THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT
Demons, djinn, dark spirits and the man who turned his cellmate into a necklace
DEMONIC LOTTERY
Sisters Nicole Smallman, 27, and Bibaa Henry, 46 were found stabbed to death in Fryent Country Park, Wembley, where they had been celebrating Henry’s birthday on 6 June last year. They had been killed in a frenzied attach in which Henry was stabbed 8 times and Smallman 28. Their bodies had been dragged into bushes and left lying head to toe with their limbs entwined. CCTV and DNA evidence soon led to the arrest of Danyal Hussein, 19, from Blackheath in south-east London for the killings.
Extensive traces of Hussein’s DNA were found on the murder weapons and in blood found at the scene, and CCTV showed that he had entered the park wearing latex gloves and carrying a large rucksack. He had also purchased several knives and strong duct tape at Asda shortly prior to the killings and had bought a military entrenching tool from Amazon. After the murders, he visited a hospital for treatment of cuts on his hands, which Hussein claimed happened when he was robbed. When police searched Hussein’s home, they found a note in his bedroom detailing a pact with the demon Lucifuge Rofocale in which he agreed to sacrifice six women every six months in exchange for winning the Mega Millions Super Jackpot lottery and not being suspected of any crime he committed. There were three lottery tickets wrapped up in the note, none of them containing winning numbers. At the opening of Hussein’s trial, Prosecution QC Oliver Glasgow said: “As it turned out, the demon did not come good on the bargain, since not only did the defendant not win the lottery but the police identified all the evidence that links him to these two murders.” Hussein had clearly done his homework though. Lucifuge Rocale is, appropriately for a pact intended to make money, the demon in charge of Hell’s treasury according to the Grand Grimoire.
Hussein denied that he played any part in the murders of Smallman and Henry, claiming that he was a victim of a conspiracy to frame him. He also denied that it is him in any of the CCTV footage, or that it is his blood or DNA in the samples found at the crime scene. He also claims that the card used to purchase the knife and other incriminating items had been stolen from him some days before, despite CCTV showing him using it in a Tesco days after the supposed theft. MyLondon, 9 June; BBC News, 10 June 2021.
VOICE OF THE DEVIL
At his trial at Salisbury Crown Court, Jonathan Keal, 37, blamed the Devil for the frenzied attack he launched on his sleeping family. Keal stabbed and beat his parents, Lynda, 65, and Robert Keal, 64, and his grandmother, Marjorie Blacker, 90, at their home in Sandleheath, Hampshire, on 26 September 2018 using a knife, cricket bat, scissors and dumbbells. As Robert Keal phoned the police during the attack, the operator heard him say, “You’re killing me. Stop it. What are you doing?” Jonathan Keal was heard replying, “I know I am. I’m sorry, Dad.” After inflicting serious injuries on his victims, all of whom survived, Keal was found by police in Station Road, Fordingbridge, “covered in blood from head to toe and only wearing his underwear”. The court heard that Keal struggled with mental health issues and had recently returned to live with his parents due to concerns about this and his long-term illicit drug use. Prior to the attack he had stopped taking prescription medicines and had been admitted to hospital after attempting suicide. Andrew Campbell-Tiech QC, Keal’s defence barrister, said: “He heard the voice of the Devil telling him what to do. It overpowered him completely and he sought the destruction of those he loved the most.” He said that his client was not guilty by reason of insanity. BBC News, 9 June 2021.
