Romell Broom - Still Alive

Romell Broom, 54, was convicted murdering 14-year-old Tryna Middleton on Sept. 21, 1984. 25 years later he was scheduled to die on Sept 15, 2009, after exhausting all appeals. He is still alive.

After trying for two hours, a team of technicians were unable to find a suitable vein in either his legs or his arms to inject the deadly concoction of drugs. Ohio's Gov. Ted Strickland ordered a one-week postponement of the execution after consulting with the Ohio Corrections Department.

This is Broom's second reprieve from death. He had been scheduled to die in October 2007, but he joined an inmate lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Ohio's lethal injection method and won a stay of execution. That challenge has since been dismissed.

Police records indicated that Tryna Middleton, a ninth grade student at Shaw High School in East Cleveland and two other teenage girls she was walking with at dark from a high school football game had been drinking beer and smoking marijuana. They were also thought to be sexually active and known to jump in cars with strangers, according to records.

Those two friends, Bonita Collier and Tammie Sims, said that Broom also grabbed them that night, Sept. 21, 1984, shortly before midnight. They fought him off while Tryna was dragged away. Tryna's body was found a few hours later in a nearby abandoned parking lot.

Broom, who had previously served time for raping a 12-year-old girl, was convicted of the abduction, rape and murder based on the testimony of the two other girls and his semen, found in the body of Tryna Middleton.

His lawyers described what happened on Tuesday Sept. 15 as torture and said they would try to block the execution. One of them, Adele Shank, said: “He survived this execution attempt, and they really can’t do it again. It was cruel and unusual punishment.”

According to reports Broom was very cooperative in assisting the technicians in trying to find a vein they could use.

He turned over on his left side, slid rubber tubing designed to clarify his veins up his left arm, then began moving the arm up and down while flexing and closing and opening his fingers. The execution team was able to access a vein, but it collapsed when technicians tried to insert saline fluid.

After that failed the team tried to insert shunts through veins in Broom's legs as he sat upright on the table. Unable to find a vein there, the team returned to Broom's arms to again. They finally gave up about two hours later and reported to prisons director Terry Collins that they were unable to find a suitable vein.

The team told him they didn't believe his veins would accept the saline fluid, or hold if the execution reached the point when the lethal drugs would start being administered. Collins contacted the governor who issued a reprieve for one week.

Collins said the difficulty in the process "absolutely, positively" does not shake his faith in the state's lethal injection procedure. He said his team wants to be "100 percent perfect 100 percent of the time" but that no one is.

"I have a team right now that's disappointed because they think they let me down," said Collins, who told the team they did not.

Collins said he thanked Broom after the reprieve was issued for the respectful way he dealt with the execution team and the demeanor he showed through the difficulties.

“This is the third screwed-up execution in three years,” said Jeffrey M. Gamso of the A.C.L.U. of Ohio. “They keep tweaking their protocol, but it takes more than tweaks. They don’t know how to do this competently, and they need to stop.”

Richard Dieter, director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, of the Death Penalty Information Center, said that given the likelihood of legal appeals, there was little chance that Mr. Broom would be put to death next Tuesday.

“The question of whether this is still an acceptable punishment in our society,” he said of executions generally, “is compounded by this mistake.”

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Joseph Duncan Must Die says Jury

Joseph Edward Duncan III, 45, was sentenced to death by a jury in Boise, Idaho for the 2005 kidnapping, torture and murder of a 9-year-old boy, Dylan Groene.

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"We're happy with the verdict, but it's a shame — this should have been limited to one death," said Steven Groene, the father of the children. "He should have had the courage and the guts to kill himself before killing anyone else."

In his closing arguments the prosecutor reminded the jury of the many crimes committed by Duncan and summed up by saying:

"This defendant is dangerous. He is a predator who takes pride in his work," prosecutor Traci Whelan said. "He earned this day. His actions ... call out for the death penalty."

The heinousness of the evidence in Dylan's murder made it particularly difficult for the jurors to remain impartial as they deliberate, said Art Patterson, a jury consultant and senior vice president of the trial consulting firm DecisionQuest.

"Generally, for human beings, it's pretty hard to maintain impartiality when confronted with such horror," Patterson said.

"How could any juror not want to see this person removed from our list of living human beings? How could you live with yourself as a juror if there's any chance this human being could escape from jail and do something like this again?" Patterson said.

After 3 hours of deliberation, the jury agreed with the prosecutor and returned a unanimous verdict of death.

"The jury speaks the mind of the community," U.S. Attorney Tom Moss said. "By the verdict today, they have given voice to the victims."

Joseph Duncan had a long history as a violent sexual predator. He had spent time in prison for the gunpoint rape of a young boy in the 1980's. He gained national notoriety, and spot on the FBI's most wanted list, for his involvement in the kidnappings and murders that eventually lead to his death sentence. He was also featured on the TV program America's Most Wanted.

Duncan kidnapped Dylan Groene and his sister Shasta from their home, after brutally murdering their mother Brenda Groene, her boyfriend Mark McKenzie and their older brother Slade Groene. He had tied them up and mercilessly bludgeoned all three of them to death with a hammer. He took the two children and for the next 6 weeks repeatedly raped and sexually molested both of them in various campgrounds before shooting Dylan in the head and burning his body in front of his sister. Duncan was so perverted that he made a videotape.

