Malachi Smith's List: CRIME BLOTTER

• Police probe congregation in murder of former youth pastor
• 'I don't believe any church squabble could've led to anything like this'
• August 02, 2008
• Police in the Chicago area, investigating the slaying of five women in a Lane Bryant clothing store earlier this year, have sent 11 officers from Illinois to Texas to investigate what role a church may have played in the killings.
• The murder by an unknown gunman, previously reported as a botched robbery, now invites more sinister speculation as police draw a suspected connection between the collapse of a Chicago-area church and one of the shooting victims, Rhoda McFarland.
• McFarland served as an associate and youth pastor of Embassy Christian Center in Crest Hill, Ill., but left the church in 2006 and became the manager of the Lane Bryant store where she and four other women were killed execution-style six months ago.
• At the time of McFarland's departure from the church, the Embassy Christian Center had been facing internal strife and a loss of members, from 1,000 in attendance to only 75.
• 
  Rhoda McFarland
• McFarland had been an integral part of the church, even co-signing on mortgages, the Chicago Tribune reports.
• But when the senior pastor took out a new, almost $900,000 mortgage three years ago, McFarland's name did not appear on the paperwork and the congregation was sent into upheaval.
• The church closed shortly thereafter and the pastor and several members relocated the church to Austin, Tex.
• Sandra McGhee, a good friend of McFarland who urged her to leave the church, told the Tribune, "There were things going on that were just wrong. As a Christian, I could not support it any longer."
• McFarland's brother, Maurice Hamilton, told WBBM-TV in Chicago that she had asked him to help her leave.
• "All she did was one day, called me and asked me to help her move her stuff out of the church, and I helped her," Hamilton said. "Something was happening within the church that she didn't approve of, and she wanted to leave."
• In following up more than 3,000 tips and leads on the case, police discovered records indicating a 20-minute cell phone call placed from a former Embassy Christian Center member to McFarland only an hour before the slaying.
• A team of 11 Chicago police investigators have been sent to Texas and are now working with FBI and the Austin Police Department to interview 18 people who were part of the church and relocated with the former senior pastor, George Aja Jr.
• Police have confirmed that the church connection is the most promising development they've seen in the case, even though they have not yet linked the phone call to the murder.
• Still, task force Cmdr. Tom Wetherald of the Illinois State Police told the Tribune of the lead, "It's a significant one because we sent 11 people to Texas."
• Aja Jr., whose church in Texas also closed not long after it relocated from Illinois, told KEYE-TV in Austin, "My family and I are devastated and hurt that we would somehow be implicated in the death of somebody we loved for years."
• "We're devastated, we're disappointed that the immaturity of a church split or squabble about anything would lead to something of this magnitude," he said.
• Aja Jr., however, denied any connection between the church and the murders.
• "I believe, unfortunately, that Rhoda McFarland was in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said. "I don't believe any church squabble could've led to anything like this."
• "It's obvious to me that the officers have run out of leads," he said.

• According to the Tribune, McFarland went to work on Feb. 2 of this year, her normal day off, because she wanted to help with an expected increase in business.

   

  Shortly after opening, an unknown gunman entered the store and forced McFarland, a sales associate and four customers into a back room and bound them with duct tape.
• The emergency call, recorded and broadcast on Chicago television shortly thereafter, reveal a woman whispering for help before suddenly being cut off.
• At some point, McFarland freed herself enough to call 911.
• The gunman opened fire, killing McFarland, Carrie H. Chiuso, Connie R. Woolfoldk, Sarah T. Szafranski, and Jennifer L. Bishop. A sixth woman, who survived a gunshot wound to the neck, remains unidentified and is working with police to identify the shooter.
• McFarland's funeral was held in the same building that once housed the Embassy Christian Center but had been subsequently purchased by a separate church organization.

26 more annotations...

• Police tape: Canada bus killer ate victim's flesh
• Internal communication leaked on Internet; suspect charged in beheading
• TORONTO - A police officer at the scene of a grisly beheading on a Canadian bus reported seeing the attacker hacking off pieces of the victim's body and eating them, according to a police tape leaked on the Internet Saturday.
• In the tape of radio transmissions, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer refers to the attacker as "Badger" and says he is armed with a knife and scissors and is "defiling the body at the front of the bus as we speak."
• On the tape, which lasts about 80 seconds, officers continue to detail the attacker's movements until one reports, "Badger's at the back of the bus, hacking off pieces and eating it."
• The RCMP described the tapes as "operational police communications and, as such, are not meant for public consumption."
• Police said permission had not been given to use the radio transmission, which was posted on LiveLeak.com and picked up by other Web sites.
• Officers were responding to a desolate stretch of the TransCanada Highway about 12 miles from Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, after the bloody attack late Wednesday on the bus traveling from Edmonton, Alberta to Winnipeg, Manitoba.
• Vince Weiguang Li, 40, faces second-degree murder charges for the murder of a 22-year-old man, who friends and family identified as Tim McLean. Police have not confirmed the victim's identity.
• Suspect called 'model employee'
• Passengers said they had just reboarded the bus following a break when the suspect — for no apparent reason — stabbed the man sitting next to him dozens of times as passengers fled in horror. He then severed the man's head, displayed it and began hacking at the body.
• Li's employer said in an interview Saturday that he was shocked to learn that his "model employee" had been accused of the grisly attack.

