killer

A JACK the Ripper copycat who stalked the same streets as the serial killer has died in jail.

Derek Brown has died at the age of 64 after being taken to hospital.

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Brown was sentenced to a minimum term of 30 years on October 6 2008 after he was found guilty of murdering DVD seller Xiao Mei Guo, 29, and prostitute Bonnie Barrett, 24.

He denied murder but admitted paying both women for sex before their disappearance in 2007.

The previously convicted rapist found his victims in the Whitechapel area of London – famously stalked by Jack the Ripper in the 1880s.

A search of Brown’s Rotherhithe flat found traces of blood belonging to both women, as well as a receipt for a bow saw, heavy duty gloves, rubble sacks and cleaning materials.

Brown was serving his sentence in HMP Wakefield but is believed to have become unwell last month.

He was taken to hospital and died two days later on September 9 at the age of 64 – just days away from his 65th birthday.

However, his victims remains have never been found to this day.

A source close to Brown said: “He was in critical care since Saturday.

“They found him in his cell on Saturday, and he was in critical care since Saturday 5pm until Monday when he died at 3pm.”

Police at the time of the murders believed Brown sought “notoriety” for the killings.

Detective Chief Inspector Mark Kandiah said: “If he kept killing prostitutes from the Whitechapel area, then that link (with Jack the Ripper) would be made.

“If this was a spree, it seems likely that we stopped him at number two.”

A Prison Service spokesperson said: “Derek Brown died in hospital on 29 September while serving a sentence at HMP Wakefield.

“As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will investigate.”

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Ed Gein may not be America’s most infamous serial killer — he’s eclipsed by the likes of Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer in the public imagination — but his macabre crimes were fodder for several classic horror movies that are permanently imprinted on American minds.

Gein, a Midwestern farmer pushed by personal tragedy into pathological criminality, is the focus of the third season of “Monster,” Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s crime anthology series. The show’s debut season centered on Dahmer (played by Evan Peters) and its sophomore season focused on the Menendez brothers (Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch).

Charlie Hunnam leads the show’s third installment, “Monster: The Ed Gein Story,” premiering Friday on Netflix, as the titular “Butcher of Plainfield.”

“Serial killer. Grave robber. Psycho. In the frozen fields of 1950s rural Wisconsin, a friendly, mild-mannered recluse named Eddie Gein lived quietly on a decaying farm — hiding a house of horrors so gruesome it would redefine the American nightmare,” reads the show’s official logline.

“Driven by isolation, psychosis and an all-consuming obsession with his mother, Gein’s perverse crimes birthed a new kind of monster that would haunt Hollywood for decades.”

Gein’s enmeshment with his mother inspired the character Norman Bates, the bumbling motelier and murderer of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” (1960). The killer’s habit of fashioning costumes and furniture out of human skin is shared by his fictional counterparts Buffalo Bill (“The Silence of the Lambs”) and Leatherface (“The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.”)

But who was the real Ed Gein, and what moved him to commit the crimes that have fascinated horror directors for decades?

Early trauma

Born in 1906, Gein was raised on an isolated farm in Plainfield, Wis., by an alcoholic father and an ultrareligious mother, whom he adored and defended until her death in 1945.

In “Ed Gein,” a 2001 film based closely on Gein’s life, the killer’s mother teaches her sons that all women (except her) are promiscuous evildoers and restricts her sons’ contact with the outside world. While Gein’s father’s abuse is explicit, his mother’s is insidious — and arguably more deleterious to the young Gein.

“As the film portrays him, Ed Gein never had a chance,” former Times critic Kevin Thomas wrote in 2001.

In his 1989 true crime book “Deviant,” Harold Schechter characterizes the young Gein as a social outcast, resentful of almost everyone but his mother.

“Cut off from all social contacts, completely separated from the life of the community, condemned to an existence of crushing poverty in a remote and desolate region with two tormented and inimical parents, Eddie — never emotionally strong to begin with — was retreating farther and farther into a private world of fantasy,” Schechter writes.

An Oedipus complex

Gein’s father George died in 1940 of heart failure. Gein’s older brother Henry died four years later, reportedly from the same cause — though many believe Henry was actually Gein’s first victim. Then in 1945, the death of Gein’s mother Augusta reportedly triggered the soon-to-be killer’s spiral into psychosis.

The 2023 docuseries “Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein” features medical records from 1957, the year Gein, then 51, was arrested. According to these records, Gein began grave digging in the aftermath of his mother’s death. He often took the bodies back to his shed; other times, he mutilated the bodies at their grave sites.

“When questioned as to his reasons for doing this, he stated that he thought it was because he wanted a remembrance of his mother,” the records read. Gein also confessed that, “for a period of time after his mother’s death, he felt that he could arouse the dead by an act of will power. He claimed to have tried to arouse his dead mother by an act of will power and was disappointed when he was unsuccessful.”

The corpses proved to be insufficient surrogates for Gein, who later devolved into murdering middle-aged women who reminded him of his mother. His first victim, 51-year-old tavern owner Mary Hogan, disappeared in 1954, and his second, 58-year-old hardware store owner Bernice Worden, was killed in 1957.

As chronicled in “Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein,” Worden’s son Frank alerted authorities to her disappearance after he found shell casings and a trail of blood at their family hardware store. He also found a receipt for antifreeze, which Gein had inquired about the day before Worden went missing.

Upon entering Gein’s farm shed, authorities found Worden’s naked corpse hanging and mutilated “like some game animal that’s been dressed out after the kill,” “Deviant” author Schechter said in the documentary. They also found human skulls fashioned into soup bowls; lampshades and costumes made from human skin; and mutilated female body parts, among other nightmare fuel.

In a recording made on the night of Gein’s arrest and finally unearthed in 2023 — the same ones Hunnam used to inform his voice as Gein for “Monster” — the killer described his gruesome acts as “taken from reading about news magazines and them things. Taking the flesh off, like a head hunter.”

Forensic psychiatrist N.G. Berrill, who was interviewed in the Gein docuseries, said Gein was likely referencing midcentury pulp magazines that laid out the atrocities carried out by the Nazis during World War II. Ilse Koch, the wife of a Nazi commander, had a lampshade made from the skin of murdered inmates.

“The fact is, when you see all the bodies piled up and you see people as disposable, you understand that people were experimented with, if you’re inclined emotionally or psychologically to that type of thinking, even if you don’t want to admit it, it grabs your attention in sort of the wrong way,” Berrill said.

Gein ultimately confessed to murdering Hogan and Worden and robbing more than 40 graves, though he denied cannibalism and necrophilia claims. While initially convicted of first-degree murder in Worden’s death, he was eventually declared not guilty by reason of insanity — diagnosed as schizophrenic — and was institutionalized until his death due to complications from cancer in 1984.

The small-town horror story heard around the world

Gein’s crimes shocked his community and the country.

“He’s a kind of meek, unremarkable man who could have been your neighbor. And there’s something eerie about that, that is disruptive to our collective ideas of, ‘What is a monster?’” said Jooyoung Lee, a serial homicide researcher at the University of Toronto, in “Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein.”

Some people’s fascination with Gein even verged into fandom, according to Hamish McAlpine, producer of the 2000 film “Ed Gein.”