At his trial jurors viewed horrifying video Duncan made of him sexually abusing, torturing and hanging Dylan until the boy lost consciousness.

Duncan was arrested and Shasta rescued weeks after the kidnappings when a waitress at a Denny's in Coeur d'Alene called police after recognizing the two as they ate. He pleaded guilty in December to 10 federal charges involving the kidnappings and the murder of Dylan. He pleaded guilty to the other three murders in state court, where he also could be sentenced to death.

With multiple murder convictions and a death sentence hanging over his head, the law is not yet finished with Joseph Edward Duncan III. Prosecutors in Riverside County, California say they know of Duncan's murderous past. Duncan is charged in the 1997 murder of 10-year-old Anthony Martinez, and they are still waiting to put Duncan on trial.

Duncan is suspected of abducting Martinez at knife-point from his front yard. Fifteen days later, Martinez was found dead. At the time of Martinez's murder, Duncan was wanted for violating his parole in Washington, as he failed a drug test and fled the state. Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco said he's glad juries in Idaho are holding Duncan accountable, but now it's time for him to face justice in California. Despite the potential cost of a death penalty case, Pacheco says the Martinez family deserves to see Duncan tried.

"It's not something where you go, well, you can wait a couple years. We can't wait," Pacheco says. "We need him today. I understand Idaho needs to finish their stuff, but we need him as soon as possible. I can't wait."

For complete coverage of the Joseph Duncan case see KXLY.COM and also True Crime Report.Com.

Baby Flushed Down the Toilet

This is the story of how 27-year-old Rita María Peña with the help of her 67-year-old mother, Elodia Núñez, flushed Rita's newborn baby boy down a toilet.

This is one of those stories that make you wonder just how cold-hearted and ruthless some people can be. In fact after reading this story for the first time I thought these people can not be human, they are devoid of the emotions and intellect that separate us from animals. And to call them animals is an insult to the creatures that belong in that class; because, come to think of it, even animals care for their young. The only redeeming grace that I could find here was, that when confronted, they did not try to deny the heinous act perpetrated on a young, innocent, defenseless life. Below is the story of how an innocent soul was deprived of life almost before his first breath was drawn.

Police in Guadalajara, Mexico arrested Rita María Peña, 27, for allegedly flushing her newborn baby down the toilet, killing the boy. Rita's mother Elodia Núñez, 67 was also arrested as an accomplice. The police say they found the baby's body in a sewage pumping station. Suspicion fell on Rita after local residents reported that her pregnancy had ended, but she appeared not to have the child.

When questioned by the police, Rita told them that she went to live with her mother after she became pregnant and was having problems with her boyfriend, the baby's father. On July 29, 2008 she began feeling labor pains and went to the bathroom where her son was born. However she was still angry at being separated from her boyfriend and threw the baby down the toilet. It was at that very moment that her mother, Elodia Núñez, came in. Elodia then proceeded to help her daughter fill the toilet with water in order to flush away the baby.

Elodia Núñez, also said that just days before the baby was born, she caught her daughter with a knife, unsuccessfully trying to cut herself in the stomach.

An autopsy perform on the baby showed that he died of a contusion of the skull, he also had bruises and cuts on his arms and ears.

11 Witches Killed in Kenya

A group of up to 300 young men killed 11 people, aged between 80 and 96, who were accused of being witches and wizards in the western Kenya villages of Kekoro and Matembe. The gang moved from home to home through the two villages, using a list of suspected witches and wizards and the kind of spells they were believed to have cast on the community, said Ben Makori, a local councilor.

"The villagers are complaining that the (suspected) wizards and witches are making the bright children in the community dumb ... These (suspected) witches are not doing good things to us," Makori told The Associated Press.

In some cases the gang slit their throats or clubbed them to death before burning their bodies. The victims were then thrown back into the homes that the gang already had set on fire. About 30 houses were torched.

Ndirangu, the commissioner in charge of Kisii Central district where one of the villages is located, said that residents are superstitious and have often targeted suspected witches and wizards. But this week's attack was the most shocking in recent years, Ndirangu said.

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Police chief Kibuchi, said the villagers had recounted holding a meeting in Nyakeo earlier on Tuesday to try and dissuade those who wanted to go ahead with the killing. Five of the victims had supposedly "confessed" at this meeting to practicing witchcraft and had begged for mercy, he said.

Police said on Thursday they had jailed 19 people suspected of burning to death the 11 people. A police spokesman, Charles Owino, told the BBC that those arrested may not have been involved in the killings but possibly incited the attacks.

"You may find that they could not have been involved directly in the killing, but if you have evidence that they were involved in war cries, then they will have another offence of inciting," he said, adding that those proven to have been involved in the attack would be charged with murder.

Despite the peaceful co-existence of traditional African beliefs, Christians and Muslims in Kenya, there is widespread suspicion of sorcery, particularly in the west, which has a long history of witch doctors and faith healers. Residents have been ambivalent about condemning the attacks because the belief in witchcraft is so widespread in the area. Kenyan Lecturer Ken Ouko discusses the murders and talks about the place of witchcraft in Kenyan culture in the following video.

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To learn more about the people and culture of the Kisii Central District in southwestern Kenya, check out their website here.