r/TrueCrimeDiscussion

I recently came across the case of Bill and Peggy Stephenson when a video on YouTube came up on my timeline about their case being unsolved, their local news channel did a story for the anniversary. I'm surprised this case isn't spoken about more, as the details seem to shake seasoned detectives. I am going to try and write this up in the most clear way and sorry if I miss any information, I will make sure to add any details you guys point out that I missed.

The Stephensons:

Bill and Peggy were a well loved elderly couple from Florence, Kentucky. They were known in their community for their kindness, their church involvement, and their willingness to help others. Bill founded the Trucker’s Chapel Ministry, where truck drivers passing through could pray/ practice their faith. Peggy was the organist at Union Baptist Church. They have 2 children, Doug Stephenson and Beth Stephenson-Victor, who were adults and out of the house at this stage in life. By all accounts and they were beloved in the community and known by everyone.

The Murders

On Sunday, May 29, 2011 Bill failed to show up to the Truck Stuck to open his deacon for Sunday prayer. Later that morning, both Bill and Peggy failed to show up to their local church for Sunday mass, which they never missed. Beth had played the Organ at Union Baptist Church for 42 years. A family member went to their condo to go check on them, knowing something had to be wrong. They found the couple, both 74, dececed in their home and described by authorities in the most brutal and unusual crime they have ever come across.

The Stephensons were both bludgeoned and stabbed. Investigators say everything that happened afterward is even more baffling. Police believe the killer or killers spent a significant amount of time inside the home after the murders. The bodies had been posed, items throughout the condo had been moved, and investigators have said the entire home appeared to have been staged. The Boone County Sheriff’s office has led the investigation from the beginning, they said there wasn’t one room in the house that hadn’t been altered in some way. There was also a message left behind by the killer(s), although investigators have never publicly released what it said.

Timeline

The timeline is what has been released by Police: They say they know the murders happened between 1am and 4am on May 29, but Detective Cox, one of the Detectives on the case since the start, has said they actually know the exact time of death because one of the victims had a medical device implanted that provided that information (possibly a pace maker- which is something that's important in another high profile ongoing case involving an elderly person: Nancy Guthrie).

There were no signs of forced entry, so investigators believe the person responsible is possibly someone the Stephensons either knew or someone they were comfortable inviting into their home. Their condo was also located close to neighbors, yet nobody reported hearing anything unusual.I nvestigators have also said the killer seemed familiar with the home and had no fear of staying there after. An Interview in 2021, a detective stated the killer left the scene for a time and then came back again hours later. This wasn’t a quick crime clearly. Someone had enough time to stage the scene and eave behind a message.

Suspects

The motive remains one of the biggest mysteries. Police have always believed this was personal. They have said the couple themselves were the target, not just one person. Detective Cox said "They both had to die.” If someone only wanted one of them gone, there were opportunities to isolate either Bill or Peggy he believes. Valuable items that would normally be stolen during a robbery were left behind. Some photographs in the home were rearranged in a way that investigators felt could have been intentional, saying that the pictures possibly told them who the killer liked and disliked, almost like someone was trying to tell a story or send a message. But the entire scene felt more confusing than anything else. Very over the top.

Over the years, investigators have followed hundreds of leads and still continue to do so. Because of Bill’s work with truck drivers through Trucker’s Chapel, tips have come in from people across the country. Detectives have traveled to multiple states and even submitted the case to the Vidoq Society, which is a group of elite investigators that come together once a month in Philadelphia to help police departments from all over the country with cold cases.

There was also a lot of public attention when one of the Stephensons nephews, Charles “Stevie” Stephenson, was arrested and later convicted in a separate murder case involving a 67 yea old Indiana woman. Many people assumed there could be a connection because of the family relationship, but investigators have DNA evidence from the Stephenson crime scene that does not match him. He is not considered a suspect.

So that's the good news,is that they do in fact have DNA from the scene that they believe to be the killer(s). but Detective Cox has said it is currently not eligible for genealogy testing or phenotyping. Hopefully that changes in the future as technology improves.

15 Years Later: Fresh eyes on the case
In most recent update this past May for 15th year anniverarsy of their deaths, they announced they have brought on a new cold case detective to look at the case, Detective Everett Stahl. He seems to agree with detectives that have been on the case since the beginning: the details of this case are something he has never seen before in all of his career.

Something in the article that really stood out to me was this: "Investigators have urged the killer to send a note or contact them to explain the meaning behind the staged crime scene."

The Stephensons’ family has offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. Investigators have continued to encourage anyone with information to come forward.

This case just sticks with me because of how deliberate everything seems. The fact that someone killed both of them, stayed inside their home afterward, staged the scene, and left behind some kind of message makes it feel like there was a motive beyond a random crime.

What are everyone’s thoughts? Do you think this was someone close to the Stephensons, or possibly even a random serial killer?

https://nkytribune.com/2016/05/five-years-later-community-investigators-still-look-for-answers-in-killing-of-bill-and-peggy-stephenson/

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/accused/2020/08/26/backstory-stephenson-slayings-too-bizarre-believe-detective-says/3436127001/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p&gca-uir=true&gca-epti=z1144xxe1144xxv004852d--53--b--53--&gca-ft=168&gca-ds=sophi

Cedric Jubillar was convicted of killing his wife Delphine some months ago in France. Her body has never been found. He has always claimed innocence but today confessed to her murder in 2020 via his lawyer. The case was given a very thorough write-up nine months ago by u/DArklyHeritage, now archuved, but linked below. Hopefully Delphine can now be brought home to rest, bringing some comfort to her friends and family, including her two children.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueCrimeDiscussion/comments/1oaqfs3/the_perfect_murder_that_gripped_france_delphine/

Victoria Castle was a vibrant PHD Biology student & was preparing to submit a research proposal to NASA to develop a method for dating sediments on the surface of Mars & had presented at Oxford. She was devoted to the natural world in it's many forms. Self described as an elder emo she had her own trials & tribulations in life as marked on her body with scars & her medusa tattoo. She was openly proud of her queer identity & was in a new relationship with another woman at the time of her death. Vic was avid about running marathons, yoga, & the gym.

Combined details from 3 articles:

According to investigators, officers responded to 285 N Oak Street around 8:45 a.m., Monday June 29th 2026, after Joseph Horner called 911 to request an ambulance for a female victim who was not breathing. Police said they found Horner sitting outside on the stoop when they arrived. Officials said the home was multi-family and split into two apartments; Horner and his wife, Alexia Castle, who was away at a bachelorette party, lived upstairs. Horner's wife's sister, Victoria, lived on the ground level. Inside, police said they found Victoria Castle naked on the floor of that ground-floor apartment. She was taken to the hospital, where she died at 9:25 a.m., according to officials. Police said Castle was a PhD student at Stony Brook University and Horner knew her since 2016, when he met his wife.

