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True Crime and News of the Weird from around the Globe

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Drama Teacher Accused of Molestation Found Dead Just Before Closing Arguments

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David Michael Bruce is suspected of committing suicide just ahead of closing arguments in his molestation case

ANAHEIM, California — A retired junior high school drama teacher on trial for allegedly molesting his students was found dead in his home of an apparent suicide just before closing arguments in his case were set to begin.

David Michael Bruce, 68, was found dead after failing to appear in court in southern California as his case was winding to a close, authorities said.

Police said they suspected a suicide, but the official cause of death remained pending. Bruce had faced up to life in prison if he had been convicted.

Bruce was accused of molesting students over the course of 15 years at Sycamore Junior High in Anaheim. Prosecutors said Bruce would typically begin with massages before escalating the molestation.

“He would tell them he had Hollywood connections” and could help them get jobs in the film industry, Deputy District Attorney Rick Zimmer said in his opening statement of the trial, according to the Orange County Register.

“The defendant basically has an obsession with male buttocks,” he said, noting that the allegations included “a lot of rubbing, touching and spanking the buttocks of these victims.”

Police also allegedly found erotic photos of young boys in the teacher’s residence.

One of the boys was a special education student who would “hang out” with his teacher at lunch, according to the prosecutor, who said the educator gave the boy gifts such as an iPod and skateboard.

One of the alleged victims confided in his sister, “who actually is the reason this whole investigation got started,” Zimmer said. A custodian at the school reported he “walked in on the defendant massaging a student.”

Bruce’s attorney had argued his client’s accusers had histories of psychiatric issues and dishonesty and were hoping to cash in on lawsuits.

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Pervy Pol and Gal Pal Charged With Filming Woman After Spiking Drink

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Larry Weinstein and Kelly Drucker called filming a passed out drunk woman their ‘mission’

NORTHAMPTON TOWNSHIP, Pennsylvania — A former town supervisor and his gal pal have been charged with plotting to use spy glasses and a web camera to film a heavily intoxicated woman they had plied with booze, prosecutors said.

Lawrence Jay Weinstein, 44, and Kelly Drucker, 45, plotted last year to spike the victim’s drink with high-proof hooch so she couldn’t drive home, so they could bring her back to Drucker’s house where a webcam was hidden in the bathroom.

“Don’t let her go to the bathroom until she gets back to your place,” Weinstein wrote in a text message to appears to Drucker.

The couple began planning what they called their “mission,” in late October 2017, which led Drucker to have dinner with the victim at a Mexican restaurant  the following month. During the meal, Drucker encouraged the woman to drink heavily.

Weinstein, a lawyer who resigned as a Northampton Township Supervisor last month, was not at the dinner, but kept in communication with Drucker throughout the night via text message, coaching her to convince the victim to come back to Drucker’s home, the complaint said.

“Keep sober so you can make it happen and aren’t too drunk to win,” Weinstein’s texts said, according to prosecutors.

When Drucker got the woman back to her house, Weinstein bombarded her with messages about keeping her there and asking her sexually-charged questions as Drucker gave her more to drink.

The woman eventually got sick and passed out in a bathroom, prompting Weinstein to urge Drucker to use the spy glasses to take photos of the victim.

“Don’t worry about her. Get glasses on now,” the texts read. “Get her naked and get [sic] door open.”

Weinstein later told cops he was “concerned” for the victim, and was not sure if he should call an ambulance, according to court papers.

A few days later, Weinstein and Drucker discussed by text plans for a future “mission,” which police believe meant finding additional victims.

The victim told cops, she remembered little from the evening, although she did recall going to dinner and noticing  her wine “didn’t taste right,” and that she was “so sick” the following morning. She told detectives she does not recall the rest of the night after commenting on the wine.

During their investigation, detectives recovered photos of the victim taken while she was in the bathroom at Drucker’s home. The investigation began after a man in August discovered illicit messages on a phone that once belonged to Drucker.

Detectives say they found photos on an iPad showing Weinstein sexually assaulting a woman in late 2012 while she was unconscious. That victim told police she was not aware of the incident and did not consent to Weinstein touching her or taking the photos.

Both Weinstein and Drucker are being held on $300,000 bond.

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Creepy Intruder Leaves Nude Pics, Disturbing Note in Woman’s Texas Home

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Police say they want to talk to this man who was lurking around the woman’s house where the nude pics were left

ROWLETT, Texas — That’ll send a chill up your spine.

