Morty's Death Blog

A second man has been arrested over the kidnapping and killing of 22-year-old Eddrick Bethune, who was taken from a North Miami apartment complex on 3 October by men allegedly posing as police officers. Naquon Jahrell Fagan, 25, is charged with offences including felony murder, armed kidnapping and impersonating an officer. He declined to make a statement, and the charges are allegations.

According to the arrest report, five men arrived at the Aliro Apartments in a grey Toyota Camry fitted with red and blue lights. Two in “Police” shirts allegedly handcuffed Bethune in the car park while others went up to his third-floor apartment, where a second resident grabbed an AK-47-style rifle and fired, wounding 21-year-old Devorise Carl Johnson, who has also been charged. The intruders fled by jumping from a third-storey window. Bethune was found shot dead in south Miami-Dade the next morning, and the Camry was later found deliberately set alight.

Detectives say the Camry’s rental agreement was in Fagan’s name, and that surveillance video shows him using it to buy black gloves at a Family Dollar hours earlier. Morty takes no joy in a young man’s murder; the absurd part is a plan that, as described, brought costume shirts, dashboard lights and gloves, then kept the paperwork.

A 71-year-old fisherman was killed on Friday evening at Dr. Bradford Memorial Park in Winter Garden, Florida, when an alligator nearly 12 feet long seized him by the leg and dragged him into a pond. Wildlife officials named him as Steve Hamilton. Investigators say he was posing for a photo with a fish he had caught when the alligator lunged from the water.

Rescuers struggled to reach him because the alligator would not let go, and trappers had to subdue it before his body could be recovered. An 11-foot-8-inch alligator was removed from the park and killed. The Orange County medical examiner has ruled the death an accident, caused by drowning and blunt force injury to the left leg. Neighbours say he fished there every day.

The park’s ponds connect to Lake Apopka, which a police captain says has “tons of alligators”. Florida has logged 32 fatal unprovoked bites since 1948. A card left on the park bridge reads “Thanks for all the fishing memories Steve.” Morty won’t joke about a man doing what he loved every day; the absurd part is a state that parks its dinosaurs next to the picnic tables.

A Catholic priest was killed on Saturday evening in Guayaquil, Ecuador, when a large wooden crucifix came loose from the wall behind the altar and struck him on the head during a livestreamed Mass. Father Patricio Alfredo Sánchez Molinari, 53, a Redemptorist, was parish priest of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church. Worshippers shouted “Father!” and rushed forward as he collapsed.

Minutes earlier he had been preaching about how we spend our time, telling the congregation that “one day all of us who are here will also die” and urging them to put God before money and work. The Archdiocese of Guayaquil confirmed he had “departed for the Father’s House”. The day before, it had congratulated him on his priestly anniversary.

Nobody has yet explained why the cross fell, and church officials have not said whether the fixings or the wall were to blame. The parish took down the viral video, and a memorial Mass was held in the same church on Sunday. Morty has no quarrel with the sermon, which was spot on; the questions belong to whatever was holding the cross up.

A Brazilian university leader was killed on Friday afternoon at Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter home in Scottsdale, Arizona, when strong winds tore loose a piece of roofing and sent it into his tour group. He was Brother Rogério Renato Mateucci, rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná. Police say he was hit in the head and likely died instantly. No foul play is suspected in what they call a weather-related accident.

The group had been visiting Arizona State University. The National Weather Service logged east winds of 22 mph around 2 p.m., gusting to 32. A detective told the visitors the clear roofing panel had travelled about 30 metres. Vice-rector Vidal Martins said Mateucci “loved the arts and architecture” and called the loss “not acceptable”, saying the site’s operators must make it safe.

The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation has closed the 1937 landmark until further notice and offered condolences, but says nothing more while police investigate. His university cancelled classes to mourn him. Morty has no punchline for a man who crossed a hemisphere to admire buildings; the only absurd thing here is the physics.

Orlando police arrested Dale Smith Jr., 55, on Wednesday and charged him with second-degree murder in the 2011 disappearance of his ex-fiancée, Michelle Parker, who was 33 when she vanished. Parker went missing on 17 November 2011 after dropping their two children at Smith’s home. Her SUV turned up abandoned the next day and her phone was later pulled from a lake. Her body has never been found. Smith has long denied any wrongdoing and is being held without bond.

