UNSPEAKABLE ACTS: Husband Killed, Wife Raped In Upper Darby Home Invasion
The “sadistic and brutal” attack began about 8:15 p.m., when a man broke into the couple’s home on Copley Road near Sansom Street while they were asleep upstairs, Chitwood said. The assailant beat the couple and demanded money from them, police said, and after they gave him all they had, he demanded more and continued to beat them. Bound with electrical wires from their own home, the couple was dragged downstairs, where they were stabbed and beaten with objects that police declined to identify. The assailant sent the wife upstairs to search for more money, but he caught her trying to use her cell phone instead. That’s when he sexually assaulted her, Chitwood said. After holding the Phams hostage for more than an hour, the man fled, leaving Pham bleeding from the head and face on a first-floor porch, where he was pronounced dead at 9:27 p.m. “Detectives described it as a house of horror. . . . Blood was all over the first and second floors,” Chitwood said. Pham’s wife, who suffered stab wounds and significant fractures to her hands, arms, face and head, was able to escape to a relative’s home nearby, where she called police, Chitwood said. [via DAILY NEWS]
BYE BYE BIG BROTHER: Obama To Replace Top Spooks Over Spying On Americans
The nation’s top two intelligence officers expect to be replaced by President-elect Barack Obama early in his administration, according to senior intelligence officials. A number of influential congressional Democrats oppose keeping Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and CIA Director Michael V. Hayden in their posts because both have publicly supported controversial Bush administration policies on interrogation and telephone surveillance. One Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee said there is a “consensus” view on the matter. Obama voted against Hayden’s nomination in the Senate but said that he did so to send a message. “I am voting against Mr. Hayden in the hope that he will be more humble before the great weight of responsibility that he has not only to protect our lives but to protect our democracy,” the senator said. Hayden and McConnell were not directly tainted by the controversies over Iraq and the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, against terrorism suspects. Both, however, publicly defended the use of “extraordinary” interrogation measures that critics labeled torture. Hayden, a former head of the National Security Agency, was in charge of the nation’s electronic eavesdropping when the White House ordered warrantless surveillance of some U.S.-based communications. [via WASHINGTON POST]
La Salle Cracker Shouts ‘Nigg*r’, Punches Black Girl To Avenge Obama Landslide
Officials at St. Joseph’s and La Salle Universities are investigating two racially charged incidents of the last two weeks, one involving vandalism in a classroom and the other a fight outside an off-campus fraternity house that allegedly involved racial slurs. At both campuses, there were concerns from students and a parent that tensions had flared over the candidacy and victory of President-elect Barack Obama. A white student at La Salle allegedly used a racial slur to describe Obama and insult students. The encounter occurred about a block from a fraternity house where an altercation started early Sunday morning and later erupted into violence. La Salle has brought disciplinary charges against some students who were alleged to have attacked black students, officials said. Anthony White, whose daughter, Kelsey, 18, a freshman at La Salle, reported being punched in the face by a white male student during the melee, called the incident “horrifying.” “It wouldn’t surprise me if the election [led to] some of this behavior,” said White, a loan officer from Rhode Island. “It really is a phenomena that I know black people are concerned about.” [via INQUIRER]