California Model Killed, Castrated, Cooked and Then Ate Her Husband

A model from California met her future husband, Bill Nelson, and three days later the couple were married.  But according to Omaiama Nelson, a model and a nanny who had moved from Egypt to the US, their marriage was far from a happy one. he claimed her husband showed his violent side almost as soon as they were married and says he would regularly physically and sexually abuse her.

Omaiama Nelson, claiming she had been pushed to a state of traumatic distress because of her husband's actions, carried out the most gruesome murder. She castrated Bill, bludgeoned him to death with a clothes iron, put his hands in a deep fryer and ate his finger saying "I'm glad I lived".

Son of Hollywood Agent Arrested After Discovery of Headless Torso in Dumpster

The search is on for a missing Los Angeles woman and her parents after her husband was arrested on suspicion of murder after a body part was found in a dumpster in back to their home. 35-year-old Samuel Haskell is in custody after someone looking through a dumpster found a bag containing an unidentified female torso, the Los Angeles Police Department said.

Investigators say they tracked the headless torso back to the home Haskell shared with his 37-year-old wife Mei Li and her parents Gaoshan Li and Yanxiang Wang.  When officers went to the home, police say they discovered blood and other evidence inside the residence, CNN affiliate KABC reported.  Samuel Haskell is being held on $2,000,000 bail, police said. The couple's three childrenn are being cared for by family members, according to police.

Haskell is the son of Emmy-winning producer and Hollywood agent Sam Haskell, who has served as an agent for Kathie Lee Gifford, Whoopi Goldberg, Dolly Parton, George Clooney and others.

Investigators told KABC that no additional body parts beyond the torso have been discovered and that DNA results from the torso are pending, but Los Angeles Police Department Capt. Scot Williams said the torso is presumed to be Mei Li Haskell, the Los Angeles Times reports.

“Typically if someone, a murder suspect, is dismembering a body, it’s to delay identification,” LAPD Detective Efren Gutierrez told CNN affiliate KCBS Wednesday. “So that by implication would mean that they may have been known to each other.” 

 

But Who's Going to Foot the Bill?

A Wisconsin nurse is accused of amputating a patient’s foot without permission and wanting to display it in her family's taxidermy shop.

38-year-old nurse Mary K. Brown removed the frostbitten right foot of a 62-year-old patient at Spring Valley Health and Rehabilitation Center in Pierce County, according to a criminal complaint. She was charged last week with elder abuse.  Investigators were contacted about a death at the assisted living facility by the county medical examiner, who said the body was sent for an autopsy because of “the unusual circumstances of his death.”

The medical examiner said he noticed the victim’s foot was not attached to his body “but was rather lying beside him.”  Pete Koch, a Pierce County sheriff’s investigator, interviewed staff members at the rehabilitation center and found that the victim, who was not publicly identified, had been admitted several months before the death.

He was taken to the center because he had fallen in his residence when the heat went out, which caused him to have “severe frostbite” on both of his feet. His feet became necrotic, meaning his tissue had died.  Brown cut off the foot in what she said was an act of compassion because of the dire state of his feet.  According to the accounts of nurses Koch interviewed in the criminal complaint, the foot was no longer fully attached to the patient's leg, it smelled and it was “black like a mummy.”

Tracy Reitz, the center’s director of nursing, said that a few days before the amputation, the victim’s right foot “was dead, foul smelling."  The patient's foot was cut off by Brown as she and two other nurses, identified as Nurse 3 and Nurse 4, were in the victim's room.  The foot was then placed in a bag in a freezer, to be sent with him when he passed away.  Brown admitted to Koch that she had not received a doctor's order to cut off the foot.   She said that the victim didn't show any signs of pain and she covered up his stump with gauze.

However, Nurse 4 said she was holding the victim’s hand and his grip was “extremely tight and he was moaning a little bit.”  And another staffer, identified as Nurse 1, said she spoke with the victim two days after the amputation. According to the complaint, he told her "that when they cut his foot off he felt everything and it hurt very bad."

