Dude friggin’ kills another dude over a beer pong game

Boston.com, citing an Associated Press story, is reporting that a Bridgeport, Pa. party turned deadly after one man shot and killed another man over an argument about a game of beer pong.

Authorities say Joseph Jimenez, 24, killed Scott Riley, 25, after they argued over the beer pong game Friday at a party in a suburb 15 miles outside Philadelphia.

The men took the argument outside, where authorities say Riley mocked Jimenez and taunted him into shooting him. Jimenez allegedly responded by pulling a .40-caliber and shooting Riley in the neck.

Let’s take a minute to discuss the ground rules of beer pong folks:

Number 1: A bounce counts as two cups. If you are an idiot and knock over your own cups defending the bounce, those cups are lost.

Second: Bitches blow. Nuff said.

3: No overthrow rule. That’s dumb.

Four: Re-rack at six, four, three, and two.

Fifth: If you and your partner sink the same cup at the same time, game over.

Now play nice, kids.

DA: Milton police shooting justified

BOSTON — Norfolk County District Attorney WIlliam R. Keating’s office has ruled that the March 28 fatal police shooting of Kerby Revelus as he murdered two and wounded another of his sisters was justified.

“The evidence clearly indicates that the actions of Milton Police that day spared the life of this young girl from the brother who had already succeeded in killing two of his sisters,” Keating said. “These actions were not only necessary and justified, but heroic and demonstrative of a high level of professionalism, integrity and bravery.”

Keating’s office reviewed evidence from the state and local police and the state Chief Medical Examiner’s office. Investigators also interviewed 9-year-old Saraphina Revelus, who survived the attack.

The following is an excerpt from the Massachusetts State Police investigation:

“From the initial 911 call made to Milton Police, until … [the] reports, ‘shots fired suspect down,’ a total time of approximately five minutes and fifty-two seconds had elapsed. In that span of time, Milton Police responded to the scene, gained entrance into the apartment, faced the above described situation, found the suspect in the bedroom, forced the bedroom door open and made several attempts, by shouting commands for him to give himself up, that can be clearly heard on the 911 tape, which he did not comply with. It was only when he lunged in a threatening manner towards the screaming nine-year-old child, cowering in a bedroom corner that officers were forced to use deadly force. It is reasonable to infer that had the Police Officers not acted in that manner, using deadly force, [the nine-year-old], who had already been stabbed approximately ten times and bleeding profusely, would have suffered additional grievous bodily injury or death at the hands of the suspect, Kerby Revelus.”

Cold case goes to trial in Boston

The long-cold case of the murder of 18-year-old mother Noemi Roman, whose infant son was left beside her blood-spattered body, may have finally been solved when the suspect goes to trial this week.

Kurvin Richardson, 38, of Roxbury, was arrested in June 2005, 15 years after the murder, and he finally goes to trial Monday, authorities said.

Firefighters responding to a gas leak call found Roman’s stabbed and beaten body in her apartment on May 31, 1990. Aerosol cans were found in Roman’s stove, which was turned on.

Police said Richardson was nailed down as the suspect using DNA evidence, which wasn’t admissible in courts in Massachusetts until 2005.

Murder suspects escape from Saskatchewan prison

Six high-risk Canadian prisoners, four of whom were facing murder charges, escaped from a maximum security prison in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan last month. How? Well, for four months, they used nail clippers and other makeshift tools to remover a heating grill and a steel plate so they could access a exterior brick wall and bust out, according to Reuters.

It went down like this. Several prisoners would play cards at a strategically placed table blocking the guards’ view, while others dug away at the wall, finally breaking through with a shower rod. Just like in the movies, they used braided bedsheets and blankets to make their way down the side wall, and finally escape.

“Idle hands are the Devil’s tools,” claims the Saskatchewan government report, referring to the fact that prisoners at Regina Correctional Center have very little to do. ”They tend to gravitate toward doing whatever they can get away with.”

The report made 23 recommendations for improvements in security for holding such prisoners, all of which were accepted. The government will spend $68 million to construct a new facility, and another few million to bolster security in existing facilities.

According to the report, more than 80 prisoners had supervised the six men without seeing anything. Some thought something was being planned, but none of the guards intervened or asked the prisoners anything.

