The Crime Ledger: October 8, 2026

Huntsville: Texas Executes Jamaal Howard for 2000 Store Killing

Texas put Jamaal Howard to death Wednesday evening at the state prison in Huntsville, the first execution in the United States since Tennessee’s failed attempt to kill Christa Pike with pentobarbital on Sept. 30. Howard, 46, was pronounced dead at 8:03 p.m. after a lethal dose of the same drug, The Associated Press reports. He was condemned for the 2000 robbery killing of Vickie Swartout, a 42-year-old convenience store clerk in Silsbee, a small town about 100 miles northeast of Houston.

The crime itself was recorded. Court records cited by the AP say Howard, then 20, walked into the store, shot Swartout once in the chest and left with $114 and a carton of cigarettes. Surveillance video showing him firing at her was played for the jury, and he was convicted of capital murder in Hardin County less than a year later, The Texas Tribune reports. Before that trial the court held two competency hearings at the state’s request. The first jury deadlocked; the second found him fit after his lawyer didn’t call the defense’s expert witness, according to court records described by the Tribune.

His last days were a race through the courts. Howard’s lawyers argued he was intellectually disabled, which would bar execution under a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, and that he suffers from mental illness. The state answered that they hadn’t shown evidence meeting the legal test. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected that claim on Monday, the Tribune says, and on Wednesday it denied two further filings about the quality of Texas’ execution drugs without comment, the AP reports. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to step in late Wednesday, also without comment. Fox News reported that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only justice to publicly dissent.

The drug fight followed Pike’s case directly. Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital in Tennessee a week earlier, and Howard’s lawyers asked Gov. Greg Abbott for a 30-day delay while they waited for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to say whether its supply was safe. “We do not ask you to decide anything about Mr. Howard’s case other than this: that he should not be executed with a drug whose history the State has refused to let his lawyers see, within days of the same drug failing in another state,” they wrote, according to the Tribune. Texas buys pentobarbital from compounding pharmacies because manufacturers refuse to sell it for executions, and it tests its vials and extends their use dates when it decides they’ll still work, a practice critics call unsafe, the Tribune reports.

In the death chamber, Howard turned to members of Swartout’s family watching through a window a few feet away. “I wish that you accept my apology and I wish for your forgiveness,” he said, the AP reports. “I’m sorry for what happened. I wish you can learn to forgive me one of these days.” He thanked his own family and friends, said he was “in a good state of mind to find peace and the Lord,” and ended with: “Hey, enjoy life, and peace to y’all.”

As the drug took hold, he took a couple of breaths and gasped, then began making snoring sounds, coughed and resumed snoring, each sound quieter than the last, AP witnesses wrote. All movement stopped within about 30 seconds, and he was pronounced dead 19 minutes later. His sister, watching from an adjacent room, became distraught and cried out several times, “Get me out of here,” before corrections officers helped her leave.

Howard was the seventh person executed in Texas this year and the 30th in the country, the AP says. Texas has two more executions planned in 2026. The next man scheduled is John Rubio, convicted of the 2003 murders of his three children, who had himself sued over the state’s pentobarbital supply, the Tribune reports.

Nashville: Pike Has Pneumonia After Failed Execution, Lawyers Say

Christa Pike was hours from having her life support switched off when she opened her eyes and started talking, her lawyer told reporters in Nashville on Wednesday. Attorney Randy Spivey said that as of Monday night, Oct. 5, his understanding was that Pike was brain-dead and that life support would be removed the next day. “But on Tuesday, to the shock of everyone, including me, including her team, and including the medical team, Christa woke up and began talking,” he said, NBC News reports. “I do not have an explanation for what happened between Monday night and Tuesday morning.” This case continues from The Crime Ledger: October 7, 2026.

Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital when Tennessee tried to execute her on Sept. 30. She spent six days unconscious on life support, Spivey said, and she now faces what he called a “long road to recovery.” He listed a blood clot in one arm, pneumonia, an inability to swallow and no function in her arms, NBC reports. Her arms and hands remain heavily swollen and covered in blisters, he told reporters, according to Al Jazeera. “Neither we nor Christa have even begun to process what this means for her mental health,” Spivey said.

Spivey wasn’t in the room when she woke, but he said her first words were “Where am I and who are you?” She is angry and confused, he said, she asked about her legal team and about the victim’s family, and “she is very aware that the state tried to execute her.” On Tuesday the anaesthesiologist advising her team, Dr. Joel Zivot, told the BBC that she could communicate in a basic way, could recall her name and guessed wrongly that it was still September, but had no memory of the execution attempt itself.

The lawyers’ account of the attempt is graphic. Spivey said Pike cooperated, even helping the team find a vein. “She was kind and polite as they worked for an hour, stabbing her arm with needle after needle, and then she felt the burn of the pentobarbital, and then she woke up in a hospital surrounded by people she didn’t know with a tube down her throat,” he said. Doctors told NBC News that most of the drug appears to have gone into her arm rather than her bloodstream, enough to put her under but not to stop her heart or slow her breathing. Zivot told the BBC the drug more likely spread through the tissue under her skin. Before the execution, her lawyers had warned that a blood-clotting condition, thrombocytosis, and small veins could defeat the injection and cause her pain. “What happened to Christa is exactly what the state was warned would happen,” Spivey said.

The news conference followed Wednesday’s hearing before Davidson County Chancellor I’Ashea Myles, who ordered the state to preserve evidence from the attempt. NBC reports the order covers IV lines and needles, medical supplies and records, the drugs and manufacturer material, photographs, video, handwritten notes, checklists and witness accounts. Anything already thrown away must be clawed back, the chancellor said. Attorney Luke Ihnen told the court the state “has made no promises that Miss Pike will not be subject to our future execution.” He also asked for 48 hours’ notice before any move, for her shackles to come off in the hospital bed and for phone or tablet access, NBC says.

Pike has been on death row for more than 30 years for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a classmate at a job training program. The BBC reports that Pike, then 18, and her boyfriend, then 17, beat, tortured and killed Slemmer. Gov. Bill Lee has paused all executions for the rest of the year and ordered an independent review, and prisons chief Frank Strada is stepping down this month. Spivey has said the team will again ask Lee to commute her sentence to life without parole. Whether Tennessee will try to execute her again remains unclear.

Dersingham: GP Was Struck With an Axe, Court Hears

A Norfolk doctor who treated members of the royal family was killed by “striking her on the head with an axe and then strangling her,” a prosecutor told King’s Lynn Crown Court on Thursday, the Eastern Daily Press reports. Mark Cain, 45, is charged with murdering his wife, Hannah Cain, also 45 and known to her patients as Dr Hannah Terry, at their home on Fern Hill in Dersingham overnight from Oct. 3 into the early hours of Oct. 4. He appeared by video link from HMP Norwich and has not entered a plea. This case continues from The Crime Ledger: October 7, 2026.

Prosecutor Steven Ball laid out the night as the Crown sees it. Police went to the house after Cain himself phoned in a report of a burglary, Ball said, according to the EDP. Officers found him with superficial cuts, and he told them he’d had a confrontation with an intruder downstairs while his wife slept upstairs. Hannah Cain was found in an upstairs bedroom “unconscious and unresponsive,” Ball said, BBC News reports. The couple’s three children were in the house, and The Nightly reports the prosecutor said two children from another family were also there for a sleepover. Cain later gave police further information, the court was told, The Nightly reports.

The medical evidence so far comes from the post-mortem examination. Ball said it recorded “blunt force injuries to the head” and “neck injuries consistent with compression to the neck,” BBC News reports. At Wednesday’s first hearing in Norwich, prosecutor Jacqui Hanlon had told magistrates the post-mortem “noted blunt force injury to the right side of her head had been inflicted, also an injury that could be suggestive of compression of the neck,” BBC News reported then. Norfolk Police had earlier said the Home Office post-mortem on Oct. 5 left the formal cause of death pending further investigation. The axe detail was put to the court for the first time on Thursday.

Ball described Cain as a man of “previous good character,” the EDP reports. His barrister, Nicholas Maggs, said the defence would seek medical reports. Mr Justice Lickley adjourned the case to Dec. 3. Cain wasn’t asked to enter a plea, no bail application was made and no provisional trial date was set, BBC News reports. He was remanded in custody.

Cain, described in court reports as an energy consultant, was arrested on Sunday, Oct. 4, and questioned for days before police charged him on Tuesday night, the Lynn News reported. He spoke only to confirm his name and that he understood the proceedings on Thursday, the BBC says.

Hannah Cain was a mother of three and a member of the practice team at Grimston Medical Centre, south of Dersingham. She served in a pool of doctors regularly on call for members of the royal family when they stayed nearby, BBC News reports. The family home on Fern Hill is just over a mile from Sandringham House. The practice closed for two days after her death. An NHS statement issued for her colleagues called her “an exceptional doctor” who was “highly intelligent, kind and generous.” Her family said in a statement released through police that they were “devastated by the loss of our beautiful Hannah,” and described her as “a beloved mother, daughter, sister, auntie, daughter-in-law and friend.” They said they were “incredibly proud of the woman she was and of the great care she took of all her patients who knew her as Dr Terry,” and asked for privacy.

Cain is presumed innocent.

Ghent: Trial Opens Over Killing of Four-Year-Old Dean

Nearly five years after four-year-old Dean Verberckmoes was found dead among the rocks of a Dutch work island, the East Flanders assize court in Ghent has begun hearing the case against the man who took him on a night drive across the border. Prosecutors read out a 120-page indictment against Dave De Kock, 39, and his former partner, Romy W., 29, a Dutch national, the Belga news agency reports. De Kock is charged with intentional homicide (doodslag in Dutch, meurtre in French) and with kidnapping resulting in death. Romy W. is charged with kidnapping resulting in death. A jury of eight women and four men was chosen on Monday, VRT NWS reports.

Dean and his little sister often stayed with the couple at their apartment in Sint-Gillis-Waas, VRT reports. Their mother had become friends with Romy W. during a psychiatric hospital stay, and De Kock was even called Dean’s “cuddle godfather.” Dean had been staying there since Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2022, after a minor medical procedure, and was due to go home to his mother. De Kock kept in touch with Dean’s family about that return over the next days. It never happened.

On the evening of Friday, Jan. 14, De Kock drove off alone with the boy. Investigators rebuilt most of his route from number-plate cameras, phone data, surveillance footage and bank transactions, VRT reports. He drove around Flanders, crossed into the Netherlands later that night and moved between several spots in Zeeland. He left Dean’s body wrapped in a fleece blanket between the boulders on Neeltje Jans. Police arrested him in Meerkerk, not far from Utrecht, and Dutch police found the body on Jan. 17, 2022.

His accounts kept changing, according to VRT. First he said Dean had fallen down the stairs at the apartment a day earlier. Then he said the boy fell against the car during a stop in the Netherlands and went into convulsions. In his final interview he said he was convinced he had done something to Dean but couldn’t remember what, and he admitted he had used several drugs in those last days. He said he “lost it” in the car. “There may have been blows,” he told investigators. He denies setting out to kill the boy, and no clear motive has emerged.

The autopsy contradicts the fall stories. Forensic doctors found signs of severe violence to Dean’s head and abdomen, injuries they say are not consistent with a fall down the stairs, VRT reports. The file also describes De Kock as under heavy stress in the days before, fighting with Romy W. over her heavy drinking.

Romy W. denies hurting Dean or knowing what happened to him. She says she saw him leave alive and unhurt with De Kock that Friday evening and assumed he was driving to Dean’s grandparents in Antwerp. Prosecutors point to her part in the decision to keep Dean longer, her contacts with his family and her behaviour after he vanished, VRT reports. They also rely on statements from Dean’s sister, who told investigators that both accused hit her brother. Her lawyer, Nina Van Eeckhaut, has said she will seek an acquittal.

De Kock’s past hangs over the case even though he isn’t on trial for it. In 2010 a court sentenced him to 10 years in prison for the fatal abuse of a two-year-old boy, Miguel, in 2008, VRT reports. He called that death an accident too, and blamed a fall down the stairs. Court-appointed experts who compared the two files found striking similarities, with extensive injuries pointing to inflicted violence in both. He served his full sentence and was released in 2018 without further supervision, which caused an outcry after Dean’s death.

Dozens of investigators, experts, relatives and other witnesses are due to testify in the coming days. Both accused are presumed innocent.

Sydney: Lamarre-Condon Jury Sees CCTV After Alleged Murders

CCTV released by the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday shows a heavily disguised figure returning to Jesse Baird’s Paddington terrace at about 11 p.m. on Feb. 19, 2024, more than 12 hours after Baird died, The Sydney Morning Herald reports. The Crown says the figure is Beau Lamarre-Condon, now 31, a former NSW police officer on trial for murdering Baird, 26, a former Network Ten presenter, and Baird’s new partner, Qantas flight attendant Luke Davies, 29. By then, the court has heard, both men’s bodies were lying in the courtyard in surfboard bags. Lamarre-Condon has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder. This case continues from The Crime Ledger: October 3, 2026.

The footage tracks his alleged movements that day. Earlier he’s shown hiring a white van that was used to move the bodies and paying cash for a surfboard bag at a sports store in Westfield Miranda, about three hours after the killings, the Herald reports. He had bought an identical bag at the same store two days earlier. At 2:08 p.m. he allegedly spent $146.40 in cash at Bunnings in Alexandria on a bucket mop wringer, disposable gloves, microfibre cloths, bleach and garbage bags. The Bunnings video was gone by the time police traced the purchase, but the receipt was tendered. The Guardian reports the later clip shows him arriving laden with cleaning products and a tarpaulin.

On Thursday the trial turned to the bodies. Crime scene officer Greg Moon, who led the forensic sweep of a Greek monastery at Bungonia, about 200 km south of Sydney, told jurors the men were found one on top of the other, the smaller bag zipped inside a larger one, with rocks and small branches piled on top, The Guardian reports. Close-up photographs of Baird’s gunshot wound were shown only to the jury. Moon walked the length of the jury box to point out stippling, pinprick marks left by particles that leave a gun when it’s fired. “The only area I saw stippling was around that gunshot wound on the right temple,” he said. The closer the gun, the more condensed the stippling, he explained. Insects and decompositional fluids in the bags showed the remains had been there for several days. Justice Natalie Adams warned jurors beforehand that the photographs would be confronting.