• Vincent Augert, an independent contractor who distributes newspapers in Edmonton, said that Li was one of his most reliable carriers.

  "He was very punctual and always cleanly dressed," he told The Associated Press. "He was a very nice, polite guy. We would've had no reason to let him go before all this happened."

• Augert said Li had worked for him since last July and caused no problems.

  "I had no odd suspicions about him at all," said Augert.
• Augert said that Li called him two weeks ago to say he needed a day or two off to go to Winnipeg for a job interview at the end of July. He said Li called him back and left a message with the dates, but never followed up after that.
• "That was unusual for him not to call back and then when he didn't show up for work on Tuesday we got worried," said Augert, who said it was sometimes difficult to understand Li because he spoke quickly and had a strong Chinese accent.
• Augert said he called Li's cell phone on Thursday and his wife answered. She told him that she hadn't heard from Li, who had told her he had to leave for a few days because of a family emergency.

  • Chinese version of "MKULTRA?"...a Manchurian candidate?..A sleeper?
• Li, who shuffled into a courtroom Friday in Portage la Prairie with his head bowed and feet shackled, appeared before the court without a lawyer.
• He did not reply when the judge asked him whether he was going to get a lawyer, and only nodded slightly when asked whether he was exercising his right not to speak. He was not required to enter a plea.
• The prosecutor asked for a psychiatric assessment, but the judge said he wanted to give Li a chance to meet with his lawyer. Li's next court appearance is scheduled for Tuesday. The RCMP said Li has no known criminal record.
• Victim's family speaks out

• McLean's family spoke publicly Saturday for the first time since the brutal attack.

  "He was a little guy with a heart bigger than you could know," McLean's uncle, Alex McLean, told reporters in a prepared statement from the family.
• "Tim spent his life traveling and meeting new people and always saw the good in everyone. He had the most infectious giggle. You could hear him laughing a mile away," said Alex McLean.
• William Caron, 23, said McLean was quiet, though he liked to socialize with friends. He was small — about 5-foot-4 and 130 pounds — and tended to stay away from a fight, Caron said.
• He always kept to himself when there's strangers around," Caron said.

• The killing has spawned a vast online community, with tens of thousands showing support for McLean's family and expressing disgust for the attack.

  One of the many groups on the social networking site Facebook has accumulated over 40,000 members with more than 2,000 wall posts.

  "It's something right out of a horror movie," said Sheena in Edmonton.

24 more annotations...

• Sunday, August 03, 2008
• Decapitations: Greece and Canada
• Malcolm Brabant's BBC News article for August 3, 2008, "Gruesome crime shocks Greek isle" tells that police on the Greek island of Santorini have shot and injured a 35 year old knifeman who decapitated his girlfriend and walked around the streets with her head.
• The suspect was shot during a dramatic car chase in which he crashed into a motorbike and badly injured the rider and passenger.
• The crime is one of the most gruesome in Greece in recent memory.
• CNN is reporting late on August 4th that there are rumors the same suspect was involved in a possible beheading of a man north of where the suspect beheaded his girlfriend.
• It follows, of course, on the heels of the incident last week on July 30th, on the Canadian bus where a man beheaded a fellow passenger.
• By week's end, in the following article, "Decapitation Suspect Allegedly Ate Victim," the story grew more disturbing.
• A police officer at the scene of a fatal stabbing on a Canadian bus reported seeing the attacker hacking off pieces of the victim's body and eating them, according to a police tape leaked on the Internet on August 2nd.
• In the tape of radio transmissions, officers referred to the attacker, who also beheaded the victim, as "Badger."
• They said he was armed with a knife and scissors and was "defiling the body."
• "Badger's at the back of the bus, hacking off pieces and eating it," an officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said on the tape.
• The RCMP described the tapes as "operational police communications and, as such, are not meant for public consumption." The tape was posted on YouTube among other Web sites.
• The employer of the man who witnesses said stabbed and beheaded his seat mate on a Greyhound bus in Canada said that he was in shock to
• Vince Weiguang Li, was one of his most reliable carriers.
• Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh said there were 37 passengers on the Winnipeg, Manitoba-bound bus at the time.
• Shortly after passengers reboarded following a break, the suspect - for no apparent reason - stabbed the man sitting next to him several dozen times as others fled in horror, witnesses said.
• He then severed the man's head, displayed it and began hacking at the body.
• Authorities have not released the victim's name but friends identified him as Tim McLean and said he was headed to Winnipeg after working with the carnival in Edmonton.
• posted by Loren Coleman at 9:08 PM
• 33 Comments:
• Anonymous said... 

   

    

  Manchurian Candidate?
• Anonymous said... 

   

    

  This seems to readying the public for the beheadings prophesized in the bible against those who refuse to renounce Christ in the last days....
• Anonymous said... 

   

    

  This is clearly a satanic mind control event.
• alanborky said... 

   

    

  Loren, there's also of course the case of the British girl murdered by her Brazilian boyfriend, (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7535853.stm).
  
  This apparently occurred within the same timeframe and, since her head's still missing, is also seemingly a decapitation incident.
• Anonymous said... 

   

    

  Manchurian candidate???...You took the words right out of my mouth when I heard about this!!!
• Anonymous said... 

   

    

  Sounds like demon possession.
•  FilmNoir23 said... 

