STRANGE CRIMES

VALLEY SPRINGS, Calif. – People in this quiet Northern California community expressed relief that there had been an arrest in the stabbing death of an 8-year-old girl, but they were stunned by the suspect: her 12-year-old brother.

"It's just shocking. I don't know what else to say," Patti Campbell, longtime restaurant owner in the town of Valley Springs, told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Last month's stabbing death of Leila Fowler shook this small community southeast of Sacramento and set off an intense manhunt. Her brother was in the home at the time and told police he saw a man run from the scene. More

Nutty News Today – Nutty News Videos – Todays Nutty Joke – Nutty Facts - Nutty Politics

NEW ORLEANS -- New Orleans police say at least 19 people either attending or taking part in a Mother's Day second-line parade in the 7th Ward were wounded in a shooting.

Original reports had the number at a dozen people injured at the Original Big 7 Second Line, but that has since been upped to 19 -- ten men, seven women, a 10-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl.

Police say many of the victims suffered graze wounds, including the two young victims. There have been no fatalities, and police say most of the injuries are non-life threatening. Two people were in surgery.  More

Nutty News Today – Nutty News Videos – Todays Nutty Joke – Nutty Facts - Nutty Politics

Authorities have arrested a 12-year-old boy in the fatal stabbing of his 8-year-old sister at her home in a quiet Northern California community last month.

Calaveras County Sheriff Gary Kuntz told reporters at a news conference that the boy was taken into custody Saturday afternoon and will be charged with homicide, Fox40.com reported.

"Citizens of Calaveras County can sleep a little better tonight," Kuntz said.  More

Nutty News Today – Nutty News Videos – Todays Nutty Joke – Nutty Facts - Nutty Politics

CRESTVIEW -- A man accused of taking two sets of sheets from WalMart and leaving the store without paying for them told police his home had bedbugs and he needed the sheets for his children, according to his Crestview Police Department arrest report.

When an officer told him to stop, he kept running, the report said.  More

Nutty News Today – Nutty News Videos – Todays Nutty Joke – Nutty Facts - Nutty Politics

(Reuters) - The grandson of murdered U.S. civil rights leader Malcolm X, Malcolm Shabazz, who was convicted as a child for a fire that killed his grandmother, has died in Mexico City after an apparent beating.

Mexico's attorney general's office said a murder investigation was under way. Shabazz, 29, died early on Thursday morning after he was taken to a hospital with a range of injuries.

The ambulance picked up Shabazz in Mexico City's run-down Plaza Garibaldi, home to Mariachi bands, strip clubs and dive bars and notorious for petty crime.

"The deceased was in a place of entertainment, drinking beers, according to a companion," the attorney general's office said in a statement. "He exhibited various injuries, apparently from blows."  More

Nutty News Today – Nutty News Videos – Todays Nutty Joke – Nutty Facts - Nutty Politics

Texas authorities said on Friday that they had opened a criminal investigation into last month’s deadly explosion at a fertilizer plant that killed 14 people and injured some 200 others.

The announcement came hours after a paramedic who responded to the explosion was arrested on a charge of possessing the components of a pipe bomb, though law enforcement officials declined to say whether the charge was related to the blast.

Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said he had directed the Texas Rangers to work with the McLennan County sheriff’s office to conduct the criminal inquiry, which comes more than three weeks after the explosion at the West Fertilizer Company plant outside West, Tex., about 20 miles north of Waco.  More

Nutty News Today – Nutty News Videos – Todays Nutty Joke – Nutty Facts - Nutty Politics

Two senior members of the Canadian mafia have been murdered in Sicily and their bodies incinerated, victims of what police suspect is a vicious turf war in Canada which has spilled over into the Cosa Nostra's Italian heartland.

After an anonymous tip-off, the bodies of Juan Ramon Paz Fernandez and Fernando Pimentel were discovered near a rubbish dump in the countryside outside Palermo on Thursday. Police described the double killing as an "old-fashioned" gangland hit.

