[when the head leaves the neck, its over] CUI TINGXUN, a teacher in China's Shandong province, was practising the esoteric healing art of qigong with his wife when he suddenly attempted to gouge her eyes out, saying he had received instructions from a 'greater being' to change her facial features. Cui then attacked his wife's jaw with his teeth, saying her mouth smelled badly, before finally decapitating her with a meat cleaver. Police found him holding the shoulders of his wife's torso, exhorting her to sprout a new head. Hong Kong Eastern Express, 7 May 1996. Yahoo! News Top Stories Headlines Saturday August 7 12:04 AM ET Handyman Pleads Not Guilty To Beheading Calif. Woman FRESNO, Calif. (Reuters) - A motel handyman suspected of a string of horrific murders around Yosemite National Park pleaded not guilty Friday to beheading a 26-year-old naturalist, the only crime with which he has thus far been charged. At an arraignment in Fresno, Cary Stayner stood silently in yellow prison fatigues as federal defender Robert Rainwater entered a not guilty plea in the murder of Joie Ruth Armstrong. Stayner could face the death penalty if convicted. Armstrong, who worked at the nonprofit Yosemite Institute, was found decapitated July 22 near her home in the park, a region of wild natural beauty and one of the most-visited tourist spots in California. Stayner, a 37-year-old employee of a Yosemite-area motel, was detained two days later at a nudist resort near Sacramento. In an FBI interrogation he confessed not only to murdering Armstrong on July 21 but also to killing three female tourists in February -- a crime which had stumped investigators for months. FBI spokesman Nick Rossi said Friday that investigators were still looking into the deaths of Carole Sund, 42, her daughter Juliana, 15, and Silvina Pelosso, a 16-year-old family friend from Argentina. ``At this time the Sund-Pelosso case remains under investigation as agents attempt to corroborate statements that have been made by Stayner and also to evaluate the possible involvement of others in the crime,'' Rossi said. Stayner, who worked at the motel where the Sunds and Pelosso were last seen on February 15, told investigators and journalists that he entered their room, pulled a gun, and then strangled Carole Sund and Silvina Pelosso. He reportedly further confessed to abducting Juliana Sund and eventually murdering her and dumping her body near a local lake -- her throat cut so deeply that her head was almost severed. Rainwater declined to say whether Friday's not guilty plea in the Armstrong case was a prelude either to a plea bargain attempt or an insanity defense. ``Obviously we'll consider every possible defense,'' Rainwater told reporters outside the Fresno courthouse. Stayner's parents, who have already dealt with a public tragedy involving another son, appeared at Friday's arraignment but declined to speak to reporters. Stayner's younger brother Steven made national headlines in 1980 when he escaped from a pedophile who had kidnapped him and held him in sexual slavery for some seven years. Steven Stayner was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1989. Following Cary Stayner's detention last month, police elsewhere in California began looking for any possible links between Stayner and other unsolved murders, including a similar beheading of a 23-year-old woman in 1994. In Merced County, meanwhile, police reopened the case of Jesse Stayner, Cary Stayner's uncle, who was killed in 1990 in what police had thought was a burglary attempt. Authorities are considering Stayner as a possible suspect in the crime. Copyright © 1996-1999 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Yahoo! Headlines This is London Thursday February 24, 5:11 PM 'God's way' axe murderer given life A church steward who beheaded his teenage son's ex-lover with an axe "to do God's way" was today jailed for life after being found guilty of murder. Anthony Phillips severed his next door neighbour Lorraine Howell's head after discovering she had given birth to a baby girl fathered by his then 16-year-old son Jamie, Birmingham Crown Court heard. Sentencing Phillips, 43, of Lewis Avenue, Deansfield, Wolverhampton, Mr Justice Latham said he had destroyed the lives of his family and those of his victim's family. The judge said: "As a result of that obsession which you had over the relationship between Lorraine and your son, you not only committed a cold and calculated murder, as the jury have quite properly found, but you have destroyed the lives of your family and in particular the family of Lorraine Howell. "The only sentence that I can pass is one of life imprisonment." Phillips, a former Crown Court handyman, had denied murdering the 34-year-old mother-of-two, but the jury rejected his plea of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. The eight men and three women of the jury took just 50 minutes to reach a unanimous verdict that Phillips was guilty of murder after hearing how he decapitated Mrs Howell last May after branding her a "paedophile rapist". Phillips showed no emotion