weekly news of the weird

[FH]

'Satan' blamed for killer crash in King
Mentally ill man not at fault, judge says

Dec 7, 2003
Jeff Mitchell, Staff Writer - More from this author

Ricky Fothergill was in a delusional frenzy and believed he was being pursued by Satan when his stolen car slammed into an oncoming vehicle in King Township, killing an elderly woman, a court heard Thursday.

"I am possessed. I don't know why I did it," the Toronto man told witnesses gathered at the crash that killed 65-year-old Anna Luisi of Etobicoke last February.

Superior Court Justice Edwin Minden found Mr. Fothergill not criminally responsible on charges including manslaughter, robbery and criminal negligence.

Mr. Fothergill, 31, continues to be held in custody. His case will be referred to the Ontario Review Board, which will decide if he should remain in custody.

The ruling came after the Crown and defence agreed Mr. Fothergill should not be found guilty because his behaviour was caused by mental illness.

Two psychiatrists testified Mr. Fothergill, who has a lengthy history of mental illness, was in no state to rationalize his actions when he stole a taxi Feb. 7 and sped north on Hwy. 27, weaving dangerously through traffic and running red lights.

"I still believe the severity of his symptoms led him to not comprehend his own actions," Dr. Jonathan Rootenberg told the court.

The psychiatrist said Mr. Fothergill, who has bipolar disorder, grew increasingly agitated, delusional and paranoid in the days leading up to the incident. On the morning of Feb. 7 the man became completely unhinged as he stood gazing in the mirror, Dr. Rootenberg said.

"He could not recognize his own face," said the psychiatrist, who examined the man in late February. "He said he felt he was Satan."

Fearing those around him meant him harm, the panicked man tried to flee the city.

"He felt he needed to get out of town, out of 'Satan's playground'," Dr. Rootenberg said.

According to an agreed statement of facts read into the record by prosecutor Peter Westgate, Mr. Fothergill hailed a cab at the Bramalea GO station and shortly thereafter stole the car, shoving the driver out of the vehicle.

He drove north on Hwy. 27 at about 140 km-h, recklessly passing northbound traffic and roaring through red lights, Mr. Westgate said.

Just north of King-Vaughan Road near Nobleton, the stolen Crown Victoria was passing vehicles when it slammed into a southbound van driven by Donato Luisi, 69, of Etobicoke.

The Luisi vehicle spun into the northbound lane, where it was hit by another vehicle. Mrs. Luisi, who had accompanied her husband north for the day to check on the family cottage, died of her injuries. Mr. Luisi sustained serious injuries.

The driver of the third vehicle, Albert Kooy of Bradford, sustained minor injuries. Mr. Fothergill's leg was broken and he was charged after being released from hospital later in February.

Subsequent psychiatric evaluations revealed Mr. Fothergill's history of mental illness and several instances when he was committed to hospital. He also gave consistent accounts of his deterioration in the days before he stole the cab, Dr. Robert Dickey said.

"This man has a mental illness," Dr. Dickey said.

"He would have been unable to engage in rational choice at the time of the events."

While Mrs. Luisi's family accept the verdict, it does not reduce the pain they feel at the loss of a beloved mother, wife, and grandmother, they said in a statement.

"Emotionally we are in tatters, still very grief-stricken over the senseless loss of our mother," Mary Bianca, Mrs. Luisi's mother, told the court.

"She was everything to all of us. Our lives without her have been so empty and miserable."

Ms Bianca told Justice Minden about the shock of learning about the accident when police officers visited her home and the horror of having to identify her mother's body while her father lay, gravely injured, in Sunnybrook hospital.

"Accident or not, Fothergill took away what is most important in our lives," Ms Bianca said, weeping.

"She was taken away by voices in Fothergill's head."

[FH]

A Little Snip For Man Who Has Everything
Doctor Advertising Vasectomy Gift Certificates

OMAHA, Neb. -- As you're out shopping this holiday season, you may be wondering what to get that guy who has everything, including all the children he wants.

How about a vasectomy gift certificate?

Ads are running in magazines, on the radio and at the movies in Omaha. Dr. Stewart Sloan, of Urology Specialists, said his ads make light of a tense sitation.

"It lightens up the situation. (When) people think about any operation, or where they're going to see the doctor, they're already nervous," Sloan said.
Video

One of the least racy ads says, "Thanks to Dr. Sloan, we don't have to worry about getting pregnant. That vasectomy was the best gift you ever gave me."

