The Crime Ledger: September 24, 2026

KwaMakhutha: Eleven Dead as Manhunt Runs

Fourteen people, thirteen men and a woman, were at a party inside a house in the Ziko area of KwaMakhutha, south of Durban, on Tuesday night when three armed men entered and opened fire, police said. Ten died at the scene and four were taken to hospital, where one more died, police said; the woman was among the dead. A car belonging to one of the victims was set alight before the gunmen left. Nomusa Zulu lost two sons, Sicelo and Mlungisi Zulu. “I don’t know any of them to be involved in anything dodgy,” she told EWN.

Acting National Police Commissioner Lt-Gen Puleng Dimpane ordered a 72-hour tracking operation on Wednesday and said investigators were “following a promising lead.” Police say some victims were on Crime Intelligence’s radar for unspecified illegal activities and that a feud between rival groupings can’t be ruled out; The Witness reported Thursday that a possible drug-territory dispute is among the lines being investigated. Spokesperson Col. Robert Netshiunda said arrests were imminent but cautioned the feud theory was unconfirmed. By Thursday evening no arrests had been announced.

Bangkok: Ex-Minister Gets Life for Councillor Murder

Chaimet Sitsanitpong, 49, a former Prachinburi provincial councillor known locally as “Sor Jor Tong,” went to Sunthorn Wilawan’s home in Mueang Prachinburi on Dec. 11, 2024, to seek his backing for his wife’s planned run for the provincial administration presidency. On Thursday, Thailand’s Criminal Court sentenced Sunthorn, 87, and three co-defendants to death for killing him, then commuted all four sentences to life imprisonment on mitigating grounds.

Sunthorn, known as “Ko Thon,” is a former deputy public health minister and eight-time MP. The court found Chaimet had left after the talks failed, then came back while waiting for the gate to open, and ruled the shooting a reaction to the moment: joint murder, not premeditated murder, and no criminal association. Gunshot residue tied aides Thanasarankorn Techathanatchote and Saksit Chinnawong, who fired first, and Sunthorn, who the court found then fired three shotgun rounds. Apisit Sotchuen was found to have been at the scene and ready to help. The Thai Examiner reports Chaimet was shot 22 times. Two other defendants drew firearms-only penalties and two were acquitted. The four must jointly pay THB 801,400 plus interest. It is a first-instance judgment; all four retain appeal rights.

The Hague: ICC Convicts Seleka Commander

Detainees at the Central Office for the Repression of Banditry in Bangui were whipped, waterboarded and bound hands-to-elbows-to-feet in a method called “Arbatacher,” and some were held in underground cells. “The floor was covered in waste, and it smelled of faeces and urine,” Judge Miatta Maria Samba said Wednesday as the International Criminal Court convicted the man who ran the facility.

Mahamat Said Abdel Kani, 56, the first Seleka member convicted at the ICC, was found guilty of imprisonment, torture, other inhumane acts and persecution as crimes against humanity at the OCRB between April and August 2013. A majority acquitted him of war crimes, finding the armed conflict had ended with President François Bozizé’s ouster in March 2013; some incidents also fell for lack of evidence. Said denied the charges. Sentencing is set for November, both sides have 30 days to appeal, and he retains appeal rights.

The judgment summary sets out the scale: guilty of imprisonment and of persecution in respect of at least 39 detainees, torture in respect of 22, and other inhumane acts in respect of 34, all between April 12 and Aug. 30, 2013, with Said convicted as a direct co-perpetrator because he was the Seleka commander in charge of the OCRB. Trial Chamber VI acquitted him of the parallel war-crimes counts of torture, cruel treatment and outrages upon personal dignity. He was surrendered to the court in January 2021 on a warrant first issued under seal in 2019. Either side may appeal within 30 days. Sentence will be set after a separate hearing; the maximum is 30 years, or life in extreme cases, and a reparations process for the victims will follow. He remains in detention.

Newmarket: Law Victim Statements End; Arguments Set for November

Faith Ike-Elechi was 21 when she died in 2022. Her mother, Faith George, a mental-health nurse in Britain, had already intercepted one package Kenneth Law sent her. A second one got into the house unseen. “She continued saying, ‘I’m sorry, I drank it,’” her statement read. “Those were the last words I heard her speak.”

Crown attorney Peter Westgate read it Thursday in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Newmarket as prosecutors finished entering all 74 victim-impact statements against Law, the former Mississauga chef who pleaded guilty in May to 14 counts of aiding suicide. Justice Michelle Fuerst then vacated the remaining September dates and set legal arguments for Nov. 27. The Globe and Mail reports a ruling on Law’s prison term may not come until 2027. Thursday belonged to families from Britain, where 79 deaths are part of the case. Kenneth Gibson wrote that his son Ross, 30, “died a horrible, lonely and agonizing death.” The court also heard about Emma Coletti, 47, and Mark Bailey, 44, who died years after buying from Law. Premier Doug Ford’s office told the Globe his May refusal of a public inquiry stands. Law, represented by Matthew Gourlay, awaits a ruling on his prison term.

If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 in Canada.