On Tuesday, Nassau County police said they arrested Joseph Horner, 27, and charged him with second-degree murder in the death of Victoria Castle.

Horner's arraignment, a Nassau prosecutor said while Horner's wife was away, he saw an opportunity to follow through on a "sexual desire" he'd harbored for his sister-in-law. Horner allegedly admitted to lusting over his wife's sister since 2017. He asked for help moving a piano, the prosecutor said, then without warning, attacked her from behind and placed her in a chokehold until her body went limp. He then allegedly placed her in bed and had sex with her (sexually assaulted even if the article won't say it). Afterward, he changed his clothes then called 911. The prosecutor said he later admitted to authorities that he'd choked her and then had sex with sexually assaulted her.

Horner pleaded not guilty to murder in the second degree and is being held without bail.

His attorney said his client is a tenured teacher who is well loved by his students and colleagues.

Nassau County police said Horner acted alone and had no prior interactions with law enforcement or previous arrests.

-----------

The Long Island doctoral student who was allegedly raped and strangled to death by her obsessed brother-in-law gushed over him as “one of the most wonderful people in the world” in a haunting Facebook post after he married her sister.

“My sister, my person, my partner in chaos, is now married to one of the most wonderful people in the world,” reads Victoria Castle’s message “I love you both forever!”

Additional articles:

https://nypost.com/2026/07/01/us-news/ny-phd-student-allegedly-murdered-by-obsessed-brother-in-law-posted-haunting-tribute-on-her-sisters-wedding-day/

https://longisland.news12.com/2026/06/30/nassau-county-police-still-investigating-family-disturbance-that-left-1-injured-in-north-massapequa/3Nt7UCqmsNOZCWYnbSr7p5

Victoria's Obituary:

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/massapequa-ny/victoria-castle-12950364

(Since I now work on two cases at once, one being a case on my backlog and another being a suggestion, this write-up was basically already finished by the time I uploaded yesterday's case)

Born around 1970 in Hong Kong, Chan Fung-han was the oldest of three children and the only daughter. Her father was a former government official who also ran his own business, while her mother was a retired executive from a securities company. Fung-han lived a pretty easy life. She excelled in school, and because her appearance was described as beautiful, she was constantly shown affection and had many admirers.

Chan Fung-han

Her graduation should've been a happy time, but instead it was marked by tragedy when her father passed away not long after. However, she used the inheritance from his death to open a clothing store in Mong Kok. After several years, she began operating a high-end herbal tea and aromatherapy beauty business in Causeway Bay.

In early 2002, Fung-han and her mother jointly invested HK$2.05 million to purchase an apartment in Happy Valley. The purpose of the purchase was so the entire family could live close together, even if in seperate residences. But also to make family gatherings easier to arrange, since every few days, Fung-han would call her mother and every weekend she would make time to visit and have dinner with her mother and brother.

While her family usually adored her, they grew concerned about Fung-han's love life. Over the course of an entire decade, she had several boyfriends, but all of those relationships ended fairly quickly and never led to a marriage, which was what her family wanted. When she started dating Soo Chun Sou in late 2006, few were expecting that he'd be any different.

Soo Chun Sou, born in 1973, came from a well-off family and studied abroad in Montreal, Canada. he returned to Hong Kong in 1998 and worked as a computer procurement officer for a major company. So what was the problem? Well, Chun Sou was already married and even had an infant daughter with his wife.

The problem, he didn't want to be. That marriage came about in 2004 when his parents pressured him to marry his current wife because she was wealthy; in other words, they introduced him to her, and it was an arranged marriage.

It also did not look as if their marriage would last. They were never happy together, but after the pregnancy, Chun Sou and his wife began sleeping in other rooms. Then, in July 2006, Chun Sou was dismissed from his job, and the two often fought over money and the cost of raising their daughter, with arguments that often led to the two coming to blows.

In September 2006, after losing his job, Chun Sou was introduced by a friend to a position as an instructor for first-aid courses at the St. John Ambulance Brigade. Fung-han decided to enroll in the same course, which was how the two met.

After a few weeks, Fung-han accepted Chun Sou's advances, and soon the two began their relationship. A relationship Chun Sou didn't have to hide because he and his wife finally separated on November 25.

However, Fung-han had no idea Chun Sou was even married, and his dramatic divorce, combined with the short temper and controlling behaviours Chun Sou was starting to display, led Fung-han to consider ending the relationship already.

However, by now things had changed, and everybody else wanted Fung-han to stay with Chun Sou. Fung-han's own mother was especially fond of the two and was now encouraging her daughter to marry him. Because of this, Fung-han didn't believe she had much of a choice, so the relationship continued with Fung-han even renting a bachelor apartment nearby to make it easier for Chun Sou to meet her.

Chun Sou also wasn't willing to end the relationship and seemed to be looking forward to its future, often proposing to Fung-han that they go on a trip to Southeast Asia and frequently brought up the possibility of marriage. However, being busy with her work and simply not wanting to, Fung-han would always decline or just straight up try to avoid any discussions about marriage altogether.

On February 7, 2007, at around 8:00 p.m., she called her mother and said that she was planning to go to Lau Fau Shan in Yuen Long, Hong Kong, with Chun Sou, for dinner at a local seafood restaurant. Fung-han asked her mother if she wanted her to bring home any for her. Her mother wanted some oysters, so Fung-han agreed to buy some for her, and with that, their call ended.

When she woke up on the morning of February 8, she was shocked to see that Fung-han hadn't returned. When she went ot call her, she was directed straight to voicemail. However, considering that she was a busy woman running her own herbal tea and aromatherapy shop, and often had to travel to Guangdong, China, to purchase supplies and handle business orders, she didn't think anything of it at first and, in fact, went days before trying to contact her daughter a second time.

On February 11, Fung-han’s younger brother happened to run into Chun Sou and decided to ask him about their date. According to him, the oysters his sister bought for their mother were still in his car, but since he had been unable to contact Fung-han and worried they'd start to rot and produce a permanent foul stench in his vehicle, Chun Sou asked if he'd like to join him to retrieve the oysters and bring them to Fung-han's mother.

He followed Chun Sou to his rented flat to collect the oysters. However, despite that being the purpose of the visit, to retrieve some food for her, he had completely forgotten to tell his mother about them. Then, on February 12, Fung-han's mother went to her daughter's home, and while her daughter was still gone, clothes, shoes, toiletries, and belongings remained, having never left that apartment with her.

