Russian police have arrested two men suspected of cannibalism in two separate cases involving at least seven victims.

A suspected serial killer from the town of Penza, some 348 miles (560km) southeast of Moscow, is believed to have killed at least six people.

Alexander Bychkov wrote in a diary of his crimes that he turned to murder after his girlfriend left him for being "a wimp".

The 23-year-old suspect was arrested for shoplifting but then told police that he had buried bodies in his garden in Belinsky.

Investigators said: "A search of the man's home turned up a personal diary listing the crimes committed. The suspect identified the victims' photographs."

It is understood the man ate the livers of his victims, who all came from the town of Belinsky.

In passages from his diary reported by Russian media, Bychkov said his girlfriend had kicked him out.

"She said I was a wimp, not a wolf... I will show her... Maybe she will stop complaining and understand that I am a lone wolf."

Authorities also announced another arrest - this time of an unnamed 35-year-old man in Vladivostok who confessed to killing one of his friends and eating his body.

Investigators said the suspect "confessed that March 21 he killed the victim, 41, after drinking strong alcohol. Afterwards he and a friend ate the remains," and went on to confirm that human remains were found in the fridge. Read More

PARIS – A video apparently showing a Muslim gunman's attacks on soldiers and a Jewish school was sent to the Al-Jazeera news network -- but not by him, French police said Tuesday, raising the specter of a possible accomplice.

Al-Jazeera on Tuesday decided not to air a video that seems to have been filmed from the killer's point of view and includes the cries of his victims. The decision came after President Nicolas Sarkozy asked the network not to broadcast it.

While French politicians describe gunman Mohamed Merah as a "lone wolf" terrorist, his brother is behind bars on suspicion of helping in the attacks and police are continuing to look for potential accomplices. Read More

A father has been charged with the murder of his daughter after the baby died as a result of traumatic head injuries.

Steven Cantrell, 21, was held on a count of first-degree murder after his child Jada died last Friday while in his care.

Police had received a 911 call and went to the family's home in North Fort Myers, Lee County, Florida to find the baby had already been taken to hospital.

Doctors reported that the child, who was unconscious on arrival, had suffered multiple skull fractures and died from her injuries.

Because of the nature of the wounds, detectives from the Major Crimes Unit were notified.

According to ABC7, the baby girl lived at the rural address with her mother, father and maternal grandfather but only Steven Cantrell was home at the time. Jada Cantrell had been born on January 29 this year. Read More

Two bodies found in shallow grave near the Rouge River in Detroit are believed to be those of two women who were abducted last month.

Armed men kidnapped Ashley Conaway, 22, and Abreeya Brown, 18, in Hamtramck, Illinois on Feb. 28 and forced them into a car trunk, police records show.

Charles McGinnis, Brown's stepfather, told Detroit police he exchanged gunfire with the women's captors before they drove away.

Relatives added that one of the women was able to send texts messages momentarily from the car's trunk. But the women were not heard from again.

On Sunday a burned-out car that police believe was used in the abduction was found close to the bodies, reported WDIV-TV.

'We have unearthed from a shallow grave the bodies of two females who fit the description of the two young ladies we've been looking for,' said Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee.

Conaway's former boyfriend, Brandon Cain, 26, and Brian Lee, 24, were detained on Feb. 8 on attempted murder charges for a shooting involving the missing women.

Cain also faces charges of assault with intent to do great bodily harm and felonious assault.

But police say the two men, who are being held in the Wayne County Jail on $500,000 cash bond, have not been charged in the women's disappearance. Read More

A senior Pentagon official ordered an emergency review of the military's use of an anti-malaria drug known to have severe psychiatric side effects - nine days after the Afghan massacre in which a U.S. solider allegedly shot dead 17 civilians including nine children, it has been alleged.

The notorious drug Mefloquine, also known as Lariam, has been implicated in a number of suicides and homicides in the military spanning back more than ten years, with side effects including paranoia, hallucinations and psychotic behaviour.

It is now being suggested that Staff Sgt Robert Bales, who is accused of the shooting, may have taken the drug before the March 11 massacre.

The military has used the drug for years despite its known side effects and in 2009, they almost banned it due to its dangers. But a subsequent order suggested its use should be restricted and not given to soldiers who have suffered a traumatic brain injury. Read More

Soldier: Kevin Corley was recently discharged from the Army after serving in Afghanistan His cousin Jerome was killed in the DEA raid

A current and a former U.S. Army soldier were among three men busted in an elaborate drug trafficking sting, in which one of their comrades was shot and killed.

