Free Republic

A Boston Scientific executive who was fatally shot Monday at an Arden Hills gas station once had his life intertwined with the shooting suspect -- they had been life partners and started a popular Minneapolis nightclub together. But Kelly L. Phillips, 48, had moved on. He was to marry another man this month and had ended his business relationship with Lyle "Ty" Marvin Hoffman, 44. The Ramsey County sheriff's office said Tuesday that it was seeking Hoffman as a suspect in Phillips' homicide. Five police agencies searched for Hoffman in two hangars at the Anoka County Blaine airport Tuesday afternoon,...

Who says Siri is useless? A Florida man accused of killing his roommate found a novel use for Siri. Police say 20-year-old Pedro Bravo allegedly kidnapped and strangled his friend in 2012, but didn’t know where to dispose of the body — that was, until Siri helped him out. According to his iPhone’s records, Mr. Bravo allegedly asked Siri “I need to hide my roommate.” The personal assistant app kindly responded by asking “What kind of place are you looking for?” and then offered him four ideal places, including metal foundries, dumps, swamps and reservoirs.

FULL TITLE: Convicted killer tried to skip sentencing hearing because he didn't want to hear his victim's grieving family 'b**** and whine' A convicted murderer tried to skip his sentencing hearing because he didn't want to hear his victim's family 'b**** and whine' about what a monster he is, it has emerged. Seth Mazzaglia, who was convicted in June of the 2012 killing of University of New Hampshire student Elizabeth Marriott, dropped his bid to skip the hearing after an appearance in court on Tuesday. Prosecutor Peter Hinckley had argued that Mazzaglia, 31, should be compelled to attend the sentencing...

Sheila Von Weise Mack was last seen alive on Monday when an argument she had with her daughter was captured by surveillance cameras in the lobby of the St. Regis Hotel in Denpasar, Bali A Chicago woman vacationing in Indonesia was killed -- her body stuffed inside a suitcase earlier this week -- and her daughter and another man were arrested. The body of 62-year-old Sheila Von Weise Mack was discovered on Tuesday in a suitcase in the back of a taxi, parked at the prestigious St. Regis Hotel in Denpasar. Mack's daughter, Heather Lois, 19, and another man, 21-year-old...

Writing at Mother Jones, Kevin Drum poses a great question. Actually, he has a couple of questions: Do anti-abortion activists really think abortion is murder? Or is their opposition merely an expression of their broad discomfort with modern sexual and gender mores? I appreciate Drum’s forthrightness. A lot of liberals wonder why pro-lifers rally and lobby and stand in the rain outside abortion clinics: can it really be that they care about babies? No, pro-lifers probably do these things because they have old-fashioned views about sex. They know that abortion has enabled modern women to lead a “sexually liberated”...

Cristian Alexander Zamora. (Police mugshot.) (CNSNews.com) -- Court records show that Cristian Alexander Zamora, an illegal alien from El Salvador, was charged and fined for driving without a valid driver’s license in Texas in 2011– which was two years before he and an accomplice allegedly used a machete and a baseball bat to murder a 16-year-old Texas high school student. Zamora, 22, and 19-year-old Ricardo Campos-Lara, also an illegal alien from El Salvador, are currently awaiting trial in federal court in Houston, for killing Klein Forest High School sophomore Josael Guevara in the Sam Houston National Forest. “On Sept....

Afton Burton was 16 and living with her parents in Illinois when she discovered Charles Manson. Now, nine years later, her name is Star, she’s 25 years old, and she considers herself Charles Manson’s wife, even though it isn’t official yet. “He filed for the first round of paperwork,” says Star, who says she’s in love with the 79-year-old convicted murderer. “I’m completely with him, and he’s completely with me. It’s what I was born for, you know. I don’t know what else to say.” Star says she was first attracted to Manson after reading about ATWA, Manson’s environmental philosophy...

Twenty-five years ago, Trisha Meili—“the Central Park jogger”—was a 28 year-old employee for a prestigious Manhattan investment banker when she was mercilessly beaten, raped, and left for dead by thugs. Meili lost approximately 80 percent of her blood. Her skull was fractured to the point that her one eye had popped out of its socket. On the scale of 3 to 15 that neurologists use to gauge brain functioning, Meili’s was assigned a rating of 4. She spent nearly the next two weeks in a coma, with experts expecting her to die. This crime became a racially explosive issue,...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)The death of James Brady -- President Ronald Reagan's press secretary who was wounded in the attempt on Reagan's life in March 1981 -- was a homicide, the medical examiner for the Northern District of Virginia ruled Friday. The medical examiner said Brady died as a result of the grievous injuries he suffered 33 years ago, which means that gunman John Hinckley Jr. could be charged with Brady's murder. Brady was 73 when he died earlier this week. He had been partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair since the assassination attempt, and his speech was slurred. He used his own...

“There is a park in Mosul, where [ISIS] they actually beheaded children and put their heads on a stick and have them in the park,’ he explained. ‘More children are getting beheaded, mothers are getting raped and killed, and fathers are being hung.’”

