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American Idol exec and husband were murdered with their own gun...with suspect then calling cops on himself

American Idol exec and husband were murdered with their own gun...with suspect then calling cops on himself

Daily Mail​4 days ago
An American Idol executive and her husband were murdered at their Los Angeles mansion with their own gun by a killer who called 911 himself, it is claimed.
Robin Kaye, a longtime music supervisor on the hit singing competition show, and her husband Thomas Deluca, both 70, were found dead in their $5 million gated home in the Encino neighborhood on July 14.
Raymond Boodarian, an Encino resident, was arrested 'without incident' the next day after having provided police with key information about his identity.
Investigators believe Boodarian, 22, was burglarizing the residence July 10 while the couple was away and shot them when they suddenly returned.
But the DA revealed during a town hall meeting Monday night that he shot the couple dead with their own firearm, KABC reports.
He then used his personal cellphone to call police after the incident and even provided authorities with his name, which ultimately led to him being tracked down.
Boodraian was charged with two counts of murder Thursday, and also faces burglary charges. His arraignment is scheduled for August 20.
The suspect has at least three prior arrests including charges of battery, threatening to commit a crime with intent to terrorize, and exhibiting a deadly weapon.
Fingerprints from his prior arrests also helped investigators identify him as a suspect in the grisly slayings of Kaye and Deluca.
The couple were killed in their $5 million Los Angeles mansion on July 10, four days before their bodies were discovered.
It is unclear if Boodarian's alleged 911 call was made on July 6, the day he allegedly killed Kaye and DeLuca.
Boodarian had already been inside the couple's home for about 30 minutes on July 10 when Kaye and Deluca unexpectedly arrived home.
CCTV footage obtained by investigators allegedly shows Boodarian entering the home in an attempted burglary. He did not force entry and instead found an open way to get inside.
He allegedly shot them both dead during a struggle when they caught him in the act.
Two calls were made to the LAPD about a possible burglary on the day of the couple's deaths, according to a felony complaint.
But when officers responded to the residence they were unable to get inside the couple's home, which is a high-security property with an 8-foot spiked wall and surveillance cameras.
Cops circled the perimeter and had a helicopter swoop over the property, but were unable to gain access via the ground.
Officers saw no visible signs of forced entry and a helicopter which flew overhead did not alert officers to any dangers, so they left the scene.
They returned to the six-bedroom estate four days later at 2.30pm following a call for a welfare check, shattering a back window to gain access to the home.
When they entered, they discovered Kaye and Deluca both shot in the head.
He then used his personal cellphone to call police after the incident and even provided authorities with his name, which ultimately led to him being tracked down
Police sources told People last week that Boodarian may have been inside the property on July 10 when officers first responded to the home, close to the bodies of the eldery couple he's now accused of murdering.
While cops were unable to access the property during the callout, Boodarian is believed to have entered through a single unlocked door while his alleged victims were out grocery shopping.
It is unclear if he pulled the door shut behind him, but he is then said to have lain in wait inside until they returned.
Boodarian could not be reached for comment. Messages were sent to the public defender's office inquiring if one of its attorneys was representing him.
Kaye was with 'American Idol,' the hit singing competition TV series, for more than 15 years and was working on the upcoming season at the time of her death. Over the years, she won several Guild of Music Supervisors Awards for her work on the show.
She also worked for other well-known shows, including Lip Sync Battle, Hollywood Game Night, and Worn Stories.
Kaye worked for the NAACP Image Awards, The Singing Bee, Miss USA, Miss Universe, American Inventor, The Dance Scene, Dance Your A** Off, Your Chance to Dance and Adventures of Power and Crashed.
During the 7th Annual Guild of Music Supervisors Awards in Hollywood in 2017, Kaye spoke about her career path, which she said was often unappreciated.
'It's one of those parts of the business that people don't even know it exists,' Kaye said. 'It's a very important part of films and TV. Pretty much everything in the entertainment industry has music in it and people just think that it's there.'
Her husband was a musician who last released an album called Street Rock in 2022.
His first 'acclaimed cult favorite debut' album. 'Down To The Wire,' was released by Epic Records in 1986, Deluca's website detailed.
Deluca penned songs for popular hit makers, including Kid Rock, the band Molly Hatchet and Meredith Brooks.
The couple purchased the home in January 2023, according to public records.
It was previously owned by late rapper Juice WRLD who died in 2019 from an overdose, neighbors told KTLA. The home was also reportedly used a rental property before being sold to the couple.
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Peterborough shop worker threatened with weapons by shoplifters
Peterborough shop worker threatened with weapons by shoplifters