Brown said that she “was trying to make the quality of life better for him." She explained that the patient always complained about the smell and she thought he “would like it better.”  Nurse 3 told Koch that during the amputation, Brown talked about taking the victim’s foot home and “epoxying it," which the nurse found to be strange.  Another nurse, identified as Nurse 5, who was not in the room for the amputation, recalled that Brown said her family has a taxidermy shop. Brown told the nurse “she was going to preserve the foot and put it on display with a sign that said ‘Wear your boots kids.’”

Kevin Larson, administrator and CEO of the facility, told Koch that Brown did not do a report on the incident. Larson said nobody wrote anything in the victim’s chart on May 27 except for a notification about medications.  Larson said Brown had not asked him if she could remove the foot and there was no doctor’s order to do so.  Spring Valley Health and Rehab Center did not immediately respond to an NBC News request for comment.   Brown was charged on Nov. 3 with physical abuse of an elder person intentionally causing great bodily harm and mayhem, with increased penalties as the victim is an elderly person.

 

Tulum Mexico Has Gone Down the Crapper

Tulum, Mexico is the crown jewel of the “Mayan Riviera”—shimmering blue waters and incredible beaches among stunning ancient Mayan sites.   Among afficionados of this hot spot south of Cancun, the most pressing concerns seems to be the level of seaweed clogging up the famed beaches.  But seaweed is only one of Tulum’s problems—including failing infrastructure, overzealous developers, drugs, and too many DJs. 

In barely more than a decade, Tulum transformed from a backpacker’s beach into the next stop after Ibiza on the global DJ party circuit. It now has 40,000 residents, with 200,000 expected by 2030, and the town hasn’t been able to keep up with the arrival of wealthy jet-setters and the people who follow them on social media. There is no electricity on the beach, so diesel generators groan all day and night to run the air conditioners that customers demand. The beach has no adequate sewer system, and waste has been leaching into the water supply beneath Tulum and out to the ocean, killing the coral reef. Tulum’s old landfill, a few miles outside of town, is full, and last summer it burned in the heat for three months straight. The new dump was supposed to last five years but was already overflowing after 18 months. The beach and the jungle stretching away from the coast are dotted with construction sites, and small hotels started by hippies chasing a dream are being pushed out by large developers who seem to anticipate no end to the growing number of tourists hoping to see what Tulum is all about.

Tulum first opened for renovation in 1970, when the Mexican government converted mostly empty land on the Yucatán Peninsula’s northeastern-most point into a vacation destination. Cancún now welcomes six million visitors a year with its gorgeous beach, a strip of all-inclusive resorts, and Señor Frog’s serving tequila shots. That success led the government to rebrand 80 miles of beachfront to the south as the Riviera Maya, including what was once a quiet fishing village called Playa del Carmen, where there are now four Starbucks within ten blocks.

Tulum, meanwhile, was little more than a truck stop a few hours south, with a Mayan fortress on the beach where tour buses disgorged visitors for an afternoon. Unless you were looking to get off the grid, there wasn’t much reason to stay. Beachfront hammocks went for $10 a night, or you could sleep at the ruins, under the stars.  But an empty beach a few hours from the U.S. wasn’t going to stay that way for long.

But Tulum has become even more infamous for the incredible surge in violence (much of it occurring in and around tourist areas)—now becoming the most violent tourist destination in all  of Mexico.

In April 2020, a tourist shopping on the beach in Tulum was shot after being caught in the crossfire when a vendor was targeted by gunmen. The next month, a man and a woman were shot to death by three hitmen at Mercurio and Palenque streets in Tulum.

On August 5, 2020, a man was shot and killed in broad daylight in Tulum outside Plaza Andador. Two others were injured.  The shooting happened when two armed men attacked others inside the square. Upon their escape, they shot at three other men, killing one and injuring two.

In October 2020, two people were executed and three people injured in an armed attack on an electronic music event that took place in the hotel zone of Tulum, which resulted in a stampede of about a thousand tourists.

In January 2021, a man was shot multiple times by two armed men who fled inside the I Scream bar.