“Apparently there are 182 websites devoted to Ed Gein,” McAlpine told The Times in 2001. “There is even an Ed Gein fan club. You can buy Ed Gein memorabilia. You can buy a bust of Ed Gein, Ed Gein ashtrays and even Ed Gein calendars.”

Echoes of Gein in Hollywood

Gein’s simmering psychosis coupled with the barbarity of his crimes made him an ideal horror archetype.

Gein was the inspiration for Robert Bloch’s novel “Psycho,” which Alfred Hitchcock adapted into the 1960 film of the same name. In Hitchcock’s movie, Bates, like Gein, exhibits severe attachment to his mother. Bates murders his victims due to a form of dissociative identity disorder that drives him according to her will.

“A boy’s best friend is his mother,” Bates famously says in the film.

Gein is among the serial killers who “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991) director Jonathan Demme said inspired his film’s villain Buffalo Bill, who, like Gein, skinned his victims.

That killer quirk also made its way into “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” which sees the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface sporting a mask made of human flesh. The indie horror film’s director, Tobe Hooper, said that as a child he heard Gein’s story from his relatives who lived in Wisconsin.

“They told us the story about this man who lived in the next town from them, about 27 miles or so, who was digging up graves and using the bones and skin in his house,” Hooper said in a 2015 interview with director Barend de Voogd.

“That was all I knew about it. They didn’t mention his name,” Hooper said. “But to me he was like a real boogeyman. That stayed in my mind.”

WITH chillier months fast approaching, Brits will be grappling with the many illnesses that like to circulate at high levels during winter.

One infection in particularly experts are raising alarm bells about is pertussis, or whooping cough, which they are warning can be fatal in young infants.

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Whooping cough is a highly contagious bacterial infection affecting the lungs and airways that causes severe coughing fits, often ending in a ‘whooping’ sound as the person gasps for breath.

According to figures from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), cases have been rising since late 2023, with significant increases observed in 2024 and 2025.

This increase is part of a natural, cyclical pattern where cases peak every three to five years – with a peak being overdue after a period of very low numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While in adults and older children the cough can be bothersome and last for months, whooping cough in young children can be life-threatening.

In the UK’s 2024 resurgence, infants under three months of age experienced the highest incidence and risk of severe complications, with 328 cases reported between January and June 2024.

This age group is particularly vulnerable due to their undeveloped immune systems.

In an article published in Pediatrics, experts strongly encourage getting vaccinated to protect against the illness.

According to leading author Caitlin Li, infectious disease specialist at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinburg School of Medicine, said whooping cough symptoms are different in infants.

Coughing bouts that last for a few minutes and make a ‘whoop’ sound is one of the main symptoms listed by the NHS.

But DrLi said there’s a key symptom to look out for in kids.

She said: “The characteristic whooping cough may be absent, but apnea, or breathing interruption, is common.”

Whooping cough in infants can also present with very high white blood cell count, which paediatricians might mistake for cancer or other non-infectious conditions.

Extremely high white blood cell counts in infants should prompt strong consideration of pertussis, according to the authors.

“Given that infants are at high risk for complications, pertussis vaccination of mothers during pregnancy is critical, as it protects newborns against this potentially fatal illness,” stressed Dr Li.

“Widespread vaccination is also an important tool to protect everyone.”

Babies under 12 months old with whooping cough have an increased chance of having problems such as dehydration, breathing difficulties, pneumonia, and seizures (fits), according to the NHS.

But in the UK, the whooping cough vaccine is routinely given as part of the 6-in-1 vaccine – for babies at eight, 12 and 16 weeks – and the 4-in-1 pre-school booster – for children aged three years four months.

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People who are pregnant are also recommended to have the whooping cough vaccine.

You usually have it when you’re around 20 weeks pregnant to help protect your baby for the first few weeks of their life.

Rapid initiation of antibiotics is recommended for all patients with confirmed or suspected whooping cough.

If given early, this may improve symptoms, while later treatment is unlikely to impact symptoms, although it does reduce transmission.

The NHS also recommends some things you can do to help ease the symptoms of whooping cough – get plenty of rest, drink lots of fluids, and take paracetamol or ibuprofen if you or your child are uncomfortable

But it urges you call 999 or go to A&E if:

• your or your child’s lips, tongue, face or skin suddenly turn blue or grey (on black or brown skin this may be easier to see on the palms of the hands or the soles of the feet)
• you or your child are finding it hard to breathe properly (shallow breathing)
• you or your child have chest pain that’s worse when breathing or coughing – this could be a sign of pneumonia
• your child is having seizures (fits)

A BRITISH man who stabbed his flat mate to death in Portugal has been found after spending more than a year on the run.

William Hunter murdered 22-year-old Elliot Mulligan in an Albufeira apartment in April 2022.

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The 34-year-old was sentenced to spend 18 years behind bars for killing the Liverpool man, but lodged an appeal in 2023.

He was released on bail in April the following year, after reaching the custodial time limit for prisoners on remand.

Hunter immediately breached his bail and fled, leading police on a multi-agency manhunt.

The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) said he was arrested by Guardia Civil officers in Alicante on September 15.

Portuguese authorities have sought the killer to be extradited and complete his jail sentence.

In a statement, NCA spokesman Gill Duggan said: “Above all, our thoughts remain with Elliot’s family, who have endured an unimaginable loss and the painful reality that the man responsible had not been held accountable for his violent actions”.

“Our pursuit of Hunter was relentless, driven by a deep commitment to securing justice for those who love Elliot,” he continued.

“With thanks to our partners at Merseyside Police and in Spain and Portugal, Hunter is behind bars where he belongs, and where he will remain for a long time to come.”

Detective Superintendent Mark Drew from Merseyside Police said Hunter’s arrest had been a “joint operation”.

“We are committed to working with our partners to capture those that evade law enforcement and bring them to justice,” he said.

“We continue to support Elliot’s family.

“As they finally see justice being done for their tragic loss, we hope that the arrest of William Hunter brings them some comfort.”

Hunter was convicted and sentenced over the brutal murder in 2023, where he stabbed Elliot multiple times in the chest, back, arms and hands.

The two men had been living together when they’d gotten into an argument on April 6 in 2022.

Hunter later launched his savage attack, stabbing Elliot 24 times.

Elliot attempted to flee the luxury flat by jumping from the balcony, walking several metres across the garden before eventually collapsing.

Emergency services were unable to save him, and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

An autopsy of Elliot’s body found he had died from multiple incisive wounds.

Alphabet‘s (GOOG 1.27%) (GOOGL 1.23%) Google recently unveiled its Google Cloud Universal Ledger (GCUL), which has a lot in common with Ripple Labs’ XRP (XRP -0.69%) Ledger (XRPL). Both blockchains provide faster, cheaper, and more secure financial transactions than traditional SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) transfers, and they both support cross-border transfers, automated payments, integrations with third-party digital wallets, and tokenized assets.

That announcement might alarm Ripple’s users and XRP’s investors, but is Google really trying to kill XRP? Let’s review the key similarities and differences to find out.

Image source: Getty Images.

The similarities and differences between GCUL and XRPL

GCUL and XRPL are both designed to facilitate faster financial transactions, but there are three key differences.

First, GCUL is a centralized private platform that is only open to vetted and approved institutions. It’s geared toward regulatory compliance, stability, and institutional control, with Google Cloud initially managing its governance and infrastructure services.

