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The Crime Ledger: October 23 to 27, 2026

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Five days of the board run from a church funeral in Jordan’s Karak Governorate, where gunmen killed nine mourners and three suspects were arrested after a shootout, to a snack bar in Oarai. In the United States, a Cincinnati jury rejected Rodney Hinton Jr.’s insanity defense and convicted him of murder in the death of Deputy Larry Henderson, a Durham County jury convicted Miguel Salguero Olivares of the 2012 killing of UNC student Faith Hedgepeth, and life terms followed in Carolina Forest, Hollywood, Scottsdale and Bensalem. Canada adds a double shooting in Rivière-du-Loup and verdicts or sentences in Surrey and Toronto. Latin America, Africa and the Middle East bring a tenth jury conviction for the “Serial Killer of Maceió,” a charge in Santiago’s Peñalolén over the killing of Sofía Sánchez Marincovich, a wave of dumped bodies in São Paulo, a delayed murder trial in Johannesburg, an arrest in Tanzania in the Sheila Odoyo case and a stabbing in Kiryat Haim. In Europe, English courts returned verdicts and life terms in the Preston, Ealing, Harwell and Wolverhampton cases, Germany’s Federal Court of Justice made a sailor’s life sentence final, four men were jailed in Galapagar and a 14-year-old girl was detained in Älvsjö. Asia and Oceania close it out with a US Marine indicted in Naha, an appeal upheld in Cheonan, an extradition from Poland to Sydney, alibi notices in Suva and arrests from Bangladesh and India to Thailand and the Philippines.

This catch-up Ledger covers 102 cases from 37 countries between Friday, Oct. 23, and Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026, 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.

The Lead Case

Hamoud, Jordan: Nine Killed in Karak Church Attack on a Funeral; Three Suspects Wounded and Arrested After Shootout

Karak Castle on a hilltop above the town of Karak
Karak Castle above the town of Karak, Jordan. Hamoud lies in Karak Governorate. Not the scene. Photo: Berthold Werner / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

Location: St George’s Greek Orthodox Church, Hamoud, Al-Qasr District, Karak Governorate, Jordan; arrests in the village of Al-Jadeeda, Karak

Legal status: Three men named by Jordan’s Public Security Directorate were arrested on 26 October 2026 after a gun battle and taken to hospital with injuries. Officials said the case file was being completed for referral to the judiciary. None had been charged as of Tuesday, 27 October. They are presumed innocent.

The attack: On the afternoon of Friday 23 October, gunmen opened fire on mourners at a funeral at St George’s Greek Orthodox Church in Hamoud, a village in the southern governorate of Karak, according to the BBC, the Guardian and Al Jazeera. Security camera footage aired by the state broadcaster Al-Mamlaka and verified by Reuters showed three people firing at the church from a pavement while sheltering behind trees and a low wall, then running towards its entrance, the Guardian reported. A priest, Theodoros Soueiss, said the gunfire was indiscriminate and that people were ordered to get to the ground, the Guardian reported. One mourner, Khalid al-Mdanat, told BBC Arabic that the attack lasted around 15 minutes and that the gunmen fled in a pick-up truck, firing as they went. Father Yohanna Hamati told AFP, as quoted by Al Jazeera, that about 170 to 200 people were at the church when the firing began.

The victims: Nine people were killed. Prime Minister Jafar Hassan named them at a cabinet session on 25 October, Roya News reported. As spelled by the BBC, they were Dr Maher Zureiqat, Ihab al-Halsa, Dr Fadi al-Halsa, Dr Khaled al-Halsa, Dr Asim al-Burqan, Alaa al-Masarwa, Marwan Khaitan, Mazen al-Qassous and Dr Mohammed al-Qassous. Thousands attended the funeral of eight of them beside the church on 25 October, led by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophilos III. The ninth, Dr Mohammed al-Qassous, was buried near Amman on 26 October. Jordan’s health ministry first put the number of injured at 40. On 26 October the public security director gave the figure as 34. Al Jazeera reported that 27 of the injured were still in hospital on 26 October, and AFP reported that Muslims were among the wounded.

The arrests: Before dawn on 26 October, security forces found the suspects hiding in an abandoned house in Al-Jadeeda, Karak, the directorate said. It said the men refused to surrender and opened fire, and that officers returned fire and wounded all three. No officers were hurt. A government source told Al Jazeera that one suspect was in critical condition after a confrontation that lasted about three hours. Weapons and large quantities of ammunition were seized, the state news agency Petra reported.

Who police say they are: At a press conference on 26 October, Major General Obeidallah Maaytah, the director of public security, named the detainees as Hazza’ Zaidan Muhammad, whom he called the mastermind; his brother, Mish’al Zaidan Muhammad; and Ahmad Sami Hussein, their relative by marriage, Petra reported. He said they followed an extremist takfiri ideology and represented only themselves. A senior security official told reporters there was no indication the suspects had ties to other groups, Al Jazeera reported. Jordan News reported him as saying the gunmen had been behind the funeral procession and that the attack had not been planned in advance. No group had claimed responsibility.

What comes next: Interior Minister Mazen al-Faraya said the arrests did not mark the end of the case and that anyone else found to be involved would be held to account. King Abdullah II had promised the harshest penalties. Terrorism cases in Jordan are normally heard by the State Security Court.

Sources

United States and Canada

Cincinnati, Ohio: Jury Rejects Insanity Defense, Convicts Rodney Hinton Jr. of Murder for Driving Into Deputy Larry Henderson Hours After Watching His Son’s Police Shooting

Hamilton County Courthouse in Cincinnati
The Hamilton County Courthouse in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. Photo: Warren LeMay / Wikimedia Commons, CC0

Location: Near Burnet Woods and the University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio, USA

Legal status: Convicted. A Hamilton County Common Pleas jury found Rodney Hinton Jr., 40, guilty of murder, felonious assault and reckless homicide on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, and rejected his plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Jurors did not convict him of aggravated murder. Sentencing is set for Nov. 16, 2026, at 9 a.m. The defense says it will appeal.

A Hamilton County jury on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, rejected Rodney Hinton Jr.’s insanity defense and convicted him of murder in the death of Larry Henderson, the Hamilton County sheriff’s deputy he struck with his car while Henderson directed traffic for the University of Cincinnati’s graduation on May 2, 2025. The jury of seven women and five men found the 40-year-old guilty of murder, felonious assault and reckless homicide, the Cincinnati Enquirer and WVXU reported. Jurors did not convict him of the most serious counts, aggravated murder. Reckless homicide had been allowed as a lesser offense to those aggravated murder charges, WLWT reported.

The verdict came as the jury entered its third day of deliberations, after two full days in the jury room, according to WLWT and FOX19. Hinton was taken into custody immediately after the verdict was read, WKRC Local 12 reported, describing Henderson as a retired deputy working a special detail. Sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 16 at 9 a.m. A murder conviction in Ohio carries a mandatory sentence of 15 years to life, the Enquirer reported.

The day before. The case began with a different death. On May 1, 2025, Hinton’s son, Ryan Hinton, was fatally shot by a Cincinnati police officer in a shooting captured on body cameras. FOX19 reported that Ryan Hinton had a semi-automatic gun with an extended magazine and that the shooting was deemed justified. On the morning of May 2, Hinton went to Cincinnati police offices in the West End to view the body camera video of his son’s death, the Enquirer reported. WVXU placed the viewing at a police facility in Queensgate.

The crash. Several hours later and about four miles away, near the University of Cincinnati, where graduation ceremonies were under way, Henderson was working a special traffic detail and controlling a traffic light. According to prosecutors, as summarized by the Enquirer, Hinton waited in the center lane for oncoming traffic to clear, then drove straight at the spot where Henderson stood on a traffic island beside a utility pole. The center of the car struck the deputy, and the front right side hit the pole. Henderson died of his injuries.

What Hinton told the psychologists. Hinton did not testify. Jurors instead heard three psychologists describe what he told them during evaluations, WLWT reported. According to the Enquirer, Hinton told one evaluator that he drove in the direction of the deputy and that he had to turn the steering wheel “a little bit to hit him.” Asked whether he was angry at police, he said, “Not him particularly.” He also gave differing accounts of hearing a voice just before the crash: to one psychologist he described a voice apparently from outside the car that made him look toward Henderson, and to a psychologist hired by the defense he said he heard his pastor’s voice, which that expert called an auditory hallucination.

The insanity fight. The experts agreed Hinton has a serious mental illness. The Enquirer reported he has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and bipolar disorder. The dispute was whether that illness kept him from understanding that what he did was wrong. The defense expert said it did. Two prosecution experts said Hinton showed no signs of an acute psychotic break immediately after the crash. Forensic psychologist Jennifer O’Donnell testified that his demeanor afterward, and the fact that he obeyed traffic laws on the drive from the police facility, indicated he understood the wrongfulness of his conduct, WVXU reported.

In closing, defense attorney Clyde Bennett II argued for the first time that Hinton was suicidal and was aiming at the utility pole, not the deputy. “He recklessly killed Deputy Henderson while attempting to kill himself,” Bennett told jurors, according to WVXU. Assistant Prosecutor Kate Burroughs answered that “it was the defendant’s purpose and specific intent to kill deputy Larry Henderson.” WVXU reported that Judge Jody Luebbers had earlier ruled out the death penalty after experts testified about Hinton’s mental illness in pretrial hearings.

After the verdict. Bennett told reporters that “the fight is not over” and that he does not consider the outcome a victory. “I wanted him to be found not guilty of each and every charge,” he said, according to WLWT. FOX19 reported that he intends to file an appeal within 30 days.

Sources

Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Jury Convicts Miguel Salguero Olivares of Murdering UNC Student Faith Hedgepeth in 2012; Judge Imposes Life Without Parole

Durham County Courthouse in Durham, North Carolina
The Durham County Courthouse in Durham, North Carolina, where the trial was held. Photo: DiscoA340 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Hawthorne at the View apartment complex, Old Chapel Hill Road, on the border of Chapel Hill and Durham, North Carolina, USA (Durham County Courthouse)

Legal status: Convicted and sentenced. On Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, a Durham County jury found Miguel Salguero Olivares guilty of first-degree murder, first-degree rape, first-degree sexual offense and first-degree burglary. Judge Keith Gregory sentenced him the same afternoon to life in prison without parole plus three consecutive terms. The defense said it will appeal.

More than 14 years after Faith Hedgepeth was found beaten to death in her off-campus apartment, a jury convicted the man prosecutors said was a stranger who entered her home and killed her. The verdict came on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, after a little more than six hours of deliberation spread over two days, the Daily Tar Heel reported. Hedgepeth was 19 when she was killed on Sept. 7, 2012.

Who she was. Hedgepeth was a biology student at UNC-Chapel Hill from the Hollister community in Warren County and a member of the Haliwa-Saponi tribe, WRAL reported. The Daily Tar Heel, the campus newspaper, said she hoped to become a pediatrician, held Gates Millennium and Alston-Pleasants scholarships, and was active in the Carolina Indian Circle.

The case. Friends found Hedgepeth dead in her apartment at Hawthorne at the View. An autopsy showed extensive skull fractures and cuts to her face and head, according to WRAL. The case went cold for years. Salguero Olivares was arrested on Sept. 16, 2021, after DNA obtained during a drunk-driving arrest in Raleigh was linked to samples from the crime scene, WRAL and the Daily Tar Heel reported. The Daily Tar Heel gave his age as 33.

The evidence. Prosecutors leaned on forensic work by the North Carolina State Crime Laboratory. Analyst Summer Maffett testified that a palm print on a wine bottle at the scene matched Salguero Olivares’s left palm, and analyst Erin Ermish linked his DNA to swabs taken from Hedgepeth, to the top of the Bacardi rum bottle prosecutors called the murder weapon, and to a paper bag found at the scene bearing a handwritten note, the Daily Tar Heel reported. “He left his DNA like confetti all over that room,” prosecutor Lisa Coltrain told jurors in closing, according to WRAL and the Daily Tar Heel. Durham District Attorney Angela Garcia-Lamarca told the jury that “forensic evidence in this case is screaming the truth.”

The defense. Defense lawyers questioned the reliability of the investigation, pointed to shortcomings in the Chapel Hill Police Department’s evidence collection, and challenged the crime lab’s methods. They rested on Wednesday, Oct. 21, without calling witnesses, and Salguero Olivares told the judge he would not testify. The jury found him guilty of first-degree murder both on the basis of premeditation and deliberation and under the felony murder rule, the Daily Tar Heel reported. As the verdict was read, he could be heard saying, “It’s not fair,” WRAL reported.

The sentence. Gregory imposed life without parole for the murder, 64 to 89 months for burglary, and 240 to 348 months each for the rape and sexual offense counts, all to run consecutively. Salguero Olivares must also register as a sex offender for life. Defense attorney James Rainsford told the judge an appeal would be filed.

The family. “Here we have been waiting a long time, over 14 years. And I am just glad we have the closure we need, we have peace,” Hedgepeth’s mother told the court, according to WRAL. She said she had forgiven the killer within weeks of her daughter’s death. Her father counted the time aloud: “That’s 14 years, six weeks and four days,” he said. Gregory told the family that his own son had been a UNC student at the time of the killing, and he hugged both parents after the hearing.

The investigation. More than 25 State Bureau of Investigation agents worked on the case and more than 400 DNA samples were collected, according to the SBI, WRAL reported. The trial, counting jury selection, ran 19 days.

Sources

Carolina Forest, South Carolina: Camisha McGaskey Gets Life for the Murder of A’Kyri Bell, 11

The brick Horry County Courthouse and county office complex in Conway, South Carolina, under a clear sky
The Horry County Courthouse complex in Conway, where the trial was held. Photo: Pollinator at English Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Sago Palms Drive, Carolina Forest, Horry County, South Carolina; tried in Conway

Legal status: Convicted and sentenced. On Friday, Oct. 23, a jury found Camisha McGaskey guilty of murder and obstruction of justice, and Circuit Judge David Caraker sentenced her to life in prison plus 10 consecutive years. Human trafficking charges against her and her co-defendant Margaret Roberson remain pending, and Roberson is presumed innocent.

The verdict. Deliberations began at 5:17 PM, according to the solicitor’s office as reported by WPDE, and the jury returned at 6:09 PM, finding McGaskey guilty on both counts. The Post and Courier described McGaskey, 32, as the caregiver of the child and said the verdict came after a harrowing week-long trial in which she declined to testify and the defense called no witnesses. Before closing arguments, Caraker refused a defense request to let jurors consider voluntary manslaughter. “Even if you discount all the behavior leading up to June 11, the actions of an 11-year-old child on June 11, I would shudder to think that would provide legal provocation in a case like this,” the judge said, the Post and Courier reported.

The sentence. Solicitor Jimmy Richardson of the 15th Judicial Circuit asked for life. “That is a lot more humane than A’Kyri got,” he told the court, WPDE reported. Defense attorney Ralph Wilson Sr. asked for “some mercy” and a term of less than life, after the judge denied his motions for acquittal and a mistrial. Caraker imposed life for murder and 10 years for obstruction, to run consecutively. “May God have mercy on you,” he told her.

Who A’Kyri was. A’Kyri Bell came with her older sister and their father to live at Roberson’s Carolina Forest home in December 2024. Her sister remembered her as a normal, healthy fifth grader at the time, the Post and Courier reported. Her father moved back to Texas in April 2025 but left the girls there to finish the school year. A’Kyri died on June 11, 2025, of blunt force injuries to the head.

The case. Prosecutors told jurors that McGaskey abused the child for weeks before her death, and Senior Assistant Solicitor Leigh Ann Waller called it the worst crime against a child she had seen. MUSC child abuse pediatrician Dr. John Melville testified that he diagnosed A’Kyri as a victim of child torture, and forensic pathologist Dr. Ellen Riemer said the many impact sites could not be explained by a single impact, according to the Post and Courier and WMBF. In closing, Waller told jurors that every eyewitness heard McGaskey threaten to kill A’Kyri on the day she died, WPDE reported. Two teenagers in the home testified they were told to tell police that A’Kyri had fallen in the bathtub and hit her head, the Post and Courier reported. The obstruction count covered lying to law enforcement and trying to destroy evidence, including cameras and deleted text messages, according to WPDE. McGaskey’s sister Alexandria Thomas and Thomas’s boyfriend pleaded guilty earlier in the week to lesser charges and testified for the state. Wilson argued that the witnesses had changed their stories and that the state had not proven murder.

The family. “Nobody should be treated like that,” her father said. “She got what she deserved because she did not deserve this at all,” he told the Post and Courier.

What comes next. WPDE reported on Oct. 27 that McGaskey had been moved to Camille Graham Correctional Institution in Columbia for an evaluation that typically takes 30 to 45 days.

Sources

Hollywood, Florida: Shannon Ryan Gets Life Without Parole for the 2020 Murder of Leila Cavett, a Young Mother Whose Body Was Never Found

Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
The Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, photographed in 2010. Photo: Georgia Guercio / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Hollywood and Miramar, Broward County, Florida, USA (Broward County Courthouse, Fort Lauderdale)

Legal status: Sentenced. On Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, Broward Circuit Judge Michael Usan sentenced Shannon Ryan, 44, to life in prison without parole. A jury convicted him of second-degree murder on Sept. 24, 2026. Ryan plans to appeal.

Six years after Leila Cavett vanished on a visit to South Florida, the man a jury found responsible for her death was sentenced to the maximum the law allowed. Judge Michael Usan imposed life in state prison without parole on Shannon Ryan, a self-described witch and “chakra master,” on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, CBS News Miami and NBC 6 South Florida reported. Ryan showed no reaction, according to CBS News Miami. Defense attorneys had asked for a sentence of just over 22 years.

The disappearance. Cavett, a 21-year-old Georgia resident, traveled with her 2-year-old son from Georgia to South Florida on July 25, 2020, and was last seen the next day at a RaceTrac gas station in Hollywood, according to the FBI, Local 10 News reported. Police found the toddler that same day walking alone near the 1860 block of Southwest 68th Avenue in Miramar, barefoot and in a soiled diaper, Local 10 reported. Her abandoned vehicle was recovered two days later. Her remains have never been found.

The arrest and trial. Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested Ryan on May 11, 2021, and prosecutors filed charges of second-degree murder, tampering with evidence and child neglect two days later, according to Local 10. At the weeklong trial, prosecutors Elizabeth Lipella and Taylor Collins presented evidence that Ryan and Cavett were in the same area when she was last seen, that he had looked up information on chloroform, alcohol and bleach, and that he bought duct tape, cleaners and carpet deodorizer, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported. Court documents described surveillance video of Ryan dragging a large garbage bag to the dumpster at the gas station where Cavett was last seen, NBC 6 reported. Prosecutors argued that he killed her and disposed of her body, possibly in a dumpster.

His account. Ryan pleaded not guilty and testified in his own defense. He told jurors he knew Cavett, had taught her to read Tarot cards and had agreed to buy a truck from her, and that he last saw her when he dropped her and her son outside the Miramar neighborhood where the boy was later found, the Sun Sentinel reported. He said the cleaning supplies were for clearing garbage out of his car and the truck. Defense lawyer Dameka Davis argued that prosecutors had not proved Cavett was dead. The jury took less than 90 minutes to convict him, the Sun Sentinel reported.

In court. Cavett’s family pleaded with Ryan to reveal where she is. “My sister was more than a victim; she was a daughter, a sister, and most importantly, a mother,” one of her sisters said, according to CBS News Miami. Her brother told Ryan: “I want the truth. I want to know what you did to my sister. I want to know where she is.” Another relative said the family prayed Ryan would “tell us where my sister is,” adding, “She deserved to be put to rest in a dignified manner.” A statement from Cavett’s son, now 8, was read by a victim advocate. “I wish she was here so we could go to Dollywood and go ride dirt bikes together and eat sushi,” it said. Asked whether he wished to speak, Ryan told the judge, “I decided not to make a statement.”

What comes next. Ryan has 30 days to file an appeal, CBS News Miami reported. The judge appointed the Broward Public Defender’s Office after his trial lawyer said she would withdraw, the Sun Sentinel reported, as summarized by PompanoBeach.News.

Sources

Scottsdale, Arizona: Los Angeles Man Robert Celifie Sentenced to Natural Life for Arranging the Murder of “Mike the Barber” Ilya Shimonov

A street of shops in Old Town Scottsdale, Arizona
East First Avenue in Old Town Scottsdale, Arizona. Photo: Marine 69-71 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Hotel parking lot, Scottsdale, Maricopa County, Arizona, USA

Legal status: Sentenced. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announced on Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, that Robert Celifie, 45, of Los Angeles, was sentenced to natural life in prison. A jury found him guilty on Aug. 25, 2026, of conspiracy, premeditated first-degree murder and first-degree burglary. The gunman, Chaze Cable, was convicted of the same offenses in 2025 and is also serving natural life.

Ilya Shimonov built his dream on wheels: a barbershop inside a converted school bus that drove to customers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Locals knew him as “Mike the Barber.” On the evening of Jan. 3, 2022, he had just finished a haircut in the parking lot of a Scottsdale hotel when he was shot multiple times and killed, according to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. Prosecutors said the man who fired was Chaze Cable, and that the man who planned it, paid for it and supplied the gun was Robert Celifie. On Monday, Celifie learned he will die in prison.

“Condemned this victim to death.” “This defendant may not have been the one who pulled the trigger, but through his actions he condemned this victim to death just the same,” County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said. According to her office, Celifie gave Cable his car and his gun, along with money, photos of Shimonov, the time and place of the killing, instructions to take Shimonov’s phone and directions for what to do afterward. KTAR News reported that Shimonov was shot nine times inside the bus, parked outside an Old Town Scottsdale hotel. Deputy County Attorney Richard Dusterhoft told reporters investigators do not believe Shimonov ever met either man, though they may have had acquaintances in common, ABC15 reported. No motive was described publicly.

The last minutes. Shortly before the shooting, three young women from out of state who were staying at the hotel stopped to look at the bus, AZFamily reported, citing Dusterhoft. Shimonov invited them in and gave them a tour. As they walked away they saw a man they took for a customer approach, then heard gunfire, and called 911 from the hotel lobby.

Following the phone. Detectives quickly realized Shimonov’s phone was missing. They tracked it from the scene to Las Vegas and then to Los Angeles, the County Attorney’s Office said. KTAR reported that Las Vegas police found surveillance images of a white car at each spot the phone stopped, and a license plate reader identified it as a white Mercedes registered to Celifie, who lived in Los Angeles. Stopped on Jan. 10, 2022, Celifie told police he was driving between Nevada and California with his girlfriend at the time of the murder, an account that checked out, and said he had rented his car to Cable. A search of the girlfriend’s Nevada home turned up a Canik 9mm handgun later identified as the murder weapon, KTAR reported. Investigators also found Signal messages between Celifie and Cable about what the barber bus looked like, where it would be, and the need to take his phones. With help from the Texas Department of Public Safety and police in Texarkana, Arkansas, Cable was arrested and a sweatshirt matching the one seen in surveillance images was found in his apartment, according to KTAR.

A five-state case. The investigation involved 48 search warrants in five states, surveillance video from dozens of locations and terabytes of data, prosecutors said. Agencies from Arizona, Nevada, California, Texas and Arkansas assisted Scottsdale police. Scottsdale Police Chief Joe LeDuc said he hoped the outcome “brings some measure of justice and peace to the victim’s family.”

His mother. At a news conference on Monday, Shimonov’s mother described her eldest son as a smart, happy young man. “To have a barber bus on wheels was his dream, and he made it happen,” she said, according to AZFamily. “It makes me proud; he was a smart boy.” She told KTAR: “My kids mean the world to me, and Ilya was my oldest boy. When this horrible event happened, my world collapsed, and I don’t think it will ever be the same.”

Sources

Santa Fe, New Mexico: Isaac Apodaca Gets Life Plus 15 Years, Kiara McCulley 30 Years, for the 2022 Sword Killing of Grace Jennings

Judge Steve Herrera Judicial Complex in Santa Fe
The Judge Steve Herrera Judicial Complex in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Photo: AllenS / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Location: Detached garage on Santa Fe’s south side, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA (First Judicial District Court, Santa Fe)

Legal status: Sentenced. On Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, State District Judge T. Glenn Ellington sentenced Isaac Apodaca, convicted at trial of first-degree murder and conspiracy, to life in prison plus 15 years, to run consecutively. Kiara McCulley, who pleaded guilty in 2025 to second-degree murder and conspiracy, was sentenced to 30 years in prison under her plea agreement, to be followed by five years of supervised probation.

Four years after Grace Jennings was killed with a sword in a detached garage on Santa Fe’s south side, both people responsible for her death were sentenced on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026. State District Judge T. Glenn Ellington ordered Isaac Apodaca to serve life in prison plus 15 years, and imposed a 30-year term on Kiara McCulley, the woman who swung the blade, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported from the courtroom. Ellington called the case among the most horrific and “shocking” of his 30-year career, citing the senselessness of the killing and the “unnerving … brutality of the acts.”

The killing. Jennings was 21. According to the New Mexican, she had been offered a place to stay in the detached garage where Apodaca and McCulley lived on McCulley’s mother’s property. Prosecutors said Apodaca lured her there on a day she had reportedly broken up with her fiancee. She had just had four root canals, her younger sibling told the court, and was “tired, in pain and still foggy from the anesthetic.” She was nearly decapitated.

The texts. The trial in July turned on the hours before the killing. McCulley, then 19, testified for the prosecution under her plea deal. According to trial testimony and previous reports summarized by the New Mexican, Apodaca had recently bought a sword for McCulley and spent hours goading her into using it, sending her dozens of text messages while the three of them slept side by side, including the line “end your suffering by ending her joy.” McCulley testified that he handed her the sword, that she closed her eyes “and swung,” and that she then stabbed Jennings multiple times while Apodaca urged her to “finish it, finish it.” Jurors convicted Apodaca of first-degree murder and conspiracy.

The prosecution’s theory. Deputy District Attorney Haley Murphy told the court that Jennings’s death was not the product of a drug deal, a domestic dispute or gang violence, and that the pair had little or no real motive. She said the two appeared to have planned the killing for at least a year. Murphy described Apodaca as having “sadistic” tendencies and said he manipulated McCulley by exploiting her delusional belief in a dark fantasy underworld in which she would rise in rank by committing a murder. A sibling said Jennings had not seen either defendant for about five years before she was killed.

The record against him. Court TV, which covered the hearing, reported that the killing took place on Oct. 29, 2022, and that the weapon was a 36-inch sword. Murphy urged consecutive terms, citing Apodaca’s adult criminal history, which Court TV said included battery charges after he broke McCulley’s thumb six months before Jennings was killed, and a jail disciplinary record that included contraband, a fight and a fake suicide note. “Ms. McCulley is the one that wielded the sword,” Ellington said, according to Court TV. “But everything else necessary to take a life, Mr. Apodaca not only participated in, but he was the nexus.” Jennings’s mother told the court she remains “haunted by images of my own child’s ruined body and her last terrible moments on Earth.”

The sentences. Ellington ordered Apodaca’s terms served consecutively, beginning with the 15-year conspiracy sentence, on which he can earn day-for-day good time. He will receive credit for about four years in custody but must serve the full 30 years on the life sentence before he is eligible for parole, the New Mexican reported. Apodaca declined to address the court; his mother called him a “wonderful man” before his involvement with McCulley. McCulley, now 23, apologized and said she felt “dishonorable.” “I learned too late that the pen is mightier than any weapon,” she said. Her attorney, Tom Clark, said she could be released after serving between 20 and 23 years, and told the court she had been “easily turned into a tool of violence by Isaac Apodaca, who put this entire event into motion.”

The family. Jennings’s relatives wanted both defendants sentenced to life without parole. Murphy told the court that such sentences were not lawful for these convictions, and defended the plea deal as the surest way to hold Apodaca accountable. The family testified that the case and the online fascination with it, including podcasts and the circulation of explicit crime scene photos and police interviews, had left them broken and frightened. “From the moment Grace was murdered, the system has done nothing but spat on Grace’s grave and tortured my family,” her younger sibling told the court. Before the hearing, family members joined a protest outside the First Judicial District Courthouse calling for McCulley’s plea deal to be withdrawn.

Sources

Chatham, Chicago, Illinois: Jerry Powe Charged With Murder in the Strangling of Algonquin Mother Shaton Ladd

The lit awning and sign of a closed family restaurant on a Chatham commercial street at night, with no people present
A storefront in Chatham, on Chicago’s South Side. Photo: Peter Fitzgerald / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

Location: An apartment in the 8100 block of South Ellis Avenue, Chatham, Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, USA

Legal status: Jerry Powe, 58, is charged with first-degree murder, murder with a strong probability of death or injury, three counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault with a weapon and aggravated kidnapping. A judge ordered him detained pending trial on Saturday, Oct. 24. He is presumed innocent and has not entered a plea.

The charges. Chicago police announced the charges on Saturday, Oct. 24, in a news release that said Powe was arrested at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 22, and identified as the person who caused the fatal injuries of a 36-year-old woman found inside a residence on South Ellis Avenue. The release said he is also charged in the aggravated kidnapping and aggravated criminal sexual assault of a 28-year-old woman at the same address. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the death a homicide by strangulation, NBC Chicago and FOX 32 reported. The Ledger is not naming the surviving woman.

The victim. Family members identified the woman as Shaton Ladd, 36, who also went by Molly Rico, FOX 32 reported. She was the mother of two sons, and the medical examiner’s records list her as a resident of Algonquin, according to the Lake and McHenry County Scanner. “A monster in human form has taken my daughter, Shaton Ladd, aka Molly Rico, from us, and right now, I am lost for words,” her mother wrote in a social media post quoted by the Scanner. “You were so often the life of the party, bringing laughter, joy, and your own special light wherever you went.” Her mother has organized a GoFundMe to support her grandsons, the Scanner reported.

What prosecutors allege. According to Cook County prosecutors, as reported by Block Club Chicago, FOX 32 and the Scanner, Powe strangled Ladd on the living room couch overnight between Oct. 21 and Oct. 22, then covered her with a white sheet. Prosecutors said the 28-year-old woman arrived at the apartment a little after 7 a.m., and that Powe, holding what appeared to be a gun, dragged her to his bedroom and sexually assaulted her repeatedly. Prosecutors said he later let her leave, and that she contacted a co-worker, who called police. An officer met them at about 9:43 a.m., FOX 32 reported.

At the station. Powe walked into the 3rd District police station at about 10:04 a.m. and told staff at the front desk that he had killed his girlfriend, prosecutors said, according to the Scanner. NBC Chicago, citing a police report, said he gave officers a location. Prosecutors said he told officers “I f—ed up,” gave a detailed admission to killing Ladd after he was read his rights, and denied sexually assaulting the second woman. Officers and firefighters forced their way into the apartment, and Ladd was pronounced dead at 10:35 a.m., FOX 32 and the Scanner reported. Police recovered replica guns and BB guns but no real firearm, according to court documents cited by FOX 32. Prosecutors also said Powe told officers his son is a Chicago police officer, which was confirmed, FOX 32 reported.

His record. Court records show Powe pleaded guilty in 1988 to two counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault and was sentenced to six years in prison, and that he has since been imprisoned in armed robbery, arson, gun and aggravated battery cases, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

In court. Judge James Costello granted the state’s petition to detain Powe after a hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, and a public defender was appointed, the Scanner reported. A status hearing was set for Tuesday, Oct. 27.

Sources

Bensalem, Pennsylvania: Trenton Man Orenthia Upshur Pleads Guilty and Gets Life Without Parole for Killing Maisha Coon in a Motel Room

The Bucks County Courthouse in Doylestown, Pennsylvania
The Bucks County Courthouse in Doylestown, Pennsylvania (file photo). Photo: Smallbones / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Location: Sleep Inn on Street Road, Bensalem Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, USA (Bucks County Court of Common Pleas, Doylestown)

Legal status: Pleaded guilty and sentenced. On Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, Orenthia Upshur, 52, of Trenton, New Jersey, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and related charges. Judge Wallace H. Bateman Jr. immediately imposed the mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.

Maisha Coon never got to turn 50. On Monday, the man she had loved for three decades stood in a Doylestown courtroom, admitted that he shot her to death in a Bensalem hotel room, and was sent to prison for the rest of his life. Coon, 49, of Trenton, was killed on the morning of Jan. 15, 2025, according to the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office.

The plea and the sentence. Upshur pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and related charges, and Bucks County Common Pleas Judge Wallace H. Bateman Jr. imposed the mandatory term at once, prosecutors said. “The facts of this case could not be graver,” Bateman told him, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. “You took someone’s life, someone presumably who you loved a great deal, for no reason.” District Attorney Joe Khan called the killing a “brutal act of domestic violence” that “robbed Maisha Coon of her life and shattered the lives of those who loved her.”

The relationship. Court testimony indicated the couple had been together for about 30 years and had gone to the hotel to work through problems in their relationship, the DA’s office said. Upshur’s attorney, Deborah Weinman, told the court the two had been accusing each other of infidelity and had seen a marriage counselor, the Inquirer reported, and that the motel stay was meant to help them resolve those issues.

How the case unfolded. According to prosecutors, the investigation began around 5 a.m. on Jan. 15, 2025, when a relative of Upshur walked into the Pennsylvania State Police barracks in Trevose and reported that Upshur had admitted shooting Coon in a Bensalem hotel room. The relative told troopers the couple had been arguing and that an argument had been overheard during a phone call around 12:30 a.m. Using cellphone location data, authorities narrowed Coon’s location to a cluster of hotels. At the Sleep Inn on Street Road, troopers learned she had rented a room, and inside Room 317 they found her dead from multiple gunshot wounds. Bensalem detectives recovered three spent casings, along with evidence that one bullet had passed through the floor into the room below. The Inquirer, citing prosecutors, reported that she was shot in the head and the leg.

The arrest. Around 4:30 a.m., before Coon was found, Trenton police responded to a 911 report of shots fired in the city, prosecutors said. Officers heard more gunfire and saw an armed man, later identified as Upshur, flee into a nearby home. The Inquirer reported that investigators said he had fired at Coon’s older daughter, Quadira Peterson, as she got into an Uber. Upshur was taken into custody in Trenton and the gun used in the killing was recovered, the DA’s office said. During a four-hour interview with New Jersey State Police, he confessed. Prosecutors said that as Coon pleaded for her life, Upshur told her, “It’s all going to end tonight.”

Her daughters. Statements written by Peterson and her sister were read in court by prosecutor Samantha D’Amore. They remembered a hardworking mother who often held two jobs, including caring for people in group homes, who had an eye for fashion and decorating and was “the life of the party,” the DA’s office said. They said she had nursed Upshur back to health after a “near-fatal motorcycle accident,” the Inquirer reported. “My mother’s life was taken from her, and a piece of mine was taken with it,” Peterson said. “My mother was denied the chance to turn 50, to grow old, to keep filling rooms with her laughter.” One daughter wrote: “The home feels haunted by her absence.”

His words. Upshur told the judge he was appalled by what he had done and wished he could take it back, the Inquirer reported. “As a man, I’m supposed to protect women,” he said. “So to be here, under the circumstances, is shameful.”

Sources

Louisville, Kentucky: Kevon Lawless Pleads Guilty, Takes 35 Years in 2020 Killings of Brandon Waddles and 3-Year-Old Trinity Randolph After Supreme Court Threw Out His Life Sentence

Downtown Louisville, Kentucky skyline
The downtown skyline of Louisville, Kentucky. Photo: Brando03 / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Location: 3700 block of Kahlert Avenue near Strader Avenue, Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky, USA

Legal status: Pleaded guilty and sentenced. Kevon Lawless, 29, pleaded guilty to murder and other felonies in Jefferson Circuit Court and was sentenced to a total of 35 years. The Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office announced the plea and sentence on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026. His 2022 jury conviction and life-without-parole sentence had been overturned by the Kentucky Supreme Court in 2025.

Six years after Brandon Waddles and his 3-year-old daughter, Trinity Randolph, were shot to death on Kahlert Avenue, the man a jury once sent away for life has admitted the killings. Kevon Lawless, 29, pleaded guilty to multiple felony charges, including murder, and was sentenced to 35 years in prison, Jefferson County Commonwealth’s Attorney Gerina D. Whethers’s office said in a release on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026. WDRB and WAVE reported that the plea was entered on Monday.

“This defendant was first found responsible by a jury for the senseless killing of a father and his three-year-old daughter, and now, has fully admitted to his responsibility,” Whethers said. “At last, after six years since their deaths, we have justice for Brandon Waddles and Trinity Randolph.”

The sentence. According to WDRB and WAVE, Lawless received 35 years on each count of murder, 20 years for burglary and 10 years for possession of a handgun by a convicted felon. The release described the sentences as recommended to run consecutively for a total of 35 years. That is a steep drop from where the case stood in 2022, when a jury convicted him of two counts of murder and one of burglary and recommended two life sentences without the possibility of parole.

The shooting. Waddles, 21, and Trinity were shot shortly after 1 p.m. on Aug. 14, 2020, in the 3700 block of Kahlert Avenue near Strader Avenue, WDRB and WAVE reported. At the 2022 trial, the Commonwealth said Lawless fired 11 shots. A key witness, who was a juvenile at the time and whose name was not reported, testified that she had conspired with Lawless to rob Waddles, WLKY reported then. She said she had been texting with Waddles, who believed she was coming to his home to hang out, while at the same time guiding Lawless to the house. She told jurors she heard gunshots while on the phone with both men. “Because a robbery usually you just rob somebody,” she said when asked why she was surprised by the outcome. She pleaded guilty to facilitation of the murders and burglary and received probation in exchange for her testimony. Prosecutors argued at trial that Lawless had motives beyond robbery, since she never received any money.

The man who drove Lawless to the house also testified. He had pleaded guilty to facilitation of murder and was on probation. He told the jury he did not know what was going to happen and did not hear any shots because he was listening to music over his car’s Bluetooth. The judge, McKay Chauvin, noted that even the jury laughed at that answer, WAVE reported in 2022. Video shown by the Commonwealth allegedly showed someone getting out of and back into the car, gun drawn, within 15 seconds. The driver was arrested for perjury immediately after he left the stand.

Why the verdict fell. That arrest is what undid the first conviction. A juror saw news reports that a witness had lied on the stand and been detained, and the report was repeated during deliberations, according to WDRB and WAVE. Court documents say the juror felt they could “no longer make a decision truthfully.” Instead of declaring a mistrial, Chauvin brought in an alternate juror. The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled in 2025 that a mistrial should have been granted and sent the case back to Jefferson Circuit Court for a possible retrial. Lawless was released from state custody in November 2025 and booked into the Louisville jail on a $1 million bond.

The family. At the 2022 sentencing hearing, Waddles’s mother testified that she was getting dialysis when she got the call that her house had been shot up, and that Trinity had been playing with a dollhouse she had just bought her, WLKY reported. Trinity’s mother described their last FaceTime call that morning. “She told me she loved me and she was going to come home,” she said.

Sources

Bayamón, Puerto Rico: Woman Charged in Fatal Stabbing of Her Husband, John Manuel Cosme Hernández

Aerial view of the city of Bayamón, Puerto Rico, with low buildings, highways and a river running north toward the coast
An aerial view of Bayamón, Puerto Rico, not the scene. Photo: Tony Santana, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Location: Santa Juanita, Bayamón, Puerto Rico

Legal status: Gisselle Alexandra Sustache Villegas, 31, is charged with one count under Article 95 of the Puerto Rico Penal Code and one count under Article 6.06 of the Puerto Rico Weapons Act in the death of her husband, John Manuel Cosme Hernández, 45. Prosecutors filed the charges on Saturday, Oct. 24, according to Telemundo Puerto Rico, and a judge found probable cause to arrest on both counts and set bail at $50,000, which she did not post. She is jailed ahead of a preliminary hearing set for Thursday, Nov. 5. She has not been convicted and is presumed innocent.

The night of the stabbing. A call to the 911 emergency system at about 10:38 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 23, alerted police to a violent death on Calle España in the Santa Juanita neighborhood of Bayamón, El Vocero reported, citing preliminary police information. Agent Karines Torres Hernández of the Bayamón Sur precinct responded first, and agent Ángel Silva of the Bayamón homicide division of the Criminal Investigations Corps, known as the CIC, later joined the inquiry, according to El Vocero. In its first report, the paper said a woman had been arrested but that police had not released her name or said what relationship, if any, she had with the man.

WAPA.tv’s Noticentro reported the same night that a woman who allegedly used a knife was in custody and that police were investigating the case under Law 54, Puerto Rico’s domestic violence prevention and intervention law. Capt. Raúl Negrón, director of the Bayamón CIC, told the station that charges could be filed over the weekend.

What prosecutors allege. According to the Puerto Rico Department of Justice, as reported by Primera Hora, Sustache Villegas wounded her husband with a knife in the area of his left collarbone, and the wound killed him. Authorities seized the knife. Jornada Noticiosa, citing the CIC homicide investigation, reported that the two had an argument during which she allegedly inflicted the wound, that Cosme Hernández died at the scene, and that she was arrested there by agents from the Bayamón Sur precinct. These are allegations, and no evidence has yet been tested in court.

The charges. Prosecutor Daniela Mejías Burgos of the Bayamón district filed the two counts, according to the Department of Justice, whose secretary, Lourdes L. Gómez Torres, announced the case, Metro Puerto Rico reported. Primera Hora, Telemundo Puerto Rico and Metro described the first count as murder, or asesinato. Jornada Noticiosa reported it more specifically as asesinato atenuado, or mitigated murder, under Article 95-D. The weapons count covers the alleged use of a bladed weapon to commit the crime, according to Primera Hora.

The defense. Sustache Villegas’s lawyer told TeleOnce that she acted in self-defense and that the defense will try to prove it as the case goes forward. He said that the investigation and the accounts of neighbors point to a pattern of harassment and violence by her husband, that he held her back and hit her when she tried to leave, and that she had sought a protective order but later withdrew it, which the lawyer attributed to what he called battered woman syndrome. He said the couple had been together for about a year and that the authorities know of a video of the incident that is circulating on social media, TeleOnce reported. None of those claims has been tested in court.

In court. Judge Najda Banuchi Ramos of the Bayamón Court of First Instance found probable cause to arrest on both counts and set a combined bail of $50,000, Primera Hora and Telemundo Puerto Rico reported. El Nuevo Día reported that the bail was not posted, and Jornada Noticiosa said she was booked into a correctional facility to await the next stage of the case. The preliminary hearing is scheduled for Nov. 5, according to Primera Hora and Metro.

The investigation. Agent Nicole Díaz Hernández of the Bayamón homicide division led the investigation, according to Primera Hora and Jornada Noticiosa, which added that Sgt. Jesús M. Alicea Ortiz supervised it and that the charges were filed after consultation with prosecutor Mejías Burgos.

Sources

Bean Station, Tennessee: Two Life Terms Without Parole for Aaron White in Killings of Jon Atkins and Deven McDaniel

The red brick Grainger County Courthouse in Rutledge, Tennessee, behind bare winter trees
The Grainger County Courthouse in Rutledge, Tennessee. Photo: Brian Stansberry / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

Location: A property on Rocky Springs Road, Bean Station, Grainger County, Tennessee, USA

Legal status: Convicted Thursday, Oct. 22, of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of abuse of a corpse. Sentenced by the jury on Friday, Oct. 23, to two terms of life without the possibility of parole.

