Sick Sad World...

**truth** · 11-11-2003, 12:37 PM

By JUAN A. LOZANO
Associated Press Writer
Published November 11, 2003, 11:55 AM CST

GALVESTON, Texas -- Eccentric New York millionaire Robert Durst, who said he accidentally killed a hot-tempered neighbor in self-defense and then dismembered the body in a panic, was found innocent Tuesday of murder.

Jurors deliberated over five days, following nearly six weeks of testimony, before deciding that the real estate heir did not murder 71-year-old Morris Black, who lived across the hall from him in a low-rent apartment building.

Durst, 60, who is under suspicion in two other killings and who posed for a time as a mute woman, testified in his own defense for nearly four days. He insisted that Black was shot accidentally during a struggle over a gun, and said he used two saws and an ax to cut up the body. The victim's head has never been found.

Durst appeared stunned when he heard the verdict from state District Judge Susan Criss, standing with his mouth slightly open and his eyes filling with tears. He hugged his attorneys afterward, saying: "Thank you so much."

After the killing in late September 2001, Durst was a fugitive for six weeks until he was caught in Pennsylvania when he tried to shoplift a $5 sandwich even though he had $500 in his pocket.

At defense attorneys' request, jurors considered only a murder charge. They could have asked that jurors consider a lesser charge, such as manslaughter, in addition to murder, but opted for an all-or-nothing strategy.

If he had been convicted, Durst could have been sentenced to five to 99 years in prison and been fined up to $10,000.

Prosecutors called Durst a calculating, cold-blooded killer who shot Black to steal his identity. They said all his actions afterward, including cutting up the body and twice fleeing Galveston, were part of an elaborate plan to hide his guilt.

But defense attorneys contended Black was shot accidentally while the two men struggled for a gun after Durst found his neighbor illegally in his apartment. The defense said prosecutors failed to show jurors any motive for the killing or disprove self-defense.

"Whatever (Durst) did after Morris Black was dead cannot change how Morris Black died," defense attorney Dick DeGuerin said in his closing statement. "You can't convict Bob Durst simply because of that."

After the verdict was read, DeGuerin praised jurors for "their ability to look at this case for what the charge was."

District Attorney Kurt Sistrunk said Durst cut up Black's body without hesitation, meticulously cleaned the crime scene, reserved a flight to leave the area and dumped the body but later returned to retrieve the head because it could identify his victim.

"Is it well planned and calculated? You bet it is," Sistrunk said.

Durst moved to Galveston in November 2000 disguised as a woman to escape scrutiny in New York after an investigation was reopened into the 1982 disappearance of his first wife, Kathleen. He used the name Dorothy Ciner, a childhood friend.

After he jumped bail in Black's killing, Galveston authorities learned he was wanted for questioning in his first wife's disappearance and in the Christmas Eve 2000 shooting death in Los Angeles of a friend, writer Susan Berman, who was set to be questioned about his missing wife.

He met Black while wearing his disguise but later dropped the masquerade and they became friends.

Durst's attorneys said the friendship soured because of the elderly man's increasingly aggressive behavior. Durst and other witnesses testified Black often got into fights and arguments.

Neighbors "could hear Morris Black two blocks down the road when he was in his rages," said Debra Monogan, who once lived upstairs from Black in South Carolina.

Prosecutors said Black was abrasive but not violent.

Durst testified that he found Black in his apartment on Sept. 28, 2001, and that Black armed himself with a gun Durst had hidden. During a struggle, the weapon fired, hitting Black in the face, he said.

Durst testified he did not recall details about dismembering the body, but when pressed by a prosecutor he said he remembered "a nightmare with blood everywhere."

"I remember like I was looking down on something and I was swimming in blood and I kept spitting up and spitting up and I don't know what is real and I don't know what is not real," Durst said.

He said he preferred not to use the term "murder" to describe Black's death.

"I like dying better. Killed implies like I killed him. I did not kill him," Durst said.

"It was self-defense and an accident," he said.

When he learned police had found some of Black's remains, Durst said he fled to New Orleans with five pounds of marijuana and more than $500,000 in cash.

He returned to Galveston and was arrested. He posted bail and fled, and was captured six weeks later in Pennsylvania when he was caught trying to steal a $5 sandwich and bandages while he had $500 in his pocket.

Durst is the son of the late Seymour Durst, patriarch of the Durst Organization, a privately held, billion-dollar real estate company that owns several New York City skyscrapers. Robert Durst has been estranged from the family since the early 1990s.

The company declined to comment on the verdict.

**CaddyDaddy77** · 11-11-2003, 12:57 PM

I really can't believe this shit, the guy obviously chopped him up even if he didn't kill him,

"Whatever (Durst) did after Morris Black was dead cannot change how Morris Black died," defense attorney Dick DeGuerin said in his closing statement. "You can't convict Bob Durst simply because of that."

Hopefully there will be a civil suit for some of the acts against the dead man.

