Free Republic

Knox County prosecutors and defense attorneys are heading back to court this week in the brutal rape and torture killing case of 22-year-old Danishka Melina Sibaja Mejia, a crime that rattled South Knoxville in April 2024. One defendant has already pleaded guilty and is serving life in prison, but the remaining co-defendants are back on the criminal calendar as judges take up pretrial procedures that will determine how the rest of the case moves forward. The renewed court dates are drawing fresh attention from Mejia’s family and local advocates who say they still want answers. According to WBIR, Knox County...

A maniac pushed a woman onto the subway tracks and punched another lady in the face in Sunset Park, Brooklyn on Saturday — and was later arrested at a nearby shelter, police and sources said. A 51-year-old was shoved and a 43-year-old was socked on the R subway line at 53rd Street and Fourth Avenue around 8:45 a.m., according to cops. A 25-year-old person of interest was taken into custody at the shelter, police sources said, noting both victims suffered facial injuries as well as pain to the legs and back.

INDIANAPOLIS — The man who raped, stabbed and murdered a 19-year-old Indianapolis woman over 30 years ago will now spend nearly 50 years behind bars. Dana Shepherd, 53, was sentenced on Friday to 45 years in prison. Van Huss was raped and stabbed 61 times by a man who broke into her studio apartment. After first being discovered by her father, police said they found her nude body lying in a large pool of blood. “We hope after all this time people understand how violent my sister’s murder was,” Jimmy Van Huss said in 2024. “She was raped and stabbed...

A 43-year-old Kansas man allegedly spent his Christmas Eve on a mission to kill someone and armed himself with a hammer before knocking on a door of a home with several cars in the driveway. When a woman holding her 1-month-old baby answered, the suspect — later identified as Jason Eastburn — pounced, cops say. He repeatedly hit her in the head with the hammer, requiring doctors to patch up the wound on her head with four staples, according to a probable cause arrest affidavit released on Monday.

William Shakespeare was a 'black Jewish woman', a new book has claimed. The real playwright is identified as the historical figure Emilia Bassano in The Real Shakespeare, by an LSE graduate and feminist historian. She was a poet with connections to the Tudor court and wrote the Shakespearean canon of plays using the pen-name 'Shakespeare', according to the book. But her work is said to have been stolen from an uneducated interloper - William Shakespeare - from Stratford-upon-Avon. The book's author Irene Coslet argues that the idea of a 'white' genius was preferred to Bassano's identity as a black female...

A South Carolina woman who believed she was buying a puppy was ambushed by three brutes who fatally shot her, set her body on fire and left her to burn inside a car on the side of the road.Dana Marie Kinlaw, 40, was lured to a rural road in Effingham, South Carolina, on Jan. 22 when she was allegedly killed by 19-year-old Iryanna Jarissa Fleming and 31-year-old Daquinn Taheen Thomas and Nikko Christopher Carraway, according to the Florence County Sheriff’s Office. Officials believe Kinlaw’s death was part of a retaliation murder for a recent killing in neighboring Darlington County, WBMF...

A 53-year-old man in California will spend nearly a decade behind bars for stabbing an elderly stranger on a hiking trail late last year after the victim made eye contact with the assailant.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX) — After over 45 years of uncertainty, the families of Lynn Vest and her 2-year-old nephew, Jeremy Pickens, finally have answers. The pair disappeared in November 1980 after going out to run errands, last seen at Hamilton and Main in Whitehall, and were found dead in the trunk of Vest's car, four miles away at Kelton and Main Streets. The father of Vest, a CPD robbery detective at the time, had reported them missing. Lynn had been strangled, and Jeremy suffocated. Missing from the scene were Lynn's credit card, some money, and her wedding ring. On Friday,...

Arkansas - Cooper Camferdam, 18, is charged with felony first-degree battery stemming from a viral brawl in which 20-year-old Noah Epperson was seriously injured at a Circle K gas station in Hot Springs, Arkansas, on Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026.

OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. – The Osceola County Sheriff’s Office arrested a man over the weekend accused of randomly shooting and killing three out-of-state tourists outside a rental home, a crime some in the community say has left them shaken and raised serious questions about public safety.

The comments by Mr. Miller, the influential White House deputy chief of staff, came after days of blaming Alex Pretti, who was fatally shot by federal agents. Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Trump, has suggested that federal agents “may not have been following” protocol before the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, after days in which he and other Trump administration officials portrayed the shooting as justified.

Investigators are reviewing body-camera videos from immigration agents in the fatal shooting of Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed to NBC News.Homeland Security investigators have videos recorded by cameras worn by multiple agents, department spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said.

BREAKING: A US Appeals Court just found probable cause to CHARGE Don Lemon for the Minnesota church storming. Even though the court is dragging its feet on forcing the warrant signature, Assistant AG Dhillon says: "Stay tuned." The evidence is all there. LOCK HIM UP! 🇺🇸