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Author and historian Garry Wills is accusing the Catholic Church of being wishy-washy on abortion. Instead, he says, those who stubbornly advocate for life belong to a “cult of the fetus.” His words are misleading – at best. Here’s why. On June 27, the New York Times published an opinion piece claiming, “The Bishops Are Wrong About Biden — and Abortion.” Wills, an emeritus history professor at Northwestern and the author of numerous books (including one called “Why I Am a Catholic”), took the opportunity to criticize Catholics and evangelicals who recognize abortion as the “worst crime a society can...

A fuller picture began to emerge of the apparently affable 72-year-old former butcher who hacked up one woman in the basement of his home, and is suspected of killing many othersA fuller picture began to emerge Friday of the apparently affable 72-year-old former butcher who hacked up one woman in the basement of his home, and is suspected of killing many others. The stocky, short suspect has been identified only as “Andrés” under Mexican laws protecting a suspect’s identity. He was ordered to stand trial Thursday in the killing of a 34-year-old woman whose body he allegedly dismembered with a...

Newly released home surveillance footage captured the shocking moments that a teen allegedly abducted a 4-year-old from his Texas bedroom — before the child was found dead in the street. The video, obtained and published by The Daily Mail, allegedly shows suspect Darriynn Brown, 18, breaking into Cash Gernon’s bedroom around 5 a.m. Saturday morning and taking the boy, who had been sleeping next to his twin brother. He appears to momentarily hesitate before picking up Cash, and leaving the room. Less than two hours later, Cash was stabbed to death with what police called an “edged weapon,” and his...

Imagine for a moment what it must feel like if, as a mother, you give birth to four children, one after another, each of whom, as infants, dies from natural causes over a 10-year period. Then imagine being wrongly accused of smothering them all and being sentenced to 30 years in jail for four terrible crimes you did not commit. That narrative is emerging as potentially the true story of Kathleen Folbigg, an Australian mother from the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales (NSW). Branded at her trial in 2003 as "Australia's worst female serial killer", Folbigg has already...

A California serial killer known as the “I-5 Strangler” in the 1970s and 1980s has been killed in the prison where he was serving multiple life sentences, state correctional officials said Monday.

CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (AP) - Sentencing has been delayed for a former staffer at a veterans hospital in West Virginia who pleaded guilty to intentionally killing seven patients with fatal doses of insulin. A federal judge on Friday granted a motion by attorneys for Reta Mays to push back her sentencing. It now will be held May 11-12. It had been scheduled for Feb. 18-19. Prosecutors had opposed the request as unreasonable. Mays, a former nursing assistant at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg, was charged with seven counts of second-degree murder and one count of assault with...

Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) reacted to the revealing report released by New York Attorney General Letitia James, which indicated New York State may have vastly undercounted coronavirus-related deaths in nursing homes. He contended the state has “a lower percentage of deaths in nursing homes than other states.” Cuomo defended his administration’s actions, telling reporters that everyone did the best they could and that the state Department of Health followed federal guidance as the Chinese coronavirus began to grip the nation.

The man authorities say was the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history, with nearly 60 confirmed victims, died Wednesday in California. He was 80. Samuel Little, who had diabetes, heart trouble and other ailments, died at a California hospital, according to the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He was serving a life sentence for multiple counts of murder. California corrections department spokeswoman Vicky Waters said there was no sign of foul play, and his cause of death will be determined by a coroner. A career criminal who had been in and out jail for decades, Little denied for...

An official cause of death has yet to be determined.Samuel Little, the prolific serial killer who was serving three consecutive life sentences, is dead, authorities said Wednesday. Little died at a hospital shortly before 5 a.m. local time, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement. An official cause of death will be determined by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office. He was 80. In this March 4, 2013, file photo, Samuel Little appears at Superior Court in Los Angeles. Little, pr...Read More The FBI has deemed Little "the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history."...

A woman accused of killing seven people, including a three-year-old girl, went on trial in eastern China on Monday after 20 years on the run. Lao Rongzhi, 46, apologised to the victims’ families but denied that her involvement was “intentional”, saying she had been in an abusive relationship and had been forced to take part in the crimes, according to local media reports. A tearful Lao told Nanchang Intermediate People’s Court in Jiangxi province that she did not want to kill anyone and tried to break up with her boyfriend Fa Ziying many times, but he refused to let her...

A suspected Texas serial killer has been indicted on three additional counts of capital murder after previously being charged with smothering 14 elderly women to death and stealing their valuables. A Dallas County Grand Jury on Tuesday indicted healthcare worker Billy Chemirmir, 48, on murder charges in the deaths of Joyce Abramowitz, 82; Doris Wasserman, 90, and Margaret White, 86, who were all killed at The Tradition-Prestonwood senior living community in Dallas between July 2016 and December 2017. Chemirmir, a Kenyan national living in the US illegally, now faces a total of 17 capital murder charges and two counts of...

