Hard Boiled News

True Crime and News of the Weird from around the Globe

Air Force Captain Who Disappeared With Top Secrets Found After 35 Years

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Air Force Capt. William Hughes deserted in 1983 and had been feared to have defected to Russia

FAIRFIELD, California — An Air Force captain with top secret clearance whose disappearance 35 years ago raised the specter he had given sensitive missile secrets to the Russians, has been found, authorities said.

Capt. William Howard Hughes, 66, was declared missing in 1983 after failing to return to Kirtland Air Force base in Albuquerque, New Mexico following  a temporary assignment at NATO headquarters in the Netherlands.

A probe revealed that Hughes had withdrawn $28,500 from his accounts at 19 different bank locations in Albuquerque before he disappeared. His car was found at the Albuquerque airport.

He was finally located on June 5, when investigators conducting a passport fraud probe in California interviewed a man who claimed to be Barry O’Beirne. But after questioning him about inconsistencies in his story, he admitted he was Hughes.

He told investigators that at the time of his disappearance, he had been depressed about being in the Air Force and decided to leave. He said he moved to California and had lived there since as Barry O’Beirne.

 

At the time of his disappearance, Hughes had top secret security about matters relating to NATO. His family told reporters at the time that they thought he had been abducted.

In 1984, a report in the Los Angeles Times speculated that Hughes had possibly defected to the Soviet Union and given them sensitive information about NATO defense systems.

Authorities say they have no reason to believe at this point that Hughes had given information to the Russians but were continuing to investigate.

He is being held at Travis Air Force Base in California.

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Teen Loses Hand in Sword Fight, Is Then Slapped With Severed Limb

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What started as a road rage incident quickly escalated into a full-on sword fight

SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates — Well, that certainly got out of hand.

A teenage motorist lost his hand after a road rage incident in the United Arab Emirates sparked an out-of-control sword fight, authorities said.

To add insult to injury, the man who chopped the teen’s hand off, picked up the severed extremity and used it to slap the victim across the face, Gulf News reported.

A criminal court heard this week how the road rage incident in January led to the sprawling, bloody sword fight in a park in the UAE’s third largest city of Sharjah.

The rumble involved two groups of teens, a dozen in all and all of them under the age of 16, prosecutors said.

The victim who had his hand chopped off had been trying to protect himself from a sword blow and had put his hands up in front of his face, his lawyer, Abdullah Salman, told the court.

After his hand hit the group, his attacker allegedly picked it up and began beating him with it, the court heard.

The victim’s pals were able to rush him and his severed hand to a local hospital where doctors were able to reattach it.

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Drunk Narrowly Avoids Being Squashed After Passing Out on Texas Road

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Cops fortunately spotted this woman passed out drunk on the road before she was run over

FULSHEAR, Texas  — Drunk and stupid is no way to live, and for this woman it was almost the way she died.

Texas police were shocked to discover a drunken woman passed out in the middle of a country road in the dark, forcing motorists to swerve unexpectedly to avoid running her over.

“We all make mistakes, however, this mistake almost cost this young woman her life,” the Fulshear, Texas police department wrote on its Facebook page.

Cops say the woman appeared to have “bedded down” on the road after driving into a ditch about 200 yards from where she was found.

Dashboard video shows the stunning moment when officer on patrol happened upon her prone body after noticing a motorist swerve to avoid hitting her.

“Sergeant Scott immediately realized that ‘the object’ in the road was a person and quickly stopped to render aid,” the department said.

The woman was charged with public intoxication and given a lift to jail.

“However, this unfortunate mistake could have ended tragically and the ride could have been to the morgue,” police said.

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Guitar Heist Leads to Wild Machete Melee on Seattle Street

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What began with the theft of an axe quickly turned into a standoff between a machete and gun

SEATTLE — Well, that escalated quickly.

The theft of a guitar from a Seattle shop led to a wild chase and multi-car pileup that ended in a standoff between two of the suspects, with one wielding a machete and the other brandishing a gun, cops said.

Police say a group of three men and a woman snatched a $1,600 axe from a Guitar Center in downtown Seattle.

The suspects then fled in two separate cars but allegedly began chasing each other, getting into a wreck and causing a pile up that ground rush hour traffic to a halt. No one was hurt.

But the situation grew even more tense when one of the suspects pulled out a machete and confronted another of the suspects who then whipped out a gun.

Cops soon arrived and arrested the two men and a woman who had been with them. A four male suspect managed to get away, cops said.

The guitar was later returned to the shop.