Obviously, this made no sense if she had gone to China to purchase supplies. Now concerned, she called Chun Sou, and he didn't know where Fung-han was either. In fact, he told her that their relationship was over, and their latest date had actually been a "break-up dinner"

On February 3, Chun Sou told Fung-han that on November 25, 2008, the 2nd anniversary of his and his wife's separation, he would formally marry Fung-han, even offering to cut off all contact with his wife and daughter so nothing would come between them. Chun Sou was actually shocked when Fung-han was less than thrilled, telling him that she didn't want to be viewed as a "homewrecker"; this absolutely infuriated Chun Sou.

However, when Chun Sou calmed down, he believed that Fung-han's words were just born of the heat of the moment and that she didn't actually mean them, so he left the apartment to give her some space.

Much to his surprise, Fung-han arrived at his apartment on February 7 after taking a taxi, only to resume their earlier discussion about breaking up. Chun Sou proposed that they have one final dinner, and she agreed.

After the date ended at 10:30, the pair prepared to return to Happy Valley. However, just after getting into the car, Fung-han told him she had another arrangement, so Chun Sou would have to go home by himself. Chun Sou drove her to a Minibus terminal, and from there, the two parted ways.

The next day, Chun Sou noticed that the oysters Fung-han had bought for her mother had been forgotten in his car. He spent several days trying to contact Fung-han to pick them up, but after meeting with no success, he gave up and had her brother take them off his hands instead.

In hindsight, Chun Sou said that he wasn't too surprised by the breakup because, in January, he had taken a trip to the Philippines and, upon his return, noticed that Fung-han appeared to be in a relationship with another man and was simply using that as an excuse to end her relationship with him.

Fung-han's mother asked Chun Sou to help her find this other boyfriend in case he knew where her daughter had gone. The two searched extensively, but when neither could find him, Fung-han's mother went to the Happy Valley Police Station on February 15 to report her missing.

The investigation was handled by the Hong Kong Island Regional Missing Persons Investigation Unit, and right from the get-go, they concluded that Fung-han had met with foul play. The police felt that it was essentially impossible for her, in a place like Hong Kong, to have gone missing for over a week with no immigration or bank records left behind.

On February 16, the police reviewed her phone records and found that her last call was made on February 7 at 10:44 p.m., lasting about 30 minutes. The caller turned out to be Fung-han's first boyfriend, whom she broke up with in 1996.

The police tracked him down, and he confirmed that he had spoken with Fung-han and that they had planned to meet, although the meeting never took place because he was in the middle of a birthday party.

When asked why she reached out to him, he said that they had still been friends even after their break-up and that she wanted to wish him a happy birthday, talked about the good times from their relationship and then Fung-han told him about the recent troubles she was experiencing.

At 3:00 p.m. on February 8, he tried to call Fung-han, but the call went straight to voicemail. Much like her mother, he simply assumed Fung-han had taken another trip to Guangdong, paid her absence no mind, and made no further attempts to contact her. He was completely unaware that she had even been missing.

At first, the police didn't believe him. The party he was attending ended only shortly after the phone call, so it wasn't something he could easily use as an excuse to get out of seeing Fung-han, nor was it something he could use as an alibi, either, since CCTV footage at the apartment complex he lived in did not show him returning until around 3:00 a.m. on February 8.

They also looked into his financial situation and saw that since 2006, he had lost nearly one million Hong Kong dollars in stock trading. This is important because Fung-han's brother recalled her saying she had once lent a "large sum" of money to an "old acquaintance."

Also, albiet conveniently, when Chun Sou was questioned and saw a picture of Fung-han's old boyfriend, he started to claim that he was the man she had been dating and, again, the man he had taken Fung-han's mother out to try to find.

Realizing he was becoming a suspect, he decided to come forward himself and explain himself to the police. He said that after his birthday gathering ended, he went to a nightclub and stayed there until 2:40 a.m. The only reason he withheld his alibi was that he was already married and therefore wouldn't know how to explain himself when asked why he went alone. After returning home, he wasn't seen leaving again until 7:00 a.m., which in effect ruled him out.

He was also lacking in the way of motive. Although he did suffer substantial financial losses in the stock market back in 2006, he made that money back in short order and was not struggling as others had suggested to the police, having netted a substantial profit from the two businesses he had a hand in running.

Now that they ruled him out, the police returned to viewing Chun Sou as their primary suspect. They confirmed that on the evening of February 7, he and Fung-han had dinner together at a seafood restaurant and left around 10:30 p.m. The owner of a noodle stall in Yau Ma Tei confirmed that at around 12:30 a.m. on February 8, Chun Sou went to his stall, ate alone, and bought two magazines.

To drive from the seafood restaurant to Yau Ma Tei would take around 35 minutes, and Fung-han was known to be alive until at least 11:15 p.m., so if Chun Sou did murder her, the timeline appeared to be a little bit on the tight side unless he killed her at the roadside and kept her body in his car. Regardless, due to that timeline and the absence of any additional evidence, Chun Sou was ruled out for the time being.

However, not long after they ruled him out, they looked back at him regardless; on February 13, Chun Sou suddenly terminated his apartment lease and moved to the Kennedy Town neighbourhood without even claiming the HK$12,000 security deposit he had prepaid to the landlord. His sudden move naturally made the police interested in him all over again.

Checking Fung-han's phone location data, they discovered that the last location where her phone signal was detected was Pak Nai Village, about 7 kilometres from the seafood restaurant, and that the signal abruptly ended at around 11:22 p.m., shortly after her call with her ex-boyfriend.

Pak Nai Village is about as rural as a city-state like Hong Kong could get, surrounded by mountains on two sides and the sea on one, making it one of the most secluded areas in Hong Kong. It is no easy task to get there with only one road, and it is on the opposite side of where Fung-han lived, so why was she there in the middle of the night? And why didn't she just have Chun Sou drive her there? Chun Sou said he dropped her off at a bus stop, but Pak Nai Village has no bus service; she couldn't have taken a taxi either, as no cabs were recorded picking up passengers bound for Pak Nai.

The police then got to work retrieving the CCTV footage from the route Fung-han likely took. The footage showed that Fung-han had already left home at around 4:00 p.m. on February 7, not at 7:00 p.m., as Chun Sou had claimed. At the time, she was carrying a camouflage handbag and a large black bag, and wearing black leather boots. But once she arrived at the seafood restaurant, the CCTV footage now showed her wearing a pair of new orange sneakers. Obviously, she had been elsewhere prior to the restaurant.

So the police retraced their steps and looked for more footage. Sure enough, prior to the restaurant, she and Chun Sou had visited a sports store in Tuen Mun, where they each bought a pair of sneakers. According to the shop assistant, the shoes they purchased were the same style of orange sneakers, seemingly deliberately chosen as “couple shoes." something that didn't make much sense if they were supposed to be on their way to a farewell dinner and an odd detail for Chun Sou to withhold from the police.

