Former teacher sentenced in sex case

 Personality disorder? Sure, its called Pedophilia. Maybe because she was a ministers daughter? Why do white people make excuses for this sort of behavior?

LAURENS, S.C. – A former middle school teacher was sent to prison for six years Tuesday for having sexual encounters with five teenage boys. Authorities said Allenna Ward, 24, met 14- and 15-year-old boys at the school where she taught as well as at a motel, a park and behind a restaurant.

“I apologize from the depths of my heart,” Ward said in court.

Police began investigating last year after school officials found a note believed to have been written by Ward to one of the boys. Some of the victims were students at Bell Street Middle School in Clinton, where Ward taught. She was fired about a year ago.

Ward pleaded guilty in September to three counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor and three lewd acts on a minor.

Forensic psychiatrist Donna Schwartz-Watts said Ward is not a pedophile, but rather a childlike victim suffering from personality disorders and a repressed childhood. Schwartz-Watts said the minister’s daughter lived a sheltered life but really was a “free spirit” who never got a chance to break away from her family.

Prosecutors painted Ward’s crimes in a harsher light and said she violated the trust that parents place in teachers.

Some of the victims’ families attended the sentencing but did not speak during the court hearing.

“I just feel like justice has been served,” the sister of one victim said after the hearing. “We’re just glad that it’s all over.”

The Associated Press does not normally identify victims of sexual crimes.

Ward’s lawyer Donald Hocker cited the psychiatric testimony in asking for home imprisonment for his client. Hocker said Ward will be vulnerable to physical and emotional abuse at the hands of other prisoners.

“It’s an awful case with awful consequences, but Allenna Ward is not an awful woman,” Hocker said in court. He declined to speak to a reporter after the hearing.

Ward was sentenced to 15 years in prison for each lewd act count, but the punishments were suspended to six years. She also was sentenced to six years on each second-degree criminal sexual conduct count. The sentences are to run concurrently.

German Internet sex auction sparks paternity row

 Good ol’ fashioned white family values. Sick people…

BERLIN (Reuters) – A woman in Germany who became pregnant after an online sex auction has won a court battle to force the Web site that hosted the sale to reveal the names of the winners, so she can find out who’s the father.

Six different men won Internet auctions to have sex with the woman in April and May last year. They were only known to her by their online names, a spokesman for a court in the southwestern city of Stuttgart said Wednesday.

“The woman wanted to discover which one of the men had made her pregnant,” the spokesman said. “So she needed their contact details. Of course, if they’re not willing to go along with the gene test, she’ll have to take them to court.”

The woman asked the site’s operator to reveal the true identity of the men, but it refused, citing a confidentiality clause in its terms and conditions.

The court ruled in her favor, saying the child’s right to know who its father was took precedence.

The court declined to give the woman’s age and nationality.

Machines ‘to match man by 2029′ ?

Can you say BIOMETRICS? Why are white people such control freaks? Fear of death? 

Machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029, a leading US inventor has predicted.

Humanity is on the brink of advances that will see tiny robots implanted in people’s brains to make them more intelligent said engineer Ray Kurzweil.

He said machines and humans would eventually merge through devices implanted in the body to boost intelligence and health.

“It’s really part of our civilisation,” Mr Kurzweil said.

“But that’s not going to be an alien invasion of intelligent machines to displace us.”

Machines were already doing hundreds of things humans used to do, at human levels of intelligence or better, in many different areas, he said.

Man versus machine

“I’ve made the case that we will have both the hardware and the software to achieve human level artificial intelligence with the broad suppleness of human intelligence including our emotional intelligence by 2029,” he said.

“We’re already a human machine civilisation, we use our technology to expand our physical and mental horizons and this will be a further extension of that.”

Humans and machines would eventually merge, by means of devices embedded in people’s bodies to keep them healthy and improve their intelligence, predicted Mr Kurzweil.

“We’ll have intelligent nanobots go into our brains through the capillaries and interact directly with our biological neurons,” he told BBC News.

The nanobots, he said, would “make us smarter, remember things better and automatically go into full emergent virtual reality environments through the nervous system”.

Mr Kurzweil is one of 18 influential thinkers chosen to identify the great technological challenges facing humanity in the 21st century by the US National Academy of Engineering.

The experts include Google founder Larry Page and genome pioneer Dr Craig Venter.

The 14 challenges were announced at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston, which concludes on Monday.

Judge quits after cross dressing DUI bust

J.Edgar Hoover moment. Why do white men like to dress up as woman?  

A 63-year-old Massachusetts federal bankruptcy judge has resigned a week after he was arrested for driving under the influence in New Hampshire while reportedly wearing a woman’s dress, heels and stockings, and carrying a purse.

Judge Robert Somma, a Newbury resident, pleaded no contest to the drunken driving charge in New Hampshire and agreed to have his license suspended for 12 months, the Manchester Union Leader reported.

“He decided with the media coverage the way it had been, it was best to put this behind him,” Gary Wenta, circuit executive for Boston’s First Federal Circuit, told the Herald.

Wenta said Somma worked in private practice for years in Boston before he was appointed to the bench by President Bush in December 2004. He will remain on leave until he resigns on April 1, after roughly three years on the job.

“He’s a highly respected member of the bar and remains so,” Wenta said. “He was serving a 14-year appointment. This will leave him without a pension.”

The Union Leader reported yesteday that Somma crashed his Mercedes into the rear of a car stopped on Elm Street after leaving a bar in the city last week.

When cops arrived, the paper reported, Somma was wearing a cocktail dress, fishnet stockings, women’s heels and fumbled through a purse for his driver’s license.

Somma had a hard time keeping his balance, smelled of alcohol and slurred his speech, the paper reported, citing the Manchester police report. He failed a field sobriety test and took a breath test at the station that registered a blood-alcohol level of .12.

He told police he drank two gin and tonics at a Manchester bar. He said he came to New Hampshire because his wife was out of town and nobody knew him in the city, the paper reported.

A phone call placed to Somma’s home was not immediately returned yesterday. The Manchester Police Department also did not return a call for comment.

During his career, Somma has hosted numerous legal talks at the Boston Bar Association. He was called on frequently for legal workshops when bankruptcy laws recently changed to help lawyers maneuver through new regulations.

Seven killed at US drag car race

Stick to PS3’s instead. The need for speed, except you only get one life.

Seven people were killed when a car veered into a crowd at an illegal drag race in the United States.

The crash happened at about 0340 (0840 GMT) on Route 210 just outside Accokeek in Maryland – about 20 miles (32km) from Washington DC.

At least four people were injured, police said. Their conditions were not immediately known.

“It’s probably one of the worst scenes I’ve seen,” said Prince George’s County Police Cpl Clinton Copeland.

A white sedan went out of control and ploughed into the crowd of spectators on the roadside, although it was not clear if it was participating in the race, Cpl Copeland said.

