The Daily Blog

Nicki Minaj Mourns Murdered Cousin.

It’s a sad day for Nicki Minaj and her family. The rapper’s cousin, Nicholas Telemaque, was murdered in Brooklyn, New York, on Monday and the ‘Super Bass’ singer took to Twitter to express her devastation.

“Lived in Brooklyn his whole life. My precious cousin. My baby. Killed last nite,” Minaj wrote on Twitter.

According to MTV News, police responded to a call in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, at 2:40 a.m. Monday morning and found Telemaque, 27, with multiple gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead on arrival at Kings County Hospital.

“My cousin Nicholas. Also goes by Juse, or @brolicalcoholic* Murdered. Last nite. Near his home. Brooklyn,NY,” Minaj also wrote on Twitter, attaching a picture of her fallen cousin.
Minaj spent the holiday weekend in Winnipeg, Canada, performing on tour with Britney Spears.

According to police, no arrests in Telemaque’s death have been made yet.

Ashley Steele, Prostitute, Accused Of Killing Client Derrick Gray Over Report Of Herpes.

A woman described as a prostitute was denied bail Wednesday, after authorities claimed she murdered a client on finding out he had herpes.

Ashley Nicole Steele, age 21, is accused of shooting 40-year-old Derrick Gray on February 4 of this year. The Chicago Sun-Times reports the narrative that prosecutors have pieced together of the crime: Steele had apparently arranged to meet Gray in his South Side home to have sex. The two retired to his bedroom for a few minutes, but were interrupted by a knock on the door.

Gray answered the door, while Steele and a witness stayed inside. At the door was a screaming woman, furious at Gray for having given her an STD. Steele went to investigate the commotion, but not before grabbing a handgun from a night-table and putting it in her waistband, police say.

When she was told that Gray had herpes, she went back into the house and began pacing, telling the witness that she was going to rob and kill her client. When he entered, she threatened him with the gun; he tried to flee to the bedroom, but she shot him through the door, entered the room, and shot him several more times. Authorities say she fled through the window and disposed of evidence.

The Chicago Tribune writes that Ashley’s defense attorney sought some leniency from the judge, claiming that she was raised under the care of the state, had only a 10th-grade education, and suffered from bipolar disorder. Still, bail was denied in the case.

She is charged with first-degree murder, according to WGN-TV, and is set to appear in court again on April 26.

Gay Activist Slain, Castrated in N.Y.C. Hotel.

A prominent Portuguese journalist and gay activist was found murdered in a New York City hotel, his body brutally mutilated.

Carlos Castro, 65, was found dead last night inside a 34th-floor room at the Intercontinental New York Times Square Hotel.

Sources tell CBS Station WCBS that Renato Seabra, a male model in his 20s who checked into the hotel with Castro late last month, is in police custody at Bellevue Hospital.

Authorities said police responded to a 911 call of an unconscious male at the InterContinental New York hotel. When police arrived at the scene, they found Castro around 7 p.m. in Room 3416, unresponsive with trauma to the head.

The New York Daily News reports Castro had been bludgeoned and his scrotum cut off.

Castro, according to his website, is a producer for Portuguese TV and radio broadcasters.

The chilling discovery has left guests of the hotel (which officially opened just over a week ago) frightened.

“I’m not comfortable staying here - definitely not comfortable staying here,” one woman told reporters.

Hollywood Publicist Ronni Chasen Murdered.

Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen was murdered in the early hours of Tuesday in Beverly Hills, RadarOnline.com reports. Chasen, 64, was shot while driving her Mercedes-Benz, crashing into a pole. She was pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

An employee at Ronni’s PR and marketing firm, Chasen and Co., told Radar police confirmed her death. The LA Times verified the information with the LA County coroner’s office, adding that police are searching for the shooter.

Chasen represented ‘Inception’ composer Hans Zimmer, producers Dick Zanuck and Irwin Winkler, and actress Natalie Wood, who died in 1981. Films like ‘Lolita’ and ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ were on Chasen’s resume. She became MGM’s senior vice president of worldwide publicity in 1993.
Police told The Hollywood Reporter:

“On Nov. 16th 2010 at approximately 12:28AM Beverly Hills police officers received info regarding shots that were heard in the area of Sunset and Whittier, shortly after a collision was reported in the same area. Units arrived and discovered a newer black Mercedes Benz E-350 involved in a solo crash to the light pole. The lone female occupant was located in the vehicle with apparent multiple gunshot wounds to her chest. Beverly Hills paramedics transported the victim to a local hospital where she was later pronounced deceased. The investigation is in the preliminary stages and no further information is available at this time. At this time there is no suspect, info or motive for this crime.”

Howard Bragman, a fellow Hollywood publicist who worked with Chasen, told the LA Times: “She had been doing this forever. She had a lot of class, a lot of style and a lot of intelligence. She was just very very well-respected.”

Radar writes that Chasen was an active community member who spent time with Women in Film and Big Sisters of Los Angeles.

Obama’s African Relatives Think His Father Was Murdered.

(Oct. 18) — Perhaps the president can add this one to his list of myths to bust in December when he appears on the Discovery Channel show “MythBusters”: His father was not killed in a car accident in 1982, as was reported, but was murdered.

So goes a family theory investigated by Peter Firstbrook in his history of President Barack Obama’s African side of the family, “The Obamas,” and dissected by Obama biographer David Remnick in a post today on the New Yorker’s website.

Barack Obama Sr. was “a thwarted politician and bureaucrat,” outspoken in his criticism of the Kenyan government’s acceptance of corruption among its ranks, according to Remnick.

He was also a heavy drinker, nicknamed “Mr. Double-Double” after his usual Scotch orders. On the night of his death he was found inside his car, which had hit a tree.

Firstbrook talked to Charles Oluoch, a cousin of the president, who related the family’s suspicions. Obama Sr. had been in a number of accidents before and had survived them all. His body appeared to be fairly unharmed — no broken bones and only a small amount of blood.

“Although it looked like an accident, our family suspected that there must have been foul play. I am not a medical doctor, but the way we saw Barack lying there, he didn’t look like somebody who was involved in an accident,” Oluoch said.

Sarah Obama, the president’s step-grandmother, told the author a similar story.”We think there was foul play there, and that is how he died, and they covered it up [by saying] that he had an accident,” she said. “But we just had to leave it like that because the government then was very ruthless.”

Remnick talked to Caroline Elkins, a historian at Harvard, who said she doesn’t buy it. Obama Sr. was a “serious, fall-down alcoholic” and his family is probably trying to restore his reputation now that they have one of their own in White House, she said.

But as Firstbrook points out 25 years later, we will probably never know the truth …