   

    

  Loren,
  
  What do you know about the use of the term "Badger" in this case???
  
• I would be curious to dig deeper to see if any link can be made between this individual and having served in the 1st Gulf War...look into "Project Badger" which was a anti-anthrax vaccine being tested on soldiers (and has been linked to Gulf War Syndrome).
• This would also loom large as Bruce Ivins "suicide". He had been working at Ft. Detrick on just such a drug for many years.
• The documents available online in regards to "Project Badger" come from Ft. Detrick as well...
• Anonymous said... 

   

    

  Actually the "mind control" is in the media usage of the term "beheading" ( the blogger aside, who is just relaying this popularized usage).
• The term beheading is conventionally in relation to the removal of the head of a live organism ; it is strongly asociated with the term 'Al Qaeda'.
  
• This was a post-mortem decapitation, and a side note to the actual murder.
• Anonymous said... 

   

    

  damn we don't know who to trust now
• We need guns,its that simple.The badger patrol showed up late and always will since they get called after the maniac or zombie attacks.Its always too late,think about it.we need guns.
• Anonymous said... 

   

    

  This disruptive material happens all over Manitoba a lot. The killings are rising there
•  El Tubbo said... 

   

    

  How odd. In the States, where guns are still legal (though just barely and not everywhere), immediately prior to an important "gun control" vote there is always a high profile mass shooting.
• And in countries where guns are banned, the push is now on to disarm the peasants of even their knives... and voila, high profile knife murders with prominently displayed decapitated heads conveniently take place as if orchestrated.
• Anonymous said... 

   

    

  manchurian candidate was the first thing that came to mind. absolutely. i guess im not the only "crazy asshole" that thinks this way.
• it all started with paperclip. what do you think will happen when you bring 5000 nazi ss maniacs home after ww2 project monarch---mk ultra--- thousands of "throw away" humans to experiment with
•  Anonymous said... 

   

    

  From anoymouse no.1 to el tubbo.
• And look at all the similarities. Some key points that strikes me:
• 1. All three post mortem decapitations
  2. Knives and relatively young men
  3. ''Tourism'' or travelling in all three cases.
  4. ''Rampage'', ''Vile'', ''Evil''
  5. ''Regrets'' in two of the cases so far.
• In the Santos case:
  “Tell her I am sorry. I did not know what I was doing.”
• Drugs and/or medications are heavily used tools under brainwashing. Just look up MK-ultra and all the other documents.
• Anonymous said... 

   

    

  Badger? Clearly the RMPC knew this man already and had a fixed code name for him.

  • Exactly...
• This was very obviously a case of a 'manchurian candidate.' My view is that shocking crimes are committed at the instigation of the intelligence agencies in order to crank about the tension and anxiety we all feel about modern life.
• I'd suggest that the plan is working, and that most people feel considerably more anxious about travel, including commuting, than they did even ten years ago.
• Why would they do this? Anxiety correlates with support for hardline police measures and conservatism in general.
• It's a deliberate plan to invert society which, in living memory, subscribed to the more optimistic philosophy of, say, President Kennedy, who believed most human problems were fixable.

49 more annotations...

• British police feared Madeleine was ’stolen to order’ by Belgian paedophile ring
• August 7, 2008<!-- by pjwalker911 -->

• 

   

  Madeleine: Police fear a ’spotter’ for a paedophile snatched her
• By Vanessa Allen and Emily Andrews
• British police fear Madeleine McCann was snatched by a Belgian paedophile ring.
• She was stolen to order after a ’spotter’ saw her on holiday in Portugal and sent her photograph to the gang’s leaders.
• The revelation came as a second woman claimed to have seen the missing girl in neighbouring Holland.
• The possible link to Belgium – the scene of several notorious child sex cases – was mentioned in a confidential email sent by the Metropolitan Police intelligence unit.
• The message, passed to Portuguese police and contained in their newly-released files, said: ‘Intelligence suggests that a paedophile ring in Belgium made an order for a young girl three days before Madeleine McCann was taken.
• ‘Somebody connected to this group saw Madeleine and took a photograph of her. The purchaser agreed that the girl was suitable and Madeleine was taken.’
• The dramatic development, and the horrific picture it draws, will bring fresh agony to Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann.
• It would fit with two claimed sightings of their daughter across the border in the Netherlands, where Belgian paedophiles could hide their victims.
• Earlier this week it was revealed that Amsterdam shop worker Anna Stam told police within days of Madeleine’s diappearance in May last year that she thought she had seen her.
• Yesterday Hannie Wiechmann, 71, said she saw a girl resembling Madeleine in the Dutch capital at around the same time.
• The report was passed to Portgual, but never followed up.
• She said the child’s hair had been badly cut and partially dyed red. She was with a woman who was pacing up and down beside a canal.
• Mrs Wiechmann said: ‘Those eyes, her badly-cut fringe with this red painted lock of hair. I just knew it was her.’
• She told the Dutch newspaper Metro that she spotted the child twice near the city’s famous Rijksmuseum.

• Mrs Wiechmann said the woman, who was aged 30 to 35, was speaking English to her.

   

  She added: ‘You could see by the way she handled the kid she wasn’t used to children.’
• She was so convinced the girl was Madeleine that she called police from her mobile phone, then followed the pair as they walked towards the Rijksmuseum.
• But when police arrived and spoke briefly to the brown haired woman, they accepted her account that she was a tourist who was baby-sitting the child.
• Mrs Wiechmann said they dismissed her suspicions without even taking her details or talking to the girl.