Another goes farther, saying, " Oh Marsha! We've got to slow down."

"I hate to think of it as sex sells, but when you're doing a vasectomy, it has a sexual content," said Sloan.

Sloan said the promotion is working. The ads have been running only a few weeks, but already he's seen a spike in business.

"It got my attention," said Lee Gillespie, a patient of Sloan's. "I was laughing and about drove off the side of the road."

Gillespie made his appointment the day he heard the ad. He plans to get a gift certificate for his brother-in-law.

"He'll get a good charge out of it, and his wife will probably thank me," said Gillespie, who describes the certificate as the "gift that keeps on giving."

[FH]

Associated Press
Posted December 5 2003, 3:12 PM EST


RAVENNA, Ohio - A woman who nursed her infant while driving 65 mph on the Ohio Turnpike was sentenced to three months of house arrest for violating child-restraint laws.

Catherine Nicole Donkers, 29, was also fined $300 Thursday. The judge delayed the sentence for one month so she can pursue her appeal.

Donkers was found guilty in August of three traffic-related charges. She was found innocent of child endangering.

Donkers said her husband ordered her by cell phone to breast-feed their 7-month-old daughter to save time while she drove on the turnpike May 8. Police stopped Donkers after a trucker who saw her holding the baby on her lap called 911.

Donkers testified she did nothing wrong because the couple's religious beliefs require her to follow her husband's directives. They belong to the First Christian Fellowship for Eternal Sovereignty, which has a history of challenging the government.

[FH]

LI'L GN'R: GUNS N' ROSES Tribute Of The Smallest Kind - Dec. 10, 2003

LI'L GN'R, the GUNS N' ROSES "tribute band" consisting of five children ages five to eleven dressed in GN'R costumes (see photo), will perform at CB's 313 Gallery in New York City on Sunday, December 14 at 6:30 p.m. According to a posting on the CB's web site, LI'L GN'R "will play all your favorite tunes and still be tucked into bed by 8:00 p.m." CB's 313 Gallery is located at 313 Bowery between 1st & 2nd Streets. Tel. No.: (212) 677-0455. Entrance fee is $5.

[FH]

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Two one-legged inmates were among 26 prisoners who scaled walls to break out of an overcrowded jail in the Brazilian (news - web sites) city of Niteroi, authorities said Tuesday.

A spokeswoman with the Rio de Janeiro state Security Secretariat said police only managed to recapture 10 of the 26 inmates, including one of the disabled prisoners, in the center of the city, which lies just across the bay from Rio de Janeiro.

In Monday's jailbreak, the inmates sawed metal bars on the windows of two cells in the police detention center, used a rope to get to the ground and then jumped a backyard wall. They exchanged pistol fire with one police officer and then fled.

Police said they were investigating whether the runaways had any help from the guards.

It was the eighth escape from the jail this year. The detention center, built for 150 prisoners, houses about 260 and is due to be shut down in January.

[FH]

*Thanks to Chewie

TOTAL WHACK JOB

By ANDY GELLER

December 10, 2003 -- "Slice the thing off now."
After placing his penis on a kitchen table, computer expert Bernd-Jergen Brandes issued that unthinkable command to German cannibal Armin Meiwes.

A home video made by Meiwes, 42, detailed the sickening events that followed on March 10, 2001.

The cannibal chopped at the organ, but failed to sever it.

Writhing in pain, Brandes, 43, demanded that Meiwes get a sharper knife.

He did - and completed the unspeakable act.

Meiwes bandaged the wound with towels and Brandes sat upright in a chair, his eyes glazed over.



Meiwes began cooking the severed penis - sautéing it with garlic, salt and pepper.

Brandes had his rare.

"We had agreed to eat it half and half, but he was getting faint and couldn't wait for his half to be cooked through," the cannibal said. "So he tried to eat it more or less raw and of course, it was too tough. He was furious."

Meiwes then led Brandes upstairs to a first-floor bathroom in his half-timbered home near Kassel in central Germany, leaving him to "bleed out" in a bath.

As Brandes' final hours ticked down, the cannibal watched one of the many Disney movies he owns.

Brandes managed to recover some strength.

"He got out and said, 'If I survive until the morning, let's have my testicles for breakfast ,' " Meiwes said.