BBC News

time22 minutes ago

  • BBC News

Peterborough shop worker threatened with weapons by shoplifters

A convenience store worker has described being threatened with weapons when challenging shoplifters as incidents increase across a county. "I've been threatened with knives, with hockey sticks, every day you're seeing something get worse," said Kieran Essex, 27, who works in a shop in Peterborough. Figures from Cambridgeshire Police show reports of shoplifting have more than doubled over the past five years and Mr Essex said it was a "pandemic". Darryl Preston, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, said work was taking place to tackle the issue. Mr Essex has been working in retail for nine years and said there were now "countless" amounts of said he has experienced "physical contact" with offenders on numerous occasions. "I have had to tackle people at the door, have pursued them outside and have even had people drive off with me inside their car window."He said recently the shop was targeted by shoplifters over four days in a ten-day period."Everyone is just trying to survive," Mr Essex said. In 2020 3,006 shoplifting incidents were recorded by Cambridgeshire Police across the county, this figure rose to 3,161 in 2021, 4,331 in 2022, 6,046 in 2023 and 7,352 in 2024. Vidyut Soni, the owner of Premier City News in Peterborough, has been looking for ways to tackle the problem."It's brazen, not blasé, but brazen. Everything that we sell we have to account for. "We need to find ways to actually make it better, or otherwise it can potentially ruin the whole business."Trade is not easy. Things are very tight in the economy and we don't make much money anyway." Pep Cipriano, the chief executive officer of Peterborough Positive, a business improvement area organisation, said the city was not alone in having rising rates of shoplifting."Shoplifting in Peterborough, like most towns and cities, is on the increase."We work really closely with the police to try and combat it and we've just got the recent announcement about new police officers coming to the city centre... which means on a daily basis we'll see more police on the street." Preston said: "There are ongoing operations taking place to deal with these issues in a concerted way – an example of which would be the 1,600 shoplifting charges brought by [Cambridgeshire Police's] south spree offending team since its creation in September 2023."I continue to fund problem-solving posts in each of our county's community safety partnerships who are working with the police and other partners to tackle shoplifting. "The sharing of local intelligence through schemes such as Shop Watch and the provision of Safer Business packs are both helping to support retailers in preventing, responding and recovering from incidents." Det Ch Insp Christian O'Brien, from Cambridgeshire Police, said: "We are doing everything we can, working with the business community and with the courts."We're... trying to put in place criminal orders to try and prevent the people from committing the offences. "We also work with partner agencies to help the people committing these crimes, because a lot is fuelled by different addictions." Follow Peterborough news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.

Rape, murder and secret burials: Temple worker's chilling confession shakes holy town
Rape, murder and secret burials: Temple worker's chilling confession shakes holy town

The Independent

time24 minutes ago

  • The Independent

Rape, murder and secret burials: Temple worker's chilling confession shakes holy town

