Death Row Vietnam Vet With PTSD Executed

WARNING: The above video is graphic and violent.
Video by MrMikesMondoVideo

According to 11Alive.com, A Vietnam veteran convicted of killing a deputy from Laurens County, Georgia was executed on Tuesday.

Andrew Brannan died by lethal injection at 8:33 p.m., according to authorities.

Around 7:45 p.m., the United States Supreme Court denied a stay of execution for Brannan. Earlier on Tuesday, the Georgia Supreme Court also denied a request for a stay of execution.

According to CBS News, Brannan was convicted of shooting and killing Deputy Kyle Dinkheller during a 1998 traffic stop. Supporters of the veteran had argued that his life should have been spared because he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

A clemency hearing held Monday was 66-year-old Andrew Brannan’s last hope for escaping execution. In the end, his defense failed to convince Georgia’s Board of Pardons and Paroles that his death sentence should be commuted to life in prison, based on the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) his defense team says he suffered after his military service in the Vietnam war.

Brannan’s family was “profoundly disappointed,” according to a statement released by the family’s attorneys. While conceding that “[t]he death of Deputy Sheriff Kyle Dinkheller was a terrible tragedy,” the statement read, “Executing a 66-year old decorated Vietnam veteran with no prior criminal record who was seriously ill at the time of the crime only compounds the tragedy.”

Unfortunately, anyone who watches the video above will probably have little sympathy for Brannan.

http://www.11alive.com/story/news/local/2015/01/12/brannan-parole-board-hearing/21663901/

Brazilian Man Confesses To Killing 39

According to the BBC, a security guard in Brazil is said to have confessed to 39 killings but had no particular motive and knew none of his victims, as Wyre Davies reports.  The Brazilian police have arrested him and say that the murders occurred over a three-year period.

He was arrested in the central Brazilian city of Goiania by a special police team investigating the murders.

The IB Times states:

“Police said that Gomes da Rocha approached his alleged victims on a motorbike with his face hidden, and that he often demanded valuables from his victims before shooting them and leaving without their possessions. He was arrested Tuesday, after being stopped by police for having a fake number plate on his motorcycle. This led to a search of the home he shared with his mother, where police discovered a .38 revolver, which is thought to be the weapon used in the murders. Gomes da Rocha reportedly confessed to the killings while in custody.”

The BBC:  “(Police) said Thiago Henrique Gomes da Rocha – who approached his alleged victims on a motorbike with his face hidden – was cold but driven by rage.  Police said he often demanded valuables from his victims before shooting them with a .38 handgun and leaving without their possessions.  Police said the 26-year-old man targeted homeless people, women and homosexuals.”

A police official who had been present at the interrogations told a Brazilian TV channel the killer called his victims by the numbers 1 to 39.  “We have been shocked by his coldness,” the official said.

He never knew those he targeted, police said, and acted out of an inner “fury” that he felt “against everything”, which only subsided when he committed murder.  Police said he would feel remorse after killings, which fueled his anger more.

According to Mail Online, the man had a certain way of killing:  Prostitutes were stabbed. Homeless men were shot. Gays he choked.

Mail Online:  “And young women — the victims he came to savor killing the most — he would shoot in the chest.”

The alleged suspect had also described accurately the locations of each murder and the emotions he had felt at the time, and police said he fired on his victims while cruising the streets.

Investigators said they were sifting through evidence, including closed-circuit TV footage, and had seized weapons and stolen license plates from his grandmother’s home.

Jack The Ripper Found

A British author and amateur sleuth says he has unmasked Jack the Ripper, the pseudonymous serial killer who allegedly murdered at least five prostitutes in London in the 1880s.  

He terrorized London during the 1880s, and was one of the most notorious serial murderers of all time.  He has supposedly finally been “unmasked,” thanks to DNA evidence.

At least, that’s according to a new book entitled Naming Jack the Ripper, which claims to have definitive evidence that Jack the Ripper was a Polish émigré named Aaron Kosminski.

Kosminski was a hairdresser who had already been a suspect in the murders.

Russell Edwards, who wrote the book, says he solved the mystery with a crucial piece of  evidence he bought at auction a few years ago: a blood-stained shawl said to have come from the murder scene of Jack the Ripper’s fourth victim, Catherine Eddowes.  Eddowes was said to be a prostitute whose maimed body was found in the early hours of Sept. 30, 1888.

The shawl had reportedly been boxed, but never washed. 

After purchasing the shawl, Edwards enlisted the help of forensics expert Dr. Jari Louhelainen, a senior lecturer in molecular biology at Liverpool John Moores University. It was found that the shawl had both blood and semen on it.  Louhelainen analyzed the shawl.

The blood sample that Louhelainen analyzed was eventually matched with the DNA of one of Eddowes’ direct descendants, Edwards says, while the semen sample was matched to the DNA of a descendent of Aaron Kosminski’s.