Crime

BANGKOK (THE NATION/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - A man, who claimed to be "the father of all religions" and allegedly told his followers to eat his waste, has been arrested on several charges after 11 corpses, mostly belonging to his followers, were found at his campsite in the central Chaiyaphum province of Thailand.

The cult leader was identified only as Thawee, 74, a resident of Nong Rua district of Khon Kaen province, Chaiyaphum Governor Kraisorn Kongchalard said on Monday (May 9).

He was arrested on Sunday when a celebrity shaman, Jiraphan Phetkhao, better known as Mor Pla, led police and authorities from other government agencies to raid the campsite located in a forest in a village in Tambon Dong Klang of Chaiyaphum's Khon San district.

Jiraphan claims to have special powers to help people affected by superstition, and runs a TV programme in which he campaigns against those he calls fake shamans and Buddhist monks who violate the monk laws.

Jiraphan said a woman had sought his help after her mother went to the campsite, which was regarded by followers as a "hermitage", and was allegedly not allowed to return home.

Ms Jenjira, 53, a resident of Khon Kaen, told Jiraphan that her mother, Noi, 80, went to the hermitage and had not returned home, saying she later learnt that the followers were told to eat the mucus, urine, excrement, and dandruff of "The Father" Thawee because all waste from him could cure all diseases.

When Mor Pla, the Chaiyaphum governor and Khon San police chief Colonel Watanachai Janhathum arrived with other authorities at the campsite, they found Thawee was surrounded by some 30 followers, who appeared to be middle-aged and elderly people.

They stayed together in a large make-shift wooden hut whose roof was made of grass leaves.

When the authorities arrived, no one in the hut was wearing a face mask to protect themselves against Covid-19.

All the followers reportedly affirmed their belief to the authorities that they thought Thawee was "Father, the God" who could cure them of all diseases.

But the 11 bodies, including one of Thawee's mother, kept at the campsite - both in the main hut and satellite huts, apparently proved otherwise.

Shockingly, several of them drank Thawee's urine and ate his scurf - flaky skin - fresh from his arms in front of the authorities.

The followers admitted to the authorities that the bodies belonged to sick followers who had died at the campsite after they went there to seek treatment from "The Father". They wanted their bodies to remain there for "The Father" to later send them to "heaven".

[More at link]

A teenage girl was raped and choked to death by an Iraqi migrant as the boat they were on sank in the Mediterranean, horrified witnesses have claimed, with the attacker surviving the shipwreck that saw dozens killed off Italy.

Survivors claimed the man carried out the unspeakable attack after seeing his wife and daughter drown, Italian media reports, 'venting' his fury on the helpless 16-year-old girl.

The teenager was raped and suffocated in front of her distraught mother by the 27-year-old man as the sail boat sank, news agency AGI reports citing a police investigation.

The man has since been arrested on suspicion of murdering the girl, who was also of Iraqi origin and had been making the journey to Europe with her mother. She survived the disaster and reported her daughter's killing to police.

Only twelve people were rescued from the ship, which officials believe had been carrying around 70 people, including more than two dozen children. One of the survivors later died and more than half of the bodies have been recovered.

In a statement, officers confirmed the sailing boat was adrift off the coast of Italy when the man 'vented his aggression on a 16-year-old Iraqi girl, the daughter of another survivor, leading to her death by suffocation'.

A police spokesperson did not immediately confirm details of the attack.

Those who made it out with their lives described their perilous journey, telling charity workers that 'they were travelling without life jackets and that some boats did not stop to help them.'

The boat's engine reportedly exploded, leaving it adrift, with pictures showing it sinking before it became completely submerged with only its mast visible.

The survivors were brought to the port of Roccella Ionica after the ordeal, which took place overnight between June 16 and 17. A female survivor later died.

Paris Hilton, the American socialite and media figure, has told a congressional panel looking into strengthening child welfare protections that she was “force-fed medications and sexually abused by staff” while she was institutionalized as a teenager.

Hilton, an outspoken advocate for better protections for children in youth facilities, told the House committee on ways and means on Wednesday that she had been “violently restrained and dragged down hallways, stripped naked and thrown into solitary confinement”.

