Just because an airport’s carry-on security checkpoint is loaded with TSA officials doesn’t mean the belongings you place into bins are safe from theft. Just yesterday, a 60-year-old Republic Airways flight attendant was arrested at Reagan National Airport in Arlington, according to reports, after swiping a passenger’s $8,000 bracelet while going through the TSA line.

The owner of the bracelet had placed her jewelry in a bin that was moving on a conveyor belt, as required by TSA, but after she herself went through security and caught up to the bin, her bracelet was missing.

Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority spokeswoman Crystal Nosal said Rebecca Valley, 60, of Wesley Chapel, Fla., works for the regional carrier and was charged with one count of grand larceny. The owner of the jewelry reported that it was valued at $8,000, Nosal said. …

TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said in an email that the victim, who has not been identified, told security workers that her jewelry was missing after she went through the checkpoint.

Officers from the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Police Department and TSA examined recordings of the checkpoint and saw “a second traveler in a flight attendant’s uniform pick up the jewelry,” Farbstein said. Police found the alleged thief in the airport terminal.

And just a week before yesterday’s incident, a gentleman was arrested at Newark Liberty International Airport, according to Yahoo!, after pinching another passenger’s wedding band from the TSA security checkpoint. The thief was booked on a flight that was about to take off but authorities got to him first.

“This is a story with a happy ending,” said Federal Security Director Thomas Carter. “The video was sharp and there was a clear image of what the thief looked like. The police understood the urgency in tracking down the man before he was able to fly off.”

Personally, it always makes me nervous putting items in bins that are moving faster than the passengers trying to move through the TSA’s x-ray machines and human scanners. Maybe it’s best to leave the expensive stuff at home — assuming your house doesn’t get robbed while you’re away.

Original Article

A British couple were brutally killed and their bodies thrown into a river filled with crocodiles in South Africa, just days after they happily appeared on BBC‘s Gardeners’ World.

Botanists Rod Saunders and his wife Rachel spent six months a year searching wild mountains for rare seeds stock for their online business.

It was their pursuit of these rare seeds that led to them travelling to the Drakensberg Mountain region in South Africa, which would ultimately lead to their gruesome murder.

Accompanied by a BBC film crew in February 2018, the pair were interviewed on the popular gardening programme Gardeners’ World by TV presenter Nick Bailey as they continued their horticultural search.

Expert horticulturist Rod and microbiologist wife Rachel were seen in a selfie on Rod’s Twitter in what is now believed to be their last photo alive, before they parter company with the film crew and headed off to camp in a remote forest.

They were last seen alive on 8 February

The married couple were beaten to death with blunt instruments, then put in their sleeping bags and thrown into a river infested with predators. Their unrecognisable bodies were pulled from the river by fishermen days later.

The couple’s bodies were only identified after police could find no trace of them, and ordered all unidentified or unclaimed bodies in morgues to be tested for DNA.

Now three people have been charged with the gruesome killing as well as kidnap, robbery and theft of the married couple. They are currently on trial in South Africa at Durban High Court.

The three defendants are Sayefundeen Aslam Del Vecchio, his wife Bibi Fatima Patel, and their lodger at the time Mussa Ahmad Jackson. All three deny the charges against them.

An additional fourth suspect was also involved in the case and found to have bought cell phones belonging to the Saunders. However they were cleared of the kidnap and murder, and given a suspended sentence in exchange for their evidence in the case.

The Durban High Court was told: “Around February 10 the investigating officer received information that Rodney Saunders and his wife Dr Rachel Saunders from Cape Town had been kidnapped in the Kwa-Zulu Natal region.

“It was established on February 13 that the defendants were drawing money from various ATM’s which amounted to theft of R734,000 (£37,000) and there was the robbery of their Land Cruiser and of camping equipment.

“It is alleged that between February 10 and 15 at the Ngoye Forest the accused did unlawfully and intentionally kill Rachel Saunders and between the same dates did unlawfully and intentionally kill Rodney Sanders.”