The sentence. A Grainger County jury sentenced Aaron Ethan White, 36, of Morristown, to two life sentences without the possibility of parole on the morning of Friday, Oct. 23, one for each count of first-degree murder, WBIR and WVLT reported. The Citizen Tribune reported that the sentences were imposed by Circuit Court Judge James Gass. On each murder count, the jury’s choice was between life with the possibility of parole and life without it, WBIR reported. Jurors were sent out to deliberate around 10 a.m. and returned just after 11 a.m. with life without parole on both counts, the station said.

The verdict. The same jury found White guilty on all counts on Thursday, Oct. 22, after deliberating for about an hour and a half, according to WBIR. The Grainger County Clerk’s Office confirmed the convictions to WATE, which reported that the trial had begun on Tuesday.

The victims. Jon Atkins, 49, and Deven McDaniel, 32, were found dead on a property along Rocky Springs Road in Bean Station on May 25, 2024, WVLT reported. Before the jury began deliberating on the sentence, prosecutors read a letter from Blake Long, who wrote that Atkins had been in his life since he was born. “Jonathan was like a dad to me. He would do anything for me. He wanted to take me to the beach and make memories,” Long wrote, according to WBIR. “He would not hurt anyone. He was a kind, helping person.” Long wrote that he is now 18 and that Atkins “didn’t get to see me graduate.”

The evidence. During testimony on Thursday, prosecutors played recordings of White’s interview with police, WBIR reported. In it, the station said, White told investigators he brought ammunition, weapons and a ghillie net to the Bean Station property, waited in the woods behind the residence, and came out when Atkins and McDaniel, whom he said he did not know, walked up the gravel driveway. He said Atkins, who was unarmed, ran “sort of” toward him and that he shot Atkins and then McDaniel. Brandon Elkins of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation testified that Atkins’ gunshot wounds were in his back, according to WBIR. White told investigators he then moved and dismembered the bodies and left them in the woods on the property, the station reported. Earlier, a charging affidavit summarized by WVLT said investigators found a bank receipt with White’s account number near where the bodies were found and that a phone he was known to use pinged a tower less than a mile from the scene.

The manhunt. After he was charged, White was added to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s Most Wanted list in June 2024, WATE reported. He was captured at his Morristown home on July 10, 2024, at the end of a manhunt, U.S. Marshal David Jolley told WVLT at the time. The Marshals, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and East Tennessee Valley Crime Stoppers had all offered rewards, and Jolley said the reward would go unawarded. A Grainger County grand jury later indicted him on the four counts he was convicted of, and he was held on a $5 million bond, WATE reported.

Sources

Belle Glade, Florida: Two Charged in July Shooting Death of Jayla McGee, a Transgender Woman

The old two-story city hall and fire station building in Belle Glade, Florida, under an overcast sky
The old city hall and fire station in Belle Glade, Florida, not the scene. Photo: Ebyabe / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Belle Glade, Palm Beach County, Florida

Legal status: Elijah McClorin III, 37, is charged with first-degree murder with a firearm, and Tomiah Duhart, 33, is charged with accessory to first-degree murder with a firearm, in the July 5 shooting death of Jayla McGee. Both were arrested on Thursday, Oct. 22, and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrests on Friday, Oct. 23. Bond was denied for both at first appearances on Friday, WPBF reported. Neither has been convicted, and both are presumed innocent.

The victim. Her family identified her as Jayla McGee, a transgender woman, and described her in a statement as “a loving and beautiful soul with a heart of gold,” CBS12 reported. Authorities identified her under a different first name, according to CBS12 and WPBF. WPBF reported that the National Black Justice Collective listed her as 19 years old. The collective held a candlelight vigil for her after her death, according to CBS12, and her family told the station they were happy an arrest had been made.

The shooting. Deputies responded to a report of a shooting at about 5:28 a.m. on July 5 on Southwest Avenue B in Belle Glade and found McGee with a gunshot wound to the head, CBS12 reported, citing arrest affidavits. Palm Beach County Fire Rescue pronounced her dead at 5:39 a.m. WPBF reported that a witness told investigators McGee had been spending time with him after Fourth of July festivities, and that a group was standing near a red Camaro talking when a single gunshot was heard.

What investigators allege. According to the affidavits, as reported by CBS12, surveillance video showed a person dressed in black get out of a dark gray Hyundai Elantra and go into and out of an alley near the scene three times. After a gunshot was heard, that person ran back to the car and got in as a passenger, and a witness told investigators the person was carrying a handgun. The affidavits say the Elantra returned to a residence on Southwest 12th Street shortly afterward, and investigators say cellphone records placed devices associated with McClorin and Duhart in Belle Glade around the time of the shooting.

CBS12 reported that Duhart first told investigators she was in Port St. Lucie and later said she was at her mother’s home in Belle Glade. Her mother told investigators that Duhart said McClorin had called her for a ride and asked her to pull over near Avenue B Place, where he got out and later returned, according to the arrest report. Investigators also say Duhart removed a doorbell camera from the residence after McClorin was detained; she told them she removed it to charge its battery. The affidavit cites a message from McClorin telling Duhart to say she had been driving her own car that night, CBS12 reported. These are allegations that have not been tested in court.

The alleged motive. Investigators said McGee had been a witness in the investigation into the February 2026 killing of McClorin’s brother, Li’jawan McClorin, in Belle Glade, and tips suggested she may have been targeted because of that connection, according to the affidavit as reported by CBS12. WPBF also reported the tips received by the sheriff’s office gang unit.

What comes next. WPBF reported that prosecutors are scheduled to file charges on Nov. 20 and that Duhart’s $50,000 bond in an April 2025 domestic battery case was revoked. WPBF also reported that McGee was an older sibling of an 8-year-old girl who was shot and killed in Belle Glade in 2022, a case in which Andrew James Thomas was sentenced in August 2023 to 45 years in prison after pleading guilty.

Sources

Brownsville, Texas: Jury Sentences Rogelio Martinez Jr., 21, to Death for Killing San Benito Police Lt. Milton Resendez

A large historic four-story stone courthouse with a lawn, trees, street lamps and parked pickup trucks in front, under a cloudy sky
The historic Cameron County Courthouse in Brownsville, not the scene. Photo: 25or6to4 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Cameron County court, Brownsville; the shooting took place in San Benito, Cameron County, Texas, USA

Legal status: On Monday, Oct. 26, a Cameron County jury sentenced Rogelio Martinez Jr., 21, to death for the Oct. 17, 2023, killing of San Benito police Lt. Milton Resendez. The same jury had found him guilty of capital murder on Oct. 8, after deliberating for three hours and 15 minutes, MyRGV reported. Judge Ricardo Adobbati presided, El Tejano reported. KRGV reported that the case now goes to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for automatic review.

The chase. The case began when a Cameron County park ranger tried to make a traffic stop on South Padre Island, according to MyRGV. Martinez and a second man, Rodrigo Axel Espinosa Valdez, a 26-year-old Mexican national, fled the island in a chase that lasted hours. It went to Brownsville, then to San Benito, where Resendez was shot, and finally back to Brownsville, where the Texas Department of Public Safety disabled their vehicle and took both men into custody. El Tejano reported that the chase also went through Port Isabel.

The officer. Resendez was 54 and was the first San Benito police officer killed on duty, El Tejano reported. His widow told jurors during the punishment phase that he loved his job and had adopted eight dogs, and that she still keeps his clothes in the closet, according to the same outlet. San Benito Police Chief Mario Perea told KRGV after the sentence: “It’s been a long three years and it’s a wound that’s never going to heal, but it brings us a little bit of closure now.”

The punishment phase. The punishment phase began Oct. 19, with jurors choosing between death and life in prison without parole. Prosecutors presented testimony about Martinez’s conduct in jail: a jail sergeant said Martinez kicked him in the leg, and an investigator said he chipped a hole under his bunk, while the defense said he never tried to escape, El Tejano reported. Defense witnesses described neglect and abuse in his childhood; a court-appointed doctor testified that his records showed more than 75 contacts with Child Protective Services and that he attended 17 schools. The doctor said the brain keeps developing into a person’s 20s, noted Martinez was 18 at the time of the killing, and said nothing showed he was legally insane. His father, who is in prison, testified that he had not been there for his son and asked jurors for compassion. Defense lawyer Ed Cyganiewicz told jurors the abuse was not an excuse. “We’re just trying to show you why he is the way he is,” and argued that “locking him up for life is justice,” El Tejano reported. Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz said the defense was presenting the case as “poor, poor Rogelio.”

The sentence. Martinez showed no emotion as the sentence was read or during victim impact statements, MyRGV reported. “You took my husband’s life,” his widow told him. “He deserved to finish his shift and come home to me.” She added, “My life has changed forever because of what you did,” MyRGV reported. Some jurors wiped away tears while she spoke, KRGV reported. After the hearing, Saenz told KRGV: “This individual made the free will, the free choice, to take Milton’s life that day.” Defense attorney Rigoberto Flores told KRGV he respects the jury’s decision but disagrees with it. “We don’t believe that we answer one tragedy with another,” he said.

The co-defendant. Espinosa Valdez previously pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of murder, according to MyRGV and El Tejano.

The law. Under Texas Penal Code Section 19.03, murdering a peace officer acting in the lawful discharge of an official duty, whom the offender knows to be a peace officer, is capital murder, a capital felony. According to MyRGV, court and Texas Department of Criminal Justice records show Martinez is now the youngest inmate on Texas death row.

Sources

Canarsie, Brooklyn, New York: Jason Soto Convicted of the 2015 Murder of Shakim Rivera

Brick apartment blocks of the Cypress Hills Houses along Fountain Avenue in Brooklyn on a sunny afternoon
The Cypress Hills Houses on Fountain Avenue in East New York. Photo: Jim.henderson / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Location: Near Bayview Place in Canarsie, Brooklyn, New York, United States; trial in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York

Legal status: Convicted. On Monday, Oct. 26, a federal jury in Brooklyn found Jason Soto, 37, also known as “Twin,” guilty on all three counts of a superseding indictment: murder in aid of racketeering, causing the death of Shakim Rivera through the use of a firearm, and possession with intent to distribute cocaine in late 2024. He has not yet been sentenced. Prosecutors say he faces a mandatory term of life in prison.

The verdict. The jury returned its verdict after a two-week trial before U.S. District Judge Ramón E. Reyes, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York announced. The case is USA v. Soto, docket 24-CR-511. Inner City Press, which covered the trial, reported that a firearms witness testified on Oct. 19 about 9mm ammunition and that prosecutors entered Meta messages into evidence. No sentencing date was announced. “Today’s verdict sends a message not only to the residents of the Cypress Hills Houses who were terrorized by Soto and his Crips gang, but to all communities, that law enforcement will hold these criminal enterprises accountable for their violent crimes, especially cold-blooded murder as in this case, no matter how long it takes,” U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella, Jr. said.

The killing. Shakim Rivera was a leader of the Cypress Gangsta Crips, a subgroup of the Eight Trey Crips based in the Cypress Hills Houses of East New York, according to prosecutors. Their account, as proved at trial, is that on Feb. 19, 2015, gang member Demetrius Graham, known as “Duke,” was shot and killed while asleep in his girlfriend’s bed in Brooklyn. Prosecutors said Rivera had ordered that killing without the gang’s approval because he believed Graham was disloyal, and that the murder split the gang into rival camps. Prosecutors said Soto blamed Rivera and plotted to kill him in retaliation. When Soto was indicted in 2024, the office said he traveled from Pennsylvania to Brooklyn on the day Graham died. On the evening of Feb. 22, 2015, prosecutors said, Soto lured Rivera out of an apartment building in Cypress Hills and drove him to a residential street in Canarsie, near Bayview Place, where Soto and another gang associate shot him dead. That second person has not been publicly identified.

The gang. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, members of the Cypress Gangsta Crips committed acts of violence to promote the gang, enforce its rules and keep rivals in fear, and made money for it through robbery, fraud, and firearms and narcotics trafficking. The FBI/NYPD Metro Safe Streets Task Force investigated the killing, the FBI said.

The manuscript. Between 2016 and 2017, while he was incarcerated, Soto wrote a manuscript describing his motive for killing Rivera, his membership in the Crips and the need to avenge a “grievous act committed against [a] comrade,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

The investigation. Soto was arrested and charged in December 2024, nearly ten years after the shooting, 1010 WINS reported. At the time, prosecutors described the housing complex as the scene of a gang turf war fought among residential buildings, stores and a playground, with gangs aligned by the section of the complex where their members lived. The case grew out of an investigation the FBI, the NYPD and federal prosecutors opened in 2015 in response to gang violence in and around the Cypress Hills Houses. It has led to charges against more than 20 defendants for drug trafficking, illegal weapons possession, robbery and murder. “As the leader of a violent gang, Jason Soto orchestrated the execution of one of his members in cold blood,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch said after the verdict. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Emily J. Dean, Andy Palacio and Raffaela S. Belizaire prosecuted the case.

Sources

Carson City, Nevada: Da’lecs Smith Guilty of Second-Degree Murder in Shooting of Gilbert Lopez Outside Blue Bull Bar

An empty crosswalk and storefronts looking north along Carson Street in downtown Carson City under gray clouds
Carson Street in downtown Carson City. Photo: Famartin / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Outside the Blue Bull bar, East Telegraph Street, downtown Carson City, Nevada, USA

Legal status: Convicted on Friday, Oct. 23, of second-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon and of carrying a concealed weapon without a permit. Awaiting sentencing; no date has been set.

The verdict. A Carson City jury reached its verdict late on Friday, Oct. 23, finding Da’lecs Smith guilty of second-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon and of carrying a concealed weapon without a permit in the death of Gilbert Lopez, Carson Now reported. The trial began on Oct. 13 before District Court Judge Jason Woodbury and was prosecuted by Chief Deputy District Attorney Tyson League and Deputy District Attorney Leslie Butori, according to Carson Now and the Nevada Appeal. Smith had been charged with open murder, KOLO reported. The Nevada Appeal reported that he could have been convicted of first- or second-degree murder or of voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, and that prosecutors were not seeking the death penalty. District Attorney Garrit Pruyt told the Appeal that the state called 13 witnesses, the defense called five, and Smith claimed self-defense.

What comes next. Smith faces 25 years to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 10 years, the Nevada Appeal reported. Carson Now said a sentencing date is expected within the coming months. “The act of killing another human being is something that can never be taken back. A family will never have their loved one for birthdays, holidays, or even small moments,” Pruyt said in a statement quoted by KOLO and Carson Now.

The shooting. Lopez, 46, was shot on the night of Wednesday, April 30, 2025, outside the Blue Bull bar on Telegraph Street. Deputies were called at about 9:45 p.m. and found him in the street, where paramedics pronounced him dead, Sheriff Ken Furlong said at the time, according to KOLO. Furlong said the two men may have exchanged words in the bar but no physical altercation was reported, and that both went out into the street, where Lopez was shot multiple times. At 10:26 p.m., a man called the 911 center to say he had been involved in the shooting and was taken into custody at the sheriff’s office, Furlong said. According to a sheriff’s office report described by the Nevada Appeal in 2025, security footage showed Smith entering the bar and sitting down, and showed that he had displayed a firearm from inside his wristband and held it low in his right hand. The report said he walked outside and another man followed him, and witnesses said Smith fired multiple times. Officers matched the man who called 911 to a photograph taken before the gunman left the scene, and dispatch confirmed Smith did not have a concealed carry license, the Appeal reported. Pruyt told the Nevada Appeal this week that Lopez was unarmed and was shot five times, and that Smith was upset because Lopez had put him in a headlock a few months earlier. Pruyt said another issue may have contributed but would not discuss it on the record.

Who Gilbert was. After his death, his mother set up a fundraiser for him. “Gilbert was known for his infectious laughter and the way he could make anyone smile. He was a devoted son, a loving brother who always had your back, a loyal cousin and the most amazing uncle, always ready with a playful joke,” she wrote, according to KOLO. By May 6, 2025, the fundraiser had raised more than $12,000, the station reported.

The investigation. The district attorney’s office thanked the sheriff’s office investigation division, saying in its release that from the first response on scene through trial the department had ensured a comprehensive and thorough investigation, Carson Now reported.

Sources

Cleveland, Ohio: Derrek Dove Must Serve at Least 21 Years for Killing Lyft Driver Antoine Latham During a Robbery

The Justice Center complex in downtown Cleveland
The Justice Center complex in Cleveland, home of the Cuyahoga County courts, in June 2024. Photo: Geowizical / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Near Rosehill Avenue, Woodland Hills neighborhood, Cleveland, Ohio, USA (Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas)

Legal status: Pleaded guilty and sentenced. On Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, Judge Steven Gall sentenced Derrek Dove to prison with parole eligibility after 21 years. Dove pleaded guilty on Sept. 23 to murder with a three-year firearm specification and aggravated robbery.

Antoine Latham was working when he died. The 56-year-old was driving for Lyft on the night of Feb. 8, 2026, when he picked up a fare in Cleveland. Minutes later he had been shot in the head and his car had crashed into a guardrail. On Monday, the man who admitted killing him stood in a Cuyahoga County courtroom and said he never meant to hurt anyone. The judge did not accept that.

The ride. Investigators told WKYC that around 10 p.m. on Feb. 8, Latham picked up Dove and at least two other people who have not been identified, for a ride to the area of Rosehill Avenue in Cleveland’s Woodland Hills neighborhood. According to prosecutors, “the suspects intended to rob Antoine Latham and fired, shooting him in the head. Antoine Latham then crashed his vehicle into a guardrail in front of a residence near Rosehill Avenue and Woodhill Road.” Cleveland 19 reported that police said Dove shot Latham while trying to rob him of his cellphone, and that first responders initially thought they were answering a car crash before they found his gunshot wound. Latham was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.

The arrest. Cleveland police said detectives used “all available measures, including canvassing the area,” to identify a suspect quickly, WKYC reported. Dove was arrested while police carried out a search warrant in which multiple firearms were seized. Police announced the arrest on Feb. 11 and named Dove the next day. A grand jury indicted him on one count of aggravated murder, two counts of murder, two counts of aggravated robbery and two counts of felonious assault before his plea in September to murder and aggravated robbery.

“Guns don’t go off by themselves.” Before he was sentenced, Dove apologized. “I’m truly, truly sorry,” he said, according to WKYC. “My intentions were never to hurt nobody.” Gall pushed back. “Guns don’t go off by themselves,” the judge said. “Don’t kid yourself by saying you don’t know why it happened or it wasn’t your intention for it to happen. Let’s at least be honest enough to admit that.” Gall said words could not express how the community feels about a killing like this one, “to be shot in the back of the head in the most cowardly fashion.”

“My father mattered.” Latham’s daughter told the court her father was “a man of God, a father, a grandfather,” an artist and an actor who had performed at Playhouse Square, and a man who had loved landscaping since childhood. She wore the suit she had worn to his funeral, Cleveland 19 reported, “because today feels like another funeral.” “The last eight months of my life have been a nightmare, grief came over me like a tidal wave, my father was gone,” she said. “My father mattered, his life matters, his future mattered,” she told Dove, according to WKYC. Another of Latham’s children asked him: “You sat there and risked everything, for what, a phone? Who robs a Lyft driver?” His son said: “At the end of the day you hurt someone that was helping you.”

The other family. Dove’s mother also spoke. “My heart goes out to the victim’s family because I know they are suffering a tremendous loss,” she said, according to WKYC. Cleveland 19 reported she asked the judge to consider “his age, his character, and his potential to learn and change.” A prosecutor told the court: “Mr. Latham was working that night, this didn’t have to happen.”

Sources

Dorchester, Boston, Massachusetts: Mother Charged With Manslaughter in Fentanyl Death of Her 4-Year-Old Daughter

Black and white 1960s photo of a snow-covered Blue Hill Avenue lined with brick apartment buildings, bare trees and parked cars buried in snow
Blue Hill Avenue in Dorchester in the 1960s, not the scene. Photo: City of Boston Archives / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Location: A home in Dorchester, Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The arraignment was held in Dorchester.

Legal status: Dayanna Familia, 35, of Boston, is charged with manslaughter, drug possession, destruction of evidence and intentionally misleading an investigator in a criminal investigation in connection with the August death of her 4-year-old daughter. Court records also list a charge of recklessly endangering a child, The Boston Globe reported. A not guilty plea was entered on her behalf at her arraignment on Monday, Oct. 26, and a judge set bail at $250,000 cash. Familia is presumed innocent.

The arrest. Members of the Boston Police Department’s Fugitive Unit took Familia into custody at about 10:25 AM on Saturday, Oct. 24, on a warrant issued out of Dorchester District Court, police said. The Globe reported that the arrest was made in Dedham. On Sunday, Oct. 25, WCVB reported, citing the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, that Familia would be arraigned on Monday and that the girl died as a result of ingesting fentanyl. Police and prosecutors identified the girl as Liyanna Bautista Familia, the Globe reported.

The night the girl died. According to Boston police and prosecutors, officers responded to a radio call for an unknown problem at a home in Dorchester at about 8:51 PM on Monday, Aug. 17. The Boston police release said the officers were assigned to District B-3, the Mattapan district. NBC Boston reported that the home was in the 200 block of Fuller Street. “Upon arrival, officers were informed by the caller that her child … was unresponsive, not breathing, and lying on the bedroom floor,” a police report states, according to the Globe. Police and medics performed CPR and other lifesaving measures, and the girl was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. An autopsy found that her death was caused by acute fentanyl intoxication, Boston police said. Police said the child was “under the sole care and custody of her mother” at the time and that Familia possessed the fentanyl in question, the Globe reported.

What prosecutors said in court. At the arraignment, Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Allyson Portney said Familia gave first responders “false and misleading information about what was causing the child’s medical emergency,” and that this impeded efforts to save the girl’s life, according to the Globe. Prosecutors said Familia told responders that the child had been drinking milk when she turned blue and suggested she may have gotten into a roach product. NBC Boston reported that prosecutors said Familia knew the emergency was likely caused by fentanyl she had left out. Portney said body camera footage shows Familia “trying to destroy and conceal evidence, specifically white powder that the Commonwealth alleges is fentanyl.” NBC Boston reported that search warrants executed at the home afterward found fentanyl.

The bail argument. Prosecutors asked for $250,000 bail. Defense attorney Rosalinda Refsland asked for $10,000, telling the court that Familia has no criminal record, has extensive family support, had been cooperating with child services workers and was working full time, the Globe reported. “This case has been pending since Aug. 17. Ms. Familia had an opportunity during that time to flee,” Refsland said, arguing that bail as high as the prosecution sought would be “tantamount to a detention order” because her family could not raise it. Judge Jonathan R. Tynes set bail at $250,000. Many of Familia’s relatives filled the courtroom gallery, the Globe reported.

The girl. In an online fundraiser for funeral costs created in August, the family wrote, “Liyanna was such a beautiful little girl with so much life ahead of her,” according to the Globe, which said the fundraiser was created on Aug. 18.

What comes next. Familia’s next court date is Nov. 20. No trial date has been reported.

Sources

Falls Township, Pennsylvania: Phillip Walters Again Sentenced to Life Without Parole for the Murder of Haley Lorenzen

The pale Italianate Wyoming County Courthouse in Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, with its clock tower, under a gray sky
The Wyoming County Courthouse in Tunkhannock. Photo: Nicholas from Pennsylvania, USA / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Location: Falls Township, Wyoming County, Pennsylvania; sentenced in Wyoming County Court, Tunkhannock

Legal status: Convicted at retrial and sentenced. On Friday, Oct. 23, Senior Judge Thomas A. James sentenced Phillip D. Walters, 39, to life in prison without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder, plus consecutive terms for strangulation and abuse of a corpse.

The sentence. The judge imposed the mandatory life term for first-degree murder, merged the third-degree murder count into it, and added 24 to 120 months for strangulation and one to 24 months for abuse of a corpse, FOX56 reported. The aggregate is life plus 25 to 144 months, with credit for 2,093 days already served. Walters was also ordered to pay $80,000 in fines, court costs, and $8,570.23 in restitution to the Victim Compensation Assistance Program. Because prosecutors did not seek the death penalty, life without parole was mandatory under state law, the Wyoming County Examiner reported.

Who Haley was. Haley Lorenzen grew up in Oregon and was 24 when she died. She moved from Oregon to live with Walters in early November 2018, according to trial testimony reported by the Examiner. At the retrial her parents described her as a sweet young woman who loved children and Christmas. In 2020, her mother told the court she made three trips from Oregon to Pennsylvania trying to find her daughter. “For seven months we wanted to know where she was,” her mother said then, the Times-Tribune reported.

The case. Prosecutors alleged that Walters killed Lorenzen at his home in Falls Township on Dec. 30, 2018, then dumped her body from the Falls Bridge into the Susquehanna River. Her remains were found in the river near Plymouth, Luzerne County, in July 2019, the Examiner reported, 22 miles downstream from the Falls Bridge, according to the Times-Tribune. A prosecution witness who had received immunity testified that she helped him remove the body from the house and put it in the river. In closing, lead defense attorney Bernard Brown suggested that witness might have been the killer. District Attorney Joe Peters told jurors the evidence was enough to convict even apart from her testimony. Walters did not testify.

Two trials. A jury first convicted Walters in October 2020, and Senior Judge Dudley Anderson sentenced him to life without parole that December, the Times-Tribune reported. At that hearing he proclaimed his innocence. He told the court he had been married three times and was never violent with any of his wives, and spoke of his service in the Air Force. “I pray someday that the truth will come out,” he said. The district attorney at the time, Jeff Mitchell, said justice had been served, but “it’s not what Haley deserved.” His lawyers appealed, and the state Supreme Court vacated the conviction and ordered a new trial. On Sept. 29, after a seven-day retrial, a jury of 10 women and two men took about three hours to convict him again on all four counts. “No family should have to go through this once, but to have to go through it twice is terrible,” her mother said outside the courthouse.

The prosecutor. “No punishment can ever bring back Haley Lorenzen,” Peters said in a statement on Friday. “But the finality of today’s sentence will hopefully allow her family to begin the healing process again for wounds inflicted repeatedly, including two trials, over the last 7+ years.” He added that her life “is defined not by what happened to her, but by the life she lived and the hope she brings for victims and families everywhere.” Her mother, father and aunt traveled from Oregon to testify at the retrial, the Examiner reported.

Sources

Foley, Missouri: Son Charged With First-Degree Murder After Missing Father Michael Saettele Is Found Buried on His Property

A two-story red brick courthouse with white columns, a balcony and a domed cupola, with a flagpole on a green lawn under a clear blue sky
The Lincoln County Courthouse in Missouri, built in 1869 and 1870, not the scene. Photo: Kbh3rd / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

Location: Foley, Lincoln County, Missouri, United States

Legal status: Richard Scott Saettele, 40, is charged with first-degree murder, first-degree domestic assault and two counts of armed criminal action in the death of his father, Michael Saettele, 63, the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office announced on Sunday, Oct. 25, according to KMOV First Alert 4, KSDK and Lincoln CountyWatch. He is held in the Lincoln County Jail without bond. He is presumed innocent.

The disappearance. Michael Saettele was last seen on Aug. 15 near Kings Lake Road in Foley, the sheriff’s office said. His cellphone and vehicle were left at his home, and his direction of travel was unknown, KSDK and First Alert 4 reported. Court records show the sheriff’s office began investigating a missing person case on Oct. 18, First Alert 4 reported. According to those records, the circumstances were considered suspicious, and several leads pointed to Richard Saettele as a suspect. Lincoln CountyWatch reported that the sheriff’s office said information about the disappearance had only reached investigators within the previous day when it first asked the public for help.

The phone call. On Saturday, Oct. 24, a sheriff’s detective received a call from a person who said Richard Saettele had called them on Friday evening, Oct. 23, and said he had stabbed his father and buried him beneath construction debris, according to court records reported by First Alert 4, Lincoln CountyWatch and Law&Crime.

The discovery. Detectives went to the property in Foley that Saturday with cadaver-detection dogs, according to the court records. Both dogs independently alerted to an attached lean-to shed, where human remains were found beneath a pile of construction debris and fiberglass insulation, First Alert 4 and Law&Crime reported, citing a probable cause affidavit. “We extend our sincere condolences to Michael’s family and loved ones,” the sheriff’s office said in a social media post, according to First Alert 4.

What police say he told them. According to the affidavit, Richard Saettele was taken to the sheriff’s office and, after being advised of his rights, gave a statement. He told investigators that he and his father argued and that his father tried to throw a flathead screwdriver at him, First Alert 4, Lincoln CountyWatch and Law&Crime reported. He said he took the screwdriver and stabbed his father in the eye, then later went inside, got a kitchen cleaver and stabbed him in the heart, saying he wanted to end his father’s suffering. He said he prayed the Lord’s Prayer with his father and read him what he called his last rites. He then buried him in a shallow grave on the property, according to the affidavit as reported by Law&Crime and Lincoln CountyWatch. He told police he could not remember the exact day, only that it was in September.

Bond. A judge determined that no combination of financial or nonfinancial release conditions would adequately protect the community or ensure his appearance in court, Lincoln CountyWatch reported. According to Lincoln CountyWatch, the request for no bond cited the death, the alleged attempt to conceal the body and Richard Saettele’s documented history of mental illness, and evidence indicated he had bought a plane ticket to Hawaii before later refunding it.

The investigation. The sheriff’s office thanked several agencies for their help, including the Lincoln County Coroner’s Office, the St. Charles County Police Department’s crime scene unit and crime laboratory, the St. Charles County SWAT Team, the St. Louis County Cyber Crimes Task Force and St. Louis Fire Department search and rescue K9 teams, First Alert 4 and Lincoln CountyWatch reported. The investigation remains ongoing, KSDK reported. Anyone with information is asked to call the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office at 636-462-6513.

Sources

Gary, Indiana: 20-Year-Old Charged With Murder in Shooting Death of Hendrick Robinson During Alleged Attempted Robbery

A long Neoclassical stone city hall with tall columns partly covered in ivy, a domed roof and a green lawn in front
Gary City Hall, not the scene. Photo: Chris Light / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: 400 block of Richard Gordon Hatcher Boulevard, Gary, Lake County, Indiana, United States

Legal status: Keiont Lamar Martin, 20, is charged with murder and attempted robbery, among other counts, in the death of Hendrick Robinson, 59. Gary police announced the charges in a release reported by The Times of Northwest Indiana on Saturday, Oct. 24. Martin was held at the Lake County Jail and was scheduled to make his first court appearance on Monday, Oct. 26, CBS Chicago reported. He is presumed innocent.

The shooting. Robinson was shot on the afternoon of Monday, Oct. 19, in the 400 block of Richard Gordon Hatcher Boulevard, according to a probable cause affidavit reported by The Times and Region News Source. He was taken to Methodist Northlake Hospital, where he died of a gunshot wound to the torso, and the Lake County Coroner ruled his death a homicide. Region News Source reported that investigators estimated the shooting happened at about 3:33 PM.

What the cameras showed. According to the affidavit, security footage from homes in the area showed Robinson walking slowly with a cane when a man approached him, The Times reported. The two walked toward an alley and out of the camera’s view before gunfire was heard. Another camera showed a white Nissan pass the alley, make a U-turn and drive back toward Robinson. Before the shots, a man could be heard saying “I’m empty” and talking about a “switch,” which detectives believe referred to a device that makes a handgun fire fully automatically.

The evidence at the scene. Officers found spent casings from three different guns, a .40 caliber, a .45 caliber and a 7.62 rifle, according to the affidavit as reported by The Times. Region News Source reported that crime scene investigators recovered 76 spent casings. A .45 caliber handgun was found next to Robinson, and Region News Source reported that investigators believe at least two other people were armed during the confrontation. Witnesses told police they saw two or three people run from the area and get into the Nissan before it drove away.

The arrest. Police used license plate reader records to identify the car as a white 2023 Nissan Sentra, and state motor vehicle records showed it was registered to Martin, Region News Source reported. Officers stopped the car on Thursday, Oct. 22, and found Martin in the car, with a rifle on the passenger’s side floorboard and about 10 grams of suspected marijuana, according to the affidavit. In interviews, Martin denied any involvement and said he may have been at his girlfriend’s home or his mother’s house at the time, the documents said.

What investigators say others told them. According to the affidavit, a relative told detectives Martin had been “acting nervous and walking around with his gun” and had been hiding his car. A man seen with Robinson on the footage told police that Martin and another man had tried to rob someone in the alley and that an older man shot at them, and he said the other man was the one who shot Robinson, The Times reported. Region News Source reported that, according to the affidavit, the same witness also said Martin fired a gun equipped with a switch. Detectives wrote that on home security footage from that day, Martin can be heard saying “he probable dead, too.”

What comes next. The Lake County Prosecutor’s Office said Martin faces 85 years in prison if convicted, The Times reported. As of Monday, Martin was the only person charged, though the charging documents indicate one or two other men may have been involved, CBS Chicago reported. The Lake County Prosecutor’s Homicide Task Force is continuing to investigate.

Sources

Hope, Arkansas: Prosecutor Formally Charges Emmet Man With Capital Murder and Capital Rape in Death of 4-Year-Old Girl

A tan brick Art Deco courthouse with tall vertical windows, an American flag and an Arkansas flag on a pole, and a lawn and walkway in front
Hempstead County Courthouse in Hope, Arkansas, not the scene. Photo: Michael Barera / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Emmet and Hope, Hempstead County, Arkansas, United States

Legal status: James Richard Ivey, 33, of Emmet, is charged with capital murder and capital rape in the death of a 4-year-old girl, according to a criminal information filed on Monday, Oct. 26, in Hempstead County Circuit Court by Prosecuting Attorney Ben Hale of the Eighth North Judicial District. For each count, the charging document lists the possible sentence as death or life imprisonment without parole. Ivey is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court.

The new filing. Ivey has been held in the Hempstead County jail since Aug. 27 on charges listed by the sheriff’s office. The criminal information filed Monday is the prosecutor’s formal charging document, and it lists only two counts, Texarkana Today reported. It accuses Ivey of causing the death of a child 14 or younger “under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life,” and of raping a child 13 or younger and causing serious physical injury, both on or about Aug. 26. SWARK.Today reported that handwritten notations on the court record show the charges had not yet been formally filed when the case was called on Oct. 5 and again on Oct. 21, and that the matter was recalled for Nov. 4. A separate order signed Oct. 26 keeps both probable cause affidavits sealed “to protect the alleged minor victim,” and the court file does not describe what investigators say happened.

How the case began. At about 7:45 PM on Aug. 26, Hempstead County deputies were called to the emergency room in Hope, where medical staff were treating the girl, according to an Arkansas State Police release cited by Texarkana Today. She had been brought by ambulance from her home in Emmet “following a reported drowning,” the sheriff’s office said at the time. “What initially appeared to be a drowning incident quickly became the subject of a much more serious criminal investigation,” the sheriff’s office said, adding that investigators found evidence the girl “had been severely abused.” She was taken to Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, where she died on Aug. 30. The sheriff’s office and SWARK.Today identified her as Dovie Rockett, 4. In a Sept. 1 release, the sheriff’s office said its deputies would escort her body from a mortuary in North Little Rock to Lewis Funeral Home in Magnolia.

The earlier charges. Ivey was booked into the Hempstead County jail on Aug. 27. He was first charged with capital rape, first-degree domestic battering and other counts, and a circuit judge set his bond at $2 million, according to Texarkana Today. On Sept. 1, after the girl died, the sheriff’s office announced that Ivey had also been charged with capital murder, kidnapping and endangering the welfare of a minor. A public defender was appointed to represent him, according to his first-appearance paperwork. The sheriff’s online roster now lists his bond at $14 million, and SWARK.Today noted that the roster does not explain the increase.

The mother. The girl’s mother, Tiffany Edwards, 28, was arrested on Sept. 1 and charged by the sheriff’s office with capital murder, kidnapping, endangering the welfare of a minor and first-degree domestic battery. “Our investigators have followed the evidence wherever it has led them, regardless of who may be involved,” Sheriff James A. Singleton said then. As of Monday evening, no formal charges against Edwards had been filed in circuit court, Texarkana Today reported. Her bond is listed at $4 million, and both she and Ivey have a Nov. 4 court date. Edwards is also presumed innocent.

An earlier case. Texarkana Today also reported that Ivey has a pending aggravated assault case in neighboring Nevada County, where a deputy wrote that a man pointed a gun at a family with three small children in March. A judge released Ivey on his own recognizance in that case on July 16, about six weeks before the girl was hurt, and prosecutors filed two counts of aggravated assault against him there on Sept. 3, Texarkana Today reported, citing court records. He is presumed innocent in that case as well.

Sources

Independence, Missouri: Hospital Patient Charged With Second-Degree Murder in Shooting Death of Visitor Jessica Cyrus

A red brick courthouse with white columns and a white clock cupola, seen across a parking lot with parked cars under a gray sky
The Jackson County Courthouse in Independence, Missouri, not the scene. Photo: TheCatalyst31 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Centerpoint Medical Center, 19600 block of East 39th Street, Independence, Jackson County, Missouri, United States

Legal status: James F. Lawson, 39, of Kansas City, Missouri, is charged with second-degree murder, armed criminal action and unlawful possession of a firearm in the death of Jessica Cyrus, Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson announced on Friday, Oct. 23, according to the Independence Police Department, KCTV and KSHB. A Jackson County judge set his bond at $250,000 cash only. All charges are accusations, and he is presumed innocent.

What police say happened. At about 1:37 AM on Thursday, Oct. 22, an incident occurred inside a hospital patient room involving Lawson and Cyrus, the Independence Police Department said. Cyrus was visiting Lawson, who had been admitted to the hospital, when she suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the chest, police said. Officers were called to the hospital at about 9:30 AM that day on a report of a suspicious death, KMBC reported, citing court documents. Lawson had left the hospital, according to KMBC, and was found soon afterward at a nearby strip mall, KMBC and KSHB reported. Police said everyone believed to be involved has been accounted for and there are no outstanding suspects.

The surveillance footage. According to court documents reported by KMBC, a camera outside the room showed Lawson enter at about 1:37 AM and shut the door, which did not latch. When the door opened, he could be seen in his wheelchair beside the bed, facing Cyrus, who appeared to be struggling to breathe, the documents said. KSHB and KCTV reported that the footage showed Lawson reaching at his pants and hip area with a dark object in his right hand. When officers arrested him, he had a holster on his hip and ammunition in his wheelchair, KCTV and KSHB reported.

What he told detectives. Lawson told detectives he remembered Cyrus, whom he called his girlfriend, being in the room, but said he did not know what happened because a severe infection had caused delirium, court records show, according to KMBC and KSHB. KMBC reported that he said his memory of the events was “fuzzy” because of his medical condition and medications, and that he told detectives “the cameras say it all.” He said there had been a firearm in a van he shared with Cyrus and acknowledged that he is a convicted felon prohibited from having a gun, KMBC and KSHB reported. According to KMBC, he later told an investigator he “did not want anyone hurt” and suggested police look near a curb behind a building he could not identify.

The overnight shift. A nurse on the overnight shift told police that Cyrus was in Lawson’s room and that he repeatedly left and returned to the unit, KMBC reported, citing court documents. The nurse said she looked into the room twice and saw Cyrus on her side, believing she was asleep, and did not see blood or injuries, according to KMBC.

His record. Lawson has a history of arrests and convictions for burglary, robbery, assault, armed criminal action, escaping custody and other charges, KMBC reported.

The hospital. “We are deeply saddened by a tragic incident that resulted in the death of a hospital visitor,” Centerpoint Medical Center said in a statement reported by KMBC, KCTV and KSHB. “Law enforcement responded promptly and has taken an individual into custody. We are cooperating fully with authorities as they investigate.” The hospital sits near Interstate 70 and Little Blue Parkway, KCTV reported. The Independence Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Unit continues to investigate.

Sources

Kansas City, Missouri: Man Charged With Second-Degree Murder in Shooting Death of Former UMKC Volleyball Player Rhegan Spiegel

A tall pale stone Art Deco courthouse tower against a blue sky, with a street corner, traffic light and parked vehicles below
The Jackson County Courthouse in Kansas City, Missouri, not the scene. Photo: Charvex / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Location: Near East 42nd Street and Forest Avenue, Kansas City, Jackson County, Missouri, United States

Legal status: Khyree L. Simmons, of Kansas City, is charged with second-degree murder, two counts of armed criminal action and unlawful use of a weapon in the death of Rhegan Spiegel, 28, Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson announced on Friday, Oct. 23, according to KMBC, KCTV and KSHB. He is held without bond. Court records did not yet list an attorney for him, The Kansas City Star reported. He is presumed innocent.

The shooting. Police were called to a shooting near East 42nd Street and Forest Avenue at 11:58 PM on Sunday, Oct. 18, and found a woman in the street with a gunshot wound to the chest, The Kansas City Star reported, citing court documents. Officers performed lifesaving measures until medics arrived, KCTV reported, and she was pronounced dead at a hospital. She was identified as Rhegan Spiegel.

The video. According to court documents reported by KMBC, a neighbor’s surveillance camera captured the shooting. The footage shows a gray two-door sedan driving slowly along the street and honking once, the documents said. Spiegel, who had been sitting nearby, stood up and walked toward the car. A woman’s voice could be heard before a single gunshot, and Spiegel fell, KMBC and KCTV reported. The car then drove away. Police reviewed city camera footage and found a vehicle that appeared to match, registered to Simmons, the Star reported.

The vehicle and the arrest. Police had asked the public for help finding a 2008 two-door Nissan Altima, Roo News, UMKC’s student newspaper, reported. On Wednesday, Oct. 21, police released a photo of what they called a vehicle of interest, KCTV reported, and they said they found it the next day. Simmons was brought to police by his mother and turned himself in, according to KMBC, KCTV and the Star. KCTV reported that police said two men were taken into custody on a 24-hour investigative hold pending possible charges.

What prosecutors say he told police. According to court documents, Simmons admitted that he owned and drove the car and shot Spiegel in the chest, KMBC and KCTV reported. He said she opened the passenger door and sat down, which scared him, and that he was not trying to kill her, the documents said. KMBC reported that he did not say she had a weapon or threatened him, and that he said several times he “was not a monster.” He told detectives he did not stay or call 911 because he is a felon and had crack cocaine with him, and that he was in the area to sell drugs to a woman, according to KCTV. Investigators wrote that he later threw the 9mm handgun out of a car window and flushed a casing, KCTV reported.

Who she was. Spiegel played volleyball for UMKC in the 2016, 2017 and 2018 seasons, the Star reported. Roo News reported that she led the team with 400 digs in 2017. “Rhegan was always a go-getter with great positive energy who was respected and loved by her teammates,” head coach Christi Posey said in a statement reported by the Star. She was a longtime volunteer and worker at Turnsol Books and Coffee in the Crossroads district, where she set up the children’s area, a letter-writing station and a borrowing library, co-owner Caroline Crews told KCTV. In a social media post, the store said she “was very passionate about making Turnsol a community space where everyone felt welcome,” the Star reported. “It is just a tragedy to not just lose her, but to lose the person that could have been,” Crews told KCTV. Dozens of people gathered there for a vigil on Thursday night, Oct. 22, KCTV reported. Friends described her as smart, creative, curious and fearless.

