The Crime Ledger: October 2, 2026

Santiago: First Guilty Verdict in Ronald Ojeda Kidnap-Killing

Chile has its first conviction in the killing of Ronald Ojeda. On Thursday, Santiago’s Second Oral Criminal Trial Court found Venezuelan national Maickel David Villegas Rodríguez guilty as one of the perpetrators of the kidnapping with homicide of the former Venezuelan army lieutenant, the South Metropolitan Regional Prosecutor’s Office said. Ojeda, a political refugee and opponent of the Venezuelan government, was kidnapped in February 2024. NTN24 reports that men posing as police officers took him from his apartment in Independencia.

Prosecutors say Villegas carried out surveillance and helped secure the operation run by the “Piratas de Aragua” group, which is linked to the Tren de Aragua gang. He fled Chile and was extradited from Costa Rica. Prosecutors are asking for 20 years, and the sentence will be read on Oct. 15.

NTN24 reports that this trial did not establish that the killing was ordered by the Venezuelan government. Regional prosecutor Héctor Barros said that remains a line of investigation. A second trial, of 18 defendants, is set to open on Oct. 20. Villegas retains appeal rights.

Belfast: Murder Conviction Quashed for Woman Who Killed Abusive Partner

Northern Ireland’s Court of Appeal on Friday overturned Julie Ann McIlwaine’s conviction for murdering her partner. The judges ruled that the jury had been misdirected on her loss-of-control defence. McIlwaine, 35, had been serving a minimum term of 12 years, and she wept on the video link from Hydebank as the ruling was read.

She admitted killing James Joseph Crossley, 38, as he slept at her former home in Dunmurry in March 2022, but she denied murder. At the time, Crossley was on bail for an alleged assault on her and was under a restraining order barring any contact with her. The trial judge had asked jurors whether someone like her “would” have reacted the same way. The appeal court held that the correct test was “might.”

“The misdirection we have identified was highly material, given the uncontradicted expert evidence,” the Lady Chief Justice said. The case was adjourned to Oct. 16, and prosecutors must tell the court then what steps they want to take.

Dublin, Calif.: Couple Delay Pleas in Son-in-Law’s Killing

The pleas will have to wait. This case continues from The Crime Ledger: October 1, 2026. Shili Chen and Shouyong Zhang, both 77, appeared briefly in court on Thursday and asked for more time before entering formal pleas, AP reports. They are charged with murder in the shooting of their son-in-law, Jonathan McKinsey, 40, in the parking lot of the Dublin Sports Grounds on Saturday.

Curtis Briggs, a court-appointed attorney assigned to Chen on Thursday, said she plans to plead not guilty and will focus her defense on abuse allegedly committed by McKinsey. “Court documents show Mr. McKinsey was extremely violent and dangerous to his family,” he said. Public defender Jennie Otis asked for Zhang to be medically evaluated, without saying why.

Prosecutors allege that the couple lay in wait and that both of them fired. Patch reports that, according to the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, “If convicted as charged, Zhang and Chen face life in prison without the possibility of parole.” AP reports that McKinsey had pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor child-abuse charges. No date for the pleas has been reported. Both are presumed innocent.

Osnabrück: Life Sentence for Triplets’ Father Who Killed His Wife

On Friday, Oct. 2, the Osnabrück Regional Court sentenced a 46-year-old German man from Wallenhorst to life in prison for murdering his 39-year-old wife, the mother of primary-school-age triplets who need care, NDR and dpa report. He had admitted the killing in late August but said he stabbed her in the heat of the moment after she told him he was an incapable father.

The court found that on the morning of Feb. 12 he attacked her with a knife in an annex to a garage on the property they shared, stabbing her at least 10 times, including in the neck. A court spokesman said the only murder element that applied was treachery: she did not expect the attack and, against a much heavier man, “had no chance.” The court made no finding on whether he planned it. In closing, the prosecutor said she had made sandwiches and coffee that morning before he lured her into another room, and that “a difficult marriage does not justify murder.” His defence lawyer argued for manslaughter and no more than eight years, and in court used a home-made knife to argue he attacked from the front, not from behind. She was found gravely injured at the house and died despite attempts to save her.