  • Cover up...
• But she was so convinced the girl was Madeleine that she called British police, who took details but did not contact her again.

  • Cover up...

• Mrs Wiechmann said that a week later she saw the pair again in a park, and the little girl came over to pat her dog.

   

  She said: ‘She came right to me to pat the dog. Then I let her go. Stupid, but…. I let her walk away.
• ‘It would have been better if I had taken her home and reported it to all the international criminal investigators. Such a beautiful girl.’
• The McCanns’ private detectives have considered the theory that Madeleine was given to a ‘carer’ who would have disguised her appearance and kept her in a safe house.
• Mrs Wiechmann’s account came just a day after the Portuguese police files revealed Miss Stam’s description of a young girl with an adult couple and two other children.
• Miss Stam, 41, said the girl called herself Maddie and said of the woman with her: ‘She took me from my Mummy….They took me from my holiday.’
• A Dutch police report was sent to Portuguese police but it is not clear what action, if any, they took.
• Miss Stam said: ‘I think it’s stupid because maybe they could have done something more at that time and maybe now it’s too late to find any clue. So I think it’s very neglectful by the police.’

• Family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said the McCann’s private detectives would interview both women ‘as a priority’.

   

  Dutch and Portuguese police refused to comment.
• The huge case files also revealed that Portuguese police asked the FBI to compare a DNA sample from Madeleine with the body of a child washed ashore in Galveston, Texas, last November. But it was not a match.
• In the UK, a former detective accused the Portuguese of ‘giving up’.

  • Not giving up..just covering up
• Child protection expert Mark Williams-Thomas said: ‘The file should have been made available to another law enforcement agency from another country before it was made public.
• ‘There is information there which should not have been put in the public domain and should have been followed up. It is a huge blunder to make it public.
• ‘They have given up. The police are absolving themselves of responsibility.’
• Police suspected Robert Murat because of his ‘constant questions’ about MadeleineMcCann’s disappearance, according to the case files.
• On May 11 – three days before the British expat was named as the first formal suspect – an officer said he had noticed his questions and suggestions and added: ‘He aroused my suspicions.’
• Mr Murat, now 34, was formally cleared as an arguido, official suspect, last month, when Portugal’s attorney-general said there was no evidence he had committed any crime.
• We already know that pedophile rings in Belgium and Portugal involve the highest levels of the government. There is also the suspicion that the Portuguese police have been involved in protecting these rings.
• I am not saying that the McCanns are innocent either. So far, there has been no compelling proof either way.
• The big question is why would governments collude to make a huge stinking mess of this investigation and why are so many top-level people involved with the McCanns?
• Is it because they are all involved in these elite pedophile rings and have to create chaos as a smokescreen?
• You might think they would have buried the story and put it to rest by now, but it seems it has taken on a life of its own because people still want to know the truth. That is the only positive aspect of all this.
• What this means to me is that everyone from the McCanns to the Portuguese Police, to Scotland Yard, to British high society is involved and invested in making sure this whole story is so convoluted and confusing that it just leads into huge labyrinth consisting of tens of thousands of dead ends that leave the mind reeling.
• But it is critical that people step out of their group-think and try to see if there is any connection to the elite pedophile networks.
• This is case of very powerful elite men who are pedophiles and have paid off the police depts. so they can get away with murder…the police didn’t do a ‘blunder,’ it was deliberate…HELLO! The police are also in on it.

45 more annotations...

• Evil spirit made man eat family
• A look back at Swift Runner
• By ANDREW HANON -- Sun Media
  

   

  The Edmonton Sun
• On a cold December day in 1879, a man was hanged in Fort Saskatchewan, putting an end to one of the most horrifying killing sprees in Alberta history.
• Swift Runner was executed for murdering and then eating eight members of his own family over the previous winter.
• He believed he was possessed by Windigo, a terrifying mythological creature with a ravenous appetite for human flesh.
• It wasn't an isolated case. During the late 1800s and into the 20th Century, fear of Windigo haunted northern Alberta communities, resulting in several grisly deaths.
• 

  
  Swift Runner before his execution at Fort Saskatchewan in 1879. Believing he was possessed by a Windigo, the trapper killed and ate his family over the previous winter. (Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada)
• Sun Media's Andrew Hanon speaks with Nathan Carlson, one of the world's leading authorities on Windigo, about Carlson's personal connection to the blood-curdling creature.

• Some call him a serial killer. 