On Wednesday, Detective Senior Constable Christine Abela broke down as she described finding the two blue and silver surfboard bags on Feb. 27, eight days after the shooting, 1News reports. “There was a strong smell as soon as I got out of the car,” she said. Jewellery matched what the men wore in Instagram posts. At Cella Farm, about 20 km away, investigators found concrete blocks, a gym weight and a cut padlock at the edge of a dam where the Crown says he tried and failed to sink the bodies. A friend, given a pseudonym in court, told police she drove with him to Goulburn on Feb. 21 and paid for an angle grinder he used to cut the padlock, the Herald reports. Her statement on Feb. 23 set off the search.

The two sides agree on a lot. The defence accepts that Lamarre-Condon entered the home disguised as a delivery rider, carrying his police-issued Glock, that both men died of gunshot wounds from that pistol and that he cleaned the house and dumped the bodies, the Herald reports. Prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC says he planned to kill Baird out of an “obsessive and jealous infatuation” after Baird ended their casual relationship in November 2023, and killed Davies to eliminate a witness. Barrister John Stratton SC says the gun went off twice by accident in a struggle with Baird, that Davies shot himself in a second struggle and that his client “panicked considerably.” The 12-week trial continues, and he is presumed innocent.

Leszczydół-Nowiny: School Worker Stabbed to Death, Teen Detained

A 37-year-old school caretaker died Thursday morning after a 15-year-old former pupil walked into the John Paul II primary school in Leszczydół-Nowiny, a village in Poland’s Wyszków County northeast of Warsaw, and attacked staff with a knife, Mazovia police said. Paramedics tried for a long time to resuscitate her in the school, but she died, police spokeswoman Katarzyna Kucharska told TVN24. The principal and a teacher were also wounded. The teenager was detained at the scene.

Police say the attack began at about 9 a.m. Ilona Puścian of the Wyszków police told TVN24 that a former pupil entered the school grounds and wounded a teacher and a staff member with a sharp tool, and that the principal was hurt trying to overpower him. The caretaker was the first person he attacked, TVN24 reports. Karolina Gałecka, spokeswoman for Poland’s interior ministry, said on Polsat News that the attacker was carrying three knives and that he struck the caretaker in the neck.

Principal Krzysztof Ochmański stopped him. Speaking to Polish Radio RDC, he said he heard a scream and ran out into a corridor that was already empty. “He ran in and wounded the caretaker,” he said, Interia reports. Then he saw the boy at a classroom door, touching the handle, before the teen turned back toward him. “He only wounded me with the blade of a knife, a longer one, because he had three knives, and hit me with the handle. By then I’d somehow got hold of him,” Ochmański said. The boy broke free for a moment, and only then did the principal realise the knife was real. He said the teen was oddly dressed and wearing a helmet. A teacher helped him, Kucharska told TVN24. Officers arrived within minutes of the call and took the boy into custody, police said on X.

The principal had superficial wounds and the teacher was taken to hospital, Puścian said on Polsat News. Police said neither injured staff member’s life was in danger. Pupils were kept locked in their classrooms while police and firefighters worked at the scene. Parents waited outside the police tape, getting only short text messages from their children. “We know only that there was a knifeman, the children are locked in the classrooms,” one mother told Polsat News.

Two women who knew the caretaker described her to TVN24 as kind and calm. “The worst thing is that we have a death here, and after something like this two children have been left alone, without a mother,” they said.

Because the suspect is 15, his case goes to the family and juvenile division of the Wyszków District Court rather than an adult criminal court, police told Interia. Elżbieta Edyta Łukasiewicz, spokeswoman for the regional prosecutor’s office in Ostrołęka, told the Polish Press Agency that investigators were securing traces and evidence at the school and would pass the material to the court. Police say his motive is not yet known.

The killing came a day after a 19-year-old wounded nine people, five pupils, two teachers and two bystanders, with a knife at a vocational school in Ostrołęka. National Prosecutor Dariusz Korneluk said the suspect in that attack had a homemade explosive device in his backpack, Polsat News reports. Police in Sierpc also detained a 17-year-old who had allegedly talked about doing “something bad” at school, and found two knives packed for an attack, Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński said. Government spokesman Adam Szłapka said the prime minister summoned ministers, the special services coordinator and the national police chief to an urgent meeting on school violence on Thursday afternoon, Gazeta.pl reports.

Cincinnati: Hinton Insanity Trial Opens Over Deputy’s Death

The last thing Hamilton County sheriff’s Deputy Larry Henderson did before leaving for work on May 2, 2025, was walk back around the bed to hug his wife. “He looks at me and he goes, ‘I love you.’ And I looked at him and I said, ‘What? No hug?’” Lori Henderson told a Cincinnati jury Wednesday, Spectrum News reports. Hours later, Henderson was dead, struck by a car while he directed traffic near the University of Cincinnati’s commencement. The driver, Rodney Hinton Jr., went on trial Wednesday. He doesn’t deny that he drove into the deputy. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Hinton faces two counts of aggravated murder, one count of murder and two counts of felonious assault, WCPO reports. The day before the crash, a Cincinnati police officer had shot and killed his 18-year-old son, Ryan Hinton. Authorities said Ryan was armed and threatening officers after a car theft, WLWT reports. On the morning of May 2, Hinton and relatives went to Cincinnati police offices and watched the body camera video of the shooting.

Assistant Prosecutor Heidi Rosales told jurors the evidence will show exactly what happened next. Video tracks Hinton’s car from the police department to the area near campus, she said, according to WCPO. Driving east on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, he stopped with a clear line of sight to Henderson, who was wearing a bright yellow safety vest, waited for oncoming traffic to clear, then accelerated across several lanes and hit him without trying to stop or slow down. “He knew exactly what he was doing, and he knew it was wrong,” Rosales said. “He just didn’t care.” She added: “Emotional stress does not excuse murder.”

Defense attorney Clyde Bennett spent nearly 30 minutes walking jurors through years of mental illness: depression, hallucinations, suicidal and homicidal thoughts. He described a 2023 episode in which Hinton was found walking naked in Middletown and taken to Atrium Medical Center, WCPO reports. Bennett said Hinton was diagnosed with conditions including schizoaffective disorder and psychosis, was prescribed antipsychotic medication and later stopped taking it. “The combination of these serious mental illnesses and symptoms rendered Hinton not able to understand the wrongfulness of his conduct when he drove his car into Deputy Henderson,” Bennett said, Local 12 reports. Three psychologists examined Hinton. Prosecutors say a court-appointed psychologist and the state’s expert both found he doesn’t meet Ohio’s legal test for insanity, while the defense expert disagreed.

Hinton’s aunt gave the most detailed account so far. She testified that the family gathered in the police department parking lot after the video, that she hugged him, and that he took a nap at a cousin’s house before saying he was ready to go home, WLWT reports. She and another relative followed his car to make sure he got there. He turned the wrong way, came back to the lot saying he thought he’d forgotten something, then drove up Clifton Avenue and turned right onto Martin Luther King Drive. When traffic backed up, she said, he pulled into the next lane and drove forward at the “fastest speed.” She didn’t see the impact but knew someone was in that direction. She described him as “very quiet and sad” that day and said he’d shown signs of mental illness since at least 2021.

Capt. Steve Sabers of the sheriff’s office testified about Henderson’s post and his uniform that day: a neon traffic vest, uniform shirt and hat. Earlier, the 12 jurors, five white men, five white women and two Black women, were bused to Martin Luther King Drive West and Burnet Woods Drive and spent about 22 minutes studying the slope, signals and crosswalks. Bennett raised a Batson challenge after prosecutors struck Black prospective jurors, but said Judge Jody Luebbers was given race-neutral reasons. The trial, before Luebbers, is expected to last up to three weeks, with more than 35 witnesses listed. Hinton is presumed innocent.

Rostock: Expert Finds Fabian Accused Fully Culpable

The woman accused of stabbing eight-year-old Fabian to death and burning his body was fully able to tell right from wrong, the court-appointed psychiatrist told the Rostock Regional Court on Thursday, NDR reports. Forensic psychiatrist Peter Keiper presented his long-awaited report on Gina H., 30, who denies murdering the son of her then ex-boyfriend in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in October 2025. Keiper found signs of a borderline personality disorder but said it doesn’t reduce her criminal responsibility, and he saw no grounds for preventive detention after any sentence, NDR says.

Prosecutors say Gina H. lured Fabian from his mother’s apartment in Güstrow on Oct. 10, 2025, and stabbed him beside a pond near Klein Upahl, about 15 km south of the town, then returned later to set the body on fire, NDR reports. T-Online reports the indictment accuses her of killing him with six knife wounds. His mother reported him missing that day. Four days later, Gina H. herself called police to report finding his body. Prosecutors believe she saw the boy as an obstacle to winning back his father, who had ended their relationship weeks earlier. The couple are together again, and he believes she is innocent, T-Online reports.

Keiper sat through the trial and interviewed her at length in custody. The Berliner Morgenpost, citing Bild, reports that he and a colleague questioned her on five days at the prison in Bützow. He found that at every point she was able “to recognise the wrongfulness of the charged act in full,” and that neither her personality disorder nor a learning disability was severe enough that her self-control “could have been significantly impaired,” Stern reported, according to T-Online. He called the borderline traits “at most moderately pronounced” and said he saw “psychopathic tendencies”: constant lying, manipulation and a “parasitic lifestyle.” He described her IQ as “rather below average,” in the range of a learning disability, but not pathological.

His harshest words were about her reaction to the boy’s death. “Love for Ms H. means possessing. It has nothing to do with real feelings,” Keiper said, according to T-Online. She did not seem emotionally affected by Fabian’s death to him. “This lack of emotion is astonishing, to that extent even for me. That has to do with the psychopathy.” The court isn’t bound by his findings and must explain in its verdict why it accepts or rejects them, NDR notes. Her own therapist had testified to an emotionally unstable personality disorder of the borderline type.

The case against her rests heavily on her phone and her own words. A state criminal police expert testified last month that sensors in her seized phone recorded its movements on Oct. 10, and investigators drove two possible routes again to test the data, NDR reported in September. Defence lawyer Andreas Ohm questioned the data’s reliability. On the stand, Gina H. struggled to explain why she walked in woods near Klein Upahl that morning and then drove through the forest past the pond where Fabian was found, rather than taking a shorter road. Presiding Judge Holger Schütt questioned her for almost six hours. Christine Habetha, the lawyer for Fabian’s mother, said afterward that the defendant had “talked herself into a corner.”

The court wanted to close the evidence on Thursday and sees no reason to order a new expert report on the movement data, NDR reports. If no further motions are filed, closing arguments are set for Oct. 29 and 30, and a verdict is expected on Nov. 10. Gina H. is presumed innocent.

Durham: Openings Heard in Faith Hedgepeth Murder Trial

Fourteen years after UNC student Faith Hedgepeth was found dead in her Chapel Hill apartment, a Durham County jury heard the state’s case against the man prosecutors say was a total stranger to her. “The evidence in this case is louder than the noise around it,” Assistant District Attorney Angela Garcia-LaMarca told jurors in her opening statement Wednesday, WRAL reports. Miguel Salguero-Olivares is on trial for Hedgepeth’s murder. She was 19. This case continues from The Crime Ledger: October 6, 2026.

The prosecutor told jurors that Salguero-Olivares killed Hedgepeth with an empty Bacardi bottle from the apartment and then raped her, Chapelboro reports. “He left his DNA on the murder weapon, a Bacardi rum bottle that was otherwise covered in blood,” Garcia-LaMarca said. She said his DNA was on the boxer shorts Hedgepeth slept in and on a takeout bag bearing a vulgar message, that his semen was recovered from her body, and that his palm print and left thumb print were on a blue Riesling bottle on the floor by the bed. Only one complete DNA profile has ever been developed from the scene, the prosecutor said, and it is his. Investigators had that single male profile within weeks of the killing, WRAL reports, but no name to attach to it until 2021, when the DNA was matched after his arrest for drunk driving, according to Chapelboro.

“The fact that he is a stranger is the reason it took years to find him,” Garcia-LaMarca said. She told jurors that Salguero-Olivares came to North Carolina in 2010 to join his mother, that they worked at an Outback Steakhouse in Durham, and that several relatives lived in Hedgepeth’s apartment complex, WRAL reports. Those relatives held a barbecue there on the night of Sept. 6, 2012, that ran into the early hours of Sept. 7, Chapelboro says. His brother-in-law is expected to testify.

Hedgepeth came from a close-knit family in the Haliwa-Saponi community of Hollister and hoped to be the first in her family to graduate from college, the prosecutor said. On her last night she studied at the library with her roommate, Karena Rosario, then went to a nightclub. The two got home early on Sept. 7. Rosario later left with a friend who picked her up, leaving the door unlocked because the roommates shared a key. When she and another friend came back that morning after failing to reach Hedgepeth, they found her body and called 911, WRAL reports.

Defense attorney James Rainsford told jurors the DNA is weaker than the state claims, that items at the scene carried DNA from several people and that finding someone’s DNA doesn’t show when it was left. “Finding something doesn’t mean a crime occurred,” he said. “You have to connect them.” He challenged how police collected and handled evidence and disputed that the rum bottle was the weapon, WRAL reports. He also said a possible blood swab from the apartment bathroom was never tested and couldn’t be found when the defense asked for testing. “Thirteen years go by, that swab was never tested,” he said, Chapelboro reports. Judge Keith Gregory ruled before trial that the defense may not accuse anyone else of the crime. Without accusing her, Rainsford asked jurors to weigh parts of the roommate’s account of that night.

The first witness was Hedgepeth’s niece, Alexis Evans. Rosario followed, describing the night and finding the body, and saying she always cooperated with investigators and had nothing to hide, Chapelboro reports. Her cross-examination was set for Thursday morning. Salguero-Olivares is presumed innocent.

