All Blog Posts from Crimesider

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Lawyers for Michele Linehan, the former exotic dancer convicted of killing one of several fiancés, asked the Alaska Court of Appeals to overturn her conviction because a jury was allowed to read a victim's "letter from the grave."

Linehan, 37, was convicted in 2007 of luring a man who loved her to kill her former fiancé, Kent Leppink, in hopes of gaining $1 million in life insurance money.

The center of discussion during Thursday's hearing was a letter that Leppink wrote days before he died in 1996, predicting his death and naming Linehan as among his probable killers.

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THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. - Rachel Uchitel, the first woman accused of being a mistress to Tiger Woods, has cancelled her scheduled press conference for Thursday afternoon.

Uchitel emerged on the radar of national media after Woods crashed his SUV Nov. 27 and tabloids reported that the accident happened after his wife grew angry from a National Enquirer story that alleged an affair between Woods and Uchitel.

Since then, the mystery surrounding that crash and the scandal surrounding Woods' personal affairs have grown.

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WASHINGTON - Long before America’s most successful party crashers, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, stormed the gates of a White House state dinner and managed to get a photo with President Obama, the couple seemed to have a penchant for taking memorable snapshots, especially with big name celebrities like Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas, Matt Damon and even "Dancing with the Stars" winner Donny Osmond.

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NEW YORK - As Tiger Woods works to repair his scratched face and ruined car after a Nov. 27 car accident outside his Ilseworth, Fla. home, the golf great is also working to repair his image amidst tabloid-fueled rumors that the crash, now being investigated by police, occurred after his wife discovered an alleged affair with party promoter and Sept. 11 mourner Rachel Uchitel.

"Although I understand there is curiosity, the many false, unfounded and malicious rumors that are currently circulating about my family and me are irresponsible," Woods said in a statement released on his Web site.

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SEATTLE - As police search for Maurice Clemmons, the man suspected of gunning down four police officers in a suburban coffee shop on Sunday, many search for reasons this man, convicted for burglary and facing a child rape charge, was out on the streets. Part of the answer is that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee pardoned him almost a decade ago.

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WINDERMERE, Fla. - As Tiger Woods dodges police for the third day in a row, the golf great has been forced to fend off tabloid-fueled rumors that an alleged mistress, Rachel Uchitel, was at the center of an argument with his wife, Elin Nordegren, that caused his Friday Nov. 27 car crash.

"This is a private matter and I want to keep it that way," Woods said in a statement released to his website about an hour before troopers arrived at his Ilseworth home Sunday afternoon.

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WASHINGTON - America’s most successful party crashers, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, who stormed the gates of a White House state dinner and somehow managed to get in, may soon be facing criminal charges, according to the Secret Service.

Secret Service spokesman Jim Mackin says the agency is moving closer to beginning a criminal investigation. He says that's one reason the Secret Service hasn't yet explained what happened when Michaele and Tareq Salahi arrived at the security checkpoint Tuesday for the dinner honoring Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

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FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - Basketball star Shaquille O'Neal was so moved by the horrible fate of 5-year-old Shaniya Davis, who police say was kidnapped, raped, and murdered in rural North Carolina, that he paid for the little girl's funeral.

O'Neal's spokeswoman says the Cleveland Cavaliers player was touched by the stories and got in touch with the family to see what he could do to help.

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NEW YORK - Ann Summers, grandmother of murdered 5-year-old Shaniya Davis, is strongly defending her daughter, who is accused of selling Shaniya as a sex slave to the man that, police, say, eventually killed her.

"She did not harm her kids. I was there, I should know," Summers said of her daughter Antoinette Davis.

Summers had more choice words for Mario Andrette McNeill, the man accused of raping and killing Shaniya on the same day her mother reported her missing.

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FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - If police have it right, 5-year-old Shaniya Davis was raped, strangled to death, then dumped off a rural North Carolina road near a pile of deer carcasses in trash bags.

The man who they say is at the center of the horrible crime is Mario McNeill, who was seen on a hotel video surveillance tape carrying Shaniya, Nov. 10, the day she went missing.

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