Free Republic

Convicted serial killer Rodney James Alcala asked jurors to spare him the death penalty Tuesday, concluding his defense by playing a portion of “Alice’s Restaurant,” the rambling 18-minute Vietnam War protest song by folk singer Arlo Guthrie. By assigning the death penalty, “you become a wannabe killer in waiting,” Alcala told jurors before playing a section of the 1960s-era song in which a man being drafted for war tells a military psychiatrist:

A convicted killer has been found guilty of brutally raping a woman seven months after he was released from prison on parole. Mark Shirley subjected his victim to degrading and humiliating abuse in a bid to re-enact a ritualistic murder he committed 22 years ago. Shirley, 39, who was sentenced to life in 1987 but was later released on licence... Shirley was convicted of murdering 67-year-old Mary Wainwright in Cardiff when he was 16. He was found guilty at Cardiff Crown Court and handed a life sentence, but released after 16 years on parole in 2003. He was recalled to...

ATLANTA - Lawyers for convicted killer Wayne Williams, blamed for the murders of two dozen boys and young men in the Atlanta area during the 1970s and '80s, are casting suspicion on a child molester they say lived or worked near where many of the bodies were found. In court papers made public Friday, the defense asked a federal judge for access to police files on the molester. The papers do not identify the man by name but say he is a multiple child molester serving time in a Georgia prison. They also allege that investigators knew the man was...