At least 30 killed in central Nigeria attacks, official says
She added that other people had been killed in neighbouring villages, but she had no figures.
Victor said he and other locals had buried five people, including a father and two of his sons killed in the village of Tewa Biana 'very close to a military base'.
Benue State Police spokesperson Anene Sewuese Catherine confirmed two attacks in the area but said her office had received 'no report of 20 people' killed.
She said one raid resulted in the death of a policeman who had 'repelled an attack' and that 'three dead bodies were discovered'.
The motive for the violence was not clear, but Victor blamed the 'co-ordinated attacks' on Fulani cattle herders.
Muslim ethnic Fulani nomadic herders have long clashed with settled farmers, many of whom are Christian, in Benue over access to land and resources.
The attacks in Nigeria's so-called Middle Belt often take on a religious or ethnic dimension.
Benue has been one of the states hit hardest by such violence between nomadic herders and farmers who blame herdsmen for destroying farmland by grazing cattle.
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1News
02-06-2025
- 1News
In her own words: Erin Patterson speaks in murder trial
Accused triple murderer Erin Patterson has spoken about battling low self-esteem, changes to her spirituality and becoming distant from her estranged husband's family. The 50-year-old was called as a defence witness this afternoon in the sixth week of her Supreme Court triple-murder trial in regional Victoria. Her former in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, 70, and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, died in hospital from death cap mushroom poisoning days after a lunch served at her Leongatha home on July 29, 2023. She is also charged with the attempted murder of Heather's husband Ian Wilkinson, who became sick but survived the meal. Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all charges. ADVERTISEMENT Wearing a paisley top and black pants, with straight dark hair, Patterson took an affirmation and drank from a paper cup as she sat inside the wooden witness box facing the jury. She was asked by defence barrister Colin Mandy SC about her family situation in the months before the fatal lunch. Patterson said her two children were living with her full-time and could see her estranged husband Simon "whenever they wanted to". She said her financial circumstances at the time of the lunch were "comfortable". "I could afford to go to university and I didn't need to work a job at the same time," she told the jury of 14. Evidence so far in the trial of Erin Patterson, the Australian woman accused of murdering three people with beef Wellingtons. (Source: 1News) Mandy then asked Patterson about parts of her life that were not "so good" in July 2023, and she described changes in her relationship with Simon's family. ADVERTISEMENT "I had felt for some months that my relationship with the wider Patterson family, and particularly Don and Gail, perhaps had a bit more distance or space put between us," she said. "We saw each other less." She said she had begun to have "concerns that Simon was not wanting me to be involved too much with the family anymore, perhaps I wasn't being invited to so many things". She had been "fighting low self-esteem" for most of her adult life and said she had planned to have gastric bypass surgery after putting on weight. Patterson described herself as a "fundamental atheist" and said she had expected Simon to join her after they started dating but "things happened in reverse and I became Christian". She said she saw Simon's uncle Ian Wilkinson delivering a sermon in the early 2000s while visiting the Korumburra Baptist Church, saying it was a "spiritual experience". "I'd been approaching religion as an intellectual exercise up until that point. Does it make sense? Is it rational? But I had a religious experience there and it quite overwhelmed me," Patterson said. ADVERTISEMENT She cried as she described giving birth to her first child while living in Perth with Simon, saying it was a "very traumatic" experience. "It went for a very long time and they tried to get him out with forceps. He wouldn't come out," she said. "And he started to go into distress and they lost his heartbeat, so they did an emergency caesarean and got him out quickly." Simon Patterson tells the court about their strained relationship and turning down an invite to the fatal lunch. (Source: 1News) Patterson said she discharged herself against medical advice, as her son was permitted to leave hospital and she wanted to go home with him. "And Simon said to me, 'you can just do it, leave'," she said. She said Gail and Don came to visit a couple of weeks after the birth and again became emotional as she described her mother-in-law being "supportive and gentle" with her. ADVERTISEMENT Patterson said her relationship problems with Simon stemmed from communication issues. "We could never communicate in a way that made each of us feel heard or understood, so we would just feel hurt," she said. She will return to the witness box tomorrow as the trial continues.