One piece of the incriminating evidence against the three include shopping receipts bought on Dr Saunders’s bank card, which were recovered from Bibi Patel’s handbag.

Another piece of evidence included a text message sent on 10 February from Del Vecchio to his wife and lodger stating there was an elderly couple in the forest. The message also said that it is a good ‘hunt’ and he has the ‘target’.

The trial continues.

A doctor in Nigeria was arrested after decomposed bodies of his girlfriend and his wife were found in his office, the police confirmed Sunday.

The accused, identified as Adio Adeyemi, worked at Kaiama General Hospital. He had allegedly kidnapped and killed his girlfriend, identified only as Ifeoluwa, and his wife, Nofisat Halidu, in 2021.

Ifeoluwa was declared missing in the Tanke area, while Nofisat, was reported missing by her husband.

“On assumption of office as Commissioner of Police, Kwara State, while going through some petitions written by some citizens, a particular case struck the CP, Paul Odama, regarding a reported case of one missing lady, Nofisat Halidu, in Kaiama, Kaiama Local Government Area of Kwara State, on November 21, 2021,” police public relations officer, SP Ajayi Okasanmi, said in a statement, according to Punch news.

Authorities said the investigation was opened last month after they received a lead. The cops grilled Adeyemi, who confessed to killing his girlfriend and dumping her body.

“Investigation led the team to Kaiama General Hospital, where the suspect’s office was forced opened. A cursory look at the office presented a suspicious sight of freshly cemented floor tiles; curiously, the tiles were broken and a gory sight welcomed the detectives. Behold, lying inside the shallow grave was the decomposing corpse of an unidentified female,”

“Further search of the office led to the opening of a trash can, where another body of a lady later identified as the earlier reported missing Nofisat Halidu identified by the husband, one Mr Halidu, and other members of the community, who were present at the scene as of the time of the search,” Okasanmi said.

Okasanmi disclosed other items recovered in the detained doctor’s office included, “two telephone handsets found in the handbag of one of the ladies found in the doctor’s drawer, two female handbags, a female wig, a veil and a female pants.”

“In furtherance of the investigation, the Kwara CP has contacted the Edo State Police Command requesting the release of the suspect to the Kwara State Police Command to answer some questions regarding the discoveries in his office.”

An investigation is currently underway into the incident. The motives behind the killings remain unknown. It also remains unclear how he killed the two women.

Brian Laundrie’s parents have been spotted for the first time since the debut of The Gabby Petito Story movie on Lifetime.

The film – which follows the story of Petito and Laundrie on their ill-fated cross-country road trip – has received significant backlash in the days following its October 1 premiere.

Both Roberta and Christopher Laundrie were spotted outside of their North Port, Florida home on Monday.

Roberta wore a big floppy hat as she walked to get into a pickup truck parked in the Laundrie’s driveway.

Christopher, meanwhile, appeared to be looking around the property following Hurricane Ian before joining Roberta in the truck.

Their home had been hit along the storm’s path but doesn’t appear to be damaged.

The Laundries have kept a low profile amidst various lawsuits being pursued against them by the Petito family, as well as the Lifetime film’s premiere.

‘A BAD AFTER-SCHOOL SPECIAL’

The Gabby Petito Story premiered on Saturday, October 1, with Skyler Samuels playing Gabby and Evan Hall acting as Laundrie.

Both actors have faced significant backlash for participating in the film.

“I honestly don’t know what I think of this. I feel like I’m watching a bad after-school special,” wrote one person on Twitter. “And Gabby seemed more timid in real-life than she is in this movie.”

“They already got a show about Gabby Petito? Seems gross,” wrote another.

“This #GABBYPETITO movie is very cringe. I can honestly imagine Brian being weird like this character playing him. He gives jealous narcissist.”

