Hard Boiled News

True Crime and News of the Weird from around the Globe

Florida Sisters Nabbed in Dad’s 2015 Slay After Blabbing to Shared Lover

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Sisters Mary-Beth Tomaselli and Linda Roberts almost got away with killing their 85-year-old father four years ago

PALM HARBOR, Florida — A pair of sisters nearly got away with the “perfect murder,” but ended up blowing the lid off their secret when they blabbed about killing their 85-year-old father to a man they both were having an affair with, cops said.

Mary-Beth Tomaselli, 63, and her sister, Linda Roberts, 61, have been charged with first-degree murder for the 2015 slaying of their terminally ill father, Anthony Tomaselli, in his Florida home.

The Pinellas County Sheriff’s office says its deputies first investigated the elder Tomaselli’s death after his daughters reported finding him dead early in the morning on March 6, 2015. They told cops that he had fallen asleep on the couch the night before and that he wasn’t breathing when they checked on him in the morning.

At the time, there were no signs of foul play and as Tomaselli had been suffering dementia, heart disease and cancer, investigators ruled that he had died of natural causes.

But in mid-February, detectives received a call from man who was involved in a sexual relationship with both the women, who told them that Linda Roberts had confessed to him that she and her sister had killed their father.

The man, whose name was not released, had made a recording of the confession and then made further recordings of the women discussing their father’s death after he contacted police.

“If they didn’t run their mouth and confess to this guy she met in a bar, they would have gotten away with it,” said Sheriff Bob Gualtieri. ‘It would’ve been the perfect murder.”

The recordings revealed that the women had planned to “euthanize” their father as he only had a few months to live and refused to go into an assisted living facility.

To kill him, the woman had crushed up sleeping pills and mixed them with alcohol, but diluted the mixture too much, so he didn’t die, police said. They then attempted to suffocate him by placing a pillow over his face, but that didn’t work either.

In the end, they managed to kill their father by stuffing a rag down his throat and holding his nose closed until he died. The women expressed amazement that he appeared to continue to have a pulse even though he was dead, but then realized it was because his pacemaker continued to operate after he expired, Gualtieri said.

Mary-Beth Tomaselli’s adult daughter was in the home that night, so the sister’s gave her sleeping pills so she wouldn’t wake up and witness the death of her grandfather.

The following morning, cops say the sisters staged giving their father CPR before calling 911.

After his death, the women sold their father’s home and split the $120,000 profit between them and a brother, who was not involved in the murder. Cops say they don’t think the motive was financial.

Upon being arrested, the woman admitted to what had happened, cops said.

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Sicko Graphic Novelist Ordered to Pay $41.6M in Scalping Slay of Fiancee

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Blake Leibel modeled the slaying of gal pal Iana Kasian after a graphic novel he wrote

LOS ANGELES — A sicko graphic novelist heir to a powerful Canadian clan has been ordered to pay $41.6 million to the family of his fiancee who he brutally tortured and scalped just weeks after she gave birth to their daughter.

Blake Leibel, who is serving life in prison in the 2016 slaying he modeled after a graphic novel he’d written, was found liable in a wrongful death suit brought by Iana Kasian’s family.

“This murder didn’t just kill one person, it really did kill the family, it shattered the family. And the family has had a hard time crawling back from this,” said Jake Finkel, an attorney representing Kasian’s family told the Los Angeles Times.

Leibel, whose family built their fortune in Canadian real estate and chemicals manufacturing, once had a fledgling Hollywood career as a writer and illustrator.

But in 2016, cops found him barricaded in his West Hollywood apartment with Kasian’s mutilated body.

Prosecutors said during Leibel’s trial that he had cut off  Kasian’s scalp, letting all of her blood drain from her body, killing her.

Experts testified that Kasian was alive during much of the torture and died “a very slow, excruciating, painful death.” Prosecutors said the grisly slaying was modeled after the story of “Syndrome,” a graphic novel that Leibel helped create years earlier. I

Leibel moved to California in 2004, married and had a son, living off an allowance from his parents — payouts that totaled $1.8 million over about seven years.

He worked on the animated series “Spaceballs,” based on the 1987 film by Mel Brooks, and collaborated with a team of writers and an illustrator to develop “Syndrome.”

In 2015. he filed for divorce and met Kasian who became pregnant. Prosecutors argued at trial that Leibel had been driven by jealousy over the attention Kasian gave to their newborn, Diana, when he committed the gruesome slaying.

Kasian hailed from Ukraine, where she worked as an attorney prosecuting tax crimes and moved to the U.S. in 2014. The $41.6 million will go to Kasian’s mother, Olga, who is raising the now-3-year-old girl in Ukraine.