Sources

Middletown, New York: Gunman Douglas McFarlane Convicted of First-Degree Murder in the 2019 Murder-for-Hire Killing of Sebastian Avilan-Medina

A downtown building in Middletown, New York
Downtown Middletown, New York. Photo: AlexiusHoratius / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: The victim’s apartment, Middletown, Orange County, New York, USA (Orange County Court, Goshen)

Legal status: Convicted. On Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, an Orange County jury found Douglas McFarlane, 27, guilty of first-degree murder and second-degree murder. He faces up to life without parole at sentencing set for Jan. 25, 2027. Co-defendant Sheldon Paul was convicted of two counts of second-degree murder on Oct. 2 and is to be sentenced Jan. 21, 2027. A third man, Dijion Constantine, has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.

More than seven years after Sebastian Avilan-Medina was shot dead in his own home, a jury in Goshen convicted the man prosecutors said pulled the trigger for cash. The verdict on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, came after three days of deliberations in Orange County Court, News 12 reported. Avilan-Medina was 26, a young Middletown business owner, according to News 12. He had a son who was a year old when he died, his father told the station.

The killing. On the morning of March 11, 2019, McFarlane, then 19, and Dijion Constantine, then 18, forced their way into Avilan-Medina’s apartment, where he was alone, according to evidence presented at both trials, Daily Voice reported, citing Orange County District Attorney David Hoovler. Prosecutors said McFarlane shot him at close range with a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol.

The motive. Prosecutors said Paul ordered the killing because he believed Avilan-Medina had burglarized his home, News 12 reported. Daily Voice, citing the DA’s office, said that burglary took place on March 6, 2019, five days before the killing, and that the evidence showed Paul later realized he had been wrong about the victim’s involvement. Daily Voice reported that Paul offered the pair $10,000 and a pound of marijuana. In closing arguments on Wednesday, Oct. 21, Chief Assistant District Attorney Christopher Borek told jurors McFarlane was paid $10,000 stolen from the victim’s own home, while Constantine received marijuana taken from the property, according to News 12.

The evidence and the defense. Prosecutors relied on surveillance video that Middletown police had released during their years-long search for suspects, on phone records, and on testimony from Constantine, News 12 reported. Defense attorney Rory Brady called the case largely circumstantial, argued that no DNA evidence linked McFarlane to the killing, and attacked Constantine’s credibility. The case went unsolved for more than five years before the arrests in 2024. During Wednesday’s proceedings, News 12 reported, McFarlane tried to hide his face behind a piece of paper and appeared to give the middle finger as the station photographed him with the court’s permission.

The cold case. The first arrest came on April 11, 2024, when Middletown detectives, assisted by the FBI’s Hudson Valley Safe Streets Task Force, the New York State Police and state parole officers, arrested Constantine in the Bronx on a second-degree murder charge, the Middletown Police Department said at the time. The department called it the culmination of a highly intensive five-year investigation and listed other agencies that had helped, including the NYPD, the ATF and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. Paul’s first trial ended in a mistrial in April 2026 when jurors could not reach a unanimous verdict, WPDH reported. At his retrial, jurors heard testimony about an alleged jailhouse admission, a 911 call made after Avilan-Medina was found, and statements Paul made in a 2020 Facebook Live video, the station reported.

The family. The victim’s father told News 12 outside court that sitting through multiple trials had been “a roller coaster of emotions. Hard. Hard for us. Hard to go through all that happened to our son.” He said the family had worked to shield his grandson from the details. “My son will finally get the justice we are fighting for,” he said before the verdict.

The co-defendants. Paul, 42, of Middletown, was convicted on Friday, Oct. 2, after a retrial, and faces up to 25 years to life, according to Daily Voice and News 12. Constantine, now 26, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and is due in court on Nov. 4, Daily Voice reported. McFarlane remains held without bail at the Orange County Jail. Hoovler said prosecutors will seek the maximum permissible sentences for both McFarlane and Paul.

Sources

New Orleans, Louisiana: Jury Convicts Jeremiah Williams of Second-Degree Murder in Killing of Army Reserve Sgt. Frederick Magee Jr.

Two- and three-story historic commercial buildings with dark awnings along the sidewalk of Tchoupitoulas Street on a sunny day
Historic buildings in the 800 block of Tchoupitoulas Street in the New Orleans Warehouse District, not the scene. Photo: Infrogmation of New Orleans / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: 700 block of Tchoupitoulas Street, Warehouse District, New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, USA

Legal status: Jeremiah Williams was found guilty as charged on Friday, Oct. 23, of second-degree murder, obstruction of justice and possession of a firearm or weapon by a convicted felon, the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office said. The jury’s verdict was unanimous. He was remanded into custody after the verdict, and sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 6. A co-defendant, Jerroy Holden, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice on Oct. 16.

The shooting. According to the New Orleans Police Department, as summarized by prosecutors, officers responded to reports of a shooting at about 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 3, 2024, in the 700 block of Tchoupitoulas Street. They found U.S. Army Reserve Sgt. Frederick Magee Jr. lying on the sidewalk outside a hotel with multiple gunshot wounds. Emergency medical personnel responded, but he was pronounced dead at the scene. Hoodline, citing the district attorney’s account and earlier WGNO reporting, gave his age as 24. The hotel is in the Warehouse District, Hoodline reported, and an early WGNO report on the investigation said officers believed Magee was the intended target.

What the video showed. Prosecutors said surveillance footage captured the driver of a black SUV getting out of the vehicle, walking up to Magee and opening fire with a rifle. The shooter kept firing after Magee fell to the ground, then returned to the SUV and drove away. Investigators recovered 12 spent rifle casings from the scene. Hoodline, citing earlier nola.com reporting, said police had described the shooter waiting inside the SUV for more than 20 minutes before Magee arrived, and that the SUV had been reported stolen.

The investigation. NOPD Homicide Detective Matthew Riffle led the case, which relied on surveillance footage and cellular phone data to track the suspect vehicle’s movements to the West Bank, according to the district attorney’s office. Investigators later found a burned SUV believed to have been used in the shooting, and the investigation identified Williams as the shooter. Hoodline, again citing earlier nola.com reporting, said the vehicle was found burned to its frame in the 1600 block of Brooklyn Avenue.

The co-defendant. Holden pleaded guilty as charged to obstruction of justice a week before the verdict, ahead of Williams’ trial. According to the NOPD investigative report cited by prosecutors, Holden helped Williams burn the vehicle used in the killing.

The trial. The four-day jury trial was heard in Section K of Orleans Parish Criminal District Court before Judge Marcus DeLarge. Assistant District Attorney Abigail MacDonald was lead prosecutor, with Assistant District Attorney Adele Krieger as second chair. The district attorney’s office noted that the trial team was made up entirely of women. Victim-witness advocate Melissa Robles, office investigator Elizabeth Garcia and trial assistant Diene “DJ” Jiles supported the prosecution, the office said. The case number is 566-612.

The district attorney’s statement. “Sergeant Frederick Magee Jr. served his country, and he deserved to live his life free from this senseless violence,” Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams said. “His family deserves to know that his life mattered. This verdict reflects the tireless work of an extraordinary team of women who brought their skill, determination, and commitment to justice into that courtroom.”

What the verdict carries. Under Louisiana Revised Statutes 14:30.1, second-degree murder includes a killing in which the offender has a specific intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm. The statute sets the punishment at life imprisonment at hard labor without benefit of parole, probation or suspension of sentence. Sentences on the obstruction and firearm counts will be decided at the Nov. 6 hearing.

Sources

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: 18-Year-Old Arrested on Murder Complaint After Andres Navarrette Guerrero Is Shot Outside Bank During Alleged Gold Chain Robbery

A tall pale Art Deco courthouse with vertical window bands, a carved relief over the entrance and the words Oklahoma County across the top
Oklahoma County Courthouse in Oklahoma City, not the scene. Photo: w_lemay / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Location: First Citizens Bank, 12000 block of North Pennsylvania Avenue near Northwest 122nd Street, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, United States

Legal status: Keyalynn Gray, 18, was arrested and booked into the Oklahoma County Detention Center on complaints of first-degree murder and first-degree robbery in the death of Andres Navarrette Guerrero, 25, Oklahoma City police said. No formal charges from the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office had been reported. Gray is presumed innocent.

The shooting. Officers were sent to the First Citizens Bank branch on North Pennsylvania Avenue near Northwest 122nd Street at about 3:08 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 26, the Oklahoma City Police Department said, according to KOKH. Police first received reports of a robbery with shots fired, and more than a dozen police cars responded, KOCO reported. Officers later learned it was not a bank robbery but a confrontation in the bank’s parking lot. A witness who was sitting in his company truck nearby told News 9, “I thought it was more of a road rage incident at first,” and added: “To do something like that brazenly in public with other people around and thinking you’re going to get away with it.” Guerrero was shot several times outside the bank and then went inside, where officers found him with multiple gunshot wounds and he was pronounced dead, police said. “Apparently, after being shot, the victim stumbled into the bank where he collapsed and then sadly died,” Master Sgt. Gary Knight of the Oklahoma City Police Department told News 9.

What police say led to it. According to police and an affidavit reported by News 9, Guerrero had agreed to meet Gray at the bank to sell him a gold chain worth $2,000. Court documents state that Gray admitted going into the bank first to make Guerrero think he had money, and that he wanted to “intimidate and scare the victim and rob him of his chain,” KOCO reported. According to the documents, Gray pulled a “mini-AK” style rifle from a backpack and pointed it at Guerrero. KOCO reported that Gray told police he got scared and shot Guerrero, while News 9 reported that Gray said he fired when he saw that Guerrero was also armed. Police said Guerrero shot Gray in the hand, News 9 reported.

The search and arrest. Video from a camera on a nearby business showed the shooter driving away in a red car, and a witness flagged down officers with the footage, News 9 reported. Detectives tracked Gray to a home near Southeast 44th Street and Sooner Road, where he was found with a gunshot wound to the hand, police said. He was taken to a hospital for treatment and interviewed by investigators before he was booked into jail, police said; News 9 reported that he had been treated and released from the hospital first. The witness whose business camera recorded the car told News 9 that an officer called to thank him and said the video “was pivotal to finding the assailant.” Investigators said Gray dropped his phone as he ran from the bank, and police found his clothes in a creek and his car abandoned a few blocks from the house where he was arrested, News 9 reported.

What comes next. Police identified Guerrero on Tuesday, Oct. 27, KOCO reported. Police said they had not determined a motive and described the shooting as an isolated incident. Family friends have organized an online fundraiser for Guerrero’s family, News 9 reported.

The complaints. Under Oklahoma law, first-degree murder covers a killing done unlawfully and with malice aforethought, and also, regardless of malice, a death that results from the commission or attempted commission of certain felonies, including robbery with a dangerous weapon. It is a Class Y felony punishable by death, life in prison without parole or life in prison. First-degree robbery is a Class A2 felony carrying at least 10 years in prison.

Sources

Salton City, California: Abraham Feinbloom Sentenced to 13 Years to Life for Torture and Manslaughter in Death of T’Neya Tovar, 17

California State Route 86 running north through flat desert scrub near Salton City under a pale sky, with mountains on the horizon and no people visible
State Route 86 north of Salton City, Imperial County. Photo: Adbar / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Salton City, Imperial County, California, USA; sentencing in Imperial County Superior Court, El Centro

Legal status: Abraham Feinbloom was sentenced on Monday, Oct. 26, to 13 years to life in state prison under a plea agreement covering torture and voluntary manslaughter. Under the deal, the murder charge was to be dismissed at sentencing. He received credit for 294 days served and was ordered to pay a $10,000 restitution fine.

The sentence. The judge followed the plea deal Feinbloom signed on Sept. 28, KESQ and the Desert Review reported. It set seven years to life for torture and a consecutive six years for voluntary manslaughter. KYMA described the plea as no contest. The Desert Review identified the judge as Christopher Plourd and reported that he found Feinbloom had met the deal’s conditions by leading investigators to T’Neya Tovar’s remains. Feinbloom declined to make a statement in court, according to the Desert Review, and KESQ reported that he did not apologize.

The victim. T’Neya Tovar was 17 and lived in Hemet. KESQ reported that she called her mother on Dec. 1, 2025, and said she was on her way to Palm Springs, and that she was reported missing the same day. An FBI agent later testified that a friend dropped her off at Feinbloom’s home on Harlequin Court in Salton City, according to KESQ. Her mother described her in court as a confident, carefree teenager with plans for her future, the Desert Review reported. “I wanted to watch her grow into an adult,” she said. “There was still so much life for her to live.”

The investigation. KESQ reported that deputies found human remains less than a mile from the house on Dec. 21, and that DNA matched them to T’Neya on Feb. 6, the same day FBI agents searched the home. A week later Feinbloom jumped a fence as a SWAT team arrived and was arrested, KESQ reported. He pleaded not guilty to murder and told agents he did not know her. Jury selection had been set for Oct. 6. He took the deal eight days before, and a day later investigators recovered further remains in a wash off Treadwell Boulevard, according to the District Attorney’s Office as reported by KESQ. Her mother said she was told on Monday that most, but not all, of her daughter’s remains had been recovered.

The family in court. KESQ reported that T’Neya’s mother spoke for close to half an hour. She described going to the boarded-up house to look for her daughter and being unable to get inside. “Thirteen years is not enough to me,” she said, asking for the maximum the law allows. “I’m the mother who wouldn’t stop, and I’m still not going away.” Her older sister called Feinbloom a “weak, pathetic, cruel coward,” the Desert Review reported, and told him, “My sister wasn’t yours to hurt.” Her father cited the racist language he said Feinbloom used about his daughter. “It’s not acceptable for racist people to kill our kids,” he said, according to KYMA.

The prosecution’s view. District Attorney George Marquez told reporters that prosecutors never learned exactly how T’Neya was killed, which would have made a first-degree murder case “problematic,” KESQ reported. “The torture charge gives us the seven to life, and the manslaughter gives us the six years,” he said. KYMA quoted him as saying the maximum exposure at trial was probably about 15 years and that Feinbloom waived his right to appeal. The judge said he had never seen a case “so exhaustively investigated and prepared for trial,” according to KESQ, and noted that the plea does not stop prosecutors from pursuing other allegations raised before trial.

The defense’s view. Defense attorney Melanie Roe said she expects the Board of Parole Hearings to recommend her client’s release when he becomes eligible. “The Penal code states that parole is the rule, not the exception,” she told KYMA. KESQ reported that she called it “a no-body case from the beginning” and said there are no past cases against him. A 2018 kidnapping charge was dismissed because the accuser had died, she said.

What comes next. T’Neya’s mother told KESQ she will attend every parole hearing. She also said she still does not believe deputies took her reports seriously in December, when she went to the house with deputies four times and no one went inside.

Sources

Simpson County, Mississippi: Man Charged With Murder, Drive-By Shooting and Gang Activity in Death of Landon Smith, 23

Black and white photo of a domed courthouse with a clock tower and tall columns, framed by large trees and a white picket fence
Simpson County courthouse in Mendenhall, Mississippi, not the scene. Photo: Calvin Beale / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Location: Simpson Highway 149 near the Boswell Regional Center, and Zion Hill Road, Simpson County, Mississippi, United States

Legal status: Corneilus Xavier Juwan Hobbs is charged with murder, drive-by shooting, participating in or conducting gang activity and nine counts of aggravated assault with a weapon in connection with the death of Landon Smith, 23. He made his initial appearance in Simpson County Justice Court on Friday, Oct. 23, and is being held without bond. Hobbs is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

The shootings. The Simpson County Sheriff’s Office said E911 received a report at about 1:20 AM on Sunday, Oct. 18, of gunfire that had damaged an occupied home and vehicles on Zion Hill Road. No one was reported hurt in that incident. A second shooting happened shortly afterward on Simpson Highway 149 near the Boswell Regional Center, WLBT reported, citing sheriff’s office officials. Two people with gunshot wounds were taken to a hospital in private vehicles, and Smith was found dead from a gunshot wound in the backseat of a vehicle, according to WLBT. The People’s Paper MS reported that investigators also identified a red or maroon Chevrolet Malibu, found along the roadside near Boswell, that had been struck by gunfire several times. Authorities have not released the names or conditions of the two people who were wounded.

A possible link. In the first days after the shootings, the sheriff’s office said the two incidents were under active investigation and had not confirmed whether they were connected. Asked whether they were related, Lt. Chris Wallace of the sheriff’s office told The People’s Paper MS: “Likely. However, there is an investigative process that must be completed in order to prove a connection, if any.” Wallace said the sheriff’s office could not release the full address of the Zion Hill Road home that was struck. As of the morning of Monday, Oct. 19, no one was in custody, the outlet reported.

The arrest. Sheriff Paul Mullins announced the arrest on Friday, Oct. 23, MageeNews.com reported. According to that announcement, deputies took Hobbs into custody on Tuesday, Oct. 20, immediately after he was released from Forrest General Hospital, where he had been treated for a gunshot wound to the arm. Authorities have not said publicly how Hobbs was wounded or how investigators connected him to the shootings. The People’s Paper MS described the arrest as following a sweeping investigation into a string of violent early morning incidents on Oct. 18.

The charges and the court appearance. On the morning of Friday, Oct. 23, Hobbs appeared before Simpson County Justice Court for his initial appearance, where he was formally charged with 12 counts in all: murder, drive-by shooting, participating or conducting gang activity and nine counts of aggravated assault with a weapon. Judge Charles Savell denied bond, and Hobbs is being held at the Simpson County Adult Detention Center, The People’s Paper MS reported. Authorities have not said which people the nine aggravated assault counts relate to, and no defense attorney has been named publicly. No plea had been reported.

What the sheriff said. Mullins said the investigation remains active and open. “We are continuing to work alongside our local, state, and federal law enforcement partners to bring all responsible individuals to justice and to better ensure the safety of our communities,” he said, according to The People’s Paper MS. Authorities have not said whether investigators are seeking anyone else.

The victim. Investigators identified the man who died as Landon Smith, 23. Few other details about his life have been made public.

How to help. The sheriff’s office has asked for public patience while investigators review evidence. Anyone with information can contact the Simpson County Sheriff’s Office at 601-847-2921, the Magee Police Department at 601-849-2366, the Mendenhall Police Department at 601-847-2641 or Central Mississippi Crime Stoppers at 601-355-8477, according to The People’s Paper MS.

Sources

Smyrna, Georgia: Judge Denies Bond to Kingston Bradley, 18, Charged in the Killing and Dismemberment of Shanteria Mosley

A red brick courthouse with a clock tower beside an older office building, across an empty street under a clear blue sky
The Cobb County Courthouse in Marietta, Georgia, photographed in 2017, not the scene. Photo: Thomson200 / Wikimedia Commons, CC0

Location: Park Valley Apartments, Smyrna, Cobb County, Georgia, United States

Legal status: Kingston Bradley, 18, is charged with murder and concealing the death of another in the death of Shanteria Mosley, 26. On Friday, Oct. 23, a Cobb County judge found probable cause, denied him bond and moved the case forward, according to WSB-TV, FOX 5 Atlanta and Atlanta News First. He remains in the Cobb County jail. No plea was reported, and he is presumed innocent.

The hearing. A detective and Mosley’s mother testified at the hearing, WSB-TV reported. Chief Magistrate Judge Brendan Murphy denied bond, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. “After carefully evaluating the factors based on everything the court has heard and seen today, Mr. Bradley is not a candidate for bond at this time,” the judge said, according to FOX 5 Atlanta. Mosley’s mother read a prepared statement asking the judge to deny bond and became so emotional that she had to leave the courtroom, WSB-TV reported.

The arguments. Defense attorney Paul Arena-Camarillo asked for a reasonable bond based on his client’s lack of criminal history. “We would ask for an ankle monitor and house arrest,” he said, according to FOX 5 Atlanta. Cobb County Assistant District Attorney Lindsay Raynor opposed release. “This was stranger on stranger, so there is absolutely no conditions that you could put into place that would keep our community safe,” Raynor said, FOX 5 reported.

The victim. Mosley was a mother, WSB-TV reported. Her family told the station she was working as a DoorDash driver before she disappeared. Relatives tracked her cellphone to the Park Valley apartment complex in Smyrna and searched the area themselves, knocking on doors and talking to residents, according to WSB-TV.

The discovery. On Sept. 23, Smyrna police were called to Park Valley Apartments after a person reported seeing Bradley carrying a plastic tub through an open area, Atlanta News First reported. When he saw that person, he allegedly dropped the container and ran into a nearby apartment. Investigators said they found a dismembered torso inside the tub, according to Atlanta News First. Police later found more remains, wrapped in trash bags, in the trunk of the car Mosley had been driving, WSB-TV reported. An autopsy showed she had also been shot in the head, according to Atlanta News First. Police first charged Bradley with concealing the death of another and later added the murder charge, WSB-TV reported.

What the detective testified. Smyrna police Detective Nathaniel Wachowiak testified that investigators found no evidence the two knew each other before the day she was killed, and that Bradley had found her contact information online, according to WSB-TV and FOX 5 Atlanta. Inside the apartment, police found a power saw, a bloody handsaw and blood throughout much of the home, along with a strong smell of bleach and cleaning supplies, WSB-TV reported. FOX 5 reported that officers also found a gun. The detective testified that trash bags and bleach were ordered through Bradley’s DoorDash account that day, WSB-TV reported. He also testified that a photo of the victim’s body was found on Bradley’s phone, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and FOX 5.

The family testimony. According to the detective, Bradley’s father told police his son had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and had not been taking his medication, WSB-TV and FOX 5 reported. Police later found bloody bedding in the father’s truck, FOX 5 reported. The father is not facing charges, and it is unclear whether he will be, according to WSB-TV.

Sources

Southfield, Michigan: Man Charged With Premeditated Murder in Shooting Death of His Brother Trey Cameron Roberts

A modern brick and stone library building with a curved glass tower, evergreen trees and a lawn in the foreground at dusk
The Southfield Public Library in Southfield, Michigan, not the scene. Photo: 42-BRT / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: 17000 block of Dorset Avenue, Southfield, Oakland County, Michigan, United States

Legal status: Breylon Roberts, 21, of Southfield, is charged with first-degree premeditated murder and felony firearm in the death of his brother, Trey Cameron Roberts, 23, the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office said on Friday, Oct. 23. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment that day and is held without bond, CBS Detroit reported. He is due back in court on Nov. 5 at 9 AM before Judge Arvant, according to CBS Detroit. He is presumed innocent.

The shooting. According to the prosecutor’s office, Breylon Roberts is accused of shooting his brother multiple times inside the home they shared on Dorset Avenue on Monday, Oct. 19. Nearby security footage reportedly captured the sound of 17 gunshots shortly after 12:46 PM, and surveillance footage allegedly showed him leaving the home shortly afterward, prosecutors said, as reported by Mid-Michigan NOW and WXYZ. WWJ placed the home in the 17000 block of Dorset Avenue, near the Lodge Freeway.

The 911 call. The brothers’ sister, a minor, found Trey Roberts that afternoon and called 911 after Breylon Roberts returned to the home, prosecutors said. Police said they responded at about 3 PM, WXYZ reported. Officers found Trey Roberts dead in the kitchen with multiple gunshot wounds, according to Southfield Police Chief Elvin Barren, as reported by CBS Detroit and WWJ. Breylon Roberts was taken into custody, WXYZ reported.

The evidence. Investigators recovered 17 spent 9mm shell casings and later found a privately made firearm in a vehicle belonging to Breylon Roberts, Barren said at a Friday press conference, according to CBS Detroit. WWJ reported that the chief said officers with a warrant found the homemade gun, with an empty magazine, under the driver’s seat of a black Jeep Grand Cherokee registered to him and parked in the driveway. Police said ballistic testing matched the firearm to evidence from the scene, CBS Detroit reported. According to WWJ, Barren said Roberts later drove to a family member’s home, where he was said to have behaved strangely and taken a shower. “Approximately one minute later, the suspect, Breylon Roberts, was observed leaving the rear of the residence with a dog and walking east along the sidewalk,” Barren said, according to WWJ, adding that witnesses found it unusual for him to walk the dog.

The alleged motive. Relatives and friends described years of conflict between the brothers, Barren said, and jealousy over the victim’s success emerged as a recurring theme, CBS Detroit reported. “One thing that stands out, talking about the jealousy which our suspect had for his brother, put me in mind of Cain and Abel, where he killed his brother out of jealousy,” Barren said, according to CBS Detroit. He urged families facing serious conflict to seek counseling and other help before disputes escalate. Barren said he had spoken with the siblings’ father and that the family wants to make sure the girl who found her brother gets the resources she needs, CBS Detroit reported.

What officials said. “This is a heartbreaking case involving the loss of one brother at the hands of another,” Barren said in a statement reported by WXYZ. Prosecutor Karen McDonald said: “Trey Cameron Roberts’ death is a tragedy, and our thoughts are with his loved ones. Trey was killed in his home, the place he should’ve felt safest, allegedly by someone he should’ve felt safest with.”

The penalty. First-degree premeditated murder is punishable by life in prison without the possibility of parole in Michigan, the prosecutor’s office said, according to Mid-Michigan NOW. Felony firearm carries a mandatory two-year prison term for a first conviction, served consecutively to the sentence for the underlying felony.

Sources

Two Rivers, Wisconsin: Oconomowoc Man and 15-Year-Old Charged With First-Degree Intentional Homicide in Death of Payton Vertz, 16

A pale stone Neoclassical courthouse with tall columns and a small green cupola, with a sign reading Manitowoc County Courthouse in front
Manitowoc County Courthouse in Manitowoc, not the scene. Photo: Asher Heimermann / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

Location: Zander Park, the Ice Age Trail and Seagull Marina, Two Rivers, Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, United States

Legal status: Dominic Pilgreen, 26, of Oconomowoc, is charged as party to a crime with first-degree intentional homicide, physical abuse of a child, hiding a corpse, theft from a person or corpse and false imprisonment in the death of Payton Vertz, 16, of Two Rivers. The Manitowoc County District Attorney’s Office filed amended charges against Pilgreen and new charges against a 15-year-old Two Rivers boy, who is charged as an adult with first-degree intentional homicide, false imprisonment, hiding a corpse, substantial battery and theft from a person or corpse, the Two Rivers Police Department announced on Friday, Oct. 23, WBAY reported. Both are due in court on Nov. 2 and are presumed innocent.

Who Payton was. Payton was 16 and lived in Two Rivers. “Our deepest condolences remain with Payton’s family, friends, and all who loved Payton,” Police Chief Ben Meinnert said in a statement, asking the public to keep respecting the family’s privacy, WBAY reported. A GoFundMe has been set up to help the family with funeral costs, Seehafer News reported, and a community benefit is planned for Saturday, Nov. 14, from 11 AM to 4 PM at the Two Rivers Community House, 1710 W. Park St.

The disappearance. According to the criminal complaint, as reported by NBC 26, Payton was last seen on Oct. 5 and was listed as a runaway on Oct. 6. The complaint says he had run away several times before but usually came back within a few days.

How the case broke. On Oct. 16, students at Two Rivers High School passed information to a school resource officer about statements the 15-year-old had made, the complaint says, according to NBC 26. That same day, police found a shoe and a bicycle belonging to Payton in Zander Park, along with partially burned clothing in a burn pit. Later that day his body was found washed up on the south side of the West Twin River near Seagull Marina, and the school resource officer tentatively identified it, WBAY reported. The 15-year-old was arrested on Oct. 23. Pilgreen was already in jail in Waukesha County on an unrelated burglary case, the station reported.

What the complaint alleges. According to the complaint released on Monday, Oct. 26, the two defendants drank with Payton at Zander Park late on the night of Oct. 5, and he was led down the Ice Age Trail, where he was beaten, tied to a tree with his shoelaces and strangled with his own belt, NBC 26 reported. The two defendants gave detectives differing accounts of who did what, each describing the other as taking part, and the 15-year-old later admitted to being on the trail and joining in the beating, the station reported. Seehafer News reported that the complaint shows the attack was planned ahead of time and that Payton kept fighting back and escaping before he was killed.

After the killing. According to the complaint, Pilgreen took $320 from Payton, left the park with the body in a wagon and put it in the river, NBC 26 reported, and in a later interview he told investigators where the wagon and other evidence had been left. WBAY reported that, according to the complaint, Pilgreen came back to the park hours later and said he was keeping all the money because he had done all of the work.

In court. At a bail hearing on Monday, held by Zoom, Jewel Scharenbroch, presiding, set a $500,000 cash bail for the 15-year-old and ordered him to have no contact with Payton’s family, with Pilgreen or with witnesses, Seehafer News reported. The district attorney called the case an “intentional, planned-out homicide” of a child from the community, and Scharenbroch said Payton had been tortured and “killed in a way that was brutal and depraved,” the outlet reported. Under Wisconsin law, adult criminal courts have original jurisdiction over a juvenile accused of first-degree intentional homicide committed on or after the juvenile’s 10th birthday, and a criminal court may transfer such a case to juvenile court under section 970.032. On Monday a Manitowoc County judge ordered that Pilgreen be brought from Waukesha County for his initial appearance, WBAY reported.

Sources

Washington, D.C.: Tyjuan Bazemore Gets 20 Years for Shooting Girlfriend Nyesha Walden-Hatcher While Under a Stay-Away Order

A row of brick rowhouses with porches behind bare trees on a residential street in Columbia Heights, with parked cars at the curb
Rowhouses in Columbia Heights, Northwest Washington. Photo: Greg Gebhardt / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: An apartment in the 3100 block of 16th Street NW, Columbia Heights, Washington, D.C., USA (D.C. Superior Court)

Legal status: Tyjuan Bazemore, 35, pleaded guilty on July 10 to second-degree murder while armed and was sentenced on Friday, Oct. 23, to 20 years in prison and five years of supervised release.

The sentence. D.C. Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman sentenced Bazemore to 20 years in prison for the shooting death of his girlfriend, Nyesha Walden-Hatcher, 27, on Feb. 2, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia announced on Oct. 23. DC Witness, which covered the hearing, reported that the plea agreement set a range of 16 to 20 years subject to the judge’s approval, that the prosecution asked for the top of that range, and that Bazemore received it. He must also register as a gun offender, DC Witness reported.

The killing. According to the government’s evidence, Bazemore and Walden-Hatcher had gone to a liquor store and returned to an apartment on 16th Street NW, where he shot her in the head, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Prosecutors said he then ran up and down the stairs several times, put on shoes and a hoodie, tried to knock down a camera at the foot of the first-floor staircase and left the building. The Metropolitan Police Department said Third District officers responded to a 911 hang-up call in the early hours of Feb. 2, found her with a gunshot wound inside the residence, and that she was pronounced dead at the scene.

Flight and arrest. The Connecticut Violent Crimes Fugitive Task Force arrested Bazemore on Feb. 10 in Middletown, Connecticut, on a D.C. Superior Court warrant, and he was extradited and formally charged on March 10, police said.

Court orders he ignored. At the time of the killing, Bazemore had two open domestic violence assault cases involving Walden-Hatcher, and his release conditions ordered him to stay away from her and not to possess firearms, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. DC Witness reported that both cases were dismissed after his murder indictment. Judge Edelman called the killing a “brutal act of domestic violence” that had not come “out of the blue,” and said he could not give Bazemore credit for the dismissed cases because he had killed the key witness, DC Witness reported.

The family’s letters. Prosecutors read letters from Walden-Hatcher’s family and friends describing the relationship as “abusive and traumatic,” according to DC Witness. A letter signed by a “forever-brokenhearted godmother” said Walden-Hatcher had “plans to escape the demon whom she thought loved her.” Her stepmother wrote that her father should be “watching his daughter live her life…not planning her funeral.” Prosecutors told the court the killing was not “a grave mistake that fell out of the sky” but the culmination of “textbook domestic violence,” DC Witness reported.

The defense. Defense attorney Kevin Mosley offered condolences to the family, said the “pain that [Bazemore] knows he’s caused is real” and asked for the low end of the range, DC Witness reported. A social worker told the court Bazemore was remorseful and had been deeply affected by his brother’s killing.

Who she was. Walden-Hatcher attended Ballou High School, where she discovered a talent for art, worked at a seafood shop and later in customer service at Dollar Tree, and loved swimming and being around water, according to her obituary. It describes her above all as a devoted mother to her daughter.

Sources

Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec: Cassandre Hamel Hardy, 19, and Noémie Dionne, 24, Shot Dead in a Parked Car; Police Sources Point to a Drug War

The red brick courthouse in Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec, under a clear sky
The courthouse in Rivière-du-Loup. Photo: Selbymay / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Parking lot behind the Normandin restaurant, corner of boulevard Cartier and rue Plourde, Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec, Canada

Legal status: No arrests. As of Tuesday, Oct. 27, no one had been arrested or charged, Le Soleil reported. The Sûreté du Québec’s crimes against the person investigation service is in charge of the case.

The shooting. Emergency services were called at about 10:45 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 22, about gunshots in Rivière-du-Loup, Radio-Canada reported. Officers found two women inside a vehicle in a public parking lot at the corner of rue Plourde and boulevard Cartier, according to the Sûreté du Québec (SQ). Journal Le Soir placed the car behind the Normandin restaurant. One woman was pronounced dead at the scene. The other was taken to the Centre hospitalier régional du Grand-Portage, where she died. “Les décès semblent bel et bien avoir été causés par arme à feu,” SQ Sgt. Bilodeau told Radio-Canada. A neighbor told Le Soleil he heard three shots and saw at least two vehicles speed out of the lot.

The victims. The women were Cassandre Hamel Hardy, 19, and Noémie Dionne, 24, two friends from Saint-Pascal, in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region, according to Journal Le Soir. Neither had a criminal record. In a Facebook post quoted by Le Soleil, Hamel Hardy’s sister remembered her as “un rayon de soleil” and wrote of “sa générosité et son empathie pour les autres.” Relatives of Dionne started a GoFundMe for her family. “Noémie était une jeune femme douce, remplie de bonté, qui avait à cœur d’aider les autres,” the organizers wrote, as quoted by Le Soleil.

What investigators are said to believe. Police sources told Radio-Canada the killings were tied to organized crime and a drug matter, and that both women were specifically targeted. Quebecor’s investigative bureau went further: according to its reporters, as relayed by Journal Le Soir, investigators are examining the theory that the killings were ordered from inside a detention facility by a person linked to the North Savage Gang, a group once led by All Boivin, and that the women were targeted over links to a drug selling network associated with the Hells Angels. On LCN, Quebecor journalist Félix Séguin said the women were lured into a planned meeting. “Les jeunes filles ont été attirées dans un guet-apens, un rendez-vous qui a été planifié pour commettre le crime,” he said, as quoted by Journal Le Soir. According to Le Soleil, Hamel Hardy had been in a relationship with a man it described as heavily involved in crime and known in the regional drug trade. The SQ has not publicly confirmed any of these accounts.

Fires in the region. The SQ is also looking at a possible link to a suspicious fire hours after the shooting at a two unit house on rue Laval that was home to a man who knew both victims, Journal Le Soir reported, though police have not confirmed a connection. Le Soleil listed further suspicious fires since then on rue Morin in Rivière-du-Loup, at a former convent in Trois-Pistoles and at an apartment building in Rimouski. The SQ says it cannot link those events.

A shaken town. “On a rarement vu ça à Rivière-du-Loup, un double meurtre comme ça,” local member of the National Assembly Ariane Boyer told reporters, as quoted by Radio-Canada. Mayor Mario Bastille said the situation was “déstabilisant” and “préoccupant” but that the city remained safe, and said he had asked the SQ for more officers, Le Soleil reported. Anyone with information is asked to call the SQ at 1 800 659-4264.

Sources

Surrey, British Columbia: Jury Convicts Adam Mann of Second-Degree Murder in Port Kells Home-Invasion Stabbing of Tori Dunn, Killed While Free on Bail

Provincial Court building in Surrey, British Columbia
A Provincial Court of British Columbia building in Surrey, B.C. Photo: Leoboudv / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Port Kells neighborhood, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada (trial at B.C. Supreme Court, New Westminster)

Legal status: Convicted. A B.C. Supreme Court jury in New Westminster found Adam Troy Mann, 42, guilty of second-degree murder on the night of Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026. Second-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence; the judge must set parole ineligibility between 10 and 25 years. Mann returns to court Oct. 29 to set a sentencing date.

Adam Troy Mann, the Ontario man who was out on bail when Tori Dunn was stabbed to death in her Surrey home, has been convicted of second-degree murder. A B.C. Supreme Court jury in New Westminster returned the verdict on the night of Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, after closing arguments and Justice David Layton’s instructions earlier that day, the Peace Arch News reported. The BC Prosecution Service confirmed the conviction, according to The Canadian Press as published by CityNews. Mann, 42, is due back in court on Thursday, Oct. 29, to set a date for sentencing.

The killing. Dunn, 30, was attacked in the Port Kells home she shared with her boyfriend on June 16, 2024, which was Father’s Day. Her father told CBC News she was stabbed as she lay on a couch, after she and her partner had come home from a birthday dinner. She died in hospital. Global News, reporting from the trial, said she was stabbed four times, including an 18-centimetre-deep wound to her abdomen that killed her, and had two defensive wounds on her hands. Peace Arch News also reported four stab wounds.

The evidence. The Crown’s case rested on a knife and a camera. A bloody knife found on a neighbor’s property carried Dunn’s DNA on the blade and Mann’s DNA on the handle, the Crown told jurors, according to Global News. Surveillance video showed Mann “right by” Dunn’s home at 9:37 p.m. that night. Court also heard that Dunn’s cellphone, missing from her home, was later found in a green space near where Mann was arrested. The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team said in June 2024 that Surrey police found Mann while they were on their way to Dunn’s home, CityNews reported.

His account. Mann testified in his own defense on Monday, Oct. 19. “It wasn’t me,” he told the jury, Global News reported. He said he was homeless, using drugs and alcohol every day, and had got into a fight with a stranger on a bus on his way to meet a friend at Scott Road Station. After smoking crack cocaine, he said, he wandered an unfamiliar neighborhood looking for a place to hide, spotted a knife and a phone at the side of the road and picked them up. “The knife looked like it had blood on it, so I tossed it,” he said. He told the court he also threw away the phone and the gray hoodie and toque he had been wearing before he was arrested. Prosecutor Tim Livingston called that testimony “vague, improbable and… inconsistent” and told jurors that “key aspects defied logic and common sense.” The defense argued there were significant gaps in the Crown’s case.

Out on bail. The case drew national attention because of who Mann was when he walked into Port Kells. He had been released on bail while facing an unrelated aggravated assault charge, CityNews reported, and CBC News said that charge involved the alleged stabbing of another woman in Surrey three weeks before Dunn was killed. That allegation has not been proven in court. CBC, citing court records, said he was under two probation orders and had recently been released after being found guilty of breaching one by possessing knives. CityNews, citing B.C. court records, reported that he had also been found guilty of possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose, obstructing a peace officer and breaching a probation order.

His record runs back decades across three provinces. In 2009 he was sentenced to 12 years for robbery and weapons offenses in an Ontario home invasion. The Ontario Court of Appeal noted in 2010 that he had 22 previous convictions by age 25, and a pre-sentence report called him “an unmanageable risk while in the community,” CityNews reported. In 2014 he was convicted of assault for spitting on two employees of the Atlantic Institution in Renous, New Brunswick.

The family. Dunn’s family launched a petition calling for a legal review of Mann’s release, and Premier David Eby has said he asked his team to reach out to them. Her father told the Peace Arch News he was “pleasantly overwhelmed with joy” at the verdict. “It doesn’t bring her back,” he said, “but at least the justice system gets to right a wrong.”

Sources

Toronto, Ontario: Khoa Tran Gets Life, No Parole for 16 Years, for Killing Filmmaker Neighbor Reeyaz Habib Over Barbecue Smoke

The skyline of Liberty Village in Toronto
Liberty Village, Toronto, in June 2025. Photo: Dillan Payne / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Condo townhouse complex, Liberty Village, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Ontario Superior Court of Justice)

Legal status: Sentenced. On Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, Justice Kenneth Campbell sentenced Khoa Tran, 36, to life in prison with no chance of parole for 16 years for the second-degree murder of Reeyaz Habib. Tran’s wife, Quynh (Isabelle) Nguyen, 30, was sentenced to six years for being an accessory after the fact and offering an indignity to a human body. A jury convicted both in June 2026.

It began with smoke drifting up from a backyard barbecue. It ended, a Toronto judge found, with a filmmaker beaten or strangled in his own home in the middle of the night and his body wrapped in blankets, taped up with “handles” and dropped into a trash compactor. On Monday, Justice Kenneth Campbell called it “a senseless and selfish act” and sent Khoa Tran to prison for life.

The neighbors. In June 2023, Tran, a software developer, and his wife Nguyen owned a main-floor unit in a Liberty Village condo townhouse complex, CBC News and Global News reported. Habib, a filmmaker who lived alone, lived directly above them. Smoke from Tran’s barbecue rose into Habib’s windows, and the two men argued about it repeatedly. The Crown argued the dispute escalated when Habib threatened to go to the condo board, Global News reported, saying the couple were breaking the rules by letting a friend live with them. Tran testified that he was so angry at Habib that he threw the filmmaker’s bicycle into a dumpster as revenge, CBC reported. He denied killing him.

The night of June 6, 2023. The Crown said Tran went upstairs into Habib’s unit in the early hours while Habib slept and killed him, Global News reported. Neighbors heard screams. A friend staying with the couple heard loud footsteps and someone yelling for help around 3 a.m., the judge noted, but Nguyen told her to ignore it and go back to sleep, saying Habib was probably filming upstairs. Campbell found that Nguyen knew of her husband’s plan that night, which pointed to elements of planning, according to Global News.

The body in the compactor. Habib’s body was found on June 8, 2023, in a trash compactor in the complex’s underground garbage area, wrapped in blankets and duct tape, CBC reported. Handwritten notes describing the bundle as trash were attached, and one carried Tran’s fingerprint, Campbell said. The taped handles held DNA from Habib, Tran and Nguyen. Police who entered Habib’s unit found blankets nailed over the window and the apartment carefully cleaned, Global News reported. The body was too decomposed for a cause of death to be fixed, but a forensic pathologist testified to 35 external injuries, 24 of them inflicted before death, with some internal injuries consistent with a beating or strangling. Campbell said that if the compactor operator had not found the body “in such a timely way,” it would likely have gone to a landfill, “likely never to be found again.”

The wife’s sentence. Campbell rejected defense lawyer Tyler Smith’s bid for a conditional sentence for Nguyen, Global News reported. Smith had argued that because she is not a Canadian citizen, any custodial term over six months would mean near-immediate deportation to Vietnam. The judge called her actions “truly despicable” and said she tried to get the friend to back a false alibi. With credit for pre-sentence custody, she has five years and four and a half months left to serve.

The victim. Campbell said Habib was clearly “a good man” who is missed by everyone who knew him. “Mr. Habib was an intelligent, thoughtful and creative man who worked hard in school to get an excellent education, and in the workplace, establishing tremendous careers for himself, first as a successful investment banker, and ultimately in the film industry,” he said. The two accused, he said, “tried to discard him like a piece of garbage in a dumpster.”