The computer expert did not survive until morning.

Ten hours after Brandes' manhood was cut off, Meiwes laid him out on a bench in "the butchery," a cold and sinister room - painted red and black.

Then he repeatedly plunged a knife into Brandes' throat.

The final scene shows Meiwes cradling his victim's head and saying, "Forgive me."

The video, 4 1/2 hours long, was edited down to 90 minutes before being shown at Meiwes murder trial in Kassel, which is expected to continue until at least mid-January.

Meiwes, a computer technician and former soldier, admits killing Brandes, a computer software expert from Berlin.

But he insists that Brandes, who answered his Internet ad for a victim, wanted to be eaten and die.

Prosecutors claim the killing was sexually motivated and Meiwes exploited a mental disorder that left Brandes with a death wish.

On the witness stand, Meiwes said he decapitated and dismembered Brandes' body and stored the parts in a freezer.

Then - during a long summer of barbecues - he ate 66 pounds of Brandes.

Saying he was "internalizing" a loving friend, he described it as almost a religious event.

"On the night of the killing, I had the hope that part of his body would become part of mine," he said. "It was like Holy Communion."

Finally, his supply of meat began to run out and he started searching the Internet for another victim.

"I hope I will soon find another victim. The flesh is almost all gone," he said in an e-mail to a friend.

Explaining the e-mail in court, he said, "It was still my wish to slaughter a human - in other words, to dissect a body."

Meiwes said he intended to share Brandes' remains with his next victim before killing him.

But he never got that far. He was arrested a year ago.

Meiwes said Brandes "disappointed me in many ways."

He said the computer expert lied about his age, claiming to be 36, and did not want to get to know the cannibal better before his death.

Meiwes insisted Brandes was a willing participant in his killing.

"I saw the killing as helping him, helping him to die, helping him to kill himself," he said. "He knew he could have stopped at any time, but he didn't. He wanted to die and to be eaten. He told me he had the desire to be slaughtered and eaten since he was a child. He was very intelligent and I didn't see any sign he was disturbed."

Still, Meiwes said, the slaying was "the most terrible moment in my life, far worse than I had imagined in my fantasies." He wished he had seen a psychologist about his cannibal fantasies, he said, because "things wouldn't have gone so far."

Meiwes said he met Brandes on the Internet after placing an ad that read, "If you are 18 to 25, you are my boy. Come to me, I'll eat your delicious flesh."

He said he received 400 replies and chose Brandes after a long e-mail relationship. Recipes found in his home included "penis in red wine" and "breaded young man's liver."
Meiwes faces life in jail if convicted.

[FH]

Love Hewitt pukes, yelps at White House
Associated Press
Nov. 28, 2003 11:35 AM

Jennifer Love Hewitt visited the White House earlier this month, but she doesn't think she'll get invited back, reports MSNBC.com.

While the "Party of Five" star was a guest at the ceremony to lay a wreath on the grave of the Unknown Soldier, she told a talk show host, she was suffering from a urinary infection. So she doubled the dosage of her medication and ended up vomiting while talking to a high-ranking military man.

As if that weren't enough, a bee later stung her on the neck, causing her to yelp repeatedly during the playing of "Hail to the Chief."

[FH]

Half-Ton Snowball Traps, Injures Boy
Half-Ton Snowball Traps, Injures Boy

POSTED: 1:36 PM EST December 17, 2003

NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario -- An 11-year-old Canadian boy is recovering in a hospital after he was trapped underneath a half-ton snowball.

Officials in Niagara Falls, Ontario, say the boy and his classmates at a Catholic elementary school were rolling the 5-foot-high snowball around the playground when he slipped.

The snowball rolled onto him, cutting off his oxygen. Officials say the school principal revived the boy by performing CPR.

The boy is expected to make a full recovery. Police are calling it "a freak accident."

[FH]

Woman burns apartment to get rid of ghost
LAWTON, Okla. - A Lawton woman is hospitalized after telling police she set fire to her apartment to get rid of a ghost living in the bathtub.

The woman's name hasn't been released.

The fire forced the evacuation of three other apartments in the building, but no injuries are reported.

Police and firefighters say they found the woman sitting on the curb in front of the apartment when the arrived to fight the blaze.

Officer Mike Hampton says the woman was yelling and said she started the fire to kill a ghost living in the bathtub and haunting her apartment.