On March 2, 2021, a man and a woman were shot while on Playa Paraíso in Tulum.  The couple were at Playa Paraíso when at around noon, two men aboard a motorcycle showed up and began firing at them.

On March 4,2021, an early morning shooting in Tulum left one dead and four with injuries.  The shooting took place during the early morning hours of Thursday in the city’s center on Beta street.  When police and paramedics arrived, they found one deceased man laying in the street with four others injured.  On the same day, a man was shot dead in broad daylight while riding his bike in the Mezzanine area of Tulum.  He was found lying dead on the ground beside his bicycle.

In March 2021, Tulum authorities reported a double execution near the Kaan Luum lagoon next to the road that leads to Felipe Carrillo Puerto.

Also in March 2021, a man was shot at the entrance to the archaeological zone.  Two gunmen on a motorcycle arrived at the parking lot and opened fire at the man, and then fled to an unknown destination.  On that same March day, armed robbers struck at the Hotel Era on Calle 6 Sur in the La Veleta neighborhood of Tulum.  Several armed men entered shortly after 1:00 pm, subdued the employees and hotel guests in the lobby, and took cash and valuables.  The thieves escaped in a vehicle that was parked at the scene.

In May 2021, there was a shooting outside the Hartwood restaurant.  Men on motorcycles chased down and shot a man dead on Route 15 near the restaurant.  On May 29, 2021, the body of a dead man, handcuffed and wrapped in black garbage bags, was discovered in a green area of ​​the federal highway near Akumal, in front of the Dreams hotel in Tulum.  A day later, a man was executed while traveling in a taxicab in the hotel zone of Tulum. The attack took place in an area crowded with international tourists.

Two expats described in a Tripadvisor post how they were robbed in broad daylight at the Chedraui market in El Centro in June 2021.  Also that month, in the presence of tourists, two subjects were executed mid-day in front of tourists at Playa Paraíso, a kilometer from the archaeological remains of Tulum.  Witnesses said the victims were enjoying the day on the beach, when two people arrived with long and short weapons and opened fire, leaving them lying on the sand and on the lounge chairs they were renting.

On July 1, 2021, two gunmen on a motorcycle stopped at Camello restaurant on Mercurio Street (between Kukulcán Avenue and Palenque Street) got out of the vehicle and shot a man to death and fled.  Also on the same night, armed individuals arrived in a vehicle at the México Lindo restaurant on Tulum Avenue (between Centauro and Satélite) and began shooting at those who were inside.  One person died as a result of the attack, while another was seriously injured and a third was slightly injured in the neck.

Two Americans were shot at Tabu Restaurant on July 16, 2021. In another Tripadvisor post, a father described how his family of four (including two children) were robbed at gunpoint at the Deli Fresh market in Aldea Zama in the same month.

In September 2021, two people died and one injured after gunfire erupted at the Rosa Negra restaurant in Tulum. Witnesses say that armed people entered the restaurant around 10:45 p.m. and began shooting. At least eight shots were fired before those responsible fled. Two men, one security guard and one taxi driver, were killed.

Earlier this month, travel blogger Anjali Ryot from San Jose, California, was one of two foreign tourists killed in Tulum, after being caught in the crossfire of rival drug gangs.  The other tourist was 35-year-old German national Jennifer Henzold. Three other tourists from Germany and the Netherlands were also injured as they dined in an outdoor restaurant on Tulum’s main drag.

Also this month, a worker at a car wash was shot by two men on a motorcycle in the Tulum business district.  Just a couple of days later, a local man was murdered by a shooter on a motorcycle in front of tourists in the archeological zone of Tulum.

A news report from Mexican news outlet Reforma cited information from state authorities alleging that at least five criminal groups operate in Tulum, including the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and a faction of the Zetas. The disposable income brought by tourists and a popular culture of late-night partying has added value to the local drug market where cocaine and marijuana are in high demand.