Sources

Weyburn, Saskatchewan: Chris Fahlman Committed to Stand Trial for Second-Degree Murder in the Highway Shooting of Tanya Myers

The white historic water tower on Signal Hill in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, beside radio masts under a blue sky
The historic water tower on Signal Hill in Weyburn. Photo: Wtshymanski / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Highway 39, about three kilometres northwest of Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada; preliminary inquiry in Weyburn Provincial Court

Legal status: Committed to stand trial. At the end of a preliminary inquiry on Friday, Oct. 23, Judge Mitchell Miller ruled there was enough evidence for Chris Fahlman, 43, of Regina, to be tried on charges of second-degree murder and intentionally discharging a firearm while reckless as to the life or safety of another person. He has not been convicted, is presumed innocent, and the preliminary inquiry was not a finding of guilt or innocence.

The ruling. The preliminary inquiry ran in Weyburn Provincial Court from Oct. 19 to Oct. 23, SaskToday reported. It had been scheduled to continue until Oct. 30 but finished after the first week. The case now moves to the Court of King’s Bench, where Crown prosecutor David Bélanger said Fahlman is expected to be tried by a jury in Weyburn, CBC News reported. No trial date has been set, and the matter returns to court on Nov. 17. The evidence heard at the inquiry is covered by a publication ban under Section 539 of the Criminal Code, which is meant to protect the fairness of the trial, 980 CJME reported.

Who Tanya was. Tanya Myers, 44, lived in Weyburn. In a statement released through the RCMP in 2025, her family described her as “an amazing energy healer and animal lover, with a special fondness for cats” who looked after nine of them. She rarely left home because of their care routine, the family said, so the day out of town was a rare one, tied to her interest in energy healing and shopping for her cats. “She did not have anything to do with the way she left us,” the family wrote. “Tanya deserves justice and her family deserves answers.”

The shooting. On Sept. 12, 2025, shortly after 8 PM, Myers was a passenger in a black Ford Explorer traveling toward Weyburn, about 100 kilometres southeast of Regina, on Highway 39 near the grain terminals northwest of the city when a bullet struck the vehicle and hit her, the RCMP said. She died in the back of an ambulance, CBC News reported. The next day another driver told police they had heard two “pops” while traveling close behind the Explorer, and RCMP forensic examiners found that the second SUV’s tire had been damaged by a gunshot. The RCMP said Fahlman and Myers were not known to each other. The shooting put people in and around Weyburn on edge, and some residents told CBC they avoided that stretch of highway for fear the shooter would strike again.

The arrest. After a seven-week investigation, RCMP Major Crimes arrested Fahlman in Regina on Nov. 1, 2025, and first charged him with manslaughter with a firearm, careless use of a firearm, carrying a weapon for the purpose of committing an offense, and occupying a motor vehicle knowing there was a firearm inside, SaskToday reported. Those counts were stayed when the second-degree murder charge was laid on Nov. 12, CBC reported. RCMP Insp. Ashley St. Germaine said at the time police were not aware of “any direct connection between the accused and the occupants and the two vehicles that were struck.” His defense lawyer, Robert MacKay, urged the public to reserve judgment, saying everyone has a right to be presumed innocent. Court of King’s Bench Justice Michael Morris denied Fahlman bail on Nov. 26, 2025, after a two-day hearing in Weyburn, and his reasons and the bail evidence are also under a publication ban, CBC reported. The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal dismissed his bail review in July, CTV News reported. He remains in custody.

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Latin America, Africa and the Middle East

Maceió, Brazil: “Serial Killer of Maceió” Albino Santos de Lima Convicted at His Tenth Jury Trial, Given 60 More Years for Shooting a Young Couple on Their Way to Church

View of Maceió, Alagoas
A view of Maceió, the capital of Alagoas, Brazil. Photo: Ricardo Lêdo / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Maceió, Alagoas, Brazil (Tribunal do Júri, 9th Criminal Court of the capital)

Legal status: Convicted and sentenced. On Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, a jury in Maceió convicted Albino Santos de Lima of the December 2023 killings of Débora Vitória Silva dos Santos and John Lenno Santos Ferreira. Judge Geraldo Amorim imposed 30 years for each killing, 60 years in all. It was his tenth trial and tenth conviction.

The man police in Alagoas call the “serial killer of Maceió” was convicted again on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, this time for the killing of a young couple who were walking to church. A jury in the 9th Criminal Court of the capital found Albino Santos de Lima guilty of murdering Débora Vitória Silva dos Santos, 21, and her boyfriend, John Lenno Santos Ferreira, 20, and Judge Geraldo Amorim sentenced him to 30 years for each death, G1 reported. It was the tenth time Albino has stood trial, and the tenth time he has been convicted. The Gazeta put his accumulated sentences at 294 years, two months and 13 days. He has been in custody since Sept. 17, 2024, according to the Gazeta de Alagoas.

Police have named him as responsible for a series of 18 homicides and attempted homicides in Maceió between 2019 and 2024, the Gazeta reported. BNews Alagoas described him as a former prison officer. His previous trial was only two weeks earlier: on Oct. 7, he was given 30 years for the killing of Mikaele Leite da Silva, 21, according to the news site 7Segundos.

The couple. Débora and John Lenno were shot on the night of Dec. 18, 2023, as they walked to a church they attended, G1 reported. Albino attended services at the same church. John Lenno died at the scene; Débora was taken for treatment but did not survive, according to the Gazeta.

The pastor’s testimony. The most damaging account at trial came from the pulpit. According to G1, the church’s pastor testified that John Lenno had come to him to report that Albino was filming Débora on his phone. The pastor said he confronted Albino, who denied it and became irritated at being reprimanded. John Lenno came back a second time, the pastor said, to report that Albino had been staring at a girl’s legs; Albino was warned again and stopped attending about two weeks later. The pastor told the jury he had discovered Albino came to services armed when he touched his waist during a greeting, and that Albino said he carried a gun because he was receiving threats. About 15 days after the killings, the pastor said, Albino returned to the church appearing pleased, and remarked that John Lenno had gone to buy a stolen motorcycle, “deu no que deu,” roughly “and look how that turned out.”

Albino denied the killings when questioned and disputed the pastor’s account, saying he had only asked whether the pastor knew John Lenno had bought a stolen motorcycle.

The evidence. Prosecutor Antônio Vilas Boas of the Alagoas Public Ministry presented a forensic report that, according to the prosecution, matched the bullets removed from the victims to the .380 pistol Albino used in other crimes, G1 reported. Jurors were also shown a photograph of the couple found in a folder Albino had created, which the prosecutor said contained the date planned for the double killing. The prosecution’s theory was that Albino killed Débora because she did not return his interest and killed John Lenno for reporting his behavior to the pastor.

Vilas Boas also cited a psychiatric report he said showed Albino’s indifference to the feelings of others. “Killing a human being or a mosquito, to him it’s all the same,” he told the jury, according to the Gazeta. Defense lawyer Geoberto Bernardo de Luna said every defendant has the right to a defense, told jurors childhood stories of Albino sharing food and giving shoes to other children, and argued that the same psychiatric report found his perception, memory and intelligence within normal limits. “If he committed any crime, it was something occasional, but he is a good person,” the lawyer said.

The verdict. The jury accepted the aggravating factors of futile motive and the use of means that made the victims’ defense impossible. The accumulated sentences now run to centuries on paper, though Brazilian law caps the time actually served on a prison sentence at 40 years, the Gazeta noted.

Sources

Peñalolén, Chile: Homeless Man Charged With Killing Former “Mamá a los 15” Star Sofía Sánchez Marincovich; Prosecutors Will Drain Canal to Find Her

The San Carlos canal running through Santiago, Chile
The San Carlos canal, shown here in Providencia, runs through eastern Santiago. Photo: LuisCG11 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Makeshift shelters on Avenida Tobalaba near calle El Chuncho, beside the San Carlos canal, Peñalolén, Santiago, Chile

Legal status: A man surnamed Peña was formally charged (formalizado) with homicide and ordered held in preventive detention after his arrest by Chile’s PDI investigative police. The first reports of the arrest and hearing came on Oct. 23 and 24. He has not entered a plea and is presumed innocent. Sofía Sánchez Marincovich’s body has not been found.

Sofía Sánchez Marincovich was 28, TVN reported. Chileans knew her from TVN’s 2015 docureality “Mamá a los 15,” BioBioChile reported. At the time she disappeared she was living on the streets of Peñalolén, in eastern Santiago. She vanished on Aug. 24, and a missing person report was filed. Two months later, prosecutors say two eyewitnesses have told them what happened to her.

The prosecution’s account. “A través de la declaración de dos testigos presenciales del hecho, podemos dar cuenta que el imputado agredió brutalmente a la víctima con un palo, con un objeto contundente y luego la lanza al Canal San Carlos,” said Pamela Valdés, chief prosecutor for La Florida and Peñalolén-Macul, as quoted by La Tercera. The accused, like Sánchez, was living on the street, according to the PDI. At the hearing, The Clinic reported, Valdés said the attack happened on the night of Aug. 23 at shelters on Avenida Tobalaba near calle El Chuncho, after Sánchez came there to use drugs and an argument broke out. According to The Clinic, the weapon was described as a stick tipped with iron.

What the witnesses told police. The Clinic published excerpts of two witness statements given to the PDI. One man said he heard a woman scream outside a tent, looked out and saw the accused hitting Sánchez with a stick. He ran to his own shelter and locked himself in, he said, but the accused got in during the early morning, pulled his hair, struck him with a knife and threatened to kill him and do to him “lo mismo que la Sofía” if he talked. A woman who was also there told police she was certain Sánchez was dead and named the accused as the man who killed her. Both said they had kept quiet out of fear, The Clinic reported. The accused has several prior convictions, including for robbery and mistreatment, according to The Clinic.

The search. The day after the attack a friend of Sánchez could not reach her and alerted her partner, who reported her missing to Carabineros in Peñalolén, according to The Clinic. Inspector Nicole Jiménez Díaz of the PDI’s Metropolitan Missing Persons Brigade (Briup) said the unit received an order to investigate from the La Florida prosecutor’s office in October. “En el mes de octubre, la Brigada de Ubicación de Personas recepciona una orden de investigar de la Fiscalía local de La Florida,” she told La Tercera. Detectives took statements, collected evidence at the scene, including clothing that was identified as hers, and obtained a verbal arrest order, BioBioChile and La Tercera reported. The Clinic reported that the accused went to a police station after his mother told him detectives were looking for him, and was arrested there.

Draining the canal. “Se va a realizar el secado del canal y se van a ejecutar búsquedas para encontrar su cuerpo, ya que los testigos dieron cuenta de que fue arrojada en ese lugar, a un costado de los rucos donde concurría la joven,” Valdés said, as quoted by TVN. The court found his freedom a danger to society, BioBioChile reported, and The Clinic reported that the court set a 90-day investigation period.

Sources

São Paulo, Brazil: Police Seek 10 Suspects in Four of 17 Killings Behind a Wave of Dumped Bodies, and Arrest a Man Over Jean Victor Sousa Guimarães

Avenida Rio Pequeno in the west zone of São Paulo
Avenida Rio Pequeno, in the west zone district where Jean Victor Sousa Guimarães was found. Photo: Dornicke / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: São Paulo and Greater São Paulo, Brazil; the latest body was left on Rua Paulo da Silva in Rio Pequeno, west zone

Legal status: On Friday, Oct. 23, São Paulo’s civil police asked the courts to order the arrest of eight adults and the detention of two adolescents suspected in four of the killings. Late that night military police arrested a 40-year-old man, not publicly named, in the Jean Victor Sousa Guimarães case; he was booked on Saturday, Oct. 24, for illegal possession of a firearm with an erased serial number, and police asked a judge to convert that arrest into preventive detention. No one has been charged with murder in the Guimarães case, and every suspect is presumed innocent.

In 48 days, between Sept. 5 and Oct. 22, police in São Paulo recorded at least 17 deaths investigated as homicides after bodies were found dumped on streets and in patches of woodland across the city and its suburbs, G1 reported. Fourteen were in the capital and are being handled by the Department of Homicide and Personal Protection (DHPP). The other three were left in Itapecerica da Serra, Diadema and São Bernardo do Campo. Some were bagged, tied, dismembered, decapitated or shot, according to G1. Social media filled with talk of a serial killer. State officials say there is no evidence of that.

Ten suspects, four cases. The state public security department said Friday that DHPP had solved four of the cases, CNN Brasil reported. Four people are suspected in one killing, three in another and two in a third, and one person was identified as the killer in a fourth. Police asked for arrest warrants for the eight adults and detention orders for the two teenagers. Public Security Secretary Osvaldo Nico Gonçalves said the head of the civil police, Artur Dian, had ordered teams from three more departments to join the inquiries into the rest. “Esses quatro casos já foram elucidados pelo DHPP, que segue trabalhando para identificar a autoria e prender os responsáveis por cada um dos demais crimes,” he said, as quoted by G1.

No single killer, officials say. DHPP director Ivalda Aleixo told CNN Brasil the cases have different dynamics and circumstances, and that the use of plastic bags or fabric in some of them does not by itself link them. Behind the scenes, G1 reported, one hypothesis police are weighing is that some of the killings are tied to the so called “tribunal do crime,” in which criminal factions such as the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) try and execute people accused of breaking their rules. That line of inquiry does not cover every case. Judge Ivana David of the São Paulo state court told TV Globo that so many bodies left in the streets in so little time suggests criminals are “desafiando o sistema de segurança e o sistema de justiça.”

Jean Victor Sousa Guimarães. The most recent victim was 22. Born in Valença, Bahia, he had recently moved in with an aunt in Cotia after losing a job as a construction laborer on the coast, Metrópoles reported. Around 2 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 21, he told her he was going out to buy a snack and would be back soon. It was the last time his family heard from him. The next day his body was found on Rua Paulo da Silva in Rio Pequeno, his hands tied and with signs of violence, Estadão reported. Security video showed a black Renault Sandero stopping near number 154 at 8:32 p.m.; three men went to the trunk, were joined by the driver, and threw the body into a wooded area below a low wall before all four drove off, according to Estadão. Police believe he was killed somewhere else.

The arrest. Acting on intelligence and anonymous tips to the Disque-Denúncia hotline, officers from the 16th Metropolitan Military Police Battalion went to a house in Jardim Catanduva on Friday night. “A equipe encontrou, no vão do telhado da residência, um revólver de calibre .38 com numeração suprimida e cinco munições intactas,” said the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Ives Minosso, as quoted by Folha 12 from the state news agency. A phone was also seized. The man is a former prison inmate with earlier convictions for robbery and drug trafficking, the state said. Investigators believe he was among the men seen leaving the body. G1 reported he is alleged to belong to the PCC; the state described only a possible link to a criminal organization. “O DHPP prossegue com as diligências para esclarecer a participação de cada envolvido, identificar os demais suspeitos e estabelecer a motivação do crime,” Aleixo said.

Sources

San Pablo de Heredia, Costa Rica: Appeals Court Upholds 79-Year Femicide Sentence for Jeremy Buzano in the Killing of Nadia Peraza, Whose Remains Were Hidden in a Fridge

The church of San Pablo de Heredia, Costa Rica
The church of San Pablo de Heredia, Costa Rica. Photo: Victor Quirós A / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: A house in San Pablo de Heredia, Heredia province, Costa Rica (Sentencing Appeals Court of the Third Judicial Circuit of Alajuela)

Legal status: Conviction upheld on appeal. In resolution 2026-01302, dated Oct. 21, 2026, and made public on Friday, Oct. 23, the appeals court rejected Jeremy Mauricio Buzano Paisano’s bid to annul his conviction for the femicide of Nadia Jeannette Peraza Espinoza, 11 counts of computer fraud and eight counts of identity theft. His nominal sentence of 79 years stands, capped by law at 50 years of effective prison time. His lawyer says he will take the case to the Criminal Cassation Chamber, the last avenue of appeal.

Nadia Peraza vanished in February 2024. Three months later her dismembered remains were found inside an unplugged refrigerator in the front yard of a house in San Pablo de Heredia, where Jeremy Buzano Paisano was living at the time, La Nación reported. Her body had been cut apart and stored in containers and bags. On Friday, Costa Rica learned that an appeals court had refused to throw out his conviction.

What the court decided. The Sentencing Appeals Court of the Third Judicial Circuit of Alajuela found that the trial verdict was fully reasoned and that the witness, documentary, expert and physical evidence had been weighed as a whole, according to Acontecer and AM Prensa. It rejected the defense’s requests to annul the ruling, hold a new trial and free Buzano. It declared inadmissible his challenge to the extension of his pretrial detention. “En lo demás, se declara sin lugar el recurso de apelación interpuesto por el defensor particular del encartado Jeremy Mauricio Buzano Paisano,” the operative part of the ruling reads, as quoted by Diario Extra. La Nación reported the resolution is dated Oct. 21; Diario Extra reported that lawyers for both sides confirmed it on Friday afternoon after months of waiting.

The original verdict. Prosecutors charged Buzano with 21 offenses: femicide, theft of property, 11 counts of computer fraud and eight of identity theft, La Nación reported. The trial court in Heredia convicted him in March of femicide, the fraud counts and the identity theft counts, but not of stealing her belongings, including her Samsung phone and credit card. The appeals court found that financial abuse against Peraza had been proven and that Buzano took advantage of her money and her digital identity after her death, according to Acontecer.

A cycle of violence. The appeals judges analyzed the case with a gender perspective, recognizing that Peraza suffered years of physical, psychological and financial violence, AM Prensa reported. They cited police records, protection orders, 911 emergency interventions and other contacts with authorities before her death. The court also faulted the state’s response: the report of her disappearance was filed in early March 2024, but the investigation did not intensify until mid May. When a woman with a history of intimate partner violence goes missing, the judges wrote, the authorities have a duty to act with special diligence in the first hours and days. They called the delay an opportunity to improve how institutions respond when women disappear.

The family’s appeal. Lawyer Joseph Alfonso Rivera Cheves, representing Peraza’s mother, had filed his own appeal asking that the theft be counted and the sentence raised. The court rejected it, reasoning that a higher nominal sentence would not change the 50 years Buzano must actually serve and that a new trial would put another procedural and emotional burden on the family, AM Prensa reported. The judges expressly recognized the mother as a victim and praised the role families play in seeking truth and justice in femicide cases. Rivera said the ruling confirms that the March conviction rests on a broad body of evidence.

The defense. Buzano’s lawyer, José Francisco Herrera, told La Nación he will go to cassation. He has maintained that the events never happened, that his client did not kill Peraza and that Buzano was not at home on the day the court found she was killed.

Sources

Johannesburg, South Africa: Judge Warns Against “Another Senzo Meyiwa” as KT Molefe Murder Trial Is Pushed to July 2027

High Court building in Johannesburg
The High Court in Johannesburg, South Africa, where the trial is listed. Photo: Barsov / Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Location: High Court, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa

Legal status: Katiso “KT” Molefe and three co-accused face 35 charges, including murder, conspiracy to commit murder and unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition. On 26 October 2026 their trial was postponed to 19 July 2027. None has been convicted, and all are presumed innocent.

The killings: The state alleges that Molefe orchestrated the murder of Oupa Sefoka, known as DJ Sumbody, who was shot dead in Woodmead, Johannesburg, on 20 November 2022, The Citizen reported. Eyewitness News reported that Molefe is also accused of orchestrating the killings of Hector Buthelezi, known as DJ Vintos; Don Tindleni; DJ Sumbody’s two bodyguards; and Armand Swart, an engineer from Vereeniging who, the state believes, was shot in a case of mistaken identity. According to the state, forensic evidence links the high-calibre rifles used in the Sumbody killing to several of the other killings, The Citizen reported.

The accused: Molefe, a businessman whom Eyewitness News and eNCA describe as an alleged member of the so-called “Big Five” cartel, appeared in the dock with Michael Pule Tau, Tiego Floyd Mabusela and Musa Kekana. Eyewitness News and eNCA spell the third man’s surname Mabisela. Molefe is out on bail of R400,000, the Mail & Guardian reported, while his three co-accused remain in custody.

Why the trial stalled: The trial had been expected to open on Monday 26 October. It could not, because Mabusela and Kekana are also accused in a separate, partly heard trial involving the businessman Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala. That case is stuck in a trial-within-a-trial over whether evidence allegedly obtained after arrest is admissible, including an AK-47 rifle and a stolen Hyundai i20 that police believe were used in Swart’s killing, Eyewitness News reported. According to The Citizen, the accused in that matter face 25 charges, including attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, fraud and money laundering, linked to a series of alleged failed hit attempts between 2022 and 2024. The prosecutor told the court that the same lawyers appear in both cases, making it impractical to run them at the same time. The prosecutor described the pace of the Matlala case as “glacial” and told the court the state aimed to finish it by the end of the second term of 2027, Sowetan reported. All parties agreed to the postponement, and Molefe’s lawyer, Michael Hellens, said the legal teams had been given early notice and had cleared their diaries, Sowetan reported.

The judge’s warning: Judge Thifhelimbilu Phanuel Mudau told counsel to align their diaries and block-book enough court time for the trial to run without interruption once it begins. “Let’s look at Senzo Meyiwa’s case, and maybe I’m citing that by way of example. We can’t have that happening,” he said, according to Sowetan and The Citizen. “If it means the whole year, let it be. Line up your witnesses.” Sowetan noted that the trial over footballer Senzo Meyiwa’s 2014 killing began in 2022 and had to start afresh in 2023 after the first judge was suspended. Otherwise, Mudau said, the parties would “be running a trial for the next five years,” which “is not in the interests of anyone, least of all the accused.”

Bail: The judge also agreed to adjust Molefe’s bail reporting condition so that, when he travels within South Africa, he can report at a police station nominated by the state, after giving five working days’ notice, The Citizen reported. The National Prosecuting Authority said it remained trial-ready, eNCA reported.

Sources

Athi River, Kenya: Husband Wanted Over Killing of Ohangla Dancer Sheila Odoyo Arrested in Tanzania After Two Years

Street view of Athi River town
The town of Athi River in Machakos County, Kenya. Not the scene. Photo: DEMOSH / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Location: Hill View Estate, Athi River, Machakos County, Kenya; arrest in Kirongwe, Shirati, Tanzania

Legal status: Jackson Otieno Bambo, also known as James Babu Olang, was arrested in Tanzania on 24 October 2026 and returned to custody in Kenya pending arraignment on a murder charge. He had not been charged in court as of Tuesday, 27 October. He is presumed innocent.

The victim: Sheila Odoyo, 38, known to fans as Sheila Wegesha, was a well-known dancer on Nairobi’s Ohangla music scene and a businesswoman. Pulse Kenya reported that she was a regular figure in the Ohangla clubs along Kangundo Road and ran a liquor business in Umoja Estate with her husband. She was found dead inside her home in Athi River on 9 May 2024, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations said in a statement reported by The Star and Citizen Digital.

What police said about the killing: According to The Star, which summarised the police account of the case, Sheila was found on her bed with deep wounds to her throat and neck, and a postmortem examination found she had died of blood loss from sharp-force trauma. Police found no signs of forced entry, and the weapon was never recovered. Investigators established that Bambo left the house at about 1 a.m. in the family car and drove to Nairobi’s central business district, where the vehicle was later found abandoned, The Star and Pulse Kenya reported. His phone last connected to the network in Narok County before it went off, the reports said. Pulse Kenya, citing neighbours, said the couple’s marriage had been troubled. Sheila had separated from her first husband, a police officer, some years before and had a child with Bambo, The Star reported. She was buried in Homa Bay County on 29 May 2024, The Star reported. The DCI said the operation that located Bambo followed nearly two years of intelligence gathering and cross-border collaboration.

The manhunt: For two years Bambo was beyond the reach of Kenyan detectives. The DCI said investigators pursued leads and gathered intelligence for nearly that entire period before information placed him in Kirongwe, in Tanzania’s Shirati district. There, the agency said, he was “hiding in plain sight while operating a club approximately 70 kilometres from the Muhuru border point.” Pulse Kenya noted that communities on both sides of the border share a common culture, which it said helped him blend in.

The arrest: On Saturday 24 October, detectives from Athi River, working with officers from Nyatike in Migori County and Tanzanian law enforcement, carried out a joint operation that ended with his arrest, the DCI said. At the time, it said, he was carrying a Tanzanian national identity card in the name James Babu Olang. The DCI said the card “now forms part of the ongoing investigations.” He was first booked at Nyatike police station and then escorted to Athi River police station, where he was held pending arraignment on a murder charge, according to the Nation, The Star and Citizen Digital.

The DCI’s message: In its statement, the DCI said the case showed the value of intelligence-led work and cooperation between police forces in different countries, and repeated its commitment to bringing suspects in serious crimes before the courts, The Star reported.

What happens next: In Kenya, murder is tried in the High Court and carries a maximum sentence of death, although courts have discretion in sentencing. Police may ask a magistrate to hold a suspect for further days before a charge is filed so that investigations can be completed.

Sources

Kiryat Haim, Israel: Ex-Husband Detained Over the Stabbing Death of Yana Zikova, 43, as Her Six-Year-Old Son Looked On

Street in Kiryat Haim West, Haifa
A street in Kiryat Haim West, Haifa, Israel. Not the scene. Photo: Orrling / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Kiryat Haim, a neighbourhood of Haifa, northern Israel

Legal status: Pablo (Pavel) Falkush, 34, of Tel Aviv, and his father, 66, are detained on suspicion of murder. On 24 October the Haifa Magistrate’s Court extended both detentions by five days, to Wednesday. Neither has been charged. Both deny involvement, according to ynet, and both are presumed innocent.

The victim: Yana Zikova, 43, was stabbed to death in her fourth-floor apartment in Kiryat Haim on the evening of Friday, 23 October, according to the public broadcaster Kan and ynet. She was found in critical condition and medical teams pronounced her dead at the scene, Kan reported. Neighbours told ynet she lived alone with her son, a first grader with special needs, and described her as a devoted mother. Her mother told ynet that Yana was her only daughter and that she plans to bury her in Ukraine.

The suspect: The suspect is Ms Zikova’s former partner, according to Kan and ynet, which named him as Pablo (Pavel) Falkush, 34, a Tel Aviv resident; the Hebrew spelling of the surname is rendered in English here following the court news site Caseup. Ms Zikova’s mother told ynet that the couple had divorced two years earlier. Neighbours told ynet the two did not live together and that Ms Zikova had said he caused her many problems and that she feared him. Those are neighbours’ accounts and have not been tested in court.

The night of the killing: According to ynet, after the attack the suspect’s father went down to a neighbour on the floor below and asked him to call the police. The neighbour went up and found Ms Zikova unconscious in the living room with stab wounds to her abdomen, her son crying beside her. The boy told the officers who arrived that his father had stabbed his mother, ynet reported. The child, aged six, was taken into the care of Haifa’s municipal welfare services.

The father: Police arrested the suspect’s father on 24 October because he was in the apartment at the time, ynet reported. Kan said the police representative declined in court to say what role was attributed to him, and that the court found no distinction at this stage between the suspicions against father and son. His lawyer from the Public Defender’s Office, Fares Brik, told Kan that he is a man with no criminal record who witnessed the attack, tried to stop his son and asked neighbours to call the police.

The court hearing: On Saturday, 24 October, the court ordered the son to undergo psychiatric observation at Ma’ale HaCarmel psychiatric hospital in Tirat Carmel, given his mental state and psychiatric history, ynet and Kan reported. His public defender, Leonid Prakhovnik, told Kan that his client is known to the mental health system and has been hospitalised before. Ynet had earlier reported that police planned to ask for a 10 day extension; the court granted five.

Family: Ms Zikova’s mother told ynet on 25 October that she and her husband would travel from Ukraine on Wednesday. “He asked me eight times: why did dad kill mum?” she said of her grandson.

LEGAL EXPLAINER: Under Israeli law, police may hold a suspect only with a court’s approval, and a magistrate extends detention for set periods while the investigation continues, on a finding of reasonable suspicion. An indictment, if any, is filed later by the prosecution. Since a 2019 reform, murder in Israel carries a mandatory life sentence in its aggravated form, which can include killing a partner after a history of abuse; a lesser murder offence carries up to life.

Sources

Carmelita Village, Belize: Two Men Charged With Murder of Youth Football Organizer Wilson “Chato” Perez

A tall salmon-colored clock tower against a blue sky in the center of Orange Walk Town, with palms at its base
The clock tower in Orange Walk Town, the district seat. Photo: Phinn / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: A bushy area off the road in Carmelita Village, Orange Walk District, Belize

Legal status: Alex Anthony Banner, 23, and Darnell Emil Rhaburn Sergio, 22, were jointly charged with murder on Thursday, Oct. 22. Both are presumed innocent. No court appearance or plea had been reported.

The charges. Police formally arrested and jointly charged Banner and Rhaburn Sergio, both described as Belizean laborers, with the murder of Wilson Perez, Breaking Belize News reported on the night of Oct. 22. 7News Belize, Greater Belize Media and Associates Times reported the same names, ages and charge. Police have not publicly given a motive, Breaking Belize News and Greater Belize Media reported. The two will face prosecution for murder as the case moves through the courts, Breaking Belize News said.

The night he disappeared. Perez left home at about 10:30 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 12, telling his family he was going to the village football field, and did not return, Assistant Commissioner of Police Hilberto Romero, head of the National Crimes Investigation Branch, told 7News Belize. His family became concerned and searched for him in the early morning, and he was found on Tuesday, Oct. 13, with chop wounds, Romero said. Police reached the site at about 7:50 a.m. and found relatives who had discovered his body there, WIC News reported, citing police information. 7News reported that his body was found in a bushy area off the road to Carmelita and that it had been severely mutilated and partly burned. Breaking Belize News later said sources had told it that Perez was decapitated, while WIC News noted that police had at that point confirmed only the chop wounds. Romero said at the time that the scene was being processed and would be part of a full investigation. Asked whether the family had said Perez had problems with anyone, he answered, “Not at this time.” Asked whether Perez had been killed elsewhere or lured to the spot, he said, “We are reviewing what was found at the scene so we will have that information afterwards.”

A text message. His cousin told 7News that he received a text at around 10:30 p.m. that night and that the family had not found his phone. “Afterwards we don’t know nothing about what happened,” she said. Associates Times reported that investigators were working to establish his last movements, including a text message linked to his decision to leave home. Police have not said whether the message was used to lure him.

Who Chato was. Perez was president of the New Horizon Sporting Club and organized the Orange Walk Under-13 Mundialito tournament with the Orange Walk Town Council, Greater Belize Media and Breaking Belize News reported. WIC News reported that he was 35. His cousin told 7News he rarely left the house except for football, that he had just finished a Mundialito in the Louisiana area of Orange Walk and had been playing football in Carmelita that day. “He was a friendly and strict man because in football he would put rules,” she said, adding, “I think all of us will miss him because they know him as Chato the Mundialito.”

Community reaction. Residents posted condolences to his family on social media after the charges, Associates Times reported, with one writing, “May the crime against Mr. Perez not go unpunished.” Another wrote, “Killed such a good person for no reason.”

Sources

Faxinal dos Guedes, Brazil: Man Held on Suspicion of Feminicide After Teacher Luciana Menta, 54, Is Found Dead in Woods

A bronze bust on a stone pedestal with a plaque in a town square lined with palm trees in Faxinal dos Guedes, Santa Catarina, under a partly cloudy sky
Praça Ventura Migliorini in Faxinal dos Guedes, not the scene. Photo: Catarinense fx / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Linha São Roque, rural Faxinal dos Guedes, Santa Catarina, Brazil

Legal status: Juvir Antonio Rebelatto, 50, was arrested in the act on the night of Thursday, Oct. 22, on suspicion of feminicide and concealment of a corpse in the death of municipal teacher Luciana Menta, 54. At a custody hearing on the afternoon of Friday, Oct. 23, a judge granted a request from the Santa Catarina Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPSC) and converted his arrest into temporary detention while police investigate. He has not been formally charged, is presumed innocent, and G1 said it was unable to reach his defense.

The disappearance. Relatives called the Military Police at around 8 p.m. on Thursday after Menta failed to show up for work, did not pick up her daughter from school and stopped answering her phone, according to G1 and the regional outlet Oeste Mais. Oeste Mais reported that she had been missing since the afternoon. The call was first handled as a missing person report.

The cameras. Officers reviewed footage from the security system of the apartment building where Menta lived. The recordings showed a man entering and leaving her apartment at different times, police said. In one image, according to Oeste Mais, he is seen leaving the building with a bulky object, later identified as a large travel bag of the kind used for shopping, and placing it in a Chevrolet Astra. G1 reported the footage showed him loading the bag into a car and that the bag was believed to hold her body.

The arrest. Using the recordings, police found the suspect at his home, in what Oeste Mais identified as the Ozelame neighborhood. According to the Military Police report as described by Oeste Mais and G1, he told officers that he had been in a relationship with Menta, that the two argued in her apartment, and that he held her by the neck until she was asphyxiated. Oeste Mais reported that police said he described the relationship as extramarital. Police also said he told them he took her body out of the apartment and drove it to a wooded area. Those are statements attributed to him by police and have not been tested in court.

The recovery. Officers went to the spot he indicated and found Menta’s body in the woods along Linha São Roque, in the rural interior of the municipality. Oeste Mais reported that the site is about eight kilometers from the town center and hard to reach, and that police said she was wrapped in a blanket inside the travel bag. The MPSC said in its statement that the body was found in an area of vegetation near a rural property belonging to the suspect’s family. The scene was secured and the Civil Police and the state forensic service were called in. The car was seized for forensic examination and his cellphone was also taken, according to G1. Oeste Mais reported that after a medical evaluation he was taken to the Civil Police station in Xanxerê, and that police work at the scene ended in the early hours of Friday.

The hearing. The MPSC said it asked for temporary detention so that the facts could be established and investigative steps carried out without interference. Citing the seriousness of the case and the need to protect the investigation, the court agreed. Prosecutor Chrystopher Augusto Danielski represented the MPSC at the hearing, which was conducted by the Regional Court of Guarantees of Concórdia, according to the prosecutors’ statement. He was sent to the Presídio Regional de Xanxerê. The investigation continues under a police inquiry, and the MPSC said it will keep following the case.

The town. The prefecture of Faxinal dos Guedes, a municipality of about 11,000 people in western Santa Catarina, confirmed her identity and issued a note of mourning. It said her death “leaves immense sadness among family, friends, colleagues, students and all those who had the opportunity to know her,” and that she leaves memories that will remain with everyone who knew her, especially at school. Afternoon classes in the municipal school system were canceled on Friday, Oct. 23. G1 reported that her burial was scheduled for 9 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 24, at the municipal cemetery.

The wider picture. According to G1, Menta’s killing brought the number of feminicides in Santa Catarina to 44 between Jan. 1 and Oct. 23, 2026, up 15.79 percent from 38 in the same period of 2025.

Sources

Tigrinhos, Brazil: Man, 36, Arrested in Stabbing Death of Real Estate Broker Natanael Motter

An elevated view over the rooftops, trees and apartment buildings of a small hillside city under a pale blue sky
A partial view of Maravilha, Santa Catarina, Natanael Motter’s hometown, not the scene. Photo: Fernandocrisrian / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Linha Nova community, rural Tigrinhos, western Santa Catarina state, Brazil

Legal status: Santa Catarina civil police arrested a 36-year-old man on the afternoon of Monday, Oct. 26, as the suspect in the killing of Natanael Motter, 45, according to ND+ and WH3. Police have not released his name. He remains in custody at the disposal of the courts. No formal charge or court ruling had been reported, and he is presumed innocent.

The victim. Motter, a real estate broker, was a native of Maravilha, a neighboring town, and lived in the Linha Nova community in the interior of Tigrinhos, ND+ reported. NSC Total reported that Maravilha is about 10 kilometers from Tigrinhos and that he was the single father of a 12-year-old daughter. ND+ reported that a childhood friend paid tribute to him online, recalling a friendship that began when they were about eight years old, and closed her message: “Vai em paz, meu amigo querido” (“Go in peace, my dear friend”).

The discovery. Motter was found dead inside his home on Sunday, Oct. 25, after a neighbor grew concerned at not having seen him for two days and went to check on him, according to ND+ and WH3. The neighbor called the military police. WH3, citing the military police, reported that he was found on the living room sofa. Preliminary police examinations found at least six knife wounds to his chest and abdomen, ND+ and WH3 reported. Civil police and Santa Catarina’s forensic police, the Polícia Científica, examined the house.

What police say the suspect told them. In a statement after his arrest, the man told police he went to Motter’s home on the afternoon of Thursday, Oct. 22, and that the two drank alcohol together, ND+ and WH3 reported. According to his account, after an argument they got into a physical fight, during which he stabbed Motter in the chest with a knife. He said he fled on Motter’s motorcycle, but it broke down and he abandoned it about 200 meters from the house before continuing on foot. Police found the motorcycle on Sunday in a stream near the house, according to ND+ and WH3.

The investigation. The case was handled by the criminal investigation unit of Maravilha, known as DIC (Delegacia de Investigação Criminal), which gathered evidence to identify and locate the suspect, ND+ reported. He was found in the interior of Tigrinhos. Officers also served an open civil arrest warrant against him for roughly R$22,000 in unpaid child support, according to ND+ and NSC Total. Police said the investigation continues in order to fully establish the dynamics and circumstances of the killing, ND+ reported. Before the arrest, police had asked anyone with information to contact any police station or the Disque-Denúncia 181 tip line, with confidentiality guaranteed.

Funeral. According to the death notice released by the Motter and Preuss families, as reported by ND+, his wake was held at the Capela Mortuária Municipal de Maravilha, and the funeral service and burial took place on Monday, Oct. 26, at 2 p.m., at the Cemitério Municipal de Maravilha.

The law. Brazil’s Penal Code, Article 121, punishes homicide with six to 20 years in prison, and 12 to 30 years for a qualified homicide, including one committed for a futile motive or by cruel means. A spontaneous confession to authorities is listed as a circumstance that always mitigates a sentence. Prosecutors have not said publicly how they will classify the case.

Sources

San Salvador, El Salvador: 45 Years for Man Who Strangled Carlos Roberto Bejarano and Staged a Suicide

The pale neoclassical Telecomunicaciones building on a street corner in the historic center of San Salvador
The historic center of San Salvador. Photo: AkshajAvusula99 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Colonia San Luis, San Salvador Centro district, San Salvador department, El Salvador

Legal status: Convicted of aggravated homicide and sentenced to 45 years in prison by the Second Sentencing Court of San Salvador. The ruling was reported on Friday, Oct. 23.

The verdict. Pedro David Torres Hernández was found guilty of the aggravated homicide of Carlos Roberto Bejarano and sentenced to 45 years in prison, according to reports published Friday, Oct. 23, by Cronio, El Salvador Times and La Noticia SV, and carried in the following days by Diario El Salvador and Radio YSKL. The case was tried before the Second Sentencing Court of San Salvador. In the ruling, the judge said the prosecution witnesses had been clear and consistent in establishing that Torres Hernández was the direct perpetrator, Cronio and Radio YSKL reported.

The killing. According to the evidence presented at trial, Torres Hernández went to Bejarano’s home in colonia San Luis on Aug. 9, 2025, to spend time drinking with him. El Salvador Times described it as a social gathering and called the two men friends. In the early hours of the next day the two argued, and the argument ended when Torres Hernández strangled Bejarano, the reports said. Diario El Salvador reported that investigators placed the killing between 6 and 7:30 in the morning of Aug. 10, and that, according to the investigation, Torres Hernández had already planned to kill Bejarano and chose to stay the night at the house to carry it out. Diario El Salvador also reported that a rope was used.

The staged suicide. After the killing, Torres Hernández tried to convince the other people living in the house that Bejarano had taken his own life, in order to escape responsibility, the court found. Diario El Salvador reported that the altered scene was meant to persuade the National Civil Police and prosecutors, as well as the household, that Bejarano had killed himself. Diario El Salvador reported that he arranged a rope on a staircase to make the scene look like a suicide and then went to tell the neighbors what had happened. When National Civil Police officers arrived to check the report, they noticed inconsistencies and saw signs that the scene had been manipulated, the paper said. Torres Hernández was arrested and handed to the Attorney General’s Office, which brought the case before the Eighth Court of the Peace, and he has remained in custody since his arrest, Diario El Salvador reported.

The evidence. Forensic analysis entered into the case file found that Bejarano was defenseless at the time of the attack because of the levels of alcohol and drugs in his body, which left him unable to fight back, according to the reports. Testimony at trial established that Torres Hernández was the only person who stayed with Bejarano during his last hours, the reports said. The forensic findings and inconsistencies at the scene undid the suicide account and identified him as the killer, Cronio and Radio YSKL reported.

The case. More than fourteen months passed between Bejarano’s death and the sentence. El Salvador Times reported that the ruling brings to a close the criminal case that began with the events of August 2025. The judge, a woman according to El Salvador Times and Diario El Salvador, was not named in the reports. Diario El Salvador said the people who testified that Torres Hernández was the last person with Bejarano were testigos referenciales, or hearsay witnesses.

Sources

Escuintla, Guatemala: Acting Director of the Canadá Prison Farm Shot Dead on His Way to Work

A busy street in Escuintla, Guatemala, with cars, a green bus and overhead power lines under a blue sky
A street in the city of Escuintla. Photo: mardoqueo sagastume / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

Location: Cantón Los Voladores, Escuintla, Guatemala, about 10 kilometres from the Granja Modelo de Rehabilitación Canadá

Legal status: Under investigation. No arrests had been announced as of Tuesday, Oct. 27, and no suspects had been publicly identified.

The victim. José Ariel Barrios Rodríguez, 41, was a prison officer serving as acting director of the Granja Modelo de Rehabilitación Canadá, the prison farm in Escuintla known as the Granja Penal Canadá. “The death of José Ariel Barrios Rodríguez, a prison officer who was serving as acting director of the Granja Modelo de Rehabilitación Canadá, located in Escuintla, is confirmed and deeply regretted,” Guatemala’s prison service, the Sistema Penitenciario, said in a statement. The service sent its condolences to his family, his fellow officers and his loved ones.

The attack. Barrios Rodríguez was shot overnight between Friday, Oct. 23, and Saturday, Oct. 24, while riding as a passenger on a white motorcycle near cantón Los Voladores, about 10 kilometers from the prison, according to the National Civil Police (PNC) and the prison service. The prison service said he had finished his rest period and was heading to the prison for his shift, and so never reported for duty. A Gobernación ministry source told Prensa Libre that he was due at work on Saturday. Citing witness accounts, the PNC said people on a black motorcycle followed the pair from colonia Portales, cut them off when they reached Los Voladores and opened fire on Barrios Rodríguez, then fled back toward colonia Portales. The PNC said the person driving the motorcycle carried on after the shooting; La Hora, citing the departmental fire brigade in Escuintla, reported that what became of that companion was not known. Investigators recovered six shell casings and a bullet at the scene, the PNC said. According to the police report cited by Prensa Libre, he was shot at least eight times, including in the head, the neck and the left cheekbone. Emergency responders who reached the scene confirmed he had died of his gunshot wounds, the government newspaper Diario de Centro América reported. The prison service said it is cooperating fully with investigators “to contribute to clarifying what happened and determining the responsibilities that legally correspond.”