Some of Chun Sou's favourite hobbies since returning to Hong Kong have been diving and fishing, and he occasionally visits fish farms in Lau Fau Shan. Chun Sou was familiar with Pak Nai Village and had even purchased a house near the village once. Suffice to say, he was once again a suspect.

Still without any hard evidence against Chun Sou, the police decided they'd go get some themselves and went to Pak Nai Village. The telecom company was only able to give a location since her phone pinged based on the strongest signal rather than her exact location, so the police didn't know exactly where she was when that ping came in, which meant they didn't exactly know where to look either; even searching Chun Sou's home in Pak Nai turned up nothing.

On February 24, the police finally secured a warrant to search Fung-han's home, and what they found was quite illuminating indeed. found 24 love letters written by Chun Sou from January 24 to February 3, where he addressed Fung-han by the nickname "Piggy" and signed the letters as "the one who loves you"

The contents of the letters included promises that he would "never again buy anything or maintain contact with his ex-wife and daughter, and could sever the father-daughter relationship" that he would "never have relations with other women"; and also threatened to disown his father if he opposed their relationship and in another letter declared that "after death, I wanted to be buried together with you"

But by far the most valuable thing the police found was in Fung-han's drawer. They found a set of photographs of several nude men and personal photos of her and Chun Sou together. One of them was taken while fishing at a fish pond, with trees in the background.

A digital recreation of the photo in question

That last photo piqued their interest more than any of the others, as the scenery looked familiar, as if they had been there before. And sure enough, they did; the police managed to match the location in the photograph to the Bak Diao Fishing Ground in Pak Nai Village.

Immediately, the police went to the Bak Diao Fishing Ground and decided to speak with some nearby residents. There, they confirmed that they had seen a woman matching Fung-han's description at the fishing ground on the night of February 7. The owner of the fishing grounds also stated that Chun Sou was a regular customer of his and that at 11:00 p.m. on February 7, he had seen him bring a tall woman with shoulder-length hair and wearing brand-new orange sneakers to the fishing ground. After the police showed him a photo of Fung-han, he confirmed that she was Chun Sou's acquaintance.

The police now believed the fishing grounds to be the crime scene, and since there seemed to be no signs of conflict prior to their arrival in Pak Nai, perhaps the motive was jealousy from Chun Sou stemming from the phone call she had with her ex-boyfriend, which the police now believed had likely taken place in his presence.

The police's working theory now went as follows: After dinner, Chun Sou took Fung-han to the fishing grounds for a leisurely round of night fishing. However, as soon as she got out of the car, Fung-han remembered that it was her first boyfriend's birthday, and since Chun Sou wasn't paying attention, she decided to give him a call and even arranged a meeting with him. Chun Sou likely overheard part of this conversation and flew into a rage and killed her right there at the pond.

Then, after committing the murder, he likely hid the body somewhere in the area. Then, to give himself an alibi, he drove to the noodle stand and then, on February 11, told Fung-han's mother about her disappearance to try and take suspicion off of himself.

On February 26, six members of an elite police diving unit were dispatched to the fishing grounds. They spent the morning sifting through the pond but came back empty-handed. They then called for a helicopter to fly above the area and aid in the search for Fung-han's body. By around 6:00 p.m., they finally identified a possible burial site within a forest 500 meters from the fishing ground.

At 9:00 a.m. on February 27, 60 officers, complete with sniffer dogs, were dispatched to the aforementioned forest to begin the search. At around 10:00 a.m., a police dog picked up the scent of decomposition nearby. After officers used shovels to clear away branches, they discovered a freshly dug pit. Once the debris covering it was removed, the body of a woman lying face down was at last discovered.

Forensic technicans at the scene after recovering Fung-han's body.

The victim was wearing a long-sleeved jacket on the upper body and suit trousers on the lower body, along with a pair of brand-new orange sneakers. There were multiple puncture wounds on the upper body, and valuables such as a bracelet and ring worth several thousand dollars, as well as cash in her trouser pockets, were still intact. However, aside from her belongings, the police were empty-handed in terms of a murder weapon or any evidence pointing to the killer.

On February 28, the autopsy revealed that the victim was 171 cm tall and weighed 57 kg. Her entire body had undergone severe decomposition, rendering her unrecognizable, and there were cut marks on her clothing, but no evidence of sexual assault. The police identified her as Fung-han based on her dental records, and the estimated time of death was indeed around February 7.

Fung-han's body being rremoved from the scene and taken to the morgue

When it came to the cause of death, the medical examiner noted 10 stab-like injuries on her ribs, shoulder blades, and throat, one of which had even pierced her throat and penetrated into the spine and based on the wounds, the likely implement was a ballpoint pen.

At around 4:00 p.m., that same day, the police heard that Chun Sou was shopping in Western District. The police lay in wait, and as they saw him walking down the sidewalk carrying a shopping bag with a blank expression, they rushed to ambush him. Upon seeing the police, Chun Sou grew agitated and even tried to headbutt the officers. It took many of them to subdue him, but eventually Chun Sou was arrested and brought to the police station for formal interrogation.

Chun Sou stood firm and denied any involvement in her murder. He said that after the dinner, she had arranged to meet a friend in Tin Shui Wai, and that the two of them parted ways at the bus stop. However, he now admitted that before the dinner they went to a store to purchase the "couple shoes" since it was almost Valentine's Day.

While being questioned, Chun Sou complained to the police that Fung-han was supposedly engaged to a man named Song from Guangdong and accused Fung-han of "playing with his emotions", that she was involved with multiple men at the same time, possessed as many as nine SIM cards, and had several other "ambiguous relationships" with men.

Chun Sou also insinuated that one of Fung-han's many alleged boyfriends killed her, then hired a lawyer to assist him in dealing with police questioning, leaving them to simply go after Chun Sou just to blame anyone.

The police were quite disgusted and angry at Chun Sou for making such an insinuation, especially the fact that he was now so quick to try and smear her reputation once he became a suspect despite claiming to love her dearly, so on March 1, the police charged him with murder out of pure disgust despite still lacking a confession or physical evidence.

Fortunately, a few days later the police discovered that when Chun Sou went to the noodle stall, he had changed both his jacket and shoes, so why would he have been in such a hurry to change his clothes before arriving home?

They also found that at around 7:45 a.m. on February 8, Chun Sou went to Sha Tin to wash his car. The car wash had not yet opened, so he waited outside for nearly 50 minutes. Once again, why would he be in such a hurry to wash his car the morning after Fung-han's disappearance? Based on these facts, the police searched his car and apartment. The clothing he was wearing that night was missing. Although, in this case, the absence of evidence only strengthened their suspicions.

On the other hand, some evidence remained intact, such as in Chun Sou's car, where forensic technicians discovered a red stain on the right side of the passenger seat that looked to be blood. Immideately the sample was sent for forensic testing. The results came back on March 29, confirming that the stain was not human blood, meaning the police still had nothing and they would never uncover anything more.