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Man Who Dropped Pants in Court to Prove Innocence in Rape Case Found Not Guilty

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Desmond James had the evidence in his pants all along

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut — Call it a case of junk justice.

A Connecticut rape suspect was acquitted after dropping his pants and exposing himself to the jury to prove that his member didn’t match the description given by the victim.

Desmond James, 26, was cleared of three counts of sexual assault  showing that his equipment didn’t fit the accuser’s description of her attacker being a black man whose penis is lighter than the rest of his skin.

“If it’s not the light one, it’s not the right one,” his lawyer, Todd Bussert, told the New York Post.

James became a suspect after the victim picked him out of a photo lineup in 2012. At the time she said she had been raped by a “dark-skinned black male with big lips and black-people hair,” Bussert said.

“There were a number of troubling aspects in terms of the allegation. It evoked negative racial stereotypes,” he said. “We felt in general that it didn’t describe our client.”

In the end, the only evidence Bussert presented was to have James stand in the middle of the courtroom and drop his pants.

Bussert said the whole thing was very “embarrassing” for James, because court workers had filled the room to watch his testimony.

“If your liberty is at stake, he was willing to do that,” Bussert said.

While he was exonerated in this case, James is already serving a 65 years for breaking into a house and raping a 10-year-old girl.

 

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Man Walks Out of Court Just Ahead of Murder Conviction, Remains on Loose

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Verlaine LaGuerre walked out of court just ahead of his guilty verdict and has not been seen since

ATLANTA — He got out in the nick of time.

A man on trial for murder managed to walk out of a court building and disappear just before he was found guilty of killing a man.

Verlaine LaGuerre, 26, remains on the lam after walking out of the Fulton County courthouse during the the lunch break last month, and not returning to hear the verdict in bis case.

LaGuerre had been on trial for the 2011 death of star football player, Matthew Hardeman,  who was shot more than 50 times.

Prosecutors said LaGuerre and Hardeman had exchanged “dirty looks” in front of Hardeman’s home and then got into a fist fight, prompting LaGuerre to later return with a pal and open fire with an assault rifle and a handgun.

Hardeman bullet-riddled, lifeless body was later found by his family in the front yard.

LaGuerre and his buddy, Prentice Baker, were sentenced to life in prison for the slaying.

Hardeman’s family told WAGA-TV that they fear that LaGuerre may come after them.

 

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11 Arrested in Bizarre Animal Sacrifice Ritual in Texas

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Cops say they found 11 people in a Texas garage engaged in the ritual sacrifice of animals

SAN ANTONIO — Police were stunned to discover nearly a dozen people gathered in a packed Texas garage involved in the ritual sacrifice of several chickens, goats and other animals.

Deputies with the Bexar County Sheriff’s office arrived at the home late Friday after getting receiving an animal cruelty complaint, and found 11 people huddled around a table, dismembering the animals with knives.

“It appears that they were having some sort of unknown ritual,” Sheriff’s Sgt. Elizabeth Gonzalez told the San Antonio Express. “One of the other persons was holding up a chicken and draining blood into a container. There was containers there. There was heads of what looked like goats and animals dead and alive inside.”

She said the responding officer speaks fluent English and Spanish, but the group was “speaking a different language the officer did not recognize.”

Multiple dead and mutilated animals were found inside the home, including goat heads, Gonzalez said.

Eleven men and women — ranging in age from 23 to 65 — were charged with cruelty to livestock animals.

They were identified as Alexander Gene Campos, 23; Ivan Felipe Gonzalez, 24; Carmen Maria Gonzalez-Trujillo, 41; Cynthia Gabriell Martinez, 29; Liza Mercado, 46; Marie Galan Murcia, 65; Ramon Patino Jr., 65; Luiz Rodriguez Ortiz, 41; Robert Talamantez, 55; Irma Garza Talamantez, 64; and Arteaga Ariel Torres, 39.

 

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Utah Granny Busted For Hiring Third Hitman in Effort to Kill Ex

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Linda Gillman really wanted her ex dead

SALT LAKE CITY — If at first you don’t succeed … .

An elderly Utah woman on trial for trying to hire a hitman to kill her ex-husband and who was accused of hiring a second contract killer while in jail, has been charged with trying to hire a third hitman, prosecutors said.

Linda Tracy Gillman, 70, was hit with the new charges on the same day she was convicted in the original case of trying to get her ex killed.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said, according to KSL-TV.