The 43-year-old has previously described how she was subjected to “a parent-approved kidnapping” at four different youth facilities as her parents searched for solutions to her rebellious behavior and “fell for the misleading marketing of the troubled teen industry”.

She has characterized the “tough love” teen course-correction business as a $50bn industry that includes therapeutic boarding schools, military-style boot camps, juvenile justice facilities and behavior-modification programs.

On Wednesday, the reality TV star said she found her institutional experience “isolating and traumatic” and that she had been prevented from alerting her parents to what was happening because phone calls were monitored.

“It’s really difficult to tell anyone in the outside world. A lot of these kids are not believed because these places tell the parents they’re being lied to and manipulated because they want to go home,” Hilton told the panel.

It's pretty upsetting...

I knew about him marrying his adopted daughter and what not, but I was today year's old when I learned he was accused of abusing his other daughter... And it was reiterated as true again by Dylan Farrow in her adult life.

A British tourist was allegedly gang-raped on a Paris street after partying at a music festival over the weekend in a twisted attack that may have been filmed, cops said.

The victim was found crying and clutching her underwear after leaving the Olympia concert hall in the French city’s 9th arrondissement in the early hours of Saturday, local outlet Le Figaro reported.

The distraught woman, who was rushed to a nearby hospital, told investigators that a group of men had dragged her to a secluded area and sexually assaulted her.

Gunmen opened fire in two cities in Russia’s north Caucasus region of Dagestan, targeting a synagogue, two Orthodox churches and a police post and killing at least six police officers and a priest, officials said.

In the city of Derbent, gunmen attacked a synagogue, home to a Jewish community in the predominantly Muslim region. Russia’s state media Tass said the attackers also shot at two nearby Orthodox churches, killing a police officer and a priest.

Footage published on social media from Derbent showed a group of gunmen engaged in heavy fire with police.

Officials said the Derbent synagogue was set on fire and a clip from the scene appeared to show flames coming out of the building, which is listed as a Unesco heritage site.

In a separate shooting occurring simultaneously, a group opened fire on police in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, located about 75 miles north along the Caspian Sea coast. According to local authorities, at least one police officer was killed and six others injured.

A clip posted by Russian media from Makhachkala showed scenes of gunfire and a burned police vehicle.

The Russian interior ministry said in a statement that six police officers had been killed in the two shootings and 12 injured.

Officials in Dagestan appeared to confirm the shootings were linked.

Security questions were raised today over how two Just Stop Oil activists managed to get into a private area of Stansted Airport and spray orange paint over two planes.

Jennifer Kowalski, 28, and Cole Macdonald, 22, were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage after gaining access to the airfield and damaging the private jets.

Just Stop Oil said pop star Taylor Swift's jet had landed at Stansted only hours before, but MailOnline can confirm that her plane was not one of the two targeted.

Swift is believed to have chartered the jet to take her mother Andrea and father Scott to London for her shows at Wembley Stadium from tomorrow until Sunday.

It touched down at about 11pm last night along with an array of goods including a case of wine, before the luggage was transferred into a convoy of seven vehicles.

Just Stop Oil later confirmed that its activists used a website which tracks the location of commercial planes and private jets to confirm that Swift's was there.

Aviation expert Julian Bray told MailOnline this afternoon that because the protesters were entering a protected airport area, they could be prosecuted under the Air Navigation Laws with intent to danger an aircraft, rather than just criminal damage.

He continued: 'Harrods Aviation and others who control the private terminal need to rethink security as clearly this is lacking. Essex Police also need to raise their game as they seemed to be unaware of the serious security breach.

Gill is accused of shooting 29-year-old Jasvir Kaur, who died from her injuries and her 20-year-old cousin. The cousin, who is not yet identified, remains hospitalized.

The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office says Gill is from Kent, Washington. Authorities have not offered a reason as to why he allegedly shot these two women or if he is connected to them in some way.

Both women lived together at a home one block away from the shooting scene on Roosevelt Avenue.

News 12 New Jersey spoke with the owner of the house about Kaur.