A recent traveler to Tulum reported on his trip as follows:

The hotel zone is 100% congested with cars and with people trying to walk on the main road with no sidewalks. So, it's difficult to not encounter hordes of people as you walk down the street. Most of the tourists seem to be the very young party set (college age) who seem to be heavy drinkers most of the time and no regard for the current pandemic. Our family did not feel comfortable venturing to any of the restaurants or walking outside the hotel given that the majority were drunks with no masks.

Restaurants are very expensive; taxis to town are very expensive and take a long time, 25 mins each way. Dinner for two, with a basic meal was over $100.00. There is lots of promotion from the local pharmacies for drugs such as pain killers, Viagra, etc.   This is a prime super spreader environment, and the atmosphere seems to be a combo of spring breakers gone wild and/or burning man goers. It's definitely not a tranquil, calm or respectful place which is very sad because this area was at one time quite beautiful.

Mother nature is also taking a hit in this paradisical corner of the world.   Lax environmental regulations and out of control development has led to widespread contamination of the water table, with 25% of household waste water not being treated before being put into the aquifer system.  

Tulum is built on highly permeable limestone, the geologic equivalent of Swiss cheese, below which flows one of the world’s largest underground river systems. Some of Tulum’s biggest non-beach attractions are its cenotes, where the ground has collapsed to reveal open-air pools with highly Instagrammable turquoise water. The trouble is that less than 10 percent of the town is connected to the municipal sewer system. The beach, and many of the newer developments, aren’t connected at all. Most businesses depend, instead, on septic tanks, but, whether by accident, neglect, or ignorance — willful or otherwise — a significant amount of Tulum’s waste ends up in the ground, where it eventually leaches through the limestone into the water. In January, a documentary called The Dark Side of Tulum was released with footage (shot by cave divers) of feces floating in the rivers. According to Mexico’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, 80 percent of the cenotes in the Yucatán Peninsula have some level of contamination, and it is now being reported that even human fecal matter has been found in the region’s cenotes.

Tulum’s problems are becoming harder to ignore, and before COVID, there were signs that the Tulum bubble was gently deflating.  Some hotels began reporting more vacancies than usual, and with so many new condos for rent around town that some had to lower their rates.  During the height of the pandemic, Tulum seemed to be ground zero for scores of selfish COVID-truthers and anti-vaxxers looking for a sunny locale where they wouldn’t be subjected to the minor inconveniences we have all accepted as part of the new reality.  But it is uncertain that they will be enough to bring the area's glory days.    Many seasoned travelers now consider Tulum essentially a dead-end filled with pothole-filled streets, overpriced taxis, terrible traffic jams, out-of-touch yuppies, celebrities, influencers, wannabe gurus, COVID deniers, and well-to-do folks looking to “find themselves” in overpriced retreats, hotels, and bars.

Dead People Can't Hear, Bro

A Florida man is charged with murdering his 77-year-old grandfather and cutting the elderly man’s ears off with a knife.  According to CBS affiliate WPEC, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office was called to a home in DeLand in Central Florida for reports of a man who said he was attacked by his grandfather.

30-year-old Kolby Parker was sitting in the back of his pickup truck when he told deputies he and his grandfather, Ronald Wells, Sr., were smoking marijuana, after which there was a confrontation. Parker claims he was only acting in self-defense when the older man attacked him with a knife. He told deputies he managed to get the knife away and used it on Wells, who was found dead on the front porch with multiple stab wounds.

While he was being questioned by police, Parker pulled two human ears from his pant pockets, which were later discovered to be those of his grandfather.  Deputies said Parker then became violent toward them, but he was eventually subdued and taken into custody.

Parker later confessed to hitting his grandfather multiple times in the head with a baseball bat and then stabbed him with a butcher knife numerous times. He also admitted to cutting his grandfather’s ears off and stated that he wanted his grandfather to be with his dead grandmother.  "We were smoking a bowl of pot on the table,” Parker said. “We were just sitting here talking, and all of a sudden he grabbed a hold of the knife, tried to swing at me and I had to defend myself. And now he’s sitting here dead.”

