New Bigfoot pictures from Pennsylvania
October 31, 2007 | 89 Comments
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A PHOTOGRAPH taken by a hunter in Pennsylvania has reignited debate over the existence of Bigfoot.
Rick Jacobs claims to have taken the pictures using a camera hung from a tree with an automatic trigger.
“We couldn’t figure out what they were,” Mr Jacobs said in a report by the Associated Press. “I’ve been hunting for years and I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Bigfoot enthusiasts say it appears to be the real deal but, perhaps predictably because of the quality of the photos, other experts say it looks like a bear “with a severe case of mange”, according to AP.
What do you think?
Second Life sex toy fraud case goes to court
October 30, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Six Second Life-based store owners in the US are taking a 36-year-old man to court for allegedly counterfeiting shoes, clothes, beds and sex toys, The New York Post reported.
One of the store owners, Kevin Alderman, told the Post that the man allegedly copied items from his Second Life store, which sells products embedded with codes to allow sex between online characters.
“It’s stealing,” Alderman told the newspaper.
Another user, Shannon Grei, said that she had been selling virtual clothing online without any problems until the man allegedly started copying her products, which sell between 50 cents and $4.
“Over time, it’s going to add up, and it’s going to add up quickly,” Ms Grei said.
The group’s lawyer, Frank Tanney, told the Post that he believed they had a strong case against the user.
“This is not a joke,” Mr Tanney said.
“This is not a game. This hurts them.”
The user in the middle of the controversy reportedly said that he had done nothing wrong.
“They can say whatever they want to say,” he reportedly said.
“It’s a video game.”
Russian murder junkie sentenced to life
October 30, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Russian “chessboard killer” Alexander Pichushkin, who proudly confessed to the murders of 48 people, was condemned to life in prison by a Moscow court.
The judge at the Moscow City Court asked Pichushkin whether he had understood the sentence, to which the killer, dressed in grey and black, replied: “I am not deaf.”
The 33-year-old, who says he revelled in stuffing victims down sewers and had been hoping to kill one person for all 64 squares on a chessboard, lowered his eyes as the sentence was read out and appeared to smile.
Only a few relatives of his victims were there to hear judgement passed. They listened in silence.
Throughout the sentencing hearing, Pichushkin lounged back inside his glassed-off booth in the courtroom, with one foot on a bench in front of him, oblivious to the huge crowd of journalists.
The judgement was the maximum allowed in Russia since the death penalty is under moratorium. Defence lawyers had asked for 25 years prison.
Last week Pichushkin was found guilty of 48 murders and three attempted murders after 10 weeks of horrifying testimony.
He has never shown remorse for his crimes and even claims that the real body count was 63 - beating his self-described role model Andrei Chikatilo, the most famous of the Soviet-era serial killers who was convicted in 1992 of 52 murders.
Pichushkin killed his first victim, a fellow student, in 1992.
He killed the others between 2002 and 2006, most of them in the sprawling Bitsevsky park on the outskirts of Moscow, earning Pichushkin the nickname in the Russian media of “the Bitsevsky Maniac.”
He at first simply pushed his victims down a hatch into a sewer below the park, but took to bludgeoning them with a hammer first after some victims managed to climb out.
After many false leads he was arrested in June last year in an elaborate operation in which special forces officers dangled on ropes from the outside of his apartment building to prevent him from a possible suicide attempt.
Addressing the court after his guilty verdict last week, Pichushkin revelled in his crimes and mocked the court.
“For 500 days I have been under arrest and for all this time you have all decided my fate. At one time I alone decided the fate of 60 people,” he said.
“I alone was the judge and prosecutor and the executioner. I was God. I alone fulfilled all of your functions.”
The only regret Pichushkin has shown is with regard to his initial victim, Mikhail Odiichuk - originally meant to be an accomplice.
Pichushkin said he strangled Odiichuk as they searched for likely places to hide their future victims.
“He did not know that he was searching for his own grave,” Pichushkin said.
Afterwards, the killing became an addiction, he said.
Man poisons brothers wedding: two dead
October 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Ambe Abdillahi Omer, 39, apparently poisoned sweets he handed out at Saturday’s celebration near the Ethiopian border, and also put poison in water jugs and on eating utensils.
The local chairman of Faraweine, Hassan Mohamed Abdirahman, said one of Omer’s brothers and a sister had died. Omer’s mother and four other people were seriously ill in hospital.
“He distributed about 200 poisoned lollies to all who participated in the ceremony,” Abdirahman said. “It is a miracle that the bride and bridegroom are safe.”
The chairman said Omer had confessed to trying to kill as many people as possible, and said he had no regrets. The motive behind the attack remained unclear, the official said.
Intruder kills himself in break-in accident
October 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment
A grandfather has told how he desperately tried in vain to save the life of a burglar who was breaking into his home.
The burglar bled to death in the man’s frontyard after he tripped and slashed his throat while he climbed through a bedroom window.
The resident, who didn’t want to be named, said the burglar’s throat “looked like an axe had hit it” after he came down face first on the jagged glass.
The deadly mishap occurred in the Adelaide suburb of O’Sullivan Beach at 2.10am yesterday after the burglar used a concrete garden statue to smash his way into the main bedroom.
Police believe the burglar stumbled on a piece of the statue, which had broken when it struck the window.
The couple, sleeping less than one metre away from the window, were showered with glass.
“He threw one of our statues through the window,” the man said.
“It was a hell of a bang when it came through. My wife woke up screaming.”
The middle-aged man said he told his horrified wife to call police before peering out the window to see who was there.
“I didn’t know whether I was going to be fighting for my life or running for my life,” the man said.
“I didn’t know whether it would be one person or more or whether they would try and attack me.”
The resident was stunned to discover the burglar lying unconscious outside the window “in a pool of blood”.
“He wasn’t trying to talk; he was well past that,” he said.
“I took a couple of towels out there and tried to stop the bleeding.
“Once I realised he wasn’t going to attack me, I wanted to try and help him.
“I felt his pulse but he was just cold and clammy.
“He wasn’t moving and he was barely breathing.
“You could hear the air going in and out through his throat; not his nose and mouth.
“By then I realised there was nothing I could do.”
“My guess is he slipped when he tried to get inside.
“He was only wearing thongs and he must have slipped and fallen.”
