santos de Jesus, known as “Café,” who allegedly ran a stall hosting parties for drug dealing and had a heated argument with Mãe Bernadete before her death, was arrested in Salvador on 23 July 2024. He has no trial date and is presumed innocent. – g1 also lists Carlos Conceição Santiago, accused of storing the weapons and helping a gunman escape, with no trial date. He is presumed innocent.

The state’s failure. In 2025 the family sued the federal government and the Bahia state government, alleging failures in the protection programme. g1 reported the claim sought 11.8 million reais in moral damages for the three grandchildren and a daughter. In February the state attorney general’s office said compensation payments had been completed through an administrative settlement, at a confidential amount. Her son, Jurandy Pacífico, said the action was protective as well as symbolic.

Sources

Nairobi, Kenya: Prof David Ndetei testifies against bail for ex-wife and children charged with murdering Dr Victoria Mutiso

Location: Nairobi, Kenya (Milimani High Court)

Legal status: Seven accused charged with the murder of Dr Victoria Mutiso (killed 29 July 2026); all have denied the charges and are presumed innocent. Bail hearing continued 21 October 2026; all remain in custody until a mention on 4 November 2026, when the court will check pre-bail reports before setting a ruling date.

Professor David Ndetei, one of Kenya’s best-known psychiatrists, was wheeled into the Milimani High Court in Nairobi and told Justice Alexander Muteti that he feared for his life and his family’s if his former wife and two of their children were released on bond. The three are among seven people charged with the murder of his wife, the clinical psychologist and mental health researcher Dr Victoria Mutiso.

Rose Mbithe Mulwa, her children Chris and Angela Mulwa, police officers Elijah Kimoi and Collins Bett, and Kimutai Martim and Pius Muiru are charged over the killing of Dr Mutiso on 29 July 2026, the Daily Nation reported. All seven have denied the charges. The Nation, in an earlier caption, described her death as a fatal shooting.

Why he was in the witness box. The defence had challenged the affidavit Prof Ndetei filed through the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to oppose bond, suggesting he had been too ill to swear it and that someone else might have signed for him. The court had been told he was incapacitated and in a hospital high dependency unit. The judge allowed the defence to cross-examine him to establish whether the document and its contents were his, Radio Generation reported.

Prof Ndetei, born in 1948, told the court he was of sound mind, still saw patients, did research and took international consultancy work from his Nairobi office. “It is me who swore and signed this affidavit,” he said, according to the Nation. He said he signed it in his office on 5 October 2026 in front of two lawyers, and that it was commissioned the same day. He rejected claims that it was forged. He was led by state prosecutors Gikui Gichuhi, Jalson Makori and Victor Owiti.

What he said about the accused. He called Ms Mulwa a “pathological liar” and the two children “thugs,” referring to his former wife only as “that lady there,” the Nation reported. He said he had not seen her for more than 30 years, since she left the matrimonial home on 19 September 1996. He said she and their son had repeatedly vowed to take his property and leave him destitute: “I will take everything from you and reduce you to a chokora,” he quoted them as saying, using the Swahili slang for a street child.

He said he had received threats before Dr Mutiso’s death and tried several times to report them. The Nation quoted him naming Mlolongo police station; Radio Generation reported he named Athi River police station and could not recall whether the commanding officer was called Ndegwa or Mugambi. He said the officer initially refused to record statements from him and his late wife and did so only after he escalated the complaint. He told the court he had repeatedly seen Ms Mulwa and Chris at the station with that officer. He also told the court that Ms Mulwa was facing prosecution over the killing of lawyer Kyalo Mbobu, whom he called one of his best lawyers. That allegation was his, made under oath; the Nation did not report any charge details.

The defence’s cross-examination. Lawyer Joel Mbaluka, for Ms Mulwa and the two children, pressed him on whether a family property dispute was driving his opposition to bail. Prof Ndetei confirmed the dispute and a related High Court ruling that the other side had not appealed; the defence noted the ruling was not attached to his affidavit. Asked whether he held a grudge, he said: “No. I said I forgave them. I have four children.” He praised Angela as a smart student who had come second nationally in the KCSE exams.

Asked whether he had sought witness protection, he said he had not, explaining that as a medical man he did not know his rights in that area. On a March 2026 incident he calls an attempted eviction led by his son, the lawyer suggested he had been taken to hospital “humanely.” “Humanely? Humanely? No. It’s a twisting of the facts,” he replied. He denied the defence suggestion that he had been violent to his former wife.

Members of the public booed when Mr Mbaluka tried to ask about allegations that the professor himself was a suspect and had threatened his late wife; the judge and prosecutors repeatedly told the lawyer to keep to the affidavit.

What happens next. Justice Muteti ordered the probation office to file pre-bail reports within 14 days. The court also heard that the Independent Policing Oversight Authority had not finished investigating the accused’s claims that they were tortured. All seven stay in custody until the 4 November mention.

Sources

Cruz del Eje, Argentina: Two men charged with hiding the ex-partner accused in the femicide of Camila Iglesias, found in a fridge under lime

Location: Cruz del Eje, Córdoba province, Argentina

Legal status: Two men from Villa Carlos Paz detained and formally accused (imputados) on 21 October 2026 of aggravated concealment by harbouring a fugitive. Pablo Ezequiel Gómez, 37, is accused (imputado) of femicide and in custody. All are presumed innocent. Autopsy and cause of death pending.

Prosecutors in Córdoba province have detained two men accused of hiding Pablo Ezequiel Gómez, 37, for at least five days while he was on the run after the body of his former partner, Camila Belén Iglesias, 24, was found inside a refrigerator in the house they had shared. The Córdoba public prosecutor’s office (MPF) announced the arrests on Wednesday, 21 October 2026.

The two men live in Villa Carlos Paz, the lakeside resort town in the Punilla hills, and are accused of “encubrimiento por favorecimiento personal agravado por la gravedad del delito precedente,” concealment by personally helping a suspect escape justice, aggravated by the seriousness of the underlying crime. Their names and their relationship to Gómez have not been released, La Voz reported. Nor has it been said whether he hid at the same house where he was finally found. The case is run by Cruz del Eje investigating prosecutor Sabrina Ardiles. There are now three people in custody.

The discovery. Camila Iglesias, a mother of two, was found in the early hours of Friday, 16 October, inside a fridge in the house in the Los Altos neighbourhood of Cruz del Eje, in the province’s north-west. Her remains were covered with a substance believed to be hydrated lime, which made identification harder, according to the MPF. The fridge itself was taken to the Forensic Medicine Institute in Córdoba. The cause of death has not been determined.

The search that found her was not meant to. Ardiles told La Voz that the missing person report was filed on 15 October and that the same day the court ordered a search of the couple’s house; investigators were looking for clothing and other items that might show where she had gone, not expecting to find her body there. Investigators estimate she died between 5 and 6 October, about ten days before she was found, though the date depends on the final autopsy.

The messages. Camila’s sister, Romina, told investigators her last contact with her was on 2 October. Gómez then wrote to Romina on Facebook. “Hi Romina, how are you? Sorry to bother you at this hour, on Monday we had an argument with Cami, she got angry and left, I don’t know where, I write to her and she doesn’t answer. Please if you talk to her can you tell her to answer me or to come back here,” he wrote, according to the sister’s account to the El Doce channel, cited by Infobae. Infobae places the message two days after 2 October; La Voz reports investigators are examining messages sent on 8 October. If she died on 5 or 6 October, La Voz noted, they were sent after her death.

Investigators found records of earlier conflict and violence in the relationship. Romina told La Voz she had tried to warn her sister about his past and that Gómez restricted family visits when he was not home and resented Camila seeing her own children. Gómez’s relatives told investigators he had said he had “screwed up,” did not want to go to prison and was thinking of killing himself, according to the MPF. At the house, investigators found a letter allegedly written by Gómez in which he would admit the crime, along with clothing, documents, fluid samples and a destroyed mobile phone, Infobae reported.

The arrest. Ardiles said 13 searches were carried out before Gómez was found. In the early hours of Monday, 19 October, officers of the Cruz del Eje investigations brigade found him at a house in the San Nicolás neighbourhood of Malagueño, about 25 kilometres from the city of Córdoba, a house that had already been searched once. Investigators say he travelled about 125 kilometres along National Route 38 to get there. He was charged with femicide and was due to be moved to Bouwer prison and questioned this week. La Voz counts the killing as the eighth femicide in Córdoba province in 2026.

Sources

Esquina, Argentina: Ranch foreman detained as prosecutors now treat missing rural teacher Nancy Godoy as a femicide victim

Location: Esquina department, Corrientes province, Argentina (El Curupí ranch, Paraje El Malezal)

Legal status: Ireneo Zarza detained overnight 21 to 22 October 2026 as the alleged perpetrator of a femicide; not yet charged at trial and presumed innocent. Four others detained: a couple accused of aggravated concealment, a man held for false testimony, and a man surnamed Sandoval whose alleged role has not been detailed. The victim’s body has not been found.

Prosecutors in Corrientes no longer believe they are looking for a living woman. Nancy Estela Godoy, a 52-year-old teacher who ran a tiny rural school on a cattle ranch in the Esquina department, was murdered, according to judicial sources quoted by La Nación and Infobae on Thursday, 22 October 2026. Her body has not been found. Overnight, prosecutors Javier Mosquera and María Andrea González ordered the detention of the man they now name as the alleged killer: Ireneo Zarza, foreman of the El Curupí estancia. La Nación spells her first name Nanci.

“For the prosecutors, the progress of the investigation allows them to maintain that Zarza is the perpetrator of Godoy’s femicide,” one source told La Nación. He has not been tried and is presumed innocent.

The school. Godoy had taken charge of School No. 626, which sits on the estancia in the Paraje El Malezal area and teaches about ten pupils, all children of ranch hands. She spent each working week there. To get from the ranch’s main buildings to the school she borrowed a horse from a woman on the ranch, Rosa Leguizamón.

Her last known contact was a WhatsApp voice message sent at 8:34 p.m. on 7 October to her daughter-in-law, Alejandra, La Nación reported. In it she complained that the school had no water and a damaged roof, and said she had sent videos to a provincial official who promised help. “Imagine, I sent him the video of how I found the school and how I am today with pupils, but I have no water, nothing,” she said. La Nación’s judicial sources place the killing between Friday, 9 October and Saturday, 10 October. Infobae describes her as last seen alive about 15 days before 22 October. Her son, Sebastián Medina, filed the missing person report at the Esquina police station on Thursday, 15 October.

The case against the foreman. According to the evidence described by both outlets, witnesses place Zarza, in the hours before Godoy vanished, at a “puesto tapera,” a run-down outpost about 150 metres from the school where he usually slept. Witnesses told investigators he would spend nights there drinking whisky and become aggressive. Prosecutors cite that pattern as part of the grounds for the accusation. Neither outlet has reported forensic evidence directly linking him to her death.

The woman with the horse. Leguizamón was detained on Tuesday night, 20 October, with her partner, Nahuel Rojas, after prosecutors detected contradictions and concealed information in their statements, Infobae reported. Both are accused of aggravated concealment. Prosecutors believe Leguizamón “could have facilitated the crime.” They allege she lied to Godoy about whether anyone from the estancia would be going back to the town of Esquina that weekend, and gave a false date for a rodeo festival in Sauce she said she was attending. In her original account to the family, she said it seemed strange the teacher had not come back from the school; her partner, the son’s complaint said, went to the school and found no one.

On Wednesday, a search of Leguizamón’s house in Sauce turned up a black jacket and a pair of espadrilles that investigators believe belonged to Godoy. They were to be shown to the family for identification on Thursday.

The other detainees. Ernesto Ezequiel Bordón has been held since Monday for giving false testimony, Infobae reported. He allegedly told investigators that Godoy had been the victim of a crime, a version they could not corroborate. In a search of his house, police seized four knives, a shirt and a pair of gaucho trousers with reddish stains, which were sent for testing to establish whether the stains are human blood. His lawyer, Norberto Codazzi, says the statement is invalid because his client was pressured and mistreated in custody. Bordón has not been charged over the disappearance. The fifth detainee, a man surnamed Sandoval, was arrested on the same order as Zarza; his alleged role has not been reported.

Next steps. The Corrientes prosecutor’s office said it would conduct two more interviews on Thursday and take DNA samples from Godoy’s sister and son, to compare against any human remains found as searches of the area intensify.

Sources

Feira de Santana, Brazil: Jury convicts second man in 2021 killing of engineering student Sashira Camilly but drops femicide qualifier

Location: Vitória da Conquista and Planalto, Bahia, Brazil (Tribunal do Júri, Fórum Felinto Bastos, Feira de Santana)

Legal status: Convicted by jury on Wednesday 21 October 2026 and sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment and 10 day-fines; jurors voted 4 to 3 to remove the femicide and base-motive qualifiers. After credit for time served, g1 reports a remaining term of 7 years, 10 months and 25 days in the semi-open regime. Both the defence and the prosecution have appealed. A third accused awaits trial.

A jury in Feira de Santana, Bahia, late on Wednesday 21 October 2026 convicted Marcos Vinícius Botelho Fernandes de Almeida of taking part in the 2021 murder of Sashira Camilly Cunha Silva, a 19-year-old civil engineering student from Vitória da Conquista. Judge Márcia Simões set the sentence at 13 years in prison and 10 day-fines, Blog do Sena reported. The session lasted 15 hours and 10 minutes and ended at about 11:30 p.m., according to g1.

By 4 votes to 3, the seven jurors removed the qualifying circumstances of femicide and base motive (motivo torpe) that the prosecution had sought. Prosecutors Antônio Luciano and Marina of the Bahia Public Ministry, assisted by Luciana Silva and Franklin Ribeiro for the victim’s family, had argued for conviction for qualified homicide, femicide and concealment of a corpse. The defence team, Leonardo Mascarenhas, Gabriel Habib, Sara Mascarenhas and André Pirôpo, contested the charges.

Time served. The outlets describe the effect of time already served differently. g1 reports that after penal detraction, which credits time already spent in prison, the final sentence came to 7 years, 10 months and 25 days, to be served in the semi-open regime. Blog do Sena says Marcos has already served five years and one month in closed custody, that the remaining time could be about eight years under the official sentence calculation, and that semi-open custody will depend on review by the court and on meeting the legal requirements. Both the defence and the prosecution have filed appeals, Blog do Sena reports, so the conviction is not final.

The killing. Sashira Camilly studied civil engineering at the Faculdade Independente do Nordeste (Fainor) in Vitória da Conquista. She was killed in September 2021. According to the Civil Police investigation as summarised by g1, her ex-boyfriend, Rafael de Souza Lima, tried to drug her with clonazepam mixed into a drink and stabbed her. Marcos Vinícius was called in to help move the victim’s car and took part in finishing the killing by asphyxiation, police say. Her body was found days after she disappeared, on a vacant plot in the countryside of Planalto, about 50 kilometres from Vitória da Conquista, Blog do Sena reports. The case caused deep shock in Vitória da Conquista and drew national attention.

The co-accused. In February 2026, Rafael de Souza Lima was convicted of qualified homicide, femicide and concealment of a corpse and sentenced to 22 years and five months in closed custody. A third accused still awaits trial. g1 names him Filipe dos Santos Gusmão and Blog do Sena Felipe. Police say he acted as the go-between for Rafael and Marcos Vinícius, including ordering a ride-hailing car to take Marcos to the scene. No trial date has been confirmed for him.

The jury’s split. The narrow 4 to 3 vote on the qualifiers was decisive for the sentence. Without the femicide qualifier, the conviction carries a much lower range than Rafael’s, which explains the gap of more than nine years between the two sentences for the same killing.

Sources

Río Bueno, Chile: Man found guilty of killing his brother, pregnant sister-in-law and 10-year-old niece

Location: Cayurruca sector, Río Bueno, Los Ríos Region, Chile (Valdivia Oral Criminal Trial Court)

Legal status: Guilty verdict delivered 20 October 2026 on three counts of aggravated homicide (homicidio calificado), one count of attempted simple homicide and conditional threats. Prosecution seeks qualified life imprisonment (presidio perpetuo calificado). Sentence to be read Monday 2 November 2026. Appeal routes remain open.

The Valdivia Oral Criminal Trial Court on Tuesday 20 October 2026 returned a guilty verdict against Francisco Uribe Obando for the killing of three members of his brother’s family in the rural Cayurruca sector of Río Bueno, in southern Chile, on the night of 24 to 25 March 2024. The three judges convicted him of three aggravated homicides, one attempted homicide and conditional threats. The Los Ríos regional prosecutor’s office is asking for presidio perpetuo calificado, the heaviest penalty in Chilean criminal law. The court will read its sentence on Monday 2 November. Coverage of the verdict continued on 21 October, when Canal 9 reported the prosecution’s demand for life.

The victims. The dead were his brother, Iván Raúl Uribe Obando, owner of a chain of opticians; his brother’s wife, Alejandra Tapia Alfaro, who was four months pregnant; and the couple’s 10-year-old daughter. A fourth person, a woman from the family who happened to be in the house, was attacked as well but survived. She called relatives for help, and her testimony was, in La Tercera’s words, fundamental to reconstructing what happened.

What the court accepted. According to La Tercera and BioBioChile, prosecutors proved at trial that Uribe Obando planned the attack in advance. On the night of 24 March 2024 he entered the house where the family was and killed his brother, his sister-in-law and his niece with a kitchen knife that had a 33-centimetre blade 3 centimetres wide. BioBioChile reports that the motive was his dismissal from the optician’s shop where he worked alongside his brother.

The court’s finding of homicidio calificado means the judges accepted at least one aggravating qualifier, such as premeditation or treachery, beyond simple intent to kill. The attempted-homicide count covers the surviving woman. The conditional-threats count was part of the indictment; the reports do not detail the threats.

Virtual reality in the courtroom. The trial was the first oral trial in Los Ríos at which prosecutors presented a three-dimensional digital reconstruction of a crime scene using virtual reality. The MetaLab laboratory at the Universidad Autónoma de Chile’s Faculty of Architecture built a digital replica of the house from a 3D scan. The judges could move through it virtually and see key elements of the investigation. BioBioChile writes that the tool helped present the evidence in a “rigorous, comprehensible and technically sound” way.

What comes next. Under Chile’s criminal procedure, the verdict and the sentence are separate stages. Having found him guilty, the court must now set the penalty and give its full written reasoning, which is due on 2 November. Presidio perpetuo calificado, which prosecutors are seeking, means at least 40 years must be served before release can even be considered. Once the written judgment is read, the defence can seek to have it annulled. Until the sentence is read and any appeal is resolved, the conviction is not final.

Reports spell the defendant’s second surname differently. La Tercera, Canal 9 and ChileNoticias give it as Obando, matching his brother’s name. BioBioChile’s verdict-day report writes Obanda in some passages and Obando in others. This card uses Obando.

Sources

Chiquinquirá, Colombia: Man accepts charges over dawn knife rampage that killed a 71-year-old and wounded two

Location: Chiquinquirá, Boyacá, Colombia

Legal status: Brandon Andrés Guzmán Páez was charged (imputado) by the Fiscalía with aggravated homicide, attempted aggravated homicide and qualified theft, accepted the charges, and was ordered held in prison (medida de aseguramiento intramural); reported 22 October 2026. Acceptance of charges at this stage leads to a sentencing hearing with a reduced penalty; he is not yet sentenced.

