Latest news with #VeteransAffairsMedicalCenter
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Doctor who works at VA Medical Center in Mass. indicted on child porn charges, US Attorney says
A physician employed at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Bedford has been indicted on child pornography charges, the U.S. Attorney said Thursday. Sven Knudsen Ljaamo, 70, was indicted on one count of receipt of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography, U.S. Attorney Leah Foley said in a statement. Ljaamo was arrested and charged by criminal complaint on April 23. He was subsequently released on conditions after a detention hearing. Prosecutors allege that more than 100 graphic files that included photographs and videos of child pornography were uploaded to Ljaamo's Google account, according to the criminal complaint filed in federal court on April 22. Federal investigators seized more than 20 devices after obtaining a search warrant. 'Because of the volume of images, forensic analysis of all devices, including the devices described above, is ongoing,' the criminal complaint states. The complaint details graphic and disturbing images and pornographic videos depicting young girls being raped and sexually abused. In one image allegedly uploaded to Ljaamo's Google account, a naked man appears to be raping a girl believed to be between 5 and 8 years old, according to the criminal complaint. In another 37-second video uploaded to the account, a man is raping a girl believed to be between 9 to 13 years old, the complaint alleges. Federal investigators learned of the images and videos when Google submitted a Missing and Exploited Children CyberTip Report to Billerica Police, the complaint states. Google reported that the name provided by the user of the Google account was 'Sven Ljaamo.' Google reported that between May 8, 2024 and Sept. 10, 2024, the account had uploaded 108 files of suspected child pornography to Google Drive and Google Photos. When Ljaamo spoke to investigators, he allegedly admitted to viewing, downloading and saving the pornographic material involving female minors, Foley said. Ljaamo, in a written statement, confirmed that he 'bookmarked and accessed' several websites containing child pornography involving young children and specifically sites depicting 'young girls engaged in sexual acts,' investigators wrote in the criminal complaint. Specifically, in addition to other information, Ljaamo told investigators that 'that he has created folders titled 'Y,' and that 'Y' stands for 'young,'' the criminal complaint states. Investigators later seized Ljaamo's cell phone and laptop from his home, and another cell phone from his office at the VA Medical Center. 'On the laptop, inside the 'Y' folder, investigators found tens of thousands of pornographic and/or erotic images and videos,' the criminal complaint states. On the phone found at his home, 'inside the 'Y' folder, investigators found hundreds of pornographic and/or erotic images and videos,' the complaint states. If convicted of the charge of receipt of child pornography, Ljaamo faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, at least five years and up to a lifetime of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. If convicted of the charge of possession of child pornography, Ljaamo faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, at least five years and up to a lifetime of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
Buzz Feed
28-05-2025
- Buzz Feed
23 Female Serial Killers
Dana Sue Gray, who murdered three elderly women in 1994 in Southern California through violent methods like stabbing and strangling. Gray was arrested after one of her intended victims survived and identified her. It turned out her crimes were financially motivated; she killed to steal credit cards and valuables to fund her shopping habits. She is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla. Martha Wise, often referred to as the "Poison Widow of Hardscrabble," was an American serial killer from Ohio who was active in the 1920s. She poisoned 17 of her family members, which resulted in three deaths and 14 injuries. Her weapon of choice was arsenic, which she administered through water buckets and coffee pots. In March 1925, after confessing to authorities who had become suspicious of her large purchases of arsenic, Martha was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. She was sentenced to life 1962, after serving 37 years in prison, Martha had her sentence commuted to second-degree murder due to her good behavior. However, no family members would take her in, and rest homes refused to accept her. Within three days, she returned to prison, where her parole was revoked. Martha died in the Ohio Reformatory for Women on June 28, 1971, at the age of 88. Karla Homolka, a serial killer who acted as an accomplice with her husband Paul Bernardo (also a serial killer) in the rapes and murders of at least three teenagers, including her own sister from 1990–1992. According to CBC News, "Bernardo was convicted in 1995 of the kidnapping, raping, and murdering of southern Ontario teenagers Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy. Homolka portrayed herself as the innocent victim of a murderous monster. She struck a deal with prosecutors (later dubbed the "deal with the devil") and pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the deaths