It was followed by a tractor-trailer that may also have hit bystanders as it tried to avoid the crash, he said.

He said investigators had “more questions than answers”.

Witnesses told the Associated Press news agency that a crowd of about 50 people had just watched two cars speed past in the race, when another car, with no lights on, veered into spectators.

“There were just bodies everywhere; it was horrible,” Crystal Gaines, 27, told AP.

Her father was among the dead. “He wasn’t breathing, he wasn’t moving,” she said. “His body was in pieces.”

Victims’ bodies were scattered along a 183-metre (200-yard) stretch of road, police said.

The driver of the sedan did not appear to be seriously hurt, but a passenger was among the dead, police said.

Police arrest 22 whites in Ontario as part of massive child porn bust

Is there nothing sacred to white people? Not even children are safe…

TORONTO – Twenty men, one woman and a youth have been arrested and 73 criminal charges have been laid as part of what’s being billed as the largest co-ordinated child porn investigation in Ontario history, provincial police said Tuesday.

The probe, which began last month, involved 25 search warrants in 16 communities across the province and a total of 73 criminal charges, Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino told a news conference.

“Child porn is the sexual abuse of children – a brutal crime committed by despicable predators,” Fantino said.

“Every image of child pornography represents the irrefutable evidence of a child being brutalized; it’s not just about impersonal, abstract images.”

Those charged and identified range in age from 20 to 64 and reside in cities and towns across southern and eastern Ontario, from London, Ont., to Ottawa and as far north as Espanola. The bulk of the charges involve the possession and distribution of child pornography.

One woman – Wendy Allison Potter, 28, of Whitby – faces one count each of possession and make available child pornography. A youth from Hamilton, Ont., who cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, is also charged with possession of child pornography.

Matthew Sankoff, 29, of Toronto, also faces two counts of luring under 14, one count of invitation to sexual touch and one count of exposure to person under 14 in addition to one count each of possession and distribution of child pornography.

The investigation is continuing and “additional arrests” are pending, police said.

Word of the charges came alongside reports of a startling study that shows more than 15,000 people in Ontario are actively using their computers to distribute child pornography.

A special task force in the U.S., with help from Toronto police, discovered that more than 4,000 computers in Toronto alone, were involved in trading images of child sexual abuse, the study found.

“Fair warning to pedophiles,” Fantino said. “You can run, but you can’t hide and sooner or later we will identify you, we will arrest you and we will bring you to justice.”

The study found that in Canada, pornographic images involving children have been traced to more than 205,000 unique computer addresses.

In Ontario, more than 63,000 unique IP addresses have been linked to child porn images.

More details about the 20 men, one woman and one young offender arrested and charged with some 73 criminal counts as part of a massive child-porn bust in Ontario:

-Jay Hutchinson, 24, of Hamilton: one count each of make available child pornography, possession of child pornography;

-Doug MacDonald, 50, of Ottawa: one count each of possession of child pornography, make available child pornography;

-Edwin Morris, 63, of Burlington: one count each of possession of child pornography, access child pornography, make available child pornography;

-Michael E. Shipley, 31, of Milton: one count each of possession of child pornography, access child pornography, make available child pornography;

-Thomas Webb, 56, of Brantford: one count each of possession of child pornography, make available child pornography;

-Wendy Potter, 28, of Whitby: one count each of possession of child pornography, make available child pornography;

-Harry Aseltine, 57, of Oshawa: one count each of possession of child pornography, make available child pornography, possession of a controlled substance.

-Michael Cherry, 37, of London: four counts of possession of child pornography, three counts of making available child pornography.

-Nathan Armstrong, 27, of Peterborough: two counts of possession of child pornography, one count of make available child pornography.

-Matthew McDougall, 20, of Red Lake: two counts of possession of child pornography, one count of making available child pornography.

-Matthew Brunton, 22, of Cornwall: one count each of possession of child pornography, access child pornography.

-Guilio Carere, 46, of Guelph: one count each of possession of child pornography, make available child pornography, possession of a controlled substance.

-Keith Kamenz, 29, of Guelph: one count each of possession of child pornography, make available child pornography.

-Lawrence Bouillon, 44, of Espanola: two counts of possession of child pornography and one count each of make available child pornography, access child pornography, possession of a controlled substance.

-Eric Brown, 25, of Brampton: one count each of possession of child pornography, make available child pornography, access child pornography.

-Michael Avison, 33, of Mississauga: one count each of possession of child pornography, make available child pornography, access child pornography.

-Stephen Burritt, 39, of Sault Ste. Marie: one count each of possession of child pornography, make available child pornography, distribution of child pornography, possession of child pornography for the purpose of distribution; five counts of unsafe storage of firearm; one count each of unsafe storage of ammunition, knowingly possess a prohibited firearm without authorization, possession of prohibited firearm.

-Karl Herman, 64, of Cambridge: one count each of possession of child pornography, make available child pornography.

-Glenn Laurin, 45, of Toronto: one count each of possession of child pornography, make available child pornography.

-Matthew Sankoff, 29, of Toronto: two counts of luring under 14, one count of invitation to sexual touch, one count each of exposure to person under 14, possession of child pornography, distribution of child pornography.

-Leonard Legros, 60, of Ottawa: one count each of possession of child pornography, making available child pornography.

-One young offender from Hamilton: one count of possession of child pornography.

White Gunman opens fire on Illinois campus

Just another day at school. What is it about white culture which turns guys like Stephen Kazmierczak into such killers?

DEKALB, Ill. – A gunman armed with two handguns and a shotgun opened fire Thursday in a packed lecture hall on the campus of Northern Illinois University before killing himself, authorities said. Eighteen people were wounded, three of them critically.

University Police Chief Donald Grady said police had identified the gunman, who he said was not a student at NIU but may have been a student at another school.

Grady would not name the gunman, who shot and killed himself on the stage in Cole Hall, which doubles as an auditorium.

Grady said police knew of no motive for the shooting, which occurred about 4 p.m. ET at the campus in DeKalb, a city of 40,000 nestled in a rural area about 65 miles west of downtown Chicago. Its enrollment is more than 25,000.

In addition to the three people with critical injuries, eight victims were in stable condition, while six were in fair to good condition, University President John Peters said. Kishiwaukee Community Hospital reported that two victims were being airlifted to Rockford Memorial Hospital and that two others with head injuries were expected at St. Anthony Medical Center, also in Rockford.

The condition of the 18th person was not immediately reported.

Paul Sundstrom of Rockford, Ill., one of 150 to 200 students in the geography class when the shooting took place, told NBC affiliate WMAQ that the gunman was a thin white man wearing a black “beanie” and a black trench coat.

The man entered the room from the back, behind the professor, and began shooting without saying a word, Sundstrom said. Firing in the general direction of the students, he emptied his clip of ammunition and calmly reloaded before resuming firing.