A man accused of walking through the centre of Chiquinquirá before dawn on Monday 19 October 2026 with a dagger, attacking whoever crossed his path, has been sent to prison after accepting the charges against him, Caracol Radio reported on 22 October. Prosecutors from Colombia’s Fiscalía charged Brandon Andrés Guzmán Páez with aggravated homicide, attempted aggravated homicide and qualified theft. At the prosecution’s request, a judge ordered him held in a prison designated by INPEC, the national prison institute.

In Colombia’s accusatory system, an accused who accepts the charges at the imputation stage receives a sentence reduction. The case now moves to a hearing where a judge will approve the acceptance and set the sentence. He has not yet been sentenced.

The attacks. Caracol Radio’s account, based on the prosecution’s case, lays out three attacks in about 40 minutes. At 4:53 a.m. a woman was on her way to work when, prosecutors believe, Guzmán Páez attacked her and stabbed her repeatedly. The wounds reached vital organs, but she was taken to hospital in time and survived. A few minutes later, at 5:15 a.m., he attacked a 71-year-old man with the same weapon and killed him. Caracol identified the dead man as Alonso Villamil. At 5:30 a.m., at the David Guarín park, he threatened a young man into handing over a high-end mobile phone, wounded him and fled with it. National Police officers patrolling the area caught him.

The hospital’s account. The ESE Hospital Regional de Chiquinquirá said in a statement, quoted by Pulzo, that three people with stab wounds arrived at its emergency department at about 5:12 a.m. One was a 70-year-old man who arrived in critical condition, with wounds to the precordial region over the heart, and in cardiorespiratory arrest. He did not respond to resuscitation and died. A 52-year-old woman had chest wounds with lung involvement; she underwent emergency surgery and was moved to intensive care. A 27-year-old man had wounds to the legs, abdomen and back; he was treated and stitched and is stable.

A discrepancy. Caracol Radio and the prosecution give the dead man’s age as 71, and the hospital statement carried by Pulzo gives 70. The timeline differs a little too: the hospital puts the three patients’ arrival at about 5:12, before the 5:15 and 5:30 attacks in Caracol’s sequence. The sources do not explain the gap, and this card gives both.

The police. “Thanks to the rapid and effective reaction of our police units, the capture of the subject identified as responsible for the events of the last few hours in the municipality of Chiquinquirá was achieved,” the National Police said in a statement quoted by Pulzo. Police offered condolences to the dead man’s family.

What is not known. No report seen gives a motive or says whether Guzmán Páez knew any of the victims. Nor does any say whether his mental state or drug use is being examined. The authorities have kept several aspects of the case confidential while proceedings continue, Pulzo reported.

Sources

Medellín, Colombia: Two men jailed pending trial over the robbery and torture killing of retired teacher Luis Bernardo Villegas

Location: Boston neighbourhood, Medellín, Antioquia, Colombia (arrests in Bello)

Legal status: Two men, not publicly named, arrested in Bello and ordered held in prison by a control-of-guarantees judge after concentrated hearings; to answer for aggravated homicide. Announced 21 October 2026. Presumed innocent.

Police and prosecutors in Medellín have arrested two men accused of killing Luis Bernardo Villegas Ramírez, a 73-year-old retired schoolteacher. He was beaten, bound, gagged and suffocated with a plastic bag in his own flat in the Boston neighbourhood on 22 June 2026 by men who had arrived posing as buyers for a property. The arrests, made in neighbouring Bello after almost four months of investigation, were announced on 21 October 2026 by Mayor Federico Gutiérrez and the city’s security secretary. After concentrated hearings, a control-of-guarantees judge ordered both men held in prison. They will answer for aggravated homicide and are presumed innocent. Neither has been publicly named.

The property deal. According to El Tiempo, on 22 June Villegas and his 62-year-old sister were waiting in his flat for a client to close a property sale. The supposed buyers forced their way in, overpowered the two siblings, tied them hand and foot and gagged them.

During the robbery, the investigation found, Villegas was badly beaten, suffocated and tortured with a plastic bag while the attackers demanded to know where he kept a sum of money they believed was hidden in the flat. Semana, citing the investigation, says he was tortured with the bag to force him to reveal where he kept his money. El Tiempo’s account does not describe the sister’s injuries, and neither outlet says what was taken.

How they were found. Investigators reconstructed the crime by analysing several hours of footage from six public and private surveillance cameras, El Tiempo reports. Semana says that after more than 100 days of investigation, the Fiscalía and local authorities had gathered enough material to seek arrest warrants. The city says both men have prior records for theft.

Colonel Richard Raúl Fajardo Ayala, commander of the Valle de Aburrá Metropolitan Police, and security secretary Manuel Villa Mejía confirmed that the two detainees had been placed at the disposal of the Fiscalía.

The police account. “A retired teacher, he was in his flat with his 62-year-old sister, waiting for a person with whom he would carry out a property sale,” Colonel Fajardo Ayala said, as quoted by Caracol Radio. “According to our investigations, those now captured allegedly entered the home, where they intimidated the victims, tied them hand and foot and gagged them. The older man was allegedly beaten and asphyxiated.” Caracol reports that the cameras identified both the suspects and their escape route, and that the sister was also tied up in the flat.

The officials. “There is no right to such cruelty against a 73-year-old man,” Villa Mejía said. “We are talking about a man who was attacked in his own home, was beaten, tied up and tortured by people who apparently came to rob him of his money and belongings. A painful event that cannot go unpunished.”

“In Medellín we will not allow those who commit such atrocious crimes to believe they can go unpunished,” Mayor Gutiérrez wrote on X. “In Medellín we defend life. Whoever does it has to answer for it. One by one they are falling.”

What comes next. The judge’s custody order (medida de aseguramiento intramural) is a precautionary measure, not a finding of guilt. The prosecution must still file a formal accusation and take the case to trial, unless the accused accept the charges.

Sources

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Couple sentenced to 30 years for the torture and killing of seven-year-old Emailing Coronado

Location: Los Guandules, Distrito Nacional, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (Second Collegiate Court of the National District)

Legal status: Convicted 21 October 2026 of torture and barbarity, child abuse and homicide; each sentenced to 30 years of “reclusión mayor.” Full reasoned judgment to be read 12 November 2026. Appeal possible.

A Santo Domingo court on Wednesday, 21 October 2026, sentenced Yokeiry Coronado De La Cruz and her partner, Jeider Montero Medina, to 30 years in prison each for the torture and death of Emailing Coronado, a seven-year-old girl in their care who died in the Los Guandules neighbourhood on 16 August 2025. Coronado De La Cruz was the girl’s great-aunt: Diario Libre reported she was the aunt of the child’s mother, who had given birth to Emailing as a teenager and believed her aunt would give the girl a better life.

The three judges of the Second Collegiate Court of the National District, Yissell Soto (presiding), Clara Sobeida Castillo and Jarolyn Rosario, granted the prosecution’s request for the maximum. They found both defendants guilty under articles 295, 304 and 303, sections 1 and 4, of the Dominican Penal Code, covering homicide and torture or barbarity, and article 396 (A and B) of Law 136-03, the children’s protection code, El Día reported. The court also ordered five million pesos in compensation to the girl’s mother, who joined the case as a civil party. Coronado De La Cruz will serve her sentence at the Najayo Mujeres prison and Montero Medina at Najayo Hombres, both in San Cristóbal province.

The prosecution’s account. According to the case built by prosecutor Topacio Suero Sierra of the National District’s crimes against persons department, and argued at trial by Yelianny Polanco, Coronado De La Cruz subjected the girl to abuse through July and August 2025. Montero Medina knew what was happening and did not report it.

At about 6:30 p.m. on 16 August 2025, Coronado De La Cruz called two relatives to the house and said the child was convulsing. One of them called the 911 emergency system to report that the girl was unconscious. A forensic doctor from the national forensic institute (Inacif) certified the death and recorded findings consistent with repeated abuse. Investigators concluded that Coronado De La Cruz’s account of how the child died did not match the forensic results. She was arrested first, and Montero Medina afterwards.

The evidence. At trial, Inacif forensic doctor Yudelin Villanueva testified that the girl’s condition corresponded to battered child syndrome. The court also admitted photographs and videos recovered through a forensic extraction of a phone, carried out by engineer Eddy Ogando. Judge Soto said the court had examined where the images came from and how they were obtained before giving them weight. She called them “chilling” and pointed to the injuries they showed, including burns to the girl’s fingernails and the palms of her hands. The court described the attacks as “gross and abusive.”

The judges attributed intellectual authorship of the crime to Coronado De La Cruz and co-authorship to Montero Medina, setting out each one’s responsibility individually. Soto rejected defence arguments about the defendants’ everyday behaviour and public image, saying criminal responsibility had to rest on the evidence and facts proved in court.

The defendants. Before the verdict, Coronado De La Cruz addressed the court. “I feel very bad about what I have done, because she was my girl, I wanted to raise her like my daughter, like a daughter I never had. I regret what I have done,” she said, as quoted by Diario Libre. Montero Medina declared himself innocent. His lawyer argued that he worked 12 to 16 hours a day and came home “only to sleep,” and that there was no way his hands could have acted in the events. The defence asked the court to reject the charges, or failing that to impose a suspended three-year sentence.

What the neighbours saw. Days after the death, neighbours told Diario Libre they had noticed signs of abuse when the girl was sent downstairs on an errand to play lottery numbers and drank water from a mop bucket, visibly thirsty and in poor physical shape. A shopkeeper said she had not come down to buy anything for about three months, and that when he did see her she was covered to the head in a hooded coat, her face turned down. Neighbours said they had reported the case to the national children’s council, Conani, where they were asked to provide proof of the abuse.

Sources

Giza, Egypt: Eight men jailed for seven years after reconciliation meeting ended in the death of car-rental owner Hazem Hamdan

Location: Haram district, Giza, Egypt (Giza Criminal Court, sitting at Kilo 10.5)

Legal status: Eight defendants, including a fish restaurant owner, convicted and sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment on Thursday 22 October 2026 for displays of force, intimidation and thuggery (baltaga) in an assault that ended in the victim’s death; the prosecution referral framed the death as beating leading to death without intent to kill. Haram felony case no. 24410 of 2026. Appeal routes remain open.

The Giza Criminal Court, sitting at Kilo 10.5, on Thursday 22 October 2026 sentenced eight men to seven years in prison over an attack that killed Hazem Hamdan, the owner of a car-rental office in Giza’s Haram district. Hamdan had gone to a fish restaurant to settle a quarrel peacefully. Al-Dostor reports the term as plain imprisonment (sijn). The headline of the pre-verdict coverage in Youm7 spoke of killing, but the charges as reported were for showing force, threatening violence and terrorising citizens, the offences grouped in Egyptian law under thuggery, together with wounding that led to death.

The defendants. Vetogate, citing the prosecution’s referral order in Haram felony case no. 24410 of 2026, names the defendants by first name and initial only: Ahmed A., Ibrahim M., Ahmed M., Ahmed S., Mohamed A., Ahmed E., Ziad M. and Mohamed E. Reports say the group included the restaurant’s owner. Masrawy’s headline calls it the “Si Gambary” brawl, after the name of the restaurant.

The charges. According to the prosecution as reported by Vetogate, the eight showed force and brandished violence against Hazem Hamdan and three others, Ali R., Ahmed R. and Ali F., in order to impose control over them, frighten them and endanger their lives. Prosecutors said the defendants deliberately wounded Hamdan after a dispute turned into a fight with fists and bladed weapons. The referral order says the first defendant stabbed Hamdan twice, one wound lodging in his right thigh, causing the injuries described in the forensic report that led to his death. It specifies that the defendants did not intend to kill him, but that the beating led to his death. That framing, rather than a charge of intentional murder, explains a sentence far below what a murder conviction would carry.

A peace meeting. The quarrel began, according to the family’s account given in Al-Dostor and Youm7, with a verbal argument inside the fish restaurant between a worker and Hamdan’s cousin, the son of his maternal uncle. It turned into a beating by one of the cooks, Youm7 reported. Vetogate’s account of the family’s statements to prosecutors says the restaurant worker was left with a cut to the neck in that first fight. Hamdan’s family stepped in to calm things down.

Acting as the senior man of the family, Hamdan then contacted the restaurant owner. The two agreed to hold a reconciliation session (galsat sulh), the customary Egyptian way of settling disputes without going to the police or the courts. By the family’s and witnesses’ accounts, moments after Hamdan arrived at the agreed meeting, he found the restaurant owner waiting with about 15 of his workers. They set upon him and beat him as people nearby panicked. He collapsed with serious injuries and was taken to hospital in a critical condition, where he died.

What the reports do not say. None of the reports seen gives the date of the attack, the court’s reasoning or whether any defendant was acquitted on any count. Al-Dostor and Vetogate describe the term simply as seven years’ imprisonment. The verdict is a first-instance ruling.

Sources

La Ceiba, Honduras: Police officer gets 15 years after admitting role in murder of young man taken by patrol while delivering medicine to his mother

Location: Colonia Trejo, La Ceiba, Atlántida, Honduras

Legal status: Convicted and sentenced to 15 years for asesinato (murder) on 21 October 2026 under an abbreviated procedure after accepting his participation; formal notification of the written sentence pending. Prosecuted by the Fiscalía Especial de Derechos Humanos.

A Honduran National Police officer, Clase I Cristian Fabricio Blandín Arriaza, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for the murder of Ángelo Uriel García Murillo, a young man whose family says a police patrol picked him up on a La Ceiba street the night before he was found shot dead in a vacant lot. Honduras’s Public Ministry announced the sentence on Wednesday 21 October 2026. Blandín Arriaza voluntarily accepted his direct participation in the crime of asesinato, which allowed the criminal trial judge (Juez de Letras Penal) to impose the penalty through an abbreviated procedure, La Tribuna and Tiempo reported.

The prosecution was brought by the Public Ministry’s Special Human Rights Prosecutor’s Office (FEDH), which handles cases of abuse by state security forces. Under the abbreviated procedure, a defendant who admits the facts gets a reduced sentence without a full trial. The parties are waiting for formal notification of the written judgment, after which the officer will be transferred to a national prison, according to La Tribuna.

The night of 7 April. According to the case file as reported, García Murillo left his home on the night of Tuesday 7 April 2026 to take urgent medicine to his mother. His partner told investigators that as he went along the street, a National Police patrol stopped and detained him. La Tribuna reports the patrol was crewed by Blandín Arriaza. From that moment, his family lost all contact with him and began searching for him across several areas.

At about 5 a.m. on Wednesday 8 April, his body was found in a vacant lot in Colonia Trejo, in La Ceiba, Tiempo reported. It had gunshot wounds.

Protests and investigation. The discovery provoked outrage and protests by his relatives, who demanded a transparent forensic investigation given the apparent involvement of police officers, La Tribuna reported. The FEDH coordinated the investigation with detectives of the Police Investigations Directorate (DPI) and specialists from the Centre for Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences. According to La Tribuna, they collected ballistic evidence, digital forensic extractions of the patrol car’s route logs and the biological samples needed to build the case against the officer. The Public Ministry had earlier obtained an order of formal prosecution and pretrial detention against him.

Other officers. El País of Honduras notes that the announcement did not specify the current legal situation of other officers who, according to the background of the case, were initially linked to the killing. Blandín Arriaza was first detained and then given an order of formal prosecution with pretrial detention while the investigation continued, the paper reports. None of the reports give a motive or explain how García Murillo went from detention in a patrol car to a vacant lot. La Tribuna calls the ruling an emblematic case of police violence and an act against impunity.

The sentence in context. Asesinato is Honduras’s aggravated form of homicide. The 15-year term reflects the reduction available under an abbreviated procedure. The reports do not give the penalty prosecutors would have sought at trial.

Sources

Kingston, Jamaica: Justice of the peace tells Pathways church murder trial that Andre Ruddock was eager to confess

Location: Albion, St James, Jamaica (trial at the Home Circuit Court, Kingston)

Legal status: Andre Ruddock, 36, is on trial before a seven-member jury, charged with murder in the 17 October 2021 killing of Taneka Gardner. Prosecution testimony on whether his confession was voluntary was heard Wednesday 21 October 2026; the trial continues. He is presumed innocent.

A justice of the peace told the Home Circuit Court in Kingston on Wednesday 21 October 2026 that Andre Ruddock insisted on giving a caution statement, turned down legal aid counsel and said he needed to get “something wrong” off his chest. Ruddock is charged with murder over the death of Taneka Gardner, 39. She was killed at the Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries church in Albion, St James, in October 2021, in what the Jamaica Observer describes as a killing believed to be a human sacrifice event.

The Crown alleges that Ruddock cut Gardner’s throat with a knife on the instructions of the church’s pastor, Kevin Smith, who is now dead. Ruddock is presumed innocent, and the defence says his confession was coerced. The admissibility of the confession is the central fight of the trial, and the jury, not the judge, will now decide how much weight to give it.

The JP’s account. The witness, described by the Gleaner as a telecommunications engineer, was one of two justices of the peace allowed to speak privately with Ruddock at a police station in St James before he gave his caution statement and took part in a question-and-answer session with detectives. The Observer gives the meeting date as 18 October 2021, the day after the killing. The Gleaner’s account says October 2018, which does not fit the rest of its own report; the card follows 2021. The two papers also name the station differently: the Observer says the Montego Bay Police Station and the Gleaner the Montego Hill Police Station.

“I recall enquiring about his welfare, whether he had something to eat or drink, or whether he was beaten,” the witness testified, according to the Gleaner. Ruddock said he was fine and had not been beaten or mistreated. “We enquired into whether he was being coerced, and he said no, he had done something wrong and just needed to get it off his chest,” the JP said. “We told him that there was no rush to give a statement and that he should consider duty counsel, and he stated that he just wanted to give the statement.”

The JP said the police were then invited back and told to caution Ruddock properly before taking his statement. He testified that Ruddock was not forced, threatened, harmed or intimidated, that no inducement was offered, and that Ruddock never complained that the detective constable had beaten him, pulled a gun on him or promised him a lawyer. The Observer notes that this supposedly private conversation with the JPs was also captured on video.

The confession. In the caution statement, also video-recorded, Ruddock confessed to killing Gardner and then answered all 42 questions put to him by detectives. Both videos were played for the jury last week. On 14 October, Judge Leighton Pusey rejected a defence bid in a voir dire, a trial within a trial, to keep the caution statement and the question-and-answer record out of evidence. In the answers read to the court, Ruddock referred to Smith as “His Excellency,” his boss and pastor since 2012. Asked what “instructed” meant, he said: “He ordered me to do it.” He said he got the knife from a man called Kevaughn, who had received it from Smith, and that he and Gardner were both covered with white sheets at the time.

The challenge. Defence attorney Anthony Williams has suggested that Ruddock was threatened and assaulted by a police officer before he was brought to the station. On Tuesday 20 October a detective sergeant became the second officer to reject the claim that the confession was coerced, the Observer reported. The JP’s evidence on Wednesday was offered by prosecutor LaToya Bernard to back up both detectives.