Pretty ridiculous. If you’re a prison guard and you have a bad feeling about some murder victims, you should probably act on it. You know, for the good of the people and stuff.

Chelsea man guilty of murder one

BOSTON — Norton Cartright, 21, has been found guilty of first degree murder in the brutal slaying of his mother in 2006

It was a quick trial. We reported on the opening remarks just about a week ago, and even the jury didn’t take long to come back with a verdict.

Early on in police questioning a few years ago, the prosecution said Cartright admitted that he did indeed strike 46-year-old Yolande Danestoir in the head with a hammer on Aug. 26, 2006, after a heated argument. Danestoir, the prosecutor said, had banned Cartright from her Reynolds Street home in the course of what he called a “volatile” relationship, then found him inside when she returned home from work that morning.

Danestoir’s body was found 10 days later in a kitchen closet wrapped in a sleeping bag.

UPDATE 4:36 p.m. He has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“You’re going to hear some gruesome details, ladies and gentlemen”

A particularly gripping murder trial is getting underway in Boston, where a teenage son stands accused of beating his mother with a claw hammer, wrapping her in a sleeping bag, and leaving her to die in a closet two years ago.

Norton Cartright, then 19, now 21, faces a first-degree murder charge.

A Suffolk County homicide prosecutor walked a jury through how the Chelsea man allegedly murdered his mother in 2006.

“You’re going to hear some gruesome details, ladies and gentlemen,” Assistant District Attorney David Fredette said his opening remarks Monday.

Fredette said the defendant admitted to police that he did indeed strike 46-year-old Yolande Danestoir in the head with a hammer on Aug. 26, 2006, after a heated argument. Danestoir, the prosecutor said, had banned Cartright from her Reynolds Street home in the course of what he called a “volatile” relationship, then found him inside when she returned home from work that morning.

“On August 25 two years ago, Yolande Danestoir went to work from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 a.m. at Youville Hospital,” Fredette said. “The next time Yolande Danestoir was seen was 10 days later when her body was pulled from that closet, wrapped in a bed sheet and stuffed in a sleeping bag.”

Cartright has since told authorities that he tried to reach his mother by phone after her murder, but prosecutors say they have evidence that Cartright actually used his mother’s cell phone after they say he killed her — to call his girlfriend, they say.

Days later, Chelsea police were investigating after Danestoir hadn’t been seen at work. They smelled something coming from the bedroom closet.

“What they smelled smelled to them like rotting flesh,” Fredette said. When they opened it, however, there was nothing inside. Investigators believe that Cartright had placed the body in that closet first, and then moved it to another closet off the apartment’s kitchen.

They went to that kitchen closet, in which furniture and other items were stacked almost to the ceiling, prosectors said.

“As the detectives took item after item from that closet, the smell got stronger and stronger,” Fredette told the jury. “They pulled out a sleeping bag and found [Danestoir's] decomposing body.”

Cartright was taken to Chelsea police headquarters and questioned about his mother’s murder. That’s when they say he confessed on tape. That tape will be played at trial.

“What you’re going to hear, ladies and gentlemen, is going to be chilling,” the prosecutor said. “The defendant says she threw something at him. He says he threw something at her. He described the head of a hammer. He threw the hammer again …. Then wrapped her up and put her in the closet. Later he heard some noises coming from the closet, so he throws some chairs on top of her to keep her from moving around.”

Fredette said a claw hammer stained with Danestoir’s blood and DNA was recovered from the rafters of her basement.

“All of the evidence is going to point to one person, ladies and gentlemen,” he told the jury. “The defendant – Norton Cartright.”

Cartright was indicted for first-degree murder on December 14, 2006.

Daughter speaks out, mother upgraded to serious condition

Hugh Bachman, coach of the U.S. men’s Olympic volleyball team and his wife, Elisabeth Bachman McCutcheon, a former Olympic athlete, spoke out in an open letter about the death of Elisabeth’s father and injuries of her mother who were attacked Saturday at a tourist attraction in Beijing.

The attack killed Todd Bachman and critically injured his wife Barbara, both 62. Barbara was recently upgraded from critical to serious but stable at a Beijing hospital.