“He just walked in and just started shooting at people randomly,” Sundstrom said. “I crawled out to the main aisle, then just got up and ran and turned around and saw him shooting.”

Sundstrom added: “I just don’t know why anybody would want to do anything like this.”

Threat closed school in December
NIU was shut down for a day in December after graffiti were scrawled on a restroom wall warning of a shooting on campus. A spokesman said the warning, which was discovered Dec. 10, made reference to massacre of 33 people last year at Virginia Tech University, but he said it could not be immediately determined whether the threat was related to Thursday’s shootings.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported at the time that an unknown person posted the graffiti in the Grant Towers D complex residence hall. It included a racial slur and the notation, “What time? The VA tech shooters messed up w/ having only one shooter.”

In keeping with a new security system put in place after the Virginia Tech shootings, the university issued an alert at 4:20 p.m. ET Thursday telling students to avoid Kings Common and buildings in the area. The university was locked down, and all classes were canceled through Friday.

Cell phone service in the area was overloaded. The university urged all students to send text messages to their parents to reassure them that they were safe and to aid in accounting for everyone.

Witnesses describe scene of chaos
David Shaffer got a call from his stepdaughter, Lisa Mikolajewski, a senior, minutes after the shooting. She told her father she had not seen the shooting but was calling to let her parents, who live in Phoenix, know she was safe.

Shaffer passed along a Facebook message from his stepdaughter, who said she and her boyfriend were safe.

Mikolajewski wrote that her boyfriend “saw the shooter after he had been shot.”

“Christine (my roommate) was forced into lock down which is why I couldn’t find her. But she sent me a facebook message letting me know that she is safe and at a close friend’s house. So at least as far as I know my friends are safe. I hope it stays that way. No one can get a phone call out. So it’s pretty much chaos.”

Daley Hamilton of DeKalb, who was in Dusable Hall, next to Cole Hall, said he went down to the second floor and discovered a student lying on the ground.

“An administrator told us that the man had been shot,” Hamilton told msnbc.com. “She said he had been shot twice, once in the back and once in the leg. She said he had been dragged over from Cole Hall.

“He was breathing, and everyone was trying to stay calm. They told us not to leave, but I wanted to get home. I left Dusable and walked straight to my apartment.”

T.J. Johnson told msnbc.com that Molly’s, an off-campus bar and eatery, filled with people fleeing the shooting.

“In the last hour and 15 minutes I have seen ambulances from towns up to 30 minutes away rushing towards campus,” he said. “My phone has been on overload because of phone calls, text messages and voice mails, so it has been hard to contact family and friends.

“Everyone has gathered here at Molly’s to keep a close watch on what happens outside of our doors through various news stations and radio. We can only hope for the best for those who have been injured and their families.”

 

 

 

White pervert arrested wearing purple skirt and pink knickers

Why does white society tolerate such people? 

A painter and decorator attempted to kidnap a terrified Swiss student so he could sexually assault her.

Zachary Huckstep, 32, of Pepys Walk, Eastbourne, was wearing a purple lycra skirt and women’s pink knickers when he was eventually arrested by police in July after a group of girls made a complaint about him.

Yesterday, he was given an indefinite jail sentence by Judge Richard Hayward at Lewes Crown Court and ordered to serve a minimum of two years before he will be considered for parole.

Last November, he pleaded guilty to attempted kidnap with the intention of committing a sexual offence, possession of cocaine and supplying cocaine.

At about midnight on May 24, the 16-year-old girl was walking home along St Anthony’s Avenue, Eastbourne, when she was approached by Huckstep in his white van.

The father-of-one spoke to her and told her she was sexy but she said she was tired and did not want to be bothered.

advertisement

Huckstep got out of the van and stood in front of the girl and tried to grab her.

Prosecutor Michael Warren said the defendant offered the girl cocaine and £200 to sleep with her but she told him she was not a prostitute.

Huckstep dropped his trousers and was wearing nothing underneath. The girl turned away and he pulled them up before trying to push her into the van.

He opened the sliding door and lifted her off the ground to put her inside but she stopped him by putting her feet against the side of the van.

The girl, who had martial arts training, managed to get away when she squeezed Huckstep’s throat but he caught her again and she struggled with him before breaking free.

Mr Warren told the court the girl thought Huckstep was going to rape her.

At 5am that morning Huckstep’s neighbour saw him in the window wearing nothing from the waist down. She found a note pushed through her letterbox saying if she wanted to have sex she could come to his house.

On July 2, between 7pm and 10pm he approached six girls aged 18, 16, 15, 14, 13 and 12 asking them for cigarettes and blocking their paths. Some of the girls noticed he was wearing purple underwear.

He was arrested on July 6 after asking a group of girls for cigarettes outside Tesco Express in Seaside, Eastbourne.

Police found a pink bra and pair of black high-heeled shoes in the van and a black dress at his home. A bag of cocaine was found in his trouser pocket and also in the van.

Julien Dale, representing Huckstep, said: “After his wife left him in March last year his drug use became worse and his sexualised behaviour.”

Huckstep will remain on the sex offenders’ register for life and was banned from working with children indefinitely.

He was also made the subject of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) which bans him from having contact with children under the age of 18, except for his own daughter.

White stabber gets 6 years

The crack head originally planned to kill her own mother. 

A 32-year-old woman who stabbed an Asian teenager she called a terrorist has been jailed for six years.

At the High Court in Edinburgh, Mary McKay admitted attempting to murder Tarik Husan, 17, in Tollcross Road, Glasgow, on 10 September, 2007.

Lord Menzies said: “It seems to me this was a completely unprovoked attack on an unarmed stranger in the public street without any explainable motive.”

McKay will be supervised for two years after her release.

She stabbed Mr Husan in the chest and arm at a bus stop in Glasgow and told him “you’re all terrorists”.

‘Expressed remorse’

McKay, who had taken cocaine, later claimed she had gone to stab her mother, but had missed the bus and stabbed Mr Husan instead.

The court heard that after the attack she walked into a shop still clutching the knife and waited for the police to arrive.

“I just stabbed a guy with the same colour of skin as a terrorist,” she later told police.

Mr Husan, 17, had only arrived in Scotland a short time before the attack.

Sentencing, Lord Menzies said McKay would have been facing nine years in prison if she had not pleaded guilty.

“You stabbed this unarmed complete stranger on the left side of his chest and it seems to me that the fact you were under the influence of cocaine at the time was no excuse, indeed it is quite the reverse,” he said.

Defence counsel Allan Nicol said McKay had been a victim of violence and used drugs to block out memories of abuse.

“Immediately after the offence she expressed remorse for this,” he added.

White woman files $54 million lawsuit over lost laptop

She ought to be compensated, but $54 million?! Why didn’t she back up her data? Another example of whites who feel they’re entitled to obscene amounts of money  in frivolous lawsuits.