in exchange for a 12-year prison sentence. But videotapes of the crimes, found after the plea bargain, showed her to be a more active participant. Public outrage about Homolka's sentence had barely cooled by the time of her extremely high-profile release from prison in 2005." Kristen Gilbert, a former nurse who worked at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Northhampton, Massachusetts in the late '80s. She was convicted of four murders and two attempted murders of patients. Over time, her coworkers grew suspicious when they realized the deaths of her patients also coincided with a noticeable shortage of epinephrine. Rumors started to go around about her and Gilbert soon quit. After an investigation and trial, she was convicted of first-degree murder of three veterans, second-degree murder of a fourth, and attempted murder of two more. Stacey Castor, a convicted murderer from Weedsport, New York who killed her husband with antifreeze, attempted to kill her daughter with crushed pills mixed into a drink and was also suspected of killing her first husband in the 2000s. Castor's case became so widespread in the national news that there was even a special two-hour edition of ABC's 20/20 about it in 2009. Linda Hazzard, aka "The Starvation Doctor," who was responsible for at least 15 deaths in the state of Washington in the early 1900s. Hazzard had no medical degree, but due to a loophole for practicing alternative medicine, was actually licensed to practice medicine in Washington state. Hazzard created a sanitarium called Wilderness Heights in Olalla, Washington, where she "treated" patients via fasting, giving them only small amounts of juices. Although some patients actually survived her care, she was convicted of manslaughter in 1912 and was sentenced to 2 to 20 years in prison. She was released on parole in December 1915 after serving two years and even received a full pardon the following year. She died in 1938 from starvation while attempting a fasting cure. Amy Archer-Gilligan, a serial killer who also ran a nursing home, murdered at least five people by poisoning them in Windsor, Connecticut during the early 1900s. According to the New York Times, "In 1916, Mrs. Gilligan was arrested. State police, after an investigation, concluded that she had shortened the lives of up to two dozen or so men by poisoning them with arsenic. One of them was Michael W. Gilligan, her second husband. [...] The arrest of Mrs. Gilligan and her trial in 1917, after many bodies had been exhumed, rocked the state." Sara María Aldrete, aka "La Madrina," a convicted serial killer who also ran a drug-smuggling and human sacrifice cult with a man named Adolfo Constanzo in Mexico during the '80s. According to the San Francisco Gate, "All their victims except Mark Kilroy [a college student] were from Mexico. They were slaughtered in what police said were satanic rituals involving candles, machetes, and chants." Beverley Allitt aka "The Angel of Death," who was convicted of killing four children, attempting to murder three more, and causing grievous bodily harm to six others at a hospital in Lincolnshire, England between February and April of 1991. According to the Radio Times, "Allitt is currently serving three life sentences in Nottinghamshire-based psychiatric ward Rampton Secure Hospital." Nannie Doss, aka "Giggling Granny" and the "Lonely Hearts Killer," who was responsible for the deaths of at least a dozen people between the 1920s and 1950s, including four husbands, two children, and other family members. According to the Muskogee Phoenix, "She confessed to only killing her four husbands. Exhumations revealed she killed at least 12 family members, which she blamed on [a] childhood head injury. Journalists called her 'Giggling Granny' because she laughed whenever she told how she killed her husbands." Marybeth Tinning, whose nine children died suspiciously under her care in New York during the 1970s. It is believed she poisoned them over a span of several years. Before being caught, she managed to convince people her children had died of different things like acute meningitis, seizures, cardiac arrest, sudden infant death syndrome, acute pulmonary edema, and bronchial pneumonia. According to the Associated Press, "Under questioning by state police investigators in early 1986, she admitted to smothering the girl [her ninth child, Tami Lynne] as well as two of her sons. Prosecutors indicted her for the three deaths, with the lone conviction coming in the case of Tami Lynne's killing." Miyuki Ishikawa, aka the "Demon Midwife", who was charged with murdering many infants (possibly even over 100) through purposeful neglect. Her crimes were committed with accomplices during the 1940s in post-World War II Japan. While the story is complicated — her crimes related to poverty struggles people in Japan faced after the war — according to All That's Interesting, "When she was finally apprehended, her death toll was so high that to this day, she remains the most prolific serial killer in Japanese history and one of the most prolific female serial killers in the world." Rosemary West, a serial killer in England who murdered, sexually assaulted, and tortured at least nine women (possibly more) along with her husband, Fred, from 1973–1987. According to Sky News, "Many of the Wests' victims, who were all young women, were found buried in the cellar or garden of their house." Fred