The investigation. At a news conference on Tuesday, Oct. 27, Interior Minister Marco Villeda said one line of inquiry is that Barrios Rodríguez was attacked by criminals, but that investigators have not settled on a single theory. “We don’t have one specific hypothesis. We have several, and we are ruling them out one by one depending on how the investigation progresses,” Villeda said, as reported by La Hora. Villeda said the information so far indicated Barrios Rodríguez was due to begin his shift that morning and was killed in the early hours. “Apparently he was on a motorcycle when some criminals made an attempt on his life,” he said. Villeda did not say what the other lines of inquiry are, or whether the killing might be linked to the victim’s work in the prison system, La Hora reported. He said his ministry is working with the Public Ministry, Guatemala’s prosecution service, and that they would “rule out hypotheses to establish the truth behind the murder of this person.” No motive has been made public, and as of Tuesday no one had been arrested. The caliber of the casings recovered at the scene had not been released.

Sources

San Benito, Guatemala: Man, 23, Arrested in the 2025 Killing of Gym Owner Renato Aguilar

Elevated view over the town hall and rooftops of San Benito, Petén, with Lake Petén Itzá behind
San Benito, Petén, with Lake Petén Itzá in the background. Photo: Jhosek / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Barrio 3 de Abril, San Benito, Petén, Guatemala; arrest in La Libertad, Petén

Legal status: Arrested on a warrant for asesinato (aggravated murder). Guatemala’s National Civil Police (PNC) identified the suspect as Aníbal “N”, 23. He has not yet been formally linked to proceedings by a judge, has not been convicted and is presumed innocent.

The arrest. PNC agents arrested the suspect on Saturday, Oct. 24, in the municipality of La Libertad, Petén, the police announced on social media. He was wanted on an arrest warrant issued by a local court on Sept. 28, 2026, for the March 2025 shooting of gym owner Renato Antonio Aguilar Valenzuela, the PNC said. Police allege he carried out the attack. They have not said what motive investigators believe was behind the killing, and none has been made public. Emisoras Unidas reported that he was taken before the duty court that issued the warrant, where he is to give his first statement. At that hearing a judge decides whether to formally link him to the criminal case.

The killing. Renato Aguilar, 35, owned the Gimnasio Atlético Zeus on a main street in San Benito, Soy502 reported. On Monday, March 24, 2025, at about 5 a.m., minutes after leaving home, he arrived to open the gym, as he did every day for customers who wanted to train early. Witnesses told authorities he parked in front of the business, got out of his vehicle and was shot as he went to open up. Neighbors called for help, and Volunteer Firefighters gave him first aid and took him toward a hospital in serious condition, but he did not survive his wounds. Firefighters placed the shooting in barrio 3 de Abril in San Benito, Emisoras Unidas reported. At the time, the Petén police station gave no details or hypothesis about the motive.

Who Renato was. Aguilar was known in San Benito for his dedication to sport, Soy502 reported. He was a member of the Gran Jaguar cycling club, founded in the 1970s, and the gym he founded grew out of his passion for sport and his own effort. Neighbors remembered him as polite, hard-working and close to his family, and described him as a calm person, according to Emisoras Unidas. His killing shocked residents, and after his death coaches, gym trainers and athletes from other parts of the country posted messages of support for his family on social media. Soy502 wrote that he was much loved in his community.

The allegation. According to the investigation cited by Prensa Libre, the suspect is alleged to have fired repeatedly at Aguilar, who was both the owner and a trainer at the gym. The PNC statement announcing the arrest said only that Aníbal “N” was captured “for the crime of asesinato” and had been “required by a local court since Sept. 28 of this year.” Periodista Juan Victor Castillo, which gave the suspect’s surname as Pat, reported that Aguilar was shot by armed men, in the plural. Police have not said whether anyone else is being sought in the attack.

The charge. Under Article 132 of Guatemala’s Penal Code, asesinato is a killing committed with aggravating circumstances such as treachery, payment or the promise of reward, known premeditation, or cruelty, and it carries 25 to 50 years in prison. No court has found that any of those circumstances applies in this case.

Sources

La Lima, Honduras: Suspect in the Killing of Vianka García Surrenders After Three Months on the Run

View through a green arched shelter onto the tree-lined central park of La Lima, Cortés, Honduras
The central park in La Lima, Cortés. Photo: Dennis Garcia / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

Location: Colonia Planeta, La Lima, Cortés, Honduras; surrender in the village of Jaral, Santa Rita, Copán

Legal status: Charged with aggravated femicide. Edwin Alexander Hernández, the main suspect in the killing of Vianka Ninoska García López, turned himself in to police on Monday, Oct. 26. On Tuesday, Oct. 27, a judge in San Pedro Sula ordered him held in pretrial detention. He has not been tried or convicted and is presumed innocent. His initial hearing is set for 10 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 30.

The surrender. According to the police report cited by La Prensa and Tiempo, Hernández presented himself at about 9:30 a.m. on Monday in the village of Jaral, in the municipality of Santa Rita, Copán, where the handover had been arranged. César Ruiz, head of the national police investigations directorate (DPI), said officers traveled to the agreed spot, read him his rights and took him in. Ruiz said Hernández was nervous but willing to co-operate. Hernández had been sought since July. In videos, he had thanked Meraz and Ruiz for working to arrange his surrender, Tiempo reported. Santos Meraz, whose son Daniel Antonio Meraz Cáceres was sentenced to 18 years and nine months for the femicide of nurse Elvia Mercedes Gómez López in Villanueva, Cortés, said publicly that Hernández had called him asking for help to give himself up, and that he co-ordinated the surrender with police. “Mission accomplished,” Meraz said, as quoted by Tiempo. He said he agreed to help on condition that Hernández first ask forgiveness and then face justice, “just as my son did.”

What the suspect says. In videos posted on social media in October, Hernández asked the family’s forgiveness, said he had been drinking that night and claimed he did not mean to kill her, El Heraldo and Tiempo reported. Ruiz told La Prensa that Hernández maintains the shooting was an accident in handling the gun. Ruiz said that account will be tested by the investigation, and that witnesses had already described arguments between the couple before the shot. He said the case was referred to court as femicide, but that the judge will weigh the evidence and decide how to classify it, including the possibility of homicide.

The court. DPI agents took Hernández to the Integrated Criminal Justice Center (CEIN) in San Pedro Sula, where a duty judge first placed him under preventive arrest while prosecutors prepared their formal request. After his first hearing on Tuesday morning, the judge ordered pretrial detention, citing the seriousness of the possible sentence, his lack of fixed ties and a risk of flight. Tiempo reported that he was sent to the prison in El Progreso, Yoro.

Who Vianka was. Vianka García was a mother of four. El Heraldo reported she was 35. She died on July 16 after being shot in the head inside her home in colonia Planeta, La Lima, at about 3 a.m., according to the preliminary investigation reported by Tiempo. Her mother said in an interview with Noticieros Hoy Mismo, quoted by Tiempo, that her daughter was asleep beside one of her children when she was shot. “My daughter was raised in the Christian faith and did not deserve to die like this,” López said. She said the family had trusted him with their home and rejected his claim of an accident. “He made things up,” she said. She said she is now raising Vianka’s four children, who are doing well, that she is working with lawyers so they can eventually leave Honduras, and asked Honduran justice to apply “the full weight of the law.” Her death caused an outcry across Honduras, El Heraldo reported.

Sources

Comonfort, Guanajuato: Woman Ordered to Stand Trial in the 2015 Killing of Journalist “El Perro Negro,” Owner of El Tábano

Location: Offices of the newspaper El Tábano, Plaza Comercial Nuevo Siglo, central Comonfort, Guanajuato, Mexico

Legal status: Charged. A woman identified by the Guanajuato State Attorney General’s Office (FGEG) as Elena “N” was ordered to stand trial (vinculada a proceso) for aggravated homicide and held in pretrial detention, with two months set for the close of the complementary investigation, the FGEG announced on Friday, Oct. 23. She is presumed innocent. A second suspect has not been located.

The case. The FGEG identifies the victim as José Gerardo “N,” a journalist known as “El Perro Negro” who owned the local newspaper El Tábano. In 2015 the press freedom group Article 19 identified the director of the weekly El Tábano killed in Comonfort as Gerardo Nieto. According to the prosecution, he was killed between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. on June 25, 2015, inside the paper’s offices in the Plaza Comercial Nuevo Siglo, in central Comonfort. Prosecutors say Elena “N,” who was living with him as his partner at the time, and another person attacked him with a sharp object, taking advantage of the fact that he knew and trusted them, and inflicted fatal wounds to his neck, Contacto Noticias and Zona Franca reported, citing the FGEG.

How the case reopened. The arrest came after a strategic review of the file and the reactivation of the investigation, which allowed prosecutors to request and execute an arrest warrant against her, Contacto Noticias reported. At the initial hearing, prosecutors formally laid out the accusation and their evidence, and a control judge ruled there was enough to proceed. The FGEG said the case remains open until the second person allegedly involved is found.

The motive. The FGEG said the evidence points to a personal conflict and rules out, for now, any link to the victim’s journalism, Contacto Noticias reported. That position echoes what the state said in 2015 and was disputed at the time. Article 19 reported then that within hours of the killing, state Attorney General Carlos Zamarripa Aguirre said the journalistic motive could be ruled out on preliminary data and said the journalist had been drinking with two other people that night. Article 19 urged authorities to prioritize his reporting as a line of inquiry, and reported that people close to him said he had been threatened several times and that his computer had been taken.

Years without answers. Writing in 2017, journalist Agustín Galo Samario reported that the journalist’s body was found on the morning of June 26, 2015, though he had died the day before, and that his death also ended the only outlet covering local politics in Comonfort. Galo described him as a longtime member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) who had sharply criticized it in El Tábano, and noted that the killing came 18 days after the PRI lost the June 7, 2015, municipal election in Comonfort and that in early July 2015 UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova called on Mexican authorities to solve it, listing him with Filadelfo Sánchez Sarmiento and Juan Mendoza Delgado, three journalists killed in a single week. Reporters Without Borders called it the first crime of such gravity against a journalist recorded in the state. Galo wrote that apart from the computer, the attackers took only a USB drive holding material published and yet to be published in El Tábano. On Feb. 2, 2016, Zamarripa said the killing “had nothing to do with” his work and that the motives would become clear once the case reached the courts, Galo reported, and in June 2016 he said the case was solved and that arrests would follow “in a matter of weeks.” By then no one had been arrested. Article 19 called him the first documented case of a journalist murdered in Guanajuato.

Sources

Puebla, Mexico: Bus Driver Ordered to Stand Trial in Death of Searching Mother Minerva “Minita” González Roque

Location: Intersection of 9 Norte and 10 Poniente, Centro Histórico, Puebla, Puebla state, Mexico

Legal status: Marco Antonio N. was formally ordered to stand trial (vinculado a proceso) on Friday, Oct. 23, on a charge of aggravated negligent homicide (homicidio culposo agravado). He remains free under court conditions while a federal amparo ruling is pending. He has not been convicted.

The ruling. At an initial hearing on Friday, Oct. 23, prosecutors with the Puebla State Attorney General’s Office (FGE) presented their evidence, and a control judge ordered Marco Antonio N., a driver on public transit Route 67, to stand trial in the death of Minerva González Roque, the FGE said in a statement reported by N+ and Municipios Puebla. The judge ordered him to report to authorities every 15 days, barred him from leaving Puebla state and set an economic guarantee of 10,000 pesos. The FGE said his liberty remains subject to a decision by a federal district judge in an amparo case brought by his defense. The court gave investigators two months of complementary investigation, ending on Dec. 23, 2026.

The penalty he could face. El Popular reported that under Article 86 of the Puebla state penal code, negligent homicide committed by someone providing public transport can carry six to 15 years in prison and a ban of two to 10 years, or six to 10 years under the reform specific to passenger transport.

What happened on Aug. 13. González Roque, known as “Minita,” was struck by a Route 67 unit while crossing at 9 Norte and 10 Poniente in Puebla’s historic center on the afternoon of Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, according to La Jornada de Oriente and El Universal Puebla. El Universal Puebla reported, citing early accounts, that the bus continued on its route, that the driver stopped near 14 Poniente, got out and left on foot, and that municipal police secured the vehicle. Municipios Puebla reported that after the crash the driver abandoned the unit and left the scene. Emergency crews confirmed she had died.

Who Minita was. González Roque was a member of the Colectivo Voz de los Desaparecidos en Puebla, a group of families searching for missing relatives. She had spent years searching for her son, José Martín, who disappeared on Nov. 22, 2018, after he was last seen in the municipality of Amozoc, La Jornada de Oriente reported. In November 2025 the state attorney general’s office told her that her son had been found dead on Nov. 23, 2018, one day after he was reported missing, and that his body had remained unidentified at the state forensic service (Semefo) ever since, the paper reported. “Feliz viaje al encuentro con su hijo José Martín Jiménez González,” the collective wrote the night she died, according to La Jornada de Oriente. (“Safe travels to meet your son.”) María Luisa Núñez Barojas, the collective’s founder, told La Jornada de Oriente at her funeral: “Hoy nos toca exigir justicia también para ella.” (“Today it is our turn to demand justice for her too.”)

Family protest. Before the hearing, relatives and members of the collective gathered outside the Centro de Justicia Penal on Calle 11 Sur to demand justice, Municipios Puebla reported. El Popular said relatives stayed outside for more than three hours after the hearing to demand punishment. Relatives also said the Route 67 concessionaire had not paid insurance support it had promised after her death, according to Municipios Puebla.

Sources

Tapachula, Chiapas: Four Arrested in the Killing of José David Laguna Victorio, 21, Found in a Well

Panoramic view of the rooftops of Tapachula, Chiapas, with green hills behind
A panoramic view of Tapachula. Photo: Eduardo Robles Pacheco / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Location: Colonia Jazmines, Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico

Legal status: Four people detained. On Saturday, Oct. 24, the Chiapas State Attorney General’s Office (FGE) named Alexis “N”, 22, as the alleged killer and said three relatives allegedly helped hide the body. None has been convicted, and a judge will decide their legal situation. The FGE said it will seek up to 60 years in prison.

The announcement. State Attorney General Jorge Luis Llaven Abarca, opening his working day with a broadcast from Tapachula, announced that four people had been detained for the homicide of José David “N”, 21, which he said took place on Oct. 21 in colonia Jazmines, according to the FGE press release published by Quadratín Chiapas. Infobae identified the victim as José David Laguna Victorio. The four are Alexis “N”, 22, described by the FGE as the victim’s romantic partner and the alleged direct perpetrator, and Berenice “N”, 45, Natividad “N”, 61, and Luis Francisco “N”, 43, who allegedly helped him hide the body.

What prosecutors allege. According to the FGE, the killing happened during an argument in which Alexis “N” beat José David until he died. Afterward, the release said, he asked his relatives for help hiding the body and moving it to another place, where it was found. The autopsy found the cause of death was a head injury caused by a blunt blow. Llaven Abarca said the office would ask for a maximum sentence of up to 60 years. Infobae noted that the FGE did not publicly detail what started the argument, exactly where the attack took place or when each of the other three detainees allegedly became involved, and that the accusation against Alexis as the alleged perpetrator is separate from what is attributed to the other three.

The disappearance. José David left his home in colonia Jazmines on Oct. 18, NAU reported, and his family lost contact with him. Infobae, citing local media, put his departure at about 1:30 PM. His relatives reported him missing and the FGE issued a search notice saying he was 21 and from Tapachula. Three days later, NAU and Infobae reported, he was found dead at the bottom of a well in the same neighborhood. At that point authorities had not said how he died or how his body reached the well.

Arrests that began as a drug case. The four were first detained on Wednesday, Oct. 21, during an operation in colonia Jardines de Chiapas, NAU reported. The state Secretaría de Seguridad del Pueblo said Alexis “N”, also known as “El Mau”, and the other three were held on suspected drug offenses after officers seized 40 packets of a substance resembling crystal methamphetamine, five packets of what appeared to be marijuana, and a Jeep Cherokee Limited with Chiapas plates. In that first report, the agency said the four could be linked to José David’s disappearance. NAU noted at the time that their responsibility had not been determined. State security forces and ministerial investigation and intelligence agents took part, NAU reported. Three days later, Infobae reported, the attorney general set out the fuller account naming Alexis as the alleged killer.

The wider briefing. In the same session, Llaven Abarca announced 10 arrests over a violent robbery of cargo transport operators in the ejido La Libertad, Suchiate, and said an operation continued to find those responsible for a double femicide in Ostuacán, where an older adult and a 12-year-old girl had been reported missing on Oct. 20, according to the FGE release.

Sources

Tepetlixpa, State of Mexico: José Ignacio Escorcia Serrano Sentenced to 70 Years for the Femicide of Itzel Díaz González, 23

The red facade and bell tower of the Church of San Esteban in Tepetlixpa, State of Mexico
The Church of San Esteban in Tepetlixpa. Photo: Miandigra / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Tepetlixpa, State of Mexico; sentence handed down in the Chalco judicial district

Legal status: Convicted and sentenced. On Thursday, Oct. 22, a judge in Chalco sentenced José Ignacio Escorcia Serrano to 70 years in prison for femicide and ordered 1.5 million pesos in reparations, La Jornada Estado de México reported. No appeal had been reported.

The sentence. The hearing began at midday in an oral trial courtroom of the Chalco judicial district, beside the Huitzilzingo state prison, where Escorcia Serrano was held throughout the case, La Jornada Estado de México reported. The judge accepted the evidence and testimony presented by the State of Mexico Attorney General’s Office (FGJEM) and the victim’s family, and imposed the maximum term the family had asked for. Infobae described the 70 years as the top prison penalty for the offense. Outside, activists and members of the collective Feminismo Zona Oriente Volcanes, who had supported the family throughout, chanted and held signs demanding the maximum sentence.

Who Itzel was. Itzel Díaz González, 23, was from Ozumba. Milenio reported she had studied logistics engineering at the Universidad Politécnica de Atlautla and was the vocalist in a band in which Escorcia Serrano played drums, and described him as her friend and former workmate. Infobae said she was a singer with close ties to her church and planned to start working to help her family.

The crime. On Oct. 7, 2025, Itzel left home in Ozumba to go out to dinner with Escorcia Serrano and never came back, La Jornada Estado de México and Infobae reported. Her relatives issued a missing person alert the same day, Sistema Mexiquense reported. Two days later, on Oct. 9, after a search by residents and authorities, her body was found inside the cistern of his home in Tepetlixpa, Sistema Mexiquense reported. According to the FGJEM’s investigation as reported by Milenio, he beat and sexually assaulted her and strangled her, then set her body on fire and put it in the cistern. Milenio reported that he first told her family she had canceled their plans, and later told a cousin that men had taken her away in a white vehicle in central Tepetlixpa. But Itzel and her mother had a safety routine, and before leaving home she gave her mother his phone number and address. Her parents handed that information to investigators, which led them to the body and to his arrest as the main suspect, Milenio reported.

A year of delays. He was ordered to stand trial on Oct. 18, 2025, according to SéUno Noticias. Roberto Aguilar, the family’s legal adviser, told La Jornada Estado de México that Escorcia Serrano refused to accept responsibility through an abbreviated procedure and that his defense used every available tool to drag the case out. According to Milenio, the defense asked the court to declare him not criminally responsible because of physical and mental health problems, submitting medical records that mentioned a possible mental disorder, DiGeorge syndrome and stage five kidney disease. The court rejected the request.

The family. “Ni la sentencia máxima me va a recuperar a mi hija pero la lucha para que él no saliera valió la pena para que nadie más vuelva a pasar por lo que mi hija pasó,” her mother told La Jornada Estado de México. The collective posted: “Se logró, se obtuvo un poco de justicia,” Infobae reported.

Sources

Abeokuta, Nigeria: Man Arrested Eight Months After Retired Teacher Adedotun Adeteju Oluwaseun, 61, Was Found Dead in Her Home

View over Abeokuta from Olumo Rock
Abeokuta seen from Olumo Rock, Ogun State, Nigeria. Not the scene. Photo: Melvin “Buddy” Baker / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Location: Agbaakin Emere, Bode-Olude, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria

Legal status: Saburi Lateef Ayinde, known as “Oki-Ocean”, was arrested on 19 October and is held by the Homicide Section of the State Criminal Investigation Department in Eleweran, Abeokuta. Police said he will be charged in court once the investigation is complete. He had not been charged as of 26 October and is presumed innocent.

The victim: Mrs Adedotun Adeteju Oluwaseun, 61, was a retired teacher known locally as “Mama Teacher”, Daily Post and The Nation reported. According to police, her body was found in the toilet of her home in Agbaakin Emere, Bode-Olude, on 28 February 2026. That was a day after she returned from a retirement celebration organised by her colleagues. Daily Post and The Nation reported that she is believed to have been killed on the evening of Friday, 27 February.

The arrest: Police public relations officer DSP Oluseyi Babaseyi announced the arrest in a statement, and Daily Post reported it on the evening of 23 October. The case had been moved from the Bode-Olude division to the state homicide section, leading to the breakthrough, the statement said. The Legal Observer, which gave his age as 45, said the statement was issued on Friday. Daily Post said it received the statement on Thursday. Police said preliminary findings indicate that she was strangled and attacked with a machete during an altercation with the suspect.

What police say he told them: According to the police statement, Mr Ayinde reportedly confessed and linked the killing to money. Police said he claimed he had given her N3,450,000 for safekeeping on the understanding that she would lend him N1,500,000 towards another vehicle. “Detectives are working to corroborate his account and establish the full circumstances surrounding the murder,” DSP Babaseyi said, as quoted by Daily Post. Commissioner of Police Bode Ojajuni commended the investigating officers, the statement said. The command also urged residents to resolve disputes lawfully and to report criminal activity promptly.

The video: On 25 October, Daily Post published what it described as a confessional video it had obtained. The Nation carried the same account on 26 October. In it, Mr Ayinde gives the loan figure as N1,550,000, not the N1,500,000 in the police statement. He describes an argument at her home at about 6pm on 27 February and says he picked up a cutlass, according to both outlets. He also says he took her phone. DSP Babaseyi told Daily Post that the phone “was tracked and led us to the suspect” and that “he will soon be charged to court when all facts are cleared.” None of this has been tested in court, and he has not entered a plea.

LEGAL EXPLAINER: In Ogun State, as in other southern Nigerian states, murder is an offence under the state Criminal Code and carries the death penalty on conviction. Section 35 of the Constitution requires an arrested person to be brought before a court within a reasonable time, which it defines as one day where a court with jurisdiction is within 40 kilometres. Police often seek a magistrate’s remand order while an investigation continues. Under the Evidence Act 2011, a confession can be used only if the prosecution proves it was not obtained by oppression or in other ways the Act forbids. A defendant who disputes a confession can trigger a trial within a trial to test it. Section 36 of the Constitution presumes every accused person innocent until proven guilty.

Sources

Kuje, Nigeria: Seven Paraded Over Kidnapping and Killing of 14-Year-Old Oluwadamilola Adedayo After Ransom Was Paid

Kuje Post Office building
The post office in Kuje, Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria. Not the scene. Photo: Teshaisha / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Kuchiyako community and Tukuba forest, Kuje Area Council, Federal Capital Territory (Abuja), Nigeria

Legal status: Seven suspects arrested by the Nigeria Police Force’s Special Tactical Squad and presented to journalists in Abuja on Friday 23 October 2026. Police say investigation is ongoing and other members of the alleged syndicate are being sought. No charges or court appearance had been reported by 26 October. All are presumed innocent.

On 23 August 2026, in what police called a “commando-style” attack, armed men took four people at gunpoint from a family home in Kuchiyako, a community in Kuje in the Federal Capital Territory: 14-year-old Oluwadamilola Adedayo, her mother, her 12-year-old brother and the family’s housemaid, Jennifer David. Two months later police found Oluwadamilola’s decomposing body in the Tukuba forest. On Friday the Special Tactical Squad paraded seven men it says belong to the gang, with her family present.

The ransom. The squad’s commander, Assistant Commissioner of Police Victor Godfrey, told reporters the kidnappers released the girl’s mother about an hour after the abduction so she could arrange a ransom. The family paid N16.2 million for the children’s release, police said. The kidnappers then demanded another N50 million, Premium Times reported. Godfrey did not say whether any further payment was made.

What happened in the forest. Police said the housemaid and the boy were badly beaten and abandoned unconscious in the forest but later found their way home, the News Agency of Nigeria reported. The boy described the ordeal to reporters on Friday. He said the kidnappers broke in at midnight, that the gang held them in the mountains, that the housemaid collapsed while walking and was thrown into a stream and covered with leaves, and that his sister was killed after she cut the hand of one of the kidnappers. “Then, from there, they got angry. They beat her. They threw rocks at her. Unfortunately, she died. They threw her off the cliff, and nobody can survive that kind of fall,” he said, according to Premium Times. He said he was tied to a tree, freed himself, spent a night near a stream and was led by a herdsman to hunters and vigilantes, who took him to hospital. Police said he escaped before the family paid any ransom and that the family did not know their daughter was dead.

Police account and a denial. Godfrey said investigation showed Oluwadamilola was murdered after resisting an attempt to sexually assault her. One of the suspects, Alidu Lawal, 18, told reporters she attacked him with a cutlass and showed a wound on his right wrist. He denied that any gang member tried to assault her, Premium Times reported. Neither account has been tested in court.

The arrests. Police said the case moved after the Inspector-General’s office endorsed a petition on 15 October. Two suspects were arrested in Rijana in Kaduna State and five in the Lugbe area of Abuja, in a joint operation with vigilantes and other agencies. On 19 October officers led by Godfrey searched the gang’s camp in Tukuba forest and recovered the girl’s body, which was taken to a mortuary for a possible autopsy. Besides Lawal, police named the suspects as Ishaka Abdullahi, 27, Abdullahi Dabo, 42, Abubakar Jibrin, 20, Barahu Ibrahim, 24, Sani Mohammed, 24, and Yakubu Abubakar, 28. Police said they recovered four AK-47 rifles, a locally made revolver, 63 rounds of ammunition, a motorcycle, N400,000 and a phone allegedly used for ransom talks. Police also linked the group to the kidnapping of a businessman, John Ali, in Kuje on 24 September, released after N3 million was paid.

The family. Oluwadamilola’s father thanked police and called for justice. “The kidnapping and murder of our beloved daughter, Oluwadamilola, at this time has left our family in deep pain,” he said, asking police to ensure that “all those responsible for this wicked act are brought to book.”

Sources

Uga, Nigeria: Former Boyfriend Arrested After Missing 23-Year-Old Mmesoma Umeorini Is Found Dead

Road bridge in Anambra State
A road bridge in Anambra State, Nigeria. Not the scene. Photo: Adimora chidinma / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Uga, Aguata Local Government Area, Anambra State, Nigeria

Legal status: Chima Ofoeke was arrested in connection with the suspected murder of Mmesoma Umeorini, and on 23 October 2026 the state police commissioner ordered the case transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department in Awka. Police had not announced a court charge as of Tuesday, 27 October. He has not been tried and is presumed innocent.

The victim: Mmesoma Umeorini was 23 and from Uga, a town in the Aguata area of southern Anambra State. Her mother reported to the divisional police officer at the Umuchu police division that her daughter had been missing since Friday 16 October, and that the family’s efforts to find her had failed, the Anambra State Police Command said. BBC News Igbo reported that she was from the Awarasi area of Uga, where images shared on social media showed her coffin placed in front of the family home as relatives, neighbours and townspeople mourned. She was later buried, BBC Igbo reported, citing local media.

The arrest: Acting on what it called intelligence-led information, police officers working with members of the Agunechemba security outfit in Uga arrested the suspect in Uga, police spokesman SP Tochukwu Ikenga said in a statement issued on Saturday 24 October. Police identified him as the dead woman’s alleged former boyfriend. Premium Times, citing the statement, reported that he is from Ebonyi State. “During preliminary interrogation, the suspect allegedly confessed to killing the victim following the breakdown of their relationship,” Ikenga said. “He subsequently led detectives to the location where the remains of the deceased were discovered and recovered.” Sahara Reporters reported that her body was found inside a bag in Uga on Friday 23 October.

The video: A video of security operatives questioning the suspect after his arrest circulated widely on social media and was described by Premium Times, Punch and Sahara Reporters. In it, according to Punch and Sahara Reporters, the man says: “I killed her because she broke up with me. I killed her in my house in Uga, put her inside a bag and dumped her somewhere.” Premium Times reported that in the clip he also describes, in Igbo, how he allegedly strangled her. Such statements, made in custody and on camera, have not been tested in court. Sahara Reporters, which published before the police statement, gave different names for both the suspect and the young woman, and one other outlet also spelled her surname differently. The names used here are those given in the police statement.

The investigation: The Commissioner of Police, CP Nnanna Oji Ama, directed on 23 October that the State Criminal Investigation Department in Awka take over the case for “a comprehensive and diligent investigation,” according to a release from the Anambra State Ministry of Information. The command urged residents to report missing persons and suspicious activity promptly, and said further developments would be communicated.

Reaction: The killing drew outrage in the community and on social media, with calls for a thorough investigation and prosecution, Sahara Reporters reported. A resident who spoke to Punch on condition of anonymity said: “A breakup is not a crime. Nobody owns another human being,” and urged families to take threats and signs of controlling behaviour seriously.

What happens next: In Nigeria, murder suspects are usually arraigned before a magistrate’s court, which can remand them in custody while the case file goes to the state’s Director of Public Prosecutions for legal advice. Murder trials are heard in the State High Court. Under Anambra State law, murder carries a mandatory death sentence on conviction.

Sources

La Victoria, Lima, Peru: Retired Police Officer Ordered Held Nine Months in Feminicide Investigation Over Killing of Adela del Valle Jiménez Romero

The cream-colored municipal building of La Victoria district in Lima, Peru, with a clock tower, seen from across a street
The La Victoria district municipal building in Lima, not the scene. Photo: AgainErick / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: La Victoria district, Lima, Peru

Legal status: Manuel Florián Ramos Venegas, 70, a retired noncommissioned officer of the National Police of Peru, is under investigation for feminicide in the shooting death of Adela del Valle Jiménez Romero, a Venezuelan woman, in La Victoria on Monday, Oct. 19. A Lima investigative court granted prosecutors’ request to hold him in preventive detention for nine months, Peru’s Public Ministry announced on Monday, Oct. 26. Preventive detention is not a conviction. He has not been tried and is presumed innocent.

The shooting. According to the Public Ministry, at about 8:55 p.m. on Oct. 19, Jiménez Romero was intercepted on a public street by the man now under investigation, who, after an argument, shot her repeatedly and then fled. América TV, citing the National Police, reported that the attack happened near the 12 de Octubre market, where she had gone out with a friend to buy medicine. Diario Extra reported that she was walking on the fourth block of Jirón General Valdés, in the San Pablo area near the market, and that she had gone out to get medicine for one of her daughters.

Security cameras recorded the encounter, according to both outlets. América TV reported that the footage showed an argument and a struggle on the street, that she tried to run and fell a few meters away, and that the attacker then fired and ran off on foot. Diario Extra reported that police found shell casings at the scene and a wallet holding a document that may belong to the suspect.

The arrest. He was captured hours later in the Independencia district, the Public Ministry said, crediting security camera analysis and a prompt police response. América TV reported that the arrest was made by agents of the La Victoria criminal investigation department, known as Depincri, with support from the San Cosme police station, and that he was later transferred to the criminal investigation directorate on Avenida España.

The hearing. The second specialized prosecutor’s office for violence against women and family members of Lima Centro, led by provincial prosecutor Carla Castro Herrera, sought the detention, the Public Ministry said. Assistant prosecutor Rosa Revolledo Masías argued the request before the Second Preparatory Investigation Court of Lima in La Victoria, which granted it. The Public Ministry said investigations will continue during the nine months. América TV and Willax reported that he is being held in the Ancón prison.

His account. América TV’s investigative unit obtained the statement he gave to authorities, and Willax later reported on it. In that statement, according to América TV, he said the two knew each other as friends and denied she was his partner, and he described a struggle over his gun during which, he said, shots went off. “I never said she was my partner. I have a family,” he said, according to the statement as aired by América TV. He said she knew he was carrying 1,800 soles in his waist pack to pay support for his daughter, that the pack came open and the gun was exposed, and that four shots were fired as they struggled. Asked by the prosecutor whether he fired the gun, he said the shots came from his side because, “sea como sea,” or no matter what, he did not let go of it. He also said he left the scene because he had to deliver money to his daughter, according to América TV. His account has not been tested in court.

The family’s account. Diario Extra reported that the woman’s eldest son told ATV Noticias that his mother had ended a relationship with the man and that he had been harassing her for about a month. Accounts of their relationship differ across reports, and the Public Ministry describes her as his partner. Diario Extra reported that she had lived in Peru for about four years and had four children.

Sources

Europe

Preston, England: Stepfather Nathan Owens Jailed for Life, Minimum 35 Years, for Murdering Student Carla Georgescu in Her University Halls

Preston Law Courts building in Lancashire
Preston Law Courts in Lancashire, England. The sentencing took place at Preston Crown Court. Photo: Ian Taylor / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Location: Ribble Hall, University of Lancashire student accommodation, Preston, Lancashire, England (Preston Crown Court)

Legal status: Convicted by a jury of murder and wounding with intent; earlier pleaded guilty to two offences of making an indecent image of a child. Sentenced Friday 23 October 2026 by Mr Justice Jacobs to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 35 years.

Nathan Owens, 34, of Hartlepool, was jailed for life at Preston Crown Court on Friday 23 October 2026 for murdering his stepdaughter, Carla Georgescu, a 19-year-old psychology student, in her room at the University of Lancashire’s Ribble Hall. Mr Justice Jacobs ordered that he serve at least 35 years before he can apply to the Parole Board. He will remain on licence and subject to recall for the rest of his life if he is ever released.

A jury convicted Owens of murder and of wounding with intent after a two-week trial, the Independent reported. Before the trial he had pleaded guilty to two offences of making an indecent image of a child. The BBC reported that those images were of Carla when she was between two and four years old, made by superimposing her image on sexualised pictures. Owens did not give evidence.

The night drive. In the early hours of 4 February 2026, Owens left the family home in Hartlepool, County Durham, and travelled to Preston. He messaged Carla with a story that he and her mother were coming to collect a purse her mother had left behind on an earlier visit, according to the Independent and Lancs Live. CCTV shown at trial captured Carla letting him into the building, covered with a blanket. Police said that footage was the last time she was seen alive. The BBC reported he left about an hour and a half later.

The attack. The judge said Carla suffered “a horrific brutal attack”. The BBC reported that she had knife wounds, including defensive injuries, internal injuries from a sexual assault and two “powerful blows to the head”, and that Owens also tried to strangle her. Prosecutor Nicholas Lumley KC called the offending “pre-meditated, non consensual, violent and sustained”. Mr Justice Jacobs said he was sure that fatal violence was “part of the plan” if Carla resisted the sexual attack Owens had decided to carry out. “The last 90 minutes of Carla’s life are too horrendous to think about,” he said.

The staging. Owens then arranged the room to make it look as if Carla had taken her own life and drove home as though nothing had happened. Lancs Live reported that on the return journey through Cumbria he disposed of her mobile phone, bloodstained bedsheets and an item he had taken with him. Carla was found in her room on 5 February. Owens told no one he had been to see her. Detectives from Lancashire Police arrested him soon afterwards, and he denied any involvement.

The obsession. The judge said the background to the killing was Owens’s “long-standing sexual obsession” with Carla, an only child, which he hid from her and from her mother, whom he had married. Prosecutors told the court Carla was “thriving” at university, was working towards a doctorate and was “excitedly looking forward” to travelling to Romania, where she was born, to meet her first boyfriend. The judge described her, from the evidence of her mother, friends and lecturers, as “polite, kind, intelligent, articulate and lovely with a very gentle way”.

No remorse. “You have not shown any remorse for what you did,” Mr Justice Jacobs told him. “On the contrary, you denied having injured Carla in any way, knowing full well that you had done so. You took victim blaming to its limit by suggesting that she may have committed suicide.” Her mother had to give evidence as a result, he said, which “further illustrates, if further illustration were necessary, how despicable you are.” Lancs Live reported that Owens showed no emotion as he left the dock.

Detective Inspector Pete Macdonald of Lancashire Police said: “Owens has taken Carla’s life, but he has also changed her mum’s completely. He has torn apart the family he was trusted to love.” As her stepfather, he said, Owens had been welcomed into a family and “completely abused that trust”.

Sources

Ealing, London: Alvin Gitahi Jailed for Life for Strangling Partner Vivienne Baraka as She Hid in the Bathroom

Entrance of Southwark Crown Court behind trees
The entrance to Southwark Crown Court in London, where Alvin Gitahi was sentenced. Not the scene. Photo: Christopher Hilton / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Location: Riverside Close, Ealing, west London, England (Southwark Crown Court)

Legal status: Convicted of murder by a jury at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday 6 August 2026. Sentenced Friday 23 October 2026 to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 21 years and three months.

Alvin Gitahi, of Uxbridge Road, Ealing, was jailed for life at Southwark Crown Court on Friday 23 October 2026 for murdering his partner, Vivienne Baraka, 35, at an address in Riverside Close, Ealing, on 26 March 2024. He must serve at least 21 years and three months before he can be considered for parole. A jury convicted him on 6 August. He denied murder and, the judge said, still denies it.

The call. Judge Dexter Dias KC set out the last hour of her life, as reported by MyLondon. At 2.50 p.m. on 26 March 2024, Baraka phoned her mother, crying. When her mother asked why, the line went dead. Her mother called back and got no answer. Instead, Baraka sent messages: “Call the police, I’m in danger.” Her mother did. The Metropolitan Police said officers were called at about 3.15 p.m. over concerns for a woman’s welfare. Two officers went to the flat and got no answer. When they began kicking the door, Gitahi opened it.

The bathroom. Police found Baraka in the bathroom, where, the judge said, she had “barricaded herself” to protect herself during an attack that lasted 40 to 45 minutes. She was pronounced dead at the scene. A post-mortem examination found she died from compression to the neck. Outside the block, officers found her phone. The judge said that at some point after 3.09 p.m., her last communication, Gitahi threw it out of the window. He was arrested at the scene. Neighbours told officers they had heard her screaming before police arrived, the Met said.

“I will finish you.” The couple met in March 2021 and Baraka moved in with Gitahi that May, the judge said. A few weeks after he met her mother in August 2021, Baraka began telling her mother he was abusing her, often phoning from the bathroom because she was scared of him. On 26 January 2022, while she was pregnant, she called her mother to say she had locked herself in the bathroom because he had tried to strangle her. When police came, the handle had been taken off the outside of the door so she could not get out, and an officer fixed it. She told officers then that he had put his hand round her neck and “applied pressure until she shouted that she was having their baby”, and that he had strangled her at various times, telling her “I will finish you”. The judge said she told police he was violent when drinking.

The investigation. The Met said detectives built the case from electronic devices, phone records and witness statements, finding messages that showed repeated abuse and evidence that Gitahi assaulted her regularly. He was charged with murder on 8 October 2025, more than 18 months after her death. MyLondon described him as a former Heathrow Airport worker.

The sentence. “You have taken a daughter away from her mother, a sister away from her brother, you have taken this mother away from her child,” the judge told him. “In this and at every point you have shown absolutely no remorse.” Baraka is survived by their daughter, now four. Prosecutor Charlotte Newell KC told the court the child had been present, or at least in the property, during one earlier incident.

“Vivienne was very community-orientated and helped a lot of people during her life,” her family said. “Vivienne’s spirit lives on in her daughter.” Her mother, in a statement read in court, called her “my best friend” and said: “I cry every day.”

Sources

Leipzig, Germany: Federal Court of Justice Makes Life Sentence Final for Berlin Sailor Who Drowned His Friend in the Kattegat

Federal Court of Justice building in Leipzig
The Federal Court of Justice in Leipzig, Germany. Not the scene. Photo: L.E.rewi-sor / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Kattegat, off Sweden’s west coast (scene); Federal Court of Justice, 5th Criminal Senate, Leipzig, Germany (ruling); Berlin Regional Court I (trial)

Legal status: Convicted. The Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) rejected the defendant’s appeal on points of law in a decision dated 6 October 2026, case number 5 StR 375/26, which was made public on 26 October. His conviction for murder and bodily harm and his life sentence are now final.

The victim: The man who died was 71 years old and a long-time friend of the defendant. Both men were German. German reports have not named either of them, in line with German privacy practice.

What the trial court found: The two men had spent about two weeks together in the cramped space of an eight-metre trimaran after taking part in a sailing regatta in Norway, rbb24 and dpa reported. YACHT magazine identified the boat as the F24 trimaran “Jolly Rose.” On 1 August 2024, on the way home off Sweden’s west coast, they fell into a fierce argument. What started it was never established, even at trial, according to the judgment as reported by dpa and YACHT. According to the facts found by the Berlin court and summarised by YACHT, the older man ended up in the water for about an hour during the dispute. The defendant only helped him back aboard after two other sailors repeatedly urged him to. The fight continued on deck, and the defendant put his friend in a chokehold. The 71-year-old escaped into the water again and let himself drift toward the other sailors’ boat. The court found that the defendant then jumped in unnoticed, approached his exhausted friend from behind and held him under water until he drowned. Because the victim did not expect the attack and could not defend himself, the court classed the killing as murder by stealth, known in German law as Heimtücke.

The defence case: The defendant said he had been trying to rescue his friend, and his lawyers argued for acquittal, saying the rescue attempt had “tragically failed,” rbb24 and dpa reported. The judges did not believe him. YACHT reported that video recordings made by the Swedish coast guard, eyewitness testimony and expert evidence all counted against his account.

The arrest and the trial: The defendant was arrested in Sweden shortly after the death and had been held in pretrial detention in Berlin since November 2024, rbb24 reported. He was charged in April 2025 and his trial began in July 2025. On 19 January 2026, Berlin Regional Court I sentenced him to life in prison for murder and intentional bodily harm, according to YACHT and the legal news service Recht & Politik. The court followed the prosecution’s request, rbb24 and dpa reported.

The appeal: The 5th Criminal Senate, which sits in Leipzig, found no legal error to the defendant’s disadvantage, rbb24 reported. YACHT reported that one of the appeal’s arguments was that the European Arrest Warrant used to surrender him from Sweden to Germany had described the offence as manslaughter, not murder. The court rejected this, YACHT reported: it was still the same act set out in the warrant, and its later classification as murder did not bar a conviction. The defendant could not rely on the original assessment staying the same, the court said.

What a life sentence means in Germany: Under German criminal law, murder carries a mandatory life sentence. A prisoner serving life can generally apply for release on parole after 15 years, unless the court has found particular severity of guilt. None of the reports said whether such a finding was made here.

Sources

Karlstadt-Wiesenfeld, Germany: Man Convicted a Second Time of 1993 Murder of 13-Year-Old Sabine

Justizzentrum Würzburg building
The Justice Centre in Würzburg, Bavaria, where the retrial was held. Not the scene. Photo: Christian Wolf (www.c-w-design.de) / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 de

Location: Riding stables outside Wiesenfeld, part of Karlstadt, Main-Spessart district, Lower Franconia, Bavaria, Germany

Legal status: Convicted of murder by the Würzburg Regional Court (Landgericht Würzburg) on Monday 26 October 2026 at a retrial held in private under juvenile law. Youth sentence of six years and three months. Not final: the defence has announced a further appeal on points of law (Revision) to the Federal Court of Justice. He remains at liberty pending a final judgment.