The detail that made the case famous aired that same day: a pretaped episode of The People’s Court, in which Smith sued Parker over a $5,000 engagement ring he said was lost when she threw it at him. Judge Marilyn Milian split the blame and ordered Parker to pay $2,500. Police say new evidence and digital forensics led to the arrest, but have shared few details.

His lawyer, Rajan Joshi, says the state cannot meet its burden of proof and that investigators ignored other leads. Parker’s family has waited 15 years, and none of that is the joke. The bit Morty can’t let go of: the arrest was announced by Orlando Police Chief Eric Smith, who is, police stress, no relation.

Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63, was sentenced in Las Vegas on Tuesday to 40 years to life in prison for the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur. A jury convicted the former South Side Compton Crips leader in August of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon after about three hours of deliberation. Shakur was shot at a red light on 7 September 1996 while riding in a BMW with Marion “Suge” Knight, and died six days later, aged 25.

The case sat cold for decades. What warmed it up was Davis himself: in interviews and a 2019 memoir he described riding in the passenger seat of the white Cadillac and passing the gun to the back, and named his late nephew, Orlando Anderson, as the shooter. His lawyer argued he was a liar chasing money, that there was no physical evidence and that prosecutors waited too long. He plans to appeal.

Shakur’s siblings spoke at the sentencing, and their loss is not the joke. The absurd part is the career arc: a man who went 27 years without being charged, then put it in print. Asked if he had anything else to say, he told the judge: “No I’m good.”

A 42-year-old Atlanta man died on Monday after being thrown from the Goliath roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia. Cobb County police named him as Hassan Jihad Ibn Kariem, an IT manager, technology teacher and robotics coach at Wesley International Academy for more than 12 years. He was at the park with family for his niece’s birthday. Police say he was ejected from his seat shortly before 4pm, struck other riders and fell beneath the ride. Several people were hurt.

Nobody has yet said how he came out of the seat. Goliath, a 200-foot hypercoaster that opened in 2006, uses lap bars rather than seat belts. Georgia’s Office of Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner is running an “in-depth and comprehensive review”, Swiss manufacturer Bolliger & Mabillard is investigating, and Six Flags has temporarily closed nine similar coasters at six parks across North America.

A man went to a birthday party and did not come home, and that is not the joke. The strange part is the arithmetic of caution: one ride, one family, and nine roller coasters in two countries suddenly told to sit still and think about what they’ve done.

A man died on Saturday afternoon after entering the tiger enclosure at Yorkshire Wildlife Park, near Doncaster. South Yorkshire Police said they were called at 1.35pm to reports of a man going into the enclosure, and that “the tiger subsequently attacked the man, resulting in serious injury.” He died at the scene despite the efforts of medical crews. He has not been publicly named, and his family is being supported by specialist officers.

The park was evacuated and stayed shut on Sunday so staff, who it says are “deeply affected”, could get specialist support. Police say the tiger, an Amur tiger ITV News names as Altai, was uninjured, stayed in its enclosure and poses no wider risk to the public. Eyewitnesses told The Star they heard five shots, believed to be gas canisters and tranquilliser darts. The park says Altai will not be put down.

A man is dead, and that is not the joke. The odd part is the inbox: the park says “many, many people” got in touch about Altai, and police have had to ask the public to stop sharing videos of the attack. Somewhere between the evacuation and the trending clips, the public needed reminding that a death is not content.

A bear broke into a home on the outskirts of Mongolia’s capital on Wednesday night, killing a man in his forties and seriously injuring a woman in her fifties. The attack happened in Ulaanbaatar’s Bayanzurkh district, and local outlet updown.mn reports the home was a ger, the traditional felt tent. The woman escaped to neighbours and is being treated in hospital. AFP reports a team of 35 rangers has been sent to find and kill the bear.

The numbers are the strange part. Ulaanbaatar has logged 24 confirmed bear sightings this year, against two in 2018, the head of the city’s environment department told a briefing. Nationwide there have been 754, mostly cubs or mothers with cubs. Eight provinces now have bear-hunting permits, and a ministry official said one bear shot in Khentii province had an empty stomach. In September, authorities banned harvesting nuts and berries from the mountains for the rest of the year.