How much compensation does a consumer deserve for the loss of a laptop computer loaded with personal information? Raelyn Campbell figures it’s $54 million — if you throw in a little extra for lost time and frustration.

Six months after bringing a damaged laptop computer into a Best Buy electronics store for repairs, and three months after the firm admitted losing it, Campbell filed the whopper of a lawsuit recently in Washington, D.C., Superior Court.
Best Buy has told Campbell that her demands are unreasonable, and has tried to settle for far less. But Campbell said she didn’t start out making astronomical demands. Months of stalling and brush-offs by the company led her to the drastic measures, she said.

Best Buy spokeswoman Nissa French said the company couldn’t comment on Campbell’s story, citing the ongoing litigation. A lawyer for Best Buy did not return phone calls or e-mails.

When Campbell bought her new laptop in 2006 at a Best Buy store near her D.C. home, she said a clerk talked her into paying $300 for an extended warranty. She thought that was a fortunate choice when the computer’s on/off switch broke about a year later.

In May, she brought the computer back to the store and was told repairs would take two to six weeks. That wasn’t terribly convenient for Campbell, who works for a nonprofit Asia research firm and travels frequently overseas.

But six weeks turned out to be a wildly optimistic estimate.

The run-around
By late August, when she returned from a trip to Asia, she still had heard nothing from the company and started to get anxious. Her Aug. 24 complaint letter to the firm was filled with exasperation.

“On July 11, I contacted the (store’s) helpline and was instructed by ‘Agent David Goodfellow’ that it would be ‘ready within days,’” she wrote to the firm in a letter dated Aug. 24. “I called the service line again on July 19, and was told by a female agent that the computer appeared to be at the ‘Louisville Services Center since July 4.’ On July 25, I called again and spoke to Brenda, who transferred me to Daniel. Daniel confirmed that a ‘part had just been ordered. It should leave Louisville soon.’ …When I heard nothing further, I called yet again on Aug. 7 and spoke with Ashley. When she could not confirm any additional information, I asked to speak to a manager. I was told the manager, ‘Marsha,’ was in a meeting. I asked her to call ASAP. My call was not returned, so I called again on Aug. 9. I explained the whole situation yet again to ‘Cicero,’ who indicated that there seemed to be a problem.”

The problem was severe: “It never appears to have left the store,” she recounted Cicero as telling her. A few days later, he called back and admitted that the computer had been lost. The way she sees it, the other company clerks had been lying to her all along.

Cicero was considerate, Campbell said, and told her she would be compensated. But two weeks passed, and she hadn’t heard anything from the company.

After several more weeks of fruitless phone calls, she received an offer she calls insulting: $900 for her trouble — in the form of a store gift card. Her blood boiled. She had paid more than $1,100 for the computer and the warranty. And she’d also lost thousands dollars worth of music and thousands of irreplaceable photos.

“It wouldn’t even cover the cost of replacing the computer, let alone the software, or my time,” she said of the gift card offer. “And why would I want to go spend money at their store again after the way I was treated?”

Campbell rejected the offer, instead demanding $2,100 in cash. She said her request went unanswered. In October, she urged family and friends to write to the store saying they wouldn’t shop there until the matter was resolved. To her surprise, the store’s general manager, Robert Delissio, replied to two of them.

“For every customer that has had an unpleasant experience I can show you hundreds who have had a great experience. I have been in retail for a long time and the one conclusion I have come to is that not every customer can be satisfied,” he wrote in an e-mail supplied by Campbell. “Does my store have opportunities? Absolutely! What I can say is that we strive to deliver the experience that every customer deserves to receive.”

Delissio didn’t respond to requests from msnbc.com to discuss the situation; Best Buy wouldn’t comment on the authenticity of the note.

Her frustration mounting, Campbell contacted the Washington, D.C., attorney general’s office, which in turn contacted the store. In November, the store increased its compensation offer, this time offering a $1,100 refund to her credit card and a $500 gift card.

A bigger problem: ID theft
At the same time, she visited a legal aid office and was asked by a lawyer there whether she had any personal information on the computer?

“Of course I did,” she replied. “My tax returns were on there.”

Campbell was informed that she had a bigger problem than a lost computer – the potential for identity theft. She also learned that Best Buy was in violation of the district’s security breach notification law, which requires companies that have lost a consumer’s data to tell them. To date, she has not received that notification.

Campbell immediately enrolled in a $10-a-month identity theft monitoring service.

She also had reached the limit of her patience. In November, she filed her $54 million lawsuit against Best Buy — by herself, without legal representation.

The amount intentionally echoes another lawsuit that made headlines last year — a case involving a D.C. judge who sued a dry cleaner for $54 million over a lost pair of pants. That case was eventually dismissed.
Campbell freely admits she picked the same amount in an effort to attract media attention.

The lawsuit apparently got company’s attention, too. On Dec. 20, it offered $2,500 — in addition to the refund and the gift card — if she would withdraw her lawsuit and sign a confidentiality agreement.

But that’s not enough, Campbell said, because she has yet to hear any explanation for the lost computer.

“It shouldn’t take a $54 million lawsuit to motivate Best Buy to address these issues,” she said. Her initial offer to settle for $2,100 has been withdrawn because her expenses have risen, including time spent filing a police report and consulting with lawyers about her case, she said. Concerns about identity theft also add to her potential damages, she said.

Wants an explanation
While Campbell has no expectation she will win a multimillion-dollar judgment, she feels she is entitled to damages related to store negligence and an “explanation as to how my computer could have been stolen from a secure area” of the store.

She also wants a promise from the company that it will train employees on privacy issues and on procedures for preventing loss or theft of returned items.

“I can’t help but wonder how many other people have had their computer stolen (or) lost by Best Buy and then been bullied into accepting lowball compensation offers for replacement expenses and no compensation for identity theft protection expenses,” she said.

Ex-Fla. official facing fed porn charges

White men will be white men.

TAMPA, Fla. – The former spokesman for Florida‘s child welfare agency paid two 16-year-old boys for sexually explicit photos of themselves and then brokered the images to overseas pornographers, according to a complaint filed Monday by federal prosecutors.

One of the boys that Al Zimmerman paid for photos was in state foster care at the time and later ran away from a foster home, according to the affidavit written by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Alexander Hagedorn.

Zimmerman, 41, a former TV news reporter who was spokesman for the Florida Department of Children & Families, was arrested Feb. 1 and charged by state prosecutors with eight counts of using a child in a sexual performance. Monday’s complaint will be taken to a grand jury later for a federal indictment, U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Steve Cole said.

Federal prosecutors said they would argue at a Tuesday hearing to keep Zimmerman behind bars pending trial. His attorney, Brian Albritton, declined to comment after a brief court appearance Monday.