Yopal: Second Suspect Captured in Ex-Mayor’s Killing

Colombian investigators have arrested a second man in the killing of Jhon Jairo Torres Torres, the former mayor of Yopal known as “Jhon Calzones,” who was shot at his own farm on the morning of Sept. 29. Agents of the Attorney General’s technical investigation unit, the CTI, working with the National Police, carried out the arrest warrant in Tunja, Boyacá, on Wednesday, Oct. 7, the Fiscalía said, according to El Tiempo. Officers seized a mobile phone and two SIM cards from him. Prosecutors haven’t released his name.

The Fiscalía says evidence shows the man had a specific job in the attack: carrying the gunman to the farm. According to prosecutors, he drove the motorcycle that brought a 17-year-old to Torres’s property, La Selvita, in rural Yopal, El Espectador reports. A Casanare prosecutor was to bring him before a judge of guarantees within hours to formally charge him with aggravated homicide and with trafficking, carrying or possession of firearms, accessories, parts or ammunition, and to ask that he be held in prison, El Colombiano reports.

The killing was caught on security cameras. Casanare police said in their first statement that a motorcycle carrying two people entered the property and “one of them gets off the vehicle, draws a firearm and fires several shots at him,” El Tiempo reports. Police sources confirmed to the paper that video circulating online shows the attack. In one clip, filmed inside the house, Torres, in a black shirt, denim shorts and a white cap, stands near the entrance with several other people when he appears to notice the gunman. The shooter fires, and Torres manages to move deeper into the house.

He was rushed to the Hospital Regional de la Orinoquía. The gunshots damaged internal organs, and despite surgery and resuscitation efforts doctors couldn’t stabilise him, according to the medical report shared by Casanare Governor César Ortiz Zorro, El Espectador reports. His death was confirmed at 12:23 p.m. that day.

The getaway went wrong almost at once. The motorcycle crashed a short distance from the farm, and local residents grabbed the teenage passenger and handed him over to police, while the driver escaped, El Colombiano reports. Police said the motorcycle had been reported stolen on Sept. 28 in Paz de Ariporo, El Tiempo reports. On Oct. 1, the 17-year-old accepted charges of aggravated homicide and illegal possession of firearms under Colombia’s juvenile justice system, and a judge ordered him held in a specialised juvenile facility while the case proceeds, the Fiscalía said. Because he is a minor, he has not been named.

Who wanted Torres dead is still under investigation. The Fiscalía said on Oct. 1 that one preliminary line of inquiry is that the killing was ordered by someone already in prison, and that this is still being checked, Blu Radio reports. El Colombiano reports that another line of inquiry ties the attackers to FARC dissident factions under the commander known as Iván Mordisco. The new arrest, El Tiempo says, is meant to help establish each person’s role and whether others were behind the killing.

Torres was one of Casanare’s most visible politicians over the past decade, El Colombiano reports, known both for winning the Yopal mayoralty and for the many criminal cases and court disputes he faced. The man arrested in Tunja is presumed innocent.

Baltimore: Khloe Ishway’s Accused Killer Was Freed Days Earlier

The man charged with killing 12-year-old Khloe Ishway at a youth football game in Baltimore had walked out of a Maryland prison eight days earlier. The state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services confirmed that Tyree Reynolds, 23, was released on Sept. 25, Fox45 reports, after serving a prison term from a 2021 shooting case “day for day.” On Oct. 3, police say, he opened fire with a short-barreled rifle near the field at Leon Day Park. Reynolds faces 30 counts, including murder, attempted murder and reckless endangerment, and is being held without bail. This case continues from The Crime Ledger: October 7, 2026.

Charging documents lay out the sequence. Surveillance video captured two unidentified men walking past Reynolds in the parking lot next to the field, and it appears they exchanged words, WBAL-TV reports. Reynolds reached into a backpack, pulled out a gun and began firing toward the men. One of them fired back, hitting Reynolds in the ankle, and police say that man’s shots went away from the game. Investigators wrote that it was Reynolds who fired in the direction of the football field, where four people were hit, Fox45 reports. Detectives found 20 .223-caliber rifle casings at the scene, WBAL says. Police have said the argument was over a parking space.

Khloe was shot in the buttocks, according to charging documents cited by CBS News Baltimore. She was taken to Johns Hopkins and pronounced dead less than two hours later. A medical examiner recovered a rifle projectile from her body that investigators say matched the casings found where Reynolds was seen firing, Fox45 reports. Four other people were wounded and survived, among them a woman shot in the face, CBS reports.

Khloe’s grandmother, Jacqueline Howell-Coleman, told WBAL that the girl’s mother heard screaming and gunfire getting closer as they ran, and that Khloe said, “Ma, something bit me because my butt burning.” She said the mother told her the gunman paused, made eye contact and raised his hands “as if to say, ‘I didn’t mean (it), I’m sorry,’” before the shots started again. Her mother, Kristin Reese, said they weren’t even at the game. “I was just dropping my son’s baby bottle off, and then we were leaving,” she told CBS News Baltimore.

Reynolds went to Grace Medical Center for his ankle wound, and investigators said hospital video showed him in the same clothes, CBS reports. After he was released, he agreed to an interview but gave “false information about what he was wearing and denied shooting,” police wrote. WBAL reports that in the documents he admitted being at the scene.

He appeared Wednesday by video from a wheelchair, his leg in a soft cast. His public defender waived a formal bail review and said arguments would come later. His preliminary hearing is set for Nov. 4, Fox45 reports. Police are still looking for the second gunman. “This case remains open and active as detectives continue to search for an additional suspect,” a spokesperson said.

His record has drawn anger at City Hall. In 2021, at 18, he was arrested three times, Fox45 reports: for having a handgun in February, for an assault in March that was never prosecuted and for a July shooting. He was first charged with attempted murder in that shooting, then pleaded guilty to first-degree assault and a firearms violation. He was on probation from that case and barred from possessing a weapon, CBS reports. Mayor Brandon Scott told WJZ that “a 12-year-old baby should be here today” and that, more importantly, Reynolds “still should have been in jail.” Reynolds is presumed innocent.

Hong Kong: Abby Choi Defence Challenges Flat Confrontation Account

Abby Choi’s mother spent a fourth day in the witness box on Thursday, calling her daughter’s former father-in-law a “cunning old fox” who clung to her family’s fortune, the South China Morning Post reports. Cheung Yin-fa is the first prosecution witness in the High Court trial of three men charged with murdering the 28-year-old model and socialite on Feb. 21, 2023: her former husband, Alex Kwong Kong-chi; his older brother, Anthony Kwong Kong-kit, 35; and their father, Kwong Kau, a retired police sergeant. All three deny murder. This case continues from The Crime Ledger: October 3, 2026.

Prosecutors allege Choi was attacked during a car journey she believed was taking her to collect her daughter from school, at a time when Anthony Kwong was her stand-in chauffeur, the SCMP reports. Parts of her dismembered body were later found at a house in a village in northern Hong Kong, VnExpress reports. The two brothers have pleaded guilty to preventing the lawful burial of her body between Feb. 21 and 23, 2023. Kwong Kau denies that charge, Dimsum Daily reports.

Money sits at the centre of the Crown’s case. Prosecutor Charlotte Draycott told the jury in her opening on Sept. 30 that money was the root of what happened, VnExpress reports. Choi bought a HK$72 million flat on Kadoorie Hill in 2019 as a home for her two children with Alex Kwong, spent HK$9 million renovating it and registered it in Kwong Kau’s name, only to avoid paying double stamp duty, her mother testified. Prosecutors allege Kwong Kau resented Choi’s attempt to sell the flat and enlisted his sons to help kill her so he could keep it. The families fell out in June 2022 when the Kwongs rejected her plan to sell and move closer to the children’s school in Tuen Mun. Cheung alleged that Kwong Kau threatened to harm her daughter if she insisted.

On Wednesday, Anthony Kwong’s barrister, Trevor Beel, put it to Cheung that Kwong Kau had merely disagreed with Choi over the sale and never lashed out at her, The Standard reports. Cheung agreed he didn’t hit her daughter during that confrontation, but said he had always behaved fiercely and had threatened violence and made death threats before. She accepted that Choi had enough money to buy in Tuen Mun without selling, and said her daughter wanted to “take back what was hers.” Beel also suggested Anthony Kwong had only filled in as driver for about three months at Choi’s request. Cheung rejected that, saying Choi found him unsuitable, complained that he drove too fast and often started late, and that she believed he posed a risk to the children.

Cheung painted the Kwongs as living off her family. “Their whole family was fed by us,” she said, according to VnExpress, citing the SCMP. She called Anthony Kwong a “bootlicker” who coaxed Choi into funding an egg waffle shop with HK$2 million and hiring him as her driver, the SCMP reports. She said Alex Kwong received more than HK$70 million from Choi for what he said were luxury watch investments while he stayed in mainland China, wanted in Hong Kong over a HK$6.3 million theft case. On Thursday she said Choi gave Kwong Kau HK$20,000 a month and more than HK$200,000 for medical bills, and rejected the defence suggestion that he’d bought a Rolls-Royce with business earnings. “He couldn’t even afford his meals; how could he spend HK$6 million to HK$7 million for a Rolls-Royce?” she said.

The hearing was adjourned twice on Wednesday morning while lawyers dealt with her evidence about who owned a Whampoa Garden flat, The Standard reports. Deputy High Court Judge Brian Keith is presiding over the nine-member jury, and the trial is expected to last 40 days. All three men are presumed innocent of murder.

Aldie: Extradited Husband Appears in Lisa Bradford Killing

When police reached the Bradford home on Quimby Oaks Place in Aldie, Virginia, on Sept. 22, they found Loudoun County real estate agent Lisa Bradford with her hands bound behind her back and a pillow over her head, according to a search warrant affidavit reported by NBC Washington. She had been shot to death. WTOP, citing the warrants, reports her arms were zip-tied and that the pillow was riddled with bullet holes. Her husband, Roger Paul Bradford, 60, made his first Virginia court appearance Wednesday, a day after he was extradited from Pennsylvania, and told the judge he didn’t want a bond. “I’m right where I need to be,” he said.

The documents lay out a morning that investigators describe as planned. Search warrant filings say Bradford went to a storage facility in Ashburn on the morning of Sept. 22 and retrieved .45-caliber ammunition, then drove to a Home Depot in South Riding and bought 36-inch zip ties before heading home, WJLA reports. After the shooting, according to the criminal complaint, he called his sister, apologised for shooting his wife and said he was going to kill himself. He asked her to pick up his young daughter so the girl wouldn’t come home and find her mother. His sister called police. Deputies found Lisa Bradford dead inside the house.

By then Bradford had left Virginia, and a search spread across Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania State Police arrested him in Bedford several hours after the body was found, WJLA reports. He was in a rented Kia Sportage on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, WTOP says. Inside, investigators found a journal that “detailed several people Bradford planned to kill, one of which was his wife Lisa,” the affidavit says, according to NBC Washington. WJLA reports her name was at the top, beside the date Sept. 22. Authorities haven’t identified the other names. Prosecutors told WJLA that federal authorities are looking at whether he meant to harm anyone connected to his earlier federal fraud case in Iowa.

That case began after a 2018 tornado damaged Vermeer Corporation’s plants in Pella, Iowa, WJLA reports from federal court records. Vermeer hired Bradford as director of construction in 2019. Prosecutors said he steered rebuilding work to a friend’s contracting company in exchange for kickbacks. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and was sentenced in 2023 to 20 months in prison, three years of supervised release and $23,000 in restitution. Court documents describe him struggling with his mental health in prison and expressing sorrow that his marriage was headed for divorce, NBC Washington reports.

He’s charged with second-degree murder and a firearm offense. The sheriff’s office first announced a first-degree murder charge, and prosecutors told WJLA they plan to seek one. NBC Washington reports the prosecutor said there is clear evidence of premeditation. Because the victim was his wife, his first hearing was in Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court, before substitute Judge Kelly King, WTOP reports. Appearing by video from the Loudoun County jail in an orange jumpsuit, he said he didn’t trust lawyers, called them “criminals,” and said he planned to represent himself. King advised him to stop talking. “I just spent 14 days in a dungeon in Pennsylvania,” he said, and asked for his Bible and glasses so he could read his warrants. When she proposed Oct. 28 for a counsel review, he objected that it was his wife’s birthday. “I’m sure I’ll be in a psychosis on that date,” he said. The review is set for Oct. 21 and the preliminary hearing for Nov. 18. The case will likely go to a grand jury in December, prosecutor Justin Faw said.

Lisa Bradford was known for her kindness, her volunteer work and her love for her three children, NBC Washington reports. Her funeral was held in Aldie on Tuesday, the day her husband was brought back. He is held without bond and is presumed innocent.

Teziutlán: Teen Detained in Femicide of Dariana Valencia, 15

Dariana Valencia was 15, wearing her school sports uniform, a white sweatshirt with green and black trim, dark track pants and a white scarf, when she left home on Monday, Oct. 5, for the Antonio Audirac federal secondary school in Teziutlán, in the mountains of northeastern Puebla, according to the description her family circulated, Milenio and Poblanerías report. By that afternoon her family had lost all contact with her. In the early hours of Tuesday, Oct. 6, she was found dead in the Xoloco area of Teziutlán, near her school, still in the uniform she had left home in. A minor is in custody.

The search started that Monday. Relatives posted her photo on social media, noting that she wore glasses, was slim and had straight hair, Milenio reports. Family members, friends, neighbours and authorities combed the streets around the school and the roads she would have taken home. Periódico Central reports that the family’s missing-person flyer said she disappeared at about 1 p.m. after leaving school and was last seen getting off in the Xoloco neighbourhood on her way home. The search ran through the night.

Her body bore multiple signs of violence, Milenio reports. Local police sealed off the scene while relatives came to identify her, and the state forensic medical service, Semefo, determined before removing her body that she had been stabbed repeatedly, according to Milenio and Telediario. N+ and Uno TV report the wounds were apparently made with a sharp, pointed object. E-consulta reports accounts, which it says still have to be confirmed by prosecutors, that she was taken to an abandoned house in Xoloco, attacked and killed there, and that she suffered blows as well as a stab wound. Periódico Central also reports the body was inside an abandoned house.

