The Daily Blog

Sydney Woman’s Remains Found Years After Death.

SYDNEY — When an elderly Australian woman apparently vanished from view eight years ago, no one bothered to call the police. Not her relatives, her neighbors, or government officials, who kept paying her welfare benefits into a bank account that sat untouched.

New South Wales state police said Wednesday that they discovered the woman’s skeletal remains on the floor of her Sydney home on Tuesday, after her sister-in-law finally called them to report that she had not heard from the woman – who would have turned 87 next month – since 2003.

“It’s sad that the woman appears to have died several years ago without anyone noticing,” said police Acting Superintendent Zoran Dzevlan.

Police were trying to determine exactly when the woman died, but said they didn’t think the death was suspicious.

The woman, whose name was not released by police, was a recluse who had no relatives except for her sister-in-law, Dzevlan said. The two had a fight in 2003 and never spoke again. Police have not said why the sister-in-law waited years to report the woman missing, or what prompted her to call now.

As the years passed, utility companies cut off the power and water to the woman’s home, police said. Centrelink, the government’s welfare agency, continued to pay her benefits to her bank account, which remained untouched. Her mail had been redirected to her sister-in-law’s home before 2003, but eventually stopped. Neighbors told police they hadn’t seen her in years and assumed the house was vacant.

Police said the woman’s home was locked and furnished, but looked like no one had lived there for years.

“To hear today that an elderly lady can pass away, be dead for eight years and for Centrelink to still be sending checks to her bank account and for those checks not to be cashed – surely that must set off the alarm bells within government,” New South Wales Police Minister Mike Gallacher said.

“(It) really does highlight the need for this state and indeed our community to work closer at building relationships with our community,” he said.

Woman’s Dead Body Found In Massachusetts Public Pool After 2 Days.

FALL RIVER, Mass. — A woman’s body might have been left in the cloudy water of a public swimming pool for more than two days, without lifeguards, health inspectors or other swimmers noticing it, officials said Thursday.

Investigators were poring over surveillance video and conducting interviews as they tried to figure out what happened to 36-year-old Marie Joseph. The state medical examiner completed an autopsy, but the findings haven’t been made public.

“The facts appear to indicate that a woman was in the water for a number of days and not noticed by staff, patrons or other inspections that may have taken place,” said State Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Richard Sullivan, whose department oversees state-run pools.

He said he found the possibility disturbing and “a breakdown systematically somewhere.”

Joseph had gone to Veterans Memorial Pool on Sunday with a group of friends. Her body was found Tuesday night, when youngsters jumped over a fence for a clandestine swim, police said.

Authorities said she had not been reported missing. Her friends said they thought she simply walked away from the pool. Her boyfriend’s calls went unreturned, but he thought she wanted to be alone.

After the discovery, Massachusetts officials closed 24 state-run deep-water swimming pools and suspended staff at the Fall River pool. Two Fall River inspectors also were placed on paid leave.

Joseph was a native of Haiti and had five children, though only an adult son lived with her, friends said. She worked as a housekeeper at a hotel in Newport, R.I. Her boyfriend said she could swim.

Her friend Veronica Reis, 21, said she had driven Joseph to the pool on Sunday.

At some point, Joseph and a 9-year-old boy in the group went into the pool from a slide, Reis said. After they splashed into the water, the boy noticed that Joseph hadn’t come back up, Reis said.

“He got up to the water and went to go tell the lifeguard,” said Reis, who talked the 9-year-old afterward. “The lifeguard said he was going to do a pool check. … They never did that. They never did anything.”

Candela Matta, also at the pool with Joseph, said friends initially thought she simply had left. She said some of the friends waited for Joseph at the pool and a nearby park until 7 p.m. Sunday.

Investigators have spoken to the 9-year-old boy and the lifeguards who were on duty, said Gregg Miliote, a spokesman for Bristol County District Country Sam Sutter.

Two health inspectors visited the Fall River pool on Monday, and one of them returned Tuesday, Mayor William Flanagan said Thursday.

“The only noteworthy thing in the report listed the clarity (of the water) as cloudy,” Flanagan said.

Tasha Stokes, 28, said she visited the pool on Monday and noticed that the deep end of the pool was white and closed to swimmers.

“It was white. We went swimming in that water. There were little kids drinking that water,” said Stokes. “I’m shocked. I was swimming in water with a dead person. I think I have a lawsuit on my hands.”

The Fall River pool is 12 feet deep and employs 12 staffers, six of whom are lifeguards and are certified by the Red Cross.

Flanagan said the city would cooperate with a state investigation being conducted by the Department of Conservation and Recreation, which runs the pool.