“She’s working six days a week. She goes to work and not anywhere else,” Gurmukh Singh says. “She’s married, yes.” Kaur works at the Amazon facility in Carteret. Her husband is a truck driver and was out of town at the time of the shooting.

Gill was captured by police following a six-hour manhunt.

After being processed, Callihan confessed to reporters Friday to kidnapping the two children, eventually killing the youngest child.

“I actually found out earlier that morning, whenever I had gotten on Facebook,” Hemphill said. “It was the first thing I’d seen... that Callie had been murdered and [her] kids were missing.”

After seeing that post, Hemphill recalled a message she received from her brother.

“I had received messages off of Callie’s Facebook the day prior, saying that it was an emergency,” she said. “He called me like 13 times off messenger. And then, he was asking for money, but he wanted me to call not text.”

She decided to call the police in Louisiana to report her brother’s possible involvement.

“I’m just lost for words because I really tried to help him,” Hemphill said.

Hemphill said she’s not surprised by his actions because her family tried to warn the authorities.

“If they would have listened to us two years ago here in Lincoln County ... I tried every day for the past two years. And I have proof. I tried.”

Hemphill said she believes this behavior stemmed from their mother’s abuse.

“The situation that we grew up with didn’t help none of us, honestly,” Hemphill said. “We watched men do things to her just because she owed him money. The things they did to us ...”

Hemphill believes her brother was doing what he does best at that moment, being a master manipulator.

“He would have slept just fine doing what he did to that baby and her mom and possibly the older baby that he was going to do it to. He would have slept fine. He thought he was gonna get away with it.”

A man shot a woman and her infant son to death inside of a home in Deerfield Beach Thursday morning, then turned the gun on himself, but survived, deputies say. He is now in critical condition in the hospital.

Andre Lanns, 27, was arrested Thursday on two counts of first-degree murder in the killing of Marrina Guadagnino and her son, Andre Lanns III, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said Friday. Though the name would indicate that Lanns is the father, the relationship between Lanns and the woman and son could not immediately be confirmed by deputies. Just before 6 a.m., Broward Sheriff’s Office Deerfield Beach deputies responded to reports of a shooting in the 4000 block of Eastridge Drive, according to a media release. There, they found Lanns in the street with an “apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

When deputies went into a nearby home, they found Guadagnino and the infant boy with gunshot wounds. Both were pronounced dead. The release did not provide the age of the boy.

BALTIMORE -- Maryland Gov. Wes Moore pardoned more than 175,000 marijuana convictions Monday in a sweeping executive order. It impacts misdemeanor charges for people who were found guilty of possessing small amounts of marijuana.

More than 150,000 of the convictions being pardoned are misdemeanors for simple possession of cannabis, and another 18,000 misdemeanors are for use or possession with intent to use drug paraphernalia.

"Today we take a big step in enacting the kinds of policies that can reverse the harm of the past and to help us to work together to build a brighter future," the governor said at a press conference Monday. "This is a really big deal."

Gujarat is a very Hindu & vegetarian province. The guy was circulating a pamphlet (perhaps among Muslims) on how to perform Qurban - the animal sacrifice Muslims do, particularly around this time of the year as it is eid.

It doesn't bode well for religious tolerance and secularism in India.

The father of a Minnesota transgender high school student who says she was beaten in school said Thursday he wants the students who beat or harassed his daughter to face criminal charges.

Mark Walztoni tells CNN his 17-year-old daughter Cobalt Sovereign, a junior at Hopkins High School in Minnetonka, was in the school bathroom last Thursday when a student started calling her transphobic slurs. While she was leaving the bathroom, Walztoni says his daughter said she was surrounded by that student and two others, who began following Sovereign down the hall, and when she turned around to ask them to stop, she was punched in the mouth.

During the attack, according to Walztoni, Sovereign’s jaw was broken in two places. She had a compound fracture and lost teeth, leading to reconstructive surgery. Walztoni says the students responsible should face criminal charges.