Security camera footage has helped investigators trace part of her route after school, E-consulta reports. According to those reports, she left the school and headed toward Xoloco, and at some point was with someone presumed to be her boyfriend. The state public security department gave investigators access to the camera recordings, the outlet says.

Relatives said a male minor who apparently attended the same school had been detained as the main suspect, Milenio and Telediario report. N+ reports that a minor has been detained in connection with the killing, and E-consulta says one person has been detained and placed at the disposal of authorities. Uno TV reports that he is 17 and has been moved to the city of Puebla as the investigation continues, but notes that the Puebla state prosecutor’s office, the Fiscalía General del Estado, has not officially confirmed his identity or disclosed a motive. As a minor, he is not identified here. The Fiscalía’s specialised office for gender violence against women has opened a femicide investigation, Poblanerías reports.

Dariana was from the neighbouring municipality of San Juan Xiutetelco. On Wednesday night, mothers, students, feminist collectives and residents marched through central Teziutlán with candles and banners, Uno TV and E-consulta report. “Dariana was a girl, she was a daughter, she was a sister,” one student said, rejecting social media comments that blamed the victim. “Nobody deserves this,” said another. Teziutlán’s city government condemned the killing, asked that it be investigated with a gender perspective and said it would cooperate with prosecutors, Periódico Central reports. So far in 2026, 47 women have been violently killed in Puebla, according to Uno TV and N+. The detained teenager is presumed innocent.

Southport: Judge Clears Death Penalty Case in Restaurant Shooting

Nigel Max Edge, the former Marine accused of opening fire from his boat on diners at the American Fish Company in Southport, North Carolina, will face a capital prosecution, at least for now. At a Rule 24 hearing in Brunswick County Superior Court this week, District Attorney Jon David announced that the state will proceed capitally, and Judge Jason Disbrow found that “the state has enumerated sufficient aggravating factors to exist to proceed in this matter as a capital offense,” Port City Daily reports. Edge, 40, is charged in the Sept. 27, 2025, shooting that killed Solomon Banjo, Joy Rogers and Michael Durbin and wounded several others, WWAY reports.

Investigators say Edge fired from his boat on people at the restaurant on the Southport Yacht Basin, WECT reports. Police say he used a short-barrel AR-style rifle fitted with a suppressor, folding stock and scope. A person matching his description was spotted by the U.S. Coast Guard at a public boat ramp, and police detained him later that night on Oak Island, according to investigators. A Brunswick County grand jury indicted him in January on charges that include three counts of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted first-degree murder, WWAY reports.

The aggravating circumstance prosecutors identified is that Edge knowingly created a great risk of death to more than one person by means of a weapon normally hazardous to the lives of more than one person, according to WWAY and WECT. Port City Daily notes that under North Carolina General Statute 15A-2000 that circumstance makes a defendant eligible for death.

The case has been stalled for months over Edge’s mental state. In April, a judge found him not competent to stand trial after mental health experts said he could not currently understand the case or help with his defense, WECT reports. Disbrow sent him to Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro for treatment that includes medication and counselling. State evaluators believe he may regain that capacity, and he has remained in custody throughout.

David drew a line between two questions. Capacity concerns whether a defendant can understand the proceedings now; sanity concerns his mental state when the crime happened. “To date, my office has received no evidence that Mr. Edge was legally insane when this crime occurred,” he said, according to WWAY. David described the designation as “an initial determination, not a final decision,” and said it guarantees Edge “the highest level of protection our system offers, including the appointment of a second qualified attorney and the most rigorous scrutiny our courts provide.” He added: “If he is never restored to capacity, the death penalty would not be a lawful sentence and would be removed from consideration.”

Prosecutors said they weighed his background. “We are not blind to who this defendant is. He served this country in Iraq as a Marine, suffered a traumatic brain injury, and has struggled with serious mental illness,” David said. “Those facts are important and they were weighed, but must be balanced against the circumstances of the crime.”

Capital defender Matthew Geoffrion pushed back hard. “Why are we going to seek death on a man who is incapable, medically, psychiatrically, psychologically, incapable to proceed, and is very unlikely? What’s the point?” he asked, according to Port City Daily. Of the state’s argument that a capital case brings Edge extra protections, he said: “I would send that gift back.”

Port City Daily has reported that Edge has a recorded history of delusional beliefs, including a claim that the Oak Island Police Department, a local hospital and a church were conspiring against him. His lawyer has attributed his behaviour to PTSD and a head injury from his service in Iraq. Edge sat through the hearing in a black shirt and khakis, walking with a noticeable limp, the outlet reports. David leaves office in December, and the state bar has recommended that an assistant district attorney take over the case. Edge is presumed innocent.

Atamelang: Sangoma Gets Life for Ritual Killing of Client

A traditional healer who took a client into the bush for what he called a cleansing ritual, then killed and beheaded him, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by the Atamelang Regional Court in South Africa’s North West province. William Methe Thibedi, known as “Daddy,” was sentenced on Tuesday, Oct. 6, for the murder of Pule Moilwa in Madibogo village, police spokesperson Sgt. Sipho Taliwe said, according to TimesLive. The National Prosecuting Authority says the court convicted him of premeditated murder, IOL reports.

According to the NPA, Moilwa had approached Thibedi seeking spiritual help, and Thibedi arranged a ritual. NPA spokesperson Lindiwe Mabasa said Thibedi brought his younger brother and a friend along and took Moilwa to a secluded patch of bush at night. He began by pouring water mixed with traditional medicine over him, then told the two men to leave, saying the next stage was confidential and could only be done in private, IOL reports.

Police describe the companions waiting at a distance while healer and client moved off alone. “When the consultation took longer than expected, the two decided to go and check on them,” Taliwe said. “A short while later, the two men returned and were horrified to discover Thibedi cutting off the deceased’s head with a knife,” Mabasa said. “When questioned, Thibedi claimed that his ancestors had instructed him to commit the act.” Police say other body parts were also removed. The body was buried in a shallow grave, according to police, and the NPA says Thibedi put the severed parts in a bucket and carried it away from the scene. He then threatened his brother and the friend with serious consequences if they told anyone what they had seen, according to the NPA.

What broke the case open was a family quarrel. In December 2022, according to the NPA, Thibedi argued with his younger brother, who threatened to expose the killing. A cousin overheard and told other relatives, and the account eventually reached Moilwa’s family, who took it to police. A murder investigation was opened at Madibogo police station and Thibedi was arrested that same month. “Following his arrest, Thibedi made a confession and pointed out the locations where he had buried the deceased’s remains,” Mabasa said. Investigating officer Sgt. Mogalolodi Mentor Moribe of Madibogo SAPS successfully opposed Thibedi’s bail on Dec. 28, 2022, according to police.

At trial, State Advocate Edward Manicus called witnesses including Thibedi’s younger brother, the friend, relatives and Moribe, IOL reports. The prosecution argued the evidence was direct, corroborated and free of material contradictions, and that Thibedi had planned the murder and used the ritual to isolate his victim. The court accepted those submissions and found premeditated murder proved beyond reasonable doubt.

At sentencing, State Prosecutor Itumeleng Lobese presented victim impact statements compiled by court preparation officer Thembinkosi Madiba, which described the emotional and psychological toll on Moilwa’s family. “The State argued that a sentence of life imprisonment was warranted given the gravity of the offence, its premeditated nature, and the fact that Thibedi had exploited the deceased’s trust by disguising his intentions as a cleansing ritual,” Mabasa said. Thibedi was also declared unfit to possess a firearm.

Dr. Rachel Makhari, Director of Public Prosecutions for the North West Division, welcomed the sentence. “This sentence sends a strong message that the criminal justice system will deal decisively with those who exploit vulnerable and unsuspecting individuals for criminal purposes,” she said.

San Francisco: Woman Charged in Warfield Guard’s Killing

Ulysses Tykee Davis, a 47-year-old father of six known to everyone as “Bear,” was working security at the Warfield theatre on Market Street in San Francisco when he was shot early Saturday, Oct. 3. On Wednesday, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins announced that Shakia Vanderbilt of San Francisco had been charged with murder. “This is heartbreaking and such a senseless crime,” Jenkins said, according to ABC7. “That murder charge has an accompanying personal use of a firearm enhancement, as well as intentional discharge of a firearm in an occupied building, and the final charge being a felon in possession of a firearm.”

The Warfield had hosted an 18-and-over event on Friday night tied to the Zeus Network reality series “Baddies USA,” Mission Local reports. A disruption inside the venue came before the shooting, authorities said at Wednesday’s news conference: “There was a disruption inside of the club, and the suspect was brought outside at some point.” They added that “at some point there was a dispute that led to this incident.” Mission Local reports that bartenders working that night said a chemical irritant staff described as bear mace was sprayed inside the theatre around 12:45 a.m., sending people rushing for the exits, and that Slack messages showed staff warning one another about gunfire about 20 minutes later.

Davis was helping escort a “rowdy” woman out of the theatre near Market and Taylor streets at about 1 a.m. when she allegedly shot him in the back, his brother-in-law, Terrance Cooper, told KTVU. Police found Davis with an apparent gunshot wound on the 900 block of Market Street, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Officers gave aid before paramedics took him to a hospital, where he died, according to Mission Local. His wife and two of his children were there. “They saw him take his last breaths right there in that hallway,” Cooper told Mission Local. “It’s very traumatic.”

Police said Vanderbilt fled the scene and was arrested Tuesday, the Chronicle reports. Asked whether she brought a gun into the Warfield, Jenkins said “it appears that that may have been the case,” but stressed that investigators were still examining what happened, according to Mission Local. She said investigators are still working out whether Davis was targeted and believe video of the incident exists. Police are also checking whether the venue had the proper permits for the event, SFPD spokesman Robert Rueca told KTVU. Supervisor Bilal Mahmood said organizers did not notify police ahead of time so extra security could be arranged, ABC7 reports.

The Chronicle reports that Vanderbilt was previously linked to the “Rainbow Crew,” a San Francisco shoplifting ring accused of stealing more than $1 million in merchandise across California in the 2010s. She and three others were arrested in 2017 after an hourlong car chase through Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, the Chronicle reports, and it was not immediately clear how her earlier arrests were resolved. Jenkins told ABC7 she had no reason to think that history would factor into the prosecution “other than the fact that we were able to charge that particular count.”

Davis grew up in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighbourhood and lived in Contra Costa County, ABC7 reports. Jenkins said he “was an innocent bystander who was there to do his job,” according to the Chronicle. “Bear would give you the shirt off his back,” Cooper told KTVU. “If you ever called him and you needed him, he was always there.” His sister told Mission Local: “I want whoever did this to not ever be on the street again.” Vanderbilt was scheduled to be arraigned Thursday, Oct. 8, at the Hall of Justice, and the district attorney is asking a judge to deny bail, ABC7 reports. She is presumed innocent.

Hingoli: Oil Company Officer Stabbed While Sealing Petrol Pump

Mahesh Shelke went to a petrol pump in rural Hingoli district, in India’s Maharashtra state, on Tuesday, Oct. 6, to do a routine piece of company business: seal the outlet and take it back. Within hours the 37-year-old Indian Oil Corporation manager was dead, stabbed seven times, police say. Hingoli police have arrested a 46-year-old woman, her son and several of their acquaintances, The Times of India and The Indian Express report.

Shelke was manager for retail sales in IndianOil’s Nanded office, The Times of India reports. He and other company officials reached the pump in Vasmat taluka around noon to seal it and take possession after a dispute with the family that operated it. The Indian Express reports that the outlet had been closed for nearly three months but had recently started operating again, and that the owner was not there when the team arrived, though his wife, son and others were.

Talks went on for hours. According to The Times of India, the family asked for a month’s time and promised to let IndianOil take over after that, but the company team held firm on sealing the pump. The standoff turned violent. The accused confronted Shelke, asking him, “How can he give the petrol pump to someone else to operate?” according to a Kurunda police official quoted by Rediff. Some of the group allegedly began throwing stones at the officials.

Hingoli Superintendent of Police Shrenik Lodha said the preliminary investigation showed that the operator’s son, Umesh, allegedly attacked Shelke with a dagger during the altercation and stabbed him seven times, The Times of India reports. Citing police, The Indian Express says the wounds were to his abdomen, chest and back. A Kurunda police team led by Assistant Police Inspector Shivaji Puri reached the scene, and Shelke’s body was taken to the hospital in Vasmat for an autopsy before being handed over to his family.

Police registered a first information report on the complaint of IndianOil senior manager Gullakantla Maniprasad, according to The Times of India. The suspects were booked for murder, attempted murder, unlawful assembly and rioting, along with provisions of the Arms Act. Rediff, citing police, reports that the case was registered under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and also includes criminal intimidation. Four people, including the woman and her son, were arrested within 12 hours of the killing, according to The Indian Express. The Times of India reports that Lodha said all five accused were in custody within 24 hours.

Shelke was a mechanical engineering graduate from a college in Pune and came from a village in Ahmedpur taluka of Latur district, The Times of India reports. He joined IndianOil in 2014, served in south India and moved to Maharashtra in 2024. He had lived with his family in Nanded district for the past two years. IndianOil described him as a “bright and promising sales officer” whose “commitment and sincerity had earned him the respect of his colleagues,” Rediff reports.

The killing drew a response from Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, who took the matter up with Maharashtra’s chief minister and police chief. “The safety, dignity and security of our energy-sector personnel, who work tirelessly to serve the nation, remain paramount,” he wrote on X, calling the killing a “heinous and unacceptable act of violence.” IndianOil chairman A. S. Sahney said he was “deeply anguished by the tragic loss of our colleague.” The case recalls, as The Indian Express noted, the 2005 killing of Shanmugam Manjunath, a 27-year-old IndianOil sales officer shot dead in Uttar Pradesh after inspecting an outlet accused of selling adulterated fuel. All of the accused are presumed innocent.

