Daily Breaking True Crime Briefing
As of: September 21, 2026 (evening ET)
Scope: Monday’s board covers cases from Sunday through Monday evening ET, plus Saturday killings and arrests that moved on Monday. The stories come from police, court and prosecutor statements, wire services and local newsrooms in Haiti, the United States, South Africa and Australia.
A military flight out of Port-au-Prince on Sunday put eighteen suspects in the 2021 killing of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse onto U.S. soil for Southern District of Florida proceedings: seventeen Colombian ex-soldiers and former Haitian justice-ministry official Joseph Félix Badio among them, with U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones saying thirty people have been indicted so far. East of Johannesburg, SAPS booked a man and two women over Jabulile Ntimba, the ninth woman found dead across Ekurhuleni, and walked them toward Boksburg Magistrate’s Court while brass still refused to call the wider cluster a serial pattern. North Olmsted sent Hammodi Ahmed Ali Al Naser to Rocky River Municipal Court on two aggravated-murder counts after Saturday’s Evelyn Drive shooting of his wife and 18-year-old son. Armidale Local Court wrestled Phillip John Denton’s mute AVL appearance over his mother’s Mole River death. Indiana’s Court of Appeals heard Richard Allen’s Delphi bid for a new trial. Austin kept digging into an ICE agent’s Sunday torso shooting of Venezuelan Wilber Rafael Garces Perez. That was Monday’s board.
Port-au-Prince / Florida: Eighteen Flown for Moïse Assassination Cases
Eighteen people accused in the July 7, 2021, assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse were flown Sunday on a military aircraft from Port-au-Prince to Florida to face U.S. federal charges in the Southern District of Florida.
U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones called the transfers “the next major phase” of accountability and said thirty suspects have been indicted so far. BBC, AFP, and Al Jazeera reporting named the group as seventeen Colombian ex-soldiers plus Joseph Félix Badio (also rendered Joseph Badio), a former anti-corruption official in Haiti’s Ministry of Justice. Prosecutors say planning and financing ran through Florida as well as the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Four men were convicted in Miami in May on conspiracy and related counts; several others have pleaded guilty. All extradited defendants are presumed innocent.
The Justice Department said the 18 were 17 former Colombian soldiers and Joseph Félix Badio, a former Haitian Justice Ministry employee who prosecutors say played a central role in the plot; 30 people in all have been charged in the case. U.S. officials called it “a foreign transfer of custody,” not an extradition, the Miami Herald reports. At a Sept. 21 hearing, Magistrate Judge Lisette Reid assigned court-appointed lawyers. Six earlier defendants have pleaded guilty and are cooperating, and a Miami jury convicted four men tied to the Florida security firm CTU in May. Update, Oct. 11, 2026: Prosecutors have accused one transferred soldier, Albeiro Pineda, of being among the gunmen; he pleaded not guilty. Badio’s arraignment was reset for Oct. 14, and Colombia’s president has ordered state-funded defense for the 17. All are presumed innocent.
Sources:
- U.S. Attorney’s Office, S.D. Fla.: FBI and HSI transport 18 defendants from Haiti
- Miami Herald: Prosecutors detail alleged gunman’s role in Moïse killing
- BBC News: Haiti extradites 18 suspects in assassination of president to US
- AFP: US arrests 18 suspects in killing of Haitian president
- Al Jazeera / Reuters-AP: Eighteen suspects extradited to US over Haitian president’s 2021 killing
Dawn Park: Three Arrested Over Ninth Ekurhuleni Woman
South African Police Service officers arrested a man and two women over the weekend in the killing of Jabulile Ntimba, whose partially clothed body was found September 17 on Lama Street in Villa Lisa / Dawn Park, Boksburg, counted as the ninth woman found dead across Ekurhuleni in the recent cluster.
The three were due in Boksburg Magistrate’s Court Monday. Deputy National Commissioner Lt Gen Tebello Mosikili told reporters the Ntimba file looks relationship-driven, including what investigators called a possible love triangle, and that analysts are still testing links across the nine cases; police have not established a single serial-killer pattern. Acting leadership and President Cyril Ramaphosa publicly pressed for arrests. A separate earlier detainee in a July body find remains in custody toward an October 28 return date. Names of the three Monday accused have not been released. All are presumed innocent.
Update, Oct. 11, 2026: Only two accused, Fortunate Masilela, 31, and Tsakane Nester Msithini, 38, were enrolled at Boksburg Magistrates’ Court on Sept. 21, charged with premeditated murder and defeating the ends of justice; police released the man, citing insufficient evidence, EWN and SABC report. Police say the killing stemmed from a love triangle and is being investigated separately from the other Ekurhuleni deaths. The court allowed audio-only coverage and barred images of the accused. At the opposed Schedule 6 bail hearing on Oct. 1, the investigating officer led cellphone evidence and told the court of an alleged admission by one accused; the hearing resumes Oct. 12. Both women are presumed innocent.
Sources:
- SABC News: Ekurhuleni murder case postponed for bail application
- EWN: Two women in court as third suspect released
- BBC News: Three held over woman’s murder as South Africa police investigate eight other body finds
- CNA / AFP: South Africa makes arrests over one of nine women found murdered
- Jacaranda FM: Police probe possible love triangle in Dawn Park murder
- Sunday Tribune: Man and two women arrested in connection with ninth Ekurhuleni woman’s murder
North Olmsted: Father Charged After Wife and Son Shot Dead
North Olmsted Police charged Hammodi Ahmed Ali Al Naser, 44, with two counts of aggravated murder after a Saturday afternoon shooting in the 3800 block of Evelyn Drive that killed his 42-year-old wife and their 18-year-old son.
