Free Republic

A Florida double-murderer appeared with the word “killer” written on his own teeth in court Monday, where he proceeded to assault his own lawyer. Joseph Zieler, 61, beckoned his lawyer, Kevin Shirley, over to speak to him after entering court in handcuffs for a pre-sentencing hearing over the murders of an 11-year-old girl and her babysitter. After leaning in to speak to him, Zieler — who was eventually given the death penalty — suddenly caught Shirley in the face with a violent elbow shot, sending him spinning, courtroom video shows. As onlookers gasped, three bailiffs immediately subdued tattooed Zieler, who...

It could be the plot of a dark comedy if it weren’t a science tragedy. A janitor working in a laboratory who was annoyed by an incessant beep reportedly flipped a switch that killed the noise — but also shut off a storage freezer, destroying decades of scientific work, according to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute lab in Troy. The cleaner’s alleged carelessness cost the lab at least $1 million in damages, a lawsuit the university filed against its third-party cleaning service charges. “People’s behavior and negligence caused all this,” Michael Ginsberg, RPI’s attorney, told the Times Union in Albany. “Unfortunately,...

Sadistic killers at 16, girls showed no remorse for strangling their friend Two teenagers who wanted to experience murder told police it "felt right" to strangle a friend and bury her body in a shallow grave beneath her West Australian home. The 17-year-old girls, who cannot be named due to their age, today faced a sentencing hearing in Perth Children's Court after pleading guilty to murdering Eliza Jane Davis in the small coal mining town of Collie on June 18, 2006. As the girls sat stony-faced in court today, Prosecutor Simon Stone said they had confessed that after partying with...

CHARLOTTE COUNTY (Florida) - A Port Charlotte man was arrested Friday and charged with kidnapping two young girls from their homes as their parents slept, then raping the girls before letting them go. Erick Thomas Knapp, 31, is accused of entering the home Wednesday night of a 13-year-old girl who lived near him. Knapp threatened to cut the girl's throat, led her to a nearby home under construction and sexually assaulted her, her father said. Knapp, a felon, is also accused of using similar methods to abduct and attack a 7-year-old girl only a few nights before.