  Others call him a desperate madman. 
• But right up until the trap door swung open and the rope snapped taut around his neck, one of Alberta's most prolific murderers insisted it was an evil spirit that compelled him to butcher and eat his entire family.
• Over the course of a single winter, he devoured his wife, six children, mother and brother.
• MOST HORRIFYING
• The man, a Cree trapper named Swift Runner, was hanged in 1879 in Fort Saskatchewan, the first legal execution in Alberta.
• The macabre case is considered by many to be the most horrifying crime in the province's history.
• But what most people don't realize is that it was part of a much larger phenomenon that Edmonton ethno-historian Nathan Carlson calls Windigo condition, which haunted communities right across northern Alberta in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries and cost dozens of lives.
• The Windigo (an Anglicized form of the word Witiko) is a mythological creature among native cultures from the Rockies to northern Quebec.
• It has an insatiable appetite for human flesh and wreaks destruction wherever it goes.
• Carlson describes it as "the consummate predator of humanity."
• It's sometimes described as "an owl-eyed monster with large claws, matted hair, a naked emaciated body and a heart made of solid ice."
• "It's extremely destructive," he says. "The more it eats, the hungrier it gets, so it just keeps killing."
• Windigos can possess people, transforming them into wild-eyed, violent, flesh-eating maniacs with superhuman strength.
• Many native people in northern Alberta lived in terror of being possessed.
• "It's important to understand that cannibalism was repellent to the people," Carlson explains. "The Windigo personified evil."
• The Swift Runner case caused an international sensation, making headlines in newspapers across Canada and the U.S.
• According to accounts, he wandered alone into the Catholic Mission in St. Albert in the spring of 1879, claiming to be the only member of his family who didn't starve to death over a particularly cold, bitter winter.
• The priests became suspicious when they realized that Swift Runner, who weighed around 200 pounds, didn't seem malnourished at all and was plagued with screaming fits and nightmares as he slept.
• He told them he was being tormented by an evil spirit, called Windigo, but said little else about it.
• They reported their misgivings to police, who took Swift Runner to his family campground in the woods northeast of Edmonton, where they made a horrific discovery - the site was littered with bones, bits of flesh and hair.
• Some accounts claim that the larger bones had even been snapped and the marrow sucked out.

  • As has been discovered among the fossil remains of Neanderthal.
• He eventually confessed that he shot some of his family, bludgeoned others with an axe and even strangled one girl with a cord.
• In some accounts, Swift Runner said he fed one boy human flesh before he too was killed.
• 'THE LEAST OF MEN'
• Before he was hanged, Swift Runner expressed extreme remorse. He told Father Hippolyte Leduc, "I am the least of men and do not merit even being called a man."
• Interestingly, Swift Runner is the only documented case Carlson can find of someone killing others because he thought he was possessed by a Windigo.
• All other deaths he can document were cases of "Windigo executions," where others have killed the person believed to be possessed. They were acts of self-preservation, attempts to protect their community.
• In most of the cases, the victims themselves begged to be killed before they harmed their families.
• In many cases, witnesses reported physical changes -bodies swelling and growing, lips and mouths enlarging.
• Some of the victims spoke of icy cold in their chests and an inability to warm up.
• Carlson, who's Metis, first heard about the Windigo from his grandmother, who told him about an incident at Trout Lake, where members of the community killed a man possessed by a demon that had been cursed and turned into a Windigo.
• The story haunted him throughout his childhood, and after his grandmother died in 2002, he discovered an eerily similar story in an archived newspaper.
• "I was somewhat confounded by the discovery of the newspaper account that seemed to confirm a story that had been in my family for almost 100 years," he says.
• Further research revealed that the man who was killed was also a distant relative of Carlson's.
• Carlson is now writing a book on the Windigo condition in northern Alberta and is negotiating with filmmakers about a documentary.

42 more annotations...

• Bus beheading similar to Windigo phenomenon
• By ANDREW HANON -- Sun Media
  

   

  The Edmonton Sun
• Nathan Carlson has barely slept since July 30.
• "Ever since it happened, I haven't been able to get it out of my head," Carlson says haltingly.
• "I just don't know what to think of it, quite frankly."
• The Edmonton ethno-historian is one of the world's leading experts on Windigo phenomenon, and the recent horrific beheading and alleged cannibalism on a Greyhound bus bound for Winnipeg from Edmonton rocked him to his very core.
• 

  
  Nathan Carlson is one of the leading authorities on the Windigo phenomenon. (SUN MEDIA/Jordan Verlage
• As the grisly details of Tim McLean's last moments on Earth came to light in the following days, Carlson sank deeper and deeper into a fog of horror and revulsion.
• Vince Weiguang Li is accused of abruptly attacking McLean, who by all accounts he didn't even know -- while McLean slept on the bus.
• Up until a few days before the killing, Li held a part- time job delivering newspapers in Edmonton. He was well thought-of by his boss and considered a nice guy, if a bit quiet and shy.
• On July 20 -- just 10 days before the killing -- Li delivered copies of the Sun that contained an extensive interview with Carlson about his research into the Windigo,
• a terrifying creature in native mythology that has a ravenous appetite for human flesh.
• It could take possession of people and turn them into cannibalistic monsters.
• The two-page feature talked about how, in the late 1800s and into the 20th century, Windigo "encounters" haunted communities across northern Alberta and resulted in dozens of gruesome deaths.
• In one case, a Cree trapper named Swift Runner was hanged after admitting to killing and eating his wife, children, brother and mother in the woods northeast of Edmonton in the winter of 1878-79.
• Prior to being charged with murder, he had suffered screaming fits and nightmares, which he attributed to being possessed by a Windigo.
• In several other cases, people banded together and killed individuals they feared were possessed by a Windigo.
• Often, they would decapitate the corpse and bury the head separate from the body in order to keep it from rising from the dead.
• Carlson documented several cases in northern Alberta communities where people believing they were "turning Windigo" would go into convulsions, make terrifying animal sounds and beg their captors to kill them before they started eating people.
• In last month's bus case, Li allegedly butchered McLean's body, brandishing the victim's severed head at the men who trapped him on the bus until police could arrive.
• He was later accused of eating McLean's flesh.
• When he appeared in a Portage La Prairie courthouse on charges of second-degree murder, the only words Li reportedly uttered were pleas for someone to kill him.
• A lot of his reported behaviour eerily mirrors the Windigo cases recounted in the newspaper feature that Li helped deliver to Edmonton homes just days before McLean was killed, one of the most gruesome slayings in modern Canadian history.
• Several media reports called McLean's killing unprecedented - an unspeakable, random attack the likes of which has never been seen in Canada.

