The Null Device

Posts matching tags 'murder'

2008/1/25

A pilot for Indonesian national airline Garuda has been jailed for poisoning a human-rights activist on a flight to Amsterdam in 2004 (considerably after the end of the Suharto regime). It is believed that he acted on behalf of the Indonesian security services, though no-one from the services was actually charged.

crime human rights indonesia murder 0

2007/8/9

After publishing a best-selling crime novel detailing a gruesome torture and murder, Polish crime novelist Krystian Bala has been charged with a similar murder which happened a few years earlier, the victim having been a friend of his ex-wife:

The case was broadcast on Poland’s version of the BBC television programme Crimewatch but it produced no serious leads — only some strange e-mails sent from internet cafés in Indonesia and South Korea, describing the murder as “the perfect crime”.
The first break for the police came when they discovered that Mr Bala, a highly experienced diver, was on a diving trip to South Korea and Indonesia at the time that the e-mails were sent. Then they discovered that he had sold a mobile phone four days after the body of Dariusz J was discovered. It was the same model that the victim was known to have owned, but that police had never found.
Mr Bala offered to take a lie-detector test to prove his innocence and passed. When the transcripts were read out in court, the judge was struck by the very long pauses taken by Mr Bala before answering, a technique that may allow a suspect to mask the physical signs of lying.
Of course, that doesn't mean that he did it, though it does start to look somewhat suspicious.

Meanwhile, some light has been shed on another murder mystery, the whereabouts of Lord Lucan; some people, including a retired Scotland Yard detective believe that the disgraced peer, who may have bludgeoned his family nanny to death, is living out of a car in New Zealand, with a cat and a pet possum, no less:

Neighbours say the man has an upper-class English accent and a military bearing like Lord Lucan, who was educated at Eton before serving in the Coldstream Guards.
He is said to have arrived in New Zealand about the time Lucan disappeared and is also understood to be receiving money from property he owns in Britain.

crime england history life imitating art literature lord lucan murder new zealand poland 0

2004/12/25

The Independent has a piece about the cost of Christmas:

£20m: Amount made by Mark Tilden, British robot expert who invented Robosapien, this year's hit toy
£20m: Amount nations of sub-Saharan Africa are paying in debt to developed world every 16 hours
30,525: Number of miles your Christmas dinner will have travelled to reach your table - vegetables alone are likely to have come 15,800 miles
4.2%: Rise in murder rate over Christmas

(via 1.0)

christmas food miles murder 0

2004/11/28

Teenaged girl has her mother murdered, posts about it to her LiveJournal (which is titled "My Crappy Life").

Just to let everyone know, my mother was murdered
I wont have computer acess (sic) until the weekend or so because the police took my computer to go through the hard drive. I thank everyone for their thoughts and e-mails, I hope to talk to you when I get my computer back.

Apparently the issue that touched off this unusually fatal bout of teen-angst had to do with Mom keeping food away from her and threatening to send her to fat camp; so she got two of her ex-boyfriends (both 24 years old) to help her out. Not surprisingly, the entry has attracted over 2,000 comments, alternating between variants of "hope you rot in hell" and "nice to see everyone here is so quick to judge", and then degenerating into goatse and such.

crime emo livejournal murder 1

2004/11/2

A Dutch filmmaker who made a controversial film about violence against women in Islamic societies has been murdered in Amsterdam. Theo van Gogh (a relative of the painter) was shot and stabbed to death whilst cycling in a park. A collaborator of his (liberal Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who fled an arranged marriage and is an outspoken critic of human-rights abuses in the name of Islam) also received death threats, and is under police protection.

ayaan hirsi ali islam islamism murder netherlands terrorism theo van gogh 0

2004/11/1

A cross-dressing Hasidic man was charged with murder after the death of a rabbi, with whom he was sharing a flat, in New York.

Goldstein was dressed in a gray blouse with a plunging neckline, dark slacks and pink high-heeled shoes, a police source said. His face was made up with bright red lipstick and blue eye shadow that clashed with his long beard, the source said.

