Saudi Arabia sentences TV psychic to death


The world doesn’t need more examples of how religion institutionalizes evil, but here’s one anyway. A religious court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a man to be executed for practicing “black magic” because he hosted a TV show where he gave advice and made predictions. According to CNN,

The judges in Medina issued a statement expressing that [Ali Hussain] Sibat deserved to be executed for having continually practiced black magic on his show, adding that this sentence would deter others from practicing sorcery.

Sibat is actually Lebanese and lived in Beirut, but he was arrested by Saudi Arabian religious police when he was visiting their country in 2008, and he’s been their prisoner ever since.

This is why we can’t have nice things, people.

“Saudi Arabia ’sorcery’ death sentence upheld” [Amnesty.org]

March 27, 2010 | Filed Under Crime, News, People, Religion, Ugly Humanity | View Comments 

Victims of British serial killer speak in “The Drowning Girls”

“The Drowning Girls” is a play by Beth Graham about three women killed between 1908 and 1914 by George Joseph Smith, a British serial killer who was eventually convicted of murder and hanged. A lifelong criminal, Smith married repeatedly (and simultaneously) and in at least three instances murdered his wives by drowning them in bathtubs.

The landlord of a boarding house where Smith and one of his victims lived first noticed how the woman’s death matched a story at another boarding house, and brought both stories to an inspector’s attention. A third suspiciously similar death was then discovered, and after some investigation the inspector realized that the husband in all three cases was the same man. Read more

March 22, 2010 | Filed Under Arts & Entertainment, Crime, History | View Comments 

Serial killer appeared on ‘The Dating Game’–and won!

Rodney Alcala’s now infamous winning appearance on “The Dating Game” in 1978 proves two things. First, that you shouldn’t look for romance on a television show. Second, that some serial killers really do have weirdly charismatic personalities.

When Alcala appeared on the show as Bachelor No. 1, he was introduced as “a successful photographer who got his start when his father found him in the dark room at the age of 13, fully developed. Between takes you might find him skydiving or motor-cycling.” In fact, last month he was found guilty of murdering four women and a girl between 1977 and 1979, with the first murder–of a 12-year-old girl–happening shortly after the television appearance. With all four adult women, prosecutors said Alcala raped and then strangled them with such force that he broke bones in the jaw and throat area.

In 1968–ten years before being selected for the game show–he’d been convicted or raping an 8-year-old girl. Clearly background checks were less than thorough at ABC in the late 70s.

According to CNN, Bachelor No. 2 Jed Mills was creeped out by Alcala almost immediately and said he caught himself leaning away from him when they were on the set. In the green room before taping, Mills said Alcala was “obnoxious and creepy”:

“He was quiet, but at the same time he would interrupt and impose when he felt like it… he became very unlikable and rude and imposing as though he was trying to intimidate. I wound up not only not liking this guy … not wanting to be near him … he got creepier and more negative. He was a standout creepy guy in my life.”

The contestant who chose Alcala, Cheryl Bradshaw, refused to go out with him. Crime profiler Pat Brown suggested to CNN that that may have helped trigger his violent behavior that started up again shortly after the taping: “One wonders what that did in his mind. That is something he would not take too well.”

“Convicted serial killer won on ‘Dating Game’” [CNN]
“Rodney James Alcala On ‘Dating Game’” [Huffington Post]

March 9, 2010 | Filed Under Crime, News, People, Television | View Comments 

Scotland Yard considers opening its “Black Museum” to the public

When serial killers and other violent criminals terrorize Britain, their possessions–equipment, souvenirs of victims, personal belongings, or simply crime scene evidence–are stored away in the Crime Museum, also known as the Black Museum, a 120-year-old  private collection that Scotland Yard’s investigators have access to, but not the general public*. That may change if Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, has his way. He wants to open up at least part of the collection as a tourist trap, noting, “If we had a Black Museum, we would have tourists queuing around the corner.”

No, this is not an exhibit from the Black Museum.
No, this is not an exhibit from the Black Museum.

Among other things, the museum contains notes alleged to be from Jack the Ripper, items owned by Dr. Hawley Crippen (an American doctor hanged in London in 1910 for murdering his wife), the clothing that Police Constable Keith Blakelock was killed in when a mob tried to behead him in 1985, various nooses used to execute men, and death masks of executed criminals. I’m trying to imagine what they’re going to be able to sell in the gift shop without looking completely tasteless.

* although special appointments can sometimes be made

Official Crime Museum page at the Metropolitan Police website

(Photo: eschipul)

May 7, 2009 | Filed Under Crime, Places | View Comments 

3 Teens Dig Up Skull, Use It As A Bong

Three home schooled teenagers in Houston have been charged with “abuse of a corpse,” which it turns out is a misdemeanor in Texas, for digging up the body of an 11-year-old boy buried in 1921 and allegedly decapitating his head to smoke the Devil’s Licorice out of it.

You know what I’m talking about: swampweed, Persian tobacco, gypsy kraut. Sheesh, marijuana! How naive are you, anyway? At first, the officer investigating the claim was suspicious, the boy’s separate stories matched enough to concern him. That and the fact that one of them grossed himself out recounting his misdeed:

“He regurgitated in his plate of food when I asked him about it,” [Officer] Adkins said. “So I knew there was some truth to the story.”

Read more

May 9, 2008 | Filed Under Crime, News, Skulls | View Comments 

Next Page →