Hard Boiled News

True Crime and News of the Weird from around the Globe

French Fitness Model Killed in Freak Whipped Cream Explosion

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MULHOUSE, France — A stunning French fitness model was killed in a freak accident involving an exploding whipped cream dispenser.

Rebecca Burger, who was also a popular lifestyle blogger who had a huge following on social media, was fatally wounded when a faulty whipped cream dispenser exploded and sent shrapnel into her chest, her family said in a message posted on her Instagram page.

She later died of cardiac arrest at a local hospital near the Swiss border.

Burger, 33, was wildly popular on social media. She had 56,000 followers on Facebook and 159,000 followers on Instagram, where she’d post photos of her toned body in bikinis and share tips on food and fitness. She also competed in fitness and beauty competitions around the world.

In the Instagram post announcing her death, Burger’s family warned fans not to use the dispenser, saying that tens of thousands of “defective devices” remain in circulation.

 

Love Triangle Ends With Three Dead at Canada Nudist Camp

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DRUMMONDSVILLE, Canada — A love triangle at a Canadian nudist camp turned deadly when a 76-year-old jilted lover gunned down his ex-paramour and her new beau, before turning the gun on himself.

Authorities say Denys Carpentier marched onto the grounds of the Quebec nudist/swingers playpen, Adam et Eve, and opened fire on Suzanne Gareau, 50, and his old pal, Rodrigue Tremblay.

Carpentier is believed to then have turned the gun on himself.

“It’s probably linked to a love triangle,” Sgt. Claude Denis of the Sûreté du Québec told Canada’s National Post.

Friends at the campground, about 100 miles north of Montreal, said Gareau and Carpentier had recently split and she had shacked up with his old friend Tremblay, 77, instead.

 

Carpentier (l) had been in a long-term relationship with Gareau before a recent split

But Carpentier, who was plagued with jealousy and had been very possessive of Gareau when they were together, flew into a fit of rage.

Adam et Eve describes itself as a campground for “liberated people” and contains a mix of trailers, bungalows and cabins surrounding a main complex.

It also has a disco, walking trails, a hot tub and a swimming pool.

“It’s a very sad event that has happened, but it has nothing to do with nudism,” federation spokesman Michel Vaïs told the Post. He said Adam et Ève opened in 1972 as a nudist camp, but eventually became a destination for swingers.

Ex-Guyana Health Minister Sentenced in Illegal New York Pain Pill Enterprise

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Noel Blackman was Guyana’s health minister from 1985-1992

NEW YORK — A Long Island pain doctor who had once been the minister of health for Guyana, was sentenced to 50 months in prison for illegally prescribing hundreds of thousands of powerful pain pills to addicts.

Noel Blackman, who served as the health minister of the South American country in the late 1980s and early 1990s, ran a number of pain management clinics in Queens, Brooklyn and Long Island, from which he wrote prescriptions for oxycodone in exchange for $300, federal prosecutors said.

In total, the 68-year-old Blackman had been charged with writing 1,920 prescriptions for 365,000 30-milligram pills. Authorities said the pills had a street value of approximately $57,000.

He was arrested in February 2016 by Homeland Security agents who took him off a plane bound for Guyana. A search of his bags revealed $30,00 in cash tucked inside.

He pleaded guilty last August. In addition to the jail time, Blackman was ordered to pay $536,000 in fines.

“Blackman violated his professional oath to put his patients’ legitimate medical needs first, and instead chose to line his pockets with the proceeds of sales from oxycodone, which has ravaged communities in New York City and on Long Island,” said acting U.S. Attorney Bridget Rohde.

News outlets in Guyana said Blackman was headed back there to become the  Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation. He is also the co-owner of Guyana’s Channel 9 television station, which is also known as HBTV, or Hoyte-Blackman Television.

Three Sentenced in $19 Million Maple Syrup Heist

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TROIS-RIVIERES, Canada — Call it sweet justice.

Three men have been sentenced to prison for stealing nearly $19 million worth of Canadian maple syrup.

The ringleader, Richard Vallieres, 38,  was given an eight-year sentence and ordered to pay $9.4 million in fines. If he is unable to do so, he will be hit with an additional six years behind bars, a judge ruled.