A Drug Enforcement Administration agent shot Jerome Corley on Saturday in Laredo, Texas, where federal authorities busted three men, including an Army sergeant and a recently discharged officer, who thought they would be hired as assassins for Mexico's brutal Zetas drug cartel.

The Zetas was founded around a group of elite Mexican troops that went rogue to work for the Gulf cartel, south of Texas.

They later split to build their own extremely violent and well-armed group involved in drug trafficking, kidnap and extortion.

Among the arrested was Corley's cousin Kevin Corley, 29, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, who served in Afghanistan and was discharged from the Army on March 13, according to an Army spokeswoman.

Also arrested were Samuel Walker, 28, of Colorado Springs, an active-duty sergeant, according to a spokeswoman at Fort Carson; and Shavar Davis, 29, of Denver. Read More

A young mother went to tragic desperate lengths to rid herself of the frustration of solo child-care, killing first her son, then herself.

Kelli Sly, 23, of Indianola, was angry with her ex-husband for failing to show up for visitation, police said, and wanted more help looking after her son, Gavin.

She killed the toddler at their First Avenue apartment, before driving her car into a bridge support underneath the Iowa Highway 5 bypass along Iowa Highway 28.

Friends and family said she was suffering from depression and often appeared distraught. In the past she had been a victim of domestic abuse and was being threatened with eviction from her apartment.

But during a police check-up the day before her death she told offers she was not suicidal, just mad at her estranged husband, Tim, who had failed to pick up Gavin for visitation. Read More

A church tried to teach its youth group a lesson by staging a raid in which unsuspecting teens were ‘kidnapped’ at gunpoint, forced into a van and made to watch one of their pastors being assaulted in his house.

The 'lesson,' according to pastors at the Glad Tidings Assembly of God in Middletown, Pennsylvania, was meant to teach them about what Christian missionaries are subjected to in other parts of the world.

However, at least one girl, 14, was bruised and battered after the object lesson, and has now filed a complaint with the police.

The girl, who has asked to remain anonymous, described her terror to abc27.com: 'They pulled my chair out from underneath me, and then they told me to get on the ground,' she told the station.

'I had my hands behind my back. They said, `Just do as I say, and you won't be hurt.'’

The girl said she and about 17 other teens were taken to the pastor's house, where it appeared he was being assaulted, covered in what looked to be blood.

Eventually, she said, the adults in charge revealed it was a staged event. Read More

A Russian man killed a drinking partner after he and his friends ran out of snacks at a vodka party - then sold the leftovers as pork at a market.

The 35-year-old admitted stabbing his fellow drinker, 41, to death before slicing flesh off the corpse, which he cooked and ate, police said.

The next day, the cannibal took more meat to a local market on Russky Island, Vladivostok, saying it was pork.

A local man bought the meat - but was sickened by the smell as he cooked it.

'He purchased some 'pork', but noticed as he cooked it, the smell was strange,' said investigative police spokeswoman Avrora Rimskaya.

'Despite this he ate the meat, and it tasted strange, too.

'The man then took the meat to the experts, who confirmed that it wasn't from an animal. Hearing this, the buyer immediately took it to the police.'

Officers went to his house where the suspect confessed to both murder and cannibalism, she said. Read More

A crazed attacker who strapped butcher's knives to his hands and tried to kill three partygoers after lying in wait under a bed has been jailed indefinitely.

Steven Shaw pounced while Robyn Little and Dale Walker were sleeping on the bed above him during a house party.

Mr Walker was knifed in the neck and side when Shaw came at him with arms flailing like 'someone doing a front crawl in swimming'.

Miss Little was stabbed in the shoulder as she tried to help her boyfriend.

As Shaw left the room, he came across party host Victoria Harrison, who had come to investigate the commotion.

She was stabbed in the chest and suffered a heart attack and a collapsed lung as a result.

She narrowly won her fight for life after major surgery.

All three victims were treated at hospital after the summer celebration at the house on the Beacon Lough Estate in Gateshead last July. Read More

A property developer murdered his lover and put her in the front seat of his van to take her away to dispose of the body – only to be caught when he crashed into a hedge near their home, a court heard yesterday.

John Doyle, 54, is accused of strangling and stabbing Sian Rees the night she came home after surgery for breast cancer.

They had rowed over Miss Rees meeting another man on the internet when he turned up late – and drunk – to collect her from the hospital, it was alleged.

The court heard that the couple’s 15-year relationship had been under strain and, using the pseudonym Sindy Sox, Miss Rees started communicating with a family lawyer online.

This man had invited Miss Rees for a flight in his plane and when Doyle found out a huge row ensued, the jury was told.

When he tried to dispose of the body the next morning, his van hit a traffic island and punctured a tyre.