German media do not name him. The verdict is not final; the defence says it will appeal on points of law.

Plymouth, Mass.: Judge Refuses to Acquit Lindsay Clancy

The murder charges against Lindsay Clancy still stand. On Thursday, Oct. 1, Judge William Sullivan denied a defense motion for a required finding of not guilty in the January 2023 strangling deaths of her three children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, in Duxbury. He wrote: “There was evidence introduced, both physical and circumstantial, that would permit a rational trier of fact to find beyond a reasonable doubt the elements of the charge of murder.”

Her first trial ended in a mistrial on Sept. 4 after seven days of deliberations. The Guardian reports that the jury split 11-1 in favor of acquitting her of the murder charges. Her defense argues that Clancy, 36, a former labor and delivery nurse, is not criminally responsible because of postpartum psychosis. At a Sept. 29 hearing her lawyer, Kevin Reddington, called the evidence “woefully deficient”; Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham called the claim that Clancy did not kill her children “laughable.” Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz said his office is “still working on” whether to retry her.

Clancy has been held at Tewksbury Hospital since May 2023 and uses a wheelchair; she was paralyzed after jumping from a second-floor window after the killings, USA Today reports. The next hearing is Nov. 2, when Sullivan told both sides to be ready to discuss a retrial date. Reddington says he cannot be ready before June 2027.

She is presumed innocent.

L’Aigle: Inmate Charged With Murder After Dismembered Body Found

A 41-year-old man who was already held in the Le Mans jail for damage, theft and drink-driving was charged on Thursday, Oct. 1, with “murder and violation of the integrity of a corpse,” the Caen prosecutor’s office said. He was taken from his cell on Sept. 29, held for questioning at the Mortagne-au-Perche gendarmerie, brought before an investigating judge in Caen and ordered held in pretrial detention, Paris-Normandie and Actu.fr report. Some reports give his age as 44.

The victim was Yannick Liger, 41, who lived on Rue Louis-Pasteur in L’Aigle, in Normandy’s Orne department, was under legal guardianship and had been reported missing in mid-July. Gendarmes who searched his home found traces of blood. On Friday, Sept. 11, his partly dismembered body was found in several plastic bags in an abandoned former caretaker’s building at the Croix-Lamirault pond, once part of a quarry site. Actu.fr reports the suspect, described as homeless, had been squatting at Liger’s home. Gendarmerie behavioural-science specialists in Pontoise helped trace him.

“The victim is believed to have died by strangulation, after an altercation over hurtful words that are said to have been exchanged,” Caen prosecutor Joël Garrigue said.

The suspect is presumed innocent.

Ipoh: Woman Charged With Mother’s Murder Sent for Psychiatric Assessment

Chew Loong Thye, 49, was charged on Friday, Oct. 2, in the Ipoh magistrates’ court with murdering her 70-year-old mother, Ching Lai Kheng, at a house on Lorong Kledang Utara 6, Taman Wang, Menglembu, between 7.15 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. on Sept. 27. The charge, under Section 302 of the Penal Code, carries death or 30 to 40 years in prison. It was read to her in Cantonese, and no plea was recorded because murder falls under the High Court’s jurisdiction. She was unrepresented.

Perak police chief Datuk Mohd Alwi Zainal Abidin had said the victim was found with a fatal stab wound to the chest. The Star reports she was bedridden, needed constant care and had just been brought home from an elder care centre in Pusing. When Magistrate Norizan Riduan asked whether she took psychiatric medication, Chew could not give a definite answer. The magistrate ordered a psychiatric assessment under Section 342(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code to decide whether she is fit for trial. Deputy Public Prosecutor Ainin Sofiya Azlaini said pathology and toxicology reports are pending and no bail was offered. The case returns on Nov. 2 for the psychiatric report, The Star and FMT report.

Chew is presumed innocent.