During questioning, Parker asked one of the deputies for his gun before lunging at him, the Daily Commercial reported. “Can I see your gun, bro?” Parker asked.“No,” the deputy replied before a brief struggle ensued as Parker tried to get the weapon. Another deputy then used his Taser on Parker as he tried to break free.

Parker is charged with second-degree murder, battery on a law enforcement officer, and resisting with violence.

 

Peeved Partner Prunes Penis, Phones Police

A North Carolina woman has been charged with tying up her husband and chopping off his penis after she called the authorities and told 911 operators that she attacked "his favorite part of himself."

56-year-old Victoria Thomas Frabutt, 56, is said to have tied up 61-year-old James Frabutt before cutting off his member at their Newport, North Carolina home.   She complained to emergency workers that she "couldn't even get enough blood to make the sign of the cross, or write sinner, or anything like that," following the assault.

The harried hacker told operators during a 13-minute call that a pruner was used during the attack, adding,  "Actually it's good for pruning roses."

It is believed that the incident was motivated by their impending divorce, as Frabutt referred to her husband James as her "soon-to-be ex" during the 911 call.   She added, "That would be part of the message against sinning against God and fornication."

When asked what part of the body her husband was bleeding from, Victoria replied: "That would be his favorite part of himself."

The wronged whacker then put a towel on her husband, saying he wasn't going to die "because you're going to carry a message."  She later told 911 operators that her husband was 'just dandy' when asked if he was conscious and breathing.

When responders arrived, the Carolina clipper told responders, "There’s a thing in there that needs your assistance. I don’t know whereabouts it is, it could be anywhere.'"  The parted pecker was successfully located by law enforcement, put on ice and transported to Vidant Medical Center for reattachment. 

Mexico Now One of the Most Dangerous Countries for Journalists

The hacked-up bodies of a photojournalist and another young man have been found in the northern Mexico city of Saltillo.  22-year-old photographer Daniel Martinez Bazaldua  had recently been hired to cover social events for Vanguardia, the paper said in a story in its online edition. Officials identified the other man as Julian Zamora, 23.

Saltillo is in northern Coahuila state, an area where the Zetas drug cartel is active. Another Coahuila newspaper recently announced it would no longer publish stories about drug gangs, after receiving threats apparently signed by a Zetas leader.

In some cartel-plagued cities in Mexico, covering even the society section can be dangerous, because cartel leaders may hang out at prominent social events and get angry if they are included in photos. In some cases, if they want the attention, they can be angered if they are left out.

Mexico has become one of the most dangerous countries for journalists, where more than 80 have been killed since 2000. 

 

NM Woman Goes To Jail- Does Not Pass Go, Does Not Collect $200

A New Mexico woman repeatedly stabbed her boyfriend after accusing him of cheating during a Monopoly game early yesterday, according to police.

Laura Chavez, 60, and her boyfriend were playing the popular board game at her Santa Fe apartment when the dispute occurred. Chavez admitted stabbing her beau, Clyde "Butch" Smith, with a kitchen knife. Smith told investigators that Chavez first hit him over the head with a glass bottle and then “grabbed a knife and began cutting him, causing injuries to the top of his head, neck, left eye brow and right wrist area."

When cops arrived at Chavez’s building, she was sitting under the porch “covered with suspected blood.” Asked if the blood was Smith’s, she answered, “Yes, I fucked him up.”

Shear Agony

An Arizona man whose eye socket was impaled with a pair of pruning shears said he experienced excruciating pain during the ordeal and feels lucky to be alive.

86-year-old Leroy Luetscher said he had just finished trimming plants in his backyard when he lost his balance and fell on the pruning shears. The tool went into his right eye socket and down into his neck, resting against the carotid artery. Half the shears were left in his head pushing up against his eye, while the other half was sticking out.

Luetscher said he put his hand to his face and realized the shears had gone into his eye. "I didn't know if my eyeball was still there or what," he said. "I never had pain like that in all my life." Luetscher, whose face was gushing blood, was able to walk to the laundry room of his house and beckon his longtime live-in girlfriend, Arpy Williams, who called 911.