(via tyrsalvia)

bizarre crime death hasidic jewish murder religion transvestites wtf 0

2004/9/24

"I've never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I'm going to be blunt and plain: If one ever looks at me like that, I'm going to kill him and tell God he died."
-- Jimmy Swaggart.

You know, "I'm gonna kill him and tell God he died" sounds like a country song lyric.

bigotry country homophobia jimmy swaggart murder religiots 2

2004/6/25

Among recent news stories: intelligence "chatter" suggests impending al-Qaeda terrorist attack, possibly timed to coincide with the US elections (could this be the much-speculated-about October Surprise?). Meanwhile, in Israel, a group of soldiers are being investigated over an art exhibition detailing the brutalisation of Palestinians; it seems (from the report) to be more a case of them acting as whistle-blowers than Lynndie England Mk. 2. In the United Nations, the US has given up on renewing its immunity from war crimes prosecution, after realising that they weren't going to get it; however, in Iraq, they are pushing for immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law, with, of course, the full agreement of the Iraqi people. And in England and Wales, authorities are re-examining more than 100 murders which they suspect of being "honour killings"; there appears to be a sophisticated infrastructure for such killings, with "bounty hunters" making a business out of tracking down victims.

crime honour killings islam israel murder palestine terrorism usa 0

2004/5/29

A 14-year-old boy in Manchester used internet chatrooms to arrange his own murder; masquerading as, among others, a 16-year-old girl, her step-brother, and a secret service agent named Janet, he managed to talk a 16-year-old boy he had never met into stabbing him. The other boy was told that it was an initiation into the secret services, and that the target was dying of cancer, which made him expendable; if successful, he was told he would get £500,000, a gun and a meeting with the Prime Minister. It apparently did not occur to him that there was anything unusual about this arrangement (persumably that's standard MI5 procedure for recruiting teenagers in chat rooms).

Update: more details have emerged, and it turns out that the stabbee had a hopeless crush on the boy who stabbed him, and instructed him (in secret-agent guise) to say the "codeword" "I love you, bro" as he did the deed. This is sounding more and more like a Smiths song.

alienation angst crime manchester mi5 murder suicide 0

2004/4/29

Life imitates Christopher Brookmyre novels: a nurse in Britain is on trial for being somewhat overzealous in tackling the bed-blocker problem, to the extent of attempting to hasten several patients' journey through death's door. In her efficiency drive, Barbara Salisbury is alleged to have given patients overdoses of diamorphine and withdrawn their oxygen supplies.

Salisbury, who was described by the prosecution as an experienced, capable and efficient nurse, is accused of attempting to murder Frances May Taylor, 88, in March 2002 in that she inappropriately administered diamorphine using the syringe pump, telling a colleague: "Why prolong the inevitable."
She is accused of attempting, 10 days later, to murder Frank Owen, 92, by instructing another member of nursing staff to lay Mr Owen on his back, allegedly adding: "With any luck his lungs will fill with fluid and he will die."

I wonder whether (assuming that the charges are true, of course) she was acting out of a personal cruel streak, or whether this is merely the most extreme manifestation of an institutional focus on patient turnover in the Thatcherite/Blairite health system in Britain (as was the plot of Brookmyre's Quite Ugly One Morning; though, granted, Brookmyre seems to write from a Scottish-socialist point of view).

death efficiency euthanasia medicine murder thatcherism-blairism 2

2004/3/10

Not only can the iPod hold your entire music collection, its sturdy metal construction makes it ideal for bludgeoning people to death too.

("A message from the RIAA: MP3 piracy kills. Any questions?")