Gillman had originally been charged with giving an employee $5,000 to an employee to arrange for her ex-husband — a prominent bankruptcy lawyer — and his new wife to be killed in a way that looked like a drug overdose. She promised to hand over another $10,000 when the job was done.

But the man went to police instead.

While she was in jail, Gillman was charged with approaching another inmate who she thought was affiliated with a white supremacist gang, to arrange to have the original “hit man” killed so he couldn’t testify against her.

The case was ultimately dropped due to problems with the witness.

But as Gillman’s trial began, it surfaced that she had tried a third time to hire a contract killer to bump off the original “hitman” in the case involving her ex-husband and an attorney who had won a separate civil suit against her.

Authorities caught wind of that plot when they intercepted a check for $155,000 that was made out to relatives of a fellow inmate she had tried to get involved in setting up the hits.

 

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UK Inmate Suspected of Swallowing Drugs Refuses to Poop for 40 Days

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Lamarr Chambers has held his poo for nearly six weeks

ESSEX, United Kingdom — The things drugs will make you do.

A drug suspect in England has refused to poo for 40 days because police believe he swallowed his stash when he was arrested and investigators need to wait until it comes out to file formal charges.

“I find myself in unchartered territory,” 24-year-old Lamarr Chambers’ lawyer, Andrew Horsall told a judge reviewing an application for continuing to hold the suspect in jail, according to EssexLive.

The longest known case where a person hasn’t gone to the bathroom is 75 days.

Prosecutors told the Essex court that Charmbers — who was arrested Jan. 17 — has been given food and water and that the choice of not having a bowel movement is his alone, so he should continue to remain in jail until the matter resolves itself.

“It is clear he is obstructing the investigation by refusing to go to the toilet,” prosecutor Bob Rowlingson said. “He only has to cooperate with the police but his lack is cooperation shows that Mr Chamber has something to hide and that what he his hiding is the drugs he swallowed.”

Authorities say Chambers survived by eating Frosties cereal bars — up to eight a day — in the initial period after his arrest. But he has since switched over to a diet of fruit and vegetables. He also has eaten fish brought to him by his mother.

He has refused laxatives, police said.

At first, police gave frequent updates on Twitter about Chambers’ case, using the hashtag #PooWatch. But after the 23rd day, they announced they would give no further updates until Chambers had his bowel movement.

“This man is being held in a police cell which is not designed for long term stays. He has two officers in the cell with him at all times within touching distance, he has no privacy,” Chambers’ attorney said.  “The longer it goes on, the more risk there is of serious harm to his physical wellbeing.”

“He doesn’t want to be resuscitated in the event of something going wrong, there is a potential for something very serious to happen. We have a situation here,” the attorney added.

 

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Satanism Alleged in Case of Corpse That Vanished From Texas Funeral Home

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Testimony at the trial against the funeral home where Julie Mott’s body vanished has focused on a driver who plays in a death metal band and has an interest in satanism

SAN ANTONIO — A civil trial against a funeral home where a woman’s body disappeared in 2015, took a sinister turn when lawyers raised allegations of satanism in regards to an employee of a mortuary services company that had access to where she was last seen.

Attorneys for Mission Park Funeral Chapels and Cemeteries — which is being sued for gross negligence by the woman’s family — peppered the owner of the company it contracts with to move and embalm bodies about an employee who played in a death metal band.

The funeral home’s legal team pressed Frederick Beyer, owner of Beyer & Beitel Mortuary Services, about driver Nicholas Moreno, who plays in a metal band called Flesh Hoarder and whose social media pages were littered with demonic images and messages about satanism

“Mr. Moreno is one of the smartest guys you’ll ever meet,” Beyer told the jury, according to the San Antonio Express-News. “When he represents us, he represents us well. I get more compliments on Nick than anyone who works for me.”

Mission Park Funeral Chapels and Cemeteries is facing civil charges in San Antonio for the disappearance of Julie Mott following her 2015 funeral.

According to the funeral home’s attorneys, Beyer’s firm picked up Mott’s body the day she died of cystic fibrosis at age 25, brought to their facility for embalming and then took her to the funeral chapel for her services. The next day, funeral home employees discovered that her casket was empty as they prepared for her cremation.

Mott’s body has never been found.

Beyer insisted that his company records showed that Moreno had had no contact with Mott’s body and had not been involved in moving it or been around during embalming.

Earlier in the trial, the funeral home’s attorneys raised the fat  that Mott’s boyfriend, Bill Wilburn, had been “obsessed” with her and did not want Julie Mott to be cremated.

Wilburn has never been charged in the case although her remains a person of interest, according to police.

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