During his monthly radio show on WTKK-FM, Gov. Deval Patrick called the case terrible and bizarre and expressed his condolences to the family. He said he ordered an investigation into DCR procedures, adding that he hoped it would be concluded in time for the busy holiday weekend.

Department of Conservation and Recreation Commissioner Edward Lambert Jr. said the 24 pools would remain closed until state officials review their infrastructure and workers’ certifications.

He said it’s possible that most pools would reopen Friday. Lambert said that the state officials have not been able to talk to Fall River pool employees because they are talking to law enforcement first.

Dr. Lauren Smith, state public health medical director, said it’s unlikely that a body in the pool would create a health risk, because the chlorine in the water would keep it safe for human contact.

“I want to reassure the public (that) as disturbing as it is to you, there are no health risks associated with this,” she said.

Herbert Callwood, Joseph’s boyfriend of eight years, said that when his girlfriend didn’t return his calls earlier this week, he just thought she felt like being alone.

Callwood, 45, said he heard about Joseph’s death on the news.

“It’s too much bear. I just want to know what happened,” Callwood said. “And why did someone leave her like that?”

Melvin L. Jackson Arrested For Allegedly Sexually Assaulting Unconscious Woman On Sidewalk.

There’s just no excuse for sexual , least of all necrophilia.

Tell that to Kansas City resident Melvin L. Jackson, who was arrested Wednesday for allegedly sexually assaulting an unconscious woman in broad daylight — then telling police, “I thought that lady was dead.”

The Kansas City Star reports that the victim told police she felt dizzy and lost consciousness. When she awoke a witness was yelling for help, and for Jackson to get off of her.

The victim said she had no memory of the assault but noted that her underwear had been removed.

According to Fox 4, witnesses flagged down a patrol car and said they saw the woman curled up in the fetal position with Jackson on top of her with his pants and underwear around his ankles, having sex with her.

When police tried to interview Jackson, 49, he allegedly blurted, “Did that lady say I did something to her?”

He later stated, “I have the right to remain silent,” according to court records, The Pitch reports

Elderly Woman Robs A Longmont Wells-Fargo Bank With Threat Of Infecting Teller With AIDS, No Weapons.

An elderly woman robbed a Colorado bank by passing a note saying she would infect a teller with AIDS if the clerk didn’t hand over money, police said on Friday.

Jeff Satur, spokesman for the Longmont, Colorado police department, said detectives are searching for a pale woman between the ages of 55 and 75 with a “boney build.”

Satur said a woman, who was wearing a train conductor’s cap and a gray sweat shirt, walked into a Wells Fargo bank inside a Safeway grocery store on Thursday night and handed a note to a teller.

“She indicated she had AIDS and would give it to a teller if she didn’t cooperate,” Satur said.

The woman coughed frequently into a blue bandana during the robbery, and fled with an undisclosed amount of cash, Satur said.

Police and the FBI released still photographs of the robbery and are reviewing additional photographs and surveillance video from the bank’s parking lot to try and identify the suspect.

She is described as about 5-feet 6 inches tall, and weighing between 130 and 150 pounds.

No weapon was displayed during the robbery and no one was injured, police said.

Monju Begum, Bangladeshi Woman, Cuts Penis Off Of Man Who Tried To Rape Her.

A Bangladeshi woman is believed to have taken the law into her own hands — literally — and thwarted rape by severing her neighbor’s penis as he attempting to assault her.

As the BBC is reporting, Monju Begum, 40, a married mother of three, claimed to have made the sensitive cut as she fought back after neighbor Mozammel Haq Mazi forced his way into her shanty and began to assault her while she was asleep. The incident took place Saturday in Mirzapur village, Jhalakathi, about 124 miles south of the nation’s capital, Dhaka.

“As he tried to rape her, the lady cut his penis off with a knife,” police chief Abul Khaer is quoted by the AFP as saying. “She then wrapped up the penis in a piece of polythene and brought it to the Jhalakathi police station as evidence of the crime.” He went on to note, “It is quite an unusual incident. As far as I am aware, this is the first time that a woman has brought a severed penis to the police station as evidence.”

Begum has filed a case alleging that Mazi — a 40-year-old, married father of five — had been harassing her for six months. Officials at a hospital in nearby Barisal say that, unlike the notorious U.S. case of John Wayne Bobbitt, it will not be possible to re-attach Mazi’s organ. “We are treating him so that he can urinate normally without the penis,” a hospital official is quoted by the BBC as saying. Police say Mazi is likely to be arrested as soon as his condition improved.