Otago Daily Times
02-06-2025
- Otago Daily Times
Accused takes the stand in mushroom murder trial
Accused triple murderer Erin Patterson has spoken about battling low self-esteem, changes to her spirituality and becoming distant from her estranged husband's family. The 50-year-old was called as a defence witness on Monday afternoon in the sixth week of her Supreme Court triple-murder trial in regional Victoria. Her former in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, 70, and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, died in hospital from death cap mushroom poisoning days after a lunch served at her Leongatha home on July 29, 2023. She is also charged with the attempted murder of Heather's husband Ian Wilkinson, who became sick but survived the meal. Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Wearing a paisley top and black pants, with straight dark hair, Patterson took an affirmation and drank from a paper cup as she sat inside the wooden witness box facing the jury. She was asked by defence barrister Colin Mandy SC about her family situation in the months before the fatal lunch. Patterson said her two children were living with her full-time and could see her estranged husband Simon "whenever they wanted to". She said her financial circumstances at the time of the lunch were "comfortable". "I could afford to go to university and I didn't need to work a job at the same time," she told the jury of 14. Mr Mandy then asked Patterson about parts of her life that were not "so good" in July 2023, and she described changes in her relationship with Simon's family. "I had felt for some months that my relationship with the wider Patterson family, and particularly Don and Gail, perhaps had a bit more distance or space put between us," she said. "We saw each other less." She said she had begun to have "concerns that Simon was not wanting me to be involved too much with the family anymore, perhaps I wasn't being invited to so many things". She had been "fighting low self-esteem" for most of her adult life and said she had planned to have gastric bypass surgery after putting on weight. Patterson described herself as a "fundamental atheist" and said she had expected Simon to join her after they started dating but "things happened in reverse and I became Christian". She said she saw Simon's uncle Ian Wilkinson delivering a sermon in the early 2000s while visiting the Korumburra Baptist Church, saying it was a "spiritual experience". "I'd been approaching religion as an intellectual exercise up until that point. Does it make sense? Is it rational? But I had a religious experience there and it quite overwhelmed me," Patterson said. She cried as she described giving birth to her first child while living in Perth with Simon, saying it was a "very traumatic" experience. "It went for a very long time and they tried to get him out with forceps. He wouldn't come out," she said. "And he started to go into distress and they lost his heartbeat, so they did an emergency caesarean and got him out quickly." Patterson said she discharged herself against medical advice, as her son was permitted to leave hospital and she wanted to go home with him. "And Simon said to me, 'you can just do it, leave'," she said. She said Gail and Don came to visit a couple of weeks after the birth and again became emotional as she described her mother-in-law being "supportive and gentle" with her. Patterson said her relationship problems with Simon stemmed from communication issues. "We could never communicate in a way that made each of us feel heard or understood, so we would just feel hurt," she said. She will return to the witness box on Tuesday as the trial continues.
Otago Daily Times
28-05-2025
- Otago Daily Times
From myth to music, the Goatman lives on
Young people in Lyttelton are forever forming bands. One such is a three-man outfit called Beware the Goatman, who are about to launch an album and are planning some publicity for it. I know all this because one of the members of Beware the Goatman sent me an email. It was well spelt, well punctuated and intriguing. He wanted to know whether, as a long-term resident of Lyttelton, I had any good stories about the Goatman. "What Goatman?" I replied. "The Goatman of Lyttelton." "I'm all ears," I said, whereupon the young man told me about a character that haunted the upper streets of Lyttelton seeking out children to terrify. Why, I wondered, had I not heard of this before? Later that day I went into the newsagent's where I found Paul the newsagent behind his counter and a middle-aged woman studying the greeting cards. If anyone has his finger on the pulse of Lyttelton it is Paul the newsagent. "Tell me about the Goatman," I said. "What Goatman?" said Paul. I was about to share the little information I had when the woman looked up from the greeting cards. "I'll tell you about the Goatman," she said. Some 30 years ago, when she was about 10, her best friend claimed to have been grabbed by the Goatman on Harman's Rd, but she'd struggled and managed to escape. The Goatman had been an adult male in a mask made from an actual goat's head. The woman spoke with conviction. I have since asked a dozen or more people. Generally the women were more forthcoming than the men, but no two versions of the Goatman story were the same. In essence, it seems that the idea of a Goatman, if not an actual Goatman, has been scaring the children of Lyttelton for decades. His dwelling varies, from an actual address on St David's St to the Anglican cemetery. His nature varies from an actual old man in a mask to a hairy horror monster. He knocks on windows and he hunts girls. By doing so he sends this small town, which has existed as Lyttelton for less than two centuries and as Ohinehou for fewer than five, spiralling back down time's tunnel to the dawn of human history. Goatmen go back. Ancient Greece had a Goatman. This was Pan, the pagan god of the wild and of flocks and, interestingly, of music. Pan had the legs, loins and horns of a goat. (And it seems that the name Pan derives from an even earlier god, identified in the proto-Indo-European language from which all Western languages evolved.) Rome had a Goatman, too, the satyr, built on the same lines as Pan. From him we get satyriasis, the disease — if that is the right word — of excessive and unbridled lust. But the supreme Goatman, the apotheosis of Goatmen, has to be the Christian Satan, invariably depicted with a goat's horns, eyes, skull, back legs and cloven hooves. So it's no surprise that goats fare poorly in the Bible. Matthew tells us that on the day of judgement the son of man (and there's an expression I've never understood) will come to separate the sheep from the goats, putting the sheep on his right side and the goats on his left. He will then welcome the docile and innocuous sheep into the kingdom of heaven, but he will fling the wilful goats into the pits of everlasting hell, which all seems a bit tough. What have goats done to deserve this? Well it seems they have been unruly. Goats are hard to restrain and contain. Unlike sheep, they do not follow each other and they are great escapers. They are also compulsive omnivores with a taste for laundry. But above all they love sex. The bucks go at it with a shameless vigour, fighting for mating rites, dowsing themselves in their own urine and leaping aboard whenever the opportunity presents itself. And they grin while doing so. And that is the point of Goatmen. They are unrestrained and they delight in their unrestraint. Pan grinned, the satyr grinned, the devil famously grins. They enjoy their sins. Goats represent our animal spirits, the side of our nature that the great religions seek to repress. But it won't be repressed. Regardless of disapproval the anarchic joyous id insists on bubbling up. Whether in distant Arcadia or darkest Lyttelton, the Goatman lives. And it's the Goatman that makes the young form bands. — Joe Bennett is a Lyttelton writer.