Corruption at it's finest.

**altagirl** · 11-11-2003, 01:00 PM

No kidding.

Uh - I would have guessed after killing someone in self defense you should oh, say - call the police? Not dismember the body, somehow lose track of the head and skip town. Jesus. Maybe it wasn't techinally murder, but there's got to be some sort of jailable offense there.

**truth** · 11-11-2003, 01:00 PM

By SARA KUGLER
Associated Press Writer
Published November 11, 2003, 12:02 PM CST

NEW YORK -- Pornographer Larry Flynt claims he bought nude photos of Pfc. Jessica Lynch last month to publish in Hustler magazine, but changed his mind because she is a "good kid ... and a victim of the Bush administration."

The photos, which Flynt's publicist says show the undressed Army supply clerk posing with male soldiers, were sold to Flynt last month, according to a statement from Flynt that was read to The Associated Press on Tuesday by his publicist.

The publicist, who would not give her name, said Flynt "has no plans to use the photos."

"Jessica Lynch is a good kid, she's not a hypocrite or out to fool anyone," Flynt's statement said. "She's just a victim of the Bush administration, who is using her to justify the war in Iraq and force-feed us a Joan of Arc."

In an interview with the AP on Tuesday, Lynch declined to comment on any aspect of the matter, including whether such photos exist.

The interview was scheduled to publicize her biography, "I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story," which was released Tuesday. It covers the days between March 23, when her 507th Maintenance Company convoy was ambushed in Nasiriyah, Iraq, and April 1, when she was evacuated from a hospital by U.S. commandos.

After her rescue, the young soldier from Palestine, W.Va., was celebrated as a hero prisoner of war.

Published reports Tuesday said the photos showed Lynch topless, but Flynt's publicist claimed the former soldier is nude in the pictures.

"At this point Mr. Flynt has no comment as to the content of the photographs except to say Jessica Lynch is not wearing any clothes in them," she said.

Flynt's publicist would not say how much the publisher paid for the pictures, or who sold them.

Flynt has been in a wheelchair since an assassination attempt in 1978. His magazine won a landmark Supreme Court decision in 1988 that held that even pornographic spoofs enjoy First Amendment protection.
Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press

**CaddyDaddy77** · 11-11-2003, 01:19 PM

Children Play with Missile Launcher
Tue November 11, 2003 08:24 AM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Schoolchildren found a U.S. Army issued missile launcher from Iraq in a garbage can in Brooklyn, but it was inoperable and no one was injured handling it, police said.
Police said Monday the missile launcher was brought back to New York from the war in Iraq by an unidentified member of the U.S. armed forces who apparently gave it to a friend, who subsequently dumped it in the trash.

A man brought it into a police station in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn on Monday morning after seeing schoolchildren playing with it, police said.

Police described the launcher as a one-shot light anti-tank weapon, but gave no further details. It had already been fired and could not be used again.

© Reuters 2003. All Rights Reserved.

OJ · 11-11-2003, 01:27 PM

Originally posted by truth
By JUAN A. LOZANO
Associated Press Writer
Published November 11, 2003, 11:55 AM CST

GALVESTON, Texas -- Eccentric New York millionaire Robert Durst, who said he accidentally killed a hot-tempered neighbor in self-defense and then dismembered the body in a panic, was found innocent Tuesday of murder.

]

Sounds about right to me.

http://www.mugshots.org/sports/oj-simpson.jpg

**Honc** · 11-11-2003, 01:29 PM

This is great. Is it now ok to call this board "the paper"?

**truth** · 11-11-2003, 01:39 PM

Originally posted by Honc
This is great. Is it now ok to call this board "the paper"?

Have you tired adding fiber to your diet Francis?

**Plakespear** · 11-11-2003, 05:38 PM

Just wondering, does fucked up shit like this ever happen in Canada?

**Dingleberry** · 11-11-2003, 05:50 PM

Well, all the news ain't sad or bad today....

By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, November 11, 2003

GUATEMALA CITY, Nov. 10 -- Voters in Guatemala resoundingly rejected a former dictator's bid to regain power and dealt an overwhelming defeat to a government widely criticized for corruption, according to partial election results announced Monday.

From the rough neighborhoods of the capital to the craggy mountains of the deep countryside, Guatemalans in national balloting Sunday preferred Oscar Berger, a conservative businessman and former mayor of Guatemala City, and Alvaro Colom, an industrial engineer who practices Mayan mysticism. Efrain Rios Montt, a retired general who headed a military government in 1982 and 1983, finished a distant third. With nearly 65 percent of the votes counted Monday afternoon, Berger had 38.4 percent, Colom 27.6 percent, and Rios Montt 16.9 percent, election officials said.

The top two finishers will compete in a Dec. 28 runoff to determine who will be the next president of Central America's most populous country.

