3.28 PM Friday, 29 March 2024
  • City Fajr Shuruq Duhr Asr Magrib Isha
  • Dubai 04:56 06:10 12:26 15:53 18:37 19:52
29 March 2024

Bizarre: Baby found near Saudi garbage bin

Published

SAUDI ARABIA: A Saudi man dumping garbage in the big bin near his house in the Gulf Kingdom stumbled across a new born baby crammed in a small carton box.

The man opened the box after hearing muted cries to find a two-hour-old girl wrapped in a black piece of cloth, Alsaudi newspaper said.

The girl was rushed to a nearby hospital where she was saved in the last minute as she was found in a serious condition, it said.

“Police are investigating residents in the area to identify the mother, who clearly wanted to get rid of her baby by dumping her in an area infested with snakes, rats and wild dogs,” the paper said in a report from the southern province of Jazan.

Teen made to drink urine, lick blood

UK: In an ordeal that lasted for two hours, a 26-year-old woman tortured and mentally scarred a 15-year-old boy for life.

She accused the boy of talking about her cancer-stricken mother, reports The Daily Mail

The teenager wasd forced to eat a mouldy sausage roll which the tormentor had spat on and coated in cigarette ash.

She used heaps of abuses on him. She threatened to have him kidnapped, kill his mum and cut her tongue out and stitch it to her own mum.

There were other youths present in the room during the two-hour torture. The young boys struck him a few blows on his head and when blood started trickling out, the victim was even made to lick his own blood.

When he wanted to use the wash room, she sent another boy with him who forced him to drink his own urine.

The woman, who reportedly has a history of violence, has been jailed for four years after pleading guilty.

 Mom stabs son, 7, and babysitter to death

CHICAGO: A suburban Chicago woman ordered her 7-year-old son and a kindergartner she was babysitting to kneel on a bedroom floor and pray, then stabbed them both dozens of times as they begged for their lives, striking again and again as she told her son he was going to heaven, authorities said Thursday.

Officers who forced their way inside the locked apartment hours later found blood-spattered walls and the children's bodies in a master bedroom where moments before the killings they had been happily jumping on a bed, prosecutors said.

The Naperville police chief said it was the most gruesome sight he'd seen in three decades on the job.

Elzbieta Plackowska, a 40-year-old immigrant from Poland, offered numerous explanations for the violence, including that she was battling the devil and trying to rid the children of evil, DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin said. But she eventually told investigators she stabbed the children and slashed their throats on Tuesday night because she was angry that her husband, a truck driver, was often away.

"She told the detectives that she thought by killing (her son) Justin she would make her husband hurt the way she hurt in their relationship," Berlin said.

Twenty-five miles west of Chicago, Naperville is known for its idyllic Riverwalk, bustling downtown shops and stellar schools. It's also where Marilyn Lemak fed her three children peanut butter laced with antidepressants and suffocated them as revenge on her estranged husband 13 years ago.

Residents of the wealthy, usually quiet community struggled Thursday to comprehend the latest bloodshed.

"I don't understand anything that's going on," said Tim Hooper, 28, who lives in the same condominium complex as the Plackowska family and would sometimes work out with an older son. "This is so out of the blue."

Plackowska told detectives she found Justin and 5-year-old Olivia Dworakowski jumping on a bed, Berlin said.

"She had grabbed the knife and she made both victims kneel and begin praying. She began stabbing her son Justin and told him he was going to heaven tonight. He pleaded for his life and told her to stop. But she continued stabbing him until he was dead," he said at a news conference after a judge ordered Plackowska held without bond.

"She then turned her attention to 5-year-old Olivia and began stabbing her with the knife multiple times. She, as well, pleaded for her life, but the defendant continued to stab her until she was deceased."

Plackowska killed Olivia because she had witnessed the attack on Justin, Berlin said.

The slayings took place at the home of Olivia's mother, who works nights as a nurse and had left her daughter in Plackowska's care before. Plackowska also stabbed the two family dogs.

Olivia's body was found on the bed, and Justin's was found on the floor beside it. He had stab wounds on his head, face, neck and back. Both appeared to have had their throats slit.

"In all my years in law enforcement, this is the most gruesome and horrific crime scene that I have seen," Naperville Police Chief Bob Marshall said at the news conference.

Investigators found two blood-stained knives; a steak knife in the kitchen sink and another in Plackowska's car, Berlin said.

Still covered in blood and with scratches on her hands, Plackowska drove to a Catholic church. Finding it closed, she called the church and left a message saying she had "done something bad" and needed help, Berlin said. She then went to a friend's home where her other, adult son was staying and said she had been robbed.

About the same time, Olivia's mother, Marta Dworakowski, returned home to discover her door locked and the babysitter's car gone. She called police to report her daughter was missing, and officers forced their way into the home.

Police took Plackowska into custody at her friend's home, and prosecutors charged her with first-degree murder late Wednesday.

Plackowska initially told investigators that an intruder had broken into the home and killed the children while she was outside smoking a cigarette.