“We are extremely grateful for the outpouring of assistance and generosity that we have received and hope to convey our appreciation to everyone who has supported us and kept us in their thoughts and prayers,” the letter reads. It goes on to individually thank family, friends, Olympians, officials and President Bush for their support through the weekend.

“This letter cannot do justice in acknowledging the love and support we’ve felt,” they wrote. “We have been lifted up by the outpouring of support and love we’ve received from around the world.”

The 28 Bachman’s home and garden stores in Minnesota, of which Todd Bachman was chairman and CEO, are displaying posters and memorials for their fallen leader.

Second victim in olympic attack in critical condition after surgery

Barbara Bachman suffered multiple cuts and stab wounds in the attack the killed her husband, Todd Bachman, the U.S. Olympic Committee announced in a statement.

She underwent eight hours of surgery Saturday afternoon and evening and remains in critical but stable condition at a Beijing hospital where her family, including her son-in-law, U.S. men’s indoor volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon, and daughter, former olympic athlete Elisabeth Bachman McCutcheon.

The Olympic Committee said McCutcheon would not coach the men’s volleyball team in their opening game again

Todd Bachman was chairman and CEO of Bachman’s, a home store that goes back over 100 years an four generations in the family.

At a press conference Saturday, Dale Bachman, president of the Minnesota company, explained the management structure — brothers and cousins who have lost one.

Olympic Committee identifies American slaying victim

Video courtesy of The Boston Globe

The U.S. Olympic Committee identified the American killed Saturday in Beijing as Todd Bachman, 62, of Lakeville, Minn., who died after being attacked by an apparently deranged Chinese man who then took his own life.

Bachman was the father-in-law of men’s indoor volleyball head coach Hugh McCutcheon and father of McCutcheon’s wife, 2004 U.S. Olympic women’s indoor volleyball player Elisabeth Bachman McCutcheon, who was with with her father when the attack took place. His wife Barbara, also 62, was seriously injured in the attack and taken to a local hospital with life-treatening injuries.

Elisabeth Bachman McCutcheon was not injured.

“The United States Olympic Committee is saddened to confirm the death of Todd Bachman,” the committee said in a statement Saturday.

The family was touring Beijing’s Drum Tower in Beijing when they were attacked shortly after noon local time. The Chinese state news agency, Xinhua, identified the attacker as Tang Yongming, 47, from the eastern city of Hangzhou. Yongming killed himself by jumping off a second story balcony after the attack.

The Olympic Committee said that the Bachmans were not wearing apparel that identified them as relatives of members of the U.S. Delegation at the time of the attack.

Bachman is the chairman and CEO of Bachman’s Floral, Home and Garden, a popular store in Minnesota.

“It is impossible to describe the depth of our sadness and shock in this tragic hour,” said U.S. Olympic Committee Chairman Peter Ueberroth in the statement. “Our delegation comes to the Games as a family, and when one member of our family suffers a loss, we all grieve with them. Our thoughts, prayers and deepest condolences are with the Bachman and McCutcheon families.”

The US men’s volleyball team plays its first game at 10 p.m. today against Venezuela.

Olympics: One day, one tragedy

A deranged Chinese man attacked two Americans and their Chinese tour guide, who were visiting the Drum Tower in Beijing, a 13th century tourist attraction, Saturday, killing one and seriously injuring another before taking his own life by jumping from a balcony.

The pair are relatives of a coach for the US Olympic men’s volleyball team.

“They are deeply saddened and shocked,” Darryl Seibel, a spokesman for the U.S. Olympic Committee, said of the volleyball team, the Associated Press is reporting.

The Chinese state news agency, Xinhua, identified the attacker as Tang Yongming, 47, from the eastern city of Hangzhou.

The attack occurred in broad daylight, hours after the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics and sent shock waves through the region. China is known for its low rate of violence against foreigners due to tight government controls. The government punishes crimes against foreigners more harshly than crimes against other Chinese.

In March, a hostage taker on a bus in Xi’an was shot and killed by a police sniper.

President Bush said he and his wife were saddened by the attack and offered his thoughts and prayers for the families. He said the U.S. government will provide assistance to the family if needed.

U.S. Ambassador Clark T. Randt is said to have visited the surviving female victim at an area hospital.

The State Department has not issued any warnings to Americans in China.

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