Smith died in a car crash in St Catherine a few days after Gardner was killed, while being taken to Kingston for questioning. He faced numerous charges, including murder over the death of a gravely ill man at the church, whom he allegedly killed by pulling a medical tube from his nose.

Sources

Kasarani, Kenya: Man accused of strangling girlfriend Feruz Hussein and sending her family a video of her body held 14 more days

Location: Sunton, Kasarani, Nairobi, Kenya (Milimani Law Courts)

Legal status: Nelson Ambia, arrested 20 October 2026 in Naivasha, is held in custody under a 14-day detention order granted Wednesday 21 October 2026 on a miscellaneous application while the DCI investigates murder under sections 203 and 204 of the Penal Code. Not yet charged; mention set for 5 November 2026. Presumed innocent.

Milimani Chief Magistrate Joan Mati on Wednesday 21 October 2026 allowed detectives to hold Nelson Ambia for 14 days while they investigate the death of his girlfriend, Feruz Hussein. She was found strangled on the bed of the house the couple rented in Sunton, Kasarani, in Nairobi. Police allege that after killing her, Ambia filmed her body and sent the video to his own siblings and to her mother. He has not been charged. Detectives intend to pursue a murder charge, and he is presumed innocent.

The application. The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) had asked for 21 days. The magistrate granted 14 and directed investigators to finish within that time, then forward the file to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) for review and a decision on charges. The matter returns for mention on 5 November 2026. The Standard reported that Ambia appeared in court wearing a shirt bearing the words “bad boy.”

The allegations. In a supporting affidavit, the investigating officer, Amos Menza of DCI Kasarani, said Ambia and Hussein had been in a long relationship and lived together in Sunton. Police allege that a misunderstanding arose between them at home on 30 September 2026 and that Ambia killed her. According to the officer, Ambia then recorded a video of Hussein lying dead on a bed and sent it to his sister, Lavender Kasiti, his brother, Fradian Achevi, and Hussein’s mother. Court Helicopter reports that he told them he had killed her. The Standard reports that a man’s voice is heard on the footage saying “Pumzika kwa amani,” Swahili for “Rest in peace.”

Hussein’s brother reported the matter to Sunton Police Station. Officers went to the house and found her body on the bed. After the scene was processed, the body was taken to the Kenyatta University Funeral Home.

The autopsy. Both outlets say the post-mortem found strangulation as the cause of death, but they give different dates for it. Court Helicopter says the autopsy was conducted on 1 October 2026, and The Standard says 15 October.

The manhunt. Ambia was arrested on 20 October at what police described as a hideout in Naivasha, Nakuru County, and taken to DCI Kasarani. Detectives allege he took Hussein’s mobile phone and used it to threaten members of her family. They are also trying to trace the phone.

Why detectives want more time. Investigators told the court they need to record witness statements, conduct a mental assessment to establish whether Ambia is fit to stand trial, and forensically examine the video circulating on social media to establish its source and how it was recorded and shared.

Police opposed release on bond, calling Ambia a flight risk with no fixed abode who moves between rental houses. The magistrate observed that living in rented accommodation was not, on its own, enough to classify a suspect as a flight risk, The Standard reported. His alleged flight to Naivasha did weigh in the court’s assessment.

Ambia’s response. Ambia asked the court to give investigators 15 days. He also urged detectives to investigate three separate incidents in which, he claimed, a group of men attacked him and seriously injured him.

Sources

Doha Aramoun, Lebanon: Nephew and friend sentenced to death for robbing and killing his aunt in 2017

Location: Doha Aramoun, Aley district, Mount Lebanon, Lebanon (Mount Lebanon Criminal Court)

Legal status: Convicted at first instance of premeditated murder for the purpose of theft and of aggravated theft; both sentenced to death, with life at hard labour on the theft counts and the heavier penalty to apply. Reported 21 October 2026. Appeal routes remain open.

The Mount Lebanon Criminal Court, presided over by Judge Zulfa al-Hassan, has sentenced two men to death for the January 2017 murder of a woman in her home in Doha Aramoun, south of Beirut. One of them was her nephew. The ruling was reported on 21 October 2026 by the Lebanon Debate news site, whose account, by Samar Yammout, is based on the court’s judgment. Lebanese reports identify those involved only by first name and initial: the victim as Namra A., the nephew as Haidar A. and his friend as Ali H.

The plan. According to the judgment, Haidar had run up debts of about 10,000 dollars. In his first statement he admitted planning with Ali to rob his aunt, because he knew she kept large sums of cash under the bed in her room, along with jewellery. They set the date for 9 January 2017. That day, after finishing work with his father, he bought adhesive tape and plastic cable ties and met Ali near his home. They parked about 200 metres from her building and went up to the fourth floor. Ali waited on the stairs leading to the fifth.

The killing. Haidar knocked. His aunt welcomed him in and went to the kitchen to make coffee; he had left the door ajar, and Ali came in behind him. According to the court’s findings, as she walked towards the sitting room carrying a tray with the coffee pot and two cups, Ali struck her on the head with an iron knuckle-duster on his right hand. Haidar strangled her, tied her hands with the cable ties and taped her mouth. The two went into her bedroom, pulled off a wardrobe door and took jewellery and cash from her bag.

When they came out, she was still alive. Haidar asked Ali to kill her, the court found. Ali picked up a piece of one of the coffee cups that had broken on the floor and cut her throat with it while Haidar stood and watched until she died. The two men washed their hands. Ali changed out of his bloodied trousers into a pair taken from the room of the victim’s son, and they left.

Haidar then went to his father’s shop and sold the gold chains and a ring to a jeweller, using part of the money to pay debts. Ali put his share at about 400,000 Lebanese pounds and 140 euros.

The evidence. Laboratory tests found Haidar’s DNA under the victim’s fingernails, on the plastic tie used to bind her and on the door handle of the flat, according to the judgment. Technical analysis of his phone found a call in which he asked his father to delete the calls on it. Surveillance cameras recorded the movements of the car used to reach and leave the area around her building.

The defences. In his first interrogation Ali denied taking part in the killing or the theft, but admitted meeting Haidar on the evening of the murder. He said Haidar arrived in a Toyota with blood on his clothes and asked for his sweater, claiming the blood came from a fight. Haidar repeated his admission to the robbery but said he had gone to the flat believing no one would be there, that he had tried to pull off the gold chains she was wearing, and that he did not know how her throat came to be cut. In court, both men admitted killing her but denied any prior plan to kill; they said the plan was only to rob.

The verdict. The court rejected that, finding on the whole of the evidence that the two planned the crime in order to rob her and then carried it out “with ferocity and brutality.” It convicted them under article 549, paragraph 1, sections 2 and 4, of the Penal Code, which covers aggravated intentional killing, and imposed death. It also convicted them under articles 639 and 640, on aggravated theft, with life at hard labour, ordering that the heavier sentence be applied. They were ordered jointly to pay 100,000 US dollars to the victim’s family.

Sources

Iztapalapa, Mexico City: Alleged leader of “La Glendisa” and an operator ordered to stand trial for a 2025 shooting inside a parked van

Location: Iztapalapa, Mexico City, Mexico

Legal status: Eduardo “N” (“El Glenda”) and Daniel “N” (“El Esfera”) were rearrested in prison on 14 October 2026 and ordered to stand trial (vinculados a proceso) on 15 October for aggravated homicide (homicidio calificado); disclosed by the Mexico City prosecutor’s office on 21 October 2026. Both are already in pretrial detention on other cases. Three months set for the supplementary investigation. Presumed innocent.

A Mexico City control judge has ordered the man prosecutors call the leader of the criminal group “La Glendisa” and one of its operators to stand trial for the killing of a man shot inside a parked van in Iztapalapa on 14 September 2025. The Mexico City Attorney General’s Office (FGJCDMX) disclosed the ruling on 21 October 2026. The accused are Eduardo “N,” alias “El Glenda,” and Daniel “N,” alias “El Esfera.” Under Mexican practice prosecutors withhold surnames, and the two are presumed innocent.

A vinculación a proceso is not a conviction. It means a judge found enough evidence to open formal proceedings. The judge gave prosecutors three months to close the supplementary investigation.

The killing. According to the FGJCDMX account carried by Infobae and El Universal, the victim was sitting inside a parked van when “El Esfera” allegedly walked up, threatened to kill him and beat him. “El Glenda” and two other men then allegedly opened fire on him, and he died of his wounds. The prosecutor’s office has not named the victim, and the two other gunmen have not been identified.

The evidence. Prosecutors gathered witness statements and expert reports in criminalistics, photography and chemistry, Infobae reports. Investigative Police (PDI) agents reviewed footage from the city’s C5 command and surveillance centre and from private cameras, and carried out identification procedures that pointed to the alleged attackers.

Arrested in prison. Both men were already behind bars when the PDI served the new arrest warrants on 14 October: Eduardo “N” in the Reclusorio Preventivo Varonil Oriente and Daniel “N” in the Reclusorio Preventivo Varonil Norte. The judge ruled the next day.

“El Glenda.” Eduardo “N” was captured on 14 August 2026 in Ixtapaluca, State of Mexico, in an operation between Mexico City and State of Mexico authorities. That arrest concerned a homicide on 4 June 2024 in the Rubén Jaramillo neighbourhood of Iztapalapa, known as the Yagüelito property, where the victim was shot several times in the street and died of a wound to the abdomen. After his arrest he was also ordered to stand trial for another homicide, in March 2026, also in Iztapalapa. The 15 October ruling is his third homicide case, all of them for killings within about two years. The prosecutor’s office calls him one of the main generators of violence in the east of the city and links him to street-level drug dealing and extortion as well.

“El Esfera.” Daniel “N” was arrested on 22 July 2026 at a property in Tláhuac. The PDI and the National Guard searched it after a citizen complaint that it was a drug sales point, and seized doses of narcotics and six mobile phones. On 24 July he was ordered to stand trial for drug dealing and held in pretrial detention. Prosecutors already identified him then as a member of La Glendisa, a group whose main presence is in Iztapalapa. He also faces cases for two attempted homicides and aggravated gang robbery, making the new homicide case his fourth.

The prosecutor’s office said it would keep investigating to identify other members of violent groups tied to homicides and high-impact crimes in the east of the city.

Sources

Damaturu, Nigeria: Man sentenced to death by hanging for cutting his wife’s neck as she lay beside him in bed

Location: New Bra-Bra Estate, Damaturu, Yobe State, Nigeria (Yobe State High Court 1, Damaturu)

Legal status: Convicted of culpable homicide and sentenced to death by hanging; judgment delivered Wednesday 21 October 2026, reported 22 October. He retains the right to appeal within the period prescribed by law.

A Yobe State High Court sitting in Damaturu has sentenced Abubakar Musa, 45, popularly known as “Daddy,” to death by hanging for killing his wife, Ammi Adamu Mamman. She was attacked in the neck with a sharp object as she lay in bed beside him in their home in the New Bra-Bra Estate in January 2024. Naija News reports that the court delivered its judgment on Wednesday 21 October 2026. Vanguard reports that the judge at High Court 1 held that the prosecution had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt. He was convicted of culpable homicide, the Penal Code offence that covers murder in Nigeria’s northern states.

The night of the killing. The case dates to the early hours of 4 January 2024. The then spokesman of the Yobe State Police Command, DSP Dungus Abdulkarim, said at the time that the “C” Divisional Police Headquarters in Damaturu received a distress call “at about 4:48 a.m. on January 4.” Initial findings, he said, showed that the woman was lying on the same bed as her husband when she was allegedly attacked on the neck with a sharp object. “The victim sustained severe bleeding, which led to her death,” Abdulkarim said.

Musa was arrested the same day for questioning. The case went to the homicide unit of the State Criminal Investigation Department, and he was later charged with culpable homicide. Neither report details the evidence presented at trial or Musa’s defence, and neither names the judge or counsel.

Who she was. Ammi Adamu Mamman worked at Yobe State University. In a February 2024 newsletter the university said its Vice-Chancellor, Professor Mala Mohammed Daura, was deeply saddened by her death. He called on security agencies to make sure those responsible were brought to justice, and the university described her death as a loss to its community. She was buried in Potiskum on 9 January 2024, the newsletter said.

The Women-led Civil Society Organizations Network in Yobe State condemned the killing soon afterwards and called for justice. The network said she was a volunteer with one of its member organisations. Yobe State Governor Mai Mala Buni also offered condolences to her family, called on security agencies to establish the circumstances of her death and promised that anyone found responsible would face the law.

The plea and the ruling. Musa had pleaded not guilty, The Column NG reports. The court dismissed his plea, holding that it could not stand against the credible evidence presented, and ruled that the prosecution had proved every element of culpable homicide beyond reasonable doubt. The judgment states that he may file an appeal within the time allowed by law and that otherwise the sentence will be carried out.

The time it took. The reports disagree on how long the case took. Naija News says the judgment came almost three years after the killing, and The Column NG says about two years. The dates themselves, 4 January 2024 to 21 October 2026, come to a little under two years and ten months. Musa had been arrested on the day she died.

What happens next. A lawyer quoted in media reports said Musa keeps the right to appeal within the period prescribed by law. In Nigeria, death sentences go up through the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. An execution also requires the state governor to sign the death warrant, and governors rarely do so. The reports do not say whether Musa intends to appeal.

Sources

Alberton, South Africa: Man who killed girlfriend Samkelisiwe Ntinga and burned her body gets 25 years under plea deal

Location: Alberton and Coronation Park, Krugersdorp, Gauteng, South Africa (Gauteng Division of the High Court, Johannesburg, sitting at Palm Ridge)

Legal status: Convicted on his guilty plea and sentenced 20 October 2026 under a section 105A plea and sentence agreement: 25 years for murder and two years for defeating the ends of justice, concurrent, effective 25 years. NPA statement issued 22 October 2026.

Siyo Gift Mcedisi, 34, has been sentenced to an effective 25 years in prison for murdering his girlfriend, Samkelisiwe Charlotte Ntinga, at their home in Alberton and then burning her body in an open field in Krugersdorp. The Gauteng Division of the High Court, sitting at Palm Ridge, imposed the sentence on Monday 20 October 2026, Eyewitness News reported that afternoon. The National Prosecuting Authority published its statement on 22 October. The sentence falls below the prescribed minimum of life imprisonment because the State itself agreed there were grounds to depart from it.

The deal. Mcedisi pleaded guilty to murder and defeating the ends of justice under section 105A of the Criminal Procedure Act, which lets the prosecution and defence agree on both the plea and the sentence, subject to the court’s approval. He received 25 years for murder and two years for defeating the ends of justice, to run concurrently. Senior State Advocate Matshediso Phatlanyane and the defence agreed that “substantial and compelling circumstances” justified going below life: his guilty plea, his lack of previous convictions, his remorse and the time he spent in custody awaiting the end of the case.

The killing. The couple lived together in Alberton with their two-year-old daughter. EWN gives Ntinga’s age as 32. On 30 July 2025, according to the facts set out in court, an argument broke out after Mcedisi discovered that Ntinga had been exchanging messages with a former boyfriend. He pushed her head against a closed door three times. The last impact was so forceful that the door flew open and she collapsed, bleeding from her nose and mouth and struggling to breathe. He admitted that he unlawfully and intentionally killed her by inflicting fatal head injuries.

The cover-up. Mcedisi then used her phone to send WhatsApp messages to her workplace and to her mother, to make it seem she was still alive. On 1 August 2025 he drove her body to an open field in Coronation Park, Krugersdorp, set it alight and left it there. He falsely reported her missing to the police and her family. Her burnt body was found on 2 August 2025.

The confession. On 21 August 2025, the NPA says, Mcedisi was admitted to Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital after a failed suicide attempt. The next day he confessed the murder to a hospital social worker and was arrested. The Citizen dates his confession to 22 August, consistent with the NPA’s sequence. EWN’s account matches: it reports that he reported her missing, attempted suicide 20 days later and confessed to the murder in hospital. EWN reported the sentencing from the Palm Ridge High Court on the day it was handed down, and it notes that Ntinga is survived by the couple’s two-year-old daughter.

The response. NPA spokesperson Magaboke Mohlatlole, quoted by The Citizen, said the sentence “demonstrates that those who commit violent crimes against women will be prosecuted and held accountable for their actions.” He added: “We hope this sentence sends a strong message that violence against women has devastating consequences and that the criminal justice system will act decisively against offenders.” The NPA tied the case to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s recent call for decisive action on gender-based violence and femicide.

Sources

Pretoria, South Africa: Biker charged over fatal Little Britain pub shooting granted R4,000 bail

Location: Little Britain Pub, Waterkloof Ridge, Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa (Pretoria Magistrate’s Court)

Legal status: Brian Wesley Smith, 45, is accused of murder over the death of Baden Watson. He was granted R4,000 bail on Thursday 22 October 2026. He has not pleaded and is presumed innocent.

Brian Wesley Smith, the biker accused of killing a member of the Macs Motorcycle Club at a pub in Pretoria East, was granted R4,000 bail in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on Thursday 22 October 2026, News24 reported. Smith, 45, is accused of murder over the death of Baden Watson, 55, at the Little Britain Pub in Waterkloof Ridge on 10 October. A second biker, Ruan van der Merwe, was wounded. Smith has not pleaded to any charge and is presumed innocent. The court’s reasons for granting bail and any bail conditions were not available in the reporting reviewed for this card.

The shooting. According to the initial police statement quoted by Rekord, Tshwane police spokesperson Captain Johan van Dyk said an argument allegedly broke out between the suspect and the surviving victim before the suspect drew a firearm and shot him. Police said preliminary information indicated that only one shot was fired, and one cartridge was recovered at the scene. Investigators suspect the bullet passed through Van der Merwe before striking Watson.

Officers found Van der Merwe in front of the pub entrance, where emergency services were treating him, and he was taken to hospital. Watson was found inside, near the entrance, and was declared dead at the scene. The suspect reportedly left on a motorcycle before he was traced and arrested. Police identified both victims as members of the Macs Biker Group. Smith was reportedly affiliated with the Crusaders Biker Group.

Competing accounts. On 21 October, the day before the bail ruling, Rekord published photographs supplied by a source that it said show injuries Smith suffered in an alleged assault about seven months before the shooting, at the same pub. Rekord stressed that the images alone do not establish when or how the injuries occurred, or who was responsible.

According to Rekord’s source, members of the Macs Motorcycle Club allegedly confronted Smith at the pub on the night Watson was killed. Smith allegedly asked to be left alone and said they would not beat him again as they had before, and the source alleges the confrontation continued before Smith fired. The club disputes this account. In a statement, Macs representative Mannetjies Geyser said there had been no altercation before the shooting. None of these competing accounts has been tested or established in court.

Court history. At Smith’s second appearance, on Tuesday 20 October, his bail application was postponed. Citing Maroela Media, Rekord reported that prosecutor JP Liebenberg asked for the postponement after discussions with the defence, told the court the state would not disclose the reasons in open court, and agreed that a postponement was in the interests of justice. The application was to be heard under Schedule 5 of the Criminal Procedure Act. Under that schedule, an accused must show that the interests of justice permit release.

The pub’s response. After the shooting, Little Britain Pub banned motorcycle club patches from its premises with immediate effect. The pub said it would remain bike-friendly and that the restriction applies equally to all clubs, without blaming any club or the wider biking community.