Mar Vista: Man Charged With Murder of Bus Driver

Bruce Rodriguez had driven buses for Culver City for 12 years and was known for handing out Hot Wheels cars to his youngest passengers, the Santa Monica Daily Press reports. That Thursday evening, Oct. 1, the 42-year-old was shot while driving his route through the Mar Vista neighbourhood of Los Angeles. On Wednesday, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced that Jose Antonio Zayas, 55, of Los Angeles, has been charged with murder with a special circumstance allegation that the victim was transportation personnel. “He is facing the most serious charges we could possibly bring,” Hochman said, according to ABC7.

Prosecutors say Zayas boarded the bus around 5 p.m. and later approached Rodriguez, asking him to stop so he could get off, the Daily Press reports. Rodriguez could not stop because of heavy traffic and the bus’s position on South Centinela Avenue, according to the district attorney’s office. Hochman gave more detail at a news conference at Los Angeles City Hall. “After Jose Antonio Zayas got on the bus, he approached Mr. Rodriguez and said effectively he wanted to have the bus turned around. When Mr. Rodriguez said he couldn’t do that, Mr. Zayas said he wanted the bus to be stopped,” he said, according to MyNewsLA. The driver “did his job” and refused to stop in the middle of traffic. “In response, as the allegations are, Mr. Zayas, who is already a convicted felon in possession of a dangerous weapon years before, took a revolver and shot Mr. Rodriguez three times, ultimately killing him,” Hochman said.

Zayas then allegedly took his bicycle from the rack on the front of the bus and rode away, police said. Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell credited detectives from the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division with working around the clock to identify him, and Lt. Sean Kinchla said witness interviews and video evidence were key, MyNewsLA reports. A Gang and Narcotics Division FBI task force arrested Zayas without incident shortly after 2 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 2, on Motor Avenue, according to the LAPD. Investigators believe he was intoxicated at the time of the shooting, the Daily Press reports.

The criminal complaint’s murder charge includes allegations that Zayas knew or reasonably should have known that the victim was a bus operator killed while performing his duties, and that he personally used and discharged a handgun, MyNewsLA reports. He is also charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. If convicted as charged, he faces up to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He made his first court appearance on Tuesday and was ordered held without bail pending arraignment on Nov. 5 in Department 30 of the Foltz Criminal Justice Center, the Santa Monica Mirror reports.

Rodriguez is survived by his wife, Sandy Sanchez, and their two sons, ages 3 and 6 months. “Bruce loved being a dad to our two little boys,” Sanchez told reporters at a vigil attended by hundreds on Saturday. “He worked hard to care for us. For 12 years, he worked hard for the city of Culver City as a bus driver.” Culver City suspended bus service over the weekend so employees could grieve, and City Manager Odis Jones called the charges “an important step toward accountability and justice.”

Hochman said the case should send a message. “If any passenger wants to in any way harm a driver or even threaten to harm a driver, they will meet the full weight of the law,” he said, according to ABC7. Los Angeles City Councilwoman Traci Park called on local transit agencies to sit down with workers and their unions to build better safety plans. “No driver should ever have a knife or gun pulled on them and no driver should ever lose their life just working a normal shift getting people where they need to go,” she said. Zayas is presumed innocent.

Jinju: YouTuber Gets 25 Years Over Daughter’s Death

A South Korean singer and YouTuber in her 40s who beat her daughter, poured hot water over her head and then left her in a car for days without treatment until she died has been sentenced to 25 years in prison. Criminal Division 1 of the Changwon District Court’s Jinju branch, presided over by Chief Judge Lee Seung-il, handed down the sentence on Thursday, Oct. 8, on charges including murder, Seoul Economic Daily and SBS report. Prosecutors had asked for the death penalty. The court identified the mother only as “A” and her daughter as “B.”

The daughter was a first-year university student on a leave of absence, according to Topstar News. The two ran a broadcast equipment rental business together, and investigators found the mother attacked her out of resentment that the daughter had failed to handle tasks properly or had embarrassed her in front of others, Seoul Economic Daily reports. The mother had worked as a singer and announcer in South Gyeongsang Province and ran a YouTube channel.

The attack happened in September 2025 at a residence in Namhae County. According to Weekly Chosun, the mother struck her daughter on the head with a piece of lumber and other objects and poured hot water over the crown of her head. The daughter suffered a scalp laceration and burns over about 27 percent of her body, Weekly Chosun and Topstar News report. She complained of pain and had trouble breathing, but her mother did not take her to a hospital; investigators concluded she held back treatment for fear the assault would come to light. Instead, the daughter was left in a vehicle for more than two days, Weekly Chosun and Topstar News report.

The case surfaced when the mother brought her daughter to an emergency room in Namhae. Medical staff found wounds and bruises across her body and called police, Topstar News reports. She was already dead on arrival, according to that outlet, and an autopsy by the National Forensic Service found she died of shock caused by severe trauma.

Weekly Chosun reports that the abuse did not start in September. In February 2025, the daughter reported her mother to police for domestic violence. The mother believed that report had cost her a relationship with her common-law partner and afterward subjected the daughter to continual verbal abuse and beatings, the outlet reports. The judges noted that she had previously been fined for a similar offence.

“The defendant inflicted injuries on the victim and caused burns across her entire body,” the court said, according to SBS. “Although the defendant thought the victim failed to handle tasks she assigned or caused her embarrassment, these reasons are far too trivial to justify the harsh acts inflicted upon her biological daughter.” It added that she “has failed to properly acknowledge wrongdoing and is evading responsibility.” In mitigation, the court said it was difficult to conclude the crime had been meticulously planned in advance.

At the final hearing on Sept. 10, prosecutors sought the maximum penalty, arguing that she had denied the crime throughout the trial without remorse and posed a high risk of reoffending, Topstar News reports. Prosecutors also said, according to Weekly Chosun, that she needed to be permanently separated from society. Her defence argued there was no intent to kill. “There was no intention to kill,” her side told the court, asking for leniency.

Morgan Hill: Husband Charged With Murdering Jasmyne Garcia

Jasmyne Garcia, 34, a Salinas native described by her family as a loving mother, daughter and sister, was beaten so badly in her Morgan Hill, California, home that her teenage son told investigators she was unrecognizable, according to court filings. Her husband, Roy Anthony Lopez, 37, did not take her to a hospital until the next morning, prosecutors say, and when he did, he told staff he had killed her. Lopez was arraigned on Wednesday, Oct. 7, in Santa Clara County Superior Court on charges of murder and child endangerment, The Mercury News reports. He did not enter a plea.

The account in the probable cause affidavit, written by Morgan Hill Detective Kyle Tolentino and quoted by The Mercury News, begins on Friday, Oct. 2. Garcia’s 14-year-old son, to whom Lopez was a stepfather, said Lopez appeared intoxicated that day. When the boy asked if he could ride bikes with a friend, Lopez allegedly cornered him, “grabbed him by the neck, and slammed his head against the bed multiple times.” The teen left the home.

He came back around 8 p.m. to find the house in “disarray,” according to the affidavit. He “observed blood throughout the residence, holes in the walls, water throughout the kitchen,” then found his mother “awake but unable to speak, groaning in pain, and suffering from severe facial injuries.” “He stated her eyes were swollen, her face appeared inflamed, and she was unrecognizable,” the detective wrote. “Throughout the night, he observed Jasmyn repeatedly lose consciousness while remaining unable to care for herself.”

The couple’s 6-year-old son told police he “hid underneath a bed” during the attack and that Lopez punched his mother in the face “because ‘Daddy got mad,’” The Mercury News reports. Their 3-year-old daughter was also home, authorities said. The child endangerment charge relates to the 6-year-old, who investigators determined witnessed the attack, SFGATE reports.

The next morning, Saturday, Oct. 3, the younger boy told police, Lopez left to take his mother to the hospital and was covered in blood. San Jose police notified Morgan Hill police around 9:20 a.m. that Lopez had arrived at Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose and told medical staff he had killed his wife, The Mercury News reports. They found his car parked nearby, found Garcia and tried to resuscitate her before pronouncing her dead. San Jose officers arrested Lopez. Morgan Hill police then went to the family’s apartment in the 1100 block of Vintage Lane, found a crime scene and the three children, who were placed in the custody of the county Department of Family and Children’s Services.

“This is an incredibly tragic case. Mr. Lopez killed his wife by beating her to death in front of their two small children, and her oldest child then came home to find his mother in very critical condition,” Deputy District Attorney Barbara Cathcart said after the arraignment, according to The Mercury News. “Despite her being in that condition, she was not taken to the hospital for several hours.”

The medical examiner has not formally released her name. The affidavit lists her as Jasmyn Lopez; her family identified her as Jasmyne Garcia on a fundraising page for her children. “Her children were her world, and the love she had for them was immeasurable,” they wrote, according to SFGATE. “She had a beautiful way of bringing light, laughter and joy wherever she went,” the page reads. NBC Bay Area reports it is the seventh domestic violence homicide in Santa Clara County this year.

Judge Hector Ramon remanded Lopez to jail, issued domestic violence protective orders barring him from contacting his three children and ordered him back in court on Dec. 15. If convicted, he faces 25 years to life in prison, NBC Bay Area reports. Lopez is presumed innocent.

Preston: Stepfather’s Murder Trial Hears of Fixation on Student

Carla Georgescu was found dead in her room at Ribble Hall, a University of Lancashire residence in Preston, England, on Feb. 5, the day she would have turned 20. Her stepfather, Nathan Owens, is now on trial at Preston Crown Court, where prosecutors allege her death was the end point of a “dangerously entrenched sexual obsession.” Owens denies murder, intentional strangulation and grievous bodily harm with intent. The trial is ongoing, and everything below is what jurors have heard in court.

Opening the case, Nicholas Lumley KC said: “Her death was the culmination, the end point, of weeks, months and perhaps years of a one-sided sexual obsession,” The Tab reports. “And it was the beginning of a complex murder investigation, which led to his door in Hartlepool.” Prosecutors allege that Owens collected photographs of Carla, some taken without her knowledge, manipulated innocent selfies into sexual images and filmed himself in sexual acts with her dolls and toys, including a life-sized effigy dressed in her nightwear, AOL reports. Prosecutors believe, jurors heard, sexual jealousy may have played a role after Owens learned she was preparing to meet a man she had met online.

The Crown alleges that Owens drove through the night from Hartlepool on Feb. 4, arriving at Ribble Hall around 4 a.m. and leaving about 90 minutes later, AOL reports. The Tab reports jurors heard he had told Carla her mother had left a purse behind after a weekend visit. Prosecutors allege he attacked her with a knife and strangled her, then dumped her phone, laptop, bedding and sexual items in the countryside on his way home before dawn, the Manchester Evening News reports, citing Lancs Live.

Jurors have heard that Carla was found slumped against her wardrobe door with a belt around her neck, and that a post-mortem examination found two significant head injuries, wounds to her cheek consistent with a sharp object, and cuts and bruising around her mouth and nose, AOL reports. Her hands were covered in blood from trying to defend herself, The Tab reports. Officials first believed she had taken her own life, but forensic examination suggested there was more to her death. Detectives found Owens’ DNA on her body and in the room, the court heard.

Wednesday, Oct. 7, the second day of the trial, brought evidence from Carla’s mother, Janina Georgescu, a clinical psychiatrist. She said she was asleep at their home in Hartlepool and knew nothing of the early morning trip. On Feb. 4 her husband was “like always, his normal self,” she said, according to AOL; they walked along the beach and went shopping. When police came the next day to say Carla had died, apparently by suicide, Owens cried and offered to arrange the funeral, but still did not mention the visit, she told the court, according to the MEN. Only after she spoke to the mortuary did he say he had been in Preston, claiming Carla had asked him to bring her incontinence pants and help clear rubbish from her room. Prosecutors say that was an attempt to cover his tracks.

Her mother described a daughter at her happiest. On a visit the weekend of Jan. 31 they shopped for birthday gifts. “Perhaps the most happy I have seen her since she was a child. Things were going really well for her,” she told jurors. Carla had written a book, was talking to agents about publishing it, and was planning a trip to Romania to see a concert with her best friend and meet her online boyfriend for the first time, the MEN reports. In a statement read to the court, he said they last chatted about three hours before the alleged killing. “Goodnight beautiful,” she wrote. Owens is presumed innocent.

Bronx: Ex-Boyfriend Arrested in Balcony Death of Young Mother

Neighbours in the Allerville Arms building on Olinville Avenue in the Allerton section of the Bronx heard a young woman pleading in the middle of the night. “I heard her yelling and screaming, ‘Please don’t do this. My baby. You know my baby is scared. Look at her face,’” one neighbour told NBC New York. “Next thing you know, I hear her scream, and I see something hit the ground.” Nathaly Ramirez, 23, and her 8-month-old daughter had fallen from a 15th-floor balcony early on Tuesday, Oct. 6. Late Wednesday night, police arrested her ex-boyfriend, Angel Carrasco, 31, the baby’s father, ending a manhunt.

Police were called just before 3:40 a.m. and found the mother and daughter with injuries “consistent with a fall,” CBS New York reports. Further investigation found the two had been pushed. Law enforcement sources told NBC New York that Ramirez was holding her daughter when she was shoved off the balcony. She was pronounced dead at a hospital. Authorities believe she shielded the baby as they fell, helping her survive, ABC7 New York reports. The infant was critically injured, but police now say she is stable and expected to recover.

Investigators say surveillance video showed Carrasco inside and outside the building, and Ramirez’s mother identified him as her daughter’s ex-boyfriend, ABC7 reports. Police sources told NBC New York the footage shows a man in a hooded sweatshirt walking away as officers responded. On Wednesday the NYPD issued a wanted poster naming Carrasco and warning that he should be considered armed and dangerous. He was found hiding at a friend’s house, officials told NBC New York, and was arrested by the NY/NJ Regional Fugitive Task Force, spending the night in custody at the 49th Precinct, according to ABC7.

Carrasco is charged with murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and assault, according to ABC7 and NBC New York. He was expected to go before a judge on Thursday, Oct. 8, ABC7 reports.

The couple had a documented history of domestic violence. Police were called to the apartment twice in January, according to ABC7. In one incident Carrasco was charged with slapping Ramirez during a dispute; days later, police said, he broke into her apartment looking for her and was charged with burglary, a case that was later sealed. There are four domestic incident reports involving the couple, police said.