  • NOTE: The still bizaar and controversial slaying of an American tourist and the wounding of his wife by a Chinese man the day after the opening of the Beijing Olympics in August 2008. News reports first stated the killer was a local, unempoyed man who after killing the man and a Chinese tour guide and wounding the American's wife, then flung himself from a tower where the slayings took place. Then a few days afterward, a witness stepped forward to report the killer she saw was a Chinese man in a business suit, who fled the scene quickly. She insists the killer was not the man first reported by the news. Shortly after this contradictory witness' story came out, Chinese authorities are said to have yanked the story of the original accused; the one who committed suicide.
• But Carlson knows better.

• "There are just too many parallels," he says.  

  "I can't say there's definite connection, but there are just too many coincidences.  

  "It's beyond eerie."       

24 more annotations...

• China flaying animals alive
• Investigation reveals images so graphic, nightmares rampant among probe team
• Posted: August 19, 2008
  9:48 pm Eastern
  
   

  By Bob Unruh
   <!--- copywrite only show on NON commentary pages as per joseph meeting 8/23/06 ------>   <!-- copyright --> © 2008 WorldNetDaily 
• Editor's Note: The descriptions and video of China's fur industry in this story will be disturbing to  some readers.
• The newest controversy over exports from China has caused nightmares for researchers documenting the abuse inflicted on animals bred and raised in tiny cages and then skinned alive for their fur.
• WND has reported multiple times on problems with exports from China, with poison found in pajamas, consumers warned against using ginger, an alert about the dangers from China's pickled vegetables and even the dangers from honey and fireworks.
• 
  Animals rights activists have documented that China's fur industry skins animals alive for their fur (Photo courtesy of Swiss Animal Protection)
• Now comes word from an extended investigation into the fur trade that China is estimated to produce approximately 85 percent of the world's fur products – and it has virtually no regulations or rules for the treatment of the animals.
• According to Mark Rissi, a spokesman for Swiss Animal Protection, which has documented abuse of animals raised for their fur as early as 1983, the China project has been going on for several years.
• The organization's report has been made available online, with dramatic images and descriptions that researchers found more than disturbing
• "As animals are considered objects in China, there is little or no awareness for the suffering of these sentient beings," Rissi told WND from his European base of operations via e-mail.

  • Well heck.., human beings, even their own human beings, are considered nothing but objects as well.
• "The cruelty found was beyond our expectations, and it was hard to document without interfering. It caused nightmares to the team, especially in the editing room, because the scenes had to be replayed and replayed to be edited from six hours down to 20 minutes."
• Rissi said the actual onsite investigation was done by his organization's staff members as well as trusted Asian animal protection supporters, but as fur production was not a controversial subject, "people willingly showed their farms to the team."
• He said he's glad other organizations, such as the U.S.-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, have joined in his group's campaign.
• "Our main goal was to get this distributed because we want consumers worldwide to be aware about the cruelty involved in the fur fashion," he said.

  • Forget PC..let's have a refeshing gust of truth for a change...! Asians are a historically cruel people anyway. They do not think like Westerners. Even scholars and philosophers have proven this. To an Asian, cruel treatment of animals or fellow humans, seems to be just a matter of course.
• "People have a right to know that a huge percentage of fur is imported from China, which doesn't have any federal laws protecting animals on fur farms.
• People who might contribute to this atrocity by purchasing fur or fur-trimmed garments need to know about the horrible suffering of the animals who wore that skin first," PETA spokeswoman Melissa Karpel told WND.
• 
  Dogs are picked up by workers using a metal tongs and their tails prior to being slammed to the ground and skinned. (Photo courtesy of Swiss Animal Protection
• "We want them to see how fur farmers slam terrified animals — including raccoon pups — on the ground and skin them while they're still conscious.
• People need to know what they're really buying when they buy fur or fur trim," she said.
• "Conditions on Chinese fur farms make a mockery of the most elementary animal welfare standards," the Swiss report said. "This report shows that China's colossal fur industry routinely subjects animals to housing, husbandry, transport and slaughter practices that are unacceptable from a veterinary, animal welfare and moral point of view."
• PETA has posted a Swiss Animal Protection video on its U.S. site, documenting the bloody violence prevalent in the Chinese fur industry.
• The report contained the testimony from witnesses to a dog slaughter:
• Once pulled out from its cage, the raccoon dog curls up into a ball in mid-air. … One woman in a headscarf is first to grab hold of the raccoon dog's tail and the others drift away peevishly. The woman in the headscarf swings the animal upwards. It forms an arc in the air and is then slammed heavily to the ground, throwing up a cloud of dust. The raccoon dog tries to stand up, its paws scrabbling in the grit. The wooden club in the woman's hand swings down onto its forehead. The woman picks up the animal and walks toward the other side of the road, throwing it onto a pile of other raccoon dogs. A stream of blood trickles from its muzzle, but its eyes are open and it continues to repeatedly blink, move its paws, raise its head and collapse to the ground. Beside it lies another raccoon dog. Its four limbs have been hacked off but still it continues to yelp.