The next court date was not reported in the material reviewed.

Sources

Europe

Strépy-Bracquegnies, Belgium: Cassation court rejects Paolo Falzone’s appeal, making final his 27 years for driving into a carnival procession

Location: Strépy-Bracquegnies, La Louvière, Hainaut, Belgium (Cour de cassation, Brussels)

Legal status: Final conviction. The Court of Cassation rejected his appeal on 21 October 2026, leaving in force the Hainaut assize court’s June 2026 verdict: guilty of seven murders and attempted murders (79 according to RTBF and La Libre, 80 according to La DH), 27 years’ imprisonment. The civil damages phase continues before the assize court.

Paolo Falzone will not be retried. Belgium’s Court of Cassation on Wednesday, 21 October 2026, rejected his appeal against the 27-year sentence he received for driving his BMW into a procession of carnival Gilles in Strépy-Bracquegnies before dawn on 20 March 2022, killing seven people and injuring dozens. The ruling makes the criminal conviction final.

The night of the crash. Early on that Sunday morning, a group of Gilles, the costumed carnival figures of the Centre region, and the people accompanying them were walking down the rue des Canadiens in Strépy-Bracquegnies for the “ramassage,” the pre-dawn round in which the Gilles collect one another before the parade. Falzone’s BMW ploughed into them at high speed. Seven people died.

The trial. The Hainaut assize court convicted him in June 2026 of seven murders and of attempted murders after a six-week trial that had to be moved into the exhibition halls of Mons Expo because of the scale of the case and the very large number of civil parties. RTBF and La Libre put the attempted murders at 79; La DH reported 80. The verdict was handed down on 17 June.

The appeal. His lawyer, Frank Discepoli, filed a nine-page brief raising three grounds, L’Avenir reported. First, foreseeability: the defence argued Falzone could not have anticipated a procession of Gilles in the rue des Canadiens at that early hour, which it said was essential to judging the homicidal intent the jurors found. Second, braking: the defence said the verdict’s reasoning contradicted the vehicle expert, who described emergency braking just before the collision. “The expert said it and wrote it in black and white: there was emergency braking, filmed by the cameras of the L’Espoir care home,” Discepoli said. Third, the attempted murders: the defence argued not everyone counted as a victim was in the BMW’s path and that each person’s exposure to mortal risk should have been assessed individually.

The prosecution’s answer. The advocate general told the court on Wednesday morning that the assize verdict was sound in law. According to RTBF, he said the facts that Falzone had modified his car, did not brake adequately and accelerated again after the first impact established the intent to kill. La DH quoted his description of the driver: “Mr Falzone was in the habit of driving at excessive speeds. He was the subject of numerous traffic reports, to the point where his neighbours no longer dared let their children play outside.” He said Falzone filmed his driving “exploits” for social media stories and called the car his “little bomb,” and that he had raised its power from 300 to 350 horsepower without the manufacturer’s knowledge, “transforming his vehicle into a weapon.” “He made no avoidance manoeuvre even though he saw the crowd. Even though he saw the pedestrians ‘flying’, he kept going,” the advocate general said. “For me, he consciously accepted that he would kill passers-by through his behaviour.”

The court followed that opinion and rejected the appeal the same afternoon.

After the ruling. The Court of Cassation rules on law, not facts, and does not rehear a case. Discepoli said he was left “a little unsatisfied.” “I didn’t really get answers to the arguments I put forward, since the Court of Cassation answers on the law and not on the facts,” he told L’Avenir. He said the court had found it unnecessary to assess each victim individually, “another contradiction to which I have no answer.” He said he would now turn to his client’s time in prison, including when Falzone can first apply for prison leave.

With the criminal case closed, the Hainaut assize court will move on to the civil phase to set the compensation owed to the victims and their families.

Sources

Bari, Italy: Four arrested over two 2021 mafia killings, including the Ivan Lopez ambush and the vanishing of Sabino Selvarolo

Location: Bari and Canosa di Puglia, Apulia, Italy

Legal status: Arrested under precautionary custody orders issued by the Bari court at the request of the anti-mafia prosecutors (DDA), 22 October 2026. Preliminary investigation stage; no one has been charged at trial. All four are presumed innocent until a final verdict. Separately, on 21 October the Bari assize appeal court upheld life sentences for Domenico Monti and Maurizio Larizzi in the 2018 murder of Domenico Capriati.

Carabinieri and state police in Apulia carried out two separate precautionary custody orders at dawn on Thursday, 22 October 2026, against four men suspected, in different roles, of two mafia killings committed in 2021: the shooting of Ivan Lopez in Bari’s San Girolamo district and the disappearance of Sabino Selvarolo, a 41-year-old from Canosa di Puglia whose body has never been found. The operation was coordinated by the Direzione distrettuale antimafia (DDA) of Bari, ANSA reported.

The Lopez ambush. Ivan Lopez, 32, was shot on the evening of 29 September 2021 on the Lungomare IX Maggio in San Girolamo, in front of the door of his home, as he returned on an electric scooter. ANSA reported he was hit by nine shots. Prosecutors consider him close to the Strisciuglio clan, which operates in the San Paolo and San Girolamo districts.

The carabinieri of the Bari provincial command’s investigative unit arrested Antonio Manzari, 39, whom BariToday describes as an alleged affiliate of the Capriati clan of Bari Vecchia, and Francesco Martiradonna, 26. They are accused, in different capacities, of complicity in a murder aggravated by premeditation and by the mafia method, and of illegally holding and carrying a firearm in public. Prosecutors also allege the killing was meant to help the Capriati and the Parisi-Palermiti clan of the Japigia district, then allied against the Strisciuglio.

According to the DDA’s reconstruction reported by BariToday, the ambush grew out of repeated extortion of Davide Lepore by Strisciuglio men, including Lopez and his brother. To take back the neighbourhood, Lepore allegedly sought and won Capriati cover. Lepore and a second man were arrested in June 2023; in July this year the Bari Corte d’Assise sentenced Lepore to life. The co-defendant got four years for stealing two cars, one allegedly used to reach the scene, and was acquitted of the murder. The new orders focus on who was in the car with Lepore and who covered for him. Prosecutors allege Manzari got out of the stolen Fiat 500L that Lepore was driving and opened fire. Martiradonna is accused of strengthening his resolve and building him an alibi.

The Juventus alibi. That night Juventus were playing Chelsea in the Champions League in Turin. Prosecutors allege Martiradonna travelled to Turin carrying the mobile phone used by Manzari, which was registered to Manzari’s wife; Manzari’s name was on a booking at a hotel near the stadium; and TikTok videos were posted to document a trip that, investigators say, never happened. La Repubblica reported that a photo of the two men at the Juventus stadium published on social media was judged by investigators to come from a different match. To test the alibi, investigators repeated the route: they booked a triple room online and checked in. Nobody asked for documents or counted who went into the room. In one intercepted conversation, BariToday reported, Manzari allegedly explained how to make a phone connect to a cell tower away from where its user actually was.

The case also rests on technical evidence, wiretaps and statements from several cooperating witnesses from rival clans, who investigators say gave matching accounts. Lopez’s niece, Antonella Lopez, was the young woman shot dead at a Molfetta nightclub in 2024 by bullets that prosecutors say were aimed at a Palermiti family member.

The Selvarolo disappearance. The second order, executed by state police, concerns Sabino Selvarolo, a man with prior police and court records who vanished on the afternoon of 27 August 2021 in Canosa di Puglia. Italian investigators call it a case of “lupara bianca,” a mafia killing with no body. The Polizia di Stato said the two suspects, aged 45 and 38 in its statement and named by ANSA as Sabino Carbone, 46, of Canosa, and Claudio Pellegrino, are accused of murder aggravated by premeditation, the mafia method and the use of firearms, and of destroying a corpse. Carbone was already in prison on other matters; the other man was traced by police.

Police said wiretaps, phone traffic analysis and CCTV footage seized at the time allowed them to rebuild the events. The victim was allegedly lured to a meeting to “discuss certain matters,” driven away by the two men, shot once with a pistol, and made to disappear. ANSA reported investigators believe Selvarolo was killed because he was demanding money from Carbone and threatening to tell the authorities about his past illicit business. Two other alleged accomplices are under investigation.

The day before. The arrests came a day after another Capriati clan killing reached the end of its appeal stage. On Wednesday, 21 October, the Bari Corte d’Assise d’Appello upheld the life sentences of Domenico Monti and Maurizio Larizzi, described as long-standing members of the Capriati clan, for the premeditated murder of Domenico Capriati, nephew of the jailed clan boss Antonio Capriati, on 21 November 2018 in Japigia. According to the prosecution’s case summarised by Rai TGR Puglia, he was shot outside his home, with his wife and son present, with twelve rounds from a submachine gun and a final shot to the head. The alleged motive was an extortion demand he made on Larizzi after leaving prison, to be “repaid” for Larizzi’s drug dealing under the clan’s name while he was inside.

BariToday noted that the proceedings are at the preliminary investigation stage and that the suspects are presumed innocent until a final judgment.

Sources

Madrid: Jury unanimously finds two guilty of shooting Natalia Silva in the street after a family quarrel

Location: Puente de Vallecas, Madrid, Spain (Audiencia Provincial de Madrid, jury court)

Legal status: Unanimous jury verdict of guilty of murder (asesinato), reported 21 October 2026. The presiding magistrate must now write the sentence; prosecutors seek 22 years each, plus three more years for the man on false documents and illegal weapons counts. Not final; appeal routes remain open.

A popular jury in Madrid has unanimously found Agustín Romero and Erika Carbonell guilty of murdering Natalia Silva, who was shot about ten times as she sat in her van in a Madrid street. El País reported the verdict on the morning of 21 October 2026. The presiding magistrate will now draft the sentence on the basis of the jury’s findings. Until it is handed down and any appeal is resolved, the two remain legally unconvicted in the final sense.

The demands. Prosecutors are asking for 22 years in prison for each defendant for asesinato, the aggravated form of homicide in Spanish law. For Romero they also want three more years for document forgery and illegal possession of a weapon. The pistol used in the killing has never been found.

A quarrel on Kings’ Night. By El País’s account, the case began with a trivial family row on the night of the Epiphany (Reyes) in January 2024. It escalated over the following days into a phone argument between the victim and Romero, who the jury found fired the shots. Romero sent one of Natalia’s relatives a message announcing the death of her nephew, the man he had argued with. Natalia then called Romero and insulted him, and he threatened to kill her. The defendants had so little to do with her otherwise that, before the shots, Carbonell had to ask the woman whether she was Natalia, to make sure they had the right target.

The date. El País gives the date of the killing two ways. Its text says 8 December 2024. Its photo caption, describing police-file images of Romero’s flight, says 8 January 2024. The paper says the threats came two days after Kings’ Night 2024, that Carbonell was arrested in August 2024 and that Romero was caught 11 months after the crime in December 2024. That sequence fits 8 January 2024, and Europa Press, whose report also places the shooting in the Puente de Vallecas district and identifies the victim as an aunt of the ram-raider known as ‘Gordo Maya,’ gives 8 January 2024.

The evidence. Images gathered by homicide investigators weighed heavily with the jury, El País reports. They show Romero’s Porsche Cayenne arriving and pulling up alongside Natalia’s van. That was when Carbonell asked her name, the prosecution said, before Romero fired about ten shots. The cameras then followed the pair to a petrol station in the Carabanchel district. There Carbonell got into a ride-hailing car, and another lover of Romero’s picked him up.

The flight. Carbonell fled to Spain’s Levante coast with her whole family and was arrested in Alicante in August 2024. Romero was arrested in Tarragona in December 2024, after passing through at least Valencia and Toledo. When police caught him he gave another name and was carrying false papers.

The defences. At trial Carbonell said she was in a tearoom at the time. She admitted being in the car but denied driving or asking the victim’s name. Romero said he had not chased Natalia but came across her by chance. He said she threatened him and told him he would be killed, and he argued “insuperable fear” (miedo insuperable), a full defence under Spanish law. The jury rejected both accounts.

Susana Chavarría, the lawyer for Natalia’s family, told jurors in her closing: “Rarely do we have an accidental death in which condolences for a death foretold were written down beforehand.”

Sources

Ingolstadt: Prosecutor seeks life and “particular gravity of guilt” for man charged with stabbing ex-wife who reported him 20 times

Location: Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany (Ingolstadt Regional Court)

Legal status: On trial for murder since mid-September 2026. Prosecution closing speech delivered 22 October 2026, seeking life imprisonment with a finding of particular gravity of guilt. Verdict scheduled for Friday 23 October. Presumed innocent until a final verdict.

Prosecutors in Ingolstadt asked the regional court on Thursday 22 October 2026 to sentence a 50-year-old man to life imprisonment for the murder of his former wife. They also want a formal finding of “particular gravity of guilt,” which in German law in practice blocks release after the usual 15 years. The man, named in local reporting as Bülent K., is charged with stabbing Tuğba P., 45, at least 24 times on a street in the city’s Piusviertel district on the evening of 5 December 2025. Judgment is set for Friday.

The closing speech. Prosecutor Julia Grempel opened by quoting the dead woman’s own words, taken from one of her applications under Germany’s Protection against Violence Act: “Wherever I go, he shows up. I have no strength left.” Three protection orders had been issued against the defendant, Grempel told the court, the last of them only two days before the killing he is charged with. She said he had created “an atmosphere of permanent threat and control” and that Tuğba P. had been living in a “psychological prison.”

As set out by the prosecution, at about 7.30 p.m. on 5 December she had just said goodbye to her new partner and was standing alone outside her flat. Prosecutors say the defendant then stabbed her at least 24 times, intending to kill her. She died at 8.23 p.m. of 26 heavily bleeding wounds, with damage to the liver, kidney, lungs and heart, according to the Augsburger Allgemeine’s account of the closing speech.

Grempel argued the murder element of base motives: the defendant acted not only out of jealousy but above all from an exaggerated possessiveness, denied his ex-wife an independent life and wanted to “punish and destroy” a partner who had left him. The intensity of the violence and the long history of stalking and threats, she said, made the case worse than other murders and justified the particular-gravity finding. Closing speeches from the joint plaintiffs and the defence were due later the same day.

Twenty complaints. The verdict had been pushed back by a hearing day because presiding judge Gerhard Reicherl wanted to know exactly how often Tuğba P. had reported her ex-husband before her death. On Tuesday 20 October he read out the police reply: she had gone to the police 20 times, first in 2008 and most often in 2024 and 2025, the last time just over ten days before she died. Officers had held seven so-called “Gefährderansprachen,” preventive warning talks with people classed as a potential danger.

The federal criminal register shows four previous convictions, including for violence against his son and his ex-wife. In 2025 the Ingolstadt district court gave him a one-year suspended sentence. That judgment, the presiding judge quoted, found him “confessing and remorseful” and assumed he would stay out of trouble.

The psychiatric evidence. A psychiatrist from Munich told the court the defendant was born in Turkey in 1976, moved to Germany in 2000 and set up a transport business in Ingolstadt. He had no psychiatric diagnoses. The couple separated in 2023 and divorced in spring 2024. After the separation, the expert said, the defendant monitored his ex-wife and children, including with GPS trackers, and showed “pronounced jealousy” and “claims to control.” About two hours after the attack he had a blood alcohol level of just under 0.8 per mille.

The defendant says he cannot remember the attack. The psychiatrist found that plausible: the man suffered a traumatic brain injury when his sons intervened and kicked him to protect their mother, and he spent a long time in intensive care in an induced coma. The expert found no profound disturbance of consciousness and no special state of emotion at the time, and assessed him as fully criminally responsible. The defence had also filed a new motion, on which the chamber said it would rule by Thursday.

Sources

Sofia, Bulgaria: Court orders early release of Kristian Nikolov, jailed nine years for the crash that killed journalist Milen Tsvetkov

Location: Sofia, Bulgaria (Sofia City Court)

Legal status: Convicted (final since August 2023): nine years for causing the death of Milen Tsvetkov. Conditional early release ordered by the Sofia City Court on 22 October 2026; not yet final. The prosecution says it will appeal to the Sofia Appellate Court; the ruling can be challenged within seven days.

The Sofia City Court on Thursday, 22 October 2026, ordered the conditional early release of Kristian Nikolov, who was sentenced to nine years in prison for causing the death of Milen Tsvetkov, one of Bulgaria’s best-known television journalists, in a car crash on Easter Sunday 2020. The prosecution and the prison administration both opposed the release. Prosecutors said they would contest it.

The crash. On 19 April 2020, Tsvetkov was stopped at a red light at a busy intersection in Sofia when an SUV driven by Nikolov rammed into his car, BTA reported. He died of his injuries shortly afterwards. Expert analyses established that Nikolov, born in 1998 and then a student in Berlin, was doing 100 km/h, exactly double the limit at that spot. He tested positive for cocaine, marijuana and amphetamines.

The sentence. In August 2023 the Supreme Court of Cassation set the term at nine years. One judge on the panel, Petya Shishkova, dissented from the other two, Teodora Stambolova and Nadezhda Trifonova, over whether the offence had been committed with indirect intent or through negligence, BTA reported.

The arithmetic. Nikolov has served five years, seven months and one day, Novinite reported, and a further one year, four months and 26 days have been credited for work done in prison. That leaves about two years and two months. Under Bulgarian law, inmates can seek conditional early release after serving half their sentence. The court set the remainder as his probation period, added a requirement that he take part in a community behaviour programme, and imposed measures relating to drug dependency.

What the court said. Judge Viktor Chaushev said such cases turn on the convicted person’s character and conduct, and called Nikolov’s progress significant and evident. According to BTA, he noted that Nikolov had completed the rehabilitation programmes available, earned several rewards including home leave, tested negative for drugs, and had no immediate criminogenic risk identified. The prison administration did not dispute the positive progress, the judge said, even though its final position opposed release; he said the evidence in the file contradicted that final assessment. Addressing Nikolov, Chaushev said: “There is no way to turn back time, nor can you lessen the grief of his loved ones. I only hope you have come to realize that any such lapse, a single moment of inattention, can lead to irreparable consequences,” adding that he hoped Nikolov would serve society “rather than just yourself.”

The opposition. Prosecutors argued there was not yet enough evidence of rehabilitation and that problem areas had not been fully addressed. A prison administration representative acknowledged progress but said shortcomings remained, and that Nikolov had not completed his individual rehabilitation plan, Novinite reported.

The defence. His lawyer, Ivo Naydenov, said Nikolov had attended every course on offer, including on substance abuse, completed a construction and architecture course through the Prison Affairs Fund, translated between two languages for staff and inmates, and was elected by fellow prisoners as their representative. Naydenov presented a letter from a company, Dea 2024, ready to employ him immediately; the prosecutor pointed out that the company belongs to Nikolov’s mother. Naydenov told reporters the prosecution and prison positions were driven by fear of media reaction.

In his final words, Nikolov again offered condolences to Tsvetkov’s family. “I cannot turn back time. I have accepted my guilt and have begun the process of rehabilitation,” he said, as quoted by Nova TV via Novinite. “I ask for a chance to be useful to society on the outside.”