Other viewers took shots at the actors being “too old” to play Gabby and Laundrie. 

“Why did they cast thirty year olds that look old to play Gabby Petito and Brian???” wrote one person.

“Watching the Gabby Petito Story and the actors playing Gabby and Brian look about 10 years older than they were in real life,” said another with a laughing emoji.

‘THIS IS ACTUALLY SOMEONE’S DAUGHTER’

Other actors have defended their decisions to act in the film.

Douglas Taurel, who plays Gabby’s father Joe Petito, spoke exclusively to The U.S. Sun about his decision to accept his role.

Taurel admitted that he had ignored the case that captivated the country last summer until he was cast in the film.

“When the story came out, I saw it on TV, I was just like the rest of the nation, but I ignored it mainly because I didn’t want to watch it as a TV show because I knew that was someone’s family,” Taurel said.

“I know people were talking about it, blogging about it, and I just felt like, this is actually someone’s daughter. I don’t need to watch his tragedy.”

Once he was cast in the role, Taurel began researching the details of the story of the doomed young couple, and used his own experience as a father-of-two to get into the mindset of Joe Petito, who the nation got to know as a father desperately searching for his daughter.

“What I deduced from watching [Joe’s interviews] over and over, is that he had a public and private persona,” Taurel shared. “Privately he probably was a mixture of angry and emotional, sadness and frustration, but in public, he needed to present this strength not only for himself and his family but also for Gabby.

“I don’t know when is the right time. As an actor, you just step into the role that you’re presented and you try to present it with as much integrity, truth, and honesty as you possibly can,” Taurel said of the movie’s timing.

“At some point, the story’s going to have to be told, and I think the main thing is to raise awareness about violence against women, to underscore that important message for all women.”

While the Petito family did not give their approval for the movie, Taurel said he would want them to know the project was meant to honor Gabby.

“We’re trying to honor Gabby’s life and her legacy and the way she lived her life, and bring respect to the family for what they’re going through,” he told The U.S. Sun.

Police are convinced Ottis Toole kidnapped Adam Walsh while the youngster was shopping with his mom at a Hollywood, Florida, mall on July 27, 1981, but one investigator claims the convicted serial killer worked with his sick pal Jeffrey Dahmer to commit the crime.

Author Arthur Jay Harris made the chilling connection in his book Jeffrey Dahmer’s Dirty Secret: The Unsolved Murder of Adam Walsh, in which he claimed to have details about the kidnapping of American’s Most Wanted host John Walsh’s son.

According to Harris, Adam convinced his mom into letting him play video games at the arcade inside the mall, but when older kids wouldn’t give him a turn on the machines, he left the arcade to find his mom.

That’s when the six-year-old boy was grabbed by Dahmer, who was living in the area at the time, says the book.

The serial killer threw Adam into a van and drove to a Miami Beach house or apartment where Dahmer and Toole were keeping about 12 children captive — two girls and the rest boys ages 4 to 7 — claims the author.

The ghouls also had other “children’s severed heads” in ice buckets, Harris continued.

The book alleges that the psycho pals planned to “sell the children on ‘the flesh market.” Harris says Adam was kept chained to a wall or bound, blindfolded, and gagged in a closet. He also says the boy was allegedly tortured.

Two weeks after the abduction, a child’s severed head was found in a drainage canal.

Authorities have always claimed the chilling remains belonged to Adam and that Toole was responsible for the brutal slaying. Like his buddy Dahmer, the serial killer died in prison in 1996. He was never convicted of Adam’s murder.

“John Walsh is comfortable saying that Toole, who confessed to the murder, was Adam’s abductor,” cop-turned-private eye Paul Huebl said in an interview after the book’s release.

“Nobody investigated the case more than John Walsh himself — and he had the power of the FBI and America’s Most Wanted on his side.”

Huebl accuses Harris of being “an opportunist whose greed to sell a book comes at the price of hurting the Walsh family.” However, the author isn’t the only one who believes Dahmer was connected to Adam’s slaying.

