Daily Rotten Archives January 5, 2005 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 Thailand dumping tsunami fatalities New York Post | Submitted by: The Insomniac "The bodies of British and other Western tourists are being secretly buried in vast mass graves in an open field close to a busy road. Families still searching for missing relatives were not told of the decision to dispose hastily of hundreds of unidentified victims yesterday with no ceremony or memorial in a mass burial site on scrubland owned by a nearby Buddhist temple. Local Red Cross officials said they were ordered to prepare a site for 10,000 bodies, far more than the Thai government says were killed by the tsunami, raising doubts that a true count of victims will never be known. Grieving relatives of all nationalities are banned from visiting this sprawling site... As bodies wrapped in plastic sheets were carried in the bucket of a mechanical digger to the edge of open trenches, Weiapol Pitcun, a Thai official, said: 'This may look insensitive but what else can we do? There are too many for us to cope with.'" Read article... North Korea allegedly sells arms to terrorists Canadian Broadcasting | Submitted by: Mikeisgreen "Japan's biggest-selling newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun, quotes Southeast Asian security sources saying North Korea sold 10,000 rifles and other weapons to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The group is based in the Philippines and allegedly has ties to al-Qaeda... The report claims that grenades and other weapons also changed hands, but that plans to sell special underwater infiltration vehicles fell through. The story has not been confirmed, although North Korea does have a track record of exporting military equipment." Read article... Couple allegedly raped, tortured, killed teen KCBA-TV 35 Monterey | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "Defense attorneys for a couple accused of raping and fatally shooting a Las Vegas teen have asked a judge for separate trials. Experts believe the request may show that the accused want to blame each other for the crime. Michael Thornton and Janeen Snyder have been in custody since their arrest in April 2001 in the death of 16-year-old Michelle Curran. Curran, a tenth grader, disappeared after heading to school on April fourth, 2001. Her nude body was discovered April 22nd in a compartment of a horse trailer on a property in Rubidoux. Prosecutors allege the couple shot Curran in the head after raping and torturing her, then hid her body after a nearly two-week sex- and drug-laced odyssey." Read article... Couple allegedly pimped out teen runaway WMMT-TV 13 Kalamazoo | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "A Battle Creek man accused of forcing a teenage runaway girl into prostitution has turned himself in. Milo Burton, 37, turned himself in at 2 a.m. Tuesday at the Calhoun County sheriff's department... Burton's three sisters say they pleaded with him to surrender... Yesterday, his wife, Julia Burton, was arraigned on three felony counts including criminal sexual conduct. Police say the couple took in a runaway 12-year-old girl at their 45 South McKinley Street home in Battle Creek. They say that between December 20th and 28th, they gave the girl drugs and alcohol and forced her to have sex with Milo Burton. Later, the girl was allegedly forced to have sex with other men who paid the couple." Read article... New sheriff fires 27 cops the hard way CNN | Submitted by: Mikeisgreen "On his first day on the job, [Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill] called 27 employees into his office, stripped them of their badges, fired them, and had rooftop snipers stand guard as they were escorted out the door... Hill, 39, defended the firings and said the new sheriff has the right to shake up the department in whatever way he feels necessary... The firings had a racial overtone. Hill was among a spate of black candidates elected last year in the county once dominated by rural whites... The fired employees included four of the highest-ranking officers, all of them white. Hill told [The Atlanta Journal-Constitution] their replacements would be black... Hill said the manner in which he fired the workers - including taking some deputies home in vans normally used to transport prisoners because the deputies were barred from using county cars - was necessary." Read article... and This article... Wife's skull allegedly ruins rifle butt Seattle Post-Intelligencer | Submitted by: Lady Despair - I love you "Prosecutors say a Maple Valley man admitted to police that before he shot and killed his wife last week, he hit her so hard on her head and back with his hunting rifle that the butt of the stock 'actually cracked and broke.' ... [Wesley Avans allegedly beat his wife], then Colleen fled to the bathroom, [Detective John Pavlovich] wrote. Avans shot at her once through the door, striking their daughter in the hand. 