When he was interviewed Feb. 1, Zimmerman admitted that he was “involved in a pornography business,” the affidavit said. He admitted paying the boys for the photos but said the first boy had produced a driver’s license that said he was 18. The affidavit also suggests other boys were involved who have not yet been interviewed.

The affidavit said Zimmerman paid the first boy for sending photos of himself and shot his own photos of the boy posing nude and masturbating. The boy told investigators he met Zimmerman because he and his friends began gathering at Zimmerman’s house, where they were given alcoholic drinks, the affidavit said.

The second boy told investigators he photographed himself nude with his cell phone camera on five or six occasions and sent the photos to Zimmerman, who then sent him money. He also said Zimmerman had once offered him $200 for sex, but he declined, the document said.

The document also details explicit e-mails that authorities say Zimmerman sent to one of the boys describing poses and activities he wanted in photographs to get top dollar from pornographers overseas.

Zimmerman, after becoming aware that he was being investigated, asked a child welfare agency computer technician to throw his home computer in an outdoor trash container so authorities couldn’t get access to it, the affidavit said.

If convicted of the federal charge, Zimmerman faces a minimum of 15 years in prison.

His arrest prompted agency review of hiring policies and of 13,500 personnel files to make sure every employee has had a criminal background check.

Whites in Texas town report seeing UFO

There must have been an LSD sale in the area.

STEPHENVILLE, Texas – In this farming community where nightfall usually brings clear, starry skies, residents are abuzz over reported sightings of what many believe is a UFO.

Several dozen people — including a pilot, county constable and business owners — insist they have seen a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast. Some reported seeing fighter jets chasing it.

“People wonder what in the world it is because this is the Bible Belt, and everyone is afraid it’s the end of times,” said Steve Allen, a freight company owner and pilot who said the object he saw last week was a mile long and half a mile wide. “It was positively, absolutely nothing from these parts.”

While federal officials insist there’s a logical explanation, locals swear that it was larger, quieter, faster and lower to the ground than an airplane. They also said the object’s lights changed configuration, unlike those of a plane. People in several towns who reported seeing it over several weeks have offered similar descriptions of the object.

Machinist Ricky Sorrells said friends made fun of him when he told them he saw a flat, metallic object hovering about 300 feet over a pasture behind his Dublin home. But he decided to come forward after reading similar accounts in the Stephenville Empire-Tribune.

“You hear about big bass or big buck in the area, but this is a different deal,” Sorrells said. “It feels good to hear that other people saw something, because that means I’m not crazy.”

Sorrells said he has seen the object several times. He said he watched it through his rifle’s telescopic lens and described it as very large and without seams, nuts or bolts.

Maj. Karl Lewis, a spokesman for the 301st Fighter Wing at the Joint Reserve Base Naval Air Station in Fort Worth, said no F-16s or other aircraft from his base were in the area the night of Jan. 8, when most people reported the sighting.

Lewis said the object may have been an illusion caused by two commercial airplanes. Lights from the aircraft would seem unusually bright and may appear orange from the setting sun.

“I’m 90 percent sure this was an airliner,” Lewis said. “With the sun’s angle, it can play tricks on you.”

Officials at the region’s two Air Force bases — Dyess in Abilene and Sheppard in Wichita Falls — also said none of their aircraft were in the area last week. The Air Force no longer investigates UFOs.

One man has offered a reward for a photograph or videotape of the mysterious object.

About 200 UFO sightings are reported each month, mostly in California, Colorado and Texas, according to the Mutual UFO Network, which plans to go to the 17,000-resident town of Stephenville to investigate.

Fourteen percent of Americans polled last year by The Associated Press and Ipsos say they have seen a UFO

 

 

White Man guilty of barrel wife murder

Was he fermenting her?

A British expatriate has been found guilty of murdering his wife in Australia and hiding her body in a barrel for more than 20 years.

A jury at the Victoria Supreme Court in Melbourne found that Frederick Boyle shot his wife in the head before concealing her remains.

Boyle, 58, who emigrated from the Vale of Glamorgan in the early 1970s, will be sentenced later this month.

He had previously insisted that his wife had run off with another man.

Boyle hid his wife’s body in a large barrel in his garage for 23 years, after Edwina Boyle disappeared in 1983.

It was discovered during a household clean-up by the couple’s son-in-law in 2006.

During his trial the British migrant, originally from Peterston-super-Ely in the Vale of Glamorgan, admitted lying to detectives.

Boyle told the court that he had returned to his home in suburban Melbourne to find his wife shot dead and one of his ties around her neck.

He said he went to check on the couple’s young daughters, Careesa and Sharon, and then “cried for hours”.

He said he concealed her remains and did not tell the police because he was sure they would not believe his story. He told their daughters their mother had run off with another man.

Mrs Boyle’s remains were found by their son-in-law in 2006 in a 44-gallon drum kept in the backyard of the family home at Carrum Downs, in Melbourne’s outer southeast.

Boyle had claimed his wife had run off with a truck driver when she disappeared on 6 October, 1983.

During the trial the court heard Boyle had been having an affair in the months leading up to his wife’s disappearance and his girlfriend moved in the next day.

It took the jury a day-and-a-half to find the former Cardiff bus driver guilty of murder. He was remanded in custody for sentencing in about two weeks.

After the case, Valerie Bordley, from Watford, who reported her sister missing in 1994, said she thought the case would never be solved.

‘Big toll’

Mrs Bordley said it had been a harrowing experience and she had hired private investigators and clairvoyants to find out what happened to her sister.

She said: “It’s taken a big toll when you believe in something you just have to keep fighting – I needed to know what happened to my sister.”

She said the worst thing for her was hearing how her sister’s body was found.

Mrs Boyle’s remains were found by their son-in-law in 2006 in a 44-gallon drum kept in the backyard of the family home at Carrum Downs, in Melbourne’s outer southeast.

Boyle had claimed his wife had run off with a truck driver when she disappeared on 6 October, 1983.

During the trial the court heard Boyle had been having an affair in the months leading up to his wife’s disappearance and his girlfriend moved in the next day.

It took the jury a day-and-a-half to find the former Cardiff bus driver guilty of murder. He was remanded in custody for sentencing in about two weeks.

After the case, Valerie Bordley, from Watford, who reported her sister missing in 1994, said she thought the case would never be solved.

‘Big toll’

Mrs Bordley said it had been a harrowing experience and she had hired private investigators and clairvoyants to find out what happened to her sister.

She said: “It’s taken a big toll when you believe in something you just have to keep fighting – I needed to know what happened to my sister.”

She said the worst thing for her was hearing how her sister’s body was found.

“I just can’t get that out of my head,” she said.

“Justice has now been done – I just feel so sorry for my nieces.”

The couple’s daughters, who are now both in their 30s, did not comment on leaving the court.

Ex-madam Heidi Fleiss arrested in Nevada

 Old habits are so hard to break…….