Former classmates from Bronx Leadership Academy brought flowers and candles to a memorial outside the building. “I don’t remember a day that she was mad, sad. If we were sad, she would lift us up. She played volleyball, basketball, everything,” her friend Dominique Rosado told ABC7. “So that’s what we know her for: being athletic, being happy, lifting everybody up.” Another classmate told NBC New York: “She was always cool with everybody. She always talked to everybody.” Neighbours held a vigil demanding more help for women facing domestic violence, CBS New York reports.

Her death comes during Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and her photo has been added to a wall honouring victims at WARM, a Harlem domestic violence organization. “It’s a very painful moment today when we hung up Nathaly,” founder and CEO Stephanie McGraw said, according to ABC7. She said her group would have helped if it had been contacted. “We wouldn’t have asked any questions. We would have went in, we would have packed her up, we would have got her out and got her to safety.” Carrasco is presumed innocent.

Serangoon: Drunk Man Jailed and Caned for Alley Killing

Two strangers bumped into each other outside a supermarket in Serangoon North, Singapore, one afternoon in November 2024. Minutes later, a 71-year-old man lay motionless in a back alley, and he died in hospital 10 days later. Mohamed Serajudeen Mohamed Yusoff, now 33, was sentenced to 15 years in jail and 10 strokes of the cane after pleading guilty to culpable homicide not amounting to murder, CNA and The Straits Times report. Three other charges, for his aggressive behaviour toward other people that day, were taken into consideration.

Serajudeen was an operations manager at a food and beverage outlet. He finished a shift at about 10:30 a.m. on Nov. 19, 2024, and started drinking, The Straits Times reports: three to four cans of beer alone, then copious amounts of whiskey with two friends. By mid-afternoon he was slurring and dozing off, and his friends booked him a private-hire car home, CNA reports. He boarded at about 2:55 p.m., became agitated, scolded the driver and vomited in the car. When the driver stopped on Serangoon North Avenue 2 and cancelled the ride, Serajudeen kept arguing, kicked the driver hard on the leg and threatened to beat him if he called the police.

He wandered for about half an hour along the shop corridor at Block 151, walking unsteadily, before ending up outside a supermarket, CNA reports. There he and the older man bumped into each other, the man turned around to speak to him, and the exchange became an argument that the two carried into the back alley.

Dashcam footage from a parked vehicle captured what happened next, The Straits Times reports. The older man was gesticulating in Serajudeen’s face when Serajudeen suddenly punched him in the head and pushed him down. He kept punching as the man lay on the concrete, causing his head to strike the ground repeatedly, then stomped on his upper body about eight times and walked away. Leaving the alley, he threatened a passer-by: “You want to find trouble with me? You want to die? You want to die!” CNA reports. Another passer-by called police. Serajudeen later phoned his manager to say he had beaten someone up and an ambulance had taken the person away, The Straits Times reports. He was arrested at home early the next morning.

The victim suffered a severe head injury with bleeding in the brain and extensive bruising, and died on Nov. 29, 2024, despite treatment, CNA reports. The Institute of Mental Health found Serajudeen had alcohol use disorder but that his actions were goal-directed and he was not of unsound mind.

The prosecution sought at least 15 years and 10 strokes, calling the attack “the epitome of senseless violence.” “They were strangers whose paths had crossed just moments earlier,” said Deputy Public Prosecutors Tay Jia En and Cheronne Lim. They pointed to violence-related convictions dating back to 2017, committed while voluntarily intoxicated. The Straits Times reports he was jailed for seven months in 2023 for assaulting a 54-year-old man who told him to pay for a bottle of water before drinking from it.

Defence lawyer Quek Liuyong asked for nine years and nine months with five strokes. “He understands that nothing he can do will bring the deceased back to life,” Quek said, adding that his client “vows that he would never ever touch alcohol again.” He argued the victim’s readiness to argue made him less vulnerable. Justice Andre Maniam rejected that, treating the victim’s vulnerability and the heavy drinking as aggravating factors. “Not only did the accused strike the first blow, he struck all the blows,” the judge said. Serajudeen stood at least a head taller than the man he killed.

Manassas Park: Bhatt Murder Trial Opens Without a Body

Mamta Kafle Bhatt, a new mother, vanished from her home in Manassas Park, Virginia, in July 2024, a couple of weeks before her daughter’s first birthday. Her body has never been found. Her husband, Naresh Bhatt, 39, went on trial on Wednesday, Oct. 7, in Prince William County for her murder, and prosecutors told jurors they would prove it with “powerful and persuasive circumstantial evidence,” WJLA reports. Bhatt has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, concealment of a dead body and physical defilement of a dead body.

“This trial is going to prove how this defendant was living the American dream, and how it ultimately ended as a nightmare. When the defendant kills his wife, Mamta Kafle, defiles her body, and then conceals her dead body, never to be found again,” Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Matthew Sweet said in his opening. He walked jurors through Bhatt’s life: military service, U.S. citizenship and a job as an IT officer with a top secret clearance. “The evidence at this trial will show you the defendant lied to everyone, to his friends, to his family, to the police, to the press, to this community,” Sweet said.

The prosecution laid out its forensic case. Sweet said investigators found Mamta’s blood on the carpet and the tiled shower in the home. “Cleaning a tile floor is much easier than cleaning blood off a rug,” he told jurors, according to WJLA. He also described a saw that Bhatt allegedly handed to a man doing yard work at a house in the neighbourhood. That worker later took it to police after realising Bhatt’s wife had disappeared, and samples from the saw matched her blood and DNA, Sweet said, according to NBC Washington. Prosecutors have said previously that they have video of Bhatt dropping large, heavy-duty garbage bags into dumpsters and trash compactors across Northern Virginia, and they believe her remains were in those bags.

Premeditation, Sweet said, will come from Bhatt’s phone. He read out search terms he said Bhatt typed into Google before her death: “What happened if spouse disappears in divorce in Virginia? What happened if spouse disappears. Need divorce. Spouse died in Virginia.” Prosecutors also told jurors that Bhatt tried to sell the house while his wife was missing, and that Mamta, who held a green card, had paid her own fees and reached the final interview for U.S. citizenship on Aug. 5, 2024, but never showed up. “How does a brand new mother, Mamta, leave her brand new baby?” Sweet asked. “The answer to that question every time is premeditated first-degree murder.”

The defence urged jurors to focus on gaps. “There is a sort of black hole at the time of Mamta Kafle’s disappearance and it’s a hole where evidence should be, a hole that the government will not be able to fill for you,” defence lawyer Tracey Lenox said, according to NBC Washington. “They’re going to try to fill the gap with ideas and speculations and guesses, but not with actual fact.”

Leading off, a former coworker who helped hire Mamta in a medical-surgical unit, said her failure to show up for work two days in a row prompted a call for a wellness check, WJLA reports. Manassas Park police Sgt. Brandon Johnson, who did that check on Aug. 2, 2024, testified that Bhatt began talking before officers explained why they were there. “He immediately stated, ‘Oh, she left. She went to Texas or New York with her sister, and she smashed her phone,’” Johnson said. On cross-examination, he agreed he had told Bhatt they were looking for Mamta.

Before the arraignment, Bhatt told the judge he was not ready for trial and asked her to recuse herself; she refused, NBC Washington reports. Cameras are allowed in court but livestreaming is not. The couple’s daughter, now 3, is being cared for by relatives. Testimony resumes Thursday. Bhatt is presumed innocent.

Lagelu: Three Paraded Over Killing of Family of Six

At about 7 p.m. on Sept. 22, three men armed with a locally made Dane gun, two cutlasses and a club went to the home of Ifeanyi Chukwu in Oloba village, in the Lagelu local government area outside Ibadan, Nigeria, police say. By the time they left, according to the Oyo State Police Command, Chukwu, his wife and their four children were dead and their bodies had been thrown into a river. The police say the motive was a damaged mobile phone. The command paraded three suspects at its headquarters in Eleyele, Ibadan, Vanguard reports.

Police identified the suspects as Hammed Akinbami, Akinbami Ojo and Padonu Edward, all residents of Oloba village. The command’s spokesman, DSP Olayinka Ayanlade, said the attack was retaliation for damage to a phone belonging to one of them, according to Vanguard and Leadership.

In the police account released by Ayanlade and reported by Leadership, TVC News and Daily Post, the suspects robbed the family of 200,000 naira in cash, a Boxer motorcycle, a Doma machine with a chainsaw and a spraying machine. “In the course of the attack, Hammed Akinbami shot the husband, while Akinbami Ojo and Padonu Edward inflicted injuries on the wife by hitting her on the head,” Ayanlade said, according to Leadership. “The attack subsequently took a fatal turn as the suspects tied two of the children by their hands and legs and threw them into a nearby river, while the remaining members of the family were killed and their bodies disposed of in the same river.” Vanguard, citing the command, reports that the river was the Osun.

The killings went undetected for 10 days. The command received what it called credible intelligence at about 5 p.m. on Oct. 2, and detectives began investigating, Leadership reports. They visited the scene, took photographs and recovered the family’s motorcycle, a locally made Dane gun, two cutlasses and the club police believe was used in the attack. The three men were arrested and detained. “Following their arrest, the suspects were subjected to interrogation during which the three confessed to their involvement in the crime,” Ayanlade said.

“The remains of the wife have since been recovered, while concerted efforts are ongoing to recover the remains of the four other victims, all members of the same family, who were dumped in the river,” Ayanlade said. Police have not publicly named the wife or the children or given the children’s ages.

At the parade, Hammed Akinbami spoke to journalists. Akinbami said he took the other two to Chukwu’s house because Chukwu had damaged his phone, Leadership reports. “I took a gun, and the others also carried weapons, and we went there,” he said, according to the outlet. He described who killed whom and said that after the killings, “we threw their bodies into the river.” Asked what punishment he thought they deserved, he said they deserved to be killed. His account has not been tested in court.

The suspects and the case file are being transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department at Iyaganku for further investigation and legal action, Daily Post and TVC News report. Oyo State Police Commissioner Abimbola Ayodeji Olugbenga has ordered a thorough investigation and vowed that everyone found culpable will be brought to justice, according to TVC News. Vanguard reports the command said the suspects were still being investigated to establish each man’s role in the attack. No charges have been reported in court, and all three are presumed innocent.

Cummings Township: Wife’s Cousin Charged in Officer’s Strangulation Death

Michael Robert McGeehan, a 44-year-old Middlesex Township police officer from the Shippensburg area of Pennsylvania, died on the porch of a hunting cabin in rural Lycoming County during what police called “a family get-together” in the early hours of July 11. Nearly three months later, Lycoming Regional Police have charged his wife’s cousin, Paden Edward Frey, 25, of Cogan Station, alleging he held his forearm against McGeehan’s neck until he stopped breathing. Frey was arrested without incident at his home on Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 7, Fox56 and Local 21 report.

The account comes from an affidavit by Detective Jordan Mahosky, quoted by the Williamsport Sun-Gazette. Police and medics were called to the cabin on Dam Run Road in Cummings Township at about 2:40 a.m. for a report of an unresponsive man. One of McGeehan’s sons, who was in the cabin, told the 911 dispatcher that those present “had put him (his father) to sleep because he was so drunk.” “We had to choke him out. I think they choked him out. I think that’s how they did it,” the son said. Medics found McGeehan on his back on the front porch. “He was beyond life-saving efforts and pronounced dead at the scene,” Mahosky wrote.

The affidavit says McGeehan was “extremely intoxicated” and said he wanted to go for a swim or ride a four-wheeler. He “got aggressive,” and Frey and another man began “holding him down,” with family members telling investigators they were “trying to keep him safe.” Frey allegedly “held his forearm against McGeehan’s middle neck until he passed out.” Before he lost consciousness, McGeehan “was trying to fight this and was struggling to breathe,” in a struggle that “lasted 10 minutes or so,” the affidavit says. While Frey “was applying pressure to McGeehan’s neck,” another family member was “holding down his arm so that he couldn’t get up.”

McGeehan’s wife, Nicole, told police she saw most of what happened just before her husband died. Frey yelled at her to get away while he was lying on McGeehan, telling him he was “going to put him to sleep” if he didn’t stop, the affidavit says. “Nicole stated she begged Frey to get off him, but he wouldn’t,” Mahosky wrote. She then walked to the other side of the porch, where she could no longer see.

Frey’s own account, according to the affidavit, was that he and another relative “had been fighting with McGeehan, trying to get him to go to sleep, and that McGeehan eventually laid down on the porch and fell asleep.” An autopsy on July 13 at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown found that McGeehan died of “manual strangulation by forearm compression of the neck,” and the death was ruled a homicide, the Sun-Gazette reports. Police and the Lycoming County Coroner’s Office determined that the two men had been in a physical altercation, Fox56 reports.

Frey was arraigned before Magisterial District Judge Denise Dieter on charges of third-degree murder, strangulation, involuntary manslaughter and recklessly endangering another person, according to the Sun-Gazette. He was committed to Lycoming County Prison without bail. Court records cite “no condition will keep the community safe,” Local 21 reports, and he is due back in court at 9 a.m. on Oct. 21. The investigation remains active, police say.

McGeehan was a husband and father of five boys, his department said in July. “Over the years, he developed close friendships and lasting partnerships with the people he worked beside. Many of them considered him not only a colleague, but family,” the Middlesex Township Police Department wrote. “His loss has left our department heartbroken.” A fundraiser has been set up for his wife and sons. Frey is presumed innocent.

Mar del Plata: Autopsy Shows Rocío Núñez Was Shot

A preliminary autopsy has confirmed that Rocío Núñez, 27, a mother of three, died from a single shot fired at close range into her neck outside the home she shared with José Leonardo Cejas Urbistondo in the Las Heras neighbourhood of Mar del Plata, Argentina, 0223 and TN report. The bullet travelled downward and passed through the carotid artery and the jugular vein, according to forensic specialists cited by TN and Entérate Noticias. Cejas Urbistondo, who was arrested minutes after the killing on Tuesday morning, Oct. 6, is being investigated for femicide by prosecutor Carlos Russo of Mar del Plata’s UFI No. 7, Qué Digital reports. This case continues from The Crime Ledger: October 7, 2026.