Original Article

A veteran emergency medical services worker was killed while taking her lunch break on Thursday in what police are calling an ‘unprovoked attack.’

Alison Russo-Elling, an EMS lieutenant for the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) was fatally stabbed by a man in Queens.

Russo-Elling was attacked around 2.20pm on Thursday, about half a block away from Station 49 in Astoria.

Russo was reportedly grabbing food on her lunch break when a man ran up to her on the sidewalk and stabbed her multiple times.

She was rushed to Mount Sinai Queens Hospital, where she died from her injuries.

Her attacker was identified by police as Peter Zisopoulos.

Zisopoulos, 34, had no prior arrests. He was hospitalized but never charged after making violent threats against Asians in 2018, a police source told the New York Daily News.

Russo-Elling was a 24-year FDNY veteran. She started as a EMT in 1998, and was quickly promoted to paramedic in 2002. She was promoted to lieutenant in 2016.

The FDNY also confirmed that Russo-Elling was one of the first responders to help with rescue and recovery efforts after the 9/11 attacks at the World Trade Centers in 2001.

Russo-Elling is the 1,158th member of the FDNY to be killed in the line of duty.

‘I worked with EMTs for years,’ Adams added. ‘I’ve seen what they do up close. Their sacrifice is immeasurable.’

New York Governor Kathy Hochul ordered all flags to fly at half-mast on Friday in honor of Russo-Elling.

‘Our hearts are with her family as we honor her life and remember her as a hero,’ the governor stated. ‘I know all New Yorkers are grateful for her service over more than two decades with FDNY and as a World Trade Center first responder.’

Russo-Elling lived on Long Island and is survived by her daughter and her parents.

A 12-year-old girl and her father have been hospitalized after police say she shot him and then herself at their Weatherford home Tuesday evening.

Parker County Sheriff Russ Authier said the shooting occurred around 11:30 p.m. Sept. 20 at the residence.

When sheriff’s deputies were called to the shooting, they found the 12-year-old girl lying in the street with what appeared to be a gunshot wound to her head. Her 38-year-old father was found inside with a gunshot wound to his abdomen, officials said.

Both were taken to local hospitals where their conditions are unknown.

Investigators said the girl is believed to have shot her father, fled the scene, and then later shot herself. A handgun was also found lying underneath the girl, officials said.

Officials said investigators shortly discovered the girl had planned “for several weeks” to murder her family as well as their pets, and had also been in contact with another girl from Lufkin regarding her plans.

The other girl also had plans to murder her father, but did not go through with it, officials said. Parker County Sheriff’s investigators have since charged her with criminal conspiracy.

Officials said the pair planned to run away to Georgia after the murders.

Sheriff Authier said no identities will be released at this time and this case remains under investigation.

Original Article

A California man was arrested for allegedly plotting a “Las Vegas style” mass shooting and threatening to kill police officers.

Dallas Marsh, 37, was taken into custody by a SWAT team in Chico, California, on Sunday morning at a Super 8 Motel where he was staying.

Chico Police Department says that it obtained a warrant for his arrest after learning that the suspect was allegedly “making criminal threats to kill specific individuals, specified law enforcement officers, and was preparing to commit a Las Vegas style mass shooting with a specified deadline.”

Officials in northern California say that Marsh was arrested without incident, but following his apprehension, he made threats to kill more officers and their families, and allegedly struck an officer with a table during an interview.

Fifty-eight people were killed and hundreds were wounded in Las Vegas in 2017 when a gunman opened fire on the Route 91 Harvest music festival from the nearby Mandalay Bay Hotel. The attack remains the deadliest mass shooting in US history.

Investigators have not said how or when they became aware of the suspect’s alleged plot.

Additional charges of battery on a peace officer and threats of violence against peace officers were added when the suspect was booked into Butte County Jail.