PAHRUMP, Nev. – Former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss was arrested Thursday on charges of illegal possession of prescription drugs and driving under the influence, authorities said.

Fleiss was pulled over at about 9:30 a.m. by sheriff’s deputies responding to a report of a possible drunken driver, the Nye County sheriff’s office said.

Fleiss, 42, and a passenger in the car, John Owen, were found to be under the influence of a controlled substance, the sheriff’s office said. Fleiss had prescription medication but could not produce a valid prescription, the sheriff’s office said.

Fleiss was arrested on four counts, including possession of dangerous drugs without a prescription and driving under the influence. Owen, 53, was arrested on charges of being under the influence of a controlled substance and possession of marijuana.

A call seeking comment to a cell phone believed to be Fleiss’ went unanswered Thursday, and there was no number for Owen listed in the Pahrump directory. Sheriff’s deputies said they did not know if either had an attorney.

She posted bail of $1,376, while Owen posted bail of $1,264 and both were released.

Fleiss operates a coin-operated laundry, called Dirty Laundry, in this desert town 60 miles west of Las Vegas. She moved to Nye County in late 2005, after having been jailed in California for running a prostitution ring.

Sex Assault Suit Vs. Halliburton Killed

Sexual assaults, death threats, bestiality. White romancing and dating tips 101. Why do white men have no respect for woman?

A mother of five who says she was sexually harassed and assaulted while working for Halliburton/KBR in Iraq is headed for a secretive arbitration process rather than being able to present her case in open court.

A judge in Texas has ruled that Tracy Barker’s case will be heard in arbitration, according to the terms of her initial employment contract.

Barker says that while in Iraq she was constantly propositioned by her superior, threatened and isolated after she reported an incident of sexual assault.

Barker’s attorneys had argued that Halliburton/KBR had created a “boys will be boys” atmosphere at their camps and that sort of condition is not the type of dispute that she could have expected to be within the scope of an arbitration provision.

District Judge Gray Miller, however, wrote in his order that “whether it is wise to send this type of claim to arbitration is not a question for this court to decide.”

“Sadly,” wrote Judge Miller, “sexual harassment, up to and including sexual assault, is a reality in today’s workplace.”

Barker says it was a reality at Halliburton/KBR. From the moment she arrived at the Halliburton/KBR camp in Basra, Iraq, she says she was treated like a sex object.

“When I arrived in Basra, there were about five men that worked on the camp for the company I worked for and they were waiting for me,” Barker told ABC News in an exclusive interview that aired last December.

“I was told they wanted to see what I look like,” she said, “to make sure I was decent looking before they approved my transfer.”

Tracy says her KBR boss in Basra repeatedly propositioned her and threatened her.

“The manager of the camp kept making gestures of how if I wanted my safety to exist on the camp, that I needed to sleep with him, and that’s all he kept saying to me,” said Barker.

Tracy says her co-workers were not much better. She says when she first arrived at her new office, it looked more like a fraternity house than a place of business.

“On my way into the office, there was pictures of prostitutes and animals having sex pasted in the hallway,” she said. “Our office was just wallpapered with pornography. There was not one space of wall at all.”

Tracy says she inquired from her male co-worker where her workplace was located.

“My co-worker told me that ‘you can either sit at the end of my desk or on the floor because that’s where the women sit that work with me,’” Barker said.

When Tracy tried to report the co-worker to her manager, she says the manager’s gestures toward her only got worse.

“If I don’t feel safe, I can come to his room and get a backrub or sleep with him,” Barker says she was told.

Barker’s case had also involved a claim of sexual assault against a State Department employee. Those claims have been severed from her case against Halliburton/KBR and transferred to the Eastern District of Virginia.

As in similar cases, KBR had moved for Tracy’s claim to be heard in private arbitration, instead of a public courtroom, as provided under the terms of her original employment contract.

In arbitration, there is no public record or transcript of the proceedings, meaning that Tracy’s claims will not be heard before a judge and jury.

Halliburton which has since divested itself of KBR referred calls for comment to KBR.

KBR issued a statement late yesterday saying, “As part of her employment contract with KBR, Ms. Barker agreed to arbitrate all claims in the event a conflict arose. The court’s decision enforcing her agreement is consistent with rulings from other courts in the upholding arbitration agreements between employers and employees. Arbitration is the last step of KBR’s Dispute Resolution Program. The vast majority of employment disputes at KBR, approximately 96%, are resolved through this program without resort to arbitration. KBR remains committed to ensuring the arbitration process is fair to all employees.”

Halliburton and KBR had also sought to have Barker pay for their costs of defending their right to arbitrate. That request was denied.

White Defendant sucker punches attorney in court

Calm and composed at his hearing…check out the video.

 

A man attacked his attorney, knocking him unconscious during a discussion of his case Monday afternoon in Scott Circuit Court.

Peter Hafer, 30, of Cynthiana, was explaining to Judge Rob Johnson his displeasure with his representation, attorney Doug Crickmer, moments before the incident occurred. Hafer had written a letter to Johnson expressing his unhappiness with Crickmer, and Crickmer was telling the judge that he was aware of his client’s displeasure.

“I don’t want him representing me no more,” Hafer said. “He ain’t doing nothing. He ain’t doing nothing. I put it in a letter. I don’t know what else to say. I can’t get him to do nothing I ask him.”

Crickmer, a public defender, told the judge that “part of legally what Mr. Hafer wants is not permissible or would not be allowed in court. And I’ve tried to explain that to him.”

“You ain’t explained nothing,” Hafer responded.

<

“What I do know is that Mr. Crickmer has obviously several cases on this docket,” Johnson said. “To my knowledge, he has been meeting with clients.”

Hafer requested a continuance for his trial, and Johnson denied the request.

“Your problem, Mr. Hafer, is there is currently a trial scheduled for Feb. 25-27,” Johnson said. “There is not (another) attorney that I’m aware of in this town that’s going to be ready for a trial Feb. 25-27, and I’m not going to continue it at this point in time.”

Hafer asked again for a continuance.

“I ain’t had no preparation,” he said. “He (Crickmer) ain’t done nothing. Three months I’ve been hounding him. He don’t even care.

“I’d rather have the prosecutor be my attorney than him. He’d probably give me a better trial.”

Crickmer then addressed the court.

“All I can say is Mr. (Rodney) Barnes (directing attorney for the Public Advocacy Frankfort Trial Office) is aware of the situation. I’ve spoken to him. Unfortunately Mr. Hafer doesn’t get to pick and choose his public defenders until such time as Mr. Barnes assigns somebody else …,” Crickmer said before Hafer swung his right hand and punched Hafer in the jaw, according to court video.

The punch knocked Crickmer to the ground unconscious, and two court bailiffs and Scott County Jailer Larry Covington stepped in to try to get Hafer off Crickmer, witnesses said.