A few hundred metres outside the village of Wiesenfeld in Lower Franconia there is a riding stable where a 13-year-old schoolgirl named Sabine spent much of her free time. She went there shortly before Christmas 1993 and did not come home. She was first treated as missing. Two days later she was found under the lid of a slurry pit on the property.

What the court found. According to the indictment, Sabine was lured onto the threshing floor of a barn at the stables on 15 December 1993, choked for several minutes and sexually abused, and died there. On Monday morning the Würzburg court found it proven that the defendant, now 49 and then 17, killed her, and that he did so to satisfy his sexual urges, the element that makes the killing murder under German law, court spokeswoman Martina Pfister-Luz told reporters. The chamber ruled out a second offender. “There are no indications” of one, she said. Because he was a juvenile in 1993 he was tried under youth criminal law, the hearings were closed to the public and his name has not been published. Every possible offence except murder is now time-barred, dpa reported.

The DNA. For decades the case went nowhere. In the mid-1990s prosecutors were sure they had found the killer and put another teenager on trial; he was acquitted. In 2020 DNA traces led investigators to the man convicted on Monday. At the first trial, the prosecutor told the court that his DNA, including semen, had been found at the scene and on the girl’s clothing, dpa reported.

Second time round. Another chamber of the same court convicted him in 2024 and gave him six and a half years. The Federal Court of Justice found legal errors in how that court assessed the evidence and sent the case back. The retrial began in May 2026 and ran for 21 days, hearing more than 90 witnesses, BR24 reported. The prosecution again asked for six and a half years. The defendant did not address the allegations at either trial.

The defence. His lawyers sought an acquittal, arguing the DNA evidence could not prove that he committed murder. Defence lawyer Hans-Jochen Schrepfer said: “I am convinced that this act can only have been committed jointly by several people.” The defence has long pointed to the late owner of the stables, who died before he could be heard as a witness, dpa reported. That theory was never tested against him in court.

The family. Sabine’s parents took part in the proceedings as joint plaintiffs. Their lawyer, Jan Paulsen, called the result satisfactory but said the retrial had stirred up old memories. “I know for certain that they are afraid that the whole thing will drag on again,” he said, “because it will certainly go to the Federal Court of Justice.” If that court finds new errors, the case would most likely come back to Lower Franconia for a third trial. Neither the court nor prosecutors saw grounds to remand him in custody in the meantime.

Sources

Galapagar, Spain: Four Men Jailed Over the Killing of Elia Cobián, 80, Heiress of Madrid’s Historic Pontejos Fabric Store

Stone parish church in Galapagar, Spain
The parish church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción in Galapagar, near Madrid. Not the scene. Photo: Zarateman / Wikimedia Commons, CC0

Location: Calle del Mandril, La Navata, Galapagar, Community of Madrid, Spain (Collado Villalba investigating court no. 1)

Legal status: Four men arrested by the Guardia Civil on Tuesday 20 October 2026. On Thursday 22 October an investigating judge ordered all four held in provisional detention without bail. According to the Guardia Civil, three are under investigation as the alleged direct perpetrators of the robbery and homicide and the fourth for concealment (encubrimiento). No one has been charged at trial or convicted; all are presumed innocent.

A judge in Collado Villalba on Thursday 22 October 2026 sent four men to prison pending trial over the death of Elia Cobián, 80, a former owner of the Almacenes Cobián, the historic fabric and haberdashery store on Madrid’s Plaza de Pontejos, who was found bound, gagged and beaten to death in her home in Galapagar on 6 May. The Guardia Civil arrested the four on Tuesday after a five-month investigation.

The morning she was found. According to the Guardia Civil account reported by Europa Press, the attack took place inside the main house on her estate on Calle del Mandril, in the residential area of La Navata. At about 9.40 a.m. on 6 May, estate workers noticed a broken window and could not reach her. They called her lawyer, who had keys. He opened the door and found her body in the living room. Paramedics from SUMMA 112 confirmed she was dead. EFE and the local outlet A Quien La Sierra reported that she had been gagged, her hands tied, and struck repeatedly. El País said police sources did not hesitate to describe what was done to her as “torture”.

The safe. Investigators’ main line from the start was a violent robbery that ended in her death from the blows. The house had been ransacked. Europa Press reported that the attackers may have been after a safe where she was thought to keep cash. Reports differ on whether anything of value was taken. A forensic examination by the Guardia Civil’s criminalistics laboratory recovered traces that investigators called decisive in identifying the suspects. The attackers left on foot through scrubland along the bank of the Guadarrama river. On 28 September the Guardia Civil staged a reconstruction and appealed for witnesses, publishing the escape route it believed they had used toward the centre of Galapagar.

The arrests. Two men were arrested in Galapagar itself, in the San Gregorio area, one in the city of Madrid and one in Villajoyosa, Alicante. Three house searches were carried out in Galapagar. The Guardia Civil said three of the men are suspected of carrying out the attack and the fourth of helping them. El País, citing police sources, reported that the suspects were local men with previous records for theft and robbery. It said one had served seven years in prison for a similar violent home robbery and had been released a few months before the killing. The judicial investigation remains under seal. Under Spanish procedure an investigating judge directs the inquiry at this stage; the Collado Villalba judge has led this one from the start, A Quien La Sierra reported.

The family business. The Cobián family’s store, founded in 1929 in the centre of Madrid, closed in 2018, and Elia Cobián had been retired for years, El País reported. She lived alone, although she had staff at the house. The killing came days before a court hearing over the illegal occupation of one of her properties, El País said, which detectives initially considered as a motive before settling on robbery. Three months before the killing, Galapagar’s town hall had announced a full renewal of the town’s security cameras, with 54 new devices.

Sources

Älvsjö, Sweden: 14-Year-Old Girl Detained Over Shooting of Youth Worker Saba Abraham as Teen Suspects Reach Six

Södertörn District Court building
Södertörn District Court, south of Stockholm, Sweden. Not the scene. Photo: AleWi / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Kämpetorpshallen sports hall, Solberga, Älvsjö, southern Stockholm, Sweden

Legal status: Six teenagers are detained (häktade) in one investigation. None has been charged. All deny wrongdoing and are presumed innocent.

The latest arrests: On Thursday evening, 22 October, prosecutor Lukas Tigerstrand arrested (anhöll) a 14-year-old girl on suspicion of aiding the murder of Saba Abraham. He confirmed the arrest to TT the next day, according to Svenska Dagbladet. On Friday, 23 October, two 15-year-old boys from the Stockholm area were detained by Södertörn District Court. On Sunday, 25 October, the court detained the girl on suspicion of aiding murder, Nya Allehanda reported, citing TT. On Monday, 26 October, another 15-year-old boy was detained on suspicion of aggravated arson in Huddinge a week before the murder, SVT reported, citing Sveriges Radio’s Ekot.

The victim: Saba Abraham was shot dead on the evening of Friday, 16 October, in Kämpetorpshallen, a sports hall in southern Stockholm. Nya Allehanda reported that a football match for socioeconomically disadvantaged young people was being held in the hall. TT reported that a floorball match was also being played nearby, with many people present. Svenska Dagbladet and TT gave her age as 24, while SVT described her as a woman of about 25. She worked with young people and was employed by the City of Stockholm, according to Nya Allehanda. A memorial ceremony was held outside the hall on Wednesday, 21 October, Svenska Dagbladet reported.

The first detentions: On Tuesday, 20 October, the Swedish Prosecution Authority said it had asked for two youths aged 16 and 17 to be detained on probable cause. Tigerstrand said both had been notified of suspicion of murder and aggravated weapons offences and were suspected of carrying out the killing together. The case number at Södertörn District Court is B 18003-26. SVT reported that both boys come from the Gothenburg area and are also suspected of preparation for another murder.

The full list: As listed by SVT on 26 October, the suspects are a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old suspected of murder, preparation for murder and aggravated weapons offences; a 15-year-old suspected of aiding murder and preparation for murder; a 15-year-old suspected of two counts of conspiracy to murder; the 14-year-old girl suspected of aiding murder; and a 15-year-old suspected of aggravated arson in Snättringe. SVT said the arson destroyed an estate agency and a pizzeria. Asked about any link between the fire and the murder, Tigerstrand told SVT he could not go into it. Mitt i reported that the arson and conspiracy matters are being investigated under the same case number. Tigerstrand told Svenska Dagbladet that the conspiracy offences were separate events with nothing to do with the Älvsjö murder.

What prosecutors say: “She has denied the offence, but beyond that I do not want to say anything about what she has said,” Tigerstrand told TT, as quoted by Nya Allehanda. He said that when someone so young is detained, investigators look at her situation in particular, so that detention might be replaced by a placement through social services or other measures. According to the prosecutor, investigators have so far not seen that any suspect knew the victim. On motive, he told Svenska Dagbladet it was too early to comment.

Reported lines of inquiry: SVT reported, citing several independent sources, that the boys acted on someone else’s orders, that the motive was revenge aimed at one of the victim’s relatives, and that police are investigating the involvement of the Foxtrot network. These claims have not been confirmed by prosecutors. Criminologist Manne Gerell told Aftonbladet, as quoted by Nya Allehanda, that young shooters had become common but that so many children in one murder was unusual.

LEGAL EXPLAINER: Since 10 September 2026, the age of criminal responsibility in Sweden has been 14 for serious crimes such as murder, the Prosecution Authority says. That is why a 14-year-old can now be arrested and detained. Prosecutors decide on arrest, and a court decides on detention at the prosecutor’s request. Detention is not a charge or a finding of guilt.

Sources

Bridgend, Wales: Trial Date Set for Retirement Complex Resident Charged With Murdering Eleanor Barnfield

Cardiff Crown Court building
Cardiff Crown Court, where the trial date was set. Not the scene. Photo: Richard Croft / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Location: Coity Road and Ger-y-Nant retirement housing complex, Bridgend, Wales (Newport Magistrates’ Court; Cardiff Crown Court)

Legal status: Clifford Foster, 61, charged with murder. First appeared at Newport Magistrates’ Court on Friday 23 October 2026. At Cardiff Crown Court on Monday 26 October he was not asked to enter a plea and was remanded in custody; plea and trial preparation hearing set for 23 November 2026, provisional trial date 12 April 2027. He is presumed innocent.

A 61-year-old man who lived at a Bridgend retirement complex has been charged with murdering Eleanor Barnfield, 47, a housing association worker who died in hospital after her car crashed on Coity Road on Monday 19 October 2026 and police found she had “puncture wounds unrelated to the collision”. Clifford Foster, of Bridgend, appeared at Newport Magistrates’ Court on Friday 23 October and at Cardiff Crown Court on Monday 26 October, where a judge set a provisional trial date in April 2027. He remains in custody.

The crash. Police were called to the crash on Coity Road on Monday. The Press Association, via Nation.Cymru, reported that her car had crashed into a wall. She was taken to hospital and died. The BBC reported that it understood her wounds were sustained in a stabbing. The Welsh Ambulance Service said medics were called at about 12.44 p.m., a response unit arrived seven minutes later, and two emergency ambulances followed at 1.07 p.m. and 1.13 p.m. A critical care team from the emergency medical retrieval and transfer service arrived by helicopter and delivered advanced care before she was driven to hospital.

The stand-off. Foster was arrested at Ger-y-Nant, a sheltered housing and retirement complex of 13 flats run by the housing association Valleys to Coast, a few minutes’ drive from the Princess of Wales Hospital, with Coity Road the main route between them. The BBC reported that specially trained firearms officers were involved in a stand-off at the complex that lasted 12 hours before an arrest at 1 a.m. on Tuesday. Barnfield worked for Valleys to Coast; Foster lived at Ger-y-Nant, the court heard. The complex accepts residents aged 60 and over.

The rumours. Some media had reported that Barnfield crashed while driving herself to hospital. The Welsh Ambulance Service called reports of a delayed response “contradictory”, “factually untrue” and “misleading rumours”. It said preliminary checks had been “unable to identify any calls from Eleanor Barnfield’s phone numbers” and that inquiries continued to “establish if any calls were received by other means”. South Wales Police said the death was not being investigated as a domestic incident. Senior Investigating Officer Claire Lamerton asked the public “to not speculate about the circumstances as court proceedings are now active.”

In court. Foster, wearing a grey tracksuit and using a crutch, spoke only to confirm his name, age and address, the BBC reported. He was not asked to enter a plea. “This case is indictable only, sir, we are sending these matters to Cardiff Crown Court for a hearing on October 26,” magistrate Barbara Williams told him. Fenn Richards represented him; Huw Williams prosecuted.

Cardiff, Monday. Three days later Foster was before Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke, the Recorder of Cardiff, at Cardiff Crown Court. Again he spoke only to confirm his name, date of birth and his address at Ger-y-Nant, WalesOnline and Herald.Wales reported, and again he was not asked to enter a plea. The judge fixed a plea and trial preparation hearing for 23 November and a provisional trial date of 12 April 2027, with the trial expected to last about three weeks. He was remanded in custody until then. The allegation against him has not been tested in court.

“She was our rock.” Her family, in a tribute issued through police, called her the “kindest, most loving, bravest person in the world” and said: “She meant everything to us and will be forever loved and missed deeply by her devoted family and friends.” Jo Oak, chief executive of Valleys to Coast, said Barnfield was “a much-valued member of the Valleys to Coast team” and would be “remembered with great warmth and affection by her colleagues.” Herald.Wales described her as a mother of two.

Sources

Olgomel, Belarus: Man, 33, Previously Convicted of Murder, Detained After a Mother and Her Two Sons Are Found Dead at Home

Wooden Church of the Resurrection in Olgomel
The Church of the Resurrection in Olgomel, Brest Region, Belarus. Not the scene. Photo: Валацуга (Valatsuga) / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Olgomel (Alhomel in Belarusian), a village in Stolin District, Brest Region, southern Belarus

Legal status: A 33-year-old man from the same village was detained on 24 October as a suspect. Investigators opened a criminal case for the murder of two or more people by a person who has previously committed murder. No formal charge has been reported. He is presumed innocent.

The discovery: On the morning of Saturday, 24 October, the 102 police emergency line received a report of a killing in Olgomel, Belarus’s Interior Ministry (MVD) told the state news agency BelTA. The bodies of a 64-year-old pensioner and her two sons, aged 37 and 40, were found in their own home with signs of violent death. Police officers went to the scene straight away, according to the regional news site Onlinebrest. Police have not released the names of the three.

The suspect: Criminal investigation officers identified and detained a suspect quickly, while the trail was still fresh, the ministry said. He is a 33-year-old resident of the same village who has a previous conviction for murder, BelTA, STV and 4b.by reported. After the killings, he hid in the home of a woman he knew in the same village, the ministry said. His name has not been released.

The police account: Dmitry Starchikov, head of a department of the criminal investigation directorate of the Brest Regional Executive Committee’s Internal Affairs Directorate, gave the police version of events to BelTA. “It is known that on the day of the killing they were drinking alcohol. During the gathering a conflict arose, during which the guest grabbed a knife and first killed the two brothers, and then their mother,” he said. “He created the appearance of disorder in the house and, having laid the bodies next to each other, left.” STV, citing the ministry’s Telegram channel, described the same sequence. This is the police account and has not been tested in court.

The Investigative Committee: According to 4b.by, the Investigative Committee said the drinking took place in the house during the night, and that a conflict arose between the guest and his hosts, during which all three were killed. The Stolin district department of the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case under Part 2 of Article 139 of the Criminal Code, covering the murder of two or more people committed by a person who has previously committed murder. Investigators and forensic specialists from the committee’s Brest regional directorate, working with experts from the State Forensic Examination Committee, examined the house and collected traces and items for forensic testing, 4b.by reported. The committee said it was establishing all the circumstances and the causes and conditions that contributed to the crime.

About the sources: All of the reports found are based on statements from the Interior Ministry and the Investigative Committee. The outlets include the state news agency BelTA and the broadcaster STV. No independent account of the case was found, and details may change as the investigation continues.

LEGAL EXPLAINER: Under Part 2 of Article 139 of Belarus’s Criminal Code, aggravated murder, including the killing of two or more people or murder by someone who has killed before, is punishable by 8 to 25 years in prison, life imprisonment, or the death penalty. Belarus is the only country in Europe that still carries out executions. Opening a criminal case and detaining a suspect is an early stage of an investigation; a formal charge must follow before the case can go to court, where the prosecution must prove guilt.

Sources

Velké Poříčí, Czech Republic: Man, 34, Charged With Murder and Remanded in Custody Over the Stabbing of a School After-Care Teacher by the Metuje River

Church in Velké Poříčí
The church in Velké Poříčí, Czech Republic. Not the scene. Photo: Addvisor / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Velké Poříčí, a small town in Náchod District, Hradec Králové Region, north-eastern Czech Republic

Legal status: A 34-year-old Czech man was charged with murder on Friday, 23 October, and remanded in custody by the Náchod District Court on Saturday, 24 October. He has not been named. He is presumed innocent.

The victim: The woman was 61 and lived in Velké Poříčí, police said. CNN Prima News described her as a popular teacher at a school after-care club, known locally as a družina. Police have not released her name. A resident told the broadcaster he had seen her with children in the town square the day before she died. “She was fine, she said hello, she waved,” he said.

The search: Police began looking for her on the afternoon of Thursday, 22 October, after a report that she had not come home or arrived at work and could not be reached, the Czech News Agency (ČTK) reported, citing police. Her body was found on the bank of the Metuje river, not far from her home, according to Náchodský deník. Officers detained the man during the night into 23 October.

The charge: Regional detectives from Hradec Králové opened a prosecution of the 34-year-old on Friday for the especially serious crime of murder, police spokesman Martin Stránský said, as quoted by Náchodský deník. “The man is alleged to have caused the woman multiple stab and cut wounds,” he said. “After the act the man took possession of items that the woman had with her. According to the detectives’ findings so far, no family relationship was established between the accused and the injured party.” The killing happened in daylight on 22 October, the newspaper reported. This is the police account and has not been tested in court.

The custody hearing: A judge of the Náchod District Court sent the man into custody on Saturday, ČTK reported, citing Mr Stránský. Police declined to comment on a motive, citing the continuing investigation. A CNN Prima News reporter, Martin Holek, said the suspect had worn a beard in the photograph police used while searching for him, but arrived at court clean shaven. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison, ČTK reported.

The suspect’s background, as reported: Residents told CNN Prima News that the man had rented in the town for many years, spent much of his time at home playing games and seemed quiet. Novinky, citing reporting by CNN Prima News, said on 26 October that he had lived in long isolation and had once been admitted to hospital over a suspected mental illness but left treatment. The same report said the trigger was his broken computer and that he chose the woman at random, attacking her a few dozen metres from her home on the path she took to school each day. Police have not confirmed a motive, and these claims come from a single broadcaster’s reporting.

LEGAL EXPLAINER: In Czech criminal procedure, police open a prosecution by formally charging a suspect, and a court must then decide within strict statutory time limits whether to remand him. Custody can be ordered on specific grounds, such as a risk of flight, interference with witnesses or further offending. Under section 140 of the Criminal Code, murder carries ranges up to 20 years, and the gravest forms can attract an exceptional sentence of up to 30 years or life.

Sources

Dijon, France: Woman, 21, Beaten to Death in Family Flat as Police Hunt Her Brother

Facade of the Palais de Justice in Dijon
The facade of the Palais de Justice in Dijon, France. Not the scene. Photo: MOSSOT / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

Location: Apartment on rue Ginette-Watelle, Montmuzard district, Dijon, Côte-d’Or, Burgundy, France

Legal status: Dijon prosecutors opened a flagrante delicto investigation for murder and attempted murder of a parent (meurtre et tentative de meurtre sur ascendant), led by the Dijon judicial police. The 24-year-old brother of the dead woman is the main suspect. He had not been arrested as of Monday 26 October and was being actively sought. He has not been charged and is presumed innocent.

At about 3 a.m. on Sunday 25 October, a couple living in an apartment block near the Gaston-Gérard football stadium in Dijon opened their door to a neighbour, a 60-year-old woman, standing in the corridor with severe head wounds. “The only thing that mattered to her was her daughter’s health,” the woman told France 3 Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. Her husband said he heard the words “my son has killed my daughter!” and followed the injured woman back to her flat while his wife called the police.

What police found. Officers sent to the flat on rue Ginette-Watelle after a call reporting “serious intrafamily violence” found a 21-year-old woman in cardiorespiratory arrest, Dijon public prosecutor Arnaud Viornery said in a statement on Sunday. Emergency crews could not revive her and she died shortly before 4 a.m. Her mother “also had serious injuries, in particular to the head and upper limbs,” the prosecutor said, and was taken to Dijon University Hospital with her life in danger. According to the prosecutor, both women “were allegedly struck with a metal object.” A pull-up bar “bearing traces of blood” was found in the apartment. Neither the prosecutor nor the outlets that reported the case have published the young woman’s name.

The suspect. Viornery said the main suspect is the victim’s brother, the mother’s son, aged 24, who “left the scene before the police arrived.” The prosecutor said police had already been called to the flat several times, including in May and August of this year, to remove the suspect from the home or keep him from entering it, ICI Bourgogne reported. He also has a previous conviction for drug trafficking and driving under the influence of drugs, for which he received a six-month suspended sentence, with “an additional sentence of four months for failing to stop” for police, according to the prosecutor’s statement as reported by ICI.

The investigation. A magistrate from the prosecutor’s office went to the flat during the night. Prosecutors said the inquiry must establish the exact circumstances, look at “any earlier proceedings linked to this family situation,” identify the motive, and “allow the arrest of the suspect.” An autopsy on the young woman was scheduled for Tuesday 27 October, ICI reported.

Monday. By Monday the man was still at large. A police source told France 3 that “all the means used in a criminal investigation” were being deployed to find him. The mother’s life was no longer in danger, the same source said, but she had been placed in a coma. Investigators released no further details.

What the neighbours said. A man who regularly visits his own mother in the building told France 3 that the suspect always said hello and seemed polite, but that “you could see he was often under the influence of alcohol and drugs.” The same neighbour said the young man had lost his job about a year earlier and moved back in with his mother, and that the two often argued and she would throw him out. Those accounts have not been confirmed by investigators. The neighbour who followed the mother into the flat described finding the young woman lying on her back with blood on the floor. “It wasn’t nice to see,” he said.

Sources

Ingolstadt, Germany: Life, With Particular Gravity of Guilt, for Man Who Lay in Wait and Stabbed Ex-Wife Tuğba P. 24 Times

Landgericht Ingolstadt court building
The Ingolstadt Regional Court building in Bavaria, Germany. Not the scene. Photo: Bubo / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Outside the victim’s home, Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany (Ingolstadt Regional Court)

Legal status: Convicted of murder on base motives and sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday 23 October 2026, with a finding of particular gravity of guilt. Not final: the defence has said it will appeal on points of law (Revision), which must be lodged within a week.

The Ingolstadt Regional Court on Friday 23 October 2026 sentenced a 50-year-old Turkish man, named in the Augsburger Allgemeine as Bülent K., to life imprisonment for murdering his former wife, Tuğba P., 45, outside her home on the evening of 5 December 2025. The court also found particular gravity of guilt, which means he cannot be released on parole after 15 years, the usual minimum for a German life sentence. The verdict followed the prosecution’s demand, made the day before. The defence had argued for manslaughter and eight and a half years.

The night of the killing. She had been dropped home by her new partner, and they said goodbye with a kiss, BR24 reported. Her ex-husband was waiting with a kitchen knife, dpa reported. She managed to phone her children. Her two sons, then 23 and 17, ran outside and kicked and punched their father to try to pull him off her, police said. She was stabbed at least 24 times and died about an hour later at Klinikum Ingolstadt. The defendant was seriously injured in the struggle and spent time in a coma; his lawyers said he could remember nothing and would not testify.

“Absolute possessiveness.” Presiding judge Gerhard Reicherl described the killing as a typical femicide, dpa reported. The court found the motive was an “absolute” sense of ownership: the defendant would not accept that his ex-wife was living a self-determined life without him, or that she might move in with her new partner. The trigger, the judge said, was a hearing at the Ingolstadt family court days earlier at which it became clear he faced prison for breaching protection orders while on a suspended sentence. In prison, BR24 reported the judge as saying, he would have lost his constant control over her. That, the court found, was when he decided to kill her.

Why the gravity finding. Reicherl said the stalking was no longer “normal stalking”. The court cited years of surveillance: a GPS tracker on her car and a bugging device hidden in her living room. It also cited her absolute despair. She had used every form of state help available and obtained several protection orders, and police had spoken to the defendant. None of it deterred him, the judge said. He also knew his children would witness the attack and did not care. The couple separated in 2024, police said. Two months before the killing a district court gave him a suspended sentence over the harassment and imposed another contact ban.

The Nazi comparison. The judge opened his reasons with sharp criticism of the defence. In his closing speech, one defence lawyer had compared the court to a Nazi court, arguing his client was being convicted for being a man and a Turk. Reicherl said such comparisons crossed the limit of what was bearable and that the only yardstick was the Basic Law, Germany’s constitution. He called the defence’s claim that the defendant had been afraid of his wife “morally reprehensible” and “completely absurd”.

In the courtroom. The room was full, mostly with the dead woman’s family and friends, many holding photographs of her, BR24 reported. Her children wore T-shirts printed with her name. There was spontaneous applause when the judge finished. The defendant showed no emotion.

Sources

Marburg, Germany: Polish Man Arrested in Szczecin on European Warrant Over Stabbing Death of Pregnant Woman

The Lahn river running through Marburg
The Lahn river in Marburg, Hesse, Germany. Not the scene. Photo: Pepetps / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Am Erlengraben, Marburg, Hesse, Germany (where the body was found); arrest in Szczecin, West Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland

Legal status: A 42- or 43-year-old Polish citizen, identified by Polish police as Marek R., was arrested in Szczecin on Thursday 22 October 2026 on a German national arrest warrant and a European Arrest Warrant issued on strong suspicion of murder. He is in custody in Poland pending surrender to Germany. He has not been charged in court with murder, and nothing has been reported on whether he has responded to the allegation. He is presumed innocent.

The victim: The woman killed was 35 years old and pregnant, according to the Marburg public prosecutor’s office. Investigators said she had been living with her children in a women’s shelter because of a different former partner, not the suspect, hessenschau reported. German authorities have not released her name, citing the protection of her privacy and of victims.

What investigators say happened: She was last seen alive on the evening of Tuesday 20 October, leaving a shopping centre in Marburg, hessenschau reported. She was reported missing the next day, and her body was found in bushes on Am Erlengraben street on the afternoon of Wednesday 21 October. In a joint statement released on Friday 23 October, the prosecutor’s office and the Central Hesse police headquarters said the suspect had been in a relationship with her, at least in the past. Investigators say she met him in Marburg early on Tuesday evening and that he then killed her with 19 stab wounds. The statement first gave the day of the meeting as Wednesday. Hessenschau later reported that prosecutors had corrected this to Tuesday. Polish police likewise gave 20 October as the date of the killing. The motive and exact sequence of events remain unclear.

The hunt across the border: The German statement said the man had fled abroad immediately after the killing. At the prosecutor’s request, the Marburg local court issued a national warrant and a European warrant for murder. Poland’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBŚP) said its pursuit unit, known as the “Shadow Hunters,” was told of the case on the morning of 22 October through the international police cooperation bureau of Poland’s national police headquarters. It was also told that the wanted man might be heading for Poland. Working with West Pomeranian police in Szczecin, officers traced him to the city and arrested him in the street shortly after noon, the CBŚP said. “Given the nature of the act he is accused of and the potential threat to public safety, immediate action was necessary,” the bureau said, adding that further procedural steps under the European Arrest Warrant were to take place with him the following day. The bureau credited the quick exchange of information with German authorities for the arrest. Polish police gave his age as 43. German authorities gave it as 42.

The city’s response: Marburg’s mayor, Thomas Spies, said that on current information “we must assume that this act is a femicide,” hessenschau reported. “There must be no taboo or trivialisation,” he said, calling for more to be done to protect women.

What happens next: The Marburg prosecutor’s office said it would seek his surrender to Germany. A prosecution spokeswoman told dpa on 26 October that the process could take several weeks to months, and that she could not comment on the motive or on which offences were being investigated. The man has no registered address in Germany, dpa reported. Under the EU framework for European Arrest Warrants, a Polish court must rule on surrender. Under German law, murder carries a mandatory life sentence on conviction.

Sources

Vergiate, Italy: Man Drives 700km to Confess Killing Grey Noralba Sanmartin Villalba, Then Claims Self-Defence

Parish church in Vergiate
The parish church in Vergiate, province of Varese, Italy. Not the scene. Photo: Alessandro Vecchi / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Rented flat in Cuirone, a hamlet of Vergiate, province of Varese, Lombardy, Italy

Legal status: Marco Panichi, 53, under investigation for aggravated voluntary homicide. He surrendered to carabinieri in Avezzano, Abruzzo, late on Thursday 22 October 2026. On Monday 26 October the preliminary investigations judge in Avezzano, Mario Cervellino, validated his detention and ordered him held in prison. The case is moving to prosecutors in Busto Arsizio. No charge has been tried; he is presumed innocent.

Late on Thursday 22 October a man knocked at the carabinieri company barracks in Avezzano, a town in the Abruzzo mountains, and said, according to Il Messaggero: “I killed my girlfriend in the rented house in Cuirone.” Cuirone, a hamlet of Vergiate near the lakes north-west of Milan, is more than 700 kilometres away. The Avezzano carabinieri called their colleagues in Varese. Officers from the Vergiate and Albizzate stations, a Gallarate response team, Varese investigators and firefighters went to the address, forced the door and found Grey Noralba Sanmartin Villalba, 36, dead in an upstairs bedroom during the night into Friday.

Fifteen wounds. The doctor who first examined her counted at least fifteen stab wounds, many of them to the neck, Il Messaggero and Il Capoluogo reported. A kitchen knife with a 36cm blade was found beside her and seized. Her body was taken to the Institute of Legal Medicine in Pavia for an autopsy, which is also meant to fix the time of death. Prosecutors are weighing the aggravating factor of cruelty, the Corriere Adriatico reported. A young woman living in the same courtyard told reporters that a neighbour had heard a violent, shouting argument at about 10 that morning, then cries and a single thud, and had been about to call the carabinieri when the noise stopped and a van drove away.

The drive south. Panichi, originally from Avezzano and described by the Corriere della Sera as a small businessman who had moved north, closed the door of the flat behind him and drove a hired van to Abruzzo, according to the Corriere della Sera and Il Capoluogo, with wounds to his arms and a hand, one of them deep. He reached his family in the evening. It was his father who persuaded him to go to the carabinieri, Il Messaggero reported.

His account. Before the prosecutor and again before the judge, in a hearing his lawyer Leonardo Casciere said lasted more than two and a half hours, Panichi said Grey flew into a jealous rage after finding old photographs of him with other women on a phone, hit him and came at him with the kitchen knife. He said he wrestled it from her and turned it on her. The defence is arguing an impulsive act in response to an attack and rejects the femicide framing. None of this has been verified. On Tuesday 27 October a medico-legal examination was to check whether his injuries match defensive wounds, and the phones seized from the flat are being analysed.

Who she was. Grey Noralba Sanmartin Villalba was born in Colombia and had lived in the Marche region for about ten years with her two young children from an earlier marriage. Until September she worked at a beach bar at Palombina, near Ancona. The couple met in the Marche, lived mostly in Ancona and stayed occasionally at the Vergiate flat, which Panichi rented. A neighbour said they had arrived there the evening before she died.

A mural. On Sunday 25 October Vergiate unveiled a mural in Cuirone, already planned as part of a local art project, and the mayor, Daniele Parrino, dedicated it to her. “Every woman killed is a defeat for all of us and a wound for the whole of society,” he said.

Sources

Blerick, Netherlands: Prosecutors Say Mother Alone Killed Nour, 14, Found Taped to a Bed; Father No Longer a Suspect

Venlo city hall building
Venlo city hall in Limburg, the Netherlands. Blerick is part of Venlo. Not the scene. Photo: Michiel1972 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5

Location: Elzenstraat, Blerick, Venlo, Limburg, Netherlands (Limburg District Court, Roermond)

Legal status: Fouzia R., 59, is suspected of murder or manslaughter (moord of doodslag) of her daughter. Second pro forma hearing held Thursday 22 October 2026; she remains in pre-trial detention and is to be observed at the Pieter Baan Centrum, the Dutch forensic psychiatric observation clinic. Next pro forma hearing 15 January 2027. Not convicted; presumed innocent.

The Dutch Public Prosecution Service told a court in Roermond on Thursday 22 October 2026 that Fouzia R., 59, was solely responsible for the violent death of her 14-year-old daughter Nour, who was found stabbed and bound with tape in the family home on Elzenstraat in Blerick, a district of Venlo, on 20 April 2026. Nour’s father, arrested with her mother after the killing, is no longer a suspect, prosecutors said. His lawyer, Sven Scheepers, confirmed it to NOS.

The bedroom. Police found Nour on her mother’s bed, ANP reported. Her ankles and wrists had been bound with tape, and there was tape around her neck and mouth. Prosecutors say her mother killed her with a large number of stab wounds. One of Nour’s sisters was in the house during the violence. ANP reported that the sister told investigators she woke to screaming and saw her father pulling her mother away from Nour.

Two arrests, one suspect. Police arrested both parents after the body was found. The father was released soon afterwards but remained a suspect, and was allowed to await proceedings at liberty. On 8 May it became public that the mother was suspected of the killing, the prosecution service said. The prosecution’s own hearing notice, published before Thursday’s session, still said investigators believed she had “not acted alone.” At the hearing that position changed. Who taped Nour, and why, had been one of the central open questions in the case, NOS reported before the hearing.

The tape. The shift came from the forensic work. According to the prosecution, only Fouzia R.’s DNA was found on the tape used to bind Nour’s wrists, ankles, mouth and neck, and none of the father’s, Moordplekken reported from the hearing, quoting the prosecutor: “She did that on her own.” De Limburger also reported that justice officials said the DNA results pointed to the mother having acted alone. It settles, for the prosecution at least, the question its own notice had left open only days before. It does not explain why.

The confession. Fouzia R. confessed to killing her daughter immediately after her arrest, NOS reported. But questioning her since has proved almost impossible, ANP said, and nothing is yet known about a motive. According to the prosecution, she has psychiatric problems. The court ordered that she be observed at the Pieter Baan Centrum, where behavioural experts and psychiatrists assess suspects for a court report on their personality and the extent of their criminal responsibility. In Dutch law that assessment can lead to diminished responsibility and to an order for compulsory psychiatric treatment (TBS) alongside, or instead of, a prison term.

The hearing. The session in Roermond was the second pro forma hearing, a short procedural sitting at which the court reviews the progress of the investigation, the planning of the case and whether the suspect should stay in custody. Fouzia R. was again not present in the courtroom, ANP reported. Her pre-trial detention continues. The next pro forma hearing is set for 15 January 2027, when the court is expected to review the observation. No trial date has been set.

“My client wants to focus on processing everything that has happened,” Scheepers said of the father. “He asks for respect for his privacy.”

Sources

Warsaw, Poland: Man, 37, Charged With Attempted Murder and Remanded for Three Months After Cleaver Attack on Nowogrodzka Street

Warsaw Śródmieście District Court building
The Warsaw Śródmieście District Court on Marszałkowska Street, Warsaw. Not the scene. Photo: Wistula / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Nowogrodzka Street, near number 22, Śródmieście (city centre), Warsaw, Poland

Legal status: A 37-year-old Indian national was charged with attempted murder on 24 October. He denies the charge and was remanded in custody for three months. He is presumed innocent.

The attack: Shortly after noon on Thursday, 22 October, police received calls from witnesses reporting that one man had attacked another with a sharp tool in central Warsaw, TVP Info reported. Rzeczpospolita put the time at about 12:30 and placed the attack on Nowogrodzka Street, behind the Novotel hotel. The injured man, a 58-year-old Indian national, was treated by paramedics and taken to hospital. The attacker left before emergency services arrived. Rzeczpospolita reported that extra police, including a handler with a tracking dog, were sent to the scene. After 4 p.m., officers detained the 37-year-old at a car park near a shopping centre in the Wola district, TVP Info reported. Warsaw police announced the detention the same day and said the injured man had the same nationality as the suspect, Gazeta.pl reported.

The charge: Gazeta.pl, citing the Polish Press Agency (PAP), reported the charge on Saturday. On the morning of Saturday, 24 October, the suspect was questioned at the Warsaw Śródmieście District Prosecutor’s Office. “The man was charged with attempted murder by striking several blows with a cleaver with a 17 centimetre blade,” said prosecutor Piotr Antoni Skiba, spokesman for the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw. Skiba said a forensic doctor classified the injuries as medium. Radio dla Ciebie (RDC) reported that the injured man’s condition was serious but stable.

The suspect’s response: Skiba said the man did not admit the offence, and refused to give an explanation or answer questions. Prosecutors applied that day for three months of pre-trial detention. The district court for Warsaw Śródmieście granted the request the same day, RDC and TVP Info reported.

The motive: Skiba said the motive had not been established. “We know that the men knew each other,” he said. He added that the 37-year-old was living in Poland legally with his family. TVP Info reported, citing unofficial information, that the attack was probably about financial dealings between the two men. Rzeczpospolita said the radio station RMF FM had reported the same unofficially. Prosecutors have not confirmed this.

Who is involved: Neither man has been named in the reports found. The outlets reviewed give only the two men’s ages and nationality. Article 13 of Poland’s Press Law bars publishing the personal data or image of a person under investigation without their consent, unless a prosecutor or court permits it. Neither man is named here.

The latest: The attack took place on 22 October. The charge and the court’s detention order followed on 24 October.

LEGAL EXPLAINER: In Poland, being “charged” (usłyszeć zarzut) during an investigation means the prosecutor has formally presented allegations to a suspect. It is not an indictment, which is filed later if prosecutors take the case to trial. Under the Polish Penal Code, an attempt is punished within the limits of the penalty provided for the completed offence, though a court may reduce it. Pre-trial detention (tymczasowe aresztowanie) is a preventive measure. Only a court can order it, at the prosecutor’s request. It is not a finding of guilt.

Sources

Moscow, Russia: Man Arrested 20 Years After Stabbing Death in Yuzhnoportovy Flat

View over Yuzhnoportovy district, Moscow
A view over the Yuzhnoportovy district of Moscow, Russia. Not the scene. Photo: Florstein (Telegram:WikiPhoto.Space) / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: A flat on 1st Mashinostroeniya Street, Yuzhnoportovy district, South-Eastern Administrative District, Moscow, Russia

Legal status: A 38-year-old man was charged under Article 105, Part 2, paragraphs “d” and “z” of the Russian Criminal Code (murder with particular cruelty, linked to robbery). A Moscow court ordered him held in custody, as announced on 23 October 2026. Investigators say he has confessed. He has not been tried and is presumed innocent.

In February 2006 a 43-year-old Muscovite was found dead in his flat on 1st Mashinostroeniya Street, in the riverside Yuzhnoportovy district of south-east Moscow. He had been stabbed more than 20 times, and a forensic examination found that the stab wounds caused his death, the Moscow police press service said. For two decades nobody was charged. On 23 October 2026 the Moscow branch of Russia’s Investigative Committee said the case had been solved and that a suspect, detained in Perm, had been remanded in custody. The man killed has not been named in official statements or press reports.

What investigators say happened. According to the Investigative Committee, on 15 February 2006 the suspect met the man near Yaroslavsky railway station in Moscow. Police said the meeting took place at the underpass there. The suspect learned that the man kept personal belongings and valuables at home and went with him to the flat. During the night of 16 February he attacked the man with a knife, the committee said, and stabbed him in the neck, torso and arms. The Lefortovo inter-district prosecutor’s office put the number of blows at no fewer than 21. The man died of his wounds. The attacker then took his mobile phone, which prosecutors valued at 2,000 roubles, and left.

How the case was reopened. The killing was reviewed as part of work on unsolved crimes from past years. Investigators ordered a fingerprint examination, and the result led them to a man born in Perm Krai, in the Urals, Lenta.ru reported citing the committee. Criminal investigators from the police department for the South-Eastern district then established who he was and where he lived, the Moscow police press service said. A person to whom he had sold the stolen phone also identified him. Police arrested him at his home in Perm. He has several earlier criminal convictions, according to police and prosecutors.

The confession. Under questioning, police said, the man told them he had met the victim at the station underpass, found out what valuables he had at home, followed him to the flat, attacked him with a knife and took the phone. Police and prosecutors said he admitted guilt in full and expressed remorse. A confession given to investigators is not a conviction, and it will be weighed with the rest of the evidence if the case goes to trial.

In court. At investigators’ request, and with the support of the Lefortovo prosecutor’s office, a court placed him in pre-trial detention. The prosecutor’s office said on 26 October that it was supervising the investigation. The charge under Part 2 of Article 105 is the most serious form of murder under Russian law and carries a sentence of 8 to 20 years, life imprisonment, or the death penalty, which Russia has not applied since a 1996 moratorium. Russia’s normal limitation period for especially grave crimes is 15 years, which has passed here. For crimes that can bring life imprisonment, Article 78 of the Criminal Code leaves it to the court to decide whether the time limit applies.

Sources

Huelva, Spain: Jury Clears ‘El Baba’ of Murder on Self-Defence for Killing Brother-in-Law Ramón Moriña in El Torrejón Shootout

View of the city of Huelva
A general view of Huelva, Andalusia, Spain. Not the scene. Photo: Jose A. / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Location: El Torrejón neighbourhood, Huelva, Andalusia, Spain (Audiencia Provincial de Huelva, jury trial)

Legal status: Jury verdict read late on Thursday 22 October 2026. Manuel Salazar, known as ‘El Baba’: the jury found he killed Ramón Moriña but applied the complete exemption of self-defence, so he will serve no sentence for that death; found guilty of attempted homicide and illegal possession of weapons. Luis Moriña: found guilty of two counts of attempted homicide and illegal possession of weapons. Sentences to be set by the presiding judge in the coming days; Luis Moriña’s lawyer says he will appeal.

A popular jury at the Audiencia de Huelva has found that Manuel Salazar, known as ‘El Baba’, shot dead his brother-in-law Ramón Moriña in self-defence during the gunfight in the Huelva neighbourhood of El Torrejón on 10 September 2024. The verdict, read at the end of a full day of deliberation on Thursday 22 October 2026, means he will not be punished for the killing. It also found that it was the dead man’s brother, Luis Moriña, who started the shooting that day. Canal Sur called it one of the most closely followed trials in Huelva in years.

What the jury found. According to Canal Sur and Europa Press, the jury accepted that Ramón Moriña came to Salazar’s building armed with a knife after an earlier exchange of fire in the street. Salazar shot him dead in the entrance. Europa Press reported that DNA analysis found a genetic profile compatible with the dead man on the handle of a knife recovered at the scene. The jury nonetheless found Salazar guilty of attempted homicide for firing at Luis Moriña, his other brother-in-law, earlier in the gunfight, and of illegal possession of weapons. Canal Sur said that could mean about nine years in prison, against the 28 years prosecutors had sought in total. Prosecutors had asked for 20 years for murder with treachery alone.