Desperate not to stop, he eventually lost control and crashed. Read More

Disturbing video footage shot by Toulouse gunman Mohammed Merah as he killed his victims emerged in Paris tonight.

TV company Al Jazeera received the horrifying images on a computer memory stick send to their offices in the French capital.

The video has been edited into a 'montage' accompanied by an Islamic war songs, and was sent in a package post-dated March 21 - the day before 23-year-old Merah was killed by French special forces in his home city.

Investigators have already confirmed that Merah had a small video camera strapped to his chest when he murdered a Rabbi and his two children, as well as a teenage pupil, at a Jewish school in Toulouse a week ago.

The week before, the self-confessed 'Jihad warrior' also filmed his murders of three French soldiers who had fought in Afghanistan.

Both Al-Jazeera and Le Parisien newspaper confirmed that the video footage had been seen in Paris.

An unnamed source in Le Parisien, Paris's daily newspaper, said: 'Investigators are trying to find out whether the letter was posted Tuesday night by Mohamed Merah himself or by an accomplice on Wednesday morning.' Read More

Solicitor Graeme Francis (pictured left) and his wife, Clare, have become the target of a mystery man known in the area by the ominous title 'Silent Stalker'. Posted signs showing e-fit photo seem incongruous in the otherwise postcard village.

With its idyllic 13th-century church and thatched cottages, the Hampshire village of Longparish, on the banks of the River Test, attracts those in search of a peaceful life.

The ‘what’s on’ list on the village notice board gives a flavour of the kind of gentle pursuits enjoyed by the village’s well-heeled residents, who can choose between a lecture on bumblebees, spring cleaning the local church or an evening discussing the joys of hanging baskets.

That’s why one item pinned to the notice board this week seemed utterly incongruous - a police ‘e-fit’ photograph.

The stark image shows the face of a man wanted for questioning in connection with a spate of sinister events which has cast a terrible shadow over this community.

Tall, blond-haired and blue-eyed, the mysterious man known by villagers as the ‘silent stalker’ has for the past year targeted the £1million country mansion of solicitor Graeme Francis and his wife, Clare.

The man has repeatedly been spotted prowling in the grounds of the Francises’ home since December 2010. Sometimes he wears a balaclava, while on other occasions he has been spotted wearing latex gloves and a mask, carrying a gun and, on one occasion, riding a bicycle.

Last winter, he left footprints in the snow around the couple’s home, but his stalking campaign has now escalated into violence. The couple’s five-year-old golden retriever was shot dead last July. Weeks later, mother-of-four Mrs Francis, 58, was pushed and assaulted by the suspect, who was carrying a wooden cosh.

Mr Francis, 61, a mergers and acquisitions specialist who has worked alongside celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal as company secretary for his Fat Duck restaurant in Berkshire, was also violently attacked with a cosh in February and needed hospital treatment for head injuries.

Police have begun a major investigation and are appealing for witnesses. Read More

Few people on the bleak Yorkshire council estate that was once home to Karen Matthews failed to spot the irony that it was Mother’s Day when they learned that ‘Britain’s worst mum’ was to be released from jail — possibly as early as this week.

Among the labyrinthine streets with their rows of semi-detached, 1930s houses perched on a windswept hill in the west of Dewsbury, the whisper was that their former neighbour, who drugged and kidnapped her own daughter, would not survive the beating if she ever again dared to set foot in their midst.

Despite the passage of four years — Matthews has served only half her sentence — the inhabitants of Dewsbury Moor estate are still struggling to come to terms with just how comprehensively they were hoodwinked by the single mother who, on a cold February afternoon, claimed that someone had snatched her nine-year-old daughter, Shannon.

But given the callous nature of this calculating woman, their lingering fury will probably mean little to her.

The mother of seven children by five different men is more interested in preparing for life on the outside, possibly with a new identity and inevitably in a new location.

It remains to be seen just how much contact she will have with her offspring, many of whom have now settled into lives without her.

Given what has gone before, it is hard not to conclude that they are better off without her. Read More

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Do these names mean anything to you?

• Mohammad Dawood Abdullah
• Khudaidad Mohmmad Jama
• Nazar Mohammad Taj Mohammad
• Payendo
• Robina
• Sahtarina Sultan Mohammad
• Zuhra Abdul Hameed
• Nazia Doost Mohammad
• Mosooma Mohammad Wazir
• Farida Mohammad Wazir
• Palwasha Mohammad Wazir
• Nabia Mohammad Wazir
• Asmatullah Mohammad Wazir
• Faizullah Mohammad Wazir
• Esa Mohammad Mohammad Husain
• Akhtar Mohammad Murad Ali

Probably not.