XRPL is a decentralized public platform that anyone can access. Its validators are spread out across the world instead of being corralled within a single company. That can be a double-edged sword: It can be more freely accessed than GCUL, but the lack of a vetting and approval process exposes it to more illegal transactions.

Second, GCUL doesn’t have its own native token. XRPL has a native token, XRP, which is mainly used to satisfy its settlements, fees, and reserve requirements. XRPL’s fees are low, but its fees rise as its network activity increases. GCUL charges predictable monthly fees instead of relying on volatile fees driven by the blockchain system’s “tokenomics.”

XRPL also has its own native stablecoin, Ripple USD (RLUSD -0.01%), which is pegged to the U.S. dollar. Both Ripple USD and XRP are frequently used for bridge currency transfers — in which two volatile or illiquid currencies are directly converted to the native token as a “bridge” instead of being converted to a third fiat currency (like the U.S. dollar) in a slower and pricier transaction. Without its own tokens, GCUL will likely underperform XRPL in those bridge currency transfers.

Lastly, GCUL natively supports smart contracts, which are used in the development of blockchain-based applications. XRPL only natively supports lightweight “hooks” for developing simpler programs, but it’s reportedly been mulling the development of “sidechains” to integrate more Ethereum (ETH 0.50%)-based smart contracts into its ledger.

Is GCUL a threat to XRPL?

Google’s GCUL could be an appealing option for larger banks, clearinghouses, and asset managers who prefer a tightly regulated platform with predictable fees. It could also be a natural fit for large enterprise customers that are already locked into Google’s cloud-based services.

However, XRPL’s decentralized approach, resistance to regulators, and lower fees should make it more appealing to individual users and smaller financial institutions who don’t want to lock themselves into Google’s ecosystem. Google is also approving GCUL’s customers on a strict case-by-case basis, which could drive more customers to XRPL due to the sluggish process.

Moreover, Google doesn’t plan to officially launch GCUL until 2026. Before that happens, a few major catalysts could spark XRPL’s near-term expansion: the increased adoption of Ripple USD as an alternative to the U.S. dollar; the approvals of XRP’s first spot price exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in October and November, and the rollout of more sidechains to support the development of decentralized apps (dApps) and other crypto assets.

XRPL has already partnered with more than 300 banks worldwide, so there could plenty of room for both of these blockchains to flourish without trampling each other. XRPL and GCUL certainly have plenty of overlapping interests, but it’s premature to call the latter — or any other newcomer — an “XRP killer” before it even launches.

The deluge of conspiracy theories began almost the moment authorities revealed the text messages allegedly sent by the suspected assassin of right-wing American activist Charlie Kirk.

After prosecutors in the US state of Utah published alleged text exchanges between 22-year-old Tyler Robinson and his romantic partner on Tuesday, countless social media users, including numerous prominent influencers, cast doubt on their authenticity.

Some outright claimed that the texts, in which Robinson appears to confess to killing Kirk, had been fabricated by authorities.

Many of the posts suggested that the language and tone of the exchanges did not match someone of Robinson’s age, and the account of the shooting was too forthcoming and detailed to be believable.

Notably, at a time of extreme political polarisation in the US, the conspiracy theorising united figures on the left and right.

Matt Walsh, a right-wing commentator and podcast host with millions of followers on X and YouTube, suggested the exchanges had been scripted to absolve Robinson’s transgender partner of any involvement in the shooting.

“This feels like a strategy they cooked up from watching too much TV,” Walsh said on X.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox has said that the partner, described as a “male transitioning to female”, had no advance knowledge of the crime and has been cooperating fully with authorities.

Steven Bannon, US President Donald Trump’s former adviser, said on his podcast that he was “not buying” the texts, describing them as “too stilted, too much like a script”.

On the other side of the political spectrum, Majid Padellan, a progressive influencer who goes by Brooklyn Dad Defiant on social media, said he did not believe for “one second” that the texts had been written by Robinson.

“I didn’t know him personally, but I know that no 22 year old writes text messages like this,” Padellan said on X.

“This feels like that Steve Buscemi skateboard meme ‘How do you do, fellow kids?”’

Liberal commentator Joanne Carducci, who posts under the moniker JoJoFromJerz, noted that the official narrative around the assassination had prompted rare agreement across the ideological divide.

“No one is buying these text messages. No one on the left or the right,” Carducci said on X.

“We cannot agree on a damn thing anymore. But we agree on this. If that doesn’t speak volumes, nothing does.”

The Utah County Attorney did not respond to a request for comment about the claims online.

Speculation and conspiracy theories have become a routine feature of the reaction to high-profile acts of violence in the US in the polarised and trigger-happy landscape of social media and online forums.

After a gunman shot dead a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband in June, right-wing conspiracy theorists claimed that the shooting had been perpetrated by a left-wing extremist or carried out on behalf of the state’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz.

The alleged gunman, Vance Boelter, espoused staunchly conservative views on issues including abortion and LGBTQ rights.

The 2022 mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas; the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Florida; and the 2017 Las Vegas shooting all spawned right-wing conspiracy theories, including the claim that the attacks had been staged to give the US government a pretext to curtail gun rights.

While many conspiracy theories have been driven by a particular ideological faction, Kirk’s assassination is the latest event to fuel unfounded claims with “cross-ideological appeal”, said Eric Oliver, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago who studies conspiracy theories.

Claims about Robinson fit the mould of theories about the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the pharmaceutical industry, which also cut across partisan and ideological lines, Oliver said.

“People are also really emotionally charged by this, both on the left and the right, and will often gravitate to stories that rationalise their fear, rage, or feelings of powerlessness,” Oliver told Al Jazeera.

The “extraordinary circumstances” of Kirk’s murder, including a relative lack of information about Robinson, had also left a vacuum that was being filled by people “already suspicious of anything either the government does or this administration does”, Oliver added.

The transcripts of Robinson’s alleged texts released by prosecutors provided some of the clearest indications yet of a possible motive for assassinating Kirk, who was lauded by conservatives but seen as an inflammatory figure on the left for his right-wing stances on immigration, abortion and transgender rights, among other issues.

Robinson allegedly told his partner that he had “had enough” of Kirk’s “hatred” and “some hate can’t be negotiated out”.

Authorities previously announced that they recovered bullet casings inscribed with a number of politically-charged and internet subculture-influenced messages, including “Hey fascist! Catch!”

Prosecutors, who allege Kirk was targeted over his “political expression”, have charged Robinson with aggravated murder and six other charges.

That the released details of Robinson’s alleged communication with his partner after Kirk’s assassination have only further fuelled conspiracies is not surprising, suggest experts.

“Many people have a worldview in which conspiracies are going on all the time and explain our social and political circumstances – those people believe lots and lots of conspiracy theories and exist on both the right and left,” said Joseph Uscinski, a professor of political science at the University of Miami, whose research focuses on conspiracy theories.

And though conspiracy theorising has become rampant on social media, the platforms themselves are not the problem, Uscinski said.

“People have worldviews; some of those worldviews make conspiracy theories easy to believe, whether those people are on social media or not,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Conspiracy theories existed long before social media and may have been more prominent then. We have to remember that people seek out content on social media that they like; they are not necessarily persuaded by social media content as much as they are attracted to content that tells them what they already believe.”