A temple town, a mystery whistleblower and a chilling confession: allegations of rape, murder and the secret burial of hundreds of women and girls over two decades have shocked the quiet holy town of Dharmasthala in southern India 's Karnataka. His face hidden behind a black hood, a whistleblower appeared before a local court earlier this month carrying skeletal remains that he claimed were taken from a mass burial site of sexual assault victims. The man claimed to be a former sanitation worker at the Dharmasthala temple and alleged he was forced into secretly disposing of hundreds of bodies, many of which showed signs of brutal violence and sexual assault. In a written complaint to the police chief of Dakshina Kannada district, the man, whose identity is being withheld for his safety, said he worked under duress for nearly 20 years before fleeing into hiding with his family in 2014. Driven by guilt, remorse and haunting nightmares, he had returned after more than a decade to expose the 'horrific crimes' he allegedly witnessed during his time working at the temple. According to his testimony and redacted complaint seen by The Independent, the alleged rape, torture and murder of girls and women and the disposal of their remains occurred between 1995 and 2014. The whistleblower demanded exhumation of the hundreds of corpses he claimed to have buried and an investigation so that justice could be ensured for the victims 'who were denied dignity even in death'. His lawyer, KV Dhananjay, told The Independent this was an 'unprecedented' case where the witness had come forward not only with his testimony but also evidence, demanding accountability. 'Here is the individual who says that it is not the fear of law but the fear of conscience and fear for morality that has brought him back,' Dhananjay said. 'In the last 100 years of court judgments, you don't find a parallel.' The emergence of a whistleblower has put the spotlight on hundreds of cases of women and girls who were found dead or reported missing in and around Dharmasthala over the years, many of which were ignored or not formally investigated by police. Nearly two weeks after the man filed his complaint, Karnataka's state government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to look into the allegations. Nestled in the lush Western Ghats on the banks of the Nethravathi river, Dharmasthala is a major Hindu pilgrimage site. The medieval Shri Manjunatha Temple, dedicated to the deity Shiva and managed by a family, attracts millions of devotees to the small town every year. The whistleblower said he was from the Dalit community, the lowest rung of the Hindu caste system, and worked at the Shri Manjunatha Temple from 1995 to 2014. 'What began as regular employment later turned into work of covering up evidence of extremely horrific crimes,' he alleged. He fled in 2014 when 'the mental torture I was experiencing became unbearable'. The tipping point came after a young girl was sexually harassed, he alleged, prompting him to run away. He and his family went into hiding in a neighbouring state, he claimed, constantly changing residences for fear of their lives. In a chilling first-person account, the man said he found corpses wash up on the riverbank and assumed they were suicides or accidental drownings. But he soon noticed that most of them were women, and many were naked or semi-naked and showed signs of violence. It was in 1998 when he was first asked to "secretly dispose of the bodies", he alleged. When he refused, he was allegedly beaten and threatened. 'We will cut you into pieces. Your body will also be buried like the other corpses. We will sacrifice all your family members,' he alleged he was told. He claimed that many of the victims he ended up burying in secret were minor girls and women subjected to brutal sexual violence. They bore torn clothes, acid burns, and other injuries. In a particularly distressing case in 2010, the man said he was ordered to bury a girl he estimated was 12 to 15 years old. 'She was still wearing her school uniform shirt but other garments were missing. She had a school bag. Her body showed clear signs of sexual assault. There were strangulation marks on her neck,' the whistleblower said in his testimony. 'They instructed me to dig a pit and bury her along with her school bag. That scene remains disturbing to this day.' He also claimed that destitute men were murdered at Dharmasthala and similarly buried. The man alleges that he was a witness to these murders. According to the lawyer, the corpses were not buried in designated cemeteries but on open lands. 'These were not organised interments sanctioned by any authority but random burials, hidden and illegal,' he said. The whistleblower said he kept silent for years out of fear but the 'insurmountable sense of guilt' and recurring nightmares became too much to bear. 'I can no longer bear the burden of memories of the murders I witnessed, the continuous death threats to bury the corpses that I received and the pain of beatings – that if I did not bury those corpses, I would be buried alongside them,' he said. Dhananjay said the whistleblower's claims described a place where 'ordinary laws just don't work at all'. 'Now if it is true, one must assume that if somebody goes missing in such a place, the police are simply not going to record it,' he said. 'But just because we are unable to explain the past, the rocks should not blind us to the present.' The lawyer said the whistleblower took matters into his own hands because he expected little from police. 'Before coming to us, he went to one such burial site, exhumed the remains, and handed them over to the court,' he said. 'So now, the court has half the picture. The other half is for police to take him to the site where the recovery was made. They have not done that either. This man was not wanted. There were no pending investigations against him. No one was even looking for these bodies. By not acting, police are sending a message to the world – that this man may be telling the truth.' In a statement issued on Sunday 20 July, the temple authorities said they support a 'fair and transparent' investigation. 'Truth and belief form the foundation of a society's ethics and values. We sincerely hope and strongly urge the SIT to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation and bring the true facts to light,' said K Parshwanath Jain, the official spokesperson for Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala. The whistleblower hasn't named any of the people he claims are responsible. He has sought protection from the court first, saying he will disclose more details once he and his family receive proper protection. Should anything happen to him before he is able to reveal the names, he has said, Dhananjay will open a sealed version of his full testimony. 'The truth about these tragedies must not die with me,' he said in his testimony. Karnataka State Commission for Women chairperson Nagalakshmi Chowdhary told The Independent that the appointment of a Special Investigation Team was a 'significant step'. She referenced the anguish of families still waiting for answers. 'An old woman is still hoping to recover the remains of her daughter just so she can perform her last rites,' she said. 'That's why I wrote to the Karnataka government, and within four or five days they constituted the SIT.' If you are a child and you need help because something has happened to you, you can call Childline free of charge on 0800 1111. You can also call the NSPCC if you are an adult and you are worried about a child, on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adults on 0808 801 0331.