"She then changed her story and stated that she was really battling the devil ... and that the children had evil inside them and she was trying to get the evil and devil out of them," Berlin said.

Later, she admitted she had lashed out in anger at her husband because he often left her alone to care for Justin and she worked as a cleaner, which she felt was beneath her, Berlin said.

In a brief telephone interview, Plackowska's husband, Artur, denied the two were having problems.

"The day before (the killings) she told me that she loves me," he said.

However, a neighbor said he frequently heard the couple shouting at each other over the last five years.

"It happened once every other month," Victor Tuckenberry said.

There also were money troubles. Public records show the couple filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2009; a foreclosure in her name only was filed in 2007.

Still, Tuckenberry said Plackowska doted on her sons and he was shocked by the slayings. Plackowska and Justin "were together all the time," he said.

Plackowska arrived in the United States from her native Poland on a tourist visa 12 years ago, Berlin said. She is not a U.S. citizen and authorities were trying to verify her immigration status. Berlin said she has no prior history of violence, although she had a misdemeanor DUI from about 10 years ago.

Plackowska didn't speak during Thursday's bond hearing other than to indicate she could not afford an attorney. The judge appointed a public defender. (AP)

 Coffin-maker uses nude models to sell wares

 POLAND: A Polish firm that makes coffins has angered the Catholic church by trying to drum up business with a calendar depicting topless models posing next to its caskets.

One image from the 2013 edition of the calendar has a blonde model, wearing only a skimpy thong and with a snake draped around her neck, reclining on a coffin. In another, a woman wearing a crimson corset is depicted pulling out the heart of a man lying on a casket.

"My son had the idea of creating the company's calendar... so that we could show something half-serious, colorful, beautiful; the beauty of Polish girls and the beauty of our coffins," said Zbigniew Lindner, the firm's owner.

"We wanted to show that a coffin isn't a religious symbol. Its a product," he said. "Why are people afraid of coffins and not of business suits, cosmetics or jewelry?"

As well as attracting publicity for his firm, the calendar is intended as a source of revenue. It is on sale on the company's website. Anyone who places an order receives a complementary key ring in the shape of a coffin.

The Catholic church has condemned the calendar as inappropriate. A church spokesman has said that human death should be treated with solemnity and not mixed up with sex. (REUTERS)

Couple robbed twice in one night

OHIO: The first time that burglars came into Nicolette Harvey’s home in the wee hours yesterday morning, she didn’t hear them.

It was about 12:45 a.m. She had gone to get her boyfriend a glass of Mountain Dew while her 4-year-old son got ready for bed.

She headed into the kitchen and walked into a gun.

“He just stuck it in my face,” Harvey said. “I thought it was some kind of joke.”

The tall man — who looked familiar to her — had taken advantage of an unlocked door of the Marion home that the three share with Harvey’s mother, who was working the late shift at the time.

For a few moments, Harvey, 19, didn’t move. Then she heard her son, Mikey, rustling in the bathroom. When the burglar’s eyes darted toward the bathroom door, Harvey screamed.

The next few minutes were chaos.

She ran for the bedroom where her boyfriend, Andrew Gushard, was and the gunman followed. Soon a second burglar was there, too.

When Mikey wandered in, she scooped him into her arms. Meanwhile, the men were yelling: “Where’s the money? Give us the money!”

“We don’t have any money,” she told them. “Don’t you think I would give it to you?”

Eventually, to make them leave, she threw them her purse and cellphone. When the men left, the couple used Gushard’s phone to call a friend who was at a restaurant down the road. He came to help, but then called from just outside their Mount Vernon Avenue home.

“They’re still outside,” he said. But what he didn’t know was that the two men lurking outside the home weren’t even the same burglars. Gushard said he ran to the side door to be sure it was locked, but then they heard banging on the door. “They were kicking it down,” Harvey said. She called 911, screaming at the dispatcher to send help. Eventually, the burglars broke in, but these two were short — the others had been tall — and wore masks. And there was no gun this time.

Again, they asked where the money was.

“We just got robbed,” she told these two. “It’s gone.”

A few minutes later, police arrived and arrested the second set of intruders: Dwayne Harris, 31, and Curtis Paymon, 28, both of Marion, are charged with aggravated burglary. There have been no charges filed in the first break-in.

Gushard said the first burglars looked like men they had seen at a nightclub in Marion.

Gushard and Harvey, who said they have been saving for a security deposit to rent a two-bedroom house, had been in the club earlier in the week, talking about their new home — and the $2,000 they’d saved.

“We were bragging about it,” Harvey said. “That has to be why they came.”

That first set of robbers did get the money: Harvey had been to the bank on Tuesday, and the money was in the purse they took.

Still, she said, when police officers got to the house, they suspected something else. Harvey’s mother has a safe in her bedroom, she said, and one detective questioned whether the family kept marijuana there. Police never did open it.

“As far as I know, it’s empty,” Harvey said. “We don’t sell drugs ... and the safe should not have been the biggest concern. We should have been the biggest concern.” (AP)