Dismissing Begum’s allegations as a lover’s quarrel gone awry, Mazi has professed his innocence. ‘I am a double victim: first, she cut my penis and now police say they are going to arrest me for attempted rape,” he is quoted as saying, and claims he and Begum had a 15-year-long relationship. Later, he told the BBC, “We were having an affair and recently she suggested that both of us can go and settle down in Dhaka. I refused and told her that I cannot leave my wife and children, so she took revenge on me.”

Marie Lauradin Guilty: Mom Admits To Setting Voodoo Fire That Burned Daughter.

NEW YORK — Prosecutors say a New York City woman admitted setting fire to her young daughter during a voodoo ritual by pouring flammable liquid on the girl’s head and igniting it, scarring her body.

Marie Lauradin (lah-hahr-DAHN’) pleaded guilty Wednesday to first-degree assault by pouring the liquid on her then-6-year-old daughter at their Queens home in 2009.

Prosecutors say Lauradin poured the accelerant on her daughter’s head and in a circle on the floor as part of a voodoo practice involving a loa, or spirit.

Prosecutors say the judge indicated he would sentence her to 17 years in prison. She also faces possible deportation back to her native Haiti.

Defense attorney Jeff Cohen says his client admitted that her actions were reckless, but he would not comment on her motives.

Cab Driver Suspected Of Raping Passenger In Williamsburg: NYPD.

The NYPD has released this sketch of a cab driver who they say tied up and raped a woman passenger in Brooklyn last week, according to The New York Daily News.

The victim, an unidentified 26 year-old, told police she had been drinking and celebrating Cinquo de Mayo at Public Assembly on North 6th Street in Williamsburg, when she got into a cab to go back to Manhattan. She briefly fell asleep, only to wake up a few blocks away from the nightclub, at the corner of Rodney St. and South 1st, where the cab driver then allegedly held her at knifepoint, bound her wrists together and raped her, reports The Brooklyn Paper.

The cabby then stole her cellphone and $20 before letting her go around 6am.

Cops told the Daily News the woman was taken to a local hospital where she was treated for cuts on her hands and face.

Police say the suspect is in his mid-40’s, is about 5-foot-8 and was last seen wearing an orange turban.

The Taxi and Limousine Commission told CBS News it has offered its full cooperation in the case, posting sketches at all city taxi garages.

Police ask anyone with information to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers hotline at (800) 577-TIPS.

‘Road Trip’ Actress Mia Amber Davis Dies at 36.

Mia Amber Davis, known for her role in ‘Road Trip,’ in which she plays a voluptuous woman who seduces the geeky main character, died in Los Angeles on Tuesday, according to a TMZ report. She was 36.

Plus Model Magazine, where Davis worked as an editor, took to their blog to comment on her death.

“Mia was a super model and industry leader because it was her love for the women she represented that kept pushing her when the industry itself did not embrace her … Today we lost our dear friend, plus size model, industry leader and colleague but we have one more heavenly angel watching over us.”
The cause of her death has yet to be released, but TMZ has learned that Davis underwent a routine knee surgery in Los Angeles on Monday, a day before her death. Her husband, in New York at the time, tells the site that he spoke to his wife on Tuesday and she sounded fine, but hours later heard from a cousin that she was taken to the hospital with dizziness.

Not long after, he was informed that his wife had died. “I want to know what happened to my wife.”

Heidi Jones, Ex-Weather Anchor Accused Of Fake Rape Claim, Was Not Read Rights.

A former WABC weather woman may have found her get out of jail free card.

The Daily News reports that Heidi Jones, the weatherlady who lied about being raped, was not read her Miranda rights before being questioned, according to the DA and her attorney.

Jones originally told police that she had been sexually assaulted by a Hispanic man in Central Park. But when a manhunt turned up nothing, prosecutors allege Jones told police she made the whole story up for attention.

Now Jones’ lawyer, Paul Callan, wants those statements thrown out because his client was not made aware of her legal right to remain silent.

From the Daily News:

Manhattan prosecutors admit in legal papers that Jones was never read the Miranda warning, but insist it’s a non-issue because she was not under arrest.

“The defendant was not in custody at the time her statements were made,” Assistant District Attorney Shanda Strain wrote in court papers. “Miranda warnings were not required and the statements taken \[from\] the defendant was lawfully obtained.”

But Callan tells The New York Post, “That is a clear-cut violation of her Constitutional rights. The DA has confirmed no Miranda warnings were given despite being interrogated by two police detectives.”Jones faces up to a year in prison and a $1,000 fine if convicted.