An ambulance rushed him to University Medical Center in Tucson, where a team of surgeons immediately took scans of his brain and came up with a plan to treat him. "You know, if it went a little bit in a different direction, it basically could have killed him or he could have had a stroke," surgeon Dr. Lynn Polonski said. "He's was very lucky that it missed all vital structures and we were basically able to put him back together."

Luetscher said he's not sure he'll be doing much more gardening in the future.

No Chance Of A Handjob, I Guess

A Kiwi woman had her hand almost completely severed when a sex romp on a bathroom sink in Croatia went awry, according to reports.

A 28-year-old New Zealand woman was having sex on a bathroom sink with an Englishman in the island town of Hvar when the porcelain broke and the sharp edge of the broken porcelain sliced her wrist, leaving her hand hanging on by just a flap of skin.

The hand was reattached after a six-hour operation by surgeons in the city of Split. Her sex partner fled and Croatian police are seeking him.

Doc: Dick Docked Near Dhaka

Police in southern Bangladesh say a woman cut off a man's penis during an alleged attempt to rape her and took it to a police station as evidence.

The incident took place in Mirzapur village, Jhalakathi, about 124 miles south of the capital, Dhaka.  40-year-old Monju Begum, a married mother of three, told police that neighbor Mozammel Haq Mazi forced his way into her shanty and started assaulting her.

Mazi, who denies the accusation, has been admitted to a nearby hospital.  According to a senior surgeon at the Sher-e-Bangla Hospital in Barisal town, it was not possible to reattach the organ.

"We will arrest [Mazi] once his condition gets better.  She fought back and cut off his penis and brought it to our police station in a polythene bag to prove that [he] tried to rape her," said police spokesman Abul Khaer.  "It is quite an unusual incident. As far as I am aware, this is the first time that a woman has brought a severed penis to the police station as evidence."

Monju Begum told police that Mazi, a married father of five, had been harassing her for the past six months.  But Mazi denied the allegations.  "We were having an affair and recently she suggested that both of us can go and settle down in Dhaka," Mazi told reporters.  "I refused and told her that I cannot leave my wife and children, so she took revenge on me."

They Weren't Kidding When They Said Dieting Could Save Your Life

Four people have been arrested in Peru on suspicion of killing dozens of people in order to sell their fat and tissue for cosmetic uses in Europe. According to the police, the liquidized product went for over $50,000 a gallon.

The gang targeted people on remote roads, luring them with fake job offers before killing them and extracting their fat. The group could be behind the disappearances of up to 60 people in Peru's Huanuco and Pasco regions. One of those arrested told police the ringleader had been killing people for their fat for more than three decades.

Would You Like Decap With Your Cake?

An hour after she finished rehearsal for an upcoming poetry reading, Samantha Revelus was dead on the floor of her family's home. She had been stabbed, police say, by her 23-year-old brother. Kerby Revelus then decapitated his 5-year-old sister as her birthday cake from the day before sat on the kitchen table. It was then that he turned on his 9-year-old sister Sarafina, who called police.

According to the reports, details on the motive or root cause of the attack were unclear in the aftermath of the killings. Revelus attacked his siblings with a household knife while their grandmother was tending to laundry in the basement.

Quick-thinking Sarafina called 911 moments after the attack began. An officer on patrol in the neighborhood arrived within a minute and could hear an altercation inside as he reached the second floor apartment where the family lived. The 911 operator tried to persuade Sarafina to open the door, but when she didn't the officer broke through.

As the officer rushed into the apartment, Revelus decapitated Bianca in front of him. Within moments, four officers were inside and two of them shot Revelus as he tried to get to Sarafina. Revelus fell, still clutching the knife. The surviving 9-year-old was hospitalized with defensive wounds to her hands and stab wounds in her abdomen and one of her legs.

Mozambique's Gruesome Trade In Body Parts

Young men are attacked and their genitals cut off while they are still alive; children's throats are slit and their organs removed; and border-crossers are caught with bags containing human heads and sexual organs.

These stories and more are contained in a horror report on the trafficking of human body parts in Mozambique and South Africa, which has unveiled a scary reality: body parts are frequently used in traditional medicine and there is a commonly held belief that such medicine is very powerful.