Immigration: Two illegal immigrants charged with killing an off-duty U.S. Border Patrol agent had been arrested and deported before. Now the agent's family faces a humanitarian crisis all its own. Javier Vega Jr. was shot to death Sunday in front of his wife, his two kids and his parents while they were fishing in Santa Monica, Texas. His alleged assailants are illegal aliens who have crossed our porous southern border with Mexico repeatedly and have, between them, been arrested and deported half a dozen times. Remember Agent Vega's name, for it's unlikely to fall from the lips of President Obama...

Killearn Lakes, Fla. -- Mason Rhinehart and his brother were playing video games in their Killearn Lakes Plantation home Tuesday morning when their grandmother, Martha White, interrupted to say she had a surprise for them. White, 63, who had been babysitting the boys, then took 6-year-old Mason into the bathroom and locked the door behind her, a probable cause affidavit said. Mason's brother, age 8, heard him start to cry from behind the door and say, "I don't want to die, please don't kill me." The boy said he tried to get in the bathroom, but could not. He then...

Interesting pair of commentaries in the Los Angeles Times tell us a lot about the state of the abortion battle and the disarray within the pro-abortion community.First an editorial praises two decisions that struck down Mississippi’s and Alabama’s laws requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. Then an opinion piece by a veteran pro-abortion war horse, Carla Hall, who laments that the infighting over the decision to kind of, sort of retired the “pro-choice” label could deemphasize the obsession with abortion.We’ve already cribbed from the dissent by Judge Emilio M. Garza to debunk the appeals court decision...

RAYMONDVILLE, Texas -- Two illegal immigrants from Mexico who were charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of an off-duty U.S. Border Patrol agent in front of his family in Texas have been arrested and deported numerous times, police sources told FoxNews.com. One suspect has been arrested no fewer than four times for entering the U.S. illegally, according to federal court records. The other has been deported twice after entering the U.S. illegally, sources said. Gustavo Tijerina, 30, and Ismael Hernandez, 40, were arraigned Tuesday afternoon inside the Willacy County jail library. They were ordered held without bail after...

A one-eyed man wanted in connection with a double homicide in Panorama City was arrested on suspicion of murder after gang detectives found him at a motel a half-block away from the incident. Witnesses connected Angel Santana, 29, with the July 17 double killing of 22-year-old Maron States and 19-year-old Deshawn Miles outside a 7-Eleven, police said. According to police, Santana and another man allegedly began shooting at two men after a brief confrontation. The other gunman, who has not been named, fled south on Sepulveda Boulevard, police said...

Customs and Border Protection agent Javier Vega, Jr. died after attempting to defend his family from bandits Sunday night near the South Texas town of Lyford. Vega’s father was also injured in the shooting, but is recovering at a local hospital. According to Sheriff Spence, the Border Patrol agent Javier Vega, Jr., was fishing with relatives when the two men attempted to rob them, opening fire on Vega and his family. Vega was shot and killed, and his father was shot in the hip. The two suspects are Mexican nationals identified as 30-year old Gustavo Tijerina of La Villa, Texas...

FULL TITLE: Pregnant teen charged with murder after her flight attendant mother was found stabbed to death in the trunk of her car The pregnant teen daughter of a flight attendant found stabbed to death and taped at the limbs in the body of her trunk has been charged with murder. Alyssa Barrett, 17, faces counts of murder and burglary in her mother's death. She was charged only days after her 18-year-old boyfriend Damarius Wren was also charged with murder, according to WMAQ. He was arrested after Indiana police found a GPS system pinpointing where DeCarol Deloney-Cain's body was dumped....

Tacitus X wrote: Silly excuse for a column. It doesn't take any more "guts" for a politician to send others to fight than it does for him to show "compassion" by giving someone else's money away.-- Rand Paul and the Gutless Generation Dear Comrade X, It takes a lot of guts for the president of the United States to send kids off to die. Look how much trouble Obama-- a silly excuse for a president-- had in sending the Seals in to kill Bin Laden: a no-brainer if there ever was one. Obviously, Obama’s not a pantheon to courage, and...

A Texas woman found on Christmas Eve tied up inside her home along with her husband has been charged with his murder. Sandra Melgar, 52, of Houston, was charged with murdering her husband of 32 years, Jaime Melgar, in 2012. Police suspect that Melgar stabbed her husband with a knife, according to court documents. Relatives who arrived at the couple's home that night to celebrate their anniversary found Melgar and her husband locked in separate closets. "Ms. Melgar says they were in the bathroom together, her and her husband, and at some time she blacked out and the next thing...

Chester D. Turner is no stranger to murder or the punishment that comes with it. He squeezed the life out of more than a dozen women during a decade of terror, and two juries decided he should die for his crimes. So it was merely a formality Friday that Turner, already on death row for 10 murders, was given four more death sentences for what a prosecutor called the city's most prolific serial killing. Turner, 47, looked straight at Judge Robert Perry as he handed down the penalty for the string of inner-city killings during the crack cocaine epidemic. As...