Meanwhile, you may want to avoid Masonic initiations as well, especially if they involve handguns believed to contain blanks.

crime freemasonry ipod murder 7

2004/2/8

Good news for anyone who wants someone rubbed out: contract killings are now affordable, undoubtedly due to the in-built efficiencies of a vigorously competitive market, and now the services of a hitman can be yours (or, indeed, your psychopathic ex's) for as little as A$380. Most hits are relationship-motivated, ordered either by people wishing to murder their cheating partners, eliminate an inconvenient spouse who's lost that loving feeling in order to pursue a new relationship, or prevent an ex-partner from seeing anybody else or getting custody of children. (via the Darwin list)

business crime economics murder 1

2004/1/6

Brothel staff shocked by corpse found in bin. It's not quite a headless body in a topless bar, but it's in the same neighbourhood.

bizarre crime murder prostitution 0

2003/11/21

The world is in shock today as Michael Jackson was charged with sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy, believed to have been a cancer survivor relying on Jackson to pay for treatment. Everywhere you go there is a stunned silence as people struggle to come to grips with the possibility of Jackson having done such a thing. And with the King of Pop's career in ruins, the world of pop music has been particularly hard-hit, and now faces an indefinite period of anarchy and turmoil.

In other news, Phil Spector has been charged with murder.

michael jackson murder paedophilia phil spector 1

2003/2/4

Legendary record producer Phil Spector, best known for pioneering the "Wall of Sound" production technique in the 1960s, has been charged with murder after a woman was shot dead in Los Angeles.

murder phil spector 1

2003/1/12

Could this be the most authentic gangsta rap song ever? Bandit holds up a fast-food place, kills five people execution-style, and then writes a rap song about it.

I said give me the doe you say no, no?
is it no you said stick some lead to your head
guess what punk now your dead
with all that blood bursting out your Head
from Head to toe if you wanna know I gotta go,
thats why they got me on
the worlds most wanted show

Police found the handwritten lyrics in a suitcase, along with stolen money. Instead of a chance to record with Dr Dre, the author got the death penalty for his trouble. Maybe keepin' it real isn't such a good idea after all. (via rotten.com)

authenticity gangsta rap keepin' it real murder thug life 0

2002/12/6

This is what happens when street theatre goes bad: Radical-leftist fruitloop Andrew McCrae decided to protest police brutality, corporate irresponsibility and "police-state tactics", so he did the most logical thing, and shot and killed a police officer as he was refuelling his car in California. Prior to doing this, he registered himself as a corporation, giving himself immunity from prosecution, or at least turning the inevitable trial into a dramatisation of corporate excesses. Ooh, clever move, that. Afterwards, he posted a rant on IndyMedia, confessing to the murder and justifying it as a political statement. Soon afterwards, the police cornered him at a hotel, from which he tried to deliver a "Declaration of Renewed Independence" to a journalist.

Not surprisingly, the authorities (and indeed a lot of the posters on IndyMedia) are being pigheadedly literal-minded and refusing to view this as just a piece of street theatre.

extremists insanity murder protest 3

2002/10/21

10 shot, 2 dead at Monash University; in the History department on the 6th floor of the Menzies building, to be precise. wtf?

crime monash university murder 7

2002/7/30

Is Adelaide the murder capital of the world, or does it just feel that way?

adelaide murder 6

2002/7/17

2002/7/2

When two professors were murdered recently at Dartmouth University, the police followed a number of leads whilst looking for the killer. One of the leads was a disgruntled former dishwasher named Ludwig Poehlmann, better known as Archimedes Plutonium, author of numerous Usenet rants about his revolutionary religioscientific theories.

''It was (Hanover Police Chief Nick) Giaccone's impression that Plutonium, although a very odd individual, was not associated with the murders ... and that no further investigation was required into Plutonium,'' a police report states.

Sounds a bit Lynchian, wouldn't you say?

archimedes plutonium murder psychoceramics 3

2002/4/20

Life riffs off David Lynch movies: Robert Blake, who played the sinister eyebrowless cameraman in David Lynch's Lost Highway, has been arrested for murdering his wife in real life. (via Lukelog)

crime david lynch hollywood life imitating art murder robert blake 0

2001/12/9

Who was Jack the Ripper? Crime novelist Patricia Cornwell believes it was renowned English painter Walter Sickert, and even bought and cut up one of his paintings in an attempt to prove it. Meanwhile this chap thinks that Lewis Carroll was the infamous killer.

crime jack the ripper lewis carroll murder mysteries psychoceramics walter sickert 4

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