“There has to be repercussions for their actions. And if they are not charged for some reason, which is our fear, then that is just going to further escalate their behavior because when you get away with stuff, you continue to do stuff,” he said. “There needs to be some kind of punishment and there needs to be some serious discussion as to whether those kids should be able to come back to the same school.”

He also says he was notified about the incident from a social worker at the school and was told by school officials to notify the police, adding he was displeased the incident “wasn’t treated as an emergency.”

Walztoni also tells CNN he is unsure if his daughter will be safe going back to school and wants to see changes.

“It’s unacceptable. The whole transphobia and homophobia thing is, in my opinion, so 20th century, or it should be a thing of the past. And it’s clear that the climate is getting worse in this regard,” he told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source.” “We have a tremendous amount of community support here and Cobalt feeling very loved but it’s you know it’s the kids that are there today aren’t safe.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/17260887

Elaborate scheme involved hidden camera and an earpiece to hear answers.

A court in central Russia on Wednesday placed the director general of the Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant (ChEMK), under arrest in a high-profile pedophilia prosecution.

The hearing, which was held behind closed doors, concluded with an order that ChEMK CEO, Pavel Khodorovsky, be held in pre-trial detention for two months, which is standard practice in Russia.

The local chapter of the Russian Investigative Committee has announced that “Criminal cases have been initiated against the director and other persons for committing crimes against the sexual integrity of minors and public morals,” .

The court has also ordered the detention of a young woman whose identity has not been publicly disclosed. According to local media reports, the woman had sexual relations with Khodorovsky when she was a minor, and allegedly acted as a pimp on his behalf, after coming of age.

“The middlewoman used to be a girlfriend of Khodorovsky, but she grew too old, and he asked her to get him younger girls. The girlfriend delivered girls she knew to him, getting money in exchange,” a source close to the investigation told local 74.RU media outlet.

At least two underage girls have reportedly been identified in the case. One, who is already 16-years-old, the age of sexual consent Russia, allegedly slept with Khodorovsky for money, while another, a younger minor, became the target of “indecent actions” on his part.

The article includes disturbing descriptions of the attack on the cat.

A Los Angeles socialite who was convicted of murder for killing two young boys with her car during a chase with her lover whined to the judge that she has suffered enough — then broke down as she was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.

Rebecca Grossman, 60 — who killed brothers Jacob, 8, and Mark Iskander, 11, in a hit-and-run incident in 2020 — made a desperate plea to Superior Court Judge Joseph Brandolino to go easy on her as prosecutors demanded she receive the max of 34 years to life in state prison.

Her lawyers argued for her to be let off with probation.

But Brandolino gave her 15 years to life, and ordered her to pay $47,000 in restitution — saying she was “not a monster as the prosecutors portrayed her to be.”

The judge cited Grossman’s history has a philanthropist in giving her the more lenient sentence.

“I am not a murderer, and I ask you to recognize that true fact,” Grossman wrote in a letter to the judge — despite being convicted of second-degree murder in February.

“My pain, my recognition of the pain the Iskanders suffer, and the pain I watch my family endure, are punishments that I already suffer and will for the rest of my life,” she added.

“Please consider this suffering when you consider what more punishment to impose on me in this case.”

This is wild:

Peter Grossman stood by his wife through her trial, despite revelations that she was drinking with her then-lover, former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Scott Erickson before the crash. ... Prosecutors say she was racing Erickson in her Mercedes GLE 43 AMG and reached speeds up to 81 mph before the fatal crash.

Spoiler: Suspect survives. He was able to flee on foot and then drive off in a truck, so his injuries are not severe.

Police in Los Angeles seized more than 2,800 boxes of stolen LEGO sets from a 71-year-old man's home Wednesday, authorities said.

Officers arrested 71-year-old Richard Siegel and his alleged accomplice, 39-year-old Blanca Gudino, after raiding the elderly man's Long Beach home, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

The individual boxes have a retail value ranging from $20 to well over $1,000, police said.

Detectives started investigating the case after a retailer in San Pedro identified Gudino as the suspect who had allegedly robbed them several times last December.

Very sad story.

Here is the video of the shooting via Twitter. Yes, it is kind of disturbing - not gore, but disturbing.