THEY were lovers from opposite ends of society — a runaway aristocrat and a convicted rapist who sparked a nationwide manhunt when they went on the run to hide their secret newborn baby from social services.

Now, in a dramatic twist, Mark Gordon’s sister has lifted the lid on her convict brother’s twisted past that led him on the path to a toxic “Romeo and Juliet” romance – culminating in the tragic death of their child.

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It comes as Marten, 38, and Gordon, 51, were yesterday sentenced to 14 years behind bars after being convicted of gross negligence manslaughter when their newborn baby, Victoria, died, likely of hypothermia.

Gordon got an extended four-year licence as he met the threshold for dangerousness, meaning he has a high risk of reoffending.

It means after serving his sentence, he will remain under state supervision and have certain restrictions.

Speaking exclusively to The Sun, Karen Satchell, 54, from North London, reveals for the first time how her jailbird brother dreamed of a new life – and fathered another child before vanishing off-grid with Marten.

She told how her brother was once dubbed “The Preacher” by other lags because he often quoted from the Bible when he was serving 20 years in a US jail for rape, aged 14.

We can also reveal that he had his first baby just a couple of years after returning to the UK after spending time in an American jail.

The child now lives in Greece with their mother, and Gordon’s family still get sent pictures of how they are doing.

Sister Karen Satchell said the runaway father had ambitions to become a businessman before his life spiralled further after a chance encounter with Constance, a woman closely linked to the Royal Family.

And he became increasingly paranoid in what Karen has called a “Romeo and Juliet” style relationship, with lovers from two wildly different families.

It is understood Gordon met Marten’s relatives shortly after they began dating around 2014, and even went to their house before Marten became estranged from them.

With Constance, 38, Gordon had five children – four of whom were taken off them after concerns over their caring abilities, and the fifth, Victoria.

Gordon grew up as a “shy” lad in Birmingham, attending the state comprehensive Yardley Primary School.

While future-wife Marten – the daughter of Queen Elizabeth II’s former page – reminisced about childhood picnics and naked siestas in hay bales at her country mansion in Dorset, Gordon, the youngest of seven, was digging up dirt in his yard and chasing his sisters around with worms.

Half-sister Karen remembers him as a “good kid”, adding: “A proper naughty little brother but more mischievous than anything bad.”

He went to church weekly with his tight-knit family, and his mum Sylvia was a licensed pastor.

He totally shut down and was in a daze. He wasn’t aware of what was really going on. He looked younger than he was. To think of him with felonies is unbelievable.

Karen Satchell on Mark Gordon’s rape arrest

And while Marten’s family had annual skiing holidays, Gordon’s went to Butlins each year, where he once won some money and flowers in a mother-and-son competition.

Karen said: “They were standing on the stage and Mark was asked a few questions about his mum.

“They thought they were the most bonded.”

But he was described as “a bit of a loner” and preferring instead to play by himself, or hang out with Karen and her friends, following them around and threatening to snitch on her to his mum if she was ever up to no good.

When he was still young, Sylvia moved to America to try to build a better life for them, while Mark and Karen stayed in Britain with a nanny.

They were excited when, aged 11 and 15, they joined Sylvia in New York – but it was a culture shock.

They started off at a run-down school in the Bronx, plagued by bad behaviour and knives. Then moved to a better school, but had to catch two trains and two buses to get there.

A year later, the family relocated to a three-bed, single-storey home in a predominantly white neighbourhood in Florida while their mum studied to be a nurse.

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Karen said: “We became popular – everybody wanted to hear us talk because of our accent.

“The girls loved Mark. They knew where he lived and followed him home.

“They would knock on the door, and he was hiding. He didn’t want to talk to them. He was really shy. I never saw him with a girlfriend.

“When I got to the age when I had a boyfriend, he tended to stay home in his room. I was like ‘come out of your room, talk to some girls’. He said ‘get out, leave me alone’.”

‘He shut down’ after rape arrest

Their happy family life turned upside down, however, when he was arrested for rape in 1989.

They panicked when he failed to return home and spent all evening searching the neighbourhood for him, fearing for his safety.

Mum Sylvia, who was training to be a nurse, was away in Jamaica at the time but flew back in a panic as Mark’s siblings phoned the police to make a missing persons report.

But when Sylvia turned up at the police station, she was devastated to hear her last-born son had made a taped confession to rape.

Karen said: “We were devastated. He never spoke. He stopped speaking.

“He totally shut down and was in a daze. He wasn’t aware of what was really going on.

“He looked younger than he was. To think of him with felonies is unbelievable.”

He was convicted of armed kidnapping, multiple counts of armed sexual battery and other charges in 1994.

His family visited him frequently in prison, but he never spoke about any hardships inside.

He had been nicknamed ‘The Preacher’, thought to have been because he was often quoting the bible to get through.

But Karen said he also became incredibly studious.

He got a degree after studying electrical engineering, IT and business management – and built up the life he wanted to lead in his head.

‘He’s somebody you don’t want to cross’

When he returned to Britain in 2010, Karen says he was different – much more philosophical and a “proper naturalist” who worked out and was into healthy eating.

She often saw him having blended vegetables or raw eggs, and was into herbal tea and holistic healing.

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Karen also described him as cunning, charming, but still incredibly private.

She threw a welcome home party for him at her flat in Palmers Green, but he never went.

In fact, she didn’t hear from him for six months after he landed.

Karen said: “He went quiet and we didn’t know where he was.

“I was ringing, trying to go to prisons and agencies, trying to find out where he went. I had been waiting for him.

“When he was on his feet, he showed up. I was like ‘Where have you been?’.

“He was smiling and laughing, saying: ‘I’m alright, sis.’

There’s a look in his eyes that would make you shut up. You shut up and agree with him. He does these weird stares.

Karen Satchellon her brother’s chilling look

He would often turn up to see his sister wearing smart suits, he went to business conventions and became interested in investments, stocks and bonds. She said he was articulate and productive.

He “never drank, never smoked, never swore, never raised his voice” and told his family he always had different ventures and sales meetings going on.

But she also remembered he sometimes had a strange look in his eyes.

She said: “This is what got him through his jail time. There’s a look in his eyes that would make you shut up.

“You shut up and agree with him. He does these weird stares.

“He’s not a person who had to do anything action-wise. You would look at him and go ‘leave that man alone’.

“He looks like somebody you don’t want to cross with. But when you get past that, he’s quite shy. I think that’s his defence mechanism.”

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He also never told her exactly where he lived, nor exactly what he did.

Within the first year of coming back to Britain, he had his first daughter, who Karen never found out about until she was two.

She went to meet her for the first time when she was three, when Mark was living with her and her mother in Ilford, East London.

Karen said: “We were shocked. We didn’t know he had a daughter. He was a private guy.

“When I met the girl, they had been together for a little while. She was lovely. So beautiful. He took care of his kids really well.”

She added: “I think he always wanted to be a dad.”

They broke up shortly after for unknown reasons, just before Mark met Constance Marten in an incense shop in Tottenham, North London, in 2014.

Paranoid he was being followed

After this, Karen says he became noticeably more paranoid, often talking about people following or tracking him.

He moved around after dark, whispered on the phone and asked to meet his sister in parks at strange hours.

When he visited Karen, he would stay for a few minutes, ask about them and just laugh if asked where he was staying.

