Murder Investigations

A 27-year-old mother allegedly killed her five children in the west German town so Solingen. The grandmother called the police and officer later found the bodies of the children in the woman's apartment. The woman jumped in front of a train after but survived severely injured. Her oldest son was unharmed.

The Brazilian congresswoman and evangelical leader Flordelis de Souza was charged Monday with ordering the execution of her husband Anderson do Carmo in June 2019. Do Carmo was shot more than 30 times, by Flordelis' biological son Flávio dos Santos.

In a message exchange with her son, Souza stated she could not get a divorce from her husband because that would "scandalize the name of God".

According to the police, the congresswoman has been trying to kill her husband since May 2018. Multiple times she put arsenic in his food.

Before marrying the congresswoman, Anderson do Carmo was adopted by her, then became her son-in-law while he was in a relationship with her biological daughter Simone.

Police said Souza’s motive was "a struggle for power and her financial emancipation."

Joseph James DeAngelo, the former police known as the Golden State Killer, was sentenced Friday to life without possibility of parole.

DeAngelo, that pleaded guilty to 13 murders and 13 rape-related charges, but also admitted to dozen more crimes that were beyond the statute of limitations.

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman said: "When a person commits monstrous acts they need to be locked away where they could never harm another innocent person."

The human rights leader Zara Alvarez was killed Monday evening after being shot six times as she was heading home after buying food for dinner. Alvarez is the 13th member of the Karapatan organisation to be killed since President Rodrigo Duterte election in 2016.

Zara Alvarez, former education director of the human rights alliance Karapatan, was a well-known human rights defender who received repeated threats and was subjected to harassment as a result of her human rights work.

In a statement, the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD), strongly condemned the killing of Alvarez. “The death of even one human rights defender is way too many...We demand justice for Zara along with other human rights defenders who have been victims of extrajudicial killings,” APWLD stated.

Judge Raphael Yanyi was presiding over the trial of Vital Kamerhe, chief of staff and ally of DR Congo President Félix Tshisekedi. Police had reported Yanyi died of a heart attack. An autopsy has found "he died a violent death, due to the blows of sharp points or knife-like objects, which were thrust into his head". The justice ministry has now launched a murder investigation.