The other defendant. The jury found Luis Moriña guilty of two counts of attempted homicide and illegal possession of weapons for opening fire, in a shooting in which another man was hit by bullets in three parts of his body. Canal Sur put his possible sentence at up to 16 years. His lawyer, Rafael Villegas, told Europa Press his client would serve about 14 years and complained that he would serve more than Salazar. Luis Moriña is currently at liberty.

The evidence. The forensic doctor told the court the single 9 mm bullet that killed Ramón Moriña “broke” his heart and killed him “very quickly”, with no signs of a struggle on his body. The shot was fired standing, from about a metre, with the arm extended, and was compatible with a shot from above. That fitted the account of Salazar’s ex-wife, who testified he fired before the victim reached the top of the stairs. Police ballistics experts found 13 spent casings on the floor of Salazar’s living room and 69 unfired cartridges on a table. In Luis Moriña’s car they found six casings fired from the same 9 mm Parabellum pistol, plus ammunition hidden in socks. Salazar testified that Ramón Moriña came at him shouting “I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you”, and that he fired “out of fear”.

The feud. The two families, the Salazars and the Moriñas, have been at war for years, and both waited outside the court for the verdict. The 2024 shooting began a chain of violence. In court Salazar said his stepfather, his mother and his sister, eight months pregnant, had been killed, and another sister shot five times, in shootings in Isla Cristina in June 2025 and August 2026. Canal Sur reported that a minor unconnected to either family also died in this summer’s Isla Cristina attack, and that five people have been arrested over it.

Sources

Madrid, Spain: Judge Jails Man Without Bail Over the Stabbing of Gloria, 52, in a Carabanchel Apartment Lobby

Rooftops of Carabanchel with mountains behind
Rooftops of PAU Carabanchel in Madrid with the Sierra de Guadarrama behind. Not the scene. Photo: Jorge Campos Pérez / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Calle de Ontanilla, Carabanchel district, Madrid, Spain; arrest at the junction of Calle de Montejo and Calle de Ciudad de Frías, Usera-Villaverde

Legal status: On the morning of Friday, 23 October, the duty judge of Madrid’s Violence Against Women Court No. 3 ordered a 59-year-old Spanish man held in provisional prison without bail. Europa Press and EFE reported the order. Legal sources told Europa Press he is being investigated for murder (asesinato). He has not been named and is presumed innocent.

The victim: She was named in Spanish reports as Gloria, a Guatemalan woman. Most outlets, including EFE, Europa Press, RTVE and El Día, give her age as 52. ABC’s longer account said 54. According to El Día, citing El Periódico de España, she worked looking after a six-year-old girl and was on her way to collect the child from school when she was attacked. ABC said she was going to the building to look after some children. Spain’s Equality Ministry said she had no children under 18.

The attack: Police received a call at about 2.45pm on Tuesday, 20 October, about a woman with knife wounds at the entrance of a residential complex on Calle de Ontanilla, Europa Press reported. Paramedics from Samur-Protección Civil and Summa 112 found her in cardiac arrest from multiple stab wounds to the chest and abdomen. They restarted her heart and took her in critical condition to Hospital 12 de Octubre, where she died. EFE reported that she was stabbed five times. ABC reported that neighbours came to help her and that she told the first of them, “It was him, it was him.” The newspaper said security cameras recorded the attack and the registration of the suspect’s car. Homicide Group V of the National Police and forensic specialists from the Policía Científica took over the investigation, Europa Press reported. ABC said the knife had not been recovered when it went to press.

The arrest: Officers from the Usera-Villaverde station’s rapid response group found the man inside a vehicle hours after the attack, EFE and Europa Press reported. ABC said he was arrested about ten hours later after a short chase. The Equality Ministry confirmed on 22 October that the case was gender violence, according to RTVE. It was the 43rd such killing of a woman in Spain in 2026, and the 1,384th since records began in 2003. The ministry said there were no earlier gender violence complaints against the man. EFE added that he had no criminal record. Equality Minister Ana Redondo and the government delegate against gender violence, Carmen Martínez Perza, expressed their “most emphatic condemnation”, El Día reported. The relationship is reported differently. RTVE described the two as partners, and ABC said she had just ended a relationship of about two months. El Día said it was initially unclear whether they were still together.

LEGAL EXPLAINER: Article 138 of Spain’s Penal Code covers homicide, which carries 10 to 15 years. Article 139 covers asesinato, a killing with qualifying circumstances such as treachery (alevosía) or cruelty, and it carries 15 to 25 years. Article 22 lists acting for reasons of gender discrimination as an aggravating circumstance. Specialist violence against women courts, created by Organic Law 1/2004, handle the investigating stage. Provisional prison is ordered under Article 503 of the Criminal Procedure Act when lesser measures are judged insufficient. Murder trials are normally heard by a jury. Article 24 of the Constitution guarantees the presumption of innocence.

Help: In Spain, the 016 line for victims of gender violence is free, open around the clock, and leaves no trace on phone bills.

Sources

Harwell, England: Son Who Filmed Himself Beating His Mother Helen Rundle to Death Jailed for Life

Oxford Crown Court building
Oxford Crown Court, where the sentence was passed. Not the scene. Photo: Steve Daniels / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Location: The Park, Harwell, Oxfordshire, England (Oxford Crown Court)

Legal status: Convicted of murder by a jury at Oxford Crown Court. Sentenced Friday 23 October 2026 by Judge Ian Pringle KC to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 20 years.

Carl Rundle, 42, was jailed for life at Oxford Crown Court on Friday 23 October 2026 for murdering his mother, Helen Rundle, 64, at her home in The Park, Harwell, on 27 January 2026. Judge Ian Pringle KC set a minimum term of 20 years. He called the attack “savage and brutal” and said Rundle had used “sustained, excessive and extreme violence”.

The injuries. The jury heard that Helen Rundle suffered “no less than” 81 blunt force injuries, the BBC reported. The Oxford Mail reported 22 rib fractures and three sharp force injuries. Her injuries also included fractures to her left eye socket and a traumatic brain injury. The judge said the cause of death was blunt force injuries to her head and neck “on a massive scale”. Rundle filmed the attack. The judge said the footage, just under two minutes long, “encapsulated” its brutality.

“I should have finished her off.” The judge told Rundle he had continued to harm his mother after he phoned the police, and that he told officers: “I should have finished her off.” He described the killing as “a gratuitous act of revenge” for everything Rundle believed she had done wrong in her life to him and others.

The filming. Helen Rundle, described in court as vulnerable because of her age and disability, had lived in the Harwell house for many years. A few years before her death her son asked to stay there while he recovered from a drug addiction. Over the four months before the murder, the judge said, Rundle “increasingly” filmed his mother on his phone while describing how controlling she was. The jury watched many of those clips. The judge said they showed the opposite: “You were the one who wanted to control the situation and intimidate your ageing mother.” In one, Rundle told viewers to look at her “evil eyes”; she is heard saying, “you’re making my life an absolute misery.” In January she had asked social services for help because she feared for her safety, the BBC reported the judge as saying.

The abuse claim. Rundle told the jury his mother had physically abused him regularly as a child, and claimed sexual abuse too. The judge said there was “some evidence” to support the physical abuse claim, but that by the time Rundle returned to the house in his 30s “she was not a threat physically or sexually to you. You were not forced to keep her company.” On the evening of the killing, the court heard, Rundle confronted her about why she had abused him as a child. He said he had no memory of the assault. The court heard he has emotionally unstable personality disorder, which the judge took into account. Defence barrister Andrew Selby KC called it “a brutal killing” but “no planned killing”, describing “a lifetime of rage that finally broke its back”.

The family. His brother, visibly emotional, told the court the family’s situation was “complicated”, with a childhood marked by “violence and harmful experiences”, and said: “I believe this tragedy could have been prevented. We feared something like this could happen.” His sister said she felt she had lost “not only my mother, but also my brother”, and that her mother “didn’t get the support she needed.” In a tribute after sentencing, Helen Rundle’s four children said: “we hope you’ve finally found the peace you deserve.”

Sources

Market Rasen, England: Two Guilty of Murdering Danny Fowler in Daylight Union Street Stabbing

Lincoln Crown Court building
Lincoln Crown Court in Lincolnshire, England. Not the scene. Photo: Richard Croft / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Location: Union Street, Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, England

Legal status: Verdicts returned at Lincoln Crown Court on Friday 23 October 2026 after a six-week trial. Ryan Townhill and Shannon Doocey found guilty of murder; Martin Doocey, 55, found guilty of manslaughter. Further weapons, affray and bladed article convictions as set out below. Sentencing listed for Tuesday 17 November 2026.

Market Rasen is a small market town on the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds, and on the afternoon of 12 March 2026 its town centre was busy. At 5.07pm emergency services were called to Union Street after reports of a man with suspected stab wounds. Paramedics tried to save him, but Danny Fowler, 37, a Market Rasen man, was pronounced dead at the scene. A post-mortem examination found he had died of multiple stab wounds.

Under four minutes. CCTV shown to the jury captured the whole confrontation, which police said lasted less than four minutes and played out in full view of the public. According to the prosecution case as summarised by Lincolnshire Police, it began when Ryan Townhill approached Fowler’s vehicle and an argument developed in the street. Shannon Doocey was seen leaving a nearby shop and joining in. The evidence then showed Fowler going back towards Townhill and Doocey carrying a baseball bat, and he was also seen with a knife during the confrontation. As it escalated he fell to the ground and was stabbed several times. Martin Doocey became involved after Fowler was already on the ground, the court heard.

Flight and arrest. Townhill and Shannon Doocey ran from the scene. Martin Doocey stayed in Union Street and was arrested there. Detectives from the force’s Major Crime Unit opened a murder investigation within minutes, police said, and posted eight separate scene guards around the town, including in Union Street, to protect evidence. Searches of addresses linked to those involved turned up clothing and weapons that were later put before the jury, alongside forensic evidence, CCTV analysis, digital material and witness accounts.

The court date that day. The trial also heard about an earlier fight in Waterloo Street, Market Rasen, on 13 September 2025, which led to a string of public order, violence and weapons offences. Five people were arrested over that incident and four were charged or summonsed. Several of those connected to the Union Street killing had been involved, and the people caught up in the Waterloo Street case were due in court over it on the very day Fowler died, police said.

The verdicts. Townhill, of no fixed address, was convicted of murder and of possessing a bladed article. Shannon Doocey, of Mill Street, Market Rasen, was convicted of murder and possessing an offensive weapon in connection with Fowler’s death, and also of affray and possessing an offensive weapon over the Waterloo Street incident. Martin Doocey, of Waverley Court, Market Rasen, was convicted of manslaughter and of possessing an offensive weapon in the September 2025 incident. Murder carries a mandatory life sentence.

“Unfolded in a matter of seconds.” Detective Inspector Melissa Rooke, the senior investigating officer, said Fowler “lost his life in an act of extreme violence carried out in Market Rasen in the middle of the afternoon.” She said: “What happened that day unfolded in a matter of seconds, but the consequences have been devastating and long-lasting for Danny’s family, those who witnessed the incident, and the wider community.” She noted that some witnesses had had to relive what they saw throughout the investigation and the trial. In the months after the killing, Inspector Michael Head held public meetings with residents alongside West Lindsey District Council, police said.

Sources

Plymouth, England: Man Charged With Murder of Ali Barzai, Found in a Wheelie Bin in West Hoe

Plymouth Combined Court Centre building
Plymouth Combined Court Centre in Devon, England. Not the scene. Photo: Andrew Abbott / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Location: A service lane off Grand Parade, West Hoe, Plymouth, Devon, England

Legal status: Mohamed Abotaka, 36, of Grand Parade, Plymouth, was charged with murder by Devon and Cornwall Police on Saturday 24 October 2026. He appeared at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court on Monday 26 October, entered no plea and was remanded in custody, with the case sent to Plymouth Crown Court. He is presumed innocent.

Ali Barzai was 52. Police said he was believed to be of North African heritage, and four days after his death they were still trying to find his next of kin. Little else about his life has been made public. He was found early on a Wednesday morning in a narrow back lane a few streets from Plymouth Hoe, partly inside a wheelie bin.

The discovery. Police were called to the service lane off Grand Parade in West Hoe at about 6:40 a.m. on Wednesday 21 October. Mr Barzai was pronounced dead at the scene. The Plymouth Herald described the spot as the cobbled lane of Garden Crescent. Over the following days detectives carried out forensic examinations, CCTV inquiries and house-to-house searches across West Hoe, the Plymouth Post reported, and uniformed officers stayed visible in the streets around the scene.

The arrest. The South Western Ambulance Service said it was called at 6:32 a.m. and sent two ambulances, a rapid response vehicle and an operational commander. Detectives from the force’s Major Crime Investigation Team asked anyone who had been around Grand Parade and Garden Crescent between 6 p.m. on Tuesday 20 October and 6:40 a.m. the next morning to come forward, especially with CCTV, dashcam or doorbell footage. A man in his 30s was then arrested on suspicion of murder. On Friday 23 October, magistrates in Plymouth granted a warrant of further detention allowing police to hold him for another 36 hours. Detective Inspector Chris Lithgow said then that the suspect and victim were believed to be known to each other and that detectives were “keeping an open mind as to any motive”. By that point the cordon had been reduced, though Eddystone Terrace and Garden Crescent stayed closed.

The charge. On Saturday the force announced that Mohamed Abotaka, who lives on Grand Parade, had been charged with Mr Barzai’s murder. Police said they believed he was from Syria. Lithgow asked the public to hold back. “A suspect is due to appear in court charged with murder and we would urge people not to speculate on this case, especially on social media, and risk prejudicing these ongoing proceedings,” he said. “We understand this incident has caused concern within the local community, and I would encourage any members of the public with concerns to contact us.”

In court. Abotaka spoke only to confirm his name, address and date of birth when he appeared before magistrates on Monday morning. Prosecutor Elaine Kale told the court that Mr Barzai had been found in a wheelie bin and that attempts to resuscitate him had failed. She said police traced Abotaka through a series of inquiries and forensic analysis. Outlining the injuries, she said Mr Barzai had suffered more than 20 stab wounds, strangulation with a ligature, and blunt force trauma to his face and head; the court heard that the stab wounds caused his death. Defence solicitor Patrick Somerville did not enter any pleas. The chair of the bench, Danielle Westlake, remanded Abotaka in custody and sent the case to Plymouth Crown Court, where a bail application was listed for the following day and a plea and trial preparation hearing for late November.

The appeal. Police are still asking anyone with information, photographs or footage from the West Hoe area to contact Devon and Cornwall Police on 101 or through the Major Incident Public Portal, quoting reference 50260282293. Information can also be given anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

Sources

Southampton, England: Machete-Wielding Dealer Jailed 18 Years After Tia Langdon Fell From a Balcony Fleeing Him

Winchester Combined Court Centre building
Winchester Combined Court Centre in Hampshire, England. Not the scene. Photo: Chris Talbot / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Location: Cuckmere Lane, Southampton, Hampshire, England (Winchester Crown Court)

Legal status: Convicted on 14 July 2026 of manslaughter, kidnapping, two counts of false imprisonment, two counts of threats to kill, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and two counts of threatening with an offensive weapon in private. Sentenced Friday 23 October 2026 by Mrs Justice Tipples to an extended sentence: 18 years’ detention in a young offender institution plus a three-year extended licence.

Jaiden Hassan-Agard, 20, of Stour Close, Southampton, was sentenced at Winchester Crown Court on Friday 23 October 2026 for the manslaughter of Tia Langdon, 25, who fell from a third-floor balcony of a block of flats in Cuckmere Lane, Southampton, while trying to get away from him. “You terrorised her so much that she saw no option but to try to escape you by going over the balcony,” Mrs Justice Tipples told him.

The missing drugs. On 28 August 2025, prosecutor Sarah Jones KC said, Langdon and a friend, Shannon McNeil, were helping Hassan-Agard pack drugs at McNeil’s flat when he claimed some had gone missing, the BBC reported. He became enraged, accused both women of stealing from him and, armed with two machetes, stabbed furniture and a water bottle. “He said he was going to torture them and made mention of waterboarding and chopping them up,” Jones told the court. He punched Langdon in the face, breaking her nose. The Crown Prosecution Service said he subjected both women to a prolonged period of intimidation, threats and violence that left Langdon “frightened, trapped and desperate to get away”.

The balcony. After a long stretch of threats, the prosecutor said, Langdon ran to the balcony “either seeking to escape or she jumped.” She landed on concrete and died in hospital the next day. “While nobody witnessed the precise moment she fell, prosecutors proved that Hassan-Agard’s conduct was a significant cause of the events which led to her death,” said James Foster, specialist prosecutor at the CPS. Foster said Hassan-Agard “compounded the suffering of those involved by refusing to seek emergency help and continuing to threaten and control the other victim in the aftermath.” He was also convicted of kidnapping McNeil.

The judge. “I’m sure you were excited by fear and terror you instilled in these women,” Mrs Justice Tipples said. “The more scared and frightened they got, the more excited you got.” She said it was clear Langdon had been fatally injured, but he did nothing to help her. She found he posed “a significant risk to the public of serious harm”, which is why she imposed the extended licence, keeping him under supervision for three further years once he is released. The sentences for the other offences run concurrently.

His history. Hassan-Agard, also known as Rocco, was arrested several days after the fall and later denied any violence, blaming McNeil for being “very aggressive”, the court heard. The court heard he had been assessed as a victim of modern slavery and had been involved in drugs from the age of 11. The BBC reported that he had previous convictions for serious sexual and violent offences committed when he was 15.

Her family. In a statement read in court, her mother said Tia was “loved beyond measure” and that “she had hopes, dreams that have been cruelly taken away.” After sentencing her family said: “Today’s sentence will not bring Tia back, nor will it lessen the pain of losing her in such terrifying and tragic circumstances.”

Sources

Ulnes Walton, England: Prisoner Who Strangled Cellmate Tony Joynes in HMP Garth Gets Life With 34-Year Minimum

The stone Sessions House court building in Preston
The Sessions House in Preston, Lancashire, where Preston Crown Court sits. Not the prison. Photo: David Dixon / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Location: HMP Garth, Ulnes Walton, near Leyland, Lancashire, England (Preston Crown Court, Sessions House)

Legal status: Convicted of murder by a jury on Tuesday 20 October 2026 after a seven-day trial. Sentenced Thursday 22 October 2026 by Judge Graham Knowles KC to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 34 years.

Shaun Newton, 35, was already serving 18 years for attempted murder when he killed the man he shared a cell with. On Thursday 22 October 2026 Judge Graham Knowles KC jailed him for life at Preston Crown Court for murdering Tony Joynes, 47, at HMP Garth, a men’s prison at Ulnes Walton near Leyland, and ordered that he serve at least 34 years before he can apply to the Parole Board for release. A jury had convicted Newton two days earlier.

The locked cell. Lancashire Police said Newton and Joynes had shared a cell for about six months. They were locked into cell 47 on Garth’s D wing at 5 p.m. on 12 July 2025 and stayed there overnight, with staff carrying out checks at various times. On the morning of 13 July, staff on welfare checks answered the cell buzzer. Newton told them he thought Joynes was dead. Staff raised the alarm and tried CPR, but Joynes was pronounced dead at the scene.

The injuries. Staff noticed an abrasion on Joynes’s neck that had bled, and there was blood on the bedsheets near his pillow, police said. A Home Office post-mortem examination gave the cause of death as neck compression. Detective Inspector Marc Armstrong said Newton “chose to kill his cellmate Tony Joynes by compressing his neck while he was laid in bed.”

The account he gave. Lancashire Police’s Force Major Investigation Team arrested Newton at the prison on 22 July 2025 and interviewed him at Blackpool Police Station. He told officers that after lock-down the two men chatted and played Xbox before he climbed on to the top bunk at about 7.45 p.m. He said Joynes was fine, and that he found him dead the next morning. Detectives interviewed Newton again in December 2025 at HMP Full Sutton near York, and he was charged with murder in March 2026.

The earlier stabbing. Newton, who was born in Middlesbrough, had been convicted of attempted murder at Snaresbrook Crown Court in 2019. Police said he stabbed his roommate four times with a knife while living and working in Romford, Essex, in 2018. Judge Knowles said there were plain “parallels” between that attack and the killing at Garth.

What the judge said. “Tony Joynes was 47 when you murdered him,” Judge Knowles told Newton. “He was your fellow prisoner in HMP Garth and he was your own familiar friend. Tony Joynes was a compliant prisoner, he gave no trouble to anyone on the wing. You killed him in the night in the cell you shared.”

Det Insp Armstrong said Joynes “believed that Shaun Newton was his friend and trusted him; however, Newton betrayed this and showed a total disregard for Tony’s life.” He thanked the investigation team for “establishing what happened in that cell at HMP Garth” and credited the Crown Prosecution Service and prosecution counsel Tim Storrie KC. “My thoughts remain very much with Tony’s family and loved ones,” he said.

The facts the jury weighed were stark: two men locked in one cell overnight, one dead by morning with a bleeding mark on his neck, and a cellmate who said Joynes was fine when he went up to his bunk. The jury rejected that account. Lancashire Police did not say why Joynes was serving time at Garth.

Sources

Wolverhampton, England: Driver Guilty of Murdering Expectant Father Navpreet Singh After Diwali Fight in Phoenix Park

Main entrance of Wolverhampton Crown Court
The main entrance of Wolverhampton Crown Court, where the verdicts were returned. Not the scene. Photo: Roger Kidd / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Location: Phoenix Park, off Dudley Road, Blakenhall, Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England

Legal status: Jashan Singh, 21, found guilty of murder and perverting the course of justice at Wolverhampton Crown Court on Monday 26 October 2026. Mohit Singh, 18, found guilty of perverting the course of justice. Prabhjot Singh, 18, had pleaded guilty to violent disorder before trial. All three are due to be sentenced on 30 November 2026.

Wolverhampton’s Diwali celebrations had wound down at Phoenix Park when a greeting went wrong. In the early hours of 22 October 2025, the last day of the festival, Navpreet Singh, 26, was still in the park off Dudley Road with friends. According to evidence the jury heard, reported by the Express & Star, the group offered Diwali greetings to another group and were rebuffed by Mohit Singh. A fight followed. It ended with Navpreet under the wheels of a white Mercedes coupe.

The iron rod. West Midlands Police said the violence was led by Prabhjot Singh. At about 1am one of Navpreet’s friends was attacked, and when Navpreet went to help him, Prabhjot struck him to the ground with an iron rod, police said. Both men ended up on the ground after being kicked, punched and hit with the rod, the Express & Star reported from the trial.

The car. Navpreet got to his feet and went to the Mercedes, where investigators found he kicked a front headlight. Its driver, Jashan Singh, then knocked him down and drove over him with the front tyres, the BBC reported, before reversing back over him and leaving. His friends drove him to hospital. He died there a short time later, in the waiting room despite efforts to save him, according to the Express & Star. He was married, and his wife was pregnant with their second child.

Three airports. What Jashan did next formed the perverting the course of justice count. Police found he drove from the park to a secluded spot on an industrial estate in Willenhall, where he and Mohit Singh swapped clothes so their descriptions would not match witness accounts. Over the following day his phone connected to masts near Coventry, Heathrow and Stansted airports, and he changed SIM cards and handsets. He was arrested two days after the killing in Bicester, Oxfordshire. Prabhjot was arrested at home on 4 November 2025. Mohit had left the country after the killing and was detained at Birmingham Airport when he flew back in January.

Three stories. Jashan’s account shifted at every stage. He first told detectives he had driven away while Navpreet was still standing. He later said he had only been a passenger. At trial he admitted he was driving but said he had been frightened of being attacked, had reversed over Navpreet by accident and had thought the car hit “a firework box or something like that.” Under cross-examination he admitted he had lied to police about seeing Navpreet on his feet when he was on the ground. The jury, which had retired just after midday the previous Wednesday, convicted him of murder on Monday.

“Not someone looking for trouble.” Detective Sergeant Rob Moir said Navpreet “was a married man with a pregnant wife and not someone who was going out looking for trouble.” He added: “Navpreet and his friends were attacked and, tragically, he was not only driven at but then reversed over leaving him with fatal injuries. Jashan Singh knew exactly what he was doing and was intent on causing serious harm. He then drove off and made efforts to avoid being identified and captured.” The killing came a year almost to the day before the verdict, and the sentencing hearing in late November will fix how long Jashan Singh must serve before he can be considered for release. Murder carries a mandatory life sentence in England.

Sources

Asia and Oceania

Naha, Japan: US Marine Indicted on Robbery-Murder Charge Over the Hotel Killing of Anna Yagi, 39

Naha city skyline
The Naha skyline in Okinawa, Japan. Not the scene. Photo: Okajun / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Naha, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan

Legal status: On Sunday, 25 October, the Naha District Public Prosecutors Office indicted Lance Corporal Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, in Naha District Court on a charge of robbery-murder (gōtō satsujin). He is assigned to US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma. Okinawa Prefectural Police said he denied the allegations when he was arrested on 4 October. He is presumed innocent.

The victim: Anna Yagi, 39, was a woman from Naha, according to Stars and Stripes and the BBC, which named her. Japanese outlets including the Yomiuri Shimbun and the Asahi Shimbun described her only as a 39-year-old Naha woman. Her death caused anger across Japan, the BBC reported, and about 100 people protested in Naha and Tokyo earlier in October.

What the indictment alleges: According to a copy of the indictment provided by prosecutors to Stars and Stripes, Mr Ballard is accused of wrapping a telephone handset cord around Ms Yagi’s neck “with intent to kill” in the early hours of 3 October at a Naha hotel. The indictment says he strangled her and then took her backpack, which held her wallet and other belongings. The Yomiuri Shimbun reported the same allegations from the charge sheet.

The investigation: Investigators told the Asahi Shimbun that Mr Ballard has largely stayed silent under questioning but has made some statements suggesting involvement. The BBC said Kyodo News reported the same. Investigators said security footage showed him entering the hotel with the woman and leaving alone in a hurry. Police also reviewed footage from a sausage shop in the Koza district of Okinawa City, which investigators said showed him drinking shortly before the killing. Investigators told the Asahi he briefly went back to his residence at Futenma and changed clothes before going out again. Police found him in a downtown entertainment district later that night, the newspaper said. One investigator told the Asahi that custody transfer issues could have arisen under the Japan-US Status of Forces Agreement if he had stayed on base.

The response: A spokesman for III Marine Expeditionary Force, 1st Lt Tyler Thomas, told Stars and Stripes on 25 October: “We recognize the seriousness of the charges and will continue to cooperate fully with Japanese authorities in their ongoing investigation as the legal process moves forward.” Okinawa Governor Genta Koja and the prefectural assembly have called for a review of the agreement, Stars and Stripes reported. The III MEF commander imposed a 5am to midnight curfew on US troops on Okinawa that runs through 8 November. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi described the crime as “brutal and heinous”, the BBC reported. She said her government had lodged a “strong” protest with the United States. Earlier in the month, the Marine Corps said it was cooperating with Japanese authorities and extended its condolences to the victim’s family.

LEGAL EXPLAINER: Under Article 240 of Japan’s Penal Code, causing death in the course of a robbery is punishable only by death or life imprisonment. Crimes carrying those penalties are tried by a panel of three professional judges and six citizen lay judges (saiban-in). Before indictment, a suspect can be held for up to 72 hours after arrest and then for up to 20 more days on a court’s detention orders. Mr Ballard was indicted 21 days after his arrest. Under the Status of Forces Agreement, Japan has primary jurisdiction over off-duty offences. Its custody rules decide whether a suspect is held by Japanese or US authorities before indictment. Mr Ballard is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Sources

Cheonan, South Korea: Appeal Court Upholds 25 Years for Man Who Killed Upstairs Neighbour, 79, Over Noise

Cheonan City Hall building
Cheonan City Hall in South Chungcheong Province, South Korea. Not the scene. Photo: hyolee2 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: A public rental apartment complex in Ssangyong-dong, Seobuk-gu, Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, South Korea

Legal status: Yang Min-jun’s conviction for murder and property damage and his sentence of 25 years in prison, plus 10 years of electronic location monitoring, were upheld by the Daejeon High Court on Friday 23 October 2026. Appeals by both the prosecution and the defendant were dismissed. Prosecutors said they would study the ruling before deciding whether to appeal to the Supreme Court, so the judgment is not yet final.

The victim was a 79-year-old man who lived in the flat directly above his killer. South Korean media follow a practice of not naming crime victims, and his name has not been published. What is on record is how he spent his last minutes: wounded, running for help, and trying to lock himself in somewhere safe.

The attack. At about 2:32 p.m. on 4 December 2025, Yang went up to the flat above his in a public rental block in Cheonan and stabbed the older man with a knife after a brief argument, Yonhap and the Hankyoreh reported. The wounded man escaped to the complex’s management office and locked the door from the inside. Yang then got into his own car, drove it into the office, smashed through the door and attacked him again. The victim died. Police made Yang’s name and details public soon afterwards, citing the cruelty of the crime.

The noise. Yang told investigators he had been tormented by noise from upstairs and that the killing was unplanned. According to the Hankyoreh, the immediate trigger was the sound of building work to install a kitchen sink in the victim’s flat. The first-instance court rejected the claim that the attack was spontaneous. It noted that Yang was already carrying a knife when he went upstairs, that he used it after a trivial argument, and that he chased the injured man and struck him again and again. “The motive for killing a 79-year-old is hard to understand and the method was cruel,” that court said in July, imposing 25 years and the monitoring order.

The appeal. Prosecutors, who had sought life imprisonment at both trials, argued the sentence was too light; Yang argued it was too heavy. The appeal panel, presided over by Judge Lee Seon-mi, said every point raised had already been weighed at first instance and the original sentence stayed within the range of reasonable discretion. It also rejected the argument that 10 years of monitoring was too short, given how long Yang will be behind bars. The day before the ruling Yang lodged a sum with the court as compensation, reported by YTN as 10 million won each for the bereaved family and for the property damage. Both refused it, and the judges said that because the victims still wanted him punished, the deposit could not count in his favour.

The family. After the sentence was read, Yang asked to speak and offered what he called a sincere apology to the bereaved, YTN reported. A relative told reporters outside that they doubted his remorse. “At the first trial I felt the sentence was far too low and unjust, and now the second trial has given the same result,” the relative said. “It is so unfair, and I think ordinary people will feel this is a society with a lot to fear.”

Next. The family’s lawyer, Park Cheol-hwan, said they plan public-interest civil suits against the Korea Land and Housing Corporation and the Korea Housing Management Corporation, arguing that public landlords expanded rental housing without doing enough to reduce noise between floors or manage the conflicts it causes.

Sources

Peakhurst, Australia: Man Extradited From Poland Charged With Murder of Darcy Schafer-Turner

Downing Centre court building in Sydney
The Downing Centre courts in Sydney, where the case is next listed. Not the scene. Photo: Ymblanter / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Apartment in Peakhurst, southern Sydney, New South Wales; body later found in Warrell Creek near Macksville, NSW Mid North Coast, Australia

Legal status: Jan Kwacz, 26, was charged with murder at Mascot Police Station on Friday 23 October 2026 after being extradited from Poland. His lawyer did not apply for bail at a bail court on Saturday 24 October; Acting Judge Christopher Longley formally refused bail and ordered him to appear at Sydney’s Downing Centre on 17 December. He has not entered a plea and is presumed innocent.

In May 2023, detectives searching Warrell Creek at Macksville, about five hours’ drive north of Sydney, found a large metal cabinet in the water. Inside was the body of Darcy Schafer-Turner, a 22-year-old tradesman from Peakhurst in Sydney’s south. More than three years later, NSW homicide detectives flew back from Poland with a third man they say was involved in his death.

The extradition. The 26-year-old had been living in Poland, police said. Homicide Squad detectives travelled there on 18 September to arrest him, working with Polish authorities and national law enforcement partners, ABC News reported. He landed at Sydney International Airport with detectives at about 6 p.m. on Friday 23 October, was taken to Mascot Police Station and was charged with murder. ABC News and Nine News named him as Jan Kwacz. Police allege he was involved in the killing along with two other men. At the bail court the next day, his solicitor, Leyah Chouman, told the court they would not proceed with a bail application, ABC reported. Nine reported that he did not appear in person.

How police found Darcy. The investigation began in March 2023, when detectives looking into the alleged supply of drugs in the Caringbah area under Strike Force Almug found links to the disappearance of a young man from Peakhurst, according to 7NEWS and ABC. His body was found in the creek on 12 May that year.

The earlier cases. Two men have already been dealt with by the courts over his death. Zachary Richard Fraser, a close school friend, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced in the NSW Supreme Court in October 2025 to six and a half years, with eligibility for parole in July 2027. According to the agreed facts in that case, reported by ABC and AAP at the time, Darcy Schafer-Turner died at a unit in Peakhurst on 27 April 2023 after being held in a chokehold by another man while Fraser helped place duct tape over his mouth and sat on his legs. His cause of death was recorded as suffocation. Fraser believed his friend owed the other man $50,000. Fraser later paid $20,000 to Charles Dennis Turnbull, a Queensland man who flew to Sydney, bought a metal cabinet, cable ties and cleaning supplies at Bunnings, and used a boat bought on Facebook Marketplace to dump the cabinet in the creek. Turnbull pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to manslaughter and was sentenced in December 2024 to three years and three months, AAP reported. The allegations against Kwacz have not been tested in court.

Darcy. Sentencing Fraser last year, Justice Nicholas Chen said Darcy Schafer-Turner was “unconditionally loved by his family.” To his mother he was a son with an “adventurous spirit and a bright future ahead of him,” the judge said, and to his sister “a funny and caring brother, who was motivated by so many dreams and aspirations.” The taking of his life, the judge said, “is a tragedy that has caused profound grief and sorrow to his family and those close to him.”

Sources

Suva, Fiji: Three Suspended Police Officers Charged With Murdering Constable Peniasi Racagi File Alibi Notices in the High Court

Suva harbour with boats
Suva harbour, Fiji. Not the scene. Photo: Ftaaffe / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: High Court, Suva, Fiji. The death took place in Lami, west of the capital.

Legal status: Simione Rokosemudu, Iowane Sukanaisoro and Ilisoni Waqa, three suspended Fiji police officers, are jointly charged with murder. They have not yet entered pleas, have filed alibi notices, and remain in custody. They are presumed innocent.

The victim: Police Constable Peniasi Racagi, 24, was attached to Lami Police Station. MaiTV reported that he was reported missing while on night foot patrol. His body was found floating at sea off the Lami foreshore on 22 February 2026, according to MaiTV and Fijivillage. RNZ reported that Lami is about 15 minutes west of Suva, and that Fiji Police confirmed elements of foul play after a post-mortem examination and opened a homicide investigation.

The charges: Fiji’s Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) said in a statement in early October that the Acting Director of Public Prosecutions had sanctioned charges against the three officers, RNZ reported. “It is alleged that the three police officers murdered Constable Peniasi Racagi in February this year following an altercation,” the ODPP statement said. The men are jointly charged with murder under Section 237 of Fiji’s Crimes Act. Fiji Police said Police Commissioner Rusiate Tudravu had directed that the charges be formally laid, based on the ODPP’s advice. Fijivillage reported that the decision followed a reassessment of the investigation file and forensic results from overseas. The men first appeared before Suva Magistrate Sofia Hamza, who remanded them in custody and transferred the case to the High Court.

The High Court hearing: On Friday, 23 October, the three men appeared before Justice Daniel Goundar in the Suva High Court, each facing one count of murder, the Fiji Sun reported. The Fiji Sun said the prosecution alleges that between 21 and 22 February, the three men, together with another person, aided and abetted the killing. That other person was not identified in the report.

The alibi notices: The court heard that all three accused had filed alibi notices saying they were not in Lami on 22 and 23 February, according to the Fiji Sun and MaiTV. MaiTV reported that defence counsel also told the court the officers had made no admissions during their police interviews. These are the defence’s claims and have not been tested in court.

Bail and disclosure: Legal Aid Commission lawyer Monisha Chand, appearing for Rokosemudu and Waqa, told the court they had not filed bail applications or entered pleas because the State had only recently filed and served its full disclosure, the Fiji Sun reported. MaiTV said Sukanaisoro was represented by lawyer Joji Cakau. State prosecutor Sadaf Shameem said the prosecution would oppose bail, and MaiTV reported that the ODPP cited the seriousness of the murder charge. According to MaiTV, Justice Goundar said any bail application had to be made in writing before it could be considered, and granted the defence 14 days to gather information and examine the prosecution evidence.

The next date: Reports differ. The Fiji Sun said the matter would be heard again on 27 October. MaiTV and Fijivillage reported that the case was adjourned to 17 November, when the three men are expected to enter their pleas. All three remain in remand.

Spelling of a name: Fijivillage and MaiTV use the spelling Sukanaisoro for one of the accused. The Fiji Sun spells the name both Sokonaisoro and Sakanaisoro in the same report. The name is given here as Sukanaisoro.

LEGAL EXPLAINER: Under Section 237 of Fiji’s Crimes Act 2009, murder carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment, and the court may set a minimum term to be served. An alibi notice tells the prosecution in advance that an accused intends to argue they were somewhere else when the offence happened, so the claim can be investigated before trial. Fiji’s Bail Act 2002 starts from a presumption in favour of releasing an accused person, which the prosecution can seek to rebut. Filing an alibi is not proof of innocence or guilt; the prosecution must prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.

Sources

Waterloo, Australia: Three Young Men Charged With Murder Over the Stabbing of Blain Locke, 34, Outside a Sydney Apartment Block

Waterloo war memorial in Sydney
The war memorial on Elizabeth Street in Waterloo, Sydney. Not the scene. Photo: J Bar / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

Location: Pitt Street, Waterloo, an inner-southern suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Legal status: Two men aged 18 and a man aged 20 have been charged with murder and with wounding a person with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. All three were refused bail or made no application for bail on Friday, 23 October, and are due back in court in December. None of them has been named. They are presumed innocent.

The victim: Police identified the man who died as Blain Locke, 34, on Friday, 23 October, Australian Associated Press (AAP) reported. Superintendent Andrew Garner said he had spoken to Mr Locke’s family. “No arrest can undo the loss or their suffering,” he told reporters. “It’s a senseless act of brutal violence. It impacts the entire community.”

The night of 18 August: Emergency services were called to a unit on Pitt Street at about 7.20pm on Tuesday, 18 August, after reports of an assault, NSW Police said. Officers from South Sydney Police Area Command found a man with stab wounds. NSW Ambulance paramedics treated him and took him to St Vincent’s Hospital in a critical condition, and police were told at about 8.45pm that he had died. A 35-year-old woman who was with him was also assaulted and injured. AAP reported that she suffered cuts to her face. Police said at the time that South Sydney detectives had opened an investigation with help from the State Crime Command’s Homicide Squad.

The appeal for help: On 29 September, detectives released CCTV images and said they wanted to speak to two young males they believed could help with their inquiries. Police described one as 18 to 19 years old and the other as 17 to 18, and appealed for CCTV or dashcam footage from the area.

The arrests: Queensland Police arrested two men, both 18, at a property on Leichney Street in Toowoomba on Tuesday, 20 October, according to NSW Police. South Sydney investigators travelled to Toowoomba Magistrates Court, where the extradition of both men to New South Wales was granted. On Thursday, 22 October, they were taken to Mascot Police Station, where warrants were executed and each was charged with murder and with wounding a person with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. A third man, 20, was arrested on Morehead Street in Redfern and charged with the same offences. The NSW Police statement issued on Friday, 23 October, puts that arrest at about 12.45pm “today”, while the AAP report says he was arrested on Thursday afternoon. The sources disagree on the day of his arrest.

In court: One of the two Toowoomba men was 17 at the time of the alleged offence, NSW Police said, and he appeared before a Children’s Court on Friday, where he was not granted bail, AAP reported. The other 18-year-old appeared in the Bail Division and did not apply for bail, which was formally refused. The 20-year-old also made no bail application. AAP reported that all three will return to court in December.

What police say happened: Supt Garner described the inquiry as complicated. He said Mr Locke did not know the alleged offenders, but that there was a broader association between the two groups, and that the stabbing followed a confrontation in front of the apartment block. “It may have related to an ongoing issue,” he said, according to AAP. These are police allegations and have not been tested in court.

LEGAL EXPLAINER: In New South Wales, murder is defined in section 18 of the Crimes Act 1900 and carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, under section 33, carries a maximum of 25 years. Under the Bail Act 2013, murder is a “show cause” offence, which means an accused person must show why detention is not justified before bail can be considered. Matters involving someone who was under 18 at the time of an alleged offence are generally heard in the Children’s Court, and state law restricts publishing the name of a child involved in criminal proceedings. A charge is an allegation, and each accused is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

Sources

Muradnagar, Bangladesh: Nephew Arrested in Kasba After Scrap Dealer Masud Mia Is Stabbed to Death on a Village Road

Bangora Bazar police station building
Bangora Bazar police station in Cumilla district, Bangladesh. Not the scene. Photo: DelwarHossain / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Korerpar village, Akubpur Union, Bangora Bazar police station area, Muradnagar upazila, Cumilla district, Bangladesh

Legal status: Shipon Mia, 23, also reported as Milon Mia alias Shipon Mia, was arrested on 25 October and named as the main accused in a murder case. He has not been tried and is presumed innocent.

The killing: Masud Mia, a scrap dealer, was attacked with a sharp weapon at about 10 p.m. on Saturday, 24 October, on an unpaved road in Korerpar village, police said, as reported by Barlekha Today, Desh TV and Star News. He died at the scene from heavy bleeding. Prothom Alo and Jugantor reported that he had gone to a grocery shop next to his own shop when he was called away and stabbed repeatedly a short distance from it. Police recovered the body that night and sent it to Cumilla Medical College Hospital for a post-mortem. Police gave his age as 45. Prothom Alo and Jugantor gave it as 40.

The arrest: Police arrested the suspect at about 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, 25 October, in a raid in the Kuti Bhanganagar area of Kasba police station in neighbouring Brahmanbaria district. Additional Superintendent of Police Lutfar Rahman, the Cumilla police media spokesman, confirmed the arrest, according to Star News. Police said he was traced through secret information and technology. Prothom Alo reported that police recovered the knife allegedly used in the killing on information given by the suspect. Desh TV and Star News described the case as solved within 16 hours.

The case: The victim’s sister filed a murder case at Bangora Bazar police station on Sunday afternoon, Prothom Alo, Jugantor and Manab Zamin reported. Manab Zamin said Shipon Mia is named as the main accused. Inspector (investigation) Anwar Hossain of Bangora Bazar police station told Manab Zamin that police were investigating whether anyone else was involved. He told Jugantor that the suspect would be sent to jail through the court on Monday morning. No report found so far confirms that hearing.