He would say: “It’s alright, sis, you don’t need to know.”

He stayed with her in 2015 for around a month, coming in and out regularly at night, before suddenly leaving without a fuss.

Karen remembered: “I’d say Where do you live? Where are you going?

“I want to help like a big sister would. He just said it’s okay, I don’t need it, I’m good.

“They went travelling a lot. I asked him how he could go to all these places.

“He just did a little smirk and said: ‘Don’t worry, you will get there one day.’”

Gordon and Marten’s troubles escalated shortly after they got married in Peru, in a ceremony that is not recognised in the UK.

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They then had their first baby in 2017 after living in a tent together in Wales to escape Marten’s family and their private investigators.

Karen said: “He called me once from Wales and asked me to help him out, and if he could stay at my address.

“He called and said, ‘What are you doing? ‘ but said he couldn’t talk right now because ‘they are listening’. It was weird.

“He said, ‘You can’t help me’. He said he had gone to see his wife. He was hiding out, whispering.

“He said I’m visiting my wife. I asked what was wrong, and he just said ‘Long story, something to do with the baby’.

“He said he was trying to get his wife moved out. He wanted to come back to London.”

His family only knew about his first two babies with Constance.

They never met her, and don’t even know the gender of the second two children and were never told anything about their battle with social services.

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The couple were supposed to spend Christmas 2019 with Karen, but Mark arrived without her, saying she was away and that “It’s complicated”.

Karen said: “I said, ‘Why, who is she? The Queen? Then it turned out she was linked to the Queen!”

She reckons Marten was the “boss” in their marriage, while Mark would have guided her decision-making.

And she insisted the couple just “wanted to be naturalists”.

She last spoke to Mark about a year before he went on the run, which would have been during the time he and Constance were trying to keep the latest pregnancy hidden from everyone.

Days after his arrest, Victoria’s body was found dead in a plastic bag in a disused allotment shed.

Karen concluded: “It went terribly wrong. They made a terrible mistake.”

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Sept. 4 (UPI) — The body of man found in a pool of blood Saturday in Nevada’s Black Rock City during the Burning Man alternative art scene festival has been identified, authorities said, as they continue to search for a suspect.

The Pershing County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday that the Washoe Medical Examiner’s Office has identified the victim of the Burning Man homicide as Vadim Kruglov, 37, of Washington State.

“Our sincerest condolences form the Pershing County Sheriff’s Office go out to Vadim Kruglov’s family for this tragic loss,” it said in a statement, adding the deceased’s family have been notified.

Police were notified at about 9:14 p.m. PDT Saturday of “a male subject lying in a pool of blood” at a Black Rock City campsite, according to the sheriff’s office, which said that when deputies arrived to the scene they “found a single White adult male lying on the ground, obviously deceased.”

Black Rock City is a temporary settlement in the Back Rock Desert area in northwest Nevada, about 90 miles north of Reno, which exists for only one week during the Burning Man festival. Tens of thousands attend every year.

Authorities continue to search for Kruglov’s killer, and has called on the public for assistance, asking anyone with information regarding the homicide to contact them immediately.

“At this time, no information is too small to disregard, so do not hesitate to contact my office,” Pershing County Sheriff Jerry Allen said in a statement.

Burning Man said Kruglov was a Russian national, and that it is doing everything it can to help the sheriff’s office investigation.

“Burning Man Project extends our deepest condolences to Mr. Kruglov’s loved ones as they prepare to return him home to Russia,” Marian Goodell, CEO of the Burning Man Project, said in a statement.

“We also extend our compassion to our wider community of participants, volunteers and staff alike. Together, we strive to uphold the values at the heart of the Burning Man community.”

CHICKENPOX has gained a reputation as a ‘harmless’ childhood illness that it’s best to get over with – but it could result in dangerous complications for some and may even prove fatal.

It was announced that children will be given chickenpox vaccines for free on the NHS for the first time from January 2026.

The jab is already used in the US, Canada, Australia and Germany.

One to three-year-olds in the UK will receive the chickenpox vaccine along with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) jab.

The combined vaccine will now be dubbed MMRV, as it will protect against the varicella zoster virus.

Responding to news of the chickenpox vaccine rollout in the UK, Dr Gayatri Amirthalingam, from the UK Health Security Agency, said: “For some babies, young children and even adults, chickenpox can be very serious.

“It is excellent news that we will be introducing a vaccine. It could be a lifesaver.”

The news was coupled with warnings from experts that nearly one in five school-starters are not fully protected against preventable diseases – with uptake for the four-in-one diphtheria, tetanus, polio and whooping cough booster and MMR jabs having dropped again.

Chickenpox is a highly contagious infection known for its telltale itchy, spotty rash that blisters and scabs over.

But before these spots appear, the virus can also cause a high temperature, aches and pains, and loss of appetite.

Though it’s mostly known to infect children, adults can also catch chickenpox if they didn’t pick it up in childhood.

These infections tend to be more severe and adults with a varicella infection are more likely to be admitted to hospital.

Most people will recover on their own within a week or two, but the infection can be serious, even life-threatening, for some – especially if they’re very young or old, pregnant or have a weakened immune system.

The illness can result in bacterial skin infections and in rare cases, pneumonia, brain swelling and stroke.

For some, these complications can be fatal.

An average of around 20 people die of chickenpox per year, according to the Vaccine Knowledge Project at the University of Oxford.

This ranges from 17 deaths in 2017, to four in 2020, according to Office for National Statistics data.

Eighty per cent of deaths from chickenpox infections in England and Wales occur in adults, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) states.

1. Bacterial infections

Chickenpox spots can appear anywhere on the body – including inside the mouth and around the genitals.

They tend to develop into fluid-filled blisters, before bursting and scabbing over, which can take a few days.

The spots tend to be maddeningly itchy, so it can be hard to resist the temptation of scratching them – though soothing creams and cool baths can help.

Sometimes the chickenpox spots can get infected with bacteria – probably from scratching, according to healthcare provider Bupa.

Signs of a bacterial infection include a high temperature and redness and pain around the chickenpox spots.

You should seek urgent medical help if you or your child develop these symptoms.

2. Dehydration

Young children do run the risk of becoming dehydrated due to chickenpox.

For babies and kids, fewer wet nappies and peeing less can be telltale signs of dehydration.

Other signs may include:

• Feeling thirsty
• Dark yellow, strong-smelling pee
• Feeling dizzy or lightheaded
• Feeling tired
• A dry mouth, lips and tongue
• Sunken eyes

Call NHS 111 if you suspect you or your little one are dehydrated from chickenpox.

3. Pneumonia

Some people – especially adults – can develop pneumonia, inflammation of the lungs, after being infected with chickenpox.

Pneumonia is the most common chickenpox complication in adults, according to NICE.

Smokers are particularly at risk.

Symptoms of pneumonia can include:

• A cough with yellow or green mucus
• Shortness of breath
• A high temperature
• Chest pain
• An aching body
• Feeling very tired
• Loss of appetite
• Making wheezing noises when you breathe
• Feeling confused

4. Brain swelling

Infection or swelling of the brain, known as encephalitis, is a rare complication of the chickenpox infection.

Professor Benedict Michael, Institute of Infection, University of Liverpool, said: “Varicella-zoster virus is the second leading cause of brain infection (or ‘encephalitis’) in the UK, which can be life-threatening.