  • I am not one of those tree hugging, spotted owl kissers that abound these days..but..BUT..unwarranted cruelty and torture of an animal is criminal. It is again, the Asian/Oriental mind-culture that sees no wrong in what it does to the living things around it. What appals and disgusts we Westerners, does not cause an Asian to blink.
• The report then graphically describes how the dogs are skinned, sometimes while they are living.
• Rissi noted that the Humane Society of the United States also has worked on the investigation, citing well-known U.S. companies, including J.C. Penney, Burlington Coat Factory, Bloomingdale's, Sak's Fifth Avenue and Macy's, for selling Chinese-produced fur products, sometimes labeling them as "faux fur" or raccoon when the actual product is from a raccoon dog.
• The Swiss Animal Protection report said slaughter methods range from beatings with a metal or wooden stick or swinging the animal until it slams to the ground.
• Then they are skinned.
• "They struggle and try to fight back to the very end. Even after their skin has been stripped off breathing, heart beat, directional body and eyelid movements were evident for five to 10 minutes," the report said.
• The process is repeated millions of times, as China processes up to 100,000 pelts in a day at times.
• The Swiss organization said China should pass a national animal welfare law, prohibit skinning live animals, prohibit inhumane treatment and slaughter methods, and the rest of the world should shun the use of fur.
• Swiss Animal Protection is the umbrella organization of 58 regional animal protection associations in Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and biggest animal protection organization operating throughout Switzerland.
• WND's earlier reporting showed Chinese products recalled in 2007 alone included:
• Portable baby swings that entrap youngsters, resulting in 60 reports of cuts, bruises and abrasions;
• Swimming pool ladders that break, resulting in 127 reports of injuries, including leg lacerations requiring up to 21 stitches, five reports of bone fractures, two back injuries, two reports of torn ligaments and eight sprained ankles;
• Faulty baby carriers that result in babies falling out and getting bruised, getting skulls cracked and hospitalizations;
• Easy-Bake Ovens that trap children's fingers in openings, resulting in burns;
• Oscillating tower fans whose faulty wiring results in fires, burns and smoke inhalation injuries;
• Exploding air pumps that have resulted in 13 lacerations including six facial injuries and one to the eye;
• Bargain-priced oil-filled electric heaters, selling for less than $50, that burn down homes;
• Notebook computer batteries that burn up computers, cause other property damage and burn users;
• Circular saws with faulty blade guards that result in cutting users, not wood.
• WND also has reported on Chinese imports that poisoned America's pets, risked America's human food supply and reintroduced lead poisoning to America's children.
• Other problems have occurred with power strips and extension cords, holiday lights and batteries.
• China also consistently has topped the list of countries whose products were refused by the FDA  The list includes many countries, including Mexico and Canada, that export far more food products to the U.S. than China.
• The Chinese government, in fact, actually has blamed WND's reports for fanning the flames of hysteria about the safety of Chinese products.

45 more annotations...

• Obstruction of Justice: The Mena Connection
• Two teenagers stumble upon a major drug smuggling operation. The boys are brutally murdered and their bodies placed on railroad tracks to give the appearance of a train accident. Soon, crime scene eyewitnesses vanish and investigations are shut down. The grieving parents are stunned. Corruption involving high level officials from Arkansas to Washington is documented in this incredible true life story.
• Why were numerous county, state and federal government investigations blocked?
• Why was a thirty month federal-grand-jury investigation abruptly shut down.
• Why did the FBI tell one boy’s grieving parents, “You should accept the fact that a crime has not been committed?”
• This story of murder, drugs, corruption, and cover-ups, involves high ranking government officials, reaching up to the most powerful office in the world.
• It shows that interference from sinister political allies continues to protect these criminals from prosecution.

6 more annotations...

• Missing laptop contains data on 800,000 doctors
• The Chicago Tribune reports that some 800,000 doctors are being warned about a laptop holding their personal data that has turned up missing from the Chicago-based Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.
• Nearly every practicing physician in the country is being cautioned as a result of the theft of the laptop from an employee's car.
• At risk are the doctors'  business and personal information including Social Security numbers, addresses and certain identification numbers.
• Stealing laptops is asimple way data thieves can tap into porous corporate networks.
• The granddaddy of all data breaches attributed to a lost laptop involved the Department of Veterans Affairs. The agency lost records for 26.5 million active duty troops and veterans stored on a laptop and external drive, which disappeared during a burglary of the home of a VA data analyst in 2006.
• Laptop theft appears to be on the rise, says Jim Alves, executive vice president at Kaseya,  which supplies programs that help corporations keep track of their tech gear.
• Kaseya  has helped several customers in recent months recover stolen laptops, he says.
• “Laptops and other portable devices are frequently lost or stolen, resulting in rampant data loss," says Alves. "Users of personal devices do not often think about losing the item or having it stolen."

7 more annotations...