DEAD MAN’S NECKLACE
Guards at Corcoran State Prison in California failed to notice that prisoner Jaime Osuna had killed his cellmate Luis Romero, or that he was wearing a necklace made of Romero’s body parts, falsely reporting that both inmates were alive after supposedly making regular checks on their cell. Osuna, 31, a self-styled Satanist with complex occult-inspired facial tattoos, was serving a life sentence for the torture and murder of Yvette Pena at a motel in Bakersfield and had a history of attacking his cellmates. Having created a makeshift knife from a razorblade attached to a handle, he used it to kill and dissect Romero, torturing him first. Kings County Executive Assistant District Attorney Phil Esbenshade said: “We do believe that the victim was conscious during at least a portion of the time.” Osuna decapitated Romero and sliced his mouth open on either side to create an extended “Joker” smile. He also removed an eye, a finger, and a portion of his lung, fashioning them into a necklace he was found wearing by guards. Osuna had draped the cell bars with a sheet to hide his activity from the rest of the cell block and it is thought likely that it took him some hours to
There were three lottery tickets, none with winning numbers
complete what Esbenshade described as the most heinous slaying he had ever seen. Romero, who had spent 27 years in prison after being convicted of seconddegree murder as a teenager, was nearing parole eligibility when he was killed. After the murder, Osuna was transferred to Salinas Valley State Prison’s psychiatric inpatient programme. There he was diagnosed with unspecified schizophrenia spectrum, antisocial personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. As a result, a judge ruled that Osuna was not competent to stand trial for Romero’s killing but he is likely to remain in prison for the rest of his life. [AP] 28 May; BoingBoing.net, 29 May 2021.
POSSESSED BY DJINN
During his trial at Preston Crown Court for the murder of Dr Saman Mir Sacharvi, 49, and her daughter, 14-year-oldVian Mangrio, Shahbaz Khan, 51, said that he now believed that an unknown person had killed them, rather than the djinni he had initially believed to be responsible. Arrested for the murders after CCTV evidence showed him at the victims’ house, Khan told police that he had been possessed by a 620-year-old spirit named Robert, who he believed to be a djinni, and that Robert was responsible for the killings. When in custody, CCTV had shown Khan throwing himself across the cell, which he claimed was, in fact, the djinni holding him by the throat and banging his head against the wall; when interviewed, he spoke in the djinni’s voice and told detectives he was called Robert, was 620 years old and lived at Dr Sacharvi’s address. Khan said that whenever he visited Dr Sacharvi he saw Robert and a second spirit named Rita there, and that the doctor had told him Robert had broken a mirror because he was angry that an extension Mr Khan had built was in “his area”. He said that when he last saw Dr Sacharvi she was in her kitchen, chatting to Robert and Rita. In court, Khan pleaded not guilty, but now accepted that djinn were not responsible; he added that he was now “taking eight to 10 tablets a day, so my brain feels slightly better.” BBC News, 15 + 24 June 2021.
DAYBELL’S DARK SPIRITS
Christian doomsday author Chad Daybell has pleaded not guilty to murdering his first wife Tammy Daybell, and his two stepchildren JoshuaVallow, seven, and Tylee Ryan, 17, a year after the children’s bodies were found buried in his back yard. Tammy died mysteriously in her sleep just two weeks before Daybell married LoriVallow-Daybell and moved to Hawaii, but after the children were found police exhumed her body for testing. Vallow-Daybell was committed to a psychiatric hospital for 90 days by a judge in the hope of making her competent to stand trial along with her husband. It is alleged that the couple carried out the killings because they believed that Tammy Daybell had been possessed by a demon and that the two children had been taken over by dark spirits who turned them into zombies and that the only way to rid a person of these entities was to kill them. Daybell has written several books about the end of the world and Christ’s return to Earth and claimed to receive visions from “beyond the veil”, while Lori Vallow-Daybell believed she had lived numerous lives on other planets before her current life. For the full story, see FT395:4, 7. Huffpost.com, 6 June 2021.
CANNIBAL MATRICIDE
When police arrived at the apartment of Maria Soledad Gomez, 66, in Madrid, their knocks were answered by her son Alberto Sanchez Gomez, 26, saying: “My mother’s here. She’s dead.” On entering the apartment, they found Maria’s dismembered body, with parts spread around the flat and some packed into food containers in the fridge. Alberto confessed to strangling his mother during an argument and cutting up her body with kitchen knives and a saw. “The idea was to make her body disappear,” he said, admitting that as well as throwing out body parts with the rubbish and feeding some to his dog, he had eaten some himself. He still had blood stains round his mouth and flesh under his fingernails when arrested. Alberto Gomez had a history of assaulting his mother and a record of arrests for violating the restraining order that was supposed to prevent him approaching her. In court, he claimed he heard voices telling him to kill and dismember his parent, but the judge deemed him fit to stand trial. He was imprisoned for 15 years and five months for murder and desecrating a corpse and was ordered to pay his brother £52,000 in compensation, D.Telegraph, 16 June 2021.