A Texas woman was shocked to find her house ransacked and that the intruder had left nude photos of himself on her camera, a used condom and a chilling note saying he was watching her, police said.

Cops believe the creep scaled a six-foot fence behind the woman’s home on Sept. 26, and got inside through an unlocked window.

The man took some items from the home, but left behind the condom, the note and the photos.

“What the note indicates to me is that the suspect does not know the victim,” Rowlett Police Det. Cruz Hernandez told KDFW-TV. “Because the note makes a notation that is ‘I’ve been watching you.’”           

Cops say they have recovered DNA and fingerprints at the scene and believe the man lives nearby.

“The only thing we can gather is that it’s connected to the house,” Hernandez said. “So we believe it’s possibly someone living or staying within walking distance of her home.”

Police have circulated a video a neighbor captured from a block away two weeks before the crime that shows a man running and wandering around a home late at night. Police want to talk to him, but they say he is a person of interest right now and not a suspect.

Investigators are pursuing all leads to catch the culprit behind the bizarre burglary soon.

“That kind of behavior we find is something that people don’t control or stop,” Hernandez said. “We believe it’s something that they continue and some cases they escalate.”

The woman who found the note has not returned home since the incident, a friend told the channel.

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Reality Show Doctor and Gal Pal Charged With Drugging and Raping Women

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Reality show doc, Grant Robicheaux, and girlfriend, Cerissa Riley, are accused of preying on women as a team

SANTA ANA, California — A telegenic reality show doctor and his striking girlfriend have been charged with drugging and sexually assaulting two women, and authorities fear  there could be many more victims.

Investigators have found “thousands and thousands of videos” on orthopedic surgeon Grant Robicheaux’s phone, many of which show him and girlfriend Cerissa Riley engaged in sex acts with other women.

Some videos show women who “appear to be highly intoxicated beyond the ability to consent or resist, and they’re barely responsive to the defendant’s sexual advances. Based on this evidence, we believe that there might be many unidentified victims out there,” Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said.

Robicheaux, 38, had appeared in a short-lived Bravo TV show called “Online Dating Rituals of the American Male,” in 2014.

“We believe the defendants used their good looks and charm to lower the inhibitions of their potential prey,” Rackauckas said, releasing an array of information about many locations and events where Robicheaux and the 31-year-old Riley had traveled.

So far, two women have filed charges after being allegedly assaulted by the couple after meeting them at social events.

“We tend to trust doctors who take an oath to do no harm. The second defendant, being a female, is key. A woman purporting to be his girlfriend clearly played a significant role in disarming the victims, making them feel comfortable and safe,” Rackauckas said.

Cerissa Riley and Grant Robicheaux at an event where they may have hunted for prey

The couple have been released on $100,000 bond and their attorneys say their clients deny the charges.

“All allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Grant Robicheaux and his girlfriend Cerissa Riley,” the lawyers said in a statement. “They have been aware of these accusations for a number of months, and each of them will formally deny the truth of these allegations at their first opportunity in court.”

According to prosecutors, Robicheaux and Riley met a 32-year-old woman at a Newport Beach restaurant on April 10, 2016, invited her to a party and then escorted her to Robicheaux’s apartment when she was intoxicated.

The pair allegedly gave the victim multiple drugs and then sexually assaulted her while she was incapable of resisting. The woman called police the next day, and a forensic exam found multiple controlled substances.

On Oct. 2, 2016, the defendants allegedly drank alcohol with another woman at a Newport Beach bar until she was unconscious, brought her to Robicheaux’s apartment and sexually assaulted her.

The district attorney’s office said the victim awakened and screamed for help until a neighbor called police, who began an investigation.

Prosecutors say that cops also found large amounts of illegal drugs, two illegal, unregistered assault rifles, four other firearms and several large-capacity magazines at Robicheaux’s home.

They noted that the couple may have traveled to  events like the Burning Man festival in Nevada, the Dirtybird Campout festival in Silverado, California, the Splash House festival in Palm Springs, and landmarks near Page, Arizona, and fear that additional victims could have been attacked at these events.

Robicheaux studied at Louisiana State University and did postgraduate work at New York University Hospital for Joint Diseases and hs residency at the University of California Irvine Medical Center in Orange, California.