Sources

Kostelec nad Orlicí, Czechia: Man charged with strangling his wife at asylum centre remanded in custody

Location: Kostelec nad Orlicí, Rychnov nad Kněžnou district, Hradec Králové Region, Czech Republic (Okresní soud v Rychnově nad Kněžnou)

Legal status: Charged with murder (vražda) on the night of 20 October 2026; remanded in custody by the Rychnov nad Kněžnou district court on Thursday 22 October 2026. Faces up to 20 years. Presumed innocent.

A judge at the district court in Rychnov nad Kněžnou on Thursday morning, 22 October 2026, ordered a 46-year-old foreign national held in custody on a charge of murdering his wife. Police say he strangled her on Tuesday at the residential centre for asylum seekers in Kostelec nad Orlicí, in eastern Bohemia. Police brought the man to the courthouse at 9 a.m., and the judge granted the prosecution’s custody request shortly before 11, the Rychnovský deník reported. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison. He is presumed innocent.

Neither the man nor his wife has been named. Czech police and media describe the couple as coming from the Caucasus region. iDNES.cz describes the woman as young.

The motive police describe. “According to the man’s statements so far, the motive for his act was meant to be disagreements related to ideas about the way of life and the position of the woman in the family,” police spokeswoman Martina Jandová told the Rychnovský deník after the custody hearing. Her colleague Karolína Hynková, spokeswoman for the Hradec Králové regional police, gave iDNES.cz the same wording.

The killing. According to police, the couple quarrelled and attacked each other physically at their residence shortly after noon on Tuesday 20 October. “During the conflict the 46-year-old man attacked his wife and caused her serious injuries by strangling her,” Hynková said that afternoon, as quoted by Novinky. “The woman then lost consciousness and, despite intensive efforts to save her, she could not be revived.” Emergency services spokeswoman Lucie Hanušová confirmed that five ambulance crews and a helicopter responded. Police detained the man at the residence within eight minutes of the emergency call.

Where it happened. The Rychnovský deník locates the killing inside the grounds of the Kostelec nad Orlicí residential centre (pobytové středisko) on třída Rudé armády, on the main road towards Vamberk. “It is a sad case that happened between partners. It happened in the facility for foreigners here, indoors,” criminal investigator Michal Hynek said outside the gates on Tuesday. iDNES.cz reported, citing its own information, that the killing happened in the interior ministry’s centre for refugees seeking international protection, but said police had not confirmed that.

The centre, set up by the interior ministry in 2001 in former army barracks, houses applicants for international protection while their claims are processed. They come there after completing initial procedures at a reception centre.

The charge. Regional criminal investigators opened prosecution on Tuesday night and charged the man with murder, iDNES.cz reported. At the custody hearing the judge decided he would be prosecuted while held in custody. The reports do not say which legal ground for custody the court applied. Under Czech law, custody can be ordered over a risk of flight, of influencing witnesses or of reoffending.

The town. The Rychnovský deník reported that the killing had unsettled Kostelec nad Orlicí, and that rumours about foreigners were circulating in the town. Police have released no further details, citing the early stage of the criminal proceedings.

Sources

Næstved, Denmark: Jury convicts man of shooting business partner in the heart at Brøndby garage and burning body in plastic barrel

Location: Brøndby, Greater Copenhagen, Denmark (Retten i Næstved, jury trial)

Legal status: Convicted of manslaughter (drab) by a unanimous jury on Thursday 22 October 2026 and sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment; he had admitted indecent handling of a corpse. He appealed on the spot seeking acquittal or a lighter sentence and remains in custody. Not final.

A unanimous jury at the court in Næstved on Thursday 22 October 2026 convicted Rahmat Saeidzadeh Khanghah, 59, of killing his longtime friend and business partner, a 52-year-old man shot in the heart at a car repair garage in Brøndby, west of Copenhagen, last year. The judges and jurors sentenced him to 13 years in prison. He was also convicted of indecent handling of a corpse: the dead man’s body was stuffed into a plastic barrel and burned beyond recognition. Khanghah appealed at once, seeking an acquittal or a reduced sentence, so the verdict is not final. He remains in custody pending the appeal.

The dead man has not been named in the reports seen. Danish law does not distinguish murder from manslaughter the way English law does. Drab, under section 237 of the Danish Penal Code, covers all intentional killing, and the sentence carries the weight that other systems give to the degree of the charge.

The defence. Khanghah admitted the corpse offence but denied both the killing and illegal possession of a pistol, according to Ritzau, the Danish wire service, whose reports were carried by DR and Berlingske. He told the court that the dead man had pulled the pistol and accidentally pressed the trigger while Khanghah was trying to turn the weapon away from himself. He said he panicked after the shot and hid the body in the garage toilet for a day.

The jury’s view. The jury rejected that account as untrustworthy. “It seems like an explanation constructed for the occasion,” the presiding judge said as the verdict was read, Berlingske reported. The court put particular weight on Khanghah’s conduct after the killing and on his attempts to influence the investigation. “The defendant tried to obstruct the investigation by writing messages to the deceased’s phone after the killing,” the presiding judge said. Writing to a dead man’s phone suggests an effort to make it look as though Khanghah did not know his partner was dead.

The body. The day after the death, Khanghah got help from two men to get rid of the body and the cartridges. Both men confessed earlier this year and were each sentenced to three months in prison. The victim’s body was put in a plastic barrel and burned. Sjællandske, the regional paper covering the court, headlined its report: “Killed friend and dumped him in a plastic barrel, now he is convicted.” The case was heard over three court days.

The sentence. Berlingske says the 13-year term matches the prosecution’s demand for a sentence reflecting both the killing and the burning of the body. Khanghah was also ordered to pay almost half a million kroner in compensation to the dead man’s wife and children.

As the presiding judge read out the verdict, a spectator in the public gallery was visibly upset and shouted, “Shit trial, shit judge and shit prosecutor,” as he was led out of the courtroom, Berlingske reported. The reports do not say which side he was there to support.

A discrepancy. Berlingske’s lede describes the convicted man as 52, but its body text and DR give 59 for the convicted man and 52 for the man who was killed. This card follows the body text.

The appeal. An appeal on the spot in Denmark goes to the High Court (landsret), which in jury cases can rehear the question of guilt with a new jury. Khanghah’s appeal seeks either acquittal or a lighter sentence.

Sources

Lyon, France: Ambulance driver goes on trial over the 2022 deaths of teenagers Iris Pichène and Warren Bistoquet on the Saône quays

Location: Quai Maréchal-Joffre, 2nd arrondissement, Lyon, France (6th criminal chamber, Tribunal correctionnel de Lyon)

Legal status: On trial from 22 October 2026. Cyril P., 40, is prosecuted for road homicide (homicide involontaire) with manifestly deliberate breach of a safety or prudence obligation; he faces up to five years in prison. He has not been convicted and is presumed innocent.

More than four years after two teenagers on an electric scooter were struck from behind and killed by a private ambulance on the banks of the Saône, the driver went on trial in Lyon on Thursday, 22 October 2026. Cyril P., now 40, appears before the 6th criminal chamber of the Lyon court accused of involuntary homicide, which France 3 describes as “homicide routier,” aggravated by a manifestly deliberate breach of a safety or prudence obligation. He faces up to five years. Nine relatives of the victims have joined the case as civil parties.

The victims. Iris Pichène was 15 and Warren Bistoquet was 17. They were a couple. Their funeral at the Saint-Jean cathedral drew about a thousand people, many of them strangers, and they were buried together in the Loyasse cemetery on the heights of the city, France 3 reported. A large photograph of the pair still hangs on the quay in the Saint-Georges district, across the river from where they died.

The crash. On Monday, 22 August 2022, at about 6:15 to 6:30 p.m., the two were riding together on one electric scooter, without helmets, down the Quai Maréchal-Joffre in the 2nd arrondissement, in a lane reserved for buses, bikes, taxis and ambulances. Warren was steering and Iris was in front of him. A private ambulance came up the Quai Tilsitt behind them and struck them from behind. According to France 3, they were thrown onto the bonnet, hit the windscreen and fell to the road behind the vehicle, which stopped about 30 metres further on. Both died at the scene. The section was limited to 30 km/h, actu.fr reported.

The driver’s account. Cyril P. told investigators he had been called out by the SAMU emergency service to collect a patient urgently from a clinic in the 5th arrondissement and take him to the Saint-Joseph hospital, a life-threatening emergency with a 30-minute window. He has always said he had his siren and lights on from the start. He said he saw the scooter swerve to the left and could not avoid it. Witnesses quoted in the investigation said the teenagers saw the priority vehicle and moved left to get into the normal traffic lane before they were hit, and that the ambulance was travelling fast.

The evidence. No camera filmed the impact directly, so the judicial investigation, which lasted several years, had to reconstruct trajectories, speeds and traffic conditions, France 3 reported. The accident expert estimated the ambulance was doing 70 km/h at the moment of impact and identified excessive speed as a cause. Actu.fr reported that surveillance footage is said to show excessive speed in the shared lane, and that the trial is expected to examine how he entered the reserved lane, when he braked and whether he had sounded his siren. Toxicology tests found no alcohol or drugs. His licence was valid but probationary: it had been cancelled in 2019 for a major speeding offence, and the prosecutor’s office said at the time that he was known for several traffic offences. Actu.fr reported he had only two points left out of eight.

He has remained free under judicial supervision, barred since the crash from driving any motor vehicle and from contacting employees of Ambulances Lyonnaises. During the investigation he expressed regret. “I put myself in the place of the victims’ families, there are no words,” he said, according to France 3. “We help people in our job and here it was the opposite that happened. So it can’t be any worse.”

The road. The crash reopened the argument over the Quai Tilsitt and Quai Joffre, an 800-metre stretch residents had long called dangerous, with speeding and illegal overtaking in the bus lane. France 3 counted about twenty accidents there between 2017 and 2025, and said the investigation found the lane was too narrow to allow the recommended one-metre gap when overtaking a cyclist. Since then the road has been rebuilt with a wider pavement, a protected cycle lane, separate lanes for each kind of traffic and a speed camera in the 30 zone.

Sources

Debrecen, Hungary: Appeal court makes final sentences of up to 20 years for four who beat a carer to death over an old woman’s pension

Location: Furta, Hajdú-Bihar County, Hungary (Debreceni Ítélőtábla, Debrecen Regional Court of Appeal)

Legal status: Final (jogerős) judgment of 21 October 2026 upholding convictions for homicide committed as co-perpetrators, with premeditation, for gain and with particular cruelty; sentences of 20, 18, 16 and 20 years in a high-security prison (fegyház), 10-year bans from public affairs, and no eligibility for parole.

The Debrecen Regional Court of Appeal on Wednesday 21 October 2026 made final the convictions of four people who beat to death the man who looked after one defendant’s elderly mother. They believed he was taking her pension and not spending it on her. The appeal court upheld both the legal classification and the sentences imposed at first instance: 20, 18, 16 and 20 years in fegyház, the strictest Hungarian prison regime. Each defendant was banned from public affairs for 10 years, and none can be released on parole. The ruling was reported by Dehir.hu, the Debrecen city news site.

The Debrecen court’s own February 2026 press release places the killing in Furta, a village in Hajdú-Bihar County. Neither the victim nor the defendants are named in the reports. Hungarian court communications identify defendants only by their order in the indictment.

First instance. The Debrecen Regional Court (Debreceni Törvényszék) convicted the four in February 2026 of homicide committed as co-perpetrators. The prosecution appealed against the defendants, seeking heavier penalties. The defence appealed in their favour, arguing the crime should be reclassified as bodily harm causing death, a lesser offence.

The facts the court found. According to the facts established at first instance, the defendants drank several litres of wine together one evening. The talk turned to the pension of the first defendant’s mother, which the victim collected as her carer. They believed he was not spending it on her. Egging each other on, they agreed to go to his house that same night and take the pension, which they considered belonged to the first defendant’s mother anyway.

They approached partly from the street and partly from the back of the unfenced plot. The house had no lighting, because its utilities had been cut off, and they used the darkness to hide by the terrace behind the front door. One of them knocked on the window and asked the victim to come out to talk. After some hesitation he came to the gate wearing a head torch. They talked about the mother’s hospital treatment. As the victim turned to go back inside, the others jumped out and punched him, and he fell into a bush beside the front door.

While he lay on the ground, still showing signs of life, they kicked him repeatedly in the head and upper body with light, medium and heavy force, the court found. They then carried him into the house and kept beating him until he lost consciousness. They searched the house for money and left him lying on the floor of the hallway. He died during the night.

What the first-instance court added. The Debrecen Regional Court’s February press release adds detail. The victim had been the partner of the first defendant’s mother. When she needed long-term hospital care from late September 2022, the district office appointed him her temporary guardian, which entitled him to collect her pension, and her son resented it bitterly. One of the male defendants and the female defendant lived together in Furta, and the son had moved in with them as a lodger six months earlier. The four drank on and off from the morning of 26 January 2023 and went to the victim’s house at about 7 p.m. As the victim lay unconscious, the female defendant found his wallet in a pair of jeans and took the 38,000 forints in it. The four then took a taxi to Berettyóújfalu and spent the money on drink at a petrol station before returning to Furta to keep drinking. Judge Csaba Lányi counted their self-induced drunkenness and the cunning, unscrupulous way the crime was carried out as aggravating factors. He counted their partial confessions and the clean records of two of them as mitigating.

The appeal. The appeal court decided the case of three defendants in a closed panel session and the fourth in a public hearing. The fourth defendant’s appeal had been split off, Dehir.hu reported earlier. The court rejected the defence argument for bodily harm causing death. It found instead that the defendants had acted with direct intent and that the homicide was premeditated, committed for gain and committed with particular cruelty, all of them aggravating circumstances under the Hungarian Criminal Code. That made a reduction unjustified. Because the defendants had confessed, the court also declined the prosecution’s request for heavier sentences. The bar on parole stands.

Sources

Amsterdam: Police confirm Hajar, 29, was killed in a former school building in Buitenveldert; suspect Abdi A. to appear before investigating judge Friday

Location: De Klencke, Buitenveldert, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Legal status: Abdi A., 23, arrested Tuesday 20 October 2026 on suspicion of involvement in her death, in custody; first appearance before the rechter-commissaris (investigating judge) set for Friday 23 October 2026. Not charged by a court; presumed innocent.

Amsterdam police confirmed on Thursday 22 October 2026 that Hajar, a 29-year-old woman from De Pijp whose body was found in a suitcase in the Amstel, was killed inside an anti-squat building on De Klencke in Buitenveldert, a former school. Detectives had been searching the building since Wednesday afternoon. The day before, police had still been hedging on whether she died there. “That is now established,” a police spokesperson told the Algemeen Dagblad. Police have not said what led detectives to the building.

The suspect, Abdi A., 23, was arrested on Tuesday. He will appear before an investigating judge (rechter-commissaris) for the first time on Friday, who will decide whether he stays in custody. He is suspected, not charged by a court, and is presumed innocent.

The disappearance. Hajar left home on the evening of Sunday 4 October carrying a suitcase, police chief Peter Holla told a press conference of the Amsterdam “triangle” of mayor, police and prosecution on 20 October. It was not the first time she had done so. A relative reported her missing on 5 October because of concerns for her wellbeing. On 13 October police released her name and photograph and said she had last been seen with a man near the RAI convention centre, cycling with him towards Buitenveldert.

Three days later, on the morning of Friday 16 October, her body was found in a suitcase in the water by the Amsteldijk in Amsterdam-Zuid. She had died as a result of a crime. Police believe she was killed “fairly quickly” after she disappeared, Het Parool reported. The Public Prosecution Service said there were no indications of sexual abuse.

From witness to suspect. Detectives identified the man she had cycled away with and at first treated him as a witness. He was questioned on the evening of Monday 19 October. Further investigation made him a suspect, and police began searching for him. On Tuesday morning he was arrested at a house in the municipality of Koggenland, North Holland, after a violent incident in which police found a man injured. RTL Nieuws reports that he had assaulted his foster father in Spierdijk; Holla said the injured man was out of danger and knew the suspect. Police said the suspect had deliberately gone to the house. Why the assault happened is still under investigation.

According to police, Abdi A. is of Somali origin and has no fixed address. He has lived in the Netherlands since 2009, RTL says since the age of six, and has held a permanent residence permit since 2014. AD reports that he had come to police attention more often before.

The building. The building on De Klencke was once a school and now houses several businesses under anti-squat arrangements, RTL reported, citing local broadcaster AT5. Police asked the businesses not to speak to the press. Hajar is thought to have been killed in an empty space in the building. The landlord told RTL that the suspect was not a tenant and did not have a key, which is needed to get in, so he had no right to be there. How he got in with Hajar is unclear; workers in a neighbouring building said windows there were often left open.

The family. Through the organisation Namens de Familie, Hajar’s relatives said they were “very happy” a suspect had been arrested but were in deep mourning. They asked to say goodbye “in peace, anonymity and full privacy.”

Sources

Biała Podlaska, Poland: Second Georgian held over the shooting of Russian satirist Robert Kuzovkov, known as Semyon Skrepetsky

Location: Biała Podlaska, Lublin province, Poland

Legal status: Makhmud A., 22, a Georgian national, charged with aiding the murder and illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition; denies the charges; remanded in custody for three months by the Lublin-Zachód district court on 21 October 2026 (announced 22 October). Elnur A., Georgian, charged with the murder in June; denies it; custody extended to 15 December 2026. Both presumed innocent.

Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) has arrested a second man over the killing of Robert Kuzovkov, the Russian artist and Kremlin critic who worked under the pseudonym Semyon Skrepetsky and was shot dead on a street in Biała Podlaska, about 40 kilometres from the Belarusian border, on the morning of 15 June 2026. The National Prosecutor’s Office announced the new charges on Thursday, 22 October 2026, and the head of Poland’s special services, Tomasz Siemoniak, confirmed the detention on X.

The new suspect. Makhmud A., a 22-year-old Georgian national, flew into Poland from Georgia on 18 October, the ABW said. The next day its officers from the Lublin delegation detained him at a car park on the A2 motorway. He was travelling with two other Georgian citizens, who were handed to the Border Guard and are being expelled with a ten-year entry ban. The ABW said it had identified him in months of operational work as a person who may have helped the alleged gunman.

Prosecutors charged him with aiding the murder by carrying out “a series of actions” between 1 and 11 June 2026 that made the killing easier, under article 18(3) in conjunction with article 148(1) of the Polish penal code, and with possessing a firearm and ammunition without a licence. The prosecutor’s office did not specify what those actions were. He pleaded not guilty and gave an explanation, which was not disclosed. On 21 October the Lublin-Zachód district court granted the prosecutor’s request for three months’ pre-trial detention, citing the risk he would flee or hide, the risk of obstruction and the severe penalty he faces. Under Polish law the penalty for aiding a crime is set within the range for the crime itself, which for murder includes life imprisonment.

The killing. Kuzovkov, 44, was approached by a gunman who fired two shots, the Lublin district prosecutor’s spokesman, Marcin Kozak, told the BBC in June. “When the victim fell to the ground, the perpetrator approached, fired three more shots and then quickly fled the scene,” he said. Kuzovkov died at the scene, in a car park about 600 metres from the Belarusian consulate. He was hit in the head, chest and back. Investigators recovered five shell casings and a Geco 9mm Luger bullet.