as he was led from the dock to shouts of abuse from the dead woman's relatives. Phillips committed the gruesome lunch-time killing on Saturday May 1 after climbing over his garden fence moments after ordering his wife to make him a bacon sandwich. The killer told police in interviews that he believed Mrs Howell had "enticed and raped" his son and should have been prosecuted. Roger Smith QC, prosecuting, told the court that Phillips - who was also involved with a pantomime at his local Methodist church - felt he could only get retribution by killing. "He said he had decided that he would be the man who would do God's way 'since God does not want people like that on earth. I will remove that person from the earth'," Mr Smith said. Phillips said of the killing: "It was like hitting a piece of rubber. I picked up the axe and started hacking away. All of a sudden the head moved, rolled and then stopped." Phillips attacked Mrs Howell in the hallway of her home after brushing aside her then eight-year-old son James. Her six-month-old daughter Lauren - Phillips's granddaughter - was sleeping in a Moses basket in the lounge at the time of the killing, the jury was told. After decapitating Mrs Howell, Phillips returned to his home with blood matted into his hair, took off his blood-soaked slippers, and said: "She's dead." Mr Smith said that when police equipped with riot shields arrived to arrest Phillips, he told officers: "It's all right, I know what I have done and there will be no problem." The jury heard that Jamie Phillips and Mrs Howell had sex twice in December 1997, but the relationship quickly "cooled". They had sex once more in early 1998, when Mrs Howell became pregnant. Lauren was born on November 17 that year. Detective Sergeant Mac Marpole, of West Midlands Police, said he was extremely pleased with the jury's verdict, adding: "Lorraine's family have been through a lot and perhaps now they can start putting their lives back together." The officer, who interviewed Phillips after the killing, added: "He appeared very calm and very matter-of-fact. The only remorse he expressed to me was that the young lad was present when he went into the house. He expressed no remorse for Lorraine's death." Asked about Phillips' remarks about religion and "God's way", the officer said: "They don't relate to what I understand religion to mean." Copyright © 2000 Associated New Media. All rights reserved. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of Associated New Media Copyright © 2000 Yahoo!Inc. All rights reserved. May 4, 1996 Wife, ex-husband and other man accused in estranged husband's slaying By Jennifer Loven, Associated Press MASON, Mich. -- A woman, her ex-husband and another man are accused of kidnapping the woman's estranged husband and taking him on an odyssey through at least nine counties before killing and beheading him, authorities said Friday. "This is a very unusual case," Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth said. "It's got all the makings of a movie -- a love triangle, sex and violence." Three suspects were arrested this week. One of them, a prison escapee, on Thursday led police to the spots about 30 miles apart where 34-year-old Mitchell Lewis' decapitated head and body were buried, Ingham County Prosecutor Donald Martin said. Late Friday afternoon, the suspects were arraigned and ordered held without bond. Authorities said the gruesome case began about two months ago, around the time of Richard Allen Neff's March 8 escape from the Huntington Work-Release Center in Cabell County, where he was sent November 1994. Ray Swecker, administrator at the work-release center, said Neff escaped while out on a two-hour pass. Neff was scheduled to go before the parole board this month, Swecker said. Neff and his ex-wife, 29-year-old Christine Neff, had spoken on the phone and there were "allegations of mistreatment" by Lewis, her current husband from whom she was separated, Martin said. Richard Neff, out on work release with only a few months left in the 1- to 10-year sentence he was serving for a grand larceny conviction, left West Virginia and travelled north, intending to kill Lewis, Wriggelsworth said. Once Richard Neff was in Michigan, he, his ex-wife and the third suspect, Patrick Scot Donley, 28, of Jackson, began plotting the crime, Martin said. Nearly a month later, on April 5, Lewis was kidnapped from his home in Holt. He was driven to Potterville, then on to Gratiot County and as far north as Tawas City and Oscoda along Lake Huron's shore, Martin said. His kidnappers then turned back south and drove to Jackson County, where Lewis was murdered and decapitated either late that night or in the early hours of the next day, Martin said. His body was buried in a remote spot in Jackson County's Spring Arbor Township, west of Jackson. Lewis' murderers then travelled to Clinton County, keeping keeping Lewis' head with them in a plastic bag for several days before burying it in Ingham County's Delhi Township, Martin said. Lewis' sister reported him missing on April 9, but police had no clues until a tip