New England Sun-Times

Leah Cuevas (the KILLER) and Chinelle Brown (the victim)   Leah Cuevas , 42, has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of  27-year-old Chinelle Latoya Browne , a mother of four whose dismembered and decapitated body was found hidden around Long Island, New York last month, reports NBC Los Angeles. At her arraignment Thursday, the judge said Cuevas was “charged with the worst conduct a human can be charged with. According to prosecutors, Cuevas and Browne argued over rent on July 4 and again the next day. Police were called during the first incident, but the second ended with Cuevas stabbing Browne several times and dismembering her body.” Her last words, according to witnesses, were, “No, Leah!” and “I’m sorry.” [Browne's] mutilated torso was discovered in a weedy, vacant parking lot in Bay Shore early on July 8 by people going to the nearby Fire Island ferry. Prosecutors said the clothing on the torso matched the ones last se...

Atlanta — Anti-capital punishment activists are using the prolonged execution of Joseph Wood in Florence, Ariz. , Wednesday as a clarion call to end the death penalty. A federal judge who adjudicated Mr. Wood’s case has emphasized another alternative: bring back the firing squad. "Eight or ten large-caliber rifle bullets fired at close range can inflict massive damage, causing instant death every time," Alex Kozinski , chief justice of Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote in a decision that would have stayed Wood’s execution by lethal injection if the US Supreme Court hadn’t overridden that ruling. "If we, as a society, cannot stomach the splatter from an execution carried out by firing squad, then we shouldn't be carrying out executions at all,” Judge Kozinski reiterated Thursday to the Washington Examiner’s Byron York. In his earlier ruling, Kozinski said using drugs to carry out executions is "a misguided effort to mask the brutality o...

By Alan Duke , CNN (CNN) -- Actress Skye McCole Bartusiak, who played Mel Gibson's youngest daughter in "The Patriot," died Saturday at her home in Houston, her mother said Sunday. She was 21. "We lost our girl," Helen McCole Bartusiak told CNN. While investigators have not determined a cause of death, Bartusiak had been suffering from epileptic seizures in recent days, according to her mother. "She was a kind and really beautiful girl," her mother said. Bartusiak's most visible role was as the young daughter of Mel Gibson's Revolutionary War "Patriot" character in the 2000 movie. Her movie acting career began when she was just 6 in 1999 with a role in "The Cider House Rules." She played the daughter of Michael Douglas' character in "Don't Say a Word" in 2001. Her last film role was the lead in "Sick Boy," a low-budget thriller released in 2012. Bartusiak ...