Eideard

A couple prayed and rubbed olive oil on their sick infant rather than seek medical care for the dying boy, prosecutors argued in the latest criminal case against members of an Oregon church that believes in faith healing.

Dale and Shannon Hickman are accused of manslaughter in the death of their son David, who was born prematurely in 2009 with underdeveloped lungs. The boy developed a bacterial infection and lived for less than nine hours…

The Hickmans are members of the Followers of Christ church, a Clackamas County church that practices faith healing and rejects doctors. The trial is the fourth time in recent years that members have faced criminal accusations that they let their children get seriously ill or die.

When David’s skin turned ashen and he could barely breathe, the Hickmans did not call for help, prosecutor Mike Regan said during opening statements Wednesday. Instead, he said, Dale Hickman anointed the baby with olive oil, a common church ritual for treating the ill.

“They were never going to call — ever,” Regan said. “Failure to act is a crime…”

The Hickmans’ lawyers said witnesses to the boy’s birth will testify that the baby showed no sign of distress until minutes before his death. And even if the Hickmans had called 911, the infant would have died before help arrived, they said. The same defense used by church members in previous trials.

The couple was being tried for their faith, said lawyer Mark Cogan.

“You, ladies and gentlemen, are our protection against tyranny,” Cogan told jurors.

The tyranny of self-delusion, of religious ideology, letting superstition govern your behavior instead of ethics, reason, often leads to confrontation with common law. As the prosecutor, Mike Regan, said – Failure to act is a crime.

We have a responsibility to the society within which we live and function to act in the broadest sense. Letting a child die with no reasonable attempt to save that small life is not excused by ideology.

Police tent covers the bin and body during the investigation

A cheating husband killed his wife and kept her body in a freezer for almost three years before dumping her remains in a wheelie bin when he moved abroad with a young lover.

Peter Wallner, 34, admitted the manslaughter of his wife, Melanie, by hitting her over the head with a heavy griddle pan. He ordered a freezer from Argos and kept her corpse in a shed at their Surrey home before throwing it in the bin in May last year.

He hoped that the corpse would be destroyed in the rubbish lorry but refuse collectors would not move the wheelie bin because it was too heavy, the Old Bailey was told.

Mr Wallner killed his 30-year-old wife on the eve of his birthday so that he could bring his lover to their home, it was alleged. The following night he had sex with Emma Harrison on the blood-stained mattress where his wife had died.

Mr Wallner told his wife’s family and friends that she had died of a brain haemorrhage but repeatedly made excuses for failing to provide a death certificate, the court was told. He gave a speech at her memorial service in London and took an urn of ashes gathered from a barbecue to South Africa so that they could be buried on his wife’s family farm.

Mrs Wallner’s corpse was discovered in June by the landlord of his rented home in Cobham. The freezer used to store her body had been sold to a neighbour for £25.

Eeoough!

RTFA. The trial continues.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Michael Jackson’s death has been ruled a homicide.

Eight weeks after the King of Pop was found unconscious, a search warrant of his doctor’s office revealed Monday what had long been suspected – that Jackson was given “lethal levels” of a dangerous anesthetic.

Jackson’s doctor, Conrad Murray, the target of a manslaughter probe, told Los Angeles cops that he had been treating the singer for insomnia for about six weeks, according to the document…

On the morning Jackson died, Murray told cops he tried again to get the singer to sleep without using propofol, the records state.
Murray said on that fateful night he first gave Jackson valium at 1:30 a.m. When that didn’t work, the doctor said he injected lorazepam intravenously at 2 a.m.

An hour later, Jackson was still awake so Murray said he gave him midazolam. Still, Jackson could not sleep.

Finally, at 10:40 a.m., and after Jackson insisted on the propofol, Murray said he caved and gave into the singer’s demands.

And Jackson was doomed.

I wonder if there will be a trial verdict, say, before the next presidential election?