“The most precious thing to take away from a little girl, from a woman, is her mother. [Diana’s] mother was taken away from her before she even got a real chance to learn about her, get to know her,” Finkel said. “At one point, she’s going to learn about the reality of her mother, and what happened to her, and her biological father and what he did to her mother.”

 

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Family Charged in Woman’s Slay They Blamed on Phony Homeless Man

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Keith Smith has now been charged in the stabbing of his wife Jacquelyn Smith in Baltimore

BALTIMORE — The slaying of woman whose family claimed she had been stabbed by an aggressive panhandler, took a shocking turn when police arrested her relatives who they say made up the story to cover up their role in her death.

Jacquelyn Smith’s murder in December in Baltimore, purportedly by a man asking for change, drew national attention about the plight and dangers of the homeless in the United States.

Just days after the stabbing, Jacquelyn’s husband, Keith, and stepdaughter, Valeria, held a tearful press conference in which they blamed her death on a man who approached their car after she gave money to a woman begging in the rain with a baby. They said the man came up to the car under the guise of thanking Jacquelyn, then reached into the car and snatched her necklace and pocketbook, stabbing her in the process.

But now police say their story was bogus and are charging Keith and Valeria with first-degree murder. The paid were picked up at the U.S.-Mexico border while trying to flee the country, the Baltimore police said.

“The information and evidence points it wasn’t a panhandler,” acting Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said. “People take advantage of Baltimore. We want to make sure the truth comes out and justice is done.”

Other family members told the Baltimore Sun that they doubted Keith and Valeria’s story from the start and had eyed him as being responsible.

The case drew national attention, causing some — including Oprah Winfrey — to express concern about giving money to panhandlers.

Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby said the Smiths exploited the city and its violence. Smith’s death was one of more than 300 in Baltimore in 2018.

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Cop Charged With Making Illegal Guns for Outlaw Biker Gangs

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Gregg Marinelli is charged with making guns to sell to biker gangs

PLATTEKILL, New York — A New York police officer has been charged with manufacturing dozens of illegal handguns and assault rifles and selling them to outlaw motorcycle gang members, authorities said.

Gregg Marinelli, 38, who is a sergeant with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection Police, is accused of making the guns — including at least one fully automatic assault rifle — in his Plattekill home.

He then allegedly sold them to people who are legally barred from possessing weapons because they had felony convictions, such as members of outlaw motorcycle groups.

Marinelli is accused of using his marked police car to sometimes deliver the guns, which had no serial numbers, making them hard to trace.

Authorities say the investigation into Marinelli arose out of a recent drug trafficking case, dubbed “Operation Bread, White and Blues,” which looked as cocaine and pain pill trafficking by members and associates of self-professed “outlaw” motorcycle clubs. During that probe, investigators learned that Marinelli alerted a suspect that he was a target.

Investigators recovered numerous guns, gun parts and tools used to manufacture weapons at Marinelli’s home. State Police have also recovered 13 handguns and assault rifles from others which were manufactured and sold by Marinelli.

He faces a slew of charges including criminal sale and criminal possession of a firearm and hindering prosecution. He is being held on $600,000 bond.

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Cold Case Child Killer Strangled to Death By Cellmate in Oklahoma Prison

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Child Killer Anthony Palma (l) was found slain in the cell he shared with Raymond Pillado

McALESTER, Oklahoma  — A convicted child killer serving a life sentence for a 1997 cold case slaying of an 8-year-old girl was strangled to death in prison by his cellmate, authorities said.

Anthony Palma, 59, died from “ligature strangulation and blunt force trauma to the head,” according to a report released by the Oklahoma state medical examiner’s office.

Palma was found lying in a pool of blood in his cell at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary during a routine security check on Jan. 11 and could not be revived.

His cellmate, Raymond Pillado, 35, was also serving a life sentence for first-degree murder for killing three people.

Palma was convicted in 2017 of the murder of 8-year-old Kirsten Hatfield, who was abducted from her Midwest City home in 1997. Her killing had remained unsolved for two decades until DNa evidence linked Palma to the case.

He had lived two doors down from the Hatfield family and was arrested for the murder in 2015 after investigators reexamined some of the evidence from the cold case and he matched DNA recovered from blood found on the girl’s bedroom window and her underwear.

The girl’s body was never recovered.

Authorities told KFOR-TV that they had plans to interviewing Palma later this year in the hopes of  extracting information that could lead them to her body.

‘We’ve not had closure on this case and we may never have closure because we wanted to find her body and bring her home,’ said Midwest City Police Chief Brandon Clabes.