Turnout was estimated at more than 60 percent of Guatemala's 5 million registered voters, making Sunday's election this country's largest and most peaceful exercise of democracy since civil war broke out in 1960. More than 200,000 people were killed during 36 years of fighting, most of them indigenous people killed by government forces and paramilitaries.

More than 2,000 election observers were stationed throughout the country of 14 million people to ensure fairness in the balloting, amid fears that Rios Montt's supporters might cause trouble. Despite isolated incidents, monitors said, the vote appeared to have been conducted freely and without major problems.

"We are tired. We want a better life," said Arturo Alvarez, 44, a trucking company owner who waited three hours to cast his ballot Sunday in Guatemala City.

Although the war ended in 1996 with U.N.-brokered peace accords, it was a central election issue because of the presence on the ballot of Rios Montt, whose dictatorship was marked by some of the most horrific massacres of the civil war.

Rios Montt, 77, who is president of the Guatemalan Congress, was counting on support from poor, rural Guatemalans, the very people who suffered the most from his "scorched earth" policies. His supporters said poor Guatemalans were tired of a nation with 80 percent poverty, soaring rates of violent crime and rampant government corruption.

But rather than seeing Rios Montt as an alternative, voters appeared to blame him for the failures of the outgoing president. Alfonso Portillo, his protege and a member of his party, the Guatemalan Republican Front, or FRG.

"I think that most people's number one reason for voting was to make sure Rios Montt didn't get it," said Rosa Celada, 26, a housekeeper in the city of Antigua, 30 miles west of Guatemala City, who said she voted for Berger.

"The FRG had created such a deep crisis that people were determined to be there to defeat them," said Frank LaRue, a human rights lawyer. "This is a popular defeat of a government."
Rios Montt's defeat will likely end his long political career. One of Latin America's most controversial leaders, he is a former evangelical Christian minister who preached fire and brimstone in a weekly televised address at the same time he was ordering his soldiers to burn down villages suspected of sympathizing with anti-government guerrillas.

"The General," as Rios Montt is known, may also face genocide charges pending against him in a Guatemalan court. As president of Congress, he has enjoyed immunity from prosecution. But his term ends in January, leaving him vulnerable.

"We are going after him; we believe we will be ready to go to trial by April of next year," said LaRue, who has pressed the case.

**skieast** · 11-11-2003, 05:57 PM

Originally posted by Plakespear
Just wondering, does fucked up shit like this ever happen in Canada?

Not quite, but we do get exchanges like this:

Prime Minister Jean Chretien said Friday he has refused the resignation of his embattled communications director, Francoise Ducros, over her alleged remark that U.S. President George W. Bush is a "moron."

Chretien said Ducros had apologized to him for the furore caused by a conversation she had with a journalist at the NATO summit in Prague. "She was graceful enough to offer me her resignation," the prime minister said. "I have not accepted that."

Ducros, who did not appear at the news conference in Prague, told Chretien she couldn't recall whether she made the remark but acknowledged she frequently uses the word "moron," Chretien added.

"I know her very well," the prime minister told reporters. "She may have used that word against me a few times and I am sure she used it against you many times. It's a word she uses regularly."

-

KQ · 11-12-2003, 11:48 AM

Originally posted by Plakespear
Just wondering, does fucked up shit like this ever happen in Canada?

How about about a couple of pig farmers in BC that murdered women then fed them to their pigs....oh and what the pigs wouldn't eat they shipped off to the rendering plant to be made into pet food and cosmetics.

It happens everywhere there are ppl............

**Benny Profane** · 11-12-2003, 11:55 AM

Betcha Kobe is feeling a little better today.

Oh, and KQ, that avatar is so cool. You can imagine David Hemmings doing that Austin Powers "yeah baby, do it, move the hair, you're beautiful!" as the strobes pop.

**Dantheman** · 11-12-2003, 12:09 PM

Originally posted by Dingleberry
One of Latin America's most controversial leaders, he is a former evangelical Christian minister who preached fire and brimstone in a weekly televised address at the same time he was ordering his soldiers to burn down villages suspected of sympathizing with anti-government guerrillas.

Go figure

Glad the people were able to get rid of him, I bet he doesn't live through his first year in prison.

**phUnk** · 11-12-2003, 12:36 PM

Originally posted by OJ
Sounds about right to me.

http://www.mugshots.org/sports/oj-simpson.jpg

Last night, I had a dream I was walking through the student center at Northeastern University.

OJ Simpson was sitting on one of the couches there.

Suddenly, I was skiing some late season corn at an undisclosed location. I skied to the bottom, where I met up with Seth Morrison. We started hiking back up.

Fin.

**truth** · 11-12-2003, 12:37 PM

Originally posted by phUnk
Last night, I had a dream I was walking through the student center at Northeastern University.

OJ Simpson was sitting on one of the couches there.

Suddenly, I was skiing some late season corn at an undisclosed location. I skied to the bottom, where I met up with Seth Morrison. We started hiking back up.

Fin.

I love foriegn dreams, except for the subtitles.