led them to Richard Neff, 37, who was arrested in Charlotte on Tuesday. Late Wednesday night, Donley was arrested at his workplace in Brighton, authorities said. Christine Neff was taken into custody Thursday morning at her home in Potterville, Wriggelsworth said. Martin and Wriggelsworth would not say which of the three are accused of kidnapping and killing Lewis or whether all were present during his abduction, journey around the state and slaying. Martin did say he believes one of the men committed the murder. At their arraignments Friday in 55th District Court, the three were charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder and kidnapping. Judge Thomas Brennan ordered them held in the Ingham County Jail. An autopsy was being conducted Friday to determine the exact cause of death and provide more details about the crime, but Wriggelsworth said he believes Lewis was strangled before he was beheaded. Results from the autopsy will be available in about a week, Ingham County Sheriff's Sgt. Tom Reich said. Police would not comment on what evidence they have collected, including whether a weapon had been found, but said the suspects had made statements. Martin would not say whether any had confessed. The motive for the bizarre slaying appeared to be jealousy and revenge, Wriggelsworth said. Detectives would not speculate on Donley's role in the crime, other than that he has some type of relationship with Christine Neff. Authorities also would not say which of the three they believe masterminded the plot. As to why Lewis was decapitated after he was murdered, Wriggelsworth only would say: "When people get angry, they do all sorts of things." Lewis' death is not connected to another decapitation case in west Michigan, Wriggelsworth said. In that case, Federico Cruz, 16, of Sparta has been charged with killing another teen, then removing the head and mutilating it in his bedroom in front of a video recorder. Copyright 1996, The Detroit News Shades of Seven The hunt for a serial killer who has murdered five people around the Belgian city of Mons has taken a gruesome twist straight out of Hollywood. Police investigating the case have noted that the killer's trademark bin-bags full of body parts have been found in locations with grimly appropriate names. The killings apparently began early this year, when the mutilated torso of a transsexual prostitute was found on the banks of a river whose name literally means "hate". A month later, nine bin-bags of body parts turned up near another river whose name means "fear". Two days later, a torso was found on Anxiety Lane. On 12 April this year, a severed head was found on Deposit Street; the following weekend, three bags of body parts were left in St Symphorien Street, named after a beheaded martyr, whose bones are housed in a nearby church. Only one victim has so far been identified, a 21-year-old homeless alcoholic woman, murdered on 12 April. Police reportedly believe that the killer might have medical or butchery training, as the bodies are dismembered with "remarkable precision". It has also been suggested that the killer has a nine-to-five job, as all the murders take place at weekends. [AP] 25 Apr 1997. ABCNEWS Grisly Discovery Decapitated Bodies May Be Mother, Son The Associated Press R O C H E S T E R, Minn., Jan. 14 -A woman and boy whose headless bodies were found in a field near Rochester may have been mother and son, the sheriff says. Olmsted County Sheriff Steve Borchardt said investigators who studied the evidence told him they “can’t eliminate her as mother, but they can’t definitely say she was the mother without having the father’s DNA, too. “They may be willing to say it’s the mother, but they haven’t told me that yet,” he said. “But it does appear as though they’re related.” Borchardt said investigators also believe they have determined the victims’ race. He planned to disclose the information at a news conference this morning in Rochester. Who the victims were and what exactly happened to them remain mysteries. “We have no suspects, and we have no identities,” Borchardt said. Bodies Found Nov. 26 A road crew found the bodies on Nov. 26 in garbage bags northwest of Rochester, which is 78 miles southeast of Minneapolis. Investigators believe the victims were probably killed and decapitated elsewhere and then dumped in the field. Their heads haven’t been found. The female victim was 20 to 30 years old, 5 feet 5 inches tall and about 115 pounds. She wore a handcrafted, 14-karat gold ring on the middle finger of her left hand. The boy was 3 to 6 years old, 3 feet 7 inches tall and 50 pounds. He wore dark brown shorts and a green T-shirt with horizontal white stripes and thin black stripes. Fingerprints taken from both victims have not matched anything on record, authorities have said. Forensic anthropologists and federal criminal profilers have been consulted. Autopsies showed no signs of alcohol or drug use on the part of the victims. The sheriff’s office has not had any reports of missing people matching the description of the victims, Borchardt said in November. He also said then that no other state agencies had called to say they had reports of a missing woman and child. Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Copyright ©2000 ABC News Internet Ventures. Click here for Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and Internet Safety Information applicable to this site. Woman accused of murdering husband ordered back to Nevada By Associated Press, 03/06/00 CAMBRIDGE -- A woman who was charged with killing her millionaire husband and then eluded authorities for two years before being captured in Revere was ordered Monday to return to Nevada. Margaret Rudin's attorney, Robert A. George, had fought the return of his client to Nevada. He said Rudin feared for her own safety if she returned because her husband was involved with shady business associates. Lt. Wayne Peterson, a Las Vegas homicide detective, dismissed that claim. "The only danger she faces is being convicted," said Peterson. State Appeals Court Justice Charlotte A. Perretta on Monday ordered Rudin returned to Nevada, confirming a decision in February by a Middlesex Superior Court judge. Rudin, who is being held in Framingham, will be returned to Nevada within 10 days, George said. Rudin, 56, was accused of shooting Ron Rudin as he lay in bed on Dec. 18, 1994. Mrs. Rudin reported him missing, and a month later, a fisherman discovered his burned, bullet-ridden and decapitated body near Lake Mohave in southern Nevada. Margaret Rudin was indicted in 1997, but authorities could not find her until she was featured on the television show "America's Most Wanted." Using a tip from a viewer, authorities located her post office box in Revere, and a mailman recognized her photo. State police in November staked out an apartment she had shared for about a year with Joseph Lundergan, a retired firefighter. Troopers borrowed a pizza delivery shirt and pizza box to force their way into the apartment and make the arrest. Rudin had left Nevada three weeks before her indictment, but George said she left to visit her daughter in Illinois, and didn't know she was about to be charged. Lundergan said he met Rudin in Guadalajara, Mexico, where the two lived in the same apartment complex and socialized in the same circle of American retirees. Rudin will be charged in Nevada with murder with the use of a deadly weapon, accessory to murder and unauthorized use of a bugging device. The last charge stems from prosecutors' belief that she bugged her husband's office. Rudin denies killing her husband, whose real estate holdings were worth an estimated $11 million. She says he was involved in fraudulent real estate deals, gun running, drug trafficking and tax evasion, and was killed by one of his business associates. © Copyright 2000 Boston Globe Electronic Publishing, Inc. Yahoo! Headlines This is London Friday November 10, 2:41 PM Husband 'cooked wife's head in oven' A postman cut up his wife, cooked her head in the oven and threw her body parts off the white cliffs of Dover, a court heard today. Roger Frisby, 41, told police that he drove to the coast, taking the girls aged four years and nine months, after spending four days cutting up the body of their mother, June, 36. He emptied plastic bags over the cliffs as the children sat in Mrs Frisby's car, the Old Bailey heard. When they drove back to the family home in Plumstead, south London, he gave them something to eat and put them to bed, Frisby said in police interviews. He had put the head, feet and hands in the oven for several hours at gas mark 8, to age it and remove fingerprints. The next day, he was alone when he took the head and torso to woods at Sidcup golf course, Kent. He buried the head and threw the body part into a river. The court was told that only Mrs Frisby's skull had been recovered. It was found 15 months after she disappeared in January, last year. Frisby admits killing his wife claiming it was manslaughter. The prosecution says it was murder. Frisby told police he "snapped" following a heated argument which ended with him hitting her with a hammer in the bedroom. He said Mrs Frisby's brother had called at the house looking for her while her body was stored in bits in plastic bags in the bedroom. He had disposed of the body and was redecorating the bedroom by the time police called round a week after the killing. After being arrested this year, Detective Sergeant Brendan Gilmore said he asked Frisby what had been the most difficult part of what happened. He replied: "Coming to terms with what I had done." The case continues. Copyright © 2000 Associated New Media. All rights reserved. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of Associated New Media Copyright © 2000 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Yahoo! Headlines Thursday November 16, 11:00 PM Husband Who Baked Wife's Head Cleared Of Murder A postman who killed his wife and cooked her head in the oven has been jailed for eight years at the Old Bailey. Roger Frisby, 42, was cleared of murdering his wife June, 36, but convicted of her manslaughter on the grounds of provocation. Frisby, of Plumstead, south London, told the court he snapped during a heated row. Confession He hit Mrs Frisby over the head a number of times with a claw hammer before cutting up her body in their bedroom. After throwing her limbs off the White Cliffs of Dover, he cooked her head, feet and hands in the oven. He later buried the head on Sidcup golf course, in Kent, and threw the torso in a nearby river. 