 

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Speeding Driver Killed in Collision With Elephant on Thailand Road

By HardBoiledNews Staff

The elephant was unmoved after being hit by the car and then stomped the driver to death

NAKHON RATCHASIMA, Thailand — A speeding driver was killed after he hit an elephant that then stomped his pickup flat, police said.

Officials in northeast Thailand said the vehicle plowed into the wild pachyderm’s hind legs as sun set at the edge of the Khao Yai National Park, police said.

The angry animal then reared up and crushed the vehicle, killing the driver, 58-year-old Nakharin Boonchai, the Bangkok Post reported.

“Elephants don’t come out during the day but they start coming out when it gets dark,” said Lt. Col. Kemchat Paedkaew, of the Thai police. He said up to two people a year are killed by elephants in areas surrounding the park.

The accident happened on Wednesday on a small road with signs telling drivers to be aware of wild animals that sometimes stray from the park. Locals reported that two elephants had been crossing the road at the time and that they tried to warn Boonchai — who was not from the area — to slow down, but he hit the rear animal as darkness fell.

This was all that was left of the truck after the elephant was done with it

Officials tracked the stricken elephant, which was bleeding from one of its legs but still able to walk, and were monitoring its condition.

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Disgraced Judge Kills Ex-Wife He Brutally Beat in Front of Kids in 2014

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Disgraced judge Lance Mason had served nine months for beating his ex-wife in 2014

SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio — A disgraced former judge has been arrested for fatally stabbing his ex-wife after serving time for brutally beating her in front of their kids, cops said.

Lance Mason, 51, allegedly stabbed his estranged wife, Aisha Fraser Mason, a sixth-grade school teacher, at his home on Saturday, police said. He then fled the scene in his SUV and rammed a police cruiser, severely injuring a Shaker Heights police officer as he got out of the vehicle.

The officer, Adam Flynt, is expected to live.

Mason was thrown off the bench after the vicious attack on his wife in 2014 that left her with a broken orbital bone that required reconstructive surgery.

Investigators said Mason punched Fraser Mason 20 times and slammed her head against the dashboard of his car five times, while the couple’s children were in the back of the car. Mason, who previously served in the state legislature, was a sitting Cuyahoga County judge when the attack took place.

After his 2014 arrest, police found a large arsenal of weapons and ammunition in his home.

Mason served nine months of a two-year prison sentence and went to work as a minority business development director for the mayor of Cleveland’s office after his release. He was fired after his arrest on Saturday.

Fraser Mason filed for divorce two days after the attack. The divorce case was still pending at the time of her death.  She also won a $150,000 judgement in a civil case against her ex-husband.

As part of his petition for release, Mason penned a letter to Fraser Mason saying he “failed as a husband, father, and a man,” and promised that once he realized he was “broken” he became a better father and man.”

“My responsibility was to love and protect you,” Mason’s letter said. “Instead of loving, protecting and providing for you and our daughters, I have provided a terrible example, and exposed you to rage and violence.”

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Man Who Raped Woman As She Overdosed Gets Less Than 3 Years

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Brian Varela admitted he raped Alyssa Noceda as she lay dying of an overdose and never called for help

LYNWOOD, Washington  —  A man who cruelly raped a woman as she was dying from a drug overdose and then joked about it with his friends by text rather than call for help has been sentenced to less than three years in jail.

Brian Varela, 20, received just  2 years and 10 months in the death of 18-year-old Alyssa Noceda in February who overdosed after he gave her a fatal cocktail of drugs.

Superior Court Judge Linda Krese said it was the most time allowed under state guidelines for second-degree manslaughter, third-degree rape and unlawful disposal of human remains, for someone with no prior record. She admitted she was  “surprised, even outraged,” by the inadequacy of the sentence, having seen auto theft cases with more serious penalties.

“I’m not sure the legislature really contemplated something like this,” Krese said, according to the Daily Herald newspaper in Everett, Washington.

Varela told detectives Noceda came to a party at his mobile home in February and snorted crushed pills in his room and then and then took a dab of concentrated THC. He said she collapsed within a minute of mixing the two.

Varela told cops the pills were Percocet, but tests later showed she’d taken a fatal mix of fentanyl and Xanax. Varela did not call for help. Instead he texted pictures of Noceda’s partly nude body to coworkers, with comments like, “LOL.”

“Bro you killed her,” one friend said.

“But not joking she od bruh,” Varela wrote. He didn’t care, he added, because he was sexually assaulting her “to pass the time.” He never called for help.

Varela then played video games until he fell asleep, and when he woke up the next morning, he told police that Noceda’s lips blue and that she was cold to the touch.

But instead of calling police, he went to work at Dairy Queen. Once he returned home, he stuffed Noceda’s body in a plastic crate where he kept her hidden for days.