The man charged with the murder. The first suspect, Elnur A., a Georgian national, was detained on 18 June in a joint police and ABW operation and charged the following day with murder by firing five shots at Kuzovkov. Reuters, via The Straits Times, reported he was 36 and was using a Georgian passport. In September, Dziennik Wschodni reported that the Lublin regional court had extended his custody to 15 December, noting that he had used multiple identities before his arrest at a hostel outside Warsaw and had not admitted the charge. The evidence against him includes CCTV footage, phone billing records and scene examination reports, the paper said, with ballistic, DNA and fingerprint reports still awaited. He has since been charged separately over the killing of another Georgian national in Warsaw’s Wola district in March 2022.

The political question. On 23 June the National Prosecutor’s Office handed the case to the ABW and the Lublin police criminal division. Polish services are examining the possible involvement of foreign intelligence agencies and anyone who may have ordered the killing, Dziennik Wschodni reported. If a political contract were confirmed, the paper said, it would be the first such case on Polish soil. The ABW called the investigation “developing.” No one has been charged with ordering the killing.

The victim. Kuzovkov left Russia in 2021, fearing prosecution, and was granted asylum in Biała Podlaska, the BBC reported. His caricatures showed Vladimir Putin in the arms of Joseph Stalin, Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko as Adolf Hitler with a bucket of potatoes, and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and his son with pigs’ snouts. He also mocked the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny and ordinary Ukrainians, and his Polish address was freely available online. The night before he died, video showed him at a Russia Day protest outside the Russian embassy in Berlin, carrying a painting caricaturing Putin and Stalin. “I kept telling him: ‘Mate, they’re going to come for you,'” his friend Bulat Subkhankulov told the BBC. He is survived by his wife and five children.

Sources

Sines, Portugal: Retiree on trial for shotgun killing at Sines market confesses, but denies he went into the market to kill his wife

Location: Mercado Municipal de Sines car park, Sines, Setúbal district, Portugal (Tribunal de Setúbal)

Legal status: Norberto Rodrigues, 66, is on trial charged with qualified homicide (homicídio qualificado) and possession of a prohibited weapon. He was ordered into pre-trial detention on 20 August 2025. He confessed to the killing in court, as reported on 22 October 2026, but disputes parts of the indictment. There is no verdict, and he remains presumed innocent until a final judgment.

A 66-year-old retiree charged with shooting dead a 72-year-old trader in the car park of the municipal market in Sines has confessed to the killing at his trial in Setúbal, O Setubalense reported on Thursday 22 October 2026. Norberto Rodrigues is charged with qualified homicide and possession of a prohibited weapon over the death of Florival Pereira on the morning of 19 August 2025. He disputes several points of the prosecution’s case, including that he went into the market intending to kill his wife.

“I had lost my head. I thought he and my wife had been in a relationship for more than 15 years, and that day I decided to kill him,” Rodrigues told the court, according to O Setubalense. “I took the shotgun, and as soon as I saw him I fired. I don’t even remember how many times.” He and his wife have been married for 40 years, the newspaper reported.

The prosecution’s case. The judge read out the Ministério Público’s indictment point by point. It is based on an investigation by the Polícia Judiciária in Setúbal. In August 2025, the PJ said the suspect believed his wife was having an affair with the victim and had planned to kill both of them. Knowing the victim’s routines, he armed himself with a shotgun and waited near the market. When the victim arrived, he got out of his car and fired several shots. He then reloaded and went into the market to kill his wife, who had taken refuge. Unable to find her, he returned to the victim and fired again before fleeing. The indictment describes him as acting out of “jealousy and revenge, in a methodical, cold and calculating way,” and remaining unperturbed until the last shot, when the victim was already dying.

What he disputes. In court, Rodrigues denied that he had sat in his car from 5 a.m. waiting four hours for Pereira. He said he helped his wife at her market stall and had brought the shotgun intending to kill Pereira, but did not know he would come. He said he only had a sense that Pereira might come to say goodbye because his wife was about to have surgery. At about 9 a.m., while looking in his car for a brush to clean the stall, he saw Pereira in his car in front of him and fired.

He denied going into the market to kill his wife. He said he had decided to kill himself and went to find her to leave her the keys to the house of his 91-year-old mother, to whom he took lunch every day. The judge asked whether he had gone into the market armed in order to leave keys, and whether he had in fact left them. He shrugged and said, “I don’t know.” Back outside, he admitted firing one more shot into the neck of Pereira, who was already on the ground.

Rodrigues said he fled towards Porto Covo intending to kill himself, but could not reach the trigger of the shotgun aimed at his heart, and his son contacted him urging him to turn himself in. The GNR located him about an hour after the shooting, Diário do Distrito reported. “I regret everything I did, and I am willing to pay for what I did,” he told the court. He said his father was in hospital, his mother depended on him, and he had stopped taking medication prescribed by his psychiatrist. “But I know killing is wrong.”

The PJ gave the suspect’s age as 65 and the victim’s as 71 at the time. The PJ said he had no criminal record.

Sources

Čačak, Serbia: Retrial ends with the same seven-year sentence for the killing of businessman Mario Simović

Location: Preljina, near Čačak, Serbia (Viši sud u Čačku, Higher Court in Čačak)

Legal status: Dejan Popović was convicted at first instance in a retrial and sentenced to seven years in prison on Thursday 22 October 2026. The judgment is not final; both the prosecution and the defence have the right to appeal to the Court of Appeal in Kragujevac.

The Higher Court in Čačak, central Serbia, on Thursday 22 October 2026 again sentenced Dejan Popović to seven years in prison for the killing of Mario Simović, the same sentence the court had imposed at his first trial, Alo and Kurir reported. Kurir said it was the second first-instance judgment in the case. The Court of Appeal in Kragujevac had quashed that first judgment and sent the case back to Čačak for a new trial. Thursday’s verdict is a first-instance ruling and is not final.

The killing. Simović was shot dead in April 2024 on the grounds of his company in Preljina, near Čačak, according to Alo. A Kurir report republished by the local portal Ozonpress in October 2025 dates the shooting to 25 April 2024 and places it at the “Marteks” factory near Čačak. That report said media had written about a conflict between Simović and Popović. It said Popović went into the building and called Simović out to talk, that the argument escalated, and that Popović pulled a pistol and shot him. The report said four bullets struck Simović in the chest and three in the back, and that a final shot was fired into his head before the shooter fled. Simović died at the scene. The report said the suspected motive was unresolved relations between the two men. These details come from the Kurir account and not from the court’s judgment, which had not been published in the material reviewed for this card.

After the shooting, Popović was on the run for days before he surrendered to police, both outlets report.

Why the first verdict was quashed. When the retrial opened in October 2025, Borivoje Borović, the lawyer for the Simović family, said the first-instance court had refused a request by the family and the prosecution for a combined ballistic and medical expert examination. He said the Court of Appeal had identified that irregularity and ordered the examination. In his view, the legal classification of the killing could not be decided without knowing the order of the shots. He told the court that Simović had been hit twice in the back of the head while talking on his mobile phone, which he said made the killing aggravated murder (teško ubistvo) committed in a treacherous manner.

The defence also appealed the first verdict, but for different reasons. Popović’s lawyer, Dragan Ranđelović, said the defence was unhappy with the length of the sentence and believed the legal classification was wrong. He argued it was a killing in the heat of passion (ubistvo na mah), which carries a lower penalty.

Family’s reaction. Simović’s sister, Ivona Simović, told Alo and Kurir after the verdict that the family was dissatisfied. “You saw that the sentence was confirmed,” she said, in the version quoted by Alo; Kurir quoted her as saying “The sentence is the same again.” After the appeal court’s decision, she said, the family had hoped the Higher Court would reconsider and, on the basis of new evidence and new facts, find that it was aggravated murder. “The judge had a chance to change the earlier decision, but he did not do that. We all expected the killer to be sentenced according to the crime he committed.”

Alo did not report the legal classification on which Thursday’s sentence rests, or the court’s reasoning.

Next steps. Both the prosecutor and the defence may appeal. If either does, the Court of Appeal in Kragujevac will rule and give the final judgment in the case, Alo reported.

Sources

Murcia, Spain: Supreme Court prosecutor asks to annul eight-year sentence in “Halloween crime” bar stabbing and order a new jury trial

Location: Bar Mamy Blue, Santa Cruz, Murcia, Spain (Tribunal Supremo, cassation appeal)

Legal status: Pedro A. was convicted by a jury of homicide, not murder, and sentenced by the Audiencia Provincial de Murcia to eight years in prison; the Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Murcia upheld the sentence in full in September 2026. On 22 October 2026, La Verdad reported that the Fiscalía of the Tribunal Supremo has filed a 28-page cassation brief asking that the sentence be annulled and the trial repeated with a different judge and jury. The Supreme Court has not ruled.

Spain’s Supreme Court prosecutor’s office has asked the Tribunal Supremo to annul the eight-year prison sentence handed to the confessed perpetrator of Murcia’s so-called “crimen de Halloween” and to order a new trial before a different presiding judge and a different jury, La Verdad reported on Thursday 22 October 2026. The 28-page brief is the prosecution’s last attempt to overturn the sentence, the newspaper said.

The killing. Around midnight going into 1 November 2023, Gaspar N. was stabbed once in the chest during a fight at the Mamy Blue bar in Santa Cruz, a district of the municipality of Murcia. According to the facts found proven and summarised by the judiciary’s communications office, the fight began after an earlier scuffle between the victim and another customer and was “mutually accepted” by both men. The victim put “his fists forward, throwing some punches.” The accused then pulled “a knife or razor he carried in the right pocket of his trousers,” opened it and struck a single blow to the left side of the victim’s chest. The wound pierced the chest cavity and reached the heart, and Gaspar died of haemorrhagic shock minutes later. On leaving the bar, the convicted man told another person who asked what had happened: “I think I’ve killed him.”

The verdict. The prosecution charged murder with alevosía (treachery), arguing that in the middle of a fistfight Pedro A. suddenly drew a hidden blade against an unarmed man who had no chance to react. The jury rejected treachery by five votes to four, finding that although the victim did not know the accused was carrying a weapon, it was not proven that he “intentionally took advantage of the victim to end his life.” Jurors found two mitigating factors: a mild psychiatric impairment, and partial reparation of the harm. The reparation finding was unanimous and rested on the accused having paid 100 euros a month of his 132.95 euros in prison wages towards damages, for a total of 1,954 euros before trial. The Audiencia Provincial imposed eight years for homicide and ordered compensation totalling 582,000 euros to the victim’s two daughters, his mother and his two sisters.

The first appeal. In a ruling published on 4 September 2026, the TSJ of Murcia rejected appeals by the prosecution, which sought 16 years for murder, and by a private prosecutor, which sought a retrial or 20 years. The court found that the jury’s reasoning, based on witness statements and security camera footage, was not “devoid of sense.” It found “no invalidating defects” in how the verdict question on treachery was drafted. It said the presiding judge’s instructions to the jury were “certainly very long and, to a large extent, unnecessary” but did not cause the parties to be left without defence.

The cassation brief. According to La Verdad, the Supreme Court prosecutor argues that the right to effective judicial protection was violated because the presiding judge drafted the treachery question as an indivisible block for a single vote. That forced jurors to accept, in the same point, both the sudden attack with a hidden weapon and an alleged exploitation of the victim’s heavy intoxication. The prosecutor says this defect prevented a murder conviction. In the alternative, the brief asks that the reparation mitigator be removed, criticising it as applied for a payment of only 1,954 euros against compensation of more than half a million, and that the sentence be raised to twelve and a half years. The defence lawyer is Pablo Martínez.

Manuel Martínez, a lawyer for relatives of the victim acting as private prosecutor, has also asked for a retrial. He argues that the judge breached his duty of neutrality by adding personal opinions and criteria for weighing evidence to his instructions. He says the bar’s security footage shows beyond doubt a sudden fatal attack to the heart against which Gaspar had no defence, and calls the jury’s rejection of treachery “irrational.”

Sources

Menemen, Mersin and Osmaniye, Turkey: Detentions and a confession in three cold cases, from a woman allegedly thrown down a well to bones under concrete

Location: Menemen (İzmir), Mezitli (Mersin) and Osmaniye, Turkey

Legal status: Investigations. Menemen: five suspects detained 19 October 2026. Mersin: proceedings opened against nine suspects 20 October; seven detained and two already in prison, per the Justice Minister. Osmaniye: two suspects formally arrested and one released under judicial control after a confession and the recovery of bone fragments. No one has been charged at trial in any of the three; all suspects are presumed innocent.

Turkey’s Justice Minister, Akın Gürlek, announced on Thursday, 22 October 2026, what he called significant developments in three unsolved killings dating back 10 to 21 years in İzmir, Mersin and Osmaniye. Posting on social media, he said the ministry’s unit for investigating unsolved crimes, working with the chief public prosecutors’ offices and police, had now moved “71 murders in 64 files” out of the unsolved category. The details below come from his statement as carried by the Demirören and İhlas news agencies, NTV and the English service of Haberler.com, plus earlier agency reporting on the Mersin case. None of the suspects has been named.

Menemen: a well, 21 years on. Muharreme Oral has not been heard from since 2005 in Menemen, north of İzmir. The minister said prosecutors weighed a secret witness’s statement that she was killed by members of her own family together with the suspects’ communication records. Acting on the claim that she was thrown into a well, police carried out an operation on 19 October 2026 and detained five suspects. Teams are using ground-imaging and scanning equipment to try to reach her body. No body had been found as of the announcement, and the ministry did not say how she is alleged to have died.

Mersin: an abduction in 2016. Furkan Coşkun, then 20, was beaten outside his home and forced into a car in the Akdeniz neighbourhood of Mezitli, Mersin, at around 3 a.m. on 9 October 2016. He has never been seen again. Anadolu Agency reported on 20 October that, because no evidence had been found that he was still alive, the Mersin chief prosecutor’s office reopened the case as an intentional killing investigation and issued detention orders for nine suspects; six were caught at first and three were being sought. The minister’s figures two days later were seven in custody and two found to be already in prison. He said investigators had re-examined witness statements and phone records and found communication links between some witnesses and suspects.

The case has a long history. In 2018 the Demirören agency reported, via BirGün, that four people had been jailed in the first investigation, after two men told police they beat Coşkun at a former rubbish dump and took his phone and money, but insisted he escaped from them. They were arrested on assault and robbery charges, not murder. One of the four later absconded from an open prison. His mother, Sinem Coşkun, said then that she believed her son had been killed and buried. “If my son were alive he would have called,” she said. “Even if he was afraid, he would have run to his mother.” Whether any of the 2026 suspects are the same people has not been reported.

Osmaniye: bones four metres down. Mehmet Çabuk disappeared in Osmaniye in 2016. The minister said a suspect already serving time in prison confessed to killing him on 27 January 2016 and burying him in the garden of a house. When the suspect pointed out the spot, excavators dug through a concrete floor and found bone fragments about four metres beneath it. The remains were sent to the Forensic Medicine Institute to confirm identity and establish the exact cause of death. Two suspects were formally arrested and one was released under judicial control. NTV noted the case had been featured on the television programme of journalist Müge Anlı.

What is and is not known. The ministry released no names, ages or alleged motives in any of the three files, and no indictments have been announced. Until the forensic institute reports, the Osmaniye remains are not formally identified. In Menemen and Mersin there are no bodies. The minister closed with a promise: “We will keep the memory of justice alive and will not leave any unsolved file alone.”

Sources

Asia and Oceania

Seoul: Appeals court upholds life for ex-chairman who stabbed three at Cheonho-dong redevelopment office

Location: Gangdong District, Seoul, South Korea

Legal status: Life sentence upheld on appeal on October 22, 2026, by the Seoul High Court’s 5th Criminal Division, for retaliatory murder and attempted murder under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes. He can still appeal to the Supreme Court.

The Seoul High Court on Thursday, October 22, upheld a life sentence for the former head of a redevelopment association in Seoul’s Cheonho-dong who knifed three people inside the association’s office last November, killing a woman in her 50s. The 5th Criminal Division, presided over by Judge Kim Yong-seok, imposed the same sentence the trial court handed down in May. Korean media identify the defendant only by his surname, Jo, and his age, 67.

Jo was detained and indicted on charges of retaliatory murder and attempted murder under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes. In November 2025, inside the association’s office in Gangdong District, he attacked association officials with a knife: a man in his 70s, a woman in her 50s and a woman in her 60s, according to News1 via Dong-A Ilbo. The woman in her 50s died. The other two were seriously injured.

The motive, as found by the courts, was revenge for a criminal complaint. One of the victims had filed a complaint accusing Jo of indecent assault, and he faced trial on that charge. He demanded that the complaint be withdrawn. When that was refused, investigators found, he carried out the attack. Korean reports do not say which of the three victims had brought the complaint, and none of the victims has been named.

At trial in the Seoul Eastern District Court, Jo’s lawyers argued that he had swung the knife on impulse and had not set out to force the complaint’s withdrawal. The 11th Criminal Division rejected that in May, finding that “the purpose of retaliation and of getting the complaint withdrawn is sufficiently established.” Prosecutors had argued at the April 13 closing hearing that Jo prepared the weapon in advance and planned the attack. The trial court called the crime cruel and sadistic and said he had blamed the victims and made no effort to repair the harm. It counted only his lack of a criminal record and his family’s plea for leniency in his favour.

After that verdict, the husband of the woman who was killed told reporters through tears that the court had judged wisely, but that every day was a nightmare because the couple’s disabled daughter had lost her mother.

Jo appealed, arguing the sentence was too heavy. On appeal he partly admitted the retaliatory killing. The High Court found that partial admission was not a reason to change the sentence, and that nothing new relevant to sentencing had emerged since May.

“Although the defendant could have resolved the conflict through lawful means, he took private revenge in an extremely cruel way, and the result is too grave and horrific,” the court said, according to Yonhap. It said the degree of the attack and the danger of the weapon made the offence very serious and the method extremely cruel, that Jo had consistently shifted the blame to the victims, and that the right sentence was life imprisonment, “permanently isolating him from society and depriving him of his liberty,” so that he would live in atonement to the victims and the bereaved.

The charge matters. Jo was not convicted of ordinary murder but of retaliatory murder, the aggravated offence for killing someone over a criminal complaint against the killer. Both courts found that the knife was aimed at the complaint as much as at the people in the room. Jo can still take the case to the Supreme Court.

Sources

Cheongju: Baek Seung-tae gets 23 years for karaoke lounge stabbing that killed one and maimed another

Location: Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, South Korea

Legal status: Convicted of murder and sentenced on October 22, 2026, by the 22nd Criminal Division of the Cheongju District Court to 23 years in prison. Prosecutors had sought life. He can appeal.

The Cheongju District Court sentenced Baek Seung-tae, 60, to 23 years in prison on Thursday, October 22, for stabbing a fellow regular to death and seriously wounding another inside a karaoke lounge in Cheongju in the small hours of May 9. Prosecutors had asked for life imprisonment. The court gave him a long fixed term instead, and it rejected the one defence he leaned on: that he was mentally impaired at the time.