An estimated 20 people were in the courtroom at the time, Scott Circuit Court Clerk Karen Boehm said. Johnson pushed the panic button, which alerts the Scott County Sheriff’s Office across the street, and several other people also called 9-1-1, Boehm said.

It took about five minutes for officials to get handcuffs on Hafer, Johnson said. Georgetown-Scott County EMS examined Crickmer, whose face was heavily swollen, but he was able to walk out of the courtroom on his own, Boehm said.

Crickmer was taken to Georgetown Community Hospital, where he stayed for 3 1/2 hours and had a CT scan performed, Barnes said.

“They wanted to make sure there were no facial fractures, concussions, and that was all clear,” Barnes said. “He has a black eye, swelling in the face, but other than that, he was ready to go home.”

Crickmer will take “most of the day off” Tuesday, Barnes said.

“I went to the hospital to see him and urged him not to come in,” Barnes said.

The court took at least a 30-minute recess after the incident, Johnson said.

Hafer faces three charges in connection with a Kmart robbery June 11, 2007, that resulted in $51,000 in stolen jewelry. He was in court Monday for a final review of the case before the trial at the end of the month, Boehm said.

“Obviously that’s canceled,” she said of the trial, noting that a status hearing on the case has been rescheduled for March 3.

Hafer, who has been in the Scott County Detention Center since August 2007, said after the incident from jail that he was upset by what he considered a lack of effort put forth by Crickmer on his behalf. Hafer said Crickmer has spent at most 15 minutes with him on his case since August.

“He had me so mad at him that I had no sympathy for him,” Hafer said. “It’s kind of hard for people (outside of jail) to understand. I’m fighting for every right I’ve got.”

Hafer’s claim of disinterest by Crickmer in the case was not correct, Barnes said.

“I know that Doug has seen him on many, many occasions,” Barnes said. “Doug has talked to me about his case. I was satisfied that Doug had done what he should be doing on this case. We’re all busy, but I know for a fact that he’s visited and talked to him on several occasions.”

Crickmer has been an assistant public advocate for 10 years, Barnes said.

Hafer said he had “tried every avenue to get a different lawyer,” to no avail, and did not regret the incident.

“I just felt like I was backed into a corner and didn’t have another choice,” he said.

Officials are re-examining courtroom security measures following the incident.

“You see this stuff a lot on TV, judges being attacked or even attorneys being attacked,” Johnson said. “It’s a whole different story when it actually happens right before your eyes. Obviously I’m sure everybody will have to have their guard up, and we will obviously have to make some changes to make sure that everybody is safe and secure.”

2 teen girls sentenced for beating senior in park

 They grow so fast….

Two teenage girls were sentenced Monday to 12 months in custody for beating a 66-year-old woman with metal table legs last summer in Halifax.

Judge Pam Williams rejected a joint recommendation from the Crown and defence for eight-month sentences for the two 16-year olds, saying she agonized over it for a week.

Williams pointed out the girls, along with another girl, attacked a completely innocent woman who was walking through the Halifax Common, beat her and only stopped when a passerby intervened.

She said the fact the attackers covered their faces with bandanas implied premeditation.

The two teenagers sat quietly in youth court Monday. They stared at the floor for most of the hour-and-a-half it took the judge to hand down the sentences.

The 66-year-old victim did not appear in court. Her husband was there, but refused to comment on the judge’s decision.

The woman suffered a broken rib and severe bruising in the Aug. 27 attack.

Williams said it was sad that one of the teens committed the assault so she could return to jail, a place where she said she felt safe, and had food and a bed.

The teens, from Halifax and North Preston, cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. They have already served time at the Waterville youth detention centre.

The teenagers had pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose.

A 15-year-old girl from Halifax was sentenced last month to 30 days, in addition to the four months she has already spent locked up.

White terrorists murder Iraqi civilians

Winning hearts and minds. 

The US military has admitted accidentally killing nine Iraqi civilians, including a child, during raids south of Baghdad.

In a statement, it said the civilian deaths occurred on Saturday near the town of Iskandariya, 50km (30 miles) from the Iraqi capital.

It added that three more civilians, two of them children, were wounded “as coalition forces pursued al-Qaeda”.

Witnesses say 20 people were killed in an US air strike in the area.

They said the dead included 17 members of the same family.

In a statement, the US military said: “Shortly after the incident, coalition forces leaders met with a sheikh representing the citizens of the local area.

“The incident is under investigation. We offer our condolences to the families of those who were killed in this incident, and we mourn the loss of innocent civilian life.”

It gave no further details.

White father says God told him to kill his daughter

God works in mysterious ways? Didn’t God also tell Bush to attack Iraq? 

A hush has fallen over Kitimat after a local dad was deemed not criminally responsible for stabbing his teenage daughter to death in the family home.

“No one’s talking about it – it’s just too shocking, too horrific. A child is the most precious thing you have,” said Kitimat Coun. Joanne Monaghan Thursday night.

Monaghan was reacting to a ruling by Supreme Court Judge Harvey Groberman on Wednesday that Blair Donnelly, 48, was in a psychotic state when he stabbed his daughter Stephanie, 16, to death.

Donnelly, a former pulp-mill worker and pastor, is being sent to a forensic psychiatric unit in Port Coquitlam. The psychiatric review board has 45 days to decide what will happen to him next.

According to a statement of facts agreed on by the Crown and the defence, on the morning of Nov. 23, 2006, Donnelly began praying and studying the Bible, acting out of sorts and interpreting events of the morning as a message from God that he needed to kill his wife.

He walked around the home in his wife’s presence with a knife hidden inside his jacket. Owing to his strange behaviour, his wife asked his pastor to come to their home, and they prayed together, asking for guidance.

Donnelly then had a series of strange encounters with friends.

When he returned home that night, he found his daughter at the computer and took it as a sign that God wanted him to kill her. If he didn’t, he thought he would have to kill his entire family.

Donnelly’s wife, Patricia, returned home to find Stephanie dead in the living room. Donnelly was found a few hours later praying in front of the Mountainview Alliance Church. He had blood on his hands.

According to a CBC report from the trial, Dr. Shabehram Lohrasbe testified that Donnelly had separated himself from reality when he stabbed Stephanie.

Lohrasbe attributed the attack to a mental disorder that showed up in Donnelly about 12 years ago.

Defence lawyer Paul Pakenham told CBC News “this is a very, very unique situation. Given the severity of Mr. Donnelly’s mental illness, he will require prolonged treatment, and that will be in a secure institution.

“They were a model Canadian family up to the point of this incident. His conduct that evening can only be explained by aberrant behaviour from a mental disorder.”

A blogger named Brian Larnder of the Yukon wrote yesterday that he knew Donnelly in Kitimat and that Donnelly told him he saw demons.