“Early diagnosis and treatment are essential, but prevention through vaccination is the most effective way to protect children and families from this serious complication.”

Dr Ava Easton, Chief Executive of Encephalitis International, added: “By making [the chickenpox vaccine] available to every child, we’re not only reducing the spread of chickenpox but also helping to stop some families from ever facing the devastating impact of encephalitis.

“That’s a powerful step forward for children’s health and for awareness of a condition too few people know about.”

Encephalitis usually starts off with flu-like symptoms, such as a high temperature and headache.

More serious symptoms develop in the next few hours, days or weeks, including:

• Confusion or disorientation
• Seizures or fits
• Changes in personality and behaviour
• Difficulty speaking
• Weakness or loss of movement in some parts of the body
• Loss of consciousness

Dial 999 for an ambulance immediately if you or someone else has these serious symptoms.

5. Stroke

According to the Stroke Association, children who develop chickenpox may have a four times higher risk of stroke in the six months following infection.

“However, stroke in children is still rare and the finding translates into a very small actual increase in their stroke risk,” it noted.

Studies by the organisation also found that adults with shingles – also caused by the varicella zoster virus – may also have an increased risk of stroke up until six months afterwards.

“This is particularly within the first few weeks, and for individuals with shingles around the eye,” Stroke Association said.

“Oral antiviral drugs used to treat shingles may be able to reduce this risk.”

6. Sepsis

In rare cases, chickenpox can result in sepsis – when the body’s immune system overreacts to an infection, attacking its own tissues and organs.

Sepsis can be life threatening and requires immediate medical help.

It can also be hard to spot, as there are lots of possible symptoms.

In adults, remember the SEPSIS acronym:

• Slurred speech or confusion
• Extreme shivering or muscle pain
• Passing no urine (in a day)
• Severe breathlessness
• It feels like you’re going to die
• Skin mottled, discoloured, or cold

Other signs include:

• High or very low body temperature
• Rapid heart rate
• Low blood pressure
• Rapid breathing

In children, look out for: 

• Fast breathing
• Lethargy or difficulty waking up
• Mottled, pale, or bluish skin
• Very cold hands and feet
• Seizures
• A rash that doesn’t fade when pressed ,which is a sign of meningococcal sepsis
• Babies not feeding or vomiting 

THIS is the astonishing moment a “jewellery thief” is wrestled to the ground and held in a “lion killer” chokehold by tourists.

Brazilian brothers Gabriel and Gustavo Galindo sprung into action after hearing screams from a man claiming he had been robbed.

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Both black belts in Jiu-Jitsu, the siblings quickly put the alleged thief into a “lion killer” chokehold – a popular martial art move that can, in some instances, be deadly.

When police arrived 10 minutes later to escort the man away, applause and cheers erupted for the two brothers.

Shocking footage shows the man pinned to the ground as he attempts to wriggle out of the stranglehold.

According to Brazilian news, the alleged thief tried to bite Gabriel before being warned to “stay still” or leave without an arm.

Gabriel said: “I put him on the ground to show him Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

“By then, there was already a crowd of people enraged with anger towards the unfortunate man.

“Some angry people started to beat him up, but I didn’t have the heart to let them hurt him too badly.”

“We stopped the robbery, taught the thief a lesson, and kept everyone safe.”

Posting the video online, Gabriel quipped: “Enjoying ourselves in Barcelona.”

The clip has massed thousands of views, with hundreds congratulating the holidaygoers for their efforts.

One user hailed the lads “champions” while another crowned them modern day superheroes.

The pair, who were in Barcelona, Spain on a European tour with their family at the time, later said they were left with a “good story to tell”.

Gabriel said: “And we went back to enjoying our day in Barcelona—with a great story to tell.”

Barcelona is notorious for its rampant thieves who target unsuspecting tourists.

Just a couple months ago, extraordinary footage emerged of another tourist tackling a thief to the ground and holding him in a chokehold.

Meanwhile, aast August, Sir Ben Ainslie was robbed at knifepoint for his £17,000 Rolex in the Spanish city.

Ainslie, 47, recalled the horror as a gang mugged him while out for a meal on Saturday night in Barcelona.

The terrifying attack unfolded when he was leaving a restaurant, as reported by local media La Vanguardia.

And last year, unbelievable footage captured a thief swiping a Brit tourist’s phone just as he proposed to his girlfriend in Barcelona.

Footage showed Charlie Bullock surprising his now-fiancée Hannah McNaghten by going down on one knee – but the romantic moment is cut short as a thug is captured nabbing the device.

Charlie propped up his phone on the wall as the two posed for a picture outside Barcelona‘s famous Arc de Triomf, with Hannah totally unaware of what would happen next.

And in 2022, Barcelona FC star Robert Lewandowski chased a thief who stole his £59,000 watch as he signed autographs.

Before an evening training session, the Poland hitman stopped to greet fans outside the club’s Ciutat Esportiva complex.

But one crafty thief used the distraction to open Lewandowski’s car door and make off with the high-end time piece.

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A MAN was “chased and attacked” by three teens before he was murdered on a beach, a court heard today.

Alexander Cashford, 49, suffered multiple injuries during the horror in Isle of Sheppey, Kent, on Sunday night.

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A 16-year-old girl and two boys aged 14 and 15, have been charged with murder by joint enterprise.

The trio, who legally cannot be named, appeared at Maidstone Crown Court today as their families watched from the public gallery.

The court was told the attack allegedly involved a glass bottle and rocks being thrown.

Alexander’s cause of death is currently inconclusive as he seems to have suffered a “medical episode such as a cardiac arrest”

The prosecutor said this “could have been brought on by being chased and attacked”.

Alexander was discovered with bruising to his “lower ribs and stomach” along with an injury to his head.

Some locals who witnesses the “violent assault” tried to provide CPR, the court was told.

The girl and two boys, who are believed to have been on holiday at the time, spoke only to confirm their names, dates of birth and addresses.

No pleas were entered but a provisional trial date was set for January 13 next year.

The teens were remanded into youth detention accommodation ahead of a hearing on November 6.

A 12-year-old girl, arrested on August 12 in Basildon in connection with the alleged attack, has been bailed.

It comes after court documents revealed Alexander pleaded guilty to stalking involving serious harm or distress on March 17 this year.

He followed a woman home from work and approached her front door in the early hours of the morning.

The stalker returned seven minutes later and posted a letter and chocolate bar through her door.

Alexander was handed a one-month curfew and was fitted with a tag, which was due to remain on until September 16.

He was also hit with a restraining order blocking contact with the victim and was told to stay away from her street and the Hempstead Valley Shopping Centre in Gillingham.

Police were scrambled to the Warden Bay Road area of Leysdown-on-Sea shortly after 7pm on Sunday following reports of an “altercation”.

Witnesses in Leysdown-on-Sea claimed the man was “hit with stones and rocks” before he died.

Anthony West, site manager at Jimmy G’s Amusements, said the teens were then arrested in the arcade near the seafront.

Detectives are continuing to appeal for any witnesses who have not yet spoken to police to come forward.

Anyone with information has been asked to call Kent Police on 01622 690690 quoting 10-1384.

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THE mother of a teenage boy murdered at school says his 15-year-old killer should be named when he is sentenced.