What police allege: Police said the dispute arose because uncle and nephew had both formed relationships with the same widowed woman. Desh TV and Star News reported, citing police, that the two men argued and scuffled on 20 October at the home of Masud Mia’s sister, and that the suspect openly threatened to kill him. Police also allege that the suspect lured Masud Mia to the spot and fled after showing the bloodied weapon to people who came running. Police said he admitted the killing during preliminary questioning. That claim has not been tested in court.

What the family says: The wife of Masud Mia’s elder brother told Prothom Alo and Jugantor that his wife had left him about five years ago, leaving three children, and that he had since slept in his shop. She said that after he began a phone relationship with the woman, the nephew obtained her number and also became involved with her. The family claims the nephew accused Masud Mia of drug use about two weeks earlier, and that Masud Mia beat him on 20 October after learning of it. These are family accounts and differ from the police account of the 20 October incident. On Sunday morning, villagers protested to demand the suspect’s arrest, Prothom Alo reported.

Conflicts in reporting: The outlets disagree on the victim’s age (45 or 40), on the suspect’s name (Shipon Mia, or Milon Mia alias Shipon Mia), and on whether the uncle’s relationship with the woman began two or three years ago. The woman is not named here.

LEGAL EXPLAINER: Under Bangladesh’s Evidence Act of 1872, a confession made to a police officer cannot be proved against an accused person, and a confession made in police custody cannot be proved unless it is made in the immediate presence of a magistrate. A confession can be recorded by a magistrate under section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. A police claim that a suspect “admitted” a killing is therefore not evidence of guilt.

Sources

South Keraniganj, Bangladesh: Three Arrested Over Killing of Women’s League Leader Dalia Akter Suma in Her Flat

Keraniganj across the Buriganga river
Keraniganj seen across the Buriganga river, Dhaka District, Bangladesh. Not the scene. Photo: Tanweer Morshed / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Sweden Plaza, Rasulpur Bazar, South Keraniganj, Dhaka District, Bangladesh

Legal status: Three men, named by police as Md Anik, 19, Md Ashik, 23, and Md Alamgir Hossain, 36, have been arrested and shown as accused in a murder case filed under sections 302 and 34 of the Penal Code. Police produced them in court on 25 October and sought a 10-day remand for questioning, according to United News of Bangladesh (UNB). No ruling on that request was reported. All three are presumed innocent.

The victim: Dalia Akter Suma was president of the Jubo Mohila League, a women’s political wing, in Basta Union, and also worked part-time as a teacher at Char Baghapur Government Primary School, UNB and The Financial Express reported. The Business Standard, UNB and The Financial Express gave her age as 50; the Bengali daily Jugantor reported it as 45.

What police say happened: She was killed with a sharp weapon some time before 6 a.m. on Friday 23 October in her third-floor flat, Dhaka Additional Superintendent of Police Tarikul Islam told a press briefing at South Keraniganj Police Station on Sunday 25 October, The Business Standard reported. Police recovered her body after local people alerted them. Her daughter filed a murder case at South Keraniganj Police Station on 24 October, Jugantor reported. According to the police account, the three men knew her and knew that she usually left her front door open in the morning for her domestic worker. Police say they got into the flat through the roof of a neighbouring building, intending to steal. When she saw them, shouted and recognised them, they stabbed her and cut her throat because they feared being caught, the officer said. Ashik and Alamgir escaped over the roof, police said, while Anik put on a burqa and left by the main door. The burqa and shoes were later recovered from a nearby field on information from Anik.

The arrests: All three are from Sirajdikhan upazila in Munshiganj, from Chanderchar, Chargulugulia and Madhyapara respectively, The Business Standard reported. Police said they used CCTV footage, intelligence and information technology to identify the suspects. Anik was arrested first in Balurchar, Sirajdikhan, in Munshiganj district. Ashik and Alamgir were then picked up in the Abdullahpur Bazar area of South Keraniganj, based on what police said Anik told them. Police said all three admitted their involvement during preliminary questioning, The Business Standard and Jugantor reported. Jugantor reported that Anik was a tailor whose shop was beside the building, that Ashik had once run a cosmetics business and that both Ashik and Alamgir were now unemployed. It added that police described all three as drug users. These statements were made to police and have not been tested in court.

The family disputes the motive: Her daughter, the complainant in the case, rejected the burglary explanation. The victim’s daughters told UNB that gold and valuables worth 50 to 60 lakh taka in the flat were left untouched. They alleged that a mastermind had planned the killing over a dispute involving a flat, and asked police to examine the suspects’ call records. The officer in charge of South Keraniganj police station told Jugantor that police were checking whether anyone else was involved and that the case remains under investigation.

What happens next: Under Bangladesh’s Code of Criminal Procedure, police must later submit a charge sheet, or a final report, to the court once the investigation is finished. Section 302 of the Penal Code provides for death or life imprisonment for murder. Section 34 covers acts done by several people in furtherance of a common intention.

Sources

Ullapara, Bangladesh: Former Dhaka University Student Arrested After Farmer Akram Hossain, 18, Is Found Hacked to Death at the Suspect’s Home

Railway tracks at Ullapara station
The railway line at Ullapara station, Sirajganj district, Bangladesh. Not the scene. Photo: ইমন / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

Location: Konaganti village, Purnimaganti Union, Ullapara upazila, Sirajganj district, Bangladesh

Legal status: Maruf Bin Habib Talukder was arrested at the scene on 23 October 2026 and is the main accused in a murder case filed by the victim’s father on 24 October, police told Jugantor. He was forwarded to court on 24 October, the local paper Noya Songbad reported, citing Ullapara Model Police Station. Five of his relatives are also named as accused in the case. No charge sheet had been reported as of Tuesday, 27 October. All are presumed innocent.

The victim: Akram Hossain was 18 and worked as a farmer, according to Sarabangla and Jugantor. He came from Khosalpur, a village next to Konaganti. Reports differ on some details: a later Sarabangla report in Bengali gave his name as Akram Sarkar and his age as 20, and another Bengali outlet put his age at 19. The name and age used here are those given in the earliest reports and in Jugantor.

What was found: On the evening of Friday 23 October, neighbours found Akram’s body lying in the courtyard of Maruf’s house in Konaganti and called the police, Sarabangla reported. Officers recovered the body and arrested Maruf, who was still at the house when they arrived. A local Union Parishad member, Mohammad Asab Ali, told Sarabangla that he and other residents believed Akram had been lured to the house and hacked to death with a sharp weapon. Reports differ on the time of the attack: Jugantor and Sarabangla describe it as happening in the evening, while Noya Songbad says Akram was called to the house in the afternoon. Local people said members of Maruf’s family left the house after the killing, both Sarabangla and Jugantor reported. The Bengali outlet Duaa News, quoting the same Union Parishad member, said residents found the doors and windows of the house shut that evening, called out repeatedly without the gate being opened, and then alerted police, who recovered the body at about 10 p.m. and found Maruf in his bedroom. Sarabangla’s later Bengali report said the body was found behind the house.

The family’s account: Akram’s father told Jugantor that Maruf telephoned his son on Friday afternoon and took him to the house, and that he was killed there that evening. He said he still did not understand why his son had been killed and called for exemplary punishment for those responsible, Sarabangla and Jugantor reported.

The police position: Mehedi Hasan, officer-in-charge of Ullapara Model Police Station, confirmed the arrest and said Maruf was being questioned. He told Sarabangla that the motive was not yet known and that an investigation was under way. Police were deployed in the village to prevent any further violence, he said. Jugantor’s follow-up on 25 October quoted the same officer as saying the father had filed the murder case on Saturday 24 October, naming Maruf as main accused and five of his relatives as co-accused, and that police were searching for the others.

The accused: Maruf is from Konaganti and is a former student of Dhaka University, Sarabangla and Jugantor reported. A Bengali-language Sarabangla report on 25 October said that, when asked about the motive, he claimed Akram had mistreated his parents. That claim has not been tested in court, and police had not given a motive.

What happens next: Under Bangladesh’s Constitution and Code of Criminal Procedure, a person arrested without a warrant must be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours. Police then investigate and submit either a charge sheet or a final report to the court. Murder under section 302 of the Penal Code carries death or life imprisonment.

Sources

Bengaluru, India: Lawyer’s “Heart Attack” Death Reclassified as Murder, Autorickshaw Driver Arrested

Road junction at Nagarbhavi Circle, Bengaluru
The Outer Ring Road at Nagarbhavi Circle, Bengaluru, India. Photo: Rsrikanth05 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Near Ambedkar College, Mallathahalli, and the Nagarabhavi Outer Ring Road, Annapoorneshwari Nagar police station limits, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Legal status: A 31-year-old autorickshaw driver was arrested by Annapoorneshwari Nagar police in a murder case and has been remanded in judicial custody, The New Indian Express reported. No charge sheet had been reported by 26 October 2026. He is presumed innocent.

Sri Ram, also written Sriram, was an advocate who lived in Kengunte, near Nagarabhavi in western Bengaluru. On 9 October he collapsed on the Outer Ring Road and died the same day, and for two weeks his death was treated as a heart attack. On 24 and 25 October Bengaluru police said it had been a killing, and that they had arrested an autorickshaw driver over a fight about a fare.

The night. Police told The Indian Express that the lawyer had left a bar late on 8 October and was walking home. Near Ambedkar College in Mallathahalli he came across an autorickshaw driver who was cleaning his vehicle, and asked him for a ride. The two could not agree on the fare. According to an investigating officer quoted by The Times of India, Sri Ram said he would catch another auto and walked away, and the driver followed him and attacked him, pushing him to the ground. The officer said the push to the ground caused internal head injuries. The Hindu reported that police allege the driver came after him with associates, struck him hard on the head and took his phone and cash. The Times of India said the phone and cash claims are still being examined.

Why nobody stopped. An officer told The Indian Express that other autorickshaw drivers saw the assault but thought Sri Ram had simply passed out because he had been drinking. He got up and walked some distance before he collapsed, police said. On 9 October, acting on information from members of the public, a Hoysala patrol team found him by the roadside near the Nagarabhavi ring road and took him to a nearby private hospital, the Kannada daily Vijayavani reported. Treatment failed, and he died at about 3 p.m., according to Vijayavani and The Hindu.

The post-mortem twist. Doctors first suspected a heart attack, and police opened an unnatural death case. His family noticed injuries on his body and, asking around, learned that he had quarrelled with an autorickshaw driver that day, Vijayavani reported. They went to Annapoorneshwari Nagar police. In a complaint, his father said his son had several injuries to the head and body and that his phone and money were missing, The Hindu reported. The post-mortem found a blood clot in the brain from a head injury, and police converted the file into a murder case. Officers traced his walk home from the bar on CCTV and asked informants for help. “We came to know that there was a clash between an autorickshaw driver and Sri Ram,” an officer told The Indian Express.

The accused. Police identified the driver as Prithviraj, 31, of Gollarahatti on Magadi Road. The New Indian Express said he is originally from Mandya. The Hindu said he was being questioned to establish the full circumstances of the death. Police are looking for other autorickshaw drivers who were allegedly with him during the confrontation, The Times of India reported. None of the allegations has been tested in court.

Sources

Ramgarh, India: Wife, Her Mother, Her Brother and an Acquaintance Arrested Over the Strangling of Rohit Kumar, 38

Aerial view of the Ramgarh district collectorate
An aerial view of the district collectorate in Ramgarh, Jharkhand, India. Not the scene. Photo: Revolutionary Youth Foundation / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Near the Pararu Nala bridge on the Giddi to Naisarai road, Kuju police area, Ramgarh district, Jharkhand, India

Legal status: Four people were arrested and sent to judicial custody, police announced at a press conference on the evening of Friday, 23 October. They are Anju Devi, the dead man’s wife; Sundari Devi, her mother; Dineshwar Prajapati, her brother; and Mohammad Shaukat Ansari, an acquaintance of hers. Police have not said what formal charges have been filed. All four are presumed innocent.

The victim: Rohit Kumar, 38, came from Kahuabera village in the Argadda police station area of Ramgarh, the Hindi daily Hindustan reported.

The discovery: Police were told on the morning of Wednesday, 21 October, that the body of an unidentified man was lying beside the road just before the Pararu Nala bridge, near a hutment settlement, Hindustan reported. India Today said it was found in roadside bushes. Officers noted injury marks, and police said it appeared he had been killed somewhere else and his body left there. His brother filed a murder complaint against unknown persons at Kuju police station, India Today and Aaj Tak reported.

The investigation: Ramgarh Superintendent of Police Mukesh Kumar Lunayat formed a special investigation team led by Sub-Divisional Police Officer Alok Ranjan. Police detained Anju Devi for questioning. According to the police account reported by India Today and Aaj Tak, she admitted involvement and named three others. Police then arrested all four. Mr Ranjan set out the case at a press conference at the Kuju police post on Friday evening. Aaj Tak said police described the case as solved within about 24 hours.

What police allege: Police said the couple quarrelled often over domestic matters, including disputes over her conduct, and argued the day before the killing, India Today reported. Hindustan, quoting the police briefing, said his heavy drinking and suspicion of an affair had strained the marriage. Police allege that the wife, her mother and her brother strangled him, and that Mr Ansari helped move the body to the roadside to hide the crime. Police said they had seized a bloodstained wooden plank believed to have been used in the assault and a dupatta, a long scarf, said to have been used to strangle him. Hindustan reported that all four confessed under questioning. These are police allegations and have not been tested in court.

Conflicting details: India Today and Aaj Tak reported that Mr Ansari used his own vehicle to carry the body, and Aaj Tak’s headline described it as a car. Hindustan reported that police were still looking for an autorickshaw used to dispose of the body. India Today gave Dineshwar Prajapati’s age as 28 and Hindustan gave it as 26. Both agree that Sundari Devi is 51 and Mr Ansari is 35. Hindustan gave Anju Devi’s age as 32.

LEGAL EXPLAINER: Under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, India’s criminal code since July 2024, murder carries death or life imprisonment and a fine. Separate provisions cover criminal conspiracy and causing evidence of an offence to disappear. Under the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, which replaced the Evidence Act, a confession made to a police officer cannot be proved against the accused in court, so a reported confession is not evidence at trial unless it is recorded before a magistrate. Judicial custody means the accused are held in jail on a court’s order rather than in a police lockup. For offences punishable by death or life imprisonment, police generally have 90 days to file a charge sheet before an accused can seek statutory bail. Everyone accused is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

Sources

Kanoya, Japan: Former Partner Arrested Three Months After Bar Owner Satsuki Osumi Was Found Dead at Home

Kanoya City Hall and townscape
Kanoya City Hall in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. Not the scene. Photo: ja:User:Sanjo / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Kasanohara-cho, Kanoya, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan

Legal status: Takaaki Higo, 59, was arrested on 23 October 2026 on suspicion of robbery-murder and trespass and was sent to the Kagoshima District Public Prosecutors Office on 24 October. He has not been indicted and denies the allegations. He is presumed innocent.

The victim: Satsuki Osumi, 49, ran a snack bar, a small drinking establishment, in Kanoya, on the Osumi Peninsula in southern Kyushu. She lived alone in a house in the Kasanohara-cho district, the Asahi Shimbun reported. On the night of 28 July, a relative who had been unable to reach her went to the house, found her collapsed inside and called emergency services, according to the Asahi.

A slow start: An autopsy was carried out on 29 July, but police initially said the cause of death was unknown. It took about a month before investigators established that she had been asphyxiated. On 24 August Kagoshima prefectural police declared the death a murder and set up a special investigation headquarters at Kanoya police station. By the time of the arrest, police had deployed a cumulative total of about 4,000 officers on the case, the Asahi and the Minami-Nippon Broadcasting report carried by TBS NEWS DIG said.

The arrest: Detectives arrested Higo at his home in Shinkawa-cho, Kanoya, on the morning of Friday 23 October. Makoto Ushigaki, head of the prefectural police criminal investigation department, announced the arrest at a hastily arranged news conference. “We were investigating diligently and have just made an arrest,” he said, in remarks broadcast by KYT and Minami-Nippon Broadcasting. Higo was questioned at Kanoya police station and was to be moved the same day to Kagoshima Central police station, Kagoshima Television reported for FNN.

The allegation: Police allege that between the small hours and early morning of 28 July, Higo entered Osumi’s house, killed her by compressing her neck, took cash and other items, and in doing so escaped repaying money he had borrowed from her. Police identified him largely by analysing footage from security cameras near her home and through door-to-door inquiries, KYT and Kagoshima Television reported. Ushigaki declined to say how much cash was taken or how large the debt was, citing the investigation, according to the Asahi. Asked why an arrest had taken about three months, he said detectives had been working “meticulously and carefully,” examining a large volume of evidence.

The relationship: Higo also runs a drinking establishment. Police said the two knew each other. KYT reported that Higo was Osumi’s former partner, and that before his arrest he had told the station the two had been in a relationship for about a year two or three years earlier. People connected to the case said his bar was near hers, KYT reported. According to people close to Osumi, cited by Minami-Nippon Broadcasting, she had told others before her death that she had lent Higo several million yen to open a bar. Police said Osumi had consulted Kanoya police about an argument with Higo three years earlier. She did not want to file a complaint, so it was not treated as a criminal case. Police say they do not believe that dispute is connected to the killing.

His response: Higo has told investigators: “It is true that I met the victim, but I did not kill her and I did not steal anything,” according to the Asahi, FNN and KYT. A neighbour of Osumi told KYT that the arrest brought some relief, but that because the suspect denies the allegations she was uneasy about whether he was really the culprit.

What happens next: Under Japan’s Code of Criminal Procedure, a suspect sent to prosecutors can be held for up to 23 days in total from arrest while prosecutors decide whether to indict. Robbery-murder is among the gravest offences in the Penal Code, punishable only by death or life imprisonment.

Sources

Oarai, Japan: Customer Rearrested on Suspicion of Murdering Snack Bar Owner Setsuko Katori, 72, With Garden Shears

Oarai Town Hall building
Oarai Town Hall in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. Not the scene. Photo: Kiku-zou / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Oarai, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan

Legal status: On Sunday, 25 October, Ibaraki Prefectural Police at Mito Police Station rearrested Kotaro Uchiyama, 30, a company employee from Mizuki-cho, Hitachi, on suspicion of murder. He was first arrested on 4 October on suspicion of injuring another woman at the same scene. Police say he has admitted the allegation, but he has not been indicted. He is presumed innocent.

The victim: Setsuko Katori, 72, ran a snack bar, a small drinking establishment, in the Gotanda area of Oarai, a coastal town in Ibaraki. The Asahi Shimbun reported that she lived nearby. Jiji Press reported that her body was found after the attack. Police said a 41-year-old woman was also stabbed in the abdomen and injured. She is not named in reports.

What police allege: According to police, Mr Uchiyama stabbed Ms Katori in the neck, back and other parts of the body with garden shears at about 9:45pm on 4 October. Police say it happened at or near the entrance of her bar. Jiji Press described the place as near the bar. Reports describe the blades differently: the Yomiuri Shimbun calls them branch-cutting shears and the Asahi and Nippon TV call them garden shears. Police said he took the shears from the grounds of a nearby house just before the attack.

The night of the attack: The Asahi reported that Mr Uchiyama, the injured 41-year-old and another woman, three in all, had been drinking in a room at lodgings in the town and at an eating and drinking place. The three then took a taxi to Ms Katori’s bar, and he drank there as well, the Asahi said. The Yomiuri reported that the injured woman, an acquaintance from Otawara in Tochigi Prefecture, had come to Oarai on a sightseeing trip. Nippon TV said he appeared to be drunk at the time. Police believe some kind of trouble broke out inside the bar, and they are investigating how it led to the killing.

The first arrest: On 4 October, police made an emergency arrest of Mr Uchiyama on suspicion of causing injury. They allege he stabbed his 41-year-old acquaintance in the abdomen with the shears in the same period. The murder rearrest followed three weeks later. Jiji Press reported that he and the women had visited two places in Oarai, including an eating and drinking establishment, before arriving at Ms Katori’s bar.

What he told police: Police said Mr Uchiyama admits the murder allegation. The Yomiuri reported that he told investigators he does “not remember” how events unfolded or how the killing was carried out. Nippon TV reported a statement to the same effect.

LEGAL EXPLAINER: In Japan, an arrest is on suspicion, not a charge. After each arrest, police have up to 48 hours to send the case to prosecutors, who then have 24 hours to seek detention. A judge can authorise up to 20 days of detention before prosecutors must decide whether to indict. Rearrest on a separate allegation, as here, starts a new period. Under Article 199 of the Penal Code, murder is punishable by death, life imprisonment or at least five years. Article 204 punishes causing injury by up to 15 years or a fine. Article 39 of the Penal Code reduces or removes liability when a person’s capacity was impaired. Where intoxication or memory loss is claimed, prosecutors may order a psychiatric evaluation before deciding on charges. Murder cases that go to trial are heard by three professional judges and six citizen lay judges. Mr Uchiyama is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Sources

Nilai, Malaysia: Husband Charged With Murder of Border Agency Officer Norhazwani Ibrahim

Clock tower at Nilai Square
The clock tower at Nilai Square in Nilai, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. Not the scene. Photo: AyyanD / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: A house in Cluster 6 of the KLIA Civil Servants’ Housing Complex, Nilai, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia

Legal status: Mohd Khairudin Safi’ai was charged with murder under Section 302 of the Penal Code at the Seremban Magistrate’s Court on Monday 26 October 2026. No plea was recorded because murder is tried in the High Court. He was unrepresented and remains in custody. The case returns for mention on 22 December. He is presumed innocent.

Norhazwani Ibrahim was 35. She came from Kampung Banjir in Telaga Lanas, near Pengkalan Kubor in Tumpat, Kelantan. She had worked for the Royal Malaysian Customs Department and on 1 July 2026 transferred to the Malaysian Border Control and Protection Agency, known by its Malay initials AKPS. She and her husband had been married for seven years and had two children, aged six and five. On the evening of 15 October she was killed in a unit of the government quarters for public servants near Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

The night. According to Negeri Sembilan police chief Alzafny Ahmad, Nilai police were told that evening that a man had walked into the Bandar Baru Salak Tinggi police station in Sepang, in neighbouring Selangor, surrendered, and told officers that his wife was dead at their home in Nilai. A team sent to the house found a woman unconscious. A medical team from the Nilai health clinic confirmed her death. Police seized a knife believed to have been used and other items from the scene. The man was remanded until 22 October under the murder section of the Penal Code, and he has stayed in custody since 16 October.

The charge. On Monday the charge was read before Magistrate Nurul Saqinah Rosli in Seremban. Mohd Khairudin nodded to show he understood it. He is accused of murdering Norhazwani at about 7 p.m. on 15 October at their house in the KLIA housing complex. Deputy Public Prosecutor Farah Wahidah Mohd Sharip asked for a mention date because the post-mortem report was not yet ready, and the court fixed 22 December. Section 302 carries the death penalty or 30 to 40 years in prison, and if death is not imposed, at least 12 strokes of the cane. Her eldest brother sat in the courtroom, The Vibes reported.

What police have said. A post-mortem found that Norhazwani died from pressure on her neck, The Star reported. It also found three stab wounds, two to the abdomen and one to her right cheek. Police believe the killing grew out of a marital dispute after she said she intended to seek a divorce, The Vibes and Free Malaysia Today reported. Police checks also found that her husband had 16 previous criminal records, 10 of them drug-related and six for housebreaking, theft and possession of stolen property, according to The Vibes. None of these claims has been tested in court.

The family. Her body was taken from Tuanku Ja’afar Hospital in Seremban to her family home in Kelantan, where funeral prayers were held, and she was buried at the Tanjong Muslim Cemetery in Pengkalan Kubor in the early hours of 18 October, Bernama reported. RTM said more than 200 people, including family, AKPS and customs staff, police and villagers, followed her to the grave. One of her elder brothers told reporters he had stayed overnight at her home before the killing. “That morning, everything seemed normal,” he said. He learned of her death in a phone call from her husband, made on her mobile phone. He said she worked hard for her children and visited them whenever her shifts allowed, and that she had been home the week before for a matter at the Syariah Court on 12 October. The children are now living with her family in the village. AKPS deputy director general (operations) Mohd Nasaruddin M. Nasir told RTM she often worked overtime and called her a good, hardworking and committed officer.

Sources

Bangued, Philippines: Nurse Mark Kenneth Acedo Shot Dead in Front of His Family, Suspect Arrested

Skyline of Bangued, Abra
The skyline of Bangued, Abra province, the Philippines. Not the scene. Photo: Patrickroque01 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Bacsil-Angad road, Barangay Angad, Bangued, Abra province, Philippines

Legal status: A 28-year-old man was arrested in Tayum, Abra, in the early hours of Saturday 24 October 2026. Police said a murder complaint was expected to be filed. No court charge had been reported by the end of 26 October. He is presumed innocent.

Mark Kenneth Acedo was 36. He was a nurse at Abra Provincial Hospital in Bangued, the provincial capital, and he also sang as a vocalist in a band, the Daily Tribune reported. He lived in Sitio Bacsil in Barangay Angad. On the night of Friday 23 October he was shot in the head while at the wheel of the family car, with his wife and three daughters inside.

The shooting. Police said the attack happened at about 9 p.m. on the Bacsil-Angad road in Bangued. According to the Tribune, Acedo was driving his family home after an evening walk at the Abra Sports Complex. His wife sat in the front passenger seat. Their daughters, aged 13, 10 and 6, were in the back. Closed-circuit footage showed two people on a motorcycle stopping near the car shortly before shots were fired, the Tribune said. The Inquirer, citing an initial police investigation, said gunmen on two motorcycles fired repeatedly at the car and then fled toward Sitio Sicob in the same barangay. After the shots the car crashed into a parked vehicle. Philstar, which said the family was in a Hyundai hatchback, gave a different account of the scene, reporting that the car was parked in front of an event venue when two men on separate motorcycles opened fire.

The victims. Bystanders and residents took Acedo and his wounded daughter to Assumpta Family Hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival. The 10-year-old, who was sitting directly behind her father, was hit twice, in the left side of her back and her left thigh, and was treated at the hospital. Her condition after treatment has not been reported. His wife and the other two girls were not reported injured.

The arrest. Bangued Municipal Police said Acedo’s wife identified the suspect. That set off a hot-pursuit operation by Bangued police and the 1st Provincial Mobile Force Company. At about 1:30 a.m. on Saturday they arrested the 28-year-old on Felix Tuanquin Street in Poblacion, Tayum, the Inquirer reported. Officers seized a .45-caliber pistol with no markings or serial number, an empty magazine fitted to it, and a second empty magazine in a black sling bag. At the scene, investigators recovered three .45-caliber shell casings, a bullet and a metal fragment.

What the suspect told police. The man told police he was drunk at the time, according to the Tribune. Philstar reported that he told police the shooting grew out of a traffic dispute, and the Inquirer said police believe it was a case of road rage. Those accounts come from the police and the suspect and have not been tested in court. Police said they were still working out whether anyone else took part.

What comes next. Police said the investigation is continuing and that they were pursuing legal proceedings. The Tribune said a murder complaint was expected to be filed. In the Philippines, a complaint filed after an arrest without a warrant usually goes to the prosecutor for inquest, and the prosecutor then decides whether to file a case in court.

Sources

Lipa City, Philippines: Rejected Suitor and a Man Who Allegedly Confessed Arrested Over the Stabbing of Architecture Student Jazmine Iya Martinez, 20

Aerial view of Lipa City Hall
An aerial view of Lipa City Hall on the Jose P. Laurel Highway, Batangas, the Philippines. Not the scene. Photo: Patrickroque01 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Lipa City, Batangas province, Calabarzon region, the Philippines; one arrest in Tanauan City, Batangas

Legal status: Rolando Egay, 30, and Kevin Gonzales, 30, were arrested on Sunday, 25 October, according to Philstar and Abante, citing police. Pang-Masa reported that both have been charged with murder. Abante reported that police were still preparing the documents to file criminal cases. Mr Gonzales has denied involvement, GMA News reported. Both men are presumed innocent.

The victim: Jazmine Iya Martinez, 20, was a third-year architecture student at National University Lipa and lived in Barangay Duhatan, Lipa City, according to Pilipino Star Ngayon and Pang-Masa. Her father told GMA News the family did not know either suspect and had no idea anyone was courting her. “When we asked our daughter, she mentioned no one was courting her. She did not pay any attention to them,” he said, in GMA’s translation. Her parents said they were seeking justice.

The killing: She was attacked while walking home on the night of 14 October, the reports said. GMA News said her body bore five stab wounds. Police CCTV showed a man on a motorcycle following her as she walked along the road, Philstar and GMA reported. The reports differ on the exact place. Philstar put the attack in Barangay Duhatan, and Abante said it happened in Purok 7, Barangay Pinagtung-olan.

The arrests: Police first arrested Mr Egay, a construction worker known as “Lance”, at a house in Barangay Pangao, Lipa City, at about 3.30pm on Sunday, Abante reported. Mr Gonzales was arrested at about 10pm the same day in Oltap Subdivision, Barangay 6, Tanauan City. Pang-Masa dated the arrests to Monday. Lipa City police chief Lieutenant Colonel Aleli Buaquen identified the two men, Pilipino Star Ngayon reported, describing Mr Egay as Mr Gonzales’s classmate. Police said they traced Mr Egay through CCTV footage from Barangay Banay-Banay showing the rider’s clothes and motorcycle, and seized what they described as the murder weapon, along with clothes and a hat. GMA said he handed over a knife, a mobile phone and a motorcycle.

What police allege: Police say Mr Egay confessed and claimed Mr Gonzales paid him P10,000 to kill her, Philstar reported. Police said Mr Gonzales had courted her for about two years without success and are treating the case as a crime of passion. Pilipino Star Ngayon reported that police believe the two men watched her route home for several days. Pang-Masa reported that both men followed her on the motorcycle, while the other outlets say Mr Egay carried out the stabbing. In remarks aired by GMA News, Mr Egay said: “I ask forgiveness to Jazmine’s family for what happened to her. I am now scared, my conscience has led me to come out.” He also claimed Mr Gonzales threatened to kill him if he talked, GMA reported. These are allegations and have not been tested in court.

LEGAL EXPLAINER: Under Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code, a killing becomes murder when a qualifying circumstance is present. Two examples are treachery and acting in consideration of a price, reward or promise. Murder carries reclusion perpetua, because the death penalty was abolished in 2006. Someone who induces another to commit a crime can be liable as a principal by inducement. After an arrest without a warrant, prosecutors normally hold an inquest to decide whether to file charges in court. Under the Constitution and Republic Act 7438, a confession given during custodial investigation is inadmissible unless it was made in writing with the help of competent, independent counsel. Both men are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

Sources

Daejeon, South Korea: Man Arrested in Gangneung After Woman Who Reported Him for Stalking Is Killed at Her Home

Daejeon Metropolitan Police Agency building
The Daejeon Metropolitan Police Agency building, South Korea. Not the scene. Photo: 95016maphack (uploader, self-licensed) / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Jung-gu (Jung District), Daejeon, South Korea. The arrest took place in Gangneung, Gangwon Province.

Legal status: A man in his 40s, referred to in reports only as “A,” was arrested on suspicion of murder on 25 October. Police applied for a detention warrant on 26 October. He has not been charged by prosecutors and is presumed innocent.

The killing: The victim, a woman in her 40s referred to in reports only as “B,” was found dead at her home in Jung-gu, Daejeon, at about 2 p.m. on Saturday, 24 October, after her family discovered her and called police, Yonhap News Agency reported. Police said the man is suspected of assaulting her and strangling her at her home around midday that day, then fleeing. Her name has not been released.

The flight and arrest: According to Yonhap, citing Daejeon Metropolitan Police Agency, the man removed the SIM card from his phone after the killing and took a taxi toward Incheon International Airport, then fled to Gangneung on the east coast. Yonhap’s first report said he changed taxis several times and travelled via Incheon. Police said no airline ticket had been issued in his name and no attempt to leave the country by sea had been found. He was arrested at a lodging in Gangneung at about 7:40 a.m. on Sunday, 25 October, about 17 hours and 40 minutes after police began searching, Yonhap reported.

What he has told police: On 25 October, Yonhap and Yonhap News TV reported that the man was refusing to make statements. By 26 October, police said he had admitted the allegation but claimed he acted on impulse during an argument with the woman. Police said they would use digital forensic analysis of mobile phones to check whether the killing was planned, and were reviewing whether further charges should be added.

The earlier stalking report: On 10 October 2025, the woman called the 112 emergency line to report that the man was stalking her, Yonhap reported. According to police, when she asked to end their relationship, he made dozens of missed calls and sent text messages over a short period. Police issued emergency measures barring him from approaching or contacting her, and gave her a smartwatch alarm. About 20 days later, on 3 November, she visited the police station, said they had reconciled and that she did not want him punished, and returned the smartwatch early, which ended police monitoring. Police decided in November not to refer the case to prosecutors, saying the conduct was hard to classify as continuous and repeated stalking.

The December call: On 27 December 2025, another 112 call was made during an argument between the two. Yonhap reported that both told officers it had been a minor argument and the emergency call had been pressed by mistake, and police closed the matter at the scene. Police later reclassified the case as dating violence after checking her earlier report. They tried to monitor her, but she declined their calls, so they sent a text explaining the support available, police said.

Next steps: Police said an autopsy would be carried out on 27 October and that they would review whether the man meets the legal requirements for public disclosure of his identity. A three-tier risk system, in which high-risk suspects are considered for a detention warrant within seven days, was introduced this year and did not apply when she first reported him, police said. Police also said they were working with other agencies to support the victim’s family.

LEGAL EXPLAINER: Under Article 250 of South Korea’s Criminal Act, murder is punishable by death, life imprisonment, or imprisonment for at least five years. A detention warrant (gusok yeongjang) is requested by police through prosecutors, and a judge decides whether to issue it after a hearing, usually considering flight risk and the risk of evidence being destroyed. Emergency measures under the Stalking Punishment Act can bar a suspect from approaching a victim or contacting them by phone or text. Since a 2023 amendment, stalking can be prosecuted even if the victim does not want the suspect punished.

Sources

Seoul, South Korea: Woman in Her 40s Formally Arrested Over Killing of Her Mother in Gangseo District

Seoul Southern District Court west wing
The west wing of the Seoul Southern District Court, where the arrest warrant hearing was held. Photo: 호로조 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Location: Ujangsan-dong, Gangseo District, Seoul, South Korea; hearing at Seoul Southern District Court

Legal status: A woman in her 40s, identified in Korean reports only by surname or an initial, was formally arrested on 24 October 2026 on suspicion of killing a lineal ascendant, the offence that covers the killing of a parent. She has not been indicted and is reported to deny the allegation. She is presumed innocent.

The victim: The woman killed was the suspect’s biological mother, who was in her 60s. News1, in a report carried by the Dong-A Ilbo, said she was in her late 60s. She has not been named in Korean reports. Under Korean press practice, neither victims nor suspects in most criminal cases are named.

What police say happened: Police say the suspect killed her mother at their home in Ujangsan-dong, Gangseo, on the morning of Thursday 22 October. Kyeonggi Ilbo and News1 reported that police believe the killing took place between about 7 a.m. and 8:15 a.m. local time. At about 8:15 a.m. the suspect called police herself, Yonhap and Kyeonggi Ilbo reported. Officers arrived and placed her under emergency arrest at the home at about 8:40 a.m., according to the Gangseo Police Station. When she called, she told police she had “done something bad to my stepmother,” Yonhap reported. Investigators then established that the two were in fact mother and daughter. Police initially applied a murder charge but switched it to the killing of a lineal ascendant, a more serious offence in Korean law, once the relationship was confirmed, Kyeonggi Ilbo reported. They applied for an arrest warrant the same night.

What investigators have found: The motive remains unclear, and police said they would investigate exactly why and how the killing happened, Kyeonggi Ilbo reported. Police have not found any money dispute or particular grudge between the two, Yonhap reported. But investigators have obtained statements that the suspect had previously shown hostility toward her mother, including swearing at her, according to Yonhap. News1 reported that she had shouted at her mother to leave the house. The suspect’s own daughter told police she had heard the suspect claim that the victim tried to feed her poisoned food, Yonhap’s English service reported on 23 October, adding that police had found no evidence of this. News1 reported, citing statements from the family, that the suspect had received psychiatric treatment for about a decade, and that police planned to look into her mental health history.

The court hearing: On the afternoon of Saturday 24 October, Senior Judge Yoon Jae-nam of the Seoul Southern District Court held a pre-detention hearing and then issued the arrest warrant, citing a risk that she would flee, Yonhap and News1 reported. Arriving at court, the suspect did not answer reporters’ questions, including whether she admitted killing her mother, what her motive was, whether she had anything to say to the rest of her family, and why she had called the victim her stepmother, Yonhap reported. In questioning she has denied the allegation, Yonhap and Kyeonggi Ilbo reported.

What happens next: Under South Korea’s Criminal Procedure Act, police can hold a formally arrested suspect for up to 10 days before sending the case to prosecutors, who then have up to 20 more days to decide whether to indict. Under the Criminal Act, killing a lineal ascendant carries a sentence of death, life imprisonment or at least seven years in prison, a heavier minimum than for ordinary murder.

Sources

Khuan Niang, Thailand: Man Arrested at Resort and Charged Over Roadside Shooting of His Friend

Railway line at Khuan Niang
The railway at Khuan Niang, Songkhla province, Thailand. Not the scene. Photo: Adriaan Castermans / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Khuan So subdistrict, Khuan Niang district, Songkhla province; arrest in Thi Wang subdistrict, Thung Song district, Nakhon Si Thammarat province, Thailand

Legal status: Akrachai, 36, known as “Bangdee”, was arrested on a Songkhla Provincial Court warrant and charged by police investigators with intentional killing and firearms offences. Police say he confessed. He has not been tried and is presumed innocent.

The arrest: Songkhla police announced on 25 October 2026 that they had arrested Akrachai, whose surname they withheld, over the killing of a 29-year-old man named Supawut two days earlier. Pol Col Boonsongwit Hongsaeng, deputy commander of Songkhla provincial police, and Pol Col Koson Prabkree, superintendent of Khuan Niang police station, presented the case at the station, Khaosod and Daily News reported. Investigators from Khuan Niang, the provincial investigation unit and the Region 8 and Region 9 investigation divisions tracked him to a room at a resort in Thi Wang subdistrict, in neighbouring Nakhon Si Thammarat province, and arrested him there.

The evidence: Police said they seized a .45 calibre pistol, a magazine holding five rounds, 39 more .45 rounds, and the clothes he had changed into after the shooting, according to both outlets. The local news site Hatyai Focus reported that police also seized a pair of sandals and a shoulder bag that they say were used at the time, and that the court had issued the arrest warrant on 24 October. Reports differ on whether the arrest took place on 24 or 25 October.

The killing: Supawut was shot once on 23 October on a road in Moo 4, Khuan So subdistrict. Hatyai Focus reported that police were called that morning after a man’s body was found by the abandoned waterworks of a deserted village, beside a road running along an irrigation canal, and that a single 11mm casing was found at the scene. Investigators identified the gunman from witness accounts and CCTV, obtained a warrant, and learned that the suspect had already left the area, Khaosod reported.

What police say he told them: According to police, Akrachai admitted the shooting. He is said to have told investigators that he rode a motorcycle to the spot with Supawut, his friend, to collect drugs, and that he grew afraid Supawut would attack him because the two had stopped trusting each other. Police say he drew his gun, the two struggled over it, Supawut fell, and he then fired one shot into his friend’s head before riding away. The published accounts differ on whether this happened while the pair were riding or while they were waiting at the spot. Those are police accounts of an alleged confession, and they have not been tested in court.

Records: Police told reporters that both men had criminal records. They said Akrachai had four prior cases involving a firearm, theft and drugs, and that Supawut had ten drug cases and an outstanding warrant issued on 3 September.

The charges and what comes next: After the announcement, officers took Akrachai back to the scene for a reenactment of the confession. Crime scene reenactments by suspects are a routine part of police procedure in Thailand. He was handed to investigators on three charges: intentionally killing another person, unlawfully possessing a firearm and ammunition, and firing a gun in a town, village or community area. Under Section 288 of the Thai Criminal Code, murder carries the death penalty, life imprisonment, or 15 to 20 years in prison.

Sources

Hưng Thịnh, Vietnam: Husband Held After Nguyễn Thị Hồng Thảo Is Killed With a Knife on a Village Road

Trảng Bom district government building
The Trảng Bom district people’s committee building in Đồng Nai, Vietnam. Not the scene. Photo: Cheers! / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Location: Hưng Thịnh commune, Đồng Nai city, southern Vietnam

Legal status: Huỳnh Minh Duy, 39, named by the Đồng Nai city police, is being held in temporary criminal detention while police investigate him for murder. He turned himself in to police after the killing, according to the police and Vietnamese media. VnExpress reported that police took him into temporary detention on 26 October. He has not been formally charged in court. He is presumed innocent.

The victim: Nguyễn Thị Hồng Thảo, 37, was born in 1989 and lived in Hưng Thịnh commune, according to VnExpress and the Đồng Nai city police. She and her husband had three children, VnExpress reported. Other Vietnamese outlets and the police used only her initials. Thanh Niên and Tuổi Trẻ reported that the couple lived in Thái Hòa hamlet, Hưng Thịnh, while the police notice gave his permanent address as Bàu Hàm hamlet in Bàu Hàm commune.

What police say happened: Police say the couple argued over problems in their marriage at about 7:30 p.m. on Sunday 25 October, in Trung Hòa hamlet, Hưng Thịnh commune. Tuổi Trẻ and Dân Trí described the events as taking place on the afternoon of 25 October. After the argument, she left the house, and he took a meat cleaver from the kitchen and went after her, according to the Đồng Nai city police. VnExpress, Tuổi Trẻ and Dân Trí reported that she left on a motorbike and that he followed on a motorbike. Tuổi Trẻ reported that about 20 metres from the house he overtook her and blocked her motorbike. He tried to talk to her and again asked her to come home, Tuổi Trẻ reported, and when she refused he attacked her with the knife. She died at the scene. Police say he then went to the police and confessed.

Background described in reports: The couple had been in frequent conflict recently, and she often went to stay with her parents, VnExpress and Tuổi Trẻ reported. VnExpress said that when he came home from work that evening (Tuổi Trẻ said he had been out shopping) and saw her taking the motorbike to go back to her parents’ house, the two began to argue. Dân Trí reported that he urged her to stay home but she drove off anyway. Tuổi Trẻ reported that police sealed off the scene and that many local people gathered to watch.

The investigation: On 26 October the criminal police of the Đồng Nai city police were working with the People’s Procuracy and the Hưng Thịnh commune police to investigate, Thanh Niên, Tuổi Trẻ and Dân Trí reported. Police published photographs of the suspect and of the weapon on their website and said they were preparing the case file to deal with him in accordance with the law. VnExpress reported that police were investigating him for murder and also for illegally using a military weapon, an offence that the police notice and other outlets did not mention.

What happens next: Under Vietnam’s Criminal Procedure Code, temporary criminal detention lasts up to three days and can be extended twice, up to nine days in total. Police must then decide whether to formally charge the suspect. Under Article 123 of the Penal Code, murder is punishable by 7 to 15 years in prison, or, where aggravating circumstances apply, 12 to 20 years, life imprisonment or death. Turning oneself in and confessing are listed as mitigating circumstances a court may take into account.

Sources

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