died by suicide in prison in 1995, while Rosemary remains in a prison in Yorkshire serving a life sentence. Aileen Wuornos, aka "The Damsel of Death," a serial killer who murdered and robbed six men (and possibly a seventh) while doing sex work in Florida from 1989–1990. According to CNN, Wuornos initially claimed she acted in self-defense. However, Sgt. Bob Kelley of the Volusia County Sheriff's Department — who investigated the case — later said, "After she was convicted of the first murder of Richard Mallory, she then pled guilty to the others, and after a certain point in time she started to recant and say she wasn't a victim. She simply robbed and killed those men to gain their personal property and to gain money." Wuronos was executed on Oct. 9, 2002. Belle Gunness, a Norwegian American serial killer active in Illinois and Indiana from 1884–1908, suspected of killing up to 15 men for insurance. Her children died in a house fire in 1908 and it's unclear if the body of a woman found with them was Belle. According to All That's Interesting, "Gunness had a system. After murdering her two husbands, the Norwegian-American woman posted ads in the paper looking for men to invest in her farm. Fellow Norwegian Americans flocked to her property — hoping for a taste of home along with a solid business opportunity. She also posted ads in lovelorn columns to attract wealthy bachelors. To lure her last victim, Gunness wrote: 'My heart beats in wild rapture for you, My Andrew, I love you. Come prepared to stay forever.'" Dorothea Puente, who ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California where she killed various elderly people and people with mental disabilities in the '80s. The total victim count reached nine confirmed murders and six unconfirmed. Puente was charged with a total of nine murders and convicted of three of those. She received two life sentences without the possibility of parole and died in prison at Chowchilla on March 27, 2011, from natural causes. Myra Hindley who was called "the most evil woman in Britain" in the press for her involvement in killing five children with her partner Ian Brady in the 1960s. According to BBC News, "Ian Brady and Myra Hindley tortured, sexually assaulted, and murdered five youngsters in 1963–65, burying four of them on Saddleworth Moor (an area in North West England)." Elizabeth Báthory, a Hungarian countess who is believed to have tortured and killed hundreds of young women in the 16th and 17th centuries. The lore is that the countess thought bathing in her victims' virginal blood would give her eternal youth. According to National Geographic, "Some witnesses estimated her body count at more than 600. Yet the countess was never convicted, and her husband could not be prosecuted from his grave. Instead, four of Báthory's servants were convicted of violence against young women in her castles. The countess, meanwhile, remained locked in her spacious jail until she died in 1614, at the age of 54." Tillie Klimek, who claimed to have "precognitive dreams" predicting her victims' deaths. She is believed to have poisoned and killed three husbands as well as neighborhood children in Chicago during the 1920s along with an accomplice. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, a March 6, 1923 story read, "Tillie Klimek and Nellie Stormer Koulik, the so-called 'arsenic widows' of the Polish quarter, were placed on trial today for the murder of one of the numerous husbands they are alleged to have poisoned. Apparently, the women killed Klimek's second husband for insurance money and later married and poisoned other husbands." Blanche Taylor Moore, a suspected serial killer who was convicted of poisoning her boyfriend and was also believed to be responsible for the death of her first husband, father, and mother-in-law. According to CBS 17, as of February 2023, "Neither her bout with cancer nor the death penalty have claimed her life, making her the oldest woman in the United States on death row." Frances Knorr, aka the "Baby Farming Murderess," an English woman who moved to Australia, became a baby farmer, and is believed to have killed, by strangulation, multiple children in the late 1800s. According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Knorr was tried and found guilty and ultimately hanged on Jan. 15, 1894, for her crimes. Amelia Dyer, another baby farmer turned serial killer in England who adopted and then murdered many children over a 30-year period in the late 1800s. According to BBC News, "Recently widowed and with a daughter to support, she learned of the practice [of baby farming] from a colleague. In 1869 she began advertising in local papers — 'Married couple with no family would adopt healthy child, nice country home. Terms - £10.' But instead of providing a safe and loving home, she would instead take the child for a fee and murder them — either by starving them, drugging them with an opiate-laced cordial known as Mother's Friend, or by strangulation." Finally, Joanne Dennehy who committed a series of murders in Cambridgeshire, England in March 2013. All three of her victims were male and she had killed them by stabbing. According to the Independent, "After killing her third victim, she phoned a friend to sing the Britney Spears song 'Oops… I Did It Again' and danced a jig of delight when she saw a television news report about the killings, which took place over two weeks."