Ballistics are now the focus. Police seized two revolvers, a .38 and a .32, both with their serial numbers removed, TN and Minutouno report. Officers say the suspect threw both guns on the ground when he saw them, then kept running until he was subdued. The bullet did not exit her body, and its comparison with the two revolvers is key to establishing which gun was used, TN reports. Investigators also ordered a gunshot residue test on the accused, according to TN.

Police were sent to the area after a 911 call about a domestic violence situation. Officers from the 16th precinct intercepted the man after a short chase near Reforma Universitaria and Güiraldes streets, 0223 reports. Qué Digital notes the killing happened in broad daylight a few metres from a provincial kindergarten, Jardín Provincial No. 940, and was the third femicide in Mar del Plata this year. The teachers’ union Suteba responded: “As education workers, we reaffirm that we will not normalise these situations.”

He was already a wanted man. Cejas Urbistondo had an active arrest warrant from Mar del Plata’s Guarantees Court No. 5 in a case of criminis causa homicide and aggravated armed robbery, 0223 reports. Police suspect he was one of two men who walked into a building supplies yard at Fortunato de la Plaza and Mac Gaul, shot Darío Tapia in the face and fled with an undisclosed sum of money. Two brothers and the wife of one of them were initially detained in that case before the investigation shifted toward Cejas Urbistondo, 0223 and TN report. Qué Digital, citing judicial sources, reports he had been a fugitive since August.

Relatives have since described months of violence. Núñez and Cejas Urbistondo had lived together for about five months, and people close to Núñez told 0223 that she had recently lost a pregnancy. “They were about to have a child and she lost it because he was hitting her,” they said, according to TN. Her children are 9, 5 and 3. She was not working and was going through a hard time, her relatives said. Describing earlier fights, they told the outlet: “They went at each other with knives and she defended herself.”

Cejas Urbistondo was taken to the Mar del Plata courts on Wednesday to answer both for the femicide and for the earlier case, but his formal statement before the prosecutor was postponed after his public defender said he was not in a condition to give it, 0223 and Qué Digital report. He was returned to the Batán prison complex, and the statement was rescheduled for Thursday, Oct. 8. Feminist group Mumalá renewed its call for an emergency declaration on gender violence and for firearms control in the city’s neighbourhoods. Cejas Urbistondo is presumed innocent.

Melfort: Chubey Tells Jury He Blacked Out

Cody Chubey admits he killed Danielle Dobersheck. What he told the Court of King’s Bench in Melfort, Saskatchewan, on Wednesday, Oct. 7, is that he does not remember doing it. The 38-year-old, charged with first-degree murder, took the stand in his own defence and said he was in an alcohol and cocaine blackout on March 10, 2024, when Dobersheck, his long-term partner and the 30-year-old mother of three children, was beaten to death in a Melfort motel room, CBC News reports. “I’d like to say, I take full responsibility of what happened and I hope one day my family and everyone around me can forgive this,” he said, according to CTV News.

The central question for Justice Sean Sinclair is intent, which separates murder from manslaughter. Court has heard that Dobersheck was beaten to death with a snow shovel in the couple’s room at the Carra Valla Inn, northeastNOW reports. When the trial opened in June, police officers described finding the room covered in blood and Dobersheck dead in the bathroom, CBC reports. The couple in the next room called police and recorded audio of the beating while they waited for officers.

Chubey described the day before. The couple drove to Saskatoon for a “date day,” drinking at a liquor store and a restaurant, and got tattoos of each other’s names, his on his neck and hers on her chest, according to northeastNOW. He showed the court the name Danielle in cursive across his neck, CTV reports. Without a credit card they could not get a hotel room, so they drove back to Melfort. By his account he was more intoxicated than she was but the better driver, so he took the wheel. His last memory, he said, was driving with loud music playing. “What is the next thing you remember?” defence lawyer Peter Abrametz asked. “Waking up in the RCMP cell,” Chubey said.

Crown prosecutor Jennifer Souter took the account apart point by point. Officers at the scene rated his intoxication between four and six on a scale of one to 10, and Cpl. Janelle Samoila testified that he did not slur or stumble when she processed him, northeastNOW reports. “That’s their judgment, I would suppose,” Chubey said, according to CBC. He agreed he had blacked out 20 to 30 times in the year before the killing. “I’m going to describe you as being a mean drunk. Would you agree with that?” Souter asked. “Some consider that, yes,” he replied, and agreed he likes to fight when he drinks, CTV reports. The Crown also suggested he was aware enough to stop striking her when she stopped screaming.

At first he said Dobersheck was not afraid of him when he drank. Souter then read from the transcript of the audio recorded next door, including Chubey saying, “Say another word and I’ll beat you,” and Dobersheck screaming, “Help me.” “You just said that Danielle wasn’t scared of you when you drink. Do you change that answer?” Souter asked. “That comment, yes,” Chubey said, according to CBC. He acknowledged he had broken up with her earlier that month and that she had left their home, but said he “knew nothing” of any plan by her to take the children and leave.

The defence rested after Chubey’s testimony. Sinclair admitted a report by University of Saskatchewan psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Adams, limited to psychiatry, which found Chubey has alcohol, cannabis and stimulant use disorders but no major mental illness, CBC and northeastNOW report. “The issue of intoxication and its impact on whether Mr. Chubey had the requisite intent to sustain a first- or second-degree murder conviction is a live issue,” Sinclair said. “In fact, it is likely the central issue involved in this case.”

Her father, Darris Dobersheck, said it was the first time he had faced Chubey in court. “He’s a coward. He won’t look my way or anything,” he told CTV. “I think he remembers a lot more than he’s admitting to.” Dobersheck worked at the TreeHouse emergency receiving home for children, northeastNOW reports. Closing arguments were scheduled for 2 p.m. Thursday. Chubey is presumed innocent of murder.

Gradignan: Neighbour Gets 25 Years for Véronique Boitard Murder

Véronique Boitard, a woman in her sixties, was alone in her house in Gradignan, outside Bordeaux, when she was stabbed 25 times in the night of July 9 into July 10, 2022. The Gironde assize court on Wednesday, Oct. 7, convicted her neighbour, Ulric Riboulet, now 27, of her murder and sentenced him to 25 years of criminal imprisonment, Sud Ouest reports. Bulletin Bordelais also reported the verdict. Riboulet had insisted to the end that he had nothing to do with her death. “I swear it 10,000 times,” he told the court four hours before the verdict, according to Sud Ouest.

The sentence carries a security period of two thirds, during which he cannot seek release, and 10 years of socio-judicial supervision after his release, including an obligation to receive treatment, train or work, and a ban on appearing in Gradignan, Sud Ouest reports. He received the verdict, the paper wrote, “attentive and impassive.” Boitard’s mother, daughter and former husband sat in the front row through almost all of the three-day trial.

On the opening day, jurors heard that Boitard had desperately tried to escape her attacker and were taken through DNA traces and footprints left in her blood, Sud Ouest reports. The attack turned almost the entire house into a crime scene. “It is a woman alone, in the middle of the night, stabbed 25 times in her home. This is not a boxing match, it is a hunt. Véronique Boitard is prey,” said Niels Capeyron, the lawyer for her family. “She was dragged, her clothes were torn off, she was bled in the hallway that leads to her bedroom.”

Riboulet’s shifting denials left the motive uncertain, but prosecutor Philippe Vique told jurors the evidence pointed to a burglary gone wrong, according to Sud Ouest. In his account, Riboulet, wearing gloves, slipped in under the roller shutter of the living room. “He made noise,” Vique said. “Véronique Boitard was sleeping on the sofa, she was not expecting it. He was probably not masked. He killed the woman who had identified him so as not to be caught.” The savagery of what followed, he argued, proved the intent to kill.

The key physical evidence was a pair of shoes. The only bloody sole prints at the scene pointed to the neighbour, Sud Ouest reports, and black Asics trainers, size 42, still stained with blood, were found at the foot of Riboulet’s bed. “He acts with frightening determination, kills with unheard-of savagery, lies with distressing cynicism,” Vique said. He had asked for the maximum, 30 years.

Defence lawyer Grégoire Mouly, who pleaded for acquittal on the benefit of the doubt, called the shoes “the element, the only one, that supports this case.” “No murder weapon. No T-shirt or trousers soiled with blood. No gloves,” he told the court. “He supposedly got rid of everything and kept the shoes, where the blood is clearly visible to the naked eye.” Asked at length on the trial’s second day for his version of events, Riboulet gave an account Sud Ouest described as hard to follow, and that the prosecutor called “grotesque.”

The three psychiatrists who examined him found his judgment was neither impaired nor abolished, though they noted vulnerabilities made worse by cannabis, Sud Ouest reports. Mouly pointed out that they set aside 10 years of psychiatric diagnosis by the Charles-Perrens hospital. Co-counsel Jean Gonthier described episodes of violence through Riboulet’s adolescence, each linked to cannabis use, and the “terrible collision” between the drug and “his predispositions, his weaknesses.” Riboulet has 10 days to appeal.

Kerhonkson: Foy Pleads Guilty to Murdering Alberta Dale

Alberta Dale, 44, of Scranton, Pennsylvania, had ended her relationship with Damon Foy, and she had told the crime victims unit that if she ever went missing, Foy had killed her, according to authorities quoted by the Daily Freeman. Foy pleaded on Wednesday, Oct. 7, in Ulster County Court in Kingston, New York, guilty to second-degree murder, admitting he killed her at his home in Kerhonkson between March 31 and April 1, 2024. Prosecutors say he dismembered her body and was trying to dispose of it when law enforcement intervened, the Times Union reports.

Clad in an orange jumpsuit with his hands cuffed in front of him, Foy answered “yes, sir” when Judge Bryan Rounds asked whether he was pleading guilty because he had in fact killed Dale, the Freeman reports. In exchange, he is to be sentenced to 23 years to life in state prison, two years less than the maximum. Chief Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Culmone-Mills said Dale’s family supported the deal. “The District Attorney’s Office would not be making this recommendation were it not for Alberta Dale’s family,” she said. The plea covers all eight counts of the indictment, which also included aggravated criminal contempt, concealment of a human corpse, criminal obstruction of breathing or blood circulation and criminal possession of a weapon.

The investigation began on April 1, 2024, when Dale’s family in Pennsylvania, who had not heard from her the day before, asked authorities to check on her, prosecutors said. Ulster County sheriff’s deputies went to Foy’s apartment on Granite Road at about 10:14 p.m. They found her empty car on the property but not Dale, the Freeman reports, and the sheriff’s office opened a missing person investigation. The next day, a member of the public found property on the side of a road in the town of Wawarsing that investigators determined was hers, the Times Union reports. That find raised the possibility of foul play, and deputies returned to question Foy.

As he was being taken from his residence, police said, Foy grabbed a Taser from a deputy, activated it and pointed it at deputies until another deputy punched him and he dropped it, the Freeman reports. Investigators executed search warrants at his home and other locations, and Foy was arrested on April 3, 2024. Authorities have said that inside a hall closet they found a suitcase containing her remains, and that Foy then said: “She’s in there, I killed her.” At an earlier hearing, Culmone-Mills described blood evidence collected throughout the apartment, along with pruning shears and a serrated knife.

Foy is no stranger to prison. He served 18 years in state prison after a 1999 conviction for conspiracy to commit murder in Queens County and was paroled in February 2017, according to the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, the Times Union reports.

“This case exemplifies in one person the evil of domestic violence,” District Attorney Emmanuel Nneji said, according to Spectrum News. “The total selfish disregard for the life and dignity of another person is at the heart of domestic violence; Damon Foy has shown that to us.” He called for laws that recognize victims’ right to be safe from their tormentors and “procedures that actually protect victims for real, not just on paper,” NEWS10 reports.

“Over the past two and a half years, our office committed significant resources to this case and worked closely with the Ulster County Sheriff’s Office, New York State Police, and our law enforcement partners to hold Damon Foy accountable,” Culmone-Mills said. “Alberta’s family showed extraordinary strength and trust throughout this process.” Senior Assistant District Attorney Luba Reznikova of the Special Victims Bureau is also prosecuting, and Foy is represented by Valerio Russo of the Ulster County public defender’s office. Sentencing is set for 1:30 p.m. on Dec. 16.

Posadas: Ex-Gendarme Gets Life for 2001 Killing of Wife

Nearly 25 years after María Esther was shot dead in a house in the San Lucas neighbourhood of Posadas, Argentina, her estranged husband has been sentenced to life in prison. On Wednesday, Oct. 7, Criminal Court No. 2 of Posadas, with judges César Antonio Yaya, Carla Freitag and Juan Manuel Monte, found former gendarme Carlos Ramón Gómez, 66, guilty of homicide aggravated by the marital bond, Canal 12 Misiones and La Voz de Misiones report. She was 36 when she was killed on Dec. 9, 2001. This case continues from The Crime Ledger: October 4, 2026.

The judges deliberated for 25 minutes, La Voz de Misiones reports. They rejected the defence’s request for house arrest and ordered Gómez to stay at Penal Unit VI in Miguel Lanús, where he has been held since police detained him on Saturday to make sure the trial could start. Noticias de la Calle reports he will remain in preventive detention until the sentence is final.

The case was stalled for more than two decades. In 2003 a judge dismissed the charge on the grounds that Gómez was not criminally responsible, a ruling that set off years of appeals that reached Argentina’s Supreme Court, La Voz de Misiones reports. In July the Supreme Court rejected one of the last challenges standing in the way of a trial, according to Canal 12. Prosecutor Vladimir Glinka called the 2003 finding an “unscrupulous, excessive and sexist alternative, in keeping with the times,” and noted that a mental examination in 2002 had ruled out psychiatric illness. “This case is very simple. It has a great deal of evidence. It is the clearest femicide there has been in the province,” he said.

Glinka told the court that after the couple separated, Gómez made her life impossible to stop her from starting over with another man. On Dec. 9, 2001, he said, Gómez entered her new boyfriend’s house, drew his service weapon, shot her and then called his son to confess, La Voz de Misiones reports. Canal 12 reports that Gómez left the scene and turned himself in to the Gendarmería in San José the next day.