'The bathroom door then opened,' Pavlovich wrote. 'The military-trained (Avans) was standing in the doorway holding the hunting rifle at waist level when he fired the shot directly into his wife.' Avans admitted his guilt during a police interview, they say." Read article... Alleged carjackers beat the crap out of old gimp Canoe | Submitted by: optional "A 64-year-old disabled woman was recovering in hospital on Tuesday after a savage attack that has provoked fear and outrage in the city. The woman was beaten, stabbed and carjacked by four men who left her for dead on an icy sidewalk near several highrise seniors' residences. 'She lost a litre and a half of blood,' Dr. Ronald Denis of Sacre-Coeur Hospital told reporters. 'That's 30% of her blood.' The woman, who uses a walker, was assaulted by four young men in front of her apartment building in the city's north end on Monday evening. 'They stabbed her numerous times,' said police spokesman Ian Lafreniere. 'Once she was on the ground, they kicked her in the face and broke her nose.'" Read article... AAA driver knocked into 75 ft drop WLKY-TV 32 Louisville | Submitted by: marc427 "A Louisville man who drove a van to help stranded drivers died Tuesday after being hit by a garbage truck. The man, whose identity has not been released, drove a van for AAA, and was helping during a traffic backup in the westbound lanes of Interstate 64... The victim began directing traffic from the right lane, indicating to motorists to move over into the left lanes. A sanitation truck driver saw the victim too late, and when he tried to move over, he hit a cattle truck, spun out of control and hit the AAA truck, then hit the man. The victim fell over the highway guardrail, and dropped 75 feet to his death." Read article... Stolen cars transformed into driverless juggernauts Canadian Broadcasting | Submitted by: Mikeisgreen "Winnipeg police have charged five teenagers with stealing cars and trucks and rigging them to crash driverless into buildings. In incidents going back to early December, police say the teens, ranging in age from 12 to 18, stole more than a dozen vehicles, jammed the accelerator pedals and sent them slamming into houses, apartment buildings, utility poles, fences and the Assiniboine River... In one case, a vehicle crashed into an apartment and landed on a bed. The tenant wasn't home. Police estimate that the incidents caused damages of $128,000 to vehicles and more than $70,000 to property." Read article... Tsunami barely scratches Diego Garcia MSNBC | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "A deep underwater trench, a 30-year-old military decision and a tsunami warning saved one of America's most secret bases from any significant damage during last week's tsunami, say U.S. officials. Diego Garcia, a 10-square-mile British island leased to the U.S. Navy, sits in the middle of the Indian Ocean, just south of the hard-hit Maldives... With an average height of 4 feet above sea level and a high point of only 22 feet, the island would have seemed to be as vulnerable as many other Indian Ocean islands to the tsunami that smashed into the coastline of Southeast Asia Christmas night... Yet favorable ocean topography, including that deep underwater trench, and a fortunate decision by the Navy to place key facilities at the northern end of the island shielded Diego Garcia from major damage. While a 6-foot-high wave did hit the island, the underwater canyon essentially bore the brunt of the assault." Read article... Court ruling pisses off Evel Knievel CNN | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "Motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel cannot sue a Web site that published a photo of him with two women above a caption reading 'You're never too old to be a pimp,' a U.S. appeals court ruled on Tuesday. The term 'pimp' was probably intended as a compliment, the court said. But Knievel said, 'What good is law in the United States of America if five or six goddamn bimbos are going to rule against it?' ... [In the lawsuit, Knievel claimed that] the photo brought him and his wife 'public disgrace and scandal.' ... 'They disregarded the goddamn law and they ought to be discharged, they ought to be ashamed of themselves,' he told Reuters. Knievel, 66, added that he would ask his lawyer to appeal the case to the Supreme Court." Read article...