Free Republic

A double murder suspect makes a confession during a taped interview recorded by police.In a two-hour statement to Brown County investigators, Michael Wilcox admitted to killing two people and blames a virus sent over the Internet for taking control of him. Wearing a green, suicide prevention suit, Wilcox admitted to killing his girlfriend, Courtney Fowler, and friend Zach Gilkinson. The statements were taken April 2015 after Wilcox's arrest for the killings. He has since pleaded guilty to murdering Fowler as part of a plea agreement. WKRC obtained the videotaped interviews through a public records request to Brown County Prosecuting Attorney...

Being a mermaid is hard work, but someone's got to do it. According to Fast Company, about 1,000 someones are doing it, in fact. That's the number of people employed as full-time professional mermaids, per estimations and interviews gathered by the site. One of those merpeople: Rachel Smith, head mermaid at Dive Bar, a lounge in downtown Sacramento, California, where she and other women perform in a 7,500-gallon aquarium. "It's really hard," Smith explained to Fast Company. "Our legs are tied together, the fish are running into us, and it's dark. Our tails can weigh up to 35 pounds, but...

Mark Leadbeatter was jailed for four years after his bungled grab for cash left him doused in boiling oil, causing severe facial burnsA thief was left with severe facial burns from a hot wok when he tried to rob a Chinese takeaway. Mark Leadbeatter, 53, was doused in boiling oil while trying to raid an Oriental food van. The hapless robber, who suffered burns to his face and neck, has now been jailed for four years. In a report of the incident PCSO Julie Green said: “He demanded money from the three females working on the van. He was given...

Founder and editor-in-chief Hugh Hefner, 89, who in his trademark silk pajamas has embodied the Playboy lifestyle, agreed last month with a suggestion by top editor Cory Jones to stop publishing images of naked women, the Times said. At a time when every teenage boy has an Internet connected phone and the web is rife with pornography, the magazine has opted to continue featuring women in provocative poses, just not completely nude, the Times said. "You're now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free," Flanders was quoted as saying in the Times. "And so it's just passe...

Wendy Davis made national headlines in 2013 for filibustering anti-abortion legislation in the Texas Senate. Now the former Democratic state senator is poised for more national attention as the inspiration for a dramedy series in development at NBC. Written by Jennifer Cecil, the untitled project centers on a female Democratic senator who, after losing the Texas governor’s race, gets her world turned upside down. In the vein of The Good Wife, while she pieces her pride back together, she goes to work in the law firm of her best friend — a black male Republican — and discovers that with...

On Monday night, Ricardo Antonio Lopez-Campos, 27, of Marina, robbed a medical marijuana vendor and ordered some cannabis. Unfortunately for the robber, the vendor required that the purchaser show a copy of his identification and medical marijuana certification to them before agreeing to the transaction. Lopez-Campos then complied with the request and sent his own identification to the victim. Then, he proceeded with the armed robbery and took marijuana from the victim. Officers were able to quickly identify Lopez-Campos and were able to locate him within a very short time. He was booked into the Monterey County Jail. The stolen...

Yes, I parodied a beloved musical classic as a hymn to everyone's favorite eldritch abomination. No, I have no soul. I write and record my music under the stage name of Hopalong Ginsberg. (Make your own Ruth Bader Ginsburg joke if you absolutely must.) For a free MP3 download of "The R'lyeh Connection," click either here or here.

Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio recently added “Adopt a Staffer for the Day” as an option in the campaign store. It costs you $250, and in return you'll be mentioned on Twitter and get an update from the impoverished Young Republican taker — who'd better be cute! (No, this is not welfare, since they have to work!) How does it compare to other selfless adoptions you might try out?-snip-You can adopt a kitten from the ASPCA for about half the price of a Rubio staffer.Apparently you can adopt an entire herd of manatees, Florida’s most famous aquatic residents, for the...

CENTER LINE, Mich. - A man tried to kill a spider at a gas station using a lighter causing a dangerous fire. Using a lighter to kill the bug, he started a blaze that quickly engulfed the gas pump.

The saga of this city worker is a gift that keeps on giving: Despite receiving a 20-day suspension last year for mimicking a robot while answering IT calls to the Department of Health's help desk, employee Ronald Dillon is about to be disciplined once again for talking to customers like a droid. Dillon will likely be put on 30-day unpaid leave after he overrode supervisors' orders to stop impersonating a machine, which the judge who presided over Dillon's hearing described as "a slow, stilted and monotonous voice." Dillon was also censured for not responding to customer-service requests and purposefully misdirecting...