Baek was detained and indicted on murder charges. According to the indictment as reported by SBS, the attack took place between 4am and 5am on May 9. Baek and the two victims were regulars at the lounge. That night they had been drinking there with the owner’s consent, and afterwards the two men went to sleep in separate rooms of the premises. Baek attacked them while they slept. The man identified in court reports as B, an acquaintance in his 50s according to YTN, died. The second man, C, survived with serious injuries.

Presiding Judge Han Sang-won addressed the diminished capacity claim directly. Looking at the conversations Baek had with the victims and at how he behaved at the time of the attack, the judge said, it was difficult to regard him as having been in a state of diminished mental capacity. The court said Baek had swung the weapon at the victims “without any reason” and noted that he had not been forgiven by the surviving victim or by the bereaved family.

The court did give him something. It treated as a mitigating factor the finding that the crime appeared to have been committed impulsively while Baek was under the influence of alcohol and medication. YTN specified the medication as sleeping pills. That mitigation, set against the life sentence prosecutors wanted, is the gap between the demand and the 23 years imposed.

Investigators found that Baek suffered from a mental illness, SBS reported, and that he had been venting frustration over his family relationships and his economic hardship. YTN reported that he was understood to have acted because he felt his pride had been hurt by the victims while he was struggling financially. Neither outlet reported any prior dispute between Baek and the men he attacked beyond that.

The case drew national attention earlier this year when Chungbuk police convened a personal information disclosure review committee and, citing the cruelty of the crime and the seriousness of the harm, decided to make Baek’s name and face public. South Korean police use that power only in a minority of violent cases. It is the reason Korean media name him while still identifying the dead man and the survivor only by letters. The photo distributed to media at the time came from the Chungbuk Provincial Police Agency.

The ruling turned on evidence of conduct rather than diagnosis. Baek’s mental illness was not disputed in the reporting, and the court accepted that drink and sleeping pills played a part. What it would not accept was that those factors had stripped him of his judgment, because what he said to the victims and what he did that morning, attacking two sleeping men in separate rooms, pointed the other way.

Either side can appeal. Neither the defence nor prosecutors, who had sought life, had announced an appeal in the reports available on Thursday.

Sources

Whangārei: Brooklyn Jenkins jailed for life for shooting his brother Kyle in an Otaika Valley lay-by

Location: Whangārei, Northland, New Zealand

Legal status: Pleaded guilty to murder; sentenced on October 22, 2026 (NZ time), in the High Court at Whangārei to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 10 years and six months, plus a firearms protection order.

Brooklyn Jenkins, 21, was sentenced in the High Court at Whangārei on Thursday, October 22, to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 10 years and six months for murdering his 18-year-old brother, Kyle Jenkins, on Otaika Valley Road south of Whangārei in January 2025. He first denied the murder, then changed his plea to guilty earlier this year. At sentencing he offered, for the first time, an explanation: that Kyle asked to be shot.

According to the agreed summary of facts, as reported by NZ Herald Open Justice and RNZ, the brothers met at KFC Whangārei at 7.30pm on January 28, 2025. About 45 minutes later they left separately for Loop Road, roughly 10km south of the city. As Brooklyn approached the Loop Road and Otaika Valley Road intersection, Kyle overtook him at speed on a Suzuki motorbike, then pulled into a lay-by on Otaika Valley Road and parked facing the road.

Brooklyn pulled up beside the bike and stayed in his vehicle for some time. When he got out, the brothers argued and Kyle took off his helmet. Brooklyn shot him in the right side of the head with a small-calibre firearm, then fired a second time, the round grazing Kyle’s head and leaving a deep laceration. Kyle died at the scene.

Brooklyn then dragged his brother by the feet and rolled him down a bank. Kyle came to rest face down in a riverbed, out of sight of passing motorists. Brooklyn took Kyle’s mobile phone and his 360-degree bike camera and threw them away nearby. Kyle’s body and motorcycle were later found at the lay-by.

Investigators established that Brooklyn was a licensed firearms holder. His guns included a 12-gauge shotgun, a semi-automatic rifle, a single-barrel shotgun and two .22 rifles. He told police he killed his brother by firing a 9mm round from a 12-gauge shotgun fitted with a special adaptor. He did not tell them why. At sentencing Justice Michele Wilkinson-Smith said he owned more than 20 weapons, including several modified firearms.

The Crown described the killing as unprovoked, senseless and inexplicable. Despite pleading guilty to the agreed facts, Jenkins gave report writers a different account. “The explanation you gave to the report writers about your offending was that Kyle requested that you shoot him and you did so without giving it further thought,” the judge said. “In your mind, you say no argument took place.” She told him: “I’m sure in your own head you do know why this happened.” She called his efforts at concealment “unsophisticated” but said he clearly knew what he had done would be regarded as wrong.

A psychologist reported that Jenkins had an unconventional, home-schooled and isolated upbringing with few friendships, and developed solitary interests including collecting firearms and sadomasochistic items. The reports described him as emotionally detached, even when describing the offending, and as possessing little empathy. The psychologist said his literal thinking, limited reading of social cues and intense fixation on people he loved were consistent with a possible autism spectrum disorder, traits considered unlikely to change and a possible risk factor for future violence.

Family members asked that their victim impact statements not be read aloud. Jenkins showed little outward emotion through the case and never looked toward relatives in the public gallery. The judge said she did not assume he lacked remorse. “I do not think you will ever be safe to have firearms,” she told him, imposing the protection order on top of the life term.

Sources

Surin: Police sergeant major surrenders on premeditated murder warrant after hired gunmen say he paid 3,000 baht

Location: Mueang Surin district, Surin, Thailand

Legal status: A police senior sergeant major, known by the nickname Dab Mon, surrendered after a court approved an arrest warrant on a charge of jointly committing premeditated murder; in custody and under questioning as reported October 22, 2026. Two alleged gunmen were arrested earlier. All are presumed innocent.

A serving police senior sergeant major in Surin has surrendered to investigators after two men arrested over the shooting of a young fitness trainer told police an officer had hired them to do it, for 3,000 baht. The court approved a warrant for his arrest on a charge of jointly committing premeditated murder, and he gave himself up, Surin provincial police said on Thursday, October 22. Police have not released his full name. The Thaiger reported he is known as Dab Mon.

The trainer was 33, from Non Suwan district in neighbouring Buriram province, according to Two News, a regional outlet that reported the first arrests. Thai media name him and the two gunmen; no English romanization of their names has been published, so this card does not name them.

The trainer was shot on October 7 in Soi Phiphatphong in the Don Kamet community of Mueang Surin district, according to Ban Muang, which carried the provincial police statement. He survived the shooting at first and died of his injuries on October 14.

Investigators from Provincial Police Region 3, Surin provincial police and Mueang Surin police station tracked down and arrested two suspects, and seized a firearm and the motorcycle used in the attack. Police said they built the case from witness statements and forensic evidence. Both suspects reportedly confessed to carrying out the shooting, and both told investigators that a police officer had taken part in the plot and had hired them for 3,000 baht.

Two News reported the earlier stage in detail. Police called to Soi Phiphatphong on October 7 found a grey Vespa scooter with Buriram plates, its left mirror broken and blood on it in several places. The trainer had been shot in the left shoulder; the bullet lodged and passed into his lung. He was treated at Surin Hospital for seven days before he died. Ten days after the shooting, at 1.30pm on October 17, police arrested the two suspects on warrants: a 40-year-old alleged gunman and a 23-year-old alleged motorbike driver, both from Surin. They were charged with jointly committing premeditated murder, illegal possession of a firearm and carrying a firearm in public without reason. While re-enacting the crime for police, the alleged gunman said the trainer had once pointed a gun at him and that he had come for revenge, but that he “did not intend to kill, only to scare,” and he apologised to the family. Police said at the time that they did not take that account at face value and were checking whether someone was behind the shooting.

On that basis investigators applied to the court for an arrest warrant against the officer on a charge of jointly committing premeditated murder. The Thaiger reported that after learning the two had implicated him, the officer tried to resign from the police service before the court approved the warrant. He then surrendered to the investigating officers “to enter the legal process,” the police statement said.

Preliminary police inquiries, according to the Thaiger, alleged that the officer had behaved inappropriately, invoked his influence and frequently claimed close ties to senior officers, frustrating colleagues at Mueang Surin police station. Those are allegations from colleagues, not findings.

The motive is not established. The alleged gunman’s first account, a personal grudge, and the later account that an officer paid for the shooting have not been reconciled publicly by police. Police said they were still working to establish why the trainer was targeted and whether anyone else was involved.

The provincial police leadership put its name to the case. The statement listed the regional commander, Police Lieutenant General Aticha Paoin, and a chain of deputies and superintendents who had ordered the joint investigation, then offered “deepest condolences” to the trainer’s family and promised to prosecute on the evidence “in a straightforward and transparent manner,” as an agency “the public can trust.”

The officer remains in custody while Mueang Surin investigators question him. No court date had been reported.

Sources

Colombo: Supreme Court issues open warrant for ex-minister Premalal Jayasekara in Kahawatta election shooting appeal

Location: Colombo (Supreme Court), case from Kahawatta, Ratnapura District, Sri Lanka

Legal status: Open arrest warrant issued October 21, 2026, by the Supreme Court after Jayasekara failed to appear at the hearing of an appeal against his 2022 acquittal. He was sentenced to death by the Ratnapura High Court in 2020, but the Court of Appeal acquitted and discharged him and two co-accused in 2022. That acquittal stands unless the Supreme Court overturns it; he is presumed innocent. Co-accused Nilantha Jayasinghe and Wajira Darshana de Silva were remanded.

Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court on Wednesday, October 21, issued an open warrant for the arrest of former minister Premalal Jayasekara, who failed to appear for the hearing of an appeal that seeks to restore his conviction for the 2015 shooting death of a man decorating an election stage in Kahawatta. Prosecutors told the court he had left the country for Bangkok on August 31. His two co-accused, who did turn up, were remanded in custody.

The bench was Chief Justice Preethi Padman Surasena and Justices Achala Wengappuli and Gihan Kulatunga. Jayasekara’s counsel told the court his client could not appear because he could not be contacted, the Daily Mirror reported. Senior Deputy Solicitor General Janaka Bandara, for the Attorney General, said immigration and emigration records showed Jayasekara had left Sri Lanka on August 31, 2026, and travelled to Bangkok. President’s Counsel Saliya Pieris, for the aggrieved party, moved for a warrant. The court ordered that it be executed through the Inspector General of Police and the director of the Criminal Investigation Department, and that Jayasekara be produced before court.

The timing is pointed. On September 4 the Supreme Court had ordered Jayasekara to appear on October 21 and imposed a foreign travel ban on him, Ada Derana reported. He had already gone four days earlier, according to the immigration records cited in court.

The case goes back to the 2015 presidential election. During a shooting at a stage being prepared in Kahawatta for a United National Party rally supporting Maithripala Sirisena’s campaign, Shantha Dodangoda was killed, News 1st reported. Two other men, Karunadasa Weerasinghe and Mohamed Hussain Ilshan, were wounded, according to the Court of Appeal judgment quoted by the Daily Mirror in 2022.

On July 31, 2020, the Ratnapura High Court convicted Jayasekara, a Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna MP for Ratnapura District known by the nickname Choka Malli, and two others of the murder and sentenced all three to death under section 296 of the Penal Code, read with section 146 on unlawful assembly. The other two were Aruna Nilantha Jayasinghe, a former Sabaragamuwa Provincial Council member, and Wajira Darshana de Silva, a former chairman of the Kahawatta Pradeshiya Sabha.

On March 31, 2022, a two-judge Court of Appeal bench, Justices Nissanka Bandula Karunaratne and R. Gurusinghe, acquitted and discharged all three. Justice Karunaratne found no evidence that any of them was holding a gun or other weapon, and said the prosecution had failed to prove that they fired the shots. “The shooter was not identified,” he wrote, noting evidence that the shots came from the direction of the vehicles. The death and the injuries were established, he said, “but there is no evidence to prove that the three accused had fired the shot.” The trial judge had been “wrong in law and fact.”

Dodangoda’s widow then appealed to the Supreme Court. That appeal is what came on for hearing on Wednesday. Jayasinghe and de Silva appeared in compliance with notices issued on September 4 and were ordered remanded pending further proceedings.

As things stand, all three are acquitted men whose acquittal is under appeal. The Supreme Court has not yet ruled on whether the 2020 conviction should be restored.

Sources

Bibra Lake: Forklift driver charged after cyclist Joseph Paratore killed in pre-dawn hit-and-run

Location: Bibra Lake, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Legal status: Craig Daniel Strawbridge, 40, charged with failing to stop and ensure assistance after an incident occasioning death, and failing to report an incident. Appeared in Fremantle Magistrates Court on October 22, 2026; no bail application; remanded in custody. Not charged with causing the death. Presumed innocent.

A 40-year-old Perth man was remanded in custody on Thursday, October 22, charged with driving away from the scene after a four-wheel drive struck and killed cyclist Joseph Paratore on North Lake Road in Bibra Lake. Craig Daniel Strawbridge was arrested at his home in Yangebup on Wednesday evening after a two-day search, and police seized a white Toyota Prado they believe was involved.

The charges are narrow. Strawbridge is charged with failing to stop and ensure assistance after an incident occasioning death, and with failing to report an incident to police. Neither charge alleges that he caused the crash or the death, and police said investigations were continuing. He is presumed innocent, and he has not entered a plea.

Paratore, 40, a husband and father of two young boys, was riding north on North Lake Road at about 5.20am on Tuesday, October 20, just before the Sobek Pass intersection, when he was hit, the ABC reported. He was in a painted shoulder suitable for cyclists. He died at the scene. The vehicle did not stop.

Police appealed for witnesses at a media conference on Wednesday, when the driver had been at large for more than 24 hours. They released CCTV recorded at a nearby business. It shows Paratore cycling along the edge of the road in early morning light with his front light on. Moments after he leaves the frame, a white four-wheel drive comes into view and speeds past. Police said the vehicle could be seen travelling at high speed at the time of the crash, WAtoday reported. They had identified it as a white Toyota Prado from part of a broken wing mirror found at the scene.

Strawbridge, a forklift driver, was arrested later on Wednesday in Yangebup, about 18km south of the Perth CBD. In Fremantle Magistrates Court on Thursday morning he nodded to show he understood the charges as the magistrate read them out. His private lawyer asked for an adjournment for legal advice. He did not apply for bail and was remanded in custody.

The two outlets give different return dates. WAtoday reported he will be back in court on November 23. The ABC reported only that he would appear again next month. This card does not settle the date.

Paratore was adored in Perth’s cycling community, friends said. Jeff Grbelja, who rode in the same group, called him “a loving husband and a devoted father” who took up cycling to improve his health and live a long life with his family. “He often told me that cycling had saved his life,” Grbelja said. “Those words are particularly heartbreaking now.” He was a regular in the Maca 200 Ride for Perkins, which raises money for cancer research, WAtoday reported. A helmet left among flowers at the scene carried the words “keep riding in the sky.” At the family’s request, the ABC did not publish his photograph.

WestCycle chief executive Wayne Bradshaw said Paratore’s death was the sixth cycling death in Western Australia this year, against an average of four a year.

Sources

Prey Nob: Construction worker arrested after young monk is hacked to death and burned behind his pagoda

Location: Prey Nob district, Preah Sihanouk province, Cambodia

Legal status: Hoeum Sophea, 26, arrested at the scene on October 21, 2026, and held on suspicion of premeditated murder, police said; case file being prepared for court. Not charged in court yet; presumed innocent.

Cambodian police arrested a 26-year-old construction worker in the early hours of Wednesday, October 21, after a 22-year-old Buddhist monk was killed at a pagoda in Prey Nob district, Preah Sihanouk province, and his body set on fire behind one of the temple buildings. The national police said the suspect confessed during preliminary questioning and cited a grudge against the monk.

The dead monk was identified by the national police as Soy Sam Ean, a resident monk at Wat Putthakiri Thmor Da, also known as Wat Thmor Da Kraom, in Samrong village and commune, the Phnom Penh Post reported. Cambodia Expats Online, which translates local Khmer-language reports, spelled his name Soy Samean and said an earlier report noted he had lost his father.

The suspect is Hoeum Sophea, 26, a construction worker. According to Cambodia Expats Online, he was also staying at the pagoda. The killing happened at about 3.20am, it reported.

Preliminary investigations determined that Hoeum Sophea attacked the monk with a machete and killed him, then moved the body to an area behind the pagoda and set it alight with petrol, according to the national police statement carried by the Phnom Penh Post. Cambodia Expats Online, citing local reports, gave a more detailed sequence: that he beat the monk with a club before cutting his throat and hacking him with a knife, then loaded the body onto a cart, wheeled it behind one of the pagoda buildings and set it on fire using a 30-litre container of gasoline. Those details come from that outlet’s account of local reporting and were not in the national police statement as published in English.

Officers from the Prey Nob district police inspectorate and the Samrong police post reached the scene soon after and detained him on the spot, Cambodia Expats Online reported. He had made no attempt to leave the pagoda grounds. Under questioning, police said, he admitted the attack and the burning of the body. He told investigators he had a grudge against the monk. Police have released no details of what the dispute was.

The suspect and the evidence were taken to the district police inspectorate so that the case file could be prepared and sent to court. Police are describing the case as premeditated murder. The Phnom Penh Post published a national police photograph of the scene behind the pagoda.

The killing was announced in the same October 21 national police statement as a separate arrest. In Kampot province’s Chhouk district, 32-year-old Nop Chanrith was killed by a group of attackers at about 3pm on October 19. Police arrested a 30-year-old man, identified by the Post as Pol Nim and by Cambodia’s CONVEN as Phal Nim, in Kamrieng district, Battambang province, on October 20. Police said he confessed to taking part in a premeditated murder, saying the victim had stolen electrical wiring belonging to his mother and that the two had a long-standing grudge. Other suspects in that case had not been identified.

Both men were in custody pending court proceedings.

Sources

Labasa: Three farmers jailed for the robbery and manslaughter of retired teacher Pram Nand, left tied under a sofa

Location: Labasa, Vanua Levu, Fiji

Legal status: Sakiusa Niumataiwalu, 28, Jone Sela, 27, and Taniela Racule, 23, pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and manslaughter and were sentenced by Justice Daniel Goundar in the High Court at Labasa (reported October 22, 2026). A fourth man, Apisalome Tuvura, is yet to be sentenced.

Three young farmers who broke into the home of a retired school teacher in Labasa, beat him, tied him up and left him under a sofa while they made off with the family car and cash, have been jailed by the High Court for between eight and 11 and a half years. Pram Nand, 61 according to the Fiji Sun (Fijivillage gave his age as 60 in 2023), was found motionless by police. All three pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and manslaughter, not murder.

Justice Daniel Goundar sentenced Sakiusa Niumataiwalu, 28, to 11 years and six months with a non-parole period of eight years; Jone Sela, 27, to 11 years with a non-parole period of seven years and six months; and Taniela Racule, 23, to eight years with a non-parole period of six years, the Fiji Sun reported on Thursday, October 22. In each case the robbery sentence runs concurrently with the manslaughter sentence. A fourth man, Apisalome Tuvura, referred to in the case as “another individual,” is yet to be sentenced.

According to the admitted facts, on January 24, 2023, the three men had been drinking with Tuvura. While drinking, Niumataiwalu, Sela and the other man discussed breaking into Nand’s premises at Delailabasa in Labasa. At about 11pm the group went to the property.