Vallieres’ father and another man, who served as a syrup reseller, were sentenced to two year terms, the Canadian Broadcasting Company reported. Some 26 people have been arrested in connection with the heist.

The elaborate plot involved Vallieres and his accomplices draining barrels of the syrup held in the warehouses of the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, a regulatory body that oversees Canada’s trade, and replacing the sweet elixir with water.

Richard Vallieres

The scheme came unraveled when regulators conducting a spot check found a barrel filled with water rather than the expected maple goodness.

An investigation revealed that Vallieres and his partners had walked off with 3,000 tons of syrup over the course of several months in 2012.

Vallieres claimed he only participated in the scheme out of fear of a crooked syrup dealer who had had threatened him with a gun and warned that his family could get hurt.

He and the others are appealing their convictions.

Lumpy-Looking Smugglers Caught Sneaking Pig Fat Strapped to Their Bodies

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It may not look appetizing but Ukrainians and Belarusians eat pig fat by the ton

 

STOLIN, Belarus — A crew of hungry, misfit smugglers got busted trying to sneak 20 pounds of cured pig fat from Ukraine to Belarus taped to their bodies, authorities said.

The odd-looking bunch were stopped at a border checkpoint after crossing from Ukraine in a BMW, when the border guards noticed that their torsos looked lumpy and disproportionately large compared to the rest of their bodies.

A body search revealed layers of the fat — known as salo — strapped around their chests. The fat is considered a delicacy in Ukraine but its import to neighboring countries is highly regulated as it is effectively eaten raw and needs to be well handled.

It seems Belarusians have quite a taste for the fat as border guards routinely catch salo smugglers along the border. Just two days before this latest arrest, a group of men were stopped when border agents found 45 pounds of the fat stuffed inside the spare tire of a car driving into the country.

Earlier this year, two men were caught trying to sneak 250 pounds of salo into Belarus aboard a train. And in February, border agents stopped a truck carrying more than two tons of the fatty food product.

 

Old-Fashioned Murder: Man Stabbed in Fight Over Late Newspaper Delivery

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LUNEBURG, Germany — A heated argument over the news turned deadly in Germany and it had nothing to do with what was in the paper.

Authorities in the northern town of Luneburg say a 42-year-old newspaper delivery man has been charged with fatally stabbing a customer following a long-running argument over why he was always late bringing the paper.

Police say the latest fight turned deadly on Saturday at the postal box of the 51-year-old victim when he once again complained about the lateness of the paper and the delivery man plunged a blade into his chest.

When a 23-year-old relative of the victim spotted what was happening, he rushed out a pulled the delivery man away and pinned him to the ground until police arrived, the Metro newspaper reported.

Paramedics tried to save the stabbing victim but he later died of his injuries at a local hospital, cops said.

The delivery man — whose name has not been made public — has been charged with murder and remains in custody.

 

Bosnian War Criminal Sentenced for Lying About Past to Get U.S. Passport

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Slobo Maric was convicted of abusing Bosnian Croat prisoners of war like these men

JACKSONVILLE, Florida — An unemployed Florida man convicted of war crimes in Bosnia has been sentenced to a year-and-half in federal prison for lying about his past as a sadistic prison warden when he applied to become a  U.S. citizen.

Slobo Maric, 56, had been a member of the Bosnian army during the civil war that tore that country apart in the early 1990s. Authorities say that during that time he served as the second in command at an elementary school-turned detention center for captured Bosnian Croat soldiers in the city of Mostar.

Under his command, prison guards routinely meted out brutal beatings of the prisoners of war . They also sent them to the front lines to dig trenches, fill sandbags and carry away the dead, and many were killed by sniper fire and bombs, authorities said.

In 1994, Maric was arrested and charged with war crimes against prisoners but was released as part of a prisoner exchange the following year. In 1996, he applied for refugee status in the United States. Prosecutors say he lied about whether he had ever violated the law, and the application was granted.

He then moved to Jacksonville, Florida, and in 1998 became a permanent resident and once again lied about his past on the application. Two years later, Maric was indicted for war crimes in Bosnia and was tried and convicted in absentia. U.S. prosecutors say Maric hired a lawyer and filed letters in his own defense in the case.

Shortly after his conviction, Maric applied to become a U.S. citizen and lied once again about  his past and in 2002, he was granted citizenship.