Regardless, they felt their circumstantial case would be enough; Chun Sou was the last person to see her; he went to change and get rid of the clothes he was wearing that night before arriving home; he only slept for five hours before rushing to a car wash first thing next morning, and abandoned his apartment and security deposit only 6 days later.

With that, Chun Sou's trial began before the Hong Kong High Court on June 27, 2008. The prosecution played a recorded statement to the court that he made prior to Fung-han's body being discovered, which proved he was lying, but Chun Sou pleaded not guilty and insisted he was innocent, instead saying that Fung-han was an independent woman that he didn't fully understand and that one of her many other male friends had to be the killer instead.

Chun Sou being brought to court

The trial had 19 hearings before the jury was sent to deliberate on July 22. The jury of 6 men and 1 woman spent 7 hours deliberating before returning with their verdict. They unanimously found Soo Chun Sou guilty of the murder of Chan Fung-han; in response, the judge sentenced him to life imprisonment. Fung-han's mother was seen in tears, embracing the detectives and thanking them for their tireless work on the case. Fung-han's brother also said he was satisfied with the sentence.

That satisfaction was not shared by Chun Sou, who immideately appealed the sentence. When explaining the grounds for his appeal, he argued that the judge prohibited the defence from providing character witnesses or any other evidence attesting to his good character, which prejudiced the jury; that he improperly directed the jury; and that the evidence against him did not prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Court of Appeal heard these arguments on December 4, 2009, and on January 20, 2010, it dismissed Chun Sou's appeal, holding that the circumstantial evidence against him was sufficient to warrant his conviction.

The Murder of Chan Fung-han was Hong Kong's first homicide of 2007.

Sources

https://pastebin.com/FwRYLsRQ

https://people.com/kay-parsons-murder-everything-to-know-11974982

Becky Sears is incredibly selfish, manipulative, and cold hearted. Any one of those betrayals make her a horrible person, but she did all of them. Not a care in the world for her friend or her family. She was willing to let both her adult sons take all the blame, one that wasn't even part of it. All for a man that was too much of a coward to break it off with his wife.

Imagine coming home from school at just nine years old expecting another ordinary afternoon. Instead you notice the front screen door is slightly open. You think your mom must have gotten home from work early so you walk inside without thinking much of it.. Within seconds something feels wrong. Your bedroom window has been smashed. Glass is scattered across the floor. You rush to call your mom only to discover that the phone line has been cut.

Then someone knocks on the door.

Standing outside is a man you've never seen before. He begins asking questions while constantly peeking into the house. Every instinct tells you something isn't right so you slowly begin closing the door. Before you can shut it he forces it open grabs you and drags you back into the house.

That was the beginning of one of the remarkable kidnapping cases I've ever read.

On July 8 2003 nine-year-old Jeannette Tamayo was abducted from her home in San Jose, California. As her kidnapper prepared to leave through the garage fate briefly intervened. Her fifteen-year-old brother, Paul and her mother, Rosalia arrived home unexpectedly. Without hesitation Paul confronted the attacker despite knowing he was outmatched. Rosalia immediately joined the fight desperately trying to save her daughter Jeannette Tamayo. Both were violently beaten during the struggle and from inside the kidnappers car Jeannette Tamayo watched helplessly. When she saw blood on the attackers face she became convinced her family had been killed.

As the car sped away she looked back one time and caught sight of her injured mother Rosalia and brother Paul still alive desperately calling for help. It was the glimpse she had of them before disappearing without a trace.

Back at the house detectives quickly realized they were dealing with a planned kidnapping. The attacker had broken into the home before Jeannette Tamayo arrived smashed a bedroom window cut the telephone lines and waited for her to come home from school. A nearby security camera had actually recorded much of what happened including the suspects vehicle. Unfortunately the footage was too blurry to identify the license plate. Because investigators couldn't determine the suspects identity or vehicle information Californias Amber Alert requirements at the time couldn't be met. One blurry video may have cost investigators their chance of finding Jeannette Tamayo quickly.

While police searched desperately across San Jose Jeannette Tamayo was being held inside a locked room in a white house somewhere she had never been before. Most people would expect a frightened nine-year-old to panic. Instead she did something

She started investigating Jeannette Tamayos situation.

Every turn the kidnapper made while driving became something to memorize. Every phone number he spoke every address, every room in the house every object she saw—she committed it all to memory. She realized that if she survived every tiny detail might matter. If she didn't survive she wanted to leave behind evidence for police to catch the man responsible.

Knowing she couldn't overpower him she chose another strategy: earn his trust.

She spoke calmly asked questions and slowly convinced him she wasn't going to fight back. Eventually he relaxed enough to leave her alone for periods. During one of those moments she noticed something the handcuffs locking her wrists didn't require a key. After feeling the mechanism with her fingers she figured out how to unlock them herself.

Most people would expect her to run.

She didn't.

She knew escaping from a house without knowing where she was would probably end in failure. Instead she used those minutes to gather evidence. She secretly took the kidnappers watch collected items from the room and kept clothing she believed investigators might later need. Everything she collected became another piece of the puzzle.

Then came the moment that changed everything.

A days into her captivity the kidnapper handed her a phone and told her to order pizza. As she spoke with the Little Caesars employee she carefully repeated the address and phone number the kidnapper gave her committing both to memory. When the pizza arrived, something on top of the box immediately caught her attention.

It was a missing-person flyer.

Her own face stared back at her.

The kidnapper looked at the flyer smiled and calmly told her "I have to get rid of you tonight."

Jeannette Tamayo immediately understood what that meant.

Believing she might not survive the night she hid every piece of evidence she had collected inside the pizza box and pushed it underneath the bed hoping someone would eventually find it.

That evening the kidnapper drove her away from the house. After a drive he stopped outside a liquor store threatened to kill her and her family Jeannette Tamayo if she ever spoke about him and unexpectedly let her go.

The second she realized he was gone she sprinted inside the store.

The cashier looked at her for a moment before recognizing the face he'd seen all over the news.

"You're the girl from TV."

He immediately called 911.

After everything she had endured Jeannette Tamayo wasn't finished helping investigators. While sitting with detectives she pulled the evidence from her pockets wrote down the phone numbers she had memorized drew a map of the house where she'd been held described the route in detail and even guided officers turn by turn back to the exact neighborhood. At the time detectives contacted local pizza restaurants and confirmed the address from the pizza order perfectly matching everything Jeannette Tamayo had remembered.

Police surrounded the house. Launched a tactical raid. Hidden inside the attic was the kidnapper, David Montiel Cruz. Investigators also discovered the pizza box beneath the bed where Jeannette Tamayo had hidden it containing the evidence she had secretly gathered while being held captive. He was arrested, convicted on felony charges and sentenced to life in prison.