• From The Times 

   

   <!-- BEGIN: Module - Advert:Top --> <script type="text/javascript"> <!-- //Get recommendations var wlrcmd= ""; var WlRnd = Math.floor(Math.random()*99999999999); var WlProtocol = location.protocol.indexOf('https')>-1?'https:':'http:'; var WlUrl= WlProtocol +'//rc.newsint.newscorp.individuad.net/Get/newsint/JS/GetRcmd.js?ord=' +WlRnd; document.write('<scr' + 'ipt language="JavaScript" src="' + WlUrl + '"></sc'+ 'ript>'); //--> </script><script language="JavaScript" src="http://rc.newsint.newscorp.individuad.net/Get/newsint/JS/GetRcmd.js?ord=46561281275"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> <!-- //Retrieve yaoo Cookie Value var yahoo = "no"; var IsYahoo="no"; if (GetQueryString("yahoo")=="yes" || get_cookie('YH') == "yes") IsYahoo="yes"; if (IsYahoo == "yes" || get_cookie('YH') == 'open') { set_cookie ("YH", "yes", "", "" ); yahoo = "yes"; } else { set_cookie ("YH", "no", "", "" ); yahoo = "no"; } window.onunload = setYahooCookie; //--> </script> <!-- For Travel Search --> <!--SECTION:parameter parameter="dart.server" /--> <!-- END: Module - Advert:Top --> 

   

   October 30, 2009  
• Gay rights campaigner James Rennie jailed for life over paedophile ring
• Mike Wade
• The mother of a six-year-old boy who was subjected to what a judge described  as “truly appalling” abuse from a man she had regarded as a close friend  said yesterday that her child had been “shaped and moulded” for life by the  experience.
• Welcoming the life sentences passed on James Rennie and Neil Strachan, the  woman said that she had moved on from feelings of anger.
• “My focus is about  my son, about how to support him and loving him for who he is. And who he is  now has been shaped and moulded by what’s gone on.”
• Rennie 38, the former chief executive of a gay youth organisation, was  responsible for “a colossal breach of trust”, Lord Bannatyne said at the  High Court in Edinburgh.
•  <!-- <div class="padding-bottom-10"></div> --> <!-- END: M19 - Article tools --> <!-- BEGIN: Portrait image -->  

   

   

  

   <!-- Remove following <div> to not show photographer information --> 

   

   

   

  (Lesley Donald)

   

   <!-- Remove following <div> to not show image description --> 

   

   

  James Rennie is led into Edinburgh High Court, where he was sentenced to life in jail
• He had abused the boy — identified as Child F —  almost from birth to the age of four years.
• He distributed images and films  of his attacks to a gang of seven other men.
• Strachan, 41, the only one of the gang with previous convictions for offences  against children, was shown in background reports to display evidence of a  psychopathic personality.
• One image that showed him abusing a baby left in  his care displayed all his basest instincts, the judge said.
• “By its very  nature what is shown in that photograph is utterly appalling and would shock  to the core any right-minded person who has had to see it.”
• Strachan was ordered to spend a minimum of 16 years in prison, while Rennie  was sentenced to a minimum of 13 years.
• Nearly 125,000 indecent images were seized during an 18-month police  investigation, codenamed Operation Algebra.
• Six men were jailed in June for  their involvement in the gang. All were respected members of the community,  as was Rennie, and they included a civil servant, a bank clerk and a church  bell-ringer.
• The nine-week trial in the spring invoked conspiracy laws for the first time  in a sexual offences case in Scotland, a precedent that prosecutors hope  will have a profound effect on curtailing the making and distribution of  images of child abuse by paedophiles.

  • Yet, in the USA now and under the umbrella of the Obama administration and a Democratic controlled congress, a law has been passed protecting pedophiles.
  Add Sticky Note
• “These offences involve real children and many of the photographs involve  children being sexually abused, often in the most appalling ways.
• There are  real victims of these offences, namely the children who were photographed  and abused,” Lord Bannatyne said.
• The judge reserved special praise for Detective Inspector Stuart Hood and the  squad of 13 detectives who uncovered the gang.
• Their investigations required an international operation that stretched from  Lothian and Borders police headquarters at Fettes in Edinburgh and drew on  the skills of Scottish and American academics, FBI agents and Microsoft  personnel in San Jose, California.
• As a direct result of Operation Algebra more than 60 individuals have been  arrested in Britain, and according to police hundreds of offenders are  believed to have been identified in Britain and around the world.
• Significant operations are continuing in central Scotland, Sussex, the  Netherlands and the United States.
• Strachan, convicted of eight charges in total, was also found guilty of  repeatedly touching a six-year-old boy indecently.
• The jury found Rennie  guilty of 14 charges, including one of procuring his best friend’s child for  other men, an offer that Strachan took up.
• The men — along with Ross Webber, 27, from North Berwick, Craig Boath, 24 from  Dundee and John Milligan, 40, from Glasgow — were also found guilty of  conspiring to gain access to a child or children to commit abuse.
• After sentencing the mother of an 18-month-old boy abused by Strachan said  that she would never be able to forgive him. “The anguish I feel towards Mr  Strachan is indescribable,” she said.
• “I feel that no matter what punishment is given to Mr Strachan, it will never  be able to compensate for the hurt, devastation and great deal of stress  brought to me and my family.”
• Webber, Boath, and Milligan, along with Neil Campbell, 46, and John Murphy,  44, both from Glasgow, were sentenced to a total of 43 years in jail in June  for their involvement in the paedophile ring.

27 more annotations...