Donnelly, he said, had to leave his ministry because he was “battling a few demons. Not demons in the metaphorical sense – real demons. Blair claimed that he was doing such special work for the Lord that he had been under constant satanic attack. He told us this with a straight face, and the weird part is that nobody thought he was crazy. I wonder if the whole thing could have been avoided. How could we not have seen? The thought of this terrible event will haunt me for the rest of my life.”

Monaghan said Stephanie was an accomplished figure skater who coached local kids and was loved deeply by her community.

Stephanie’s mom sold the home shortly after the killing and moved with Stephanie’s sister to Alberta.

White Maryland boy admits killing parents, brothers

A result of white patenting 101?

COCKEYSVILLE, Md. – A 15-year-old boy fatally shot his parents and two younger brothers as they slept, then spent more than 12 hours with friends before returning home and calling 911 to report that his father was dead, police said Sunday.

Police went to their suburban Baltimore home and later charged Nicholas Waggoner Browning after he admitted to the slayings, Baltimore County Police spokesman Bill Toohey said.

Browning was charged as an adult with four counts of first-degree murder in the slayings of his father, John Browning, 45; his mother Tamara, 44; and his brothers Gregory, 13, and Benjamin, 11.

The teen had not been getting along with his father, police said. On Friday night, he went into the house after other family members had gone to sleep and shot each of them. His father’s handgun had been in the house, police said.

After the slayings, he threw the handgun into bushes near the house, police said. The gun was recovered, Toohey said.

When the friends took him back to his house at 5 p.m. Saturday, Browning went into the house and came back out to say that his father was dead.

Browning called 911, telling the dispatcher that a “45-year-old male was lying on the couch with blood coming out of his nose. He was not breathing,” according to charging documents. Officers were sent on a “call of a cardiac arrest.”

Police said Browning’s father was found in a ground-floor room and his mother and brothers were dead in upstairs bedrooms. There was no sign of a confrontation, Toohey said.

The tall, gangly sophomore at Dulaney High School in neighboring Timonium was denied bail; a bail review hearing was scheduled Monday. He was being held at the Baltimore County Detention Center in a special section for juveniles.

Toohey said he didn’t know if Browning had a lawyer.

Even if convicted as an adult of first-degree murder, Browning is too young under state law to face the death penalty.

Two of Browning’s classmates drove past the family’s house Sunday afternoon and wept when they learned from reporters that he was charged in the slayings.

“It’s hard to believe someone could do this,” Brooke Kebaugh, 16, said.

Liz Lazlawbach, 17, said Browning complained about fighting with his father, but “not about anything violent.”

The grounds of the two-story home were neat and neighbor Mike Thomas said the Brownings would even pick up trash along the street. “These people would do anything in the world for you — just incredible people,” Thomas said.

Neighbors called each other throughout the night to discuss the killings, Thomas said. He said one of his sons had been in Boy Scouts with one of the Brownings’ sons and was devastated when he learned of the deaths.

About 50 people — mostly teenagers — gathered for a candlelight vigil in front of the Brownings house Sunday night. The crowd stood in silence for about ten minutes. Some cried.

John Thibeault said his son Kyle went to school with Benjamin and they were both “traumatized” by the deaths. He said his family locked their doors Saturday night, fearing a killer was on the loose.

Thibeault described Nicholas Browning as “just a regular, normal kid.”

John Browning was a partner in the law firm of Royston, Mueller, McLean & Reid in Towson, focusing on real estate law and commercial and corporate law.

The partners said Browning was an accomplished lawyer.

“He was also a person invested in his family and community,” the partners said. “He led his local scout troop. He was a leader at his church. In short, John Browning was a great man. We will all miss him very, very much.”

The Brownings’ Boy Scout unit, Troop 328, meets at Timonium United Methodist Church.

The Rev. Frances Dailey said Sunday that the troop’s leaders did not want to talk. He said John Browning was “beloved and well revered. I’m told this is not the kind of family that this could happen to.”

Counselors were to be available Monday to meet with students at Dulaney High, said Charles Herndon, a county school spokesman. He declined to say where Browning’s younger brothers went to school.

White Parenting 101

Isn’t this child abuse? Why do whites do such things?

Killer’ policeman breached bail

Just another day… 

A suspected murderer who is thought to have killed again was allowed to remain on bail despite breaching a condition.

Ex-policeman Gary Weddell is thought to have killed his mother-in-law before shooting himself while on bail as he awaited trial for his wife’s murder.

Bail hearing transcripts show a judge said it was a “borderline decision” to release the 47-year-old and he would be returned to custody for any breaches.

But he remained free despite breaking a condition by entering Bedfordshire.

‘Technical breach’

The Judicial Communications Office published transcripts of five court hearings following an outcry over the fact that Mr Weddell was released while awaiting trial for such a serious offence.

Mr Weddell was warned he would go “straight back into custody” if he breached any of the eight bail conditions imposed.

The policeman breached his conditions by visiting his mother in a pub in Bedfordshire, despite being barred from entering the county.

However, Woking magistrates concluded it was only a “technical breach” and was not “deliberate” and allowed him to remain on bail.

Two months later, it is believed he murdered his mother-in-law, before taking his own life.

Earlier Mr Weddell’s wife, Sandra, 44, a London-born nurse, was found strangled at their family home in Lancot Avenue, Dunstable, Bedfordshire, on 31 January last year.

He was charged with her murder six months later and was due to stand trial at Luton Crown Court in May this year.

Judge Bevan twice refused Mr Weddell bail before releasing him on 27 July after the policeman’s barrister brother put up a £200,000 surety.

The judge told him at the time: “It is a very borderline decision that I have granted you bail at all, and you understand that if you breach any of these conditions, then you will be straight back into custody.”

The bodies of Mr Weddell and his mother-in-law, Traute Maxfield, 70, were found on 12 January.

Police believe Mr Weddell shot Mrs Maxfield, a retired carer and widow, at her home in Gustard Wood, Hertfordshire.

‘Sadistic act’

He then appears to have shot himself with a gun at Broomhills shooting club, about 10 miles away in Markyate.

The policeman had earlier been found with an aerial cable hidden in his sock while he was being interviewed by police, a hearing was told.

When asked why he had it, he replied “I just wanted to go to sleep.”

Mr Weddell was granted bail after psychiatrist Dr Tony Nayani, who interviewed Mr Weddell, had provided a report for the court.

Dr Nayani told Channel 4 News he did not believe that Mr Weddell’s alleged murder of his mother-in-law was in any way related to the suicide risk he had been asked to investigate.

“What he went on to do six months later, when there had been absolutely no indication whatsoever that this man had displayed any sign of mental illness in that intervening period, was to commit a cold blooded assassination of his mother-in-law and then to take a gun to himself.

“This was a sadistic act of violence which was not, in my opinion, related to the impulse of suicide. It was much more ghastly and much more chilling than that.”

The Conservative MP Mike Penning has called for an inquiry into the circumstances of the bail granted to Mr Weddell and a change in the law.