 

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‘Cool Dad’ Busted for Driving Son and Gal Pal to Park to ‘Do Their Thang’

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Dad Laurence Mitchell admitted he’d driven the kids to a park to have sex

PORT ST. LUCIE, Florida — There is such a thing as being too cool of a dad.

A 53-year-old Florida father was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor when he drove his young son and his girlfriend to a park so they could have sex, or as dad put it:  “do their thang.”

Cops initially spotted Laurence Mitchell sitting in his idling car outside a Port St. Lucie park after hours. When they asked what he was doing there, Mitchell said he had driven the young couple there to “do what kids do.”

When asked why he would do that, Mitchell said: “Well, they aren’t out there stealing. They are just having sex.”

“They could be out there doing worse,” Mitchell said, according to the police report.

Cops then spotted the young couple and when questioned, they admitted they had been in the park, “just smoking and f—ing.”

Police say Mitchell acknowledged that he had not gotten permission from the girl’s family to take her to the park for sex.

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Woman Gets 20 Years for Feeding Hubby’s Slain Gal Pal to Gators in Texas

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Amanda Hayes was convicted of dumping the victim’s remains into a creek for alligators to eat them

RICHMOND, Texas  — A cold-blooded killer was sentenced to 20 years in a Texas prison for chopping up  her husband’s ex-girlfriend’s body and trying to feed it to alligators.

The sentence comes on top of the 13-to-16-years Amanda Hayes is already serving in North Carolina for the grisly 2011 slaying.

Prosecutors say cops in Fort Bend County discovered the dismembered remains of Laura Ackerson, a 27-year-old mother of two from North Carolina in Oyster Creek in Richmond, Texas, on July 24, 2011.

Ackerson had disappeared a week earlier when she headed over to Grant and Amanda Hayes’ home to pick up the children she shared with Grant Hayes.

The couple was later charged and convicted for Ackerson’s murder, with evidence showing that had killed Ackerson in their Raleigh, North Carolina apartment, cut up her body, and then transported it in coolers to the home of the 46-year-old Amanda Hayes’ sister in Richmond, Texas.

Laura Ackerson

Once in Richmond, the couple first tried to dissolved Ackerson’s body using muriatic acid, but it didn’t work. So they then took a boat onto Oyster Creek and dumped Laura’s body parts into the water with the hope that alligators would eat her remains.

At trial, Hayes testified that she didn’t kill Ackerson and only helped get rid of her body in Texas because her husband threatened her if she didn’t help.  She was convicted in just an hour and a half.

Grant Hayes is already serving a life sentence in North Carolina for Ackerman’s murder of Ackerman. Amanda Hayes will now serve a combined 36 years for Ackerman’s slaying.

“The jury verdict was swift and the Court’s sentence was appropriately harsh,” said lead prosecutor Amanda Bolin.  “Laura Ackerson’s family can be assured that Amanda Hayes will be punished for all of her barbaric behavior – whether it was in North Carolina or the great state of Texas.”

 

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Headless Body Found in Fish Tank in San Francisco Home

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Brian Egg had been missing for weeks before cops found the headless torso in a fish tank in his home

SAN FRANCISCO — Cops made a grisly discovery when they found a headless torso stuffed into a fish tank in the home of a man whose relatives had reported him missing.

Brian Egg, 65, was reported missing by friends and neighbors in late July and again in early August, but officers left without going into his home after finding no immediate sign of anything suspicious.

But on August 14, frantic neighbors called cops once again to report a suspicious man outside Egg’s home with a crime scene cleaning truck parked outside, the San Francisco police department said.

Officers arriving at the scene, detained the man and then called in homicide detectives after detecting a suspicious smell inside Egg’s house and spotting an excessive amount of powerful cleaning products in the home.

The next day, investigators found a headless torso inside a fish tank. The medical examiner’s office is working to determine the identity of the body and the cause of death.

Following an investigations, cops arrested two men, identified as Lance Silva, 39, and Robert McCaffrey, 52, both of San Francisco. They were charged with homicide, fraud, theft, identity theft and elder abus

Police say Silva had used Egg’s debit card to purchase a used BMW and hire the hazmat crew to clean his home.

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Sexist Motorist Charged With Shooting at Women Drivers

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Nicholas D’Agostino held a “dim view” of women drivers

KATY, Texas — A man who held a “dim view” of women, has been charged with opening fire at female motorists because he believes women don’t belong behind the wheel.