Quick-thinking sisters, both 9, become unlikely heroes after saving drowning girl, 4, who 'turned blue in the water'
Quick-thinking sisters, both 9, become unlikely heroes after saving drowning girl, 4, who 'turned blue in the water'

Daily Mail​

time24 minutes ago

  • Daily Mail​

Quick-thinking sisters, both 9, become unlikely heroes after saving drowning girl, 4, who 'turned blue in the water'

Two sisters have been hailed as heroes after leaping into action to rescue a four-year-old girl who had 'turned blue' beneath the water at a Michigan apartment pool. Ava and Addison Apostopolos, both nine, pulled a drowning girl from the pool during a visit to their grandmother at the Hillside Apartment Complex and quickly sought help - ultimately saving her life, according to WXYZ Detroit News. The twin sisters were honored this week by the Wixom City Council and the police chief for their heroic actions, receiving the police department's prestigious Civilian Citation Award. 'I am very happy she's alive now, and I hope she's having a good time,' the twins told the outlet. 'And I'm happy.' Last month, while swimming in the apartment complex's pool, the pair spotted a terrifying sight - a little girl lying motionless at the bottom of the water. 'I got goggles to go under,' Addison recalled. Without hesitation, Addison dove into the pool, swam to the bottom, and pulled the unidentified child to the surface. At that moment, Cody Boyette - a maintenance technician for the apartment complex - was startled near the end of his workday when one of the girls burst into the leasing office, urgently pleading for help. Cody immediately abandoned his closing duties and rushed to the pool, where he pulled the four-year-old out of the water. 'She was totally blue, not breathing,' Cody told CBS News. 'When you see a kid in that stress, you kind of think about your own kid in that situation. If it turns bad, it can turn south really quick.' While another adult called 911, Cody quickly checked for a pulse and administered rescue breaths - miraculously reviving the little girl. 'I think we had maybe minutes before it would have been too late for anybody to do anything,' he told CBS. 'I'm just glad I was in the right place at the right time.' Thanks to the quick and courageous actions of Ava, Addison, and Cody, the child was rushed to the hospital and survived what could have been a catastrophic tragedy. Despite their efforts, both Ava and Addison were left in shock by the terrifying ordeal, struggling to fully grasp the gravity of the life-or-death situation they had helped to prevent. 'She asked me if I was okay so I could share my feelings too,' Addison told WXYZ about the emergency responders. Now, more than a month after the incident, the girls are beginning to embrace their roles as heroes - recognizing that the experience they endured was both meaningful and life-changing. 'Happy that we were in the right situation,' Addison said. According to their father, Jason, the incident has 'really been a wonderful thing for them and our family,' as reported by WXYZ. 'The city of Wixom really honored them, and that was wonderful, and they were really proud of that,' he said. 'We're just all about helping, we're aware of our surroundings and taught them the same thing, if you see something, do something.' Cody expressed admiration for the girls' swift response to the unresponsive child, adding that he holds no blame toward anyone for the incident. 'I think it was 100 percent a freak accident. You look away for a second, stuff can change in the matter of a blink of an eye,' he told CBS. In the end, he urged everyone to take a CPR or first aid class, stressing the importance of being prepared to act when an emergency strikes. 'I'd rather try to help and do what I can than stand there knowing I'm doing nothing,' Cody added.

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