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WHY .... doesn't Jehovah God consider warfare ... murder? It seems clear to me that Jehovah allows civil governments to run their own affairs as they see fit, and even has no objection to them judging and executing wrongdoers ... and even commands us to be in subjection to these governments, as even the very worst of them are better than anarchy. People generally misinterpret the scripture that say " Thou shalt not kill." where the scripture more actually says "Thou shalt not murder". There is a very real difference. A sovereign government, executing a wrongdoer is implementing the political will of that government ... whether it be a government the size of a continent .. or an extended family sized tribe of Jewish sheepherders living way out in the middle of nowhere, living in tents, governed by a patriarch. I have not been able to find in the Bible where actual warfare, committed by any sovereign group, is considered to be murder ... either by the perpetrators of the war, or the defenders of the war against them, except in the case of "war crimes" against non combatants and other cases. Did you know it is legal to drop napalm on civilians in war, from an aircraft ... but not from a flame thrower from a soldier on the ground? ....but I digress. Even people that warred against the Jews were not considered murderers..... they were considered warriors. I am working on getting this all straight in my mind now ... as there seems to be a profound truth buried in this stream of thought, somewhere, but I cannot get it to crystallize, or perhaps it is approaching 3AM, and I am too tired to think about it. But whatever it is that is ... what profound basic principle that I am missing ...is based on having a correct answer as to WHY ... WHY does God NOT consider warfare to be murder. I suspect when I figure it out, it will be like driving down a road in a southerly direction, thinking you are going North ... and then you see that landmark or sign that indicates you are really going South ... and that feeling you get when your whole frame of reference rotates in your head, like the world just rotated 180 degrees. It's like deja vu, and geography, combined. Perhaps my premise is faulty, but I don't think so. Please feel free to destroy my premise, or my stream of thought, or my conclusions. I try to be "loyal" to whatever is true, and not an agenda of defending an agenda. Knowing "WHY?" things are the way they are, is the key to good philosophy. Bad philosophy will waste our lives, which are pitifully short.
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Joseph Kindler gets off a plane at Philadelphia International Airport in September 1991 after his extradition from Canada and is turned over to Philadelphia Police. Three decades ago, Joseph Kindler was a serial burglar convicted of murder after tossing a potential witness into the Delaware River with a concrete block tied around his neck.  Kindler then escaped from prison twice — once with the help of another inmate, the other time using bed sheets as a rappelling line. And he nearly caused an international incident when officials in Canada, where he’d fled after his first escape, initially balked at extraditing him back to Philadelphia to face a death sentence, an illegal punishment north of the border. Kindler’s colorful legal history likely came to an end Thursday, when the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office agreed to vacate his death sentence and instead keep him in prison for life.  “What I did,” Kindler said in court, “still haunts me to this day.”  Kindler’s release from death row fits with the stance of District Attorney Larry Krasner, who on the campaign trail last year pledged that he would never seek to impose capital punishment. The position went unmentioned at the Criminal Justice Center during Kindler’s hearing; Anthony Voci, head of the district attorney’s homicide unit, instead said prosecutors agreed with Kindler’s lawyers that he had made “an extraordinary adjustment while in prison,” citing his becoming a Jehovah’s Witness and even inventing, from his cell, a patented wireless smoke detector. But one of Kindler’s attorneys, public defender Andrea Konow, said after the hearing that she had been fighting in court for Kindler to be removed from death row since 2013 — and it wasn’t until after Krasner took office that she felt sustained agreement that Kindler deserved to have his death sentence dropped for good. “We’re extremely pleased,” Konow said. “Mr. Kindler has truly made a remarkable adjustment.” Kindler became eligible for resentencing in 2011, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ordered his death sentence vacated due to ineffective assistance of counsel. At issue was the fact that Kindler, at trial, had barely any witnesses or evidence presented on his behalf as jurors weighed capital punishment. The practice, known as mitigation, is standard today but was a relatively new concept when Kindler was tried in 1983. He had been arrested a year earlier, after the body of 18-year-old David Bernstein was found in the Delaware River near Bensalem with 20 head wounds from a baseball bat and a chunk of concrete tied around the neck. Bernstein, before he was killed, had agreed to testify against his friend Kindler regarding burglaries the two had committed together. While awaiting trial on murder charges, Kindler twice