Maric pleaded guilty to the fraud last July and will have his U.S. citizenship revoked after he has served his sentence. He will then be deported back to Bosnia where he will likely face jail time for his war crimes conviction.

Artist’s Coconut Cannon Seized After Close Call With German Dog Walker

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The cannon, while capable of firing lethal projectiles, was conceived as a work of art

BERLIN — One man’s work of art is another man’s deadly weapon.

A German dog walker narrowly escaped a tragic end when a coconut fired from a cannon built for an art exhibit whizzed by his head.

Berlin police say the man heard a loud boom as he walked his pooch in an industrial area of Berlin late on March 1, and then saw what appeared to be a coconut zoom past before  striking lamp post.

Artist Julian Charriere

Investigators called to the scene were surprised to find a  one-ton, 15-foot long cannon made from the trunk of a palm tree in a nearby lot that was capable of firing objects at high speeds with compressed air.

A 23-year-old artist at the scene said the weapon was actually a work of art and that he and others had been testing it before it was slated to be shipped to the first ever Antarctica Biennale the following day.

Investigators confiscated the cannon instead and prosecutors were determining whether any laws had been broken.

The artist who made the piece, Julian Charriere, had been in New York at the time and told Artnet that he intended to submit the paperwork documenting the cannon’s seizure to the Biennale in its place.

He said the piece was intended “to highlight the importance of international demilitarization agreements, such as the 1959 Antarctic Treaty that suspends sovereign claims, reserving the continent for peaceful scientific inquiry.”

Burglar Hands Cops Key Evidence When Swallowed Necklace Emerges From Other End

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Clifford Airey couldn’t hold it in forever

KENT, England — The trail of evidence in this case made its way through some dark places.

Police in southern England were able to solve a burglary when a man they had arrested for another break-in went to the bathroom revealing a stolen gold chain he’d swallowed to hide the evidence from cops.

Clifford Airey, 52, of Herne Bay, was arrested on Jan. 31 for breaking into a home in town a week earlier. But as he was being taken into custody he ingested the gold chain he;d taken earlier that day at another home, Kent Police said.

Eventually, as Airey was making his way through processing, nature called and the evidence of the second burglary appeared.

The damning evidence led Airey,  who police say is a prolific burglar and notorious in the area, to plead guilty to both burglaries. On March 15, he was sentenced to eight years in prison.

“Airey is a prolific burglar and has caused significant suffering. He’s now in prison for a considerable amount of time where he can no longer pose a threat to the community,” said Det. Constable Kirsty Martin.

In 2014, Airey was jailed for stealing irreplaceable war medals from a family whose home he’d broken into, according to Kent Online. During the trial, he refused to say what he’d done with the medals and they were never recovered. At the time, authorities referred to Airey as a “heartless drug addict.”

What Hoseheads! Two Canadians Convicted of Harassment For Riding Moose

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What is it with Canadians and moose?

FORT NELSON, Canada — Two Canadian knuckleheads were convicted of harassing wildlife and fined $3,000 each after a video of them chasing a scared moose across a lake and one of them jumping on its back surfaced online.

Bradley Dale Crook, 31,  and Jaysun Allan Pinkerton, 33, of Fort St. John pleaded guilty on Friday after investigators spent a year trying to identify them from the video which went viral, the CBC reported.

The cruel episode occurred in July 2014 on Tuchodi Lakes in Northern Rocky Mountains Provincial Park near Fort Nelson, about 900 miles north of Vancouver in British Columbia.

The video, which was posted on YouTube, shows the men aboard a motorboat chasing the terrified animal through the shallows of the lake, which one man shouts: “Wait ’til he’s swimming. Let’s get on that moose!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=64&v=Kl4kJ9TGhJA

As the animal moves into deeper water, one of the men leaps from the boat onto the moose’s back and rides it for about 15 seconds while the creature howls and bucks in the water.

Meanwhile, his pals on the boat are laughing hysterically, with one shouting, “I’ve never seen anything so awesome!”

David Vince of the British Columbia Conservation Service said the video represented “the ultimate form of harassment.”

“You can see that the moose is struggling with that fellow on her back. You can see the fright in her eyes,” Vince told the CBC.

The video came to the attention of  conservation officials in 2015.