"Ritual killings are common here; it's like daily bread. We do not even get shocked when a person is found dead with body parts removed," said one of the South Africans interviewed. Twenty-two percent of those interviewed by researchers had first-hand experience of seeing a mutilated body or separate body parts. Furthermore, researchers could not find a single case in which someone caught carrying a body part had been prosecuted.

According to the Mozambican Human Rights League (LDH), which initiated the study, this is because there is no legislation - local or international - that criminalises the carrying of a body part without evidence linking the suspect to the actual murder.

International Outrage Over Hate Crime Acquittal In Spain

Outrage over a grisly hate crime and the eventual acquittal of its perpetrator has spread from Spain to the United States. Jacobo Piñeiro Rial, who was picked up at a gay bar in Vigo, Spain, and spent the night with a gay couple, eventually killed his two hosts and set fire to the apartment to cover his crime. To the shock of many, he was acquitted by a jury by resorting to what some are calling the "new twinkie defense".

During the trial, testimony revealed that Piñiero had spent the afternoon consuming cocaine and drinking at a gay bar called Strong, at which Pérez Triviñio happened to work as a bartender. When his shift ended, the bartender invited Piñeiro home. They spent the afternoon together until Triviñio's partner Anderson Luciano arrived around. Although there there are no independent witnesses, police and forensic experts have concluded that the murder rampage began around 4:00 am. Pérez Triviñio was first stabbed by Piñeiro but did not die. Piñeiro then stabbed Anderson Luciano twice while in the couples' room, and 22 more times as he followed his victim out of the room, into a corridor and then into the living room - where he died.

Pérez Triviñio, in the meantime, had locked himself in the room and records show that he was able to call local authorities. The call was cut short when Piñeiro was able to break back into the room and finish him off by stabbing him 35 more times.

After going back to the living room, Piñeiro tied Luciano's hands and put a blanket over his body; in the bedroom, he placed a blanket over Triviñio's head, tied a cable around it, and tethered it to a bed post. Piñeiro then threw clothes all over the apartment, doused them with alcohol and set on apartment on fire.

So how did Piñeiro convince the jury to let him off the hook for murder? In a statement to the jury, he said that in the middle of the night "the gays" solicited him for sex and he was totally freaked out. Because he was able to avoid cross examination by the prosecutor, he avoided having to explain why he was hanging out in a gay bar and agreed to go home with a gay man.

In a story riddled by inconsistencies, he claimed that he had slept in a guest bedroom, and was awakened late at night by a naked Luciano, who invited him over for sex. He says that he was 'disgusted' by the sexual advances and rejected them, only to be threatened with a knife. Piñeiro says that he 'panicked' and successfully wrestled the knife away from his assailant - and used it to 'defend' himself. He also claimed that Triviñio came to his partner's defense brandishing a second knife, which he also stripped away and used in self defense.

Piñeiro's lawyer resorted to a form of "gay panic" defense, arguing that Piñeiro was overcome by an "insurmountable fear of being raped and being murdered" and that his judgment was clouded by the alcohol and cocaine he had consumed in the previous two days. However, forensic experts had stated earlier said the effect of the cocaine would have rubbed off long before the killings and upon arrest there were no traces of alcohol in his body. Piñeiro was found not guilty of the double murder, and convicted only of arson.

Marta Pérez Triviñio, Isaac's mother, was heartbroken over the acquittal on murder charges, saying that the jury's verdict was "homophobic, racist and brainless". A small demonstration was held in Vigo the night after the verdict. Larger demonstrations are planned for Madrid, Barcelona and New York City on March 7th. A Facebook page which has been set up protesting the verdict already has nearly 13,000 members. More details on this story can be found here.

Brutal Buffalo Beheading

On the night of Feb. 12, 2009, Aasiya Hassan was murdered and beheaded by her estranged husband, Muzzammil Hassan, inside the building of the American-Muslim TV venture they operated together. While the murder took place, the couple’s two young children—four-year-old Rania and six-year-old Danyal—were waiting for their mother in a car outside the building, along with Muzzamil Hassan’s 17-year-old son from an earlier marriage.