He was convicted last week of stabbing Harvey Willgoose, 15, through the heart in a courtyard during a lunch break.

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He cannot be identified due to an order imposed when he first appeared at court in February.

Media organisations asked Sheffield crown court judge Mrs Justice Ellenbogen to lift the ban in October but she said she wants to hear prosecution and defence views.

However news outlets were allowed to name the school involved as the city’s All Saints Catholic High School.

Yesterday, mum Caroline told BBC Breakfast: “Harvey hasn’t been here to speak up for himself and he’s been named. So, I think the defendant should as well.”

Harvey’s sister Sophie said of the killer: “He’s a 15-year-old boy. We’d like to think that he didn’t want to murder Harvey.

“He’s just from a troubled background and services have let him down.”

Heartbroken Caroline has revealed that Harvey’s final words to her before he left the family home to go to school on Monday were “I love you”.

She told the BBC: “I have got his grubby t-shirt on so I can smell him.

“I don’t want to go to sleep because I don’t want to wake up and have to relive it all and remember it.”

She described her son as “the life and soul of the party” and “a joy to be around”.

“He loved football, football was his life. He was going to be an actor at one point, I think he would have been good at it”, she told the news site.

Harvey’s father, Mark, said his son was his “best pal” and described him as a “loveable rogue”.

“We need to learn from this so no-one goes through what we have as a family,” he said.

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Coronation Street fans think a former villain will be revealed as the person who orchestrated the death of Lisa Swain’s wife Becky Swain, and DI Costello could be involved

Becky Swain’s real killer on Coronation Street may have been rumbled according to fans of the ITV soap.

This week’s episodes have left them convinced that an existing character is involved in Becky’s death and a possible cover-up. Not only that, but fans think a past villain may return and be revealed as the reason Becky is dead.

It comes as Lisa Swain continued to dig into her late wife’s demise in recent scenes, after suggestion she may have been a corrupt officer. DI Costello downplayed this as he called out Lisa for sneaking onto his computer to access Becky’s files.

READ MORE: Coronation Street star announces abrupt exit as character ‘killed off’ without warningREAD MORE: Coronation Street Sally Ann Matthews axed as Jenny Connor 39 years after debut

Costello’s reaction, the comments from Logan Radcliffe to Lisa’s partner Carla Connor and a scene with Lisa’s therapist Floyd have now left fans certain a cover-up is confirmed. Not only that, but they think they have figured out how everything ties together.

With Costello appearing to know more than he’s letting on, fans think he is harbouring the true events that led to Becky’s demise, or at least what happened to her. Logan knows something too, with it revealed earlier this year that he and his brother Matty Radcliffe were driving the car that hit and killed her.

Then there’s Floyd’s weird comment to a mystery person on the phone about a “breakthrough” with Lisa during a session, moments after she confessed her fears Becky was corrupt. Fans are now wondering if Floyd is also involved.

But it’s a former villain that some fans are convinced knows something, and could even be Becky’s killer – or the person who made it happen. Costello could also be tied in according to the theory, and it could see said villain return to the soap.

Logan and Matty were revealed to be working for former baddie Harvey Gaskell months ago. He targeted David Platt via the brothers, and now fans are wondering if he was up to no good with either Becky involved, or she figured out what was going on.

Fans have wondered if Costello is corrupt and may have been in cahoots with Harvey, and either he or Harvey had the Radcliffe brothers silence Becky – either because she was about to expose them or because she was involved. Taking to social media, fans theorised Harvey would soon be revealed to be the killer, and this is the “mutual friend” who orchestrated an attack, it seems, on Logan in prison on Friday.

One fan said: “OK so my theory is Costello and Becky were both corrupt, working for Harvey Gaskell. Becky was ‘caught out’, an investigation opened and Harvey, seeing her as a liability gets the Radcliffe’s to kill her and Costello to cover it up.”

Another fan said: “Now I’ve a feeling that either the counsellor guy or Costello are involved in someway in Becky’s death.” A third fan said: “Costello is definitely part of this whole thing. ‘He’s been worried about me since Becky died’. He f***ing killed her.”

A further comment read: “Now I’m thinking Costello knows more than he’s letting on!” as another said: “I think so too. I think he is a big part of the reason the Radcliffe’s got away with so much.”

Coronation Street airs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV1 and ITV X. * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .

“It’s 1997 all over again. Isn’t that nostalgic?” Freddie Prinze Jr. says to fellow millennial heartthrob Jennifer Love Hewitt in this fittingly silly resurrection of the B-movie slasher franchise “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” In the ’90s original, based on the young adult novel of the same name by Lois Duncan, Prinze and Hewitt played Ray and Julie, the sole survivors of a teen clique that accidentally runs over a stranger, conceals the crime and then, one year later, needs to flee a hook-wielding avenger over the Fourth of July weekend. Having endured that escapade and a sequel that chased them to the Bahamas, the duo is back for this mildly meta installment to mentor a new generation of manslaughterers. A mysterious raincoat-clad killer has a point when a message in blood is smeared: You can’t evade the past.

The five youngsters fleeing the inevitable are sensible Ava (Chase Sui Wonders) and her bland ex-boyfriend Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), daffy blond Danica (Madelyn Cline) and her rich fiancé Teddy (Tyriq Withers) and hard luck Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon), who just got out of rehab. Slightly older than their forebearers were during their misadventure, they’re all in their early 20s and launching their adult lives when they repeat the same deadly mistake on the same night, on the same stretch of coastal road in Southport, North Carolina. Danica groans, “It’s called Reaper’s Curve for a reason.”

Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s perky update has a few things going for it, including low expectations. Co-written with former journalist Sam Lansky, this horror throwback just wants to get some giggles at the mall, even cracking a joke about Nicole Kidman’s beloved AMC ad. Robinson, who created MTV’s “Sweet/Vicious” and has helped shepherd a handful of other fluffy amusements, is a promising popcorn wit, deftly ensuring the tone is neither too sober nor too snide. You don’t feel that guilty gobbling her empty calories.

Robinson seems to respect the first film as though she was adapting Proust. Perhaps to people of a certain age who grew up watching it on VHS at slumber parties, it is their madeleine. The script works in as many callbacks as possible: spooky mannequins under plastic sheeting, tacky parade floats with giant fiberglass clams, Hewitt hollering her memorable line: “What are you waiting for?” (And there’s a big cameo that deserves to be a surprise.) The gags feel klutzier when they aim for 21st century humor — say, Hewitt sipping tea from a mug that reads “tears of the patriarchy.”

This latest cast was all born around the time of the ’90s massacre and are oblivious to the murder spree yet to come. Callow Teddy even makes fun of the name on one of the dead kids’ graves: “Barry Cox,” he snorts. Powerful land developers like Teddy’s dad (Billy Campbell) also buried information about the previous attacks. The forces of real estate and the local police department have invested heavily in transforming this blue-collar fishing hamlet into a tony beach resort. Even before bodies get strung up on the pier like sharks, you’re thinking that the writers must have also dug out their VHS tapes of “Jaws.”

Pragmatic, good-hearted Ava is the film’s moral center, the one disgusted enough to realize that she, her friends and Southport’s leadership are all cretins. Chase Sui Wonders has been strong in everything I’ve seen her in — I’m watching her career with curiosity — even if here, she mostly expresses her foul mood by changing her wardrobe from slime green to black. Ava’s ex Milo seems like a role that should amount to more than it does. All there is to know about him is that he’s alleged to work in politics and he and Ava have zero heat.