A man from southern Sweden, who was accused of murdering his wife, is suing for damages after it was established that his wife was killed by an elk.The man, a resident of Loftahammer in southern Sweden, is now demanding 621,000 kronor compensation for being falsely accused of murder. His lawyers are critical of the way in which prosecutors and the police handled the investigation after the 63-year-old woman was found seriously injured near the shore of a lake outside of Loftahammar in northeast Småland in September 2008. According to the man, investigators were too quick to assume that he had...

A 1-year-old girl was left alone on a Louisiana beach as her parents jogged -- while naked -- three to four miles away, according to news reports. Cody and Monique Bourgeois were arrested on charges of child desertion and obscenity two hours after the child was found, KATC TV reports. The baby was turned over to her paternal grandmother, Johnson said. Cameron Parish Sheriff Ron Johnson told KPLC TV drug abuse is suspected and child protective services has been called to investigate.

With the zombie genre seemingly incapable of staying dead, we give you a Russian short film telling the story of two cats who elect to save their little buddy from the walking dead.Sure, ever since Bela Lugosi uttered those lines in nearly-forgotten zombie film in the 1930s, these shambling creatures have been put through the ringer and are still going strong.And this two-minute film has everything:-Dual wielding? Check. -Domestic short hair cats rocking subguns? Check. -A Venture Brothers-quality Wilhelm scream thrown in the background? Check. -Explosive Mix Tape? Check (in Dolby). -A zombie in a trilby getting smoked? YES! Bring...

I took 35 Viagra after a two-day bender EXCLUSIVE: ...and had a hard time in hospital DOZY Daniel Medforth ended up in hospital after necking 35 Viagra in an hour, giving him a five-day erection. [....] An overdose can cause chest pain, nausea, a racing pulse, and fainting from low blood pressure. It can even lead to loss of consciousness, brain haemorrhage and death.

Doctors says they’re unable to re-attach the partAn Italian woman who discovered her husband was cheating bit off his mistress's finger in a street brawl which Naples police described as fairly routine, albeit unusually violent. The revenge attack came when the wife of a businessman in the southern Italian city found out her husband was having an affair with one of her relatives. When the women bumped into each other while out shopping in the crime-heavy Spanish Quarter of Naples, a scrap broke out in the narrow streets, despite efforts from passers-by to separate them.

Anthony Weiner’s gig as a member of the advisory board at public relations firm MWW has come to an end after just two months, according to the New York Post.The firm, run by major Democratic fundraiser Michael Kempner, hired Weiner in July as a “public policy expert.”It was reported earlier this week that the Weiner hire had consequences and that the firm lost clients that didn’t want to be associated with the disgraced congressman.Weiner’s exit is being framed by the firm as a resignation, according to the Post’s report. According to an internal memo from MWW chief Michael Kempner, Weiner...

They are yet to hit the shelves, but activists are already campaigning against the sale of so-called sex robots, which may be "harmful and contribute to inequalities in society." Several companies are developing robots that can be used as sexual substitutes for humans, leading to the launch of the "Campaign against sex robots" on Tuesday to highlight the potential dangers.

The Atlanta Fire Rescue Department is dealing with a controversy that has generated a different kind of heat. An ad on an escort website has recently surfaced featuring different women posing suggestively on equipment at an Atlanta fire station.In one photo, one woman poses suggestively on a fire truck, while in another, the same woman dons a firefighter’s vest. In others, various scantily clad women don fire helmets and other rescue gear. Insignia clearly indicates that the photos took place inside Atlanta Fire Station 2.The fire department has responded to the ads, according to Fox 5: “The Atlanta Fire Rescue...

DAYTON, OHIO — Dayton Police Department arrived on the scene to find a 22-year-old man had been shot and killed by a 43-year-old female homeowner in the early hours of Wednesday morning.What was shaping up to be just another great tale of home owners defending themselves took a turn for the strange when WHIO began to uncover the checkered history of the robber.  Apparently, in 2013, DeBrandon Jurrod Dickerson, 22, of Detroit, had broken into this exact same residence.  He was a teenager back then and he had attempted the home invasion with the assistance of another teenager.  The female...

The good news for the Chinese visitor to Bangkok was that a doctor had successfully removed a foreign object from her large intestine that could have damaged her digestive system. The bad news: It was a 10 million baht ($278,000) diamond the woman was accused of stealing from a jewelry fair, adding a piece of rock-hard evidence to the case against her. Police Col. Mana Tienmaungpak said Sunday that authorities got to the bottom of the theft when a doctor wielding a colonoscope and the medical equivalent of pliers pulled the 6-carat gemstone from the large intestine of the woman...