'Gruesome' After the murder Frisby told friends and family that his wife had deserted him and their two children aged four and six months. But he confessed to police after her skull was unearthed by a dog 15 months later. The court heard how the couple had a stormy relationship made worse by Mrs Frisby's depression and heavy drinking. Judge Martin Stephens said: "This must be one of the most gruesome and unhappy cases any jury has had to hear." Copyright © 2000 BSkyB. All rights reserved. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of BSkyB Copyright © 2000 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 21:18:47 -0500 Subject: Beheading Teen's Parents Fined http://infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2563497567-e8d 10:57 AM ET 01/20/00 Beheading Teen's Parents Fined Beheading Teen's Parents Fined TOKYO (AP) _ The parents of a teen-ager convicted of beheading a boy, fatally bludgeoning one girl and stabbing another have reportedly agreed to pay $952,000 in an out-of-court settlement. Last year, the teen-ager's parents were ordered by the Kobe District court to pay another $952,000 in damages to the parents of the boy he was convicted of murdering. Quoting unidentified sources, the Kyodo News agency said Thursday the teen-ager's parents have agreed to pay about $761,000 to the family of the 10-year-old girl the teen was convicted of killing by hitting her on the head. They will also pay about $190,000 to the family of the 9-year-old girl their son was convicted of stabbing in March 1997. The teen, then 14, was convicted in October 1997 of beheading 11-year-old Jun Hase and leaving his head at a school gate with a sinister note stuffed in its mouth. The killing occurred in May 1997 in Kobe, 280 miles west of Tokyo. The teen-ager has been sent to a juvenile facility and is receiving psychiatric treatment. His name has been withheld under Japanese law because he is a juvenile. Subject: Life for church steward who cut off neighbour's head for 'seducing' son Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 09:21:17 -0600 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=002096382108969&rtmo=quKMXKJ9&atmo=KKKKKKYM &pg=/et/00/2/25/nhed25.html COPIED FROM: ELECTRONIC TELEGRAPH (LONDON) on line ISSUE 1736 Friday 25 February 2000 Life for church steward who cut off neighbour's head for 'seducing' son By Maurice Weaver A METHODIST church steward was jailed for life yesterday for chopping off his 34-year-old neighbour's head with an axe after she had sex with his teenage son. Anthony Phillips, 43, a deeply religious man who claimed he was exacting moral revenge, was convicted of the "cold and calculated" murder of Lorraine Howell. The jury rejected his defence that he had been suffering from "abnormality of mind" when he carried out the attack. Phillips was outraged by Mrs Howell's relationship with his son, Jamie, which began when the boy was 15 and resulted in her having a daughter. Phillips branded Mrs Howell a paedophile and told police that killing her was "God's way". He admitted manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility but denied murder. Mr Justice Latham, sitting at Birmingham Crown Court, told Phillips that he had acted because of an obsession which had destroyed the lives of both Mrs Howell's family and his own. Phillips, from Wolverhampton, showed no emotion as sentence was passed. As he was led from the court Mrs Howell's estranged husband, Peter, shouted after him: "Suffer, you bastard." The court was told that the affair between Jamie, who is now 17, and Mrs Howell began soon after her husband left the marital home in August 1997. Jamie's child, Lauren, who was Mrs Howell's second, was born in November 1998. He kept the baby secret from his parents but his mother, Susan, a Sunday school teacher, became suspicious and confronted him. She later told her husband. She told the court: "He was quite shocked and distressed. He was a very highly moral man. He could not believe our son had let us down. It seemed as if it had really taken control of him." Phillips demanded that the police prosecute Mrs Howell for "seducing" his son but was told that no crime had been committed as Jamie was 16 when the baby was conceived. In March last year, he bought a 10lb axe from his local DIY store and kept it in his car until May 1 when he took it with him as he climbed over his fence into Mrs Howell's back garden. He brushed past Mrs Howell's eight-year-old son James and attacked her in the hallway of her home, felling her with the axe. Lauren was sleeping in a Moses basket in the lounge as he kept hitting her mother until she was all but beheaded before returning home and dialling 999. He