What amazes me most about this case isn't just that Jeannette Tamayo survived. It's that at nine years old she understood that remembering details could be the difference between justice and another child becoming the next victim. While most adults would struggle to stay calm under those circumstances she observed, collected evidence and ultimately helped lead police directly to the man who kidnapped Jeannette Tamayo.

It's difficult to think of true-crime cases where the victim played such a direct role in solving their own kidnapping. Jeannette Tamayo didn't just survive—she became one of the investigators, in her own case.

I see a lot of speculation about Elizabeth being a possibility of her being a victim to child SA/grooming which is awful in itself. When I first saw the mugshots I thought "which one is related to the grandparents" and couldn't come up with the answer. They all look related. If that's the case I believe her story is a whole lot deeper and darker than what's on the surface.

***I'm not posting this to debate her innocence or lack thereof. I'm wondering if anyone noticed what I have because I haven't read it anywhere else yet.

DNA results can be uploaded to GEDmatch for use by authorities and The DNA Doe Project. Has this helped to solve any true crime mysteries? Off the top of my head I know a lot of deceased newborns have been identified.

(Thanks to LoydoRedi2910 for suggesting this case. If you'd like to suggest any yourself, please head over to this post, which asks for case suggestions from my international readers, as I focus on international cases.)

The FV Tiro II was a 70-ton Chinese-owned fishing vessel operating out of Suva, Fiji. Many boats that fished in the waters of the South Pacific were typically crowded and had a wide array of nationalities aboard, usually including locals from the nations whose flags the vessel flew, as well as Chinese and Indonesian nationals.

The boats typically spent weeks out at sea, and unfortunately, when it came to the foreign workers, they typically suffered from human rights violations such as abuse, withheld wages, debt bondage, long working hours, physical violence, and unexplained deaths at sea. While there was no documented history of such abuse occurring aboard the FV Tiro II, its sister ships were a different story.

On May 8, 2021, the FV Tiro II departed from Millers Wharf in Suva, Fiji, for a 14-day fishing expedition, hoping to catch some albacore tuna and shark bait in the waters of Lomaiviti and Kadavu. However, stronger winds and rougher seas than had been expected caused the vessel to go off course. Instead, it made its way into the Yasawa waters off Fiji's western coast.

Aboard the vessel for this trip were three Indonesian men by the names of Benjamin Semuel Mattaputty, the vessel's 40-year-old captain; their chief engineer, Eme Warma, also in his 40s;

And finally, the vessel's chief officer and cook, Alfat Kodri. Benjamin, in particular, had spent the last 15 years working in Fiji, with 8 of those years spent as a chief engineer before his promotion to captain and chief officer.

Alfat Kodri

The 5 remaining crew members were all local Fijians: a deckhand named Samuela Sukera, who had an 11-month-old son waiting for him at home.

Samuela Sukera

Qiritavabea Cagilabakomeli, another deckhand.

Qiritavabea Cagilabakomeli

The 49-year-old boatswain Mitieli Cama.

Mitieli Cama

Another deckhand, 47-year-old Kaminieli Tucama, who had been working aboard fishing vessels in Fiji and the Solomon Islands since he was 16;

Kaminieli Tucama

And finally, the youngest member aboard, 26-year-old deckhand Tevita Qaqa Kapawale.

For Tevita in particular, it was his first time working aboard a ship, a job he only got because his cousin, who also worked in the industry, offered it to him. Prior to netting the job, he had sat for 6 exams after school, then worked as a farmer and had several brief stints at other jobs to support his wife and three children. However, he also had two prior assault convictions from 2020 and 2021.

Tevita Qaqa Kapawale

On May 17, after about 9 days at sea, the men were working the longlines at the back of the vessel after hauling in a bigeye tuna. Kaminieli was approched by Tevita, who offered him some tobacco. Kaminieli accepted and directed him toward where the tobacco was kept. Shortly after, Kaminieli heard his fellow deckhand Qiritavabea shouting out, "What is wrong with you?" Kaminieli turned around and saw Qiritavabea on his knees with blood coming from his nose, and Tevita standing over him armed with a half-metre wooden axe.

Kaminieli ran to the front of the vessel in terror, climbing the railing to reach the top of the boat. With all three floodlights turned on and from his vantage point, he could see Tevita attacking the rest of the crew, striking Samuela with the axe before forcing him to jump overboard even though he wasn't wearing a life vest. Then he saw Tevita dragging Qiritavabea by the T-shirt and throwing him overboard.

The chief engineer, Eme, had become tangled in the large fishing lines in his attempt to flee, hanging from the vessel and was stuck at the back by the axe. Tevita threatened Eme with the axe, demanding he jump overboard. When he either refused or was unable to do so, Tevita cut the lines with the axe, sending him plummeting to a watery grave.

As for the captain, Benjamin Mattaputty, he came late to the stern, and Kaminieli could only hear them briefly speaking to one another but never saw Benjamin's final fate.

When all was said and done, 5 men had gone overboard in the dark, open and choppy waters 143 kilometres west of Nadi without any life jackets.

The only surviving victim left aboard appeared to be Kaminieli, and Tevita was well aware and began approaching the only survivor, holding two 30-centimetre knives. Kaminieli ran to a room to hide, and as Tevita attempted to force entry, he said to him, "Wait there, I'm coming." He heard Tevita walking away and seized the chance to run toward the engine room and lock himself in. Once there, he hid under the captain's bed.

Tevita said he was coming, but he never did; not knowing that, Kaminieli stayed in the engine room for two days, surviving on only one bottle of water and having to urinate in the same confined space. Heat stroke was also something he had to fend off, as the only small AC unit in the room was far from sufficient.

Kamineli didn't know it, but there was also another survivor, Mitieli. Mitieli never witnessed any of the murders directly but did see Tevita standing over his bloodied crewmates holding an axe. Tevita actually showed Mitieli some degree of mercy by putting him in the fish hold and telling him, "If you want to live, you stay there; if you want to die, you come up." Mitieli spent the next 30 hours in the fish hold. Once again, Tevita never came for him.

What Tevita had done was deploy the vessel's one lifeboat and make his escape. On May 19, Kamineli and Mitieli finally emerged from their hiding spots, found each other, and saw that the lifeboat was gone. Realizing what Kamineli had likely done and that the two were stranded, they searched the boat for anything to aid them.

The two survivors found a satellite phone in the captain's quarters and received a call from a man at Green Tuna Fisheries, the company whose fleet the vessel belonged to. He was inquiring about their status since the vessel had gone dark on all tracking systems. After hearing their explanation, he contacted the Fijian navy. Meanwhile, Kamineli also used the FV Tiro II's radio to contact an aircraft from New Zealand and another fishing vessel, the FV Samyeung, where he told them both what had happened and their current situation.