Each and every one of them was deeply loved by someone and now they are dead.

These are the names of the men, women and children allegedly murdered by a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan's Panjwai District in Kandahar Province on March 11, according to Afghan officials. The U.S. military has now added one more name to that list but no one has revealed that victim's name so far.

When someone is killed, its natural to want to know who they were and how they died.

In this case, the how was quickly explained by witnesses, village elders, Afghan and NATO officials: They were shot dead. But looking across local, regional and international media for days after the massacre the full list of names and ages was nowhere to be found. Read More

Actor and activist funds a hi-tech project that is tracking troops and warning civilians of attacks

Nathaniel Raymond is the first to admit that he has an unusual job description. "I count tanks from space for George Clooney," said the tall, easygoing Massachusetts native as he sat in a conference room in front of a map of the Sudanese region of South Kordofan.

Close by, pins and ink scrawlings on the map detail the positions of Sudanese army forces and refugee populations in the troubled oil-producing province, where the Sudanese army is carrying out a brutal crackdown.

The wall next to Raymond has a series of satellite images projected on it. At the flick of a mouse, tiny images of tanks and military vehicles hove into view, caught by a satellite hundreds of miles above. Read More

Eight people, among them a Kenya Police reservist, were killed and thousands of animals stolen in separate attacks by Pokot raiders in Turkana County at the weekend.

Six herdsmen and a police reservist were shot dead when raiders from Pokot West and Pokot North districts attacked Kapelipok village in Turkana South District before escaping with goats and cattle.

Turkana South district commissioner Joseph Kanyiri said the more than 200 raiders also made away with the police reservist’s gun.

“The raiders ambushed the herdsmen while watering their animals, killing six of them on the spot,” said Mr Kanyiri, adding that the attack was well- coordinated.

A woman was killed when another team of raiders attacked Kotaruk in Loima District in renewed armed conflict between members of the Pokot and Turkana pastoral communities.

“The woman was watering the animals when she was shot dead by the raiders, who escaped towards Pokot North District,” said Loima district commissioner Moses Ivuto. Read More

Two adult leopards were found dead in a cane field at Katarniaghat wildlife sanctuary on Sunday. Authorities suspected it to be a case of poaching. The carcasses were found in Daulatpur village of the district here, divisional forest officer R K Singh said.

“The post-mortem report of the animals has revealed that they had died about four days back. The reason behind their death could not be ascertained,” the officer said.

The poaching dog squad of SSB was also called. Owner of the cane field has been detained for interrogation. Source

Paris (CNN) -- The brother of a gunman killed in a siege in southwestern France is outraged to have been charged in connection with an alleged shooting spree by Mohammed Merah, his lawyer said Monday.

Abdelkader Merah was charged Sunday with complicity in seven murders and two attempted murders and taken into custody, the Paris prosecutor's office said Sunday.

He is also being charged with conspiracy to prepare acts of terrorism and group theft, the prosecutor's office said.

But he feels he is being made a scapegoat for the crimes his brother is accused of, his lawyer Anne-Sophie Laguens said.

He feels his brother's acts were "reprehensible," Laguens said on CNN affiliate BFM-TV, adding: "The impression we are getting today is that because we weren't able to put his brother on trial because he is no longer with us then maybe we are coming down on the only person that is present." Read More

Police are searching for a man who threw acid at a mother as she walked with her six-month-old baby in Salford, Greater Manchester.

The assault happened at around 2pm on Thursday 22 March as the 29-year-old victim was walking along Broad Street in Pendleton.

As she went into a subway leading to Salford Shopping City the woman heard a man with a British accent make a racist and sexual comment to her before feeling a liquid being thrown on her back.

When she turned to face her assailant she saw a man in his 40s holding what appeared to be a plastic container.

He then threw more of the liquid onto her chest before running away in the direction of Broad Street.

The unnamed woman suffered burns to her chest and back and is now in a stable condition in hospital.

The baby was not injured in the attack.

The man is described as being white, of stocky build, 5ft 10in to 6ft 2in tall, had very short, dark hair and a bald patch at the back.

He had blue eyes, a dimple in his chin and a red mark like a burn on his bottom lip. The attacker also had white peeling skin on his cheek bones and had stubble.

He wore a long sleeved dark grey jumper, black tracksuit bottoms and black Adidas trainers.

A detective from Salford CID said: "Thankfully none of the corrosive liquid hit the baby or went on the victim's face as the incident could have been a lot worse than it already is.

"I would urge anyone who may have seen this man running away from the subway or may have witnessed the attack to contact police as soon as possible." Source

Anyone with information is asked to phone police on 0161 856 5097 or can call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.