Tuesday, 12 April 2011

Two men have been arrested in Brazil for allegedly selling a weapon to the gunman who opened fire at a Rio de Janeiro school last week,

Two men have been arrested in Brazil for allegedly selling a weapon to the gunman who opened fire at a Rio de Janeiro school last week, killing 12 students before turning the gun on himself.
The homicide division of Rio's police department made the announcement Saturday, the state-run Agencia Brasil news agency reported.
The motives behind why Wellington de Oliveira, 23, shot the students and himself remain unclear.
Locksmith Charleston Souza de Lucena is charged with helping de Oliveira acquire a gun. After he did a job for de Oliveira, according to police, de Oliveira asked where he could find a gun. Souza de Lucena introduced him to Isaias de Souza, who helped him secure the .32-caliber handgun used in the mass shooting, police said.
The origins of a second gun used in the shooting, a .38 revolver, remain unknown, police said.
Both men told police that they would never have sold de Oliveria the gun if they had known how he would have used it, Agencia Brasil reported.
Ten children remained injured in the hospital, the state health and civil defense secretary said. Those who were killed were buried on Friday amidst heavy commotion.
Meanwhile, no one has come to identify and claim de Oliveira's body, Agencia Brasil reported. If no one claims the corpse within 15 days, he'll be buried as an indigent.
Thursday's mass school shooting, which is rare in Brazil, has energized the country's anti-gun lobby. Twelve red flags were raised Sunday at a demonstration at Copacabana beach calling for greater effectiveness against weapon and ammunition trafficking.
"Where is the ammunition coming from? Where are the guns coming from? Are we safe?" event organizer Antonio Carlos Costa said, according to Agencia Brasil.
The principal of the school where the shooting took place said Sunday that he hopes to reopen the school April 18. Cleanup of the scene is scheduled to begin Monday, Luis Marduk said.
Also Sunday, the official TV Record posted a suicide note purportedly from de Oliveria, which included burial instructions. The note also asks that his house, which has been under police surveillance after vandals defaced it, be turned into an animal shelter "because the animals are being very despised and need much more protection and care than human beings."

Serial killer on the loose?

Police found what appears to be a human skull Monday on the outskirts of a bird sanctuary in Long Island, New York, a county police officer said, potentially the ninth set of remains discovered in the probe of a suspected serial killer.
Lt. Kevin Smith of the Nassau County Police Department said the skull was found around 3:30 p.m. in Oyster Bay. About four hours earlier, a New York state police officer and his cadaver dog spotted another set of remains about a mile and a half away, and authorities worked to determine whether those remains are human.
These discoveries come on the first day that authorities probing the deaths of several young women searched for evidence in and around Nassau County. Since December, eight sets of human remains have been found in Suffolk County, just to the east of Nassau County and roughly five miles from the sites of Monday's discoveries.
"It's just been very startling, all of it has been," Smith told reporters Monday. "It's just amazing that we're finding these things. Obviously, we have a lot of work to do."
Authorities are working on the presumption that a single person is responsible for the women's killings. The five victims who have been identified thus far all advertised prostitution services on websites such as Craigslist, police have said.
"Collectively, we want to bring to justice this animal who has obviously taken the lives of a number of people," said Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano on Monday.


Authorities would not describe what type of remains were found on Monday morning, and Smith did not detail the condition of the skull found in the afternoon.
But police have said that the bodies discovered earlier were in various stages of decomposition, including at least one that could have been there for as long as two years, according to Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer.
Watch the sister of a missing woman tell her story
The remains have included four female bodies found in December stuffed in bushes along a quarter-mile strip of beachfront property. Last week, three bodies were uncovered within a few miles of each other, fueling speculation that they could be the work of a serial killer. A woman's body was also found March 29 off Ocean Parkway, west of Cedar Beach.
The missing woman who prompted authorities to initiate the search -- 24-year-old Shannan Gilbert -- has not yet been identified.
K-9 units and dive teams had been added to the search operation in an effort to locate Gilbert, who was last seen alive in May in the Gilgo Beach area.
Search for missing women expands
Gilbert's sisters said Shannan was an escort who was visiting a client. They said she ran from the man's house and called 911, claiming that someone was trying to hurt her.
Several neighbors also called 911, witnesses say.
Police came more than 30 minutes later, but by then Gilbert was gone and has never been heard from again.
"You want to believe everything was OK with her," Sherre Gilbert said. "But at the same time, so much time has passed it's impossible to really think that she is still alive."
Sherre Gilbert said even if her sister is never found, the search has led to one positive outcome: the discovery of the other women's bodies.