The search began immideately with the Fijian Navy dispatching the RFNS Kikau from Suva, and as they sailed toward their reported position, a Lockheed P-3 Orion from the Royal New Zealand Air Force was also dispatched to the area to aid in the search.

Since the location of the FV Tiro II was known and the survivors seemingly in an okay condition and the vessel not at any immediate risk of sinking as far as they knew, the search and rescue team decided to leave them to their own devices for the time being as they searched for the victims and Tevita, who was now believed to be a murderer on the loose. Especially because the weather, while finally calm now, was due to become rough again soon.

On May 20, the New Zealand aircraft located the overturned life raft with Tevita still aboard. They dropped a survival kit containing a beacon, radio, and food to Tevita, relayed his position to the Fijian navy, and hovered and flew above him for as long as its fuel supply allowed before returning to New Zealand.

Because of this, Tevita was unable to escape or hide, and once the Fijian navy arrived, he was taken aboard. The RFNS Kikau returned to port in Nadi at 9:00 a.m. on May 21, where the police placed Tevita under arrest.

Tevita's rescue.

Meanwhile, Kamineli and Mitieli made a second call, a much more distressing one. The FV Tiro II was sinking and had begun taking on water on the night of May 20.

That same day, the crew of a fishing vessel flying under the Fijian flag, the Sam Weon 11, noticed a flare from a flare gun being shot into the air. The crew sailed to the location where they discovered Kamineli and Mitieli on a makeshift raft fashioned from the fish cage at the stern of the boat, which they filled with buoyant material. The Sam Weon 11 then transferred the two survivors to the RFNS Kikau, which also dropped them off at Nadi, where the police were waiting to question them.

https://preview.redd.it/sjzlrmcne7bh1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=a2915a2d53ca13b22c1360691c2dd5574adeefde

Kamineli and Mitieli's rescue

As for the bodies of the victims, the RFNS Kikau conducted a brief search of the area before being recalled back to Suva. The search operation was then taken over by the RFNS Savenaca on May 22. The RFNS Savenaca searched a wide area 143 kilometres west of Nadi and roughly 90 nautical miles west of Fiji's Navula Passage outside Momi Bay.

The search was not easy; the weather had deteriorated considerably, and the crew aboard the RFNS Savenaca knew they were simply looking for bodies. If they had been thrown overboard on May 17, even if they had survived the initial plunge, with these conditions they were almost certainly dead by now.

Part of the search effort

On May 28, after one week of searching with two aircraft, two Fijian Navy vessels, and one other vessel that joined in, the Fijian Navy announced that the search was over due to the lack of any results and an almost 0% likelihood that any bodies would be recovered. Regardless, they issued a notice to other vessels sailing through the area to be on the lookout for bodies and to report any they saw floating on the surface. Unfortnuately, no such report ever came their way.

One might expect things to move quickly, but that wasn't quite the case. Although Tevita was arrested immideately, he hadn't been charged. When the vessel sank, that meant the police lost the crime scene and all evidence, such as the murder weapon and no bodies to confirm the survivors' account. Even if they were to find the wreck and dive to the bottom, any evidence, such as DNA or fingerprints, would likely be destroyed by the conditions on the seafloor.

All they had was the eyewitness testimony of Kamineli and Mitieli, and, ignoring the fact that Mitieli openly admitted to seeing none of the murders himself, there were some other issues with their story.

First was Mitieli's tale of survival, and the main problem was the fact that he survived at all. With the limited air supply and the very cold environment, Mitieli should've survived down there for at most 2 hours. Mitieli didn't have an explanation for how he hung on as long as he did, other than that the section of the hold he was kept in contained no ice, making the temperature warm enough for him to survive.

Tevita's getaway was also a little bit questionable. The life raft, a heavy piece of equipment, would normally require four men to unload and then launch, but somehow Tevita did it all by himself, and surely exhausted after chasing five men across the FV Tiro II and killing them all.

Some were also skeptical of the FV Tiro II's foundering, openly saying it was impossible for the vessel to have sunk on its own without any sabotage, while most believed that someone had opened the vessel's seacock.

But what did Tevita have to say? He said that Qiritivabea and Mitieli had an argument over the latest catch of fish to be shared with the rest of the crew, with extra for them to sell back on land as a bonus. He said that Mitieli started throwing the fish overboard, which angered Qiritivabea.

Holding the knife that he was using to gut the fish, Qiritivabea confronted Mitieli, who in response, kicked him in the chest, causing Qiritivabea to fall onto his own knife. Mitieli then approched Samuela and forced him to throw Qiritivabea's still-breathing body overboard. Mitieli was then joined by Kaminieli, who threatened the rest of the crew at knife point to jump overboard so they could cover up Qiritivabea's death.

Tevita said he went to hide, and Kaminieli and Mitieli never saw him at the time. While hiding, Mitieli took a shower, and Kaminieli had a smoke. When the two finally went to operate the vessel again, they steered it away, then came to another stop. Kaminieli went to unload the life raft and, seizing his oppertunity, Tevita rushed toward it, boarding the raft for himself and rowing away before Kaminieli and Mitieli could use it. As he did so, he heard the two men shout at him from the ship that they would blame him for the murders.

Much like how Kaminieli and Mitieli's story didn't have much evidence to support that Tevita was the killer, the same could be said for Tevita; nothing directly indicated that those two were responsible for the massacre either.

With nothing actually linking either of the three to the murder aside from their testimonies from all of them who had just been through a traumatic ordeal at sea by the time they were finally questioned, the police had no choice but to release Tevita, even though they were still all but certain that foul play was likely involved in the deaths of the missing fishermen and for nearly a year, that was how the case remained, unsolved.

But then came Ivamere Nataro-Tunidau, an investigative reporter for the Fiji Sun who ran a series in the newspaper about various crimes, including government corruption in Fiji, that he helped investigate, and she had been actively following the FV Tiro II case.

On March 8, 2022, Ivamere invited Tevita to an interview, which was conducted in the company's 15-seater van parked outside his home in Suva, with the driver present as a witness.

Tevita told the reporter that his cousin had offered him the deckhand job and that it was his first time on a fishing vessel. Because he was young and it was his first job, he said the voyage was fraught with tension, mostly stemming from the insulting remarks everyone else aboard made about his "Manhood" and insinuated that he had marbles or ball bearings implanted in his genitals. He then said that the rest of the crew tried to spy on him whenever he went to relieve himself, that he spent the entire expedition being mocked and surveilled, and that he believed they were plotting against him.

Having agreed to the interview, Tevita didn't have any way to avoid talking about what happened aboard, so when Invamere eventually asked about the deaths of everyone aboard, he finally told his side of the story.