The brutal account is a reminder that domestic violence often has devastating consequences when it goes untreated. Police records show that the Hassan family had been struggling with Muzzammil Hassan’s abuse long before the alleged murder took place. Muzzammil Hassan, a prominent member of Buffalo’s Muslim community, had for years battled a psychiatric illness that led to violent rages when he went off his medication. His two previous marriages were also marred by abuse allegations.

The Daily Beast has reported more details about the family’s secretive private life. On New Year’s Day 2007, for example, Muzzammil allegedly left Aasiya Hassan’s car in the parking lot of a car dealership outside town to keep her from leaving their home.

Almost two years before the alleged murder, on March 26, 2007, a family court judge in Erie County, N.Y., ordered Muzzammil Hassan to complete “co-parenting” and “anger management” classes.

In July 2007, while on a visit with her in-laws in Texas, Aasiya Hassan files domestic violence charges against her husband. According to the police report, she said that Muzzammil “coerced her into a bedroom.”and "pushed her down onto the bed, sat on her chest and pinned her arms and legs down.” “This was done to ‘make’ her listen to him,” according to the report.

Shedding A Little Baggage, Perhaps

A convicted murderer at the Washington state prison complex in Monroe was hospitalized after his second attempt to cut off his penis.

A spokeswoman for the Monroe Correctional Complex, Cathy Kopoian, says the 49-year-old inmate has a history of mental illness and already had amputated much of his genitals several years ago.

Traditional Healing, Traditional Killing

Traditional healers in Tanzania are defying a government ban intended to stop the killings of people with albinism for ritual medicine.

It comes days after the latest murder of an albino man in Tanzania brought the national death toll to at least 40 since mid-2007. The killers reportedly sell albino body parts - including limbs, hair, skin and genitals - to witchdoctors. In November, a six-year-old Burundi girl was found dead, in connection with trafficking of body parts by traditional healers.

Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda announced the government was revoking the licenses of all traditional healers effective immediately. In the most recent case late last month, an albino man - named as Jonas Maduka - was killed in Sogoso village in the north-western Mwanza region.

He was reportedly eating dinner at home when some people called and asked for his help. When he went outside he was strangled, before his assailants chopped off his leg and made away with the limb.

The Tanzanian authorities have arrested more than 90 people in recent months - including four police officers - on suspicion of killing albinos or of trading in their body parts.

Update On The "House Of Horrors"

An Indian businessman and his servant have been sentenced to death in a case dubbed "the house of horrors". Although suspected in the disappearance of 40 children and the killing of up to 19 victims, they were eventually convicted for the murder of 14-year-old Rimpa Haldar. The crime resulted in widespread indignation, with many accusing the police of negligence. See my original blog post for more details on the crime that shocked the country.

'Tis The Season for Dismemberment, Suicide and Cannibalism

Accused killer Sydney Teerhuis claims he was fascinated with death and carefully plotted out his own demise in a bizarre arrangement with a Vancouver man.

Teerhuis is on trial for having sex with a man and then killing him, stabbing him 68 times, cutting his body into eight pieces, and removed all his organs. The two men were strangers, having met earlier in a bar.

Jurors in Teerhuis' trial also heard testimony of how he agreed to be murdered and cannibalized while living out west in 2001. In that incident, Teerhuis claims he and a friend went and purchased a massive pressure cooker, a large amount of sleeping pills and even selected a specific date.

"I told him the only way I'd do it is if he kept all my bones in a trunk under his bed," 39-year-old Teerhuis wrote in his journal. Teerhuis said the plan fell through when the man abruptly changed his mind and returned to his native India.

"I still think about him every now and then and hope someday I will run into him so he can cook me," Teerhuis wrote. He said he later ran the idea by a former roommate of his who was living in Edmonton but it never materialized. "I will wait to find the right man or men who'd be willing to have me on their dinner table," Teerhuis added.

Read the full story for more gruesome details.