Belleville: Police Call Synagogue Attack Hate-Motivated

Belleville Police Chief Murray Rodd said Thursday that Sunday’s shooting outside Sons of Jacob Synagogue was a deliberate, hate-motivated attack on the Jewish community, carried out as about two dozen people were inside for Yom Kippur. None of them were hurt. Police allege that Sean Ward, 29, of Quinte West, who died in hospital Monday night, was the gunman.

Rodd said Const. Jeff Smith, posted outside as part of his regular duties, was ambushed and shot before he could leave his unmarked car, then got out and kept engaging; Const. Mike McCurdy arrived in under three minutes, unhurt. Smith, shot in the head and body, remains critical but stable and faces several surgeries. Police played video in which the gunman appears to tell Smith, “You are going to die for the Jews.” Rodd said the attacker used a shotgun, had other weapons and “plenty” of ammunition, and had combustible materials including gasoline in his vehicle, giving him “the means, the motive and the mechanisms to cause a mass casualty and the destruction of the Jewish synagogue.” Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit is still examining the officers’ conduct, and no post-mortem findings have been made public.

Nottingham: Life, Minimum 28 Years, for Meadows Shotgun Murder

Coel Tainton, 24, spent the evening of Feb. 27 in Nottingham pubs with Jack Preston, then went back with him to Preston’s home in Ryeland Gardens, The Meadows. At about 5:30 a.m. on Feb. 28, after an argument, Preston shot him with a double-barrelled shotgun that had been kept in the house for two weeks. On Thursday at Nottingham Crown Court, Judge Nirmal Shant jailed Preston, 34, for life with a minimum term of 28 years.

Preston first blamed a masked intruder, then claimed the gun went off in a struggle after Tainton tried to rob him; his DNA on the gun and a phone video of the two men showing off with it that night undercut both, and a jury convicted him of murder last week. The judge noted Tainton was carrying a knife but said Preston didn’t know it and Tainton “presented no threat to you.” Tainton’s mother, Rebecca Shipman, described “the living nightmare we are still going through.” Preston also admitted firearm, assault on an emergency worker and threatening-behaviour charges. He retains appeal rights.

Broward: Guilty Verdict in Leila Cavett No-Body Murder

Leila Cavett, 21, travelled from Georgia to South Florida with her 2-year-old son in July 2020 and was last seen on July 26 at a gas station in Hollywood. Hours later her son was found wandering alone at an apartment complex in Miramar, and her vehicle turned up abandoned days after that. Her body has never been found. On Thursday, a Broward County jury found Shannon Ryan, 44, guilty of second-degree murder.

Court documents cited by NBC 6 say Ryan, a self-described witch and “chakra master,” told investigators Cavett had come to sell a pickup truck. The case leaned on surveillance video of Ryan dragging a large garbage bag to the dumpster at the gas station where Cavett was last seen, and on trash bags, duct tape and carpet odor eliminator allegedly bought at the Walmart where the truck was left. Ryan pleaded not guilty and testified the items were for cleaning out vehicles. Sentencing is Oct. 23; the charge carries a possible life term. Ryan retains appeal rights.

Upper Darby: Weh Guilty of First-Degree Murder in Teen’s Stabbing

Michael Garr, 15, a 10th-grader in the Upper Darby School District, was walking home from his girlfriend’s on the night of April 21, 2023, when he was stabbed and slashed 11 times on the 200 block of Bridge Street. He reached a passing driver and managed three words: “He stabbed me.” On Thursday, a Delaware County jury deliberated about half an hour before convicting Marson Weh, 26, of Clifton Heights, of first-degree murder and possessing an instrument of crime.

Surveillance video showed Weh following Garr along Baltimore Pike and onto Bridge Street; Garr’s blood was on Weh’s thermal underwear and the boy’s DNA inside the handle of a knife in Weh’s backpack. No motive was established. The defence called the evidence “overwhelming” and contested only intent. “You cannot stab someone in the throat and not mean it,” District Attorney Tanner Rouse told jurors. Sentencing is Nov. 5; first-degree murder carries mandatory life without parole in Pennsylvania. Weh retains appeal rights. He faces a separate Oct. 26 trial on an alleged February 2023 attempted murder, in which he is presumed innocent.

Boise: 1982 ‘Unknown Wanderer’ Identified

On Dec. 4, 1982, a man carrying no ID and a typed note signed with a false name died of cyanide poisoning, ruled a suicide, inside a Boise church. On Wednesday the Ada County Sheriff’s Office identified him as Dr. Mathew Francis Betkouski, after cold case detective Tim Cooper traced an engraved key to Jacksonville, Florida, and familial DNA confirmed it.

The office says it found a “possible connection” to the 1982 Tylenol poisonings that killed seven people around Chicago and has shared its findings with Chicago police. But investigators can’t place Betkouski near Chicago in the last week of September 1982, and the homemade cyanide among his effects was sodium cyanide, not the potassium cyanide used in the poisonings. “We’re not naming him as a suspect,” Cooper said. FBI Chicago, which leads the case, said claims of links over 44 years “remain unsubstantiated.” Betkouski was never charged with any crime. For the background, see our Chicago Tylenol murders file.

Browse every edition in the Crime Ledger Index