But we come to love Ava’s BFF Danica, who prances into obvious death traps wearing flimsy silver mules. She’s a walking cupcake — in this genre, a disposable-seeming treat — yet the way Madelyn Cline plays her is fabulous. This bohemian is as shallow as they come, fretting that the stress is giving her alopecia and suggesting her professional empath for guidance. (Danica also has a life coach, an energy healer and a psychic.) With her soft cheeks and tearful, raspy baby voice, it’s shocking how much we get attached to her. Gratefully, Robinson clearly loves her characters too and makes their screen time count rather than treating them like grindhouse fodder, that kind of violent vaudeville where you can’t wait for the hook to drag someone off screaming.

The film’s strongest move is that it encourages us to like (and laugh at) our victims. Nearly all of them — Milo excepted — are interesting, especially a true crime podcaster named Tyler (Gabbriette Bechtel, a scenery-chewing delight) who calls Southport’s cover-up a case of “gentrifi-slay-tion.” When this ghoulish fangirl escorts Ava to a historic murder scene and starts to unbutton her top, you’re convinced that she finds all this bloodshed a turn-on. Another target, played by a fratty Joshua Orpin, tries to bribe the killer with crypto.

Let’s be frank: None of these characters, past or present, would have grown up to be rocket scientists. The original got through its gore scenes with grim brutishness, like it was embarrassed that they had to be done. Written by Kevin Williamson, the talent behind the clever slasher “Scream” and the earnest romance “Dawson’s Creek,” it couldn’t quite capture the best elements of both. Robinson has more fun playing executioner. Each death is given a satisfying buildup; she’s a skilled hook-tease. One muscular kid who’s been pumping up to defend himself lets out an excited war whoop when it’s finally time to fight for his life.

The score, camerawork and editing are simply fine. They’re not trying to pull focus from the dialogue, which is genuinely funny. (My favorite design choice was the clodding sound of the killer’s boots when they come tromping in for the coup de grâce.) But the plotting barely keeps pace. Characters wander away for bizarre stretches of time. Just when I thought things were losing steam, someone got menaced in an actual steam room.

Robinson is more interested in pranking us with psych-outs than sinister scares. She’s under palpable pressure to execute a twist, so several scenes feel like a magician flipping over the wrong card to distract you from the right one tucked in their sleeve. You don’t quite buy the big reveal. Yet quibbling would seem as tweedy as arguing that the film is peddling both nostalgia and anemoia — a longing for an era one never knew firsthand. This recycled trash is no treasure, but I’m betting the majority of this redo’s audience will be young enough to find ’90s-style schlock adorably quaint.

In the late 1990s, the quiet of a small Russian town was shattered when Irina Ganyushkina stumbled into a police station—an escapee from a living nightmare.

Irina revealed to authorities that she was one of five women kidnapped and held captive in a secret underground bunker by a notorious serial killer: Aleksandr Komin, chillingly nicknamed ‘the maniac.’

For Irina and the other survivors, freedom was only the beginning. In a country where women’s stories of violence are too often dismissed, they now faced a new challenge: rebuilding their lives after unimaginable horror.

In this episode:
-Dariana Gryaznova, human rights lawyer

July 8 (UPI) — A Georgia judge ordered a mental evaluation for Jose Ibarra, the man convicted in the 2024 murder of 22-year-old university student Laken Riley.

It will determine if Ibarra, a native of Venezuela, was mentally competent at the time of the crime and later at trial, including whether he understood the legal consequences of waiving a trial by jury and if he is mentally equipped to assist in his own appeal.

In November, Ibarra was convicted of malice murder and other related charges in the February 2024 attack that left Riley, a nursing student, dead near a wooded trail on the campus of the University of Georgia.

It was the impetus behind the Laken Riley Act, decried as a political move by opponents and which passed the Senate and was signed by U.S. President Donald Trump on January 29.

The decision to call for the mental evaluation was issued last week by Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard, who sentenced Ibarra to life in prison with no chance of parole.

Haggard’s order filed on Thursday instructs officials to figure out if the undocumented migrant was “capable of understanding the nature and object of pretrial proceedings, including waiver of jury trial rights.”

Ibarra, 27, is hoping to vacate his guilty sentence or secure a new court trial after his attorneys filed a new-trial motion only weeks after his conviction late last year.

His legal team argued that the guilty verdict was “contrary to law” and evidence.

Ibarra, who speaks Spanish as a first language and possibly faced a language barrier, was characterized as “a slow learner” last month during a virtual hearing by defense attorney David Dodds.

The state, for its part, did not oppose the evaluation request but filed a separate motion to seek public money to retain expert witnesses for a possible court appeal.

Corrie villain Mick Michaelis was previously jailed for brutally killing policeman Craig who was trying to arrest him for drink driving. Now he is getting ready to break out of lockup

Things are about to get very intense on Coronation Street, as a brand new trailer teases a dramatic prison break when killer Mick Michaelis makes a desperate bid to flee Weatherfield with his children.

Fans will see Mick (Joe Layton) go on the run in an episode set to air on Monday, July 14, after orchestrating a daring escape from prison. With nothing left to lose, the desperate character is on a mission to reunite his fractured family – but his plan could leave even more destruction in its wake.

Mick is spurred into action after hearing that his family is falling apart without him. Convinced that they belong together, he makes a bold and risky move to take Brody, Joanie and Shanice away from everything and start a new life elsewhere.

But with police in hot pursuit and his violent past catching up with him, the fugitive poses a serious threat to anyone who gets in his way.

His first stop is Weatherfield High, where he is determined to track down his daughter Joanie. But when he realises she’s already been taken home by Sally ( Sally Dynevor ), Mick heads straight for the cobbles – with DC Kit Green (Jacob Roberts) not far behind.

Completely unaware of the danger that’s coming, Sally takes Joanie to Underworld to give her a quick tour while the factory girls are at the pub. But things quickly take a sinister turn when Mick arrives on the street, ready to do whatever it takes to get to his daughter.

With Kit in pursuit, it’s only a matter of time before the situation explodes. What exactly does Mick have planned – and will Kit manage to stop him before it’s too late?

Actor Joe Layton has spoken about the dramatic scenes coming up, explaining: “He isn’t after revenge, this is about him wanting to get his family together and start a new life with them. The anger that we saw when he killed Craig has been replaced by desperation and love for his family, but that doesn’t make him any less dangerous. Kit is potentially putting his life on the line once more in his attempts to stop Mick.”

Viewers will remember that Mick arrived in Weatherfield earlier this year with wife Lou (Farrel Hegarty), and quickly became the street’s nightmare neighbour.

Things turned deadly when Mick brutally murdered police officer Craig Tinker by bludgeoning him to death with a bat after a tense confrontation.

Craig had been trying to arrest Mick following a suspected drink-driving incident, but it ended in tragedy. Mick has been behind bars ever since – but that is soon set to change.

Will Mick escape with his kids? Or will his twisted quest to reunite his family end in disaster?

Mick’s escape episode airs on ITVX and YouTube at 7am on Monday July 14th and on ITV at 8pm

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