Nicholas D’Agostino, 29, was charged last week in two separate road rage incidents where he shot women drivers. In a third instance, he shot at a woman, but missed, prosecutors said.

In the earliest episode, in March, D’Agostino is charged with shooting at a woman as she pulled out of a gas station, hitting her on the arm, prosecutors said.

When he was arrested, D’Agostino told cops he had shot at five women around Katy, a suburb of Houston, of five occasions.

Investigators who reviewed D’Agostino’s social media history determined that he holds a “dim view” of women, and thinks they are “incompetent, and “should stay home and birth male babies,” according to court documents reviewed by KRIV-TV.

D’Agostino was arrested last week just days after being released on bond after being jailed for six weeks in connection to a separate shooting attack on a 39-year-old woman in July.

He told KTRK-TV that he only fired in self-defense, because the woman had veered into his lane. “It was vehicular manslaughter,” he said. “It’s almost happened to me before.”

The woman, who realized she had been shot in the arm after pulling into a car wash, said she feared D’Agostino would hurt someone else before his trial in her case.

D’Agostino, who had been held earlier on $75,000 bond, is now being held on $250,000 bond.

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Ex-Prosecutor Spared Jail Time for Trading Lesser Sentences for Sex

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Ex-District Attorney William Higgins admitted he’d taken sex in exchange for better sentences

BEDFORD, Pennsylvania — A former top prosecutor was spared any time in jail after he pleaded guilty to forcing female drug defendants to give him sexual favors in return for lesser sentences.

William Higgins, Jr., 43, had served as district attorney in the Pennsylvania town of Bedford for 14 years. He was charged earlier this year with with protecting female drug defendants and revealing the identities of confidential informants to them in exchange for sex.

He was disbarred last month.

Instead of serving any time behind bars, Higgins was sentenced to $9,700 in fines, eight years of probation, 1,125 hours of community service and 120 days of house arrest.

“We’re extremely pleased with the results of the sentencing hearing,” his attorney, Steven Passarello, told the Altoona Mirror. “We believe the sentence was fair, and we believed it balanced the sentencing factors appropriately.”

State attorney general Josh Shapiro said now, “Higgins will never again be able to use the tools of a prosecutor’s office to commit these crimes.”

Bedford resident Robert Lewis, whose daughter died of a drug overdose, said he was appalled at the decision because Higgins had allowed pushers to remain on the streets.

“Your everyday citizen is not going to get that kind of consideration,” Lewis said. “Who else is going to get that kind of favoritism? Nobody. Nobody.”

In court, Higgins argued that he had made poor choices during a time when he was abusing alcohol and hand mended his ways.

“I’m deeply sorry,” he told the court room. “I’ve accepted full responsibility for my actions.”

 

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Indiana Cannibal Deemed Fit to Stand Trial in Gruesome Slaying, Eating of Ex

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Cannibal killer Joseph Oberhansley has been not mentally fit for trial since 2014

JEFFERSONVILLE, Indiana —  A bloodthirsty cannibal who allegedly raped and killed his ex-girlfriend and then ate her remains, has been deemed mentally fit to stand trial.

Joseph Oberhansley has been in an Indiana state mental hospital since he was arrested in 2014 for the grisly slaying of his ex, Tammy Jo Blanton. Last week, a state psychiatrist testified that Oberhansley was ready to go to trial.

The evaluation can still be challenged by Oberhansley’s attorneys, which would trigger a judicial hearing to determine his competency.

“This matter has been going on for four years now, and it’s high time that the victim’s family saw justice done,” Clark County Prosecuting Attorney Jeremy Mull told the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Oberhansley was last deemed incompetent by a judge to stand trial in October 2017.

Oberhansley, who has a previous conviction for manslaughter in Utah, was arrested in 2014 after police came to Blanton’s house looking for her because she hadn’t shown up for work and found him in her home. When the located her bloody body under a tarpaulin, investigators later determined parts of her heart, lung and brain were missing.

Oberhansley later admitted having eaten the missing organs, both cooked and raw.

Through various interrogations, Oberhansley has given rambling and sometimes incoherent responses. At a competency hearing last week, Oberhansley said he wanted to fire his lawyers because they were trying to control his thoughts.

 

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