Spanish-born Fernandez, 57, a notoriously tough enforcer for Montreal's Rizzuto clan, was expelled from Canada last year for the third time after serving a 10-year sentence for conspiracy to murder a fellow mobster. He resurfaced in Palermo, where he was suspected of teaming up with the Cosa Nostra to build drug-trafficking links between Sicily and Canada.  More

Nutty News Today – Nutty News Videos – Todays Nutty Joke – Nutty Facts - Nutty Politics

(Newser) – A Florida man probably had a brief moment of joy when he gave the slip to the sheriff's deputy chasing him.

Then the alligator showed up. Police say Bryan Zuniga, 20, ran from his vehicle after a deputy pulled him over for weaving in traffic, reports the Tampa Bay Times. 
Zuniga hopped a fence and was gone. 
A few hours later, police got word that their man was being treated in the hospital after being bit in the face and arm by a 'gator near a water-treatment plant. More

Nutty News Today – Nutty News Videos – Todays Nutty Joke – Nutty Facts - Nutty Politics

THURMOND, W.Va. (AP) – Police in Fayette County say a man was electrocuted when he picked up a live power line that he had shot down in order to steal copper from it.

Fayette County Sheriff Steve Kessler says the man’s body was found Wednesday in Thurmond.

Kessler says the man and an accomplice planned to strip the line of its copper wiring to later sell as scrap metal. More

Nutty News Today – Nutty News Videos – Todays Nutty Joke – Nutty Facts - Nutty Politics

Jodi Arias says she would rather receive the death penalty than a long prison sentence after she was convicted of first-degree murder Wednesday, calling death "the ultimate freedom."

In an exclusive interview with MyFoxPhoenix.com, Arias says she was shocked by the verdict.

"I think I just went blank," Arias said. "I just feel overwhelmed. I think I just need to take it a day at a time. It was unexpected for me. There was no premeditation on my part."

Arias spent 18 days on the stand sharing intimate, emotional and oftentimes X-rated details of her life before a rapt television and online audience. She had hoped it all might convince a jury that she killed her one-time boyfriend, Travis Alexander, in self-defense. More

Nutty News Today – Nutty News Videos – Todays Nutty Joke – Nutty Facts - Nutty Politics

Boston and Massachusetts law enforcement officials confirmed Thursday that federal agents left them in the dark on the growing warning signs about Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the run-up to the Boston Marathon bombing.

Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis, in testimony on Capitol Hill, said his officers on a joint terrorism task force were never told about an explicit warning from the Russian government or about Tsarnaev's travel to the Chechnya region last year. Davis said he would have liked to have known about that activity, and that it "absolutely" would have merited a second look at Tsarnaev.  More

Nutty News Today – Nutty News Videos – Todays Nutty Joke – Nutty Facts - Nutty Politics

MIAMI – A South Florida plastic surgeon is in jail after police say he tortured and tried to kill his girlfriend.

Police say Orlando Llorente was mad at his girlfriend because of something she had posted on Facebook.

He reportedly dragged her by the hair into the bathroom, forced her head in the toilet, then poured water over her head in the bathtub — similar to waterboarding.

After nearly 16 hours of being tortured, the victim convinced him to stop, freed herself and called police. Full Article

Nutty News Today – Nutty News Videos – Todays Nutty Joke – Nutty Facts - Nutty Politics

(CNN) -- After months of twists and turns in a dramatic trial rife with sex, lies and digital images, an Arizona jury Wednesday found Jodi Arias guilty of first-degree murder in the slaying of ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander.

Jurors will return to court Thursday for the aggravation phase of the trial -- an important step in the next key decision they face: determining whether Arias lives or dies.

"Now the odds, I think shift somewhat in her favor, because it's a very different thing to sentence someone to die than to convict them," CNN senior legal analyst Jeffery Toobin said.  More

Nutty News Today – Nutty News Videos – Todays Nutty Joke – Nutty Facts - Nutty Politics

CLEVELAND (AP) — One neighbor says a naked woman was seen crawling on her hands and knees in the backyard of the house a few years ago. Another heard pounding on the home’s doors and noticed plastic bags over the windows.

Both times, police showed up but never went inside, neighbors say. Police also paid a visit to the house in 2004, but no one answered the door.