The solution to what’s known as the 340 Cipher, one of the most vexing mysteries of the Zodiac Killer’s murderous saga, has been found by a code-breaking team from the United States, Australia and Belgium. The cipher, sent in a letter to The Chronicle in November 1969, has been puzzling authorities and amateur sleuths since it arrived 51 years ago. Investigators hoped the Zodiac, who killed five people in the Bay Area in 1968 and 1969, would reveal his name in one of his many ciphers, but there is no such name in the 340. According to code-breaking expert David...

Dexter Morgan’s second act as a lumberjack is coming to an end: Showtime has ordered a 10-episode Dexter revival, with Michael C. Hall on board to reprise his role as the killer vigilante. Original EP Clyde Phillips will be back as showrunner of the quasi-ninth season, which is set to begin production this winter ahead of a Fall 2021 launch. “Dexter is such a special series, both for its millions of fans and for Showtime, as this breakthrough show helped put our network on the map many years ago,” said Showtime president Gary Levine in a statement. “We would only...

The police interrogation of accused Oshawa torso killer Adam Strong teetered on the surreal. At times during a videotaped police interview — played during his first-degree murder trial — it seemed that the movie set gofer was about to get up from the table and walk into the fresh winter air and make his way home. Except that’s not what happened. Strong was arrested in 2017 after “spilling the beans” to cops that the remains of pregnant teen Rori Hache were stashed in his apartment. According to durhamregion.com, the accused killer told DRPS homicide detective Hermano Dorego: “It’s been a...

Staffordshire University associate professor Fiona Graham, who has worked on true crime series, poses the question in the wake of the ITV drama about murderer Fiona Graham’s involvement in true crime series has seen her delve into the world of some of Britain’s most notorious killers. The programmes have thrown the spotlight on everyone from murderers like Harold Shipman to victims such as Jill Dando, Stephanie Slater and the schoolchildren of Dunblane. But now the Staffordshire University associate professor and filmmaker has questioned whether there is ever a right time to contact a killer for research. The debate has been...

Texas Ranger James Holland tells "60 Minutes" how he got serial killer Samuel Little to confess to his crimesTonight you're going to hear about the man the FBI is calling the most prolific serial killer in the history of the United States. As we first reported last October, his name is Samuel Little and over the course of a year and a half he confessed to 93 murders. That's more than were committed by Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer combined. No one would have known the scale of Little's crimes if not for a Texas Ranger, who had a hunch....

Our star movie columnist Kathy Shaidle is off this week, so your humble host has to fill in. Among the casualties of this lost summer is the summer blockbuster: for the first time since the mid-seventies, when Steven Spielberg and George Lucas seized the season for sharks and space aliens, the season has passed blockbuster-free. On the other hand, summer-in-the-city-wise, we seem back to the Seventies of Death Wish, of looting and random violence, and no law and order to be found. It isn't really a return to Death Wish New York, of course: the wholesale demographic transformation of American...

Samuel Little, otherwise known as the “Choke and Stroke Killer”, is certainly one of the serial killers who has flown most under the radar over the years. Samuel Little may have killed as many as 93 people by knocking them unconscious and then strangling them to death. Little was given his nickname by the LAPD because he often masturbated after his kills. The vileness of such an act aside, it is remarkable that Little got away with killing so many people. True crime lovers often lose sleep over the thought of how many serial killers may still be on the...

New Jersey native Charles Cullen may or not be the most prolific serial killer known in the USA. A former nurse, Cullen murdered an incomprehensible number of people over his 16-year career. Most of these deaths resulted from lethal overdoses of digoxin or insulin. Charles Cullen worked in multiple hospitals and healthcare facilities before he was caught in 2003. Under the watch of numerous supervisors, Cullen managed to end one life after another. When Charles Cullen was arrested and charged for the serial slayings, police investigators were confused by his testimony. The more Cullen discussed the deaths, the more detectives...

n this date in 1961, Czechoslovakian maternity ward nurse Marie Fikackova was hanged at Prague’s Pankrac Prison for murdering newborns in her care. Fickakova, nee Schmidlova, was a well-liked 24-year-old with a failed marriage already at her back when she was arrested in February 1960 after two infants died of brain injuries the same night during her shift at the Sušice hospital. Under lengthy interrogation, Fikackova finally confessed to having developed the habit of relieving the agitation of her menses (her story, not mine!) by permanently silencing newborns who bawled too much. We all have our personality quirks, but if...