At one point, he used Noceda’s thumbprint to get into her iPhone, so he could post on Snapchat suggesting that she ran away. He also washed her body to try to destroy evidence. He told friends he planned to bury her and then flee to Mexico. Eventually, a coworker called police.

When asked if he had anything to say, Varela told the judge: “I’m sorry for my foolish actions. Whatever I get is what I deserve.”

Noceda’s disgusted aunt, Rachelle Palmer, said afterwards: “You might as well let him walk free with that kind of time.”

 

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Cops Apprehend Two Drunk and Disorderly Raccoons in West Virginia

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Turns out the rambunctious raccoons had been hitting the fermented crabapples a bit too hard

MILTON, West Virginia — These critters got drunk as a skunk … well almost.

Police in West Virginia made their strangest drunk and disorderly arrests yet when they picked up two suspected rabid raccoons who turned out just to be drunk.

“Turns out they appear to be drunk on crabapples,” the Milton police department said in a post on its Facebook page.

The masked bandits were apprehended a day apart and in both cases, were later released into the woods unharmed after they’d slept it off. Officers named the second raccoon Dallas.

Cops said residents should exercise caution if their spot wobbly wildlife.

“If you see a staggering and disoriented raccoon please do not approach it. It could be sick so call us and we’ll take care of it,” the department said. “Welcome to Milton Dallas.”

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4 Charged in Stunning Execution of Ohio Family of 8 Over Custody Dispute

By HardBoiledNews Staff

George Wagner III, Angela Wagner, George Wagner IV and Edward Wagner are charged in the  execution slayings of the Rhoden family in Pike County, Ohio in 2016

WAVERLY, Ohio — Nearly three years after eight members of a rural Ohio family were found shot execution-style in their mobile homes, authorities have charged four members of another family long acquainted with the victims.

The brutal, execution-style slayings of two generations of the Rhoden family in Pike County in Appalachia in April 2016, had perplexed authorities who had dedicated thousands of hours of detective work and had interviewed over 550 people in the effort to track down the killers.

“We promised the victims’ families that the day would come when this case would be solved, and today is that day,” said Attorney General Mike DeWine. “These suspects developed a calculated plan to execute the victims in the middle of the night and then carefully cover their tracks. Their alleged plan was sophisticated, but not sophisticated enough.”

George “Billy” Wagner III, 47, Angela Wagner, 48, George Wagner IV, 27, and Edward “Jake” Wagner, 26, were charged with eight counts of aggravated murder and face the death penalty.

DeWine said the killings appeared to have stemmed from a custody dispute over the five-year-old daughter of Jack Wagner and 19-year-old Hanna May Rhoden.

“There was an obsession with custody of the children. There was an obsession of control of the children,” DeWine said. He dismissed a long-standing theory that the murders were connected to a marijuana business relationship between the families that had gone sour.

Additionally, authorities arrested Angela Wagner’s mother, Rita Newcomb, 65, and Billy Wagner’s mother, Fredericka Wagner, 76, on charges of obstructing justice, perjury and forging custody documents.

Suspicion had long been cast on the Wagner family, but DeWine said efforts the clan had made to cover their tracks had slowed the investigation. At one point, members of the Wagner family had moved to Alaska, purportedly to get away from the glare of the investigation, but had since moved back to Ohio.

The case dates backs to April 2016, when authorities found  seven members of the Rhoden family, plus the fiancée of one of the Rhoden victims, each shot numerous times  at four different mobile homes in Pike County.

Among the dead were:: Christopher Rhoden Sr., 40, his ex-wife Dana Manley Rhoden, 37, and their three children, Hanna Rhoden, 19, Christopher Rhoden Jr., 16, and Clarence “Frankie” Rhoden, 20. Frankie Rhoden’s fiancée, Hannah “Hazel” Gilley, 20, was also killed, along with the elder Christopher Rhoden’s brother Kenneth Rhoden, 44, and cousin Gary Rhoden, 38.

 

Most of the victims were killed as they slept. Three young children at home at the time of the murders were left unharmed.

The turning point in the case came last week, when authorities determined that one of the Wagner’s had built a homemade silencer for a gun.

“The Wagners were friends with the Rhodens and had been for years. They knew the layouts of the Rhodens’ homes, and they knew the victims’ routines. It is our belief that the suspects used this knowledge to meticulously plan these horrendous, cold-blooded murders,” DeWine said.

The indictments allege that the suspects purchased ammunition, a magazine clip, bags to catch spent shell casings and a bug detector in preparation for the crimes.

Jake Wagner is also charged with unlawful sexual conduct with a minor for having sex with Hanna Rhoden when she was 15 and he was 20.

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