escaped from prison. The first time, in 1983, he and another convicted murderer, Reginald Lewis, escaped after Lewis flooded his cell, yelled for help, and assaulted the guard who responded. Montreal. Authorities hesitated to return him to Philadelphia to face the death penalty because they had outlawed the punishment. But they eventually relented out of fear that their country would become a safe haven for American killers fleeing the law. In 1986, however, before he had an extradition hearing, Kindler broke out of a Montreal jail when fellow inmates lifted him onto the prison roof through a skylight and he rappelled to freedom using a rope of bed sheets. He was discovered two years later in the Canadian province of New Brunswick after being recognized on the television show America’s Most Wanted. He finally was extradited to Philadelphia in 1991. In court Thursday, Kindler, wearing a blue prison uniform and eyeglasses, acknowledged his troubled history while reading from a statement. But he said he had become a Jehovah’s Witness upon his return to Pennsylvania, and accepted responsibility for his crimes. No family members were in attendance, but Konow said Kindler’s father — who is in his 80s and in poor health — had visited his son in prison regularly for many years. The elder Kindler converted to become a Jehovah’s Witness after interacting with his son, Konow said. Speaking to Common Pleas Court Judge Rose Marie DeFino-Nastasi, Kindler — who will be returned to a general prison population after years in solitary confinement — said he hopes he will be forgiven for his actions. “I am truly sorry,” he said, “for what I’ve done.” Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/crime/philly-man-who-was-murderer-burglar-notorious-fugitive-gets-a-death-row-reprieve-20180301.html
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William Payton arrives at his sentencing in the Madison County Courthouse Feb. 26. 2018. A man has been sentenced to prison for dismembering his girlfriend's body and leaving the remains behind a south Huntsville shopping center. Earlier this month, a Madison County jury convicted William Lewis Payton, 44, of corpse abuse. Payton was found guilty of dismemberingTonya Lynn Amerson's body. The 27-year-old victim was Payton's girlfriend. During a hearing this afternoon, Circuit Judge James Smith sentenced Payton to spend 40 years in prison. Payton also is required to pay court costs and fees. Two witnesses, including Payton's mother, spoke on his behalf. The victim's family wrote letters to the judge. Payton initially was charged with murder in Amerson's death. But, because scientists haven't been able to determine how she died, that case was dropped. "We still don't know exactly what happened to Tonya," said Madison County Prosecutor Joshua Ballinger at today's sentencing. He said Amerson could have been murdered or died of a drug overdose. "If she was dying from a drug overdose, all (Payton) had to do was make one phone call and she could have medical assistance there," Ballinger said. "If he found her already dead, it would have took one phone call and he could have the proper authorities there. "It would have been bad enough if he had done nothing," Ballinger continued. "But he went beyond that -- he took a power saw, chopped her in half, cut her arms off, stuffed her in trash bags, stuck her in boxes and dumped her behind Target." Amerson's body was found behind the Target store at the Valley Bend Shopping Center in Jones Valley the morning of Oct. 16, 2015. "That's a level of depravity you only see in a horror movie," Ballinger said. "That's not something you see on Carl T. Jones Drive here in Madison County." Pleas for leniency Speaking on behalf of her son, Payton's mother described "a good kid," and a hard worker who devoted much of his life to God as a layperson Jehovah's Witness. She talked about Payton's love for his children -- he has eight, including two with Amerson. "William loved Tonya very much," he mother told Judge Smith. Defense attorney Shannon Moore asked the judge for leniency, noting the victim's own parents wanted a lenient sentence for Payton. Moore also described to the judge Payton's health problems, including sciatica, which can cause pain the back and legs. Speaking to the judge on his own behalf, Payton said he has high blood pressure. He said his blood pressure was so high -- 218/140 -- during the trial that he can't remember what happened in court. Payton also mentioned lawsuits, a cover up in Madison County, being bullied by a sheriff's deputy and having ineffective counsel. He denied killing or dismembering Amerson. Payton has two prior felonies in Madison County. He also faces additional criminal charges of child abuse and sodomy in neighboring Marshall County. He's set for trial April 30 on one count each of sodomy and sexual abuse of a child younger than 12. http://www.al.com/news/huntsville/index.ssf/2018/02/man_sentenced_for_dismembering.html
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This tragic story has been developing over the last couple of days in Venezuela. There is a mixture of reports and accounts coming in.... Two Jehovah's Witnesses (and fleshly sisters) aged 71 and 65, where found murdered. A 26 year male suspect has been arrested. In the apartment where the two where found dead, the words "Death to witnesses" (“Muerte a los testigos”) had been scrawled onto one of the walls.