London, Ont.: Quebec Man, 21, Charged in Downtown Shooting Death

Mohamed Abdel Aziz Soumahoro, 21, of Laval, Que., is charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of Robert Rico Rivard, 48, of London, the London Police Service says. Police were called to the area of Central Avenue and Richmond Street downtown at about 5:45 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 29, after reports of a possible shooting, and found Rivard with life-threatening injuries. He was pronounced dead in hospital. A suspect was arrested that evening.

Soumahoro also faces charges of possessing a loaded regulated firearm, possessing a restricted or prohibited firearm without a licence, and failing to comply with a release order that bars him from having weapons. “The victim and the accused were known to each other,” police spokesperson Sgt. Sandasha Bough said. He appeared in court on Wednesday and was remanded in custody until Oct. 7, The London Free Press reports. Police are still asking anyone who was in the area between 5:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. with dash-cam or surveillance video to come forward.

He is presumed innocent.

Eskişehir: Father Arrested 14 Years After Toddler’s Death

A reopened investigation in Turkey has led to an arrest. Yakup Bozkurt, 2½, disappeared in May 2012 in the rural Doğançayır neighbourhood of Seyitgazi district, Eskişehir, where his family had come as seasonal farm workers. Gendarmes, disaster teams and an air force helicopter searched; 12 days later his body was found hidden in a concrete culvert pipe at Kırgız Tepe, Sözcü reports. No suspect was identified at the time.

The Eskişehir Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office reopened the file, and gendarmerie JASAT teams searched the area again. Six people were detained. Sözcü and Ulusal report that the boy’s mother, Huriye Çiftçi, told investigators her former husband, Abdurrezzak Bozkurt, came to her days after the disappearance with blood and wounds on his hands, asked for ointment and, when she asked why he was crying, shouted, “Quiet, I have Yakup.” She said he then choked her. A Criminal Judgeship of Peace ordered the father, Abdurrezzak Bozkurt, jailed pending trial on Oct. 2; the other five, including the mother, were released, the DHA agency reports.

He is presumed innocent.

Bareilly: Police Say Son Killed Mother to Frame Rivals

Police in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly district say a trader killed his mother, Ram Beti, in her sleep in August 2024 to pin the crime on rival relatives, The Indian Express reports. “We found Mahendra Singh’s involvement in the case and arrested him,” said Inspector Sanjay Dheer of the special investigation team. Police say Singh, who runs a general store in Kuddha village, was arrested on Sept. 30 and sent to jail by a court on Oct. 1. Reports give his age as 35 or 37 and hers as 55 to 60.

Singh had filed the murder report himself, naming his cousin Natthu Singh and four other relatives; a sixth was added later. Police say the families had a long-running dispute over a ration shop quota, and that Singh believed the rivals had his nephew framed in an Arms Act case. He told police he had dinner with his mother at about 7.30 p.m. on Aug. 6, left her sleeping on a cot under a tree outside his house, and found her dead the next morning. The Times of India reports a State Medico-Legal Cell review of her stomach contents found she died two to four hours after her last meal, which did not match his account. The six relatives passed polygraph tests in Delhi; Singh refused one. Police say he confessed when confronted, and that he has five previous cases on record. No charge sheet has been filed.

Singh is presumed innocent.

Boksburg: Bail Bid in Killing of Ninth Ekurhuleni Woman

Tsakane Msithini and Fortunate Masilela, charged with premeditated murder and with defeating or obstructing the course of justice, are applying for bail in the Boksburg Magistrates’ Court. They are accused of killing Jabulile Ntimba, whose body was found in Villa Liza, near Dawn Park, on Sept. 17. IOL reports that she was the ninth woman found murdered in Ekurhuleni since July, and that a third suspect was released for lack of evidence. The Citizen reports that the bail hearing was postponed to Oct. 12.

Testifying on Oct. 1, Sgt. Prince Mbonambi said the first accused had allegedly confessed, and that both women told police they had visited a traditional healer to be cleansed of what they believed were dark spirits and bad luck, Daily Sun reports. IOL reports that the two “will have to convince the court that exceptional circumstances exist before they can be granted bail, according to the Criminal Procedure Act.” Both are presumed innocent.

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