told police he had come to the conclusion that there was no other course open to him than murder and that his overwhelming feeling was one of relief that it was done. In a statement read out to the court, he said: "It may be crude in the way I have achieved retribution, but there was no other way." Lauren, who is now 15 months old, is being cared for by Mrs Howell's parents. James, now nine, lives with his father. After the hearing, he said James may never get over his mother's death. Mr Howell said of Phillips: "I hate him for what he did to my son. He is not insane. He just lost his temper." [shades of the hermit / no one ever cut off his own head] Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2000 13:19:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: Autodecapitation http://www.timesofindia.com/today/10mahm6.htm the Times Of India Friday 10 March 2000 Man chops off own head to appease goddess The Times of India News Service RAJKOT: In a bizarre incident, a 40-year-old man chopped off his head in a temple in Bhavnagar district. The beheaded body of Amarsinh Mavji, 40, was found in a temple in Gadhula village under Bhavnagar district. The police claim he is a victim of 'Kamal puja', in which a person's head is chopped off to appease the goddess. An unconfirmed report said members of the Vaghri community had gathered at the temple to seek forgiveness of sins committed during the past one year. As part of the ritual, Amarsinh chopped off his head with a sword. The police are questioning the mahant and villagers on the incident. It is said the youth became a victim of blind faith. Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 12:50:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Murdered Priest's Head Put on Altar http://www.moscowtimes.ru/24-Mar-2000/stories/story16.html Friday, March 24, 2000 Murdered Priest's Head Put on Altar By Andrei Zolotov Jr. Staff Writer A priest who opened the first Orthodox chapel in a small eastern Siberian town was killed in a cruel ritualistic murder by a wanderer he once befriended, police said. The man, armed with a pick he made from a welding tool, came to the home of Hieromonk Grigory, 50, at 3 a.m. Tuesday, said Colonel Ivan Panov, chief of Evenk district police. He stabbed the priest, whose lay name was Gennady Yakovlev, in the heart and neck, and then cut off his head with a pocket knife, breaking the knife, Panov said. The man, who gives his name as Roman Krishnin, carried the severed head into the chapel adjoining the priest's home, circled the altar leaving a ring of blood on the floor and placed the head on the altar, Panov said. He was detained later Tuesday morning and confessed, the police chief said. "He said he had had an order from his god, Krishna," Panov said by telephone from Tura, a town of about 6,000 in the Evenk autonomous district of the Krasnoyarsk region. Panov said he suspected Roman had assumed the name Krishnin after the Indian divinity Krishna, who is revered by Hare Krishna, but he doubted he was a member of the religious cult. "I read about this faith, they don't teach violence," he said. Panov said the suspect had no documents. He is believed to have come to Tura a year and half ago by foot from the Tyumen region, about 1,000 kilometers away, where he grew up in a hunter's family. "Father Grigory, the kind soul, may he rest in peace, had hosted him, given him warmth, he even lived in his house for a long time," the police chief said. "They had disputes about faith." Russian Hare Krishnas were alarmed by early press reports that a Hare Krishna had committed the murder and feared it may ignite hostility toward them. Sergei Zuyev, head of the Center of Krishna Consciousness Societies in Russia, issued a statement Thursday saying Roman had never been connected with Hare Krishna and emphasizing that its teachings "exclude any violence not only toward men, but even toward animals." Journalist Svetlana Valeriyeva was at Roman's first interrogation. "In my view, he is a normal man, well-spoken," Valeriyeva said. "He said that he had to purify himself and killed Father Grigory for the good of others." The death deeply shocked the town, and a memorial service Wednesday attracted many people. The burial is planned for Friday. "We see the tragedy as a consequence of wide advertising of all sorts of pseudo-religiousness, a return to the wild pagan cults of satanism and cultivation of new types of polytheism," a statement issued by the Krasnoyarsk diocese said. In 1993, three monks at the Optina Pustyn Monastery in the Kaluga region were stabbed on Easter night by a former monastery employee who said he could not resist an "internal voice" telling him to kill the monks. Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 08:34:53 -0700 Subject: Released Ax Murderer Uses Ax to Kill Again KALAMBAKA, Greece (AP) - A woman released after serving four years for murdering her son with an ax has been arrested for using an ax to kill again - this time, police say, hacking her husband to death in a pig sty. Police said Sotiria Loutriotis, 61, was arrested Friday for the killing of 68-year-old Giorgos Loutriotis on their farm just outside this central town 220 miles north of Athens. She was jailed under guard at a psychiatric facility. Police said they will file murder charges after she undergoes a psychiatric evaluation. Mrs. Loutriotis had walked to a nearby farm and told her neighbors she killed her husband at dawn as he was feeding the livestock, police said. They found her husband's remains in one of the sties. Mrs. Loutriotis had received a life sentence after being convicted of using an ax to kill her son, Dimitris Loutriotis, 29. She was released eight months ago from a prison psychiatric ward. Police said they did not know why prison authorities released her so early. Her other son, Christos Loutriotis, died in a traffic accident on the way to his brother's funeral. Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 18:10:19 -0700 (PDT) http://www.ananova.com/news/story/mozambique_murders-crime_68461.html Men sentenced for murdering after mangling head to sell it Three men in Mozambique have been sent to prison for murdering a man, cutting off his head and mutilating it to sell it. Antumane Ali was sentenced to 20 years, while Aly Mudjulaumo and Arlindo Jose received 16 years each for the murder of Goncalves Mpoto in February 1999. Helena Pedro, attorney for the three, said a man had agreed to pay them 100 million meticais ($6,600) for the head. She said she planned to lodge an appeal against the sentences, arguing that the prospective buyer should also be charged as well. The prosecuting attorney said such an appeal was unlikely to succeed because no new evidence had emerged since the Supreme Court in April 1999 threw out charges against the man accused of having planned to buy the head. Human heads are sometimes used in traditional African witchcraft to bring fortune. In 1997, Ali was arrested with a mangled head in a plastic bag. He was detained for five months on suspicion for murder before a judge released him, saying there was no evidence Ali had killed the person whose head was in the bag. Ali said he had been planning to sell the head to a South African tourist. Last updated: 15:42 Thursday 29th June 2000. FT 108 21 Strange Deaths Siek Phan, 62, a Vietnamese woman from the Cambodian province of Kompong Speu, was cutting firewood when her husband, Nou Meas, 65, sneaked up and tickled her. She instinctively threw her axe, killing him instantly. When she turned around she found she had nearly decapitated him. "I hate being tickled" she told the authorities. /AP 17 Nov 1997/ FT133 27 Strange Deaths Colin Vincent, A 57-year-old handyman, beheaded himself on 13 October 1999, two months to the day after the death of his beloved wife Joan from cancer. He had constructed a guillotine with a drop of 10ft (3m) in the stairwell of an outside cellar door at his home in Halifax, West Yorkshire. When police foudn him, there was a spirit level nearby which he had used to check that the blade was set truly and wouldn't jar. His head had been cleanly decapitated through the lower part of the neck. he still had a pair of pliers in his left hand that he had used to cut the retaining wire and release the extremely heavy blade, which required three men to move. The guillotine had obviously taken some time to build, and was very well constructed. There was evidence to indicate that some test drops had been made. /D. Telegraph, Times, Yorkshire post, 3 Dec 1999/ Another DIY Decapitation took place near Virnagar in the western Indian province of Kathiawar at midnight on 18 February 1996, during the festival of Mahashivatri. Lalji Arjanbhai Patel, a 28-year-old devotee of Shiva, with a wife, two daughters and a son, beheaded himself after offering prayers at the lonely hilltop temple of Mahadevia dhar. The temple, built in 1875, no longer had a regular priest. Patel suspended a sickle from the ceiling with rope, and held one end. Bowing before the /Shivalingham/ (Shiva's ritual stone phallus), he released the rope. The sickle fell at the base of his neck, severing it instantly, while his blood flowed into the channels round the lingham as a sacrificial offering. The villagers of Hanuman Kachiya, wehre Patel tilled a small plot of land, claimed that he had been talking of offering the "formidable Kamalpuja of the Shivling" for the previous three days. /Indian Express, 20 Feb 1996/ FT135 27 Last March, another DIY beheading took place in India [see FT133:"7]. The body of Amarsinh Mavji, 40, was found in a temple in Gadhula district of Rajkot. The police claimed he was a victim of 'Kamal puja', in which a person's head is chopped off to appease the goddess. Members of the Vaghri community had allegedly gathered at the temple to seek forgiveness of sins committed during the past year. As part of the ritual, Amarsinh chopped off his own head with a sword. Exactly how he managed to do this is not explained. /Times of India, 10 Mar 2000/ FT136:15 Bad Spell: A Sudanese man found guilty of sorcery was beheaded in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on 29 February. /[AFP] 1 Mar 2000/