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A 57-year-old Perth woman is facing a life jail term after being found guilty of murdering her elderly mother and burying her body in a shallow hole in the back yard of their home, in a crime that prosecutors said was motivated by "palpable dislike and hatred". Helen Levina was found guilty by a Supreme Court jury of inflicting fatal injuries to 76-year-old Ella Hromaya, whose decomposing body was found in bizarre circumstances in March last year. The two women lived at the South Guildford house with Levina's daughter. After coming home early one afternoon, the daughter let the family's four dogs outside and later found one of them, a great dane, licking her grandmother's skull. The daughter, who can not be identified, immediately called police who found Ms Hromaya's body partially buried behind two wheelie bins, with a crate and a dog bed on top. It was alleged at her Supreme Court trial that Levina, who was her mother's official carer, had murdered her on February 22, before putting the body in the grave and pouring bleach over it to speed up decomposition. Also found in the grave were a knife and a pair of scissors, while a second knife was found in one of the wheelie bins. A post mortem examination found two injuries to Ms Hromaya's head and multiple stab wounds to her legs. Relationship soured Prosecutor David Davidson said the motivation for the crime was the "palpable dislike and hatred" Levina had for her mother, a "small, frail woman", who the court heard had lived with her and her family on and off for about 40 years. The jury heard from a neighbour who testified that about six months before the murder, Levina had said to him: "I have my mother living with me. I can't stand the f***ing b****. I want to kill her." In his closing address to the jury, Mr Davidson highlighted Levina's two video recorded interviews with police in which he said she described her mother as "it", and said that during her 24 years of marriage she would "just show up like a bad smell". Levina told detectives "there was always tension in the house" and readily admitted she wanted her mother to move out, saying "I just didn't want to see her". In the interviews, Levina claimed the last time she saw her mother was when she left the house with two Jehovah's Witnesses who had visited her before. She said the two came to the door and her mother, who was in her pyjamas, said to her "I'm ready". Levina said she asked, "Ready for what?" and her mother replied, "They're taking me to the place I'm going to live". Levina claimed she then saw her mother pack up everything, "including her winter pyjamas," and leave. She said she had not heard from, or seen, her since. There was evidence that Ms Hromaya had, through the Department of Housing, secured new accommodation and she had been due to collect the keys on February 23, but the court was told she did not show up. Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-29/helen-levina-accused-murder-of-mother-buried-backyard-trial/9200874
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Murder-suicide: Jehovah’s Witness family found dead in SC home
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A husband and wife and their two young children were found dead in their home in Irmo, South Carolina on Wednesday after what homicide investigators called and apparent murder-suicide. Police believe 28-year-old Kia Miller along with their 3-year-old son Kyler and daughter Syrai, who was barely a year old were executed with shots to the upper body by family patriarch and devout Jehovah's Witnesses Sheddrick Byron Miller before he turned the gun on himself. The hellish scene was uncovered after the man's mother, who had not heard from her son in several days, went to their home in the Riverwalk neighborhood around 10 a.m. to investigate. There she discovered the bodies and called police. A spokesman for the Richland County Sheriff's Department told the Charlotte Observer that the initial investigation points to a domestic disturbance prior to the killings. One woman who knew the family told the Associated Press that there was no indication anything was amiss and expressed shock at the tragedy. Authorities say a handgun, the presumed murder weapon was found in the master bedroom near Shedrick Miller's body. His wife, also in the room. The two children were shot dead in their respective bedrooms. Police are still trying to determine the exact time of the murder. South Carolina's homicide rate of women killed by men is the worst in the country, according to a report by the Violence Policy Center in Washington. http://egy4u.net/611971.html- 3 replies
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Police had ‘enough evidence’ for a murder charge
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Police had enough evidence to charge a Royal Australian Navy sailor with the murder or manslaughter of Sara-Lee Davey within three months of her disappearance in Broome 19 years ago, an inquest has been told. Paul Gazia, the lawyer acting for her family, put the proposition to case officer Insp. Mark Bordan during yesterday’s inquest in Broome into the suspected death of Ms Davey. Ms Davey, 21, had been staying in Broome for a few days when she met murder suspect Richard Edward Dorrough, 37, at a nightclub. The pair went by taxi to the Broome wharf about 2.30am on January 14, 1997. Dorrough tried to join his ship HMAS Geelong berthed at the wharf with Ms Davey but was refused by Able Seaman Dean Mildenhall, who was on security duties. Mr Mildenhall told the inquest that Dorrough said he was going to take Ms Davey to the end of the wharf and have sex with her. Fisherman David Jones testified that about the same time he heard a woman yelling and screaming saying “get the hell off me” and he may have heard a splash sound. Mr Mildenhall said Dorrough returned to the vessel a short time later with scratch marks on his face that were not there before. A suicide note Dorrough left in 2014 said: “I did kill three times. It is the hardest thing to live with while trying to become a (Jehovah’s) Witness.” Mr Gazia suggested to Insp. Bordin there was enough evidence from witnesses confirming he was at the wharf with Ms Davey, the scratches on his face and that there were no more confirmed sightings of her. Insp. Bordin replied there was not enough evidence to charge him because four witnesses claimed to have seen her on or after January 14. Source:https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/31287093/enough-evidence-for-kill-charge/