On May 17, 2021, he was smoking a cigarette on the FV Tiro II's deck when Qiritavabea came and struck him from behind with a knife. Tevita instinctively grabbed the axe and struck both Qiritavabea and one of the Indonesian workers on the hand with the axe. According to him, his actions were purely self-defence. He stated that he had decapitated Qiritavabea with a single blow, but as none of the witnesses saw a headless body, it was believed he simply struck him on the head instead.

What wasn't self-defence was when he ordered the rest of the crew at axe point to jump overboard knowing full well they wouldn't survive. Tevita also stated that he was aware Kamineli and Mitieli were hiding and knew where they had been but had decided to spare them and then make his escape. When the interview was over, Tevita warned her not to publish anything he "disliked" and threatened to call and swear at her if she did.

Ivamere was not deterred, and eventually the audio recordings of their interview were published for the public. Now with a flat-out confession to go along with Kamineli and Mitieli's testimony, the police arrested Tevita on April 5, 2022, for five counts of murder, one count of attempted murder relating to Kamineli and one count of criminal intimidation relating to Mitieli.

When Tevita reappeared in court in June to be formally charged, he pleaded not guilty. During the hearing, Tevita's father testified that his son had no history of mental illness and was of sound mind. Meanwhile, outside the court, the police had to detain and escort Tevita's sister away from the building after she initiated a verbal altercation with one of the victim's mothers.

In July 2022, Tevita abruptly dismissed his attorney, and it took until February 2023 for a new one to be assigned. Once that happened, his new lawyer attacked the reliability of his confession and the limited evidence they had on hand.

The most controversial pieces of evidence were the satellite beacons and the black box from the wreckage of the FV Tiro II. Rather than provide that evidence to the defence for them to review, the state instead applied to have it returned to Green Tuna Fisheries for erasure and then placed onto a new vessel. The court understandably sided with the defence on this issue and rejected the prosecution's petition to return the evidence to the company.

The trial began on January 14, 2025, before the Suva High Court.

Tevita being brought to the court room

The first witnesses were Kaminieli and Mitieli, who told the same story they told the police, to which the defence countered by pointing out the few oddities from earlier, the fact that Mitieli should've died being in the fish hold and the fact that Tevita should not have been able to launch the life raft on his own.

The prosecution's main job was to prove that the missing victims were in fact dead and hadn't just been picked up by another vessel and started their lives anew. Aside from Tevita's confession, the first piece of evidence they presented to support their deaths was the fact that without life jackets, it would be impossible for them to survive the conditions of the sea that night long term.

The general manager of Green Tuna Fisheries also said that he kept sending the money from their wages to the families of Benjamin, Eme and Alfat as they hadn't returned to Indonesia, which the prosecution used to support their claims that they were dead.

Since Tevita himself exercised his right to remain silent throughout the proceedings, it was up to his lawyer to attack the witnesses' credibility, focusing on the inconsistencies between Kaminieli's and Mitieli's accounts.

The defence also pointed out that $500 dollars had been found on Mitieli's person and $50 dollars on Kaminieli's. He argued that this money may be related to disputes between the two over the profits of the fish they caught and that it might be the true motive for the murders.

They also argued that those two were responsible for scuttling the FV Tiro II so the crime scene would be gone by the time they were rescued, which, if so, would make Kaminieli and Mitieli the killers, something the defence was well aware of since they used the trial to say that the two of them should've been charged for what he described as overwealming evidence that they were the real killers.

The two, of course, denied these accusations, but Kaminieli did admit that Eme once had a drunken argument with Mitieli over sharkbait. As proof of his trauma and therefore used to argue his innocence, Kaminieli stated that the murders had given him a fear of going outside, which caused him to be unemployed since 2021.

When it came to attacking Tevita's confession, the defence claimed that Ivamere had used "improper methods" to obtain it, such as making promises to him she wouldn't keep or seduction, pointing to the part of his confession where he mentioned everyone thinking he had a marble in his genitals, which his attorney said was his attempt at flirting with and trying to impress Ivamere. However, these claims were largely dismissed, in part because he had previously confessed.

In February 2022, Tevita was playing rugby with a friend who eventually asked him about what happened that night. Tevita then reportedly said that he was responsible for the deaths because he felt he should've done something to defend himself before the rest of the crew made their move first. However, at the time, the defence didn't come forward because he believed Tevita was lying.

On July 11, 2025, Tevita Qaqa Kapawale was found guilty for the quintuple homicide of Benjamin Semuel Mattaputty, Eme Warma, Alfat Kodri, Samuela Sukera, and Qiritavabea Cagilabakomeli. Before sentencing, Tevita was asked whether he had anything to say or present as a mitigating factor, and, after already showing no remorse, he admitted he had nothing.

Tevita after the guilty verdict

On August 12, Tevita was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 26 years and 2 months.

Immideately upon this sentence being handed out, officers began escorting Tevita in handcuffs out of the court. Three reporters were outside recording the police leading him away, and when Tevita saw them, he broke free from their grasp and charged toward the journalists ludging at one of the reporters and trying to attack him with the folder he was carrying before the police rushed to pull Tevita away.

Tevita's attempted assault.

With that, the case was formally closed albiet with many questions left unanswered, such as Tevita's true motive and why the FV Tiro II sank, if Kamineli and Mitieli were being entirely truthful, why the FV Tiro II was not broadcasting on AIS at the time and sadly, the five families were all left without bodies to bury.

Regardless of the answers to these questions, what is known for sure is that this case marks only the second bodyless conviction in Fijian history, preceded by the Dip Chand case from 2005.

Sources

https://pastebin.com/HypHPPkp

I haven't seen anything posted about this yet, and I usually don't post so please let me know if I've done it wrong. I'm also writing this on mobile.

16 children, ranging from 1 and a half years old to 18 years old, have been removed from a house in the village of Hamden, Ohio where they were practically imprisoned in a 12'x12' room. Some have not even learned to speak; the 18 year old couldn't write her name and is being treated as a child due to possible mental disability. 7 of the children had to be taken to a hospital with 2 of them being life flighted. Conditions in the house are said to be incredibly unsafe, to the point that investigators hesitated to act on a second search warrant for fear of their safety.

The parents and grandparents have been arrested and charged with 16 counts of child endangerment. The suspects are Gary Siders Jr., Gary Siders Sr., Christina Siders and Elizabeth Siders.

Since the investigation is still ongoing there aren't a ton of details yet. These children were obviously not enrolled in school and hidden from neighbors and extended family. I have to wonder if there's a religious extremist aspect to the case, like we've seen so often with other similar cases. I'm also curious about the mother's condition - she has been charged, but has she also been victimized by her husband? I have so many questions.