The boyfriend testified on the second day of the trial. He said she had come over saying there was a problem and sat on the bed to talk while he went to shower. From the bathroom he heard gunshots, he said, and when he rushed out he “saw the man pointing the gun at me,” according to El Territorio. He fought Gómez outside until the gun fell, then struck him with a pipe and knocked him down. When he came back out, Gómez was gone. “We didn’t get to talk and I took her quickly to the hospital. After a while they told me she had died,” he said. Retired forensic doctor Juan Antonio Galuppo, who did the autopsy, testified that two of the wounds were large, to the abdomen and chest, and that “I understand she did not die immediately.”

A family friend testified that María Esther told her Gómez was violent, controlled her decisions and followed her whenever she went out, El Territorio reports. Her sister told the court the family had waited 25 years for an answer from the courts, Canal 12 reports. Psychiatrist Norma Lapuente said Gómez showed traits of grandiosity, especially when talking about gender and his profession.

Before the verdict, Gómez asked to speak. “I feel affected by the things that are said about me here. I want to ask everyone’s forgiveness, but everything that is said about me is not like that. The prosecutor even calls me a murderer out loud,” he said, according to La Voz de Misiones. Glinka responded: “If Mr. Gómez is offended because I call him a murderer, he should get ready, because I will keep calling him a murderer, because that is what he is.” Defence lawyers Mauricio Vergara and Olga Tabacchi had argued the case was already closed by the 2003 dismissal and asked the court to throw it out.

Pasaia: Man Accepts 20 Years for Shooting Ex-Partner

A man accused of shooting his former partner dead in her flat in Pasaia, in Spain’s Basque Country, in November 2024 will not face a jury. At a preliminary hearing on Thursday, Oct. 8, in the First Section of the Provincial Court of Gipuzkoa, he admitted the crime and accepted a sentence of 20 years in prison under a plea agreement, Naiz reports, citing sources in the case who spoke to the EFE news agency. The jury trial had been scheduled for Oct. 16 to Nov. 2. The sentence was handed down orally and is final, Noticias de Gipuzkoa and Cadena SER report.

The victim, a 45-year-old woman of Colombian origin, was named by Naiz as Leonor. She was killed on Nov. 30, 2024, in the Pasai Antxo district. Her killer, then 53 and living in Villabona, went to her building on Eskalantegi street armed with a pistol he held illegally, Noticias de Gipuzkoa reports. The prosecution’s provisional indictment, quoted by Naiz, says he waited on the stair landing and forced his way into the flat behind a woman who was arriving, held a gun on the women inside, ordered them onto the sofa and threatened to kill them. He struck his former partner and shot her in the leg, then shot her in the head, the indictment says. One of her daughters was in the flat, along with a woman who shared it.

Noticias de Gipuzkoa reports that one of the young women got out onto the balcony, covered in blood, to call for help. Ertzaintza officers, Pasaia local police and Osakidetza emergency medical crews arrived, but doctors could only confirm her death. He drove off toward the Tolosaldea area. About an hour later he walked into the local police station in Villabona, admitted shooting his former partner and handed over the gun, and was arrested by the Basque police, the paper reports.

Prosecutors had sought 34 years for murder with treachery, serious threats and illegal possession of weapons, Noticias de Gipuzkoa reports. After his admission, prosecutors, the private prosecutions brought on behalf of her two daughters and the flatmate, and the popular prosecution brought by lawyer Cristina Ramos for the Clara Campoamor Association all agreed to lower their demands. The sentence breaks down as 17 years for murder, with the aggravating circumstance of gender, plus further prison terms for threats, coercion and illegal possession of a firearm, Cadena SER and El Demócrata report. A mixed aggravating circumstance of kinship was applied to the threats and coercion against her daughter.

The court recognised his confession as a mitigating factor, because he went to the Villabona police the same day, “where he confessed to the crime and handed over the weapon with which he had committed it,” according to judicial sources quoted by El Demócrata. He must pay 140,000 euros to the victim’s two daughters and 25,000 euros to the flatmate who witnessed the killing, for the moral damage of being in the flat when it happened, Cadena SER reports. The sentence also includes restraining and no-contact orders and 10 years of supervised release after prison, Noticias de Gipuzkoa reports.

She had reported him to police before. Naiz reports she filed a complaint for abuse against him in 2020, and in 2021 the Ertzaintza opened its own investigation into another episode of gender violence. No restraining order or protective measures were in force when he killed her, Noticias de Gipuzkoa reports. Her death caused deep shock in Gipuzkoa, where Pasaia’s town council, the provincial government and the feminist movement called mass protests, the paper reports.

Columbia Heights: Father Convicted of Killing Son Manny Collins

Jordan “Manny” Collins Jr. was 16, loved basketball and was excited to start working when he moved into his father’s apartment in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, in spring 2025 to get help with math, his mother testified, according to Fox 9. About a month later he was gone. An Anoka County jury on Wednesday, Oct. 7, found his father, Jordan Dupree Collins Sr., 39, guilty of second-degree intentional murder after deliberating about three and a half hours, mncrime.com and Audacy report. Collins, who represented himself, showed no visible reaction, KSTP reports, while Manny’s family cried out in relief.

Manny’s mother, Ashley Berry, last heard from him in the early morning of May 8, 2025, while he was living with his father in the 4900 block of University Avenue Northeast, according to the criminal complaint cited by mncrime.com. She reported him missing on May 12. Collins told her, and later police, that his son had left to take a bus to St. Paul, but investigators determined he never arrived. Berry said Manny mostly lived with her in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighbourhood and got his nickname because “he looked like a little man” when he was small, Fox 9 reports.

A search of the apartment on May 15, 2025, turned up blood-stained items in garbage bags and several knives, and sections of a mattress and the carpet beneath it had been cut away, according to the complaint. Forensic testing matched blood in the bedroom to Manny, mncrime.com reports. Investigators then followed the trash. According to trial testimony reported by Fox 9, video showed what investigators suspected were Manny’s remains being thrown into the dumpster behind the apartment. They traced the load to a specific garbage truck, a weigh station and finally the Elk River landfill, using GPS data kept by Waste Management to pinpoint the search, MPR News reports. The FBI in Quantico, Virginia, helped organise the search, and detectives and volunteers from local police, fire and EMS agencies began combing the landfill on June 4, Fox 9 reports. Weeks later they found human remains, and DNA testing confirmed they were Manny’s. Prosecutors told the court the autopsy indicated “evidence of decapitation by knife,” Audacy reports. Collins was arrested on July 7, 2025, according to mncrime.com.

Collins called four witnesses and did not testify, Fox 9 reports. His defence lasted about 30 minutes and focused on his constitutional rights rather than the facts, and he was repeatedly reprimanded for questions barred by Judge Dyanna Street’s pretrial orders. He pressed testimony that relatives and friends had entered his apartment after police taped it off, suggesting evidence could have been contaminated. No motive has been revealed in court documents or testimony.

In a special verdict, the jury answered yes to 10 questions that could lengthen his sentence, finding that Collins concealed his son’s body in a dumpster and dismembered him, that the family suffered anguish as a result, and that he abused his position of authority and trust as Manny’s father, mncrime.com reports. Second-degree intentional murder carries a maximum of 40 years in Minnesota. Street ordered him held without bail until sentencing at 1:30 p.m. on Dec. 2.

“It just it felt like opening the wound again. But I know it had to be said; from the beginning, we didn’t stop looking for Manny from beginning to end,” Berry told KSTP. “How strong he was at a young age. How resilient. How much of a protector he was. He just was wise for his age.” Anoka County Attorney Brad Johnson said he had “never heard from so many people about a single case.” “None of us should outlive our children. But to have a child, a child in our community, taken from us in this way is simply unconscionable,” he said, according to MPR News.

Durban: State Moves to Link Weapon in AKA Trial

The State’s first evidence in the Durban High Court trial over the killings of rapper Kiernan “AKA” Forbes and his friend Tebello “Tibz” Motsoane took the court back to a petrol station shooting in May 2022. Prosecutors are trying to show that a gun fired that day was later used on Florida Road, EWN reports. A second State witness was expected to testify on Thursday, Oct. 8, eNCA reports. This case continues from The Crime Ledger: October 7, 2026.

Forbes and Motsoane were shot dead on Feb. 10, 2023, as they left a popular restaurant on Durban’s Florida Road, EWN reports. Seven men are on trial: Lindokuhle Thabani Mkhwanazi, Lindani Zenzele Ndimande, Siyanda Eddie Myeza, Mziwethemba Harvey Gwabeni, Lindokuhle Lindo Ndimande, Siyabonga Gezani Ndimande and Malusi Dave Ndimande, IOL reports. All seven pleaded not guilty when the trial opened on Monday, Oct. 5, according to the Mail & Guardian.

Testifying on Wednesday was a retired police officer who cannot be identified under a court order protecting witnesses. State prosecutor Lawrence Gcaba said his evidence related to count 10, unlawful possession of a firearm. “We will be leading evidence to show the originality of this firearm,” Gcaba said, according to EWN. The officer told the court he was called to a shooting in Mayville, Durban, in May 2022 and bagged 30 spent cartridges as evidence. That was the shooting in which taxi boss Sibongiseni Gift Khanyile was killed, EWN reports. The Mail & Guardian reports the attack happened at a BP garage, that Khanyile and his bodyguards were shot, and that a white Toyota Etios believed to have been used by the attackers was found nearby, with blood stains and fingerprints on it.

The court had previously heard that the gun used in the Mayville shooting was used in the killing of either Forbes or Motsoane, EWN reports. eNCA reports the State is seeking to establish that ballistic link, and that the first witness’s testimony centred on a shooting involving accused number three, Myeza.

That link has already shaped the trial. On Tuesday, Oct. 6, Judge Nomfundo Sipunzi granted an application to hear Myeza’s additional charges from the Mayville case, counts 12 to 17, separately, the Mail & Guardian reports. Those charges include allegations that two other people were targeted, conspiracy to commit murder and theft of a motor vehicle. The State opposed the split, with investigating officer Kumarasan Pillay telling the court that ballistic evidence linked a firearm allegedly used in the Forbes and Motsoane killings to the Mayville matter. The other six accused continue on counts one to 11, and Myeza remains an accused in both matters.

Before the first witness was called, all seven accused made formal admissions under Section 220 of the Criminal Procedure Act, IOL reports. They do not dispute the identities of the deceased, their causes of death, the places where they were killed, the post-mortem reports or the photographs in the crime scene album.

Sipunzi also amended her reporting directive on Wednesday. “The media representatives may publish or broadcast the evidence of witnesses while they are testifying, and any exhibits admitted or tendered as part of the trial record; however, no media coverage shall disclose the identity of personal particulars of any witness called by the state or the defence,” she said, according to EWN. For that reason no witness is identified here.

Security was tightened after Tuesday’s proceedings were disrupted when a cellphone was allegedly found in Gwabeni’s possession in the court cells, the Mail & Guardian reports. IOL, citing sources, reports that police allege he was given the phone by an attorney who is not on record in the case. The matter was not raised on the record when the trial resumed. All seven accused are presumed innocent.

Brasília: Ex-Lawmaker Carlos Xavier Declared a Fugitive

Former Federal District lawmaker Carlos Xavier, convicted of ordering the 2004 killing of 16-year-old Ewerton da Rocha Ferreira, is now officially a fugitive. Civil Police officers went to several of his known addresses after the Court of Justice of the Federal District and Territories issued an arrest warrant on Tuesday, Oct. 6, but could not find him, and because he did not turn himself in he is considered a fugitive from justice, police communications director Lucio Valente said, according to G1. This case continues from The Crime Ledger: October 7, 2026.

Xavier was sentenced to 14 years and 3 months in a closed prison regime for the qualified homicide of Ewerton, Metrópoles reports. The conviction came 10 days before the first round of this year’s elections, in which Xavier was a candidate for the Federal District’s Legislative Chamber. Judge Valter André de Lima Bueno Araújo ruled that the sentence could only be carried out after his electoral immunity expired, G1 reports. Under Article 236 of the Electoral Code, candidates cannot be arrested from 15 days before the vote until 48 hours after polls close, a window that ran from Sept. 19 to Oct. 6. In the first round on Sunday, Oct. 4, Xavier received just over 1,800 votes and was not elected, according to Metrópoles and G1.

Ewerton was found shot twice in the head on the morning of March 8, 2004, behind a bus stop near the overpass linking Recanto das Emas and Samambaia, G1 reports. The prosecution’s case is that Xavier decided to have him killed after alleged extramarital relationships between his then-wife and teenagers, including Ewerton, became public. Prosecutors say Xavier paid 15,000 reais to Eduardo Gomes da Silva, known as “Risadinha,” who has already been sentenced to 19 years and 3 months. The indictment says Silva paid 2,000 reais to Leandro Dias Duarte, later sentenced to 15 years, and to a teenager to carry out the killing, and the teenager fired the shots, G1 reports.

The jury recognised that the crime occurred and that Xavier took part in it, ruling out acquittal, and accepted the aggravating factor argued by the prosecution because the victim was an adolescent, Metrópoles reports. “The victim was an adolescent. His young age justifies the severity of the consequences. Finally, there is no reliable evidence that the victim’s behaviour contributed to the act,” the sentence says. Eight witnesses took part in the trial at the Recanto das Emas courthouse, among them Ewerton’s parents, Xavier’s former wife, police chiefs from the time and former Civil Police director Laerte Bessa. Xavier was the last to be heard.

The case ended his time in office. Xavier, who used the name Adão Xavier, was a prominent figure in Federal District politics in the 1990s and won three terms as a district deputy, in 1994, 1998 and 2002, Metrópoles reports. He wrote the 1995 law that created the Federal District’s Evangelical Day, celebrated on Nov. 30. Once he was charged in the Ewerton case, the Legislative Chamber stripped him of his mandate, the first time it had ever removed a member, G1 reports.

In a statement, his defence said the decision contradicts the evidence presented and that it has already filed an appeal, G1 reports. Metrópoles said it was trying to reach his lawyers. Xavier remains at large.