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Man Develops Life-Threatening Infection After Eating Feral Pig
A Florida man in his 70s contracted an extremely rare, life-threatening infection in his implanted defibrillator after eating a feral pig in 2017. Before cooking and consuming the gift from a local hunter, the man remembers handling the raw meat with bare hands. Experts suspect it was at this moment that he was unknowingly exposed to a sneaky bacterium, Brucella suis. Years later, the man began experiencing feverish symptoms, intermittent pain, excess fluid, and a hardening of the skin on the left side of his chest, according to a case study, led by infectious disease specialist Jose Rodriguez from the University of Florida. When doctors finally figured out what was going on, the insidious bacterial infection had already slipped into the man's defibrillator, passing through the chest wall, the left subclavian vein, and into the muscular tissue of his left ventricle. The safest option was to replace the medical device completely. Globally, brucellosis is the most common bacterial infection that spreads from animals to humans, and it is usually carried by cows, goats, sheep, and pigs. Infections of B. suis and its close relatives are tricky to treat because they can hide inside immune cells for years on end, causing only mild, feverish symptoms that come and go at random. Since the bacteria are hard to isolate and grow in the lab and easily misidentified, as occurred in this case, blood tests don't always pick them out. Defibrillators are a perfect place for Brucella bacteria to hide. Antibiotics are difficult to deliver to these implants because of their limited blood supply, which means that if infected, taking out the whole device is often the only way to ensure proper treatment. While severe and life-threatening, a Brucella infection of a defibrillator is extremely rare. In a 30-year review of 5,287 patients with a defibrillator, only one patient had a Brucella infection requiring complete device and lead removal with antibiotic therapy. A series of unfortunate events led to the Florida man's diagnosis. In the spring of 2019, long after the man had handled raw pig meat, he began experiencing uncomfortable symptoms on the left side of his chest. The unfortunate fellow, who also suffers from type 2 diabetes and heart failure, was admitted to the hospital several times that year, where he was treated with a whole host of antibiotics. His blood cultures revealed an infection with a different bacterium from B. suis, and an ultrasound of his heart showed his defibrillator had migrated to the left chest wall, just below the nipple. In 2020, his symptoms persisted, so the man sought treatment once again at a Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Gainesville, Florida. While doctors could find no outward sign of bacteria on his defibrillator's valves or leads, they were concerned by the possibility of an overlooked infection, and so they decided to take the automated implant out of his body. Lab analysis later confirmed the device was contaminated by B. suis. The previous bacterium was a misidentification. "Substantial delays between Brucella exposure and clinical symptoms have been previously reported in patients with cardiac implantable electronic device infections," write the authors of the case study. "In this case, the intermittent use of antibiotics with device retainment likely led to a prolonged clinical course." After six weeks of taking two antibiotics, the man's infection was patient was outfitted with a new defibrillator four months after his old one was removed. Now, more than three years later, his blood shows no clinical evidence of brucellosis. His story is a cautionary tale to all who partake in eating unpasteurized dairy products or wild animals. In the US, feral swine (Sus scrofa) are the principal carriers of B. suis, as livestock are often vaccinated against these infections. Today, there are more than a million feral pigs living in Florida, which suggests the infection may be endemic to some parts of the nation. The study was published in Emerging Infectious Diseases. Scientists Finally Identified Where Gluten Reactions Start How Often You Should Wash Your Exercise Clothes, According to Science High-Protein And Fiber Diet Linked to Longer, Better Sleep, Study Finds
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Group protesting outside Sioux Falls VA Hospital
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – A group of protestors gathered near the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Sioux Falls Friday afternoon. Docs: Iowan says he tried saving student in Dominican The group gathered at Spellerberg Park and lined the intersection of 26th Street and Western Avenue. The group said it is protesting to 'honor and support America's Veterans.' Signs at the protest call for more support for Veterans. The group that organized the protest is called 'Indivisible 605.' The group says 'it is dedicated to promoting South Dakota values from a platform of inclusion and equality. We utilize non-violent and polite pressure to defend liberty against the current administration's authoritarian, nationalist tendencies.' According to News Nation, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Feb. 11 directing all agencies to 'promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force,' using a legal term commonly referred to as RIF to denote mass layoffs. Significant reductions are expected at the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Pentagon, raising concerns about the impact on vital services. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