Niumataiwalu called Nand outside. When the retired teacher came out onto the porch he was punched and fell to the ground. The admitted facts identify Niumataiwalu and Sela as taking part in the assault, which involved blows to Nand’s stomach, back and head. Racule’s account, which the three accepted as part of the facts, said Niumataiwalu sat on Nand’s chest while he struggled to breathe, and that Sela and the other individual tied him up.

Nand’s wife, Lalita Devi, came out of the bedroom into the attack on her husband. A knife was put to her neck and she was told her throat would be cut if she did not reveal where the money was kept.

The group took money and other property, including the family vehicle. The stolen property was valued at $10,493.20, including $2,472.20 in cash. They left with it, leaving Nand restrained with a sofa placed over his body. Police later found him motionless.

The cause of death was not set out in the Fiji Sun report.

In sentencing, Justice Goundar graded the three by role. Niumataiwalu was “centrally involved in the direct violence.” Sela was also a direct participant, but his identified role was less dominant. Racule facilitated the criminal enterprise without established personal participation in the assault and later co-operated more extensively with the State. His shorter term reflected his “materially lesser role, relative youth and co-operation with police,” the judge said.

Each man, Justice Goundar said, had taken part in a criminal enterprise that violated the security of a family home and resulted in the loss of Nand’s life. He said the sentences reflected the gravity of the offending while fairly distinguishing between the men’s roles, personal circumstances and mitigation.

The men were first charged with murder. Fijivillage reported on January 30, 2023, that four men from Naseakula, farmers aged 28 and 27 among them, had been charged with murder, aggravated robbery and theft of a motor vehicle and would be produced in the Labasa Magistrates Court; the 28-year-old also faced a breach of a suspended sentence, and the 27-year-old two such breaches and a count of escaping from lawful custody. Police said then that Nand, who operated a mini mart, had been tied up and robbed, that the accused fled in his vehicle, and that his wife alerted police. The murder counts did not survive to sentence: the three pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The case took more than three and a half years from the killing to sentence.

Sources

Bengaluru: Husband arrested after wife’s body found gagged in a Gopalapura stormwater drain

Location: Magadi Road, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Legal status: Mohammad Irfaj, 22 (spelled Mohammed Irfaz by Deccan Herald), arrested by Magadi Road police on suspicion of murdering his wife; arrest reported October 22, 2026. Not yet charged in court; presumed innocent. Police say he confessed under interrogation.

Bengaluru police have arrested a 22-year-old migrant worker from Bihar on suspicion of killing his 25-year-old wife with a stone, gagging her with cloth and wheeling her body to a stormwater drain on a motorcycle he broke into for the purpose. The body lay unidentified for days after it surfaced. A door-to-door canvass by more than ten police teams led investigators to the husband, whose story that she had gone home to Bihar did not hold, police said.

The arrested man is Mohammad Irfaj, 22, according to the Times of India, citing ANI, and NDTV. Deccan Herald spells his name Mohammed Irfaz. The dead woman was Ruksana, 25. Both were natives of Bihar.

The couple married about a year ago, police said. Ruksana had been married before, had a child from her first marriage, and had separated from her first husband. The two reportedly fell in love while selling balloons in Bihar and moved to Bengaluru around six months ago, where Irfaj found work at a garment factory. NDTV reported Ruksana was also working. They quarrelled often.

According to police, Irfaj suspected his wife of an affair because, he alleged, she spoke frequently to someone on the phone. The dispute turned violent on October 10. Investigators say Irfaj picked up a stone and attacked Ruksana, killing her on the spot, then stuffed a piece of cloth into her mouth.

To move the body, police allege, he broke the handle lock of an unattended motorcycle parked nearby that belonged to someone else. He stuffed the body into a bag, set it between the handlebars and pushed the bike to the Gopalapura drainage area, where he dumped her in the stormwater drain and went home.

On October 13 the body, wrapped in a plastic cover, was found in the drain. The mouth was stuffed with cloth. Police could not identify her. Magadi Road police formed more than ten teams that went door to door and cross-checked recent missing person complaints in the area.

The break came from neighbours. Residents told police that a woman married to a man living in Gopalapura had been missing for several days. Officers questioned Irfaj. He told them his wife had gone back to their native place in Bihar and was not using her mobile phone, NDTV reported. Police grew suspicious and took him into custody for further questioning, during which, they say, he confessed.

TV9 Kannada, in its Kannada-language report, added detail from the investigation: that the stone was brought down on Ruksana’s head, that the cloth forced into her mouth was a veil, and that the body was already decomposing when it was pulled from the drain at Magadi Road. It said police cracked the case after nine days of continuous effort.

The confession is the police account; it has not been tested in court. Police have not publicly detailed a post-mortem result, have not said whether the motorcycle’s owner reported it tampered with, and have not said when Irfaj will be produced before a magistrate. Further investigation is under way, the Times of India said, and more details are awaited.

Sources

Deli Serdang: Police name two suspects in drive-by killing of ormas member Doni Pacek, crash ended the getaway

Location: Tanjung Morawa, Deli Serdang, North Sumatra, Indonesia

Legal status: Two men, identified only by initials DAC, 22, and AAL, 20, named as suspects (tersangka) on October 22, 2026, in a premeditated murder investigation under Articles 459 and 458(1) of the new Criminal Code (Law 1/2023). Not yet tried; presumed innocent.

North Sumatra police on Thursday, October 22, named two young men as suspects in the premeditated murder of Doni Pacek, a member of a mass organisation (ormas) who was shot through the head while riding in a Toyota Yaris in Desa Bangun Rejo, Tanjung Morawa, Deli Serdang. Police say the getaway ended almost immediately: the wounded victim’s car, out of control, ran down the gunmen’s motorbike.

Kombes Cornelis Mangarahon Simanjuntak, director of general criminal investigation at Polda Sumut, identified the suspects only by initials, DAC, 22, and AAL, 20. Police allege DAC owned the gun and directed the killing, and that AAL fired it. Merdeka, which spells the victim’s name Donny, reported the two were caught on the night of Sunday, October 18. Detik reported police announced the breakthrough on Tuesday, October 20, with the suspect designation and full account given at Thursday’s press conference.

Police trace the shooting to an attack on the home of a man named Ferri. Ferri called Doni for help, and Doni set out in the Yaris with several companions, trailed by a group on motorbikes, Merdeka reported. According to the police account to Detik, the two suspects rode out on a Honda Beat, DAC driving with a pistol tucked in his waistband and AAL riding pillion. On the way, police say, DAC asked AAL to do the shooting and told him the gun was already cocked. “There’s a gun here, I’ve cocked it. Please do the shooting,” Cornelis said, quoting DAC.

On Jalan Limau Mukur the motorbike cut in and pressed alongside the Yaris. “This is the man, go ahead and shoot,” DAC said, according to police. AAL took the gun from DAC’s waistband and fired toward the driver through the open window as the car travelled at around 30 to 40 kilometres an hour. The bullet struck Doni at the right ear and exited through the left side of his neck. It also hit Indra Wijaya, a passenger on the left, passing through his left thigh.

Doni went into convulsions. Indra tried to take control of the car, but the accelerator was pressed and the Yaris surged forward and struck the suspects’ motorbike. Both men fell to the right side of the road. As the bike went down, police say, the pistol discharged again, wounding DAC in the right thigh and the back. The two fled into scrub in an oil palm plantation. Doni died.

Under questioning, police say, AAL admitted shooting Doni, and said the round that hit DAC went off because he did not know how to hold a firearm properly. AAL was taken to the Polda Sumut criminal investigation headquarters. DAC was taken to Rumah Sakit Columbia in Medan for surgery to remove a bullet from his back.

Police seized a Pindad Combat pistol with ammunition, two 9mm casings, the Toyota Yaris and the Honda Beat Street. Cornelis said investigators were still working on the motive, the origin of the firearm and each suspect’s role.

The suspects face Article 459 of the Criminal Code, premeditated murder, and alternatively Article 458(1), murder.

Sources

Nishitokyo: Woman, 38, arrested over beating death of 28-year-old partner she had legally adopted

Location: Nishitokyo, Tokyo, Japan

Legal status: Arrested on October 21, 2026, by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department’s First Investigation Division on suspicion of injury resulting in death. She is remaining silent. Not charged with this offence; presumed innocent.

Tokyo police on Wednesday, October 21, arrested a 38-year-old woman on suspicion of beating to death the 28-year-old woman she lived with, her partner of about six years and, on paper, her adopted daughter. The dead woman was found on September 3 in a flat in Yanagisawa, Nishitokyo, covered in bruises with several ribs broken. The suspect had told police that her partner was beaten up outside.

Japanese media name both women. No English-language romanization of either name had been published by Thursday, so this card does not name them. The suspect, 38, is of no fixed address and unemployed, according to Chunichi Shimbun and Shueisha Online. Police allege that between late August and around September 3, inside the flat, she assaulted the 28-year-old, who was also unemployed, and caused her death by traumatic shock. The suspect is remaining silent, police said. Shueisha Online reported that she is a Japanese national with one Japanese parent and one parent from Southeast Asia, a point it addressed because of speculation online.

The case surfaced at about 10.30am on September 3, when the suspect called 110 and said that her partner had come home after being assaulted outside two days earlier and was unconscious. Officers found the woman in the flat, and a doctor confirmed her death at the scene.

The autopsy found extensive subcutaneous bleeding across her body, including her head and face, and fractures to several ribs, Shueisha Online reported. Investigators believe she was struck not only with hands and feet but possibly with a blunt object, and police seized several items from the flat thought to be weapons.

The suspect’s account collapsed on the camera footage. She had said her partner was attacked outside on September 1. Police analysis of security cameras around the building found that after the two returned to the flat together on August 30, there was no sign of either of them leaving before September 3.

The two met online about six years ago and began living together. In November 2025 they entered a formal adoption, with the suspect as adoptive parent and the victim as adopted child, so that in the family register they were mother and daughter. Investigative sources confirmed the adoption to Chunichi. Police have not said why the two entered the adoption.

This is her third arrest in the case’s orbit. On September 4, the day after the death, she was arrested on the spot for obstructing officers after becoming violent during voluntary questioning; that case was left pending. On September 24 she was rearrested for possessing about 230 grams of cannabis and was later indicted on that charge. The arrest on October 21 is the first on suspicion of causing the death.

Chunichi published a photograph of the suspect being taken into Tanashi police station at 9.30am on October 21. NHK, reporting the arrest that afternoon, also said she was refusing to answer investigators’ questions.

A neighbour told Shueisha Online that one-sided shouting had been heard from the flat for more than a year, including three days before the death.

Sources

Yokohama: Fifth alleged ringleader arrested in 2024 “dark part-time job” robbery that killed Hiroharu Goto, 75

Location: Aoba Ward, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan

Legal status: A 28-year-old man from Koshigaya, Saitama, rearrested on suspicion of robbery resulting in death and trespass; arrest announced October 22, 2026, by a joint investigation headquarters of five prefectural police forces led by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. He is remaining silent. Not charged in this case; presumed innocent.

Two years after Hiroharu Goto, 75, was found bound with tape and beaten to death in his home in Yokohama’s Aoba Ward, police have arrested a fifth man they accuse of directing the robbery from a distance. A joint investigation headquarters of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and four other prefectural forces announced on Thursday, October 22, that it had rearrested a 28-year-old man of unknown occupation from Koshigaya, Saitama Prefecture, on suspicion of robbery resulting in death and trespass. He is remaining silent, Jiji Press and the Asahi Shimbun reported.

Japanese outlets name the suspect. No English-language romanization of his name had been published by Thursday, so this card does not name him.

The case is one of the wave of violent home invasions across the Tokyo region in late 2024, carried out by people recruited online through “yami baito,” or dark part-time job, adverts. According to the arrest allegation reported by Jiji, between about 1am and 3am on October 15, 2024, the suspect conspired with others, including the people who carried out the break-in, to enter Goto’s home. The intruders bound Goto’s hands and feet with tape and punched and kicked him repeatedly in the face and body. He died of bleeding from blunt injuries across his body. They took about 170,000 yen in cash and 99 items including necklaces, worth about 500,000 yen in total.

Goto was found the following morning, October 16, 2024. The Mainichi reported at the time that a local woman called police at about 9.30am because a window by the entrance had been open since the night before. Officers found Goto collapsed in the dressing room, his hands and legs bound with adhesive tape, with bruises over a wide area of his body and bleeding wounds. The front door was unlocked and a window beside it broken. He lived with his wife, who was out of the house at the time. The house is in a quiet residential area about 2 kilometres northwest of Ichigao Station on the Tokyu Den-en-toshi Line.

Investigators believe the suspect gave instructions to the robbers at the time through a highly secure, encrypted messaging app, Jiji reported. Police say he directed the robbery and the assault alongside four alleged ringleaders who have already been indicted on robbery resulting in death charges. Ten people in all have now been arrested over the Aoba killing, Jiji said, including those who directed it, those who carried it out and those who collected the stolen goods. The Asahi reported that the three robbers who carried out the break-in, and those who collected the loot, have been arrested and indicted, and that the stolen items appear to have reached the organisers’ side within days.

He was already in custody. He has been arrested four times before, Jiji reported, as an alleged ringleader of robbery and injury cases in Hokkaido, Saitama and Tokyo, and the Asahi said he had been arrested and indicted as an organiser of a robbery and injury case in Nerima, Tokyo. The investigation headquarters is examining his possible role in other cases.

Sources

Cebu City: Two held, one confesses on video, in killing of Isaac Viernes found under cement in Pahina Central

Location: Cebu City, Cebu, Philippines

Legal status: Two principal suspects in custody on other charges (illegal firearms and explosives; an outstanding attempted murder warrant). Police are preparing a murder complaint for preliminary investigation. No one has yet been charged with murder. All are presumed innocent.

Cebu City police have two of three alleged principal suspects in custody in the killing of Isaac Vergel Viernes, 24, whose body was dug out of a cement-covered vacant lot in Barangay Pahina Central on October 19, nearly two weeks after he vanished. One of them walked into police custody on Wednesday afternoon, October 21, and gave a videotaped extrajudicial confession naming the others, according to a Cebu City Police Office progress report released on Thursday, October 22.

Neither man has yet been charged with murder. The Cebu City Police Office said a murder complaint against the two and several others was still being prepared for preliminary investigation on Thursday. Police have not released the suspects’ names. A manhunt is under way for the third principal suspect, and police say two more people are considered accomplices.

Viernes was reported missing on October 7. His partner said he was last seen drinking with friends in San Nicolas Proper, where he reportedly argued with someone. Police reviewed CCTV showing him walking along Natalio Bacalso Avenue with several companions shortly before he disappeared. On October 19, after an informant directed his family to the spot, a team from the city disaster office and police excavated a vacant lot near the Citilink Terminal. The site was covered with cement and topped with charcoal, Cebu Daily News reported. His mother identified the remains.

According to the confession as summarised in the police report, the killing happened on October 8 in Sitio Riverside, Barangay Pahina Central. The confessing suspect said he assaulted Viernes first, before two other men joined the fatal attack. Police said Viernes was kicked, struck on the head, stabbed and shot before he was buried. Lieutenant Colonel Gerard Ace Pelare, deputy city director for operations, said the three principal suspects conspired, and that a feud and revenge over a previous conflict with the victim were the primary motives.

Pelare drew a distinction for reporters. “He didn’t just admit it; he confessed,” he said, explaining that the suspect voluntarily went to police, admitted his own participation, and did so in the presence of his lawyer and an independent witness, on video. Cebu Daily News reported the witness was a media personality.

The two in custody are held on other grounds. The first was arrested on October 20 in Sitio Taytayan, Pahina Central, for alleged violations of the firearms law, Republic Act 10591, and the explosives law as amended by Republic Act 9516. The second, the one who confessed, was arrested on the evening of October 21 on an attempted murder warrant issued by Regional Trial Court Branch 58 in Cebu City on October 2, 2024, in a separate case.

The City Intelligence Unit, Police Station 5, the Cebu City Mobile Force Company and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group worked the case. Mayor Nestor Archival and Councilor Pablo Labra II had pressed for a swift inquiry after the discovery.

His mother, Jenny Viernes, said she was glad two had been caught. “What they did to my child was extremely brutal,” she told SunStar in Cebuano, and appealed to the rest to surrender.

Sources

Hanoi: Man prosecuted for murder after hammering in a car window, then fetching a butcher’s knife to kill the driver

Location: Bo De ward, Hanoi, Vietnam

Legal status: Formally prosecuted (khởi tố bị can) for murder and ordered detained by the Hanoi Police Investigation Agency on October 22, 2026, after surrendering on the night of October 20. Not tried; presumed innocent.

Hanoi police on Thursday, October 22, formally opened a murder case, charged a 47-year-old man and ordered him detained over the killing of a car driver on Bac Cau street in Bo De ward two days earlier. Police say the man suspected the driver of an affair with his wife, finalised his divorce the day before the attack, and then hunted the driver down twice in the space of a few hundred metres: first with a hammer, then with a knife taken from a pork stall.

Police had released neither the suspect nor a motive when the killing was first reported. The accused’s given name is Hoan. Dan Tri identifies him as Tran Quy Hoan; VnExpress as Nguyen Quy Hoan; the state news agency’s VietnamPlus, using initials, as Tr.Q.H., born in 1979, which matches Dan Tri. Dan Tri reported that he is registered in Xuan Mai commune and lives in Bo De ward. The dead man is identified only as N.B.D., 46, born in 1980, registered in Hai Phong and living in the same ward.

According to the initial investigation reported by VietnamPlus, from around July 2026 Hoan suspected his wife of a relationship with N.B.D., which caused conflict in the marriage. On October 19, Hoan and his wife completed their divorce in court. Dan Tri and VnExpress describe her as his former wife, identified as N.T.H.

On the afternoon of October 20, Hoan saw N.B.D. driving on Bac Cau street and chased him on a motorbike. At the mouth of lane 220 he overtook the car and stopped in front of it. He got off and tried the driver’s door handle, but the car was locked, Dan Tri reported. He went back to his motorbike, took a hammer he had stored in the seat compartment and smashed the driver’s side window. Reaching in, he grabbed the driver by the collar and punched him in the mouth, VnExpress reported. VietnamPlus said residents intervened and Hoan left.

He did not go far. After about 200 to 300 metres, passing a shop selling pork, he took a knife from the counter, according to police, and rode back to find the driver. VietnamPlus reported that N.B.D. was turning the car around when Hoan reached him again and stabbed and slashed him repeatedly. VnExpress reported the driver slumped in the driver’s seat and died. Dan Tri said Hoan left the knife inside the victim’s car and rode away.

Hanoi police announced on the evening of October 20 that they had detained a man over the killing. Dan Tri reported that after being persuaded, Hoan went to the Hanoi Police Criminal Police Department at about 10pm that night and surrendered. He was held in temporary custody for investigation while police consolidated the file. On October 22 the city’s Police Investigation Agency issued decisions to open the case, to prosecute him as the accused and to detain him.

Police have not said which clauses of the murder charge apply, and no trial date has been set. The investigation agency said it was continuing to investigate and clarify the case.

Sources

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