A neighbor’s 911 call at about 2:10 p.m. reported a man shooting his family. Officers found the son outside with multiple gunshot wounds; he later died. The woman was found inside, also with multiple gunshot wounds, and was pronounced dead. Al Naser was held at North Olmsted City Jail and was set for Rocky River Municipal Court arraignment Monday morning. Detective Lt. Matt Beck called it an isolated family incident with motive still unknown; police said seven children lived in the home and were moved to safety. Names of the dead have not been released. Al Naser is presumed innocent.
Update, Oct. 11, 2026: The victims are Nadia Al Naser, 42, and Ahmed Al Naser, 18. A Cuyahoga County grand jury indicted Alnaser on Oct. 5 on two counts of aggravated murder, four of murder, one of attempted murder, six of felonious assault and two of endangering children; six other children aged 3 to 17 were in the house and a 14-year-old was grazed by a bullet, the prosecutor’s office said. “Six children were forced to witness an unimaginable tragedy,” Prosecutor Michael O’Malley said. At arraignment he pleaded not guilty; prosecutors said he had handed $45,000 in cash to a neighbour, and a teenage son asked the judge for a protection order. Bond stays at $2 million, with passport surrender. He is presumed innocent.
Sources:
- Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office: Hammodi Alnaser indicted
- Cleveland 19: Arraignment for North Olmsted man
- Cleveland19 / WOIO: North Olmsted man charged in deadly shooting of his wife and son to face a judge
- News 5 Cleveland, Man arrested in North Olmsted: Wife & son killed after shooting
Mole River: Son’s Murder Court Appearance Stalls
Phillip John Denton, 37, appeared Monday by AVL from Armidale Police Station cells on a murder charge after NSW Police found his 70-year-old mother’s body at a fire-damaged neighbouring property on Ironbark Road / Ironbark Drive, Mole River, about forty minutes west of Tenterfield, on Saturday night.
Police say they were called about 9:35 p.m. Saturday on a domestic-violence report; Denton allegedly tried to steal a vehicle and assaulted a 74-year-old male neighbour before officers found the woman’s body and a partially burned house. Legal Aid sought a mental-health assessment pathway; Judge Miranda Moody briefly ordered hospital assessment, then withdrew it after the prosecutor flagged murder as strictly indictable. Denton gave little instruction to counsel. Police had refused bail; the matter was adjourned so his lawyers could seek instructions. Denton is presumed innocent.
The victim has been named as Michele Denton, 70, who bred alpacas on the property where she had lived for 15 years. Police found the house still burning and her decapitated body inside, the Daily Mail and New England Times report, after Denton allegedly tried to steal a vehicle from a neighbouring property and assaulted its 74-year-old owner. In court, a magistrate first ordered a mental health assessment, then withdrew it within minutes because the charge is strictly indictable, calling the facts alleged “horrific.” He is due at Armidale Local Court on Nov. 18 and is presumed innocent.
Sources:
- New England Times: Man accused of Mole River killing
- STA FM: Refused bail, back in court in November
- New England Times: Confusion as man accused of Mole River decapitation won’t talk
- STA FM / NSW Police media release summary: Man arrested following death of woman: Mole River
Delphi: Allen Appeal Arguments Set for New Trial Bid
Attorneys for Richard Allen (serving 130 years after his 2024 convictions for the February 2017 murders of Abigail “Abby” Williams, 13, and Liberty “Libby” German, 14, near Delphi, Indiana) were set to argue Monday before the Indiana Court of Appeals for a new trial.
Defense filings challenge the home search, prison confessions Allen’s lawyers say came during psychological crisis / solitary conditions, and the trial court’s limits on an alternative-suspect theory that the girls were killed in a pagan / Odinist ritual. Prosecutors have argued the ritual theory lacked sufficient evidentiary foundation. Allen remains imprisoned (reported in Oklahoma). No same-day ruling was expected. Allen’s convictions stand unless overturned; he continues to maintain innocence on appeal.
In a 90-minute hearing, defense attorney Mark Leeman argued Allen’s confessions were involuntary because he was psychotic after months in solitary confinement at Westville. Deputy Attorney General Ellen Meilaender said restrictive housing was for his safety and that his statements identifying himself as the man the girls saw on the trail were the state’s strongest evidence. “You protected him into psychosis,” one judge told her, WPTA reports. Judges Nancy Vaidik, Elaine Brown and Robert Altice Jr. took the case under advisement; a written opinion could take months. Allen remains convicted.
Austin: ICE Agent Shoots Venezuelan Man During Stop
Homeland Security Investigations, with FBI assistance, is investigating after an ICE agent shot and wounded a man Sunday afternoon near Anderson Square and Research Boulevard in north Austin.
Austin-Travis County EMS and city officials said the man took a gunshot to the torso around 12:56 p.m. CT after what police described as a small foot pursuit; he was listed stable and later described by DHS as in federal custody pending removal. Immigration attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch identified her client as Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, a Venezuelan she said was on a DoorDash run and held a work permit; DHS, without naming him, called the man an “illegal alien” with a final removal order. Texas DPS said ICE requested help pursuing a blue Toyota Corolla about 12:50 p.m., but troopers arrived after the shooting. Mayor Kirk Watson and local Democrats called for independent scrutiny and camera release. The agent has not been publicly named.
Sources:
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