Now, after three women who vanished a decade ago were found captive Monday at the run-down house, Cleveland police are facing questions for the second time in four years about their handling of missing-person cases and are conducting an internal review to see if they overlooked anything.  More

Nutty News Today – Nutty News Videos – Todays Nutty Joke – Nutty Facts - Nutty Politics

Three women dressed like nuns have been arrested at a Colombian airport allegedly smuggling drugs.

Police said the women, aged 20, 32 and 37 had two kilos (4.4lb) of cocaine each strapped to their bodies.

Officers said they became suspicious because the women "didn't look like nuns" and their habits "didn't look right".

They were travelling from the capital Bogota to the island of San Andres, popular with holidaymakers. More

Nutty News Today – Nutty News Videos – Todays Nutty Joke – Nutty Facts - Nutty Politics

Spring Hill, Florida -- Detectives arrested a man Monday who they say stole four laptop computers from a Spring Hill Walmart store on two occasions.

Hernando Sheriff's detectives say 35-year-old Jason Brady was seen on surveillance video twice on April 30 and twice on May 3 putting a laptop computer in a shopping cart and then putting a large bag of cat food on top of it. He would then leave the store without paying for either of them. More

Nutty News Today – Nutty News Videos – Todays Nutty Joke – Nutty Facts - Nutty Politics

CLEVELAND — The police had been called two times to a house where three young women from Cleveland, who disappeared about a decade ago and who friends and relatives feared were gone forever, were found on Monday, the authorities said on Tuesday. In 2000, the owner of the house, Ariel Castro, had called the police about a fight in the street. In 2004, the authorities interviewed Mr. Castro, a driver, after he “inadvertently” left a child on a school bus.

Neither of those visits by the authorities resulted in any arrests, nor was there any indication about the dramatic discovery for which Mr. Castro is now being held. But at a news conference on Tuesday, the police and investigators said that they were slowly starting to unravel the thread of events that led up to the escape of the women after one of them, Amanda Berry, tried to force her way through the front door of the house on Seymour Avenue.  More

Philadelphia police say a 75-year-old man beat, suffocated and strangled his wife, then set up a crime scene and falsely accused a neighbor in an attempt to cover his tracks.

Philadelphia police Capt. James Clark said this morning that Lou Hartdegen has been charged in the slaying of his wife, 74-year-old Judith. The murder was initially thought to be a brutal home invasion at their apartment on the 6700 block of Castor Avenue in Northeast.

Clark said today that "there were discrepancies" between Hartdegen's statements to police and the crime scene.

Hartdegen also named one of his neighbors as a suspect to investigators. That 26-year-old man was questioned by police for several hours Monday, then released.  Full Article

Nutty News Today – Nutty News Videos – Todays Nutty Joke – Nutty Facts - Nutty Politics

As police and the FBI try to piece together how the three women and a 6-year-old girl, who police believe is the daughter of one of the women, remained captive in a house for more than a decade in a densely populated section of Cleveland, the women were released Tuesday from a local hospital and returned to their families.

"The real hero here is Amanda [Berry]," Cleveland's assistant police chief Ed Tomba said at a press conference.

The women were identified as Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight. The three were treated in the MetroHealth Emergency Department Monday night and released on Tuesday morning. Authorities would not comment further on their conditions, saying only that they looked to be healthy and in need of a good meal. The women all lived within two miles of the suspect's home.  Full Article

Nutty News Today – Nutty News Videos – Todays Nutty Joke – Nutty Facts - Nutty Politics

CLEVELAND – An unnamed 52-year-old man is in custody and three women who disappeared about a decade ago were found alive Monday in a residential area just south of downtown, within a few miles of where they disappeared.

Police described the suspect only as a Hispanic male but said they planned to provide more information at a news conference Tuesday.

Cheering crowds gathered Monday night on the street near the home where police said Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and a third woman were found earlier in the day. The identity of the third woman hadn't been confirmed, but Fox 8 and other local media identified her as Michele Knight.  Full Article

Nutty News Today – Nutty News Videos – Todays Nutty Joke – Nutty Facts - Nutty Politics