A man died in his own home, and that is not the joke. The policy is a little surreal: a government has asked people to stop picking the bears’ groceries so the bears stop shopping in town. Experts point to food shortages, possibly linked to climate change.

Belgian prosecutors want the husband of influencer Zoë Snoeks to face an assize trial for her death, after a sound test found that a scream from her fatal fall would have been audible. Snoeks, 33, from Meerhout, fell from a rocky outcrop above the Ourthe at Nadrin, in the Ardennes, in November 2021 and died at the scene. Her husband, Joeri J., calls it a tragic accident: he says he turned to look at their dogs, and she was gone.

Her parents never bought it. Investigators allege he deleted a video of the fall from her phone and was slow to call emergency services, and a hiker reportedly heard a scream. He denies all of it. He was arrested on suspicion of murder in October 2023 and released under conditions a year later. With the extra investigation now finished, the Turnhout council chamber takes the case on 27 October.

A woman’s death is not the joke here. The forensics are a little surreal: investigators went back to an Ardennes cliff to measure how far a scream carries, turning a murder file into a question of acoustics. Her father says the test proves the family was right. Joeri J. is presumed innocent.

A 28-year-old technician at Russia’s Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute has died of suspected pneumonic plague, and about 200 of her contacts have been placed under medical observation. Darya Shipilova was taken to hospital in Shelekhov on 29 September with severe pneumonia and died days later. RFE/RL and The Moscow Times report she told staff she had accidentally broken a test tube of live bacteria while collecting samples.

Officially, it is murkier. Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s health watchdog, lists “pneumonia of unknown etiology” and says no accidents involving pathogens were recorded at the institute. Buryatia’s leader first said she died of plague, then edited that to “may have.” Hospitals were quarantined, events cancelled and a criminal case opened, and the US State Department has asked Moscow to share information “quickly and openly.” RFE/RL reports more than 60 institute staff were confined to the building. Her contacts have so far tested negative.

A young scientist’s death isn’t funny. The paperwork is. The one building in Siberia whose entire job is plague has, on the record, never met any, and a regional leader found the edit button mid-crisis. Morty files plague under “medieval.” Moscow files it under “unknown.”

A 20-year-old US Marine has been arrested in Okinawa on suspicion of murdering and robbing Anna Yagi, 39, a Naha woman found dead in a hotel room early on Saturday 3 October. Police say Lance Cpl. Devin Jacob Ballard, stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, is suspected of killing her between about 2am and 4am; she died of suffocation from pressure on her neck. He denies the allegations.

Police allege security footage shows the pair entering the hotel together and Ballard leaving alone, and that her wallet and another item were taken. A hotel employee found Yagi after the two failed to check out. Ballard was arrested early on Sunday after officers spotted him in a nightlife district. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called it “an extremely brutal and heinous incident” and said Japan had lodged a strong protest with the US; the Marine Corps says it is cooperating with Japanese authorities.

None of that is funny, and Morty won’t pretend it is. The only absurd note is the alleged timeline: a man suspected of a killing before dawn on Saturday was, police say, picked up the next night back out on the town. Okinawa has a long, sore history with crimes involving US troops, and this lands right on it. The accused is presumed innocent.

A married couple aged 77 have been charged with murdering their son-in-law, New York Times Games engineering head Jonathan McKinsey, 40, in the car park of the Dublin Sports Grounds in California on Saturday 26 September. Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen face a murder charge with a special-circumstance allegation of lying in wait, and are being held without bail after appearing in court on Wednesday.

Witnesses told police a masked man fired at McKinsey, then handed the gun to a masked woman, who fired as well. Investigators say surveillance video shows the pair acting together, two firearms were recovered, and Zhang admitted the shooting in an interview. It came days before a divorce hearing between McKinsey and the couple’s daughter, after a bitter custody fight with dueling restraining orders; in court filings McKinsey had accused his in-laws of abusing him over his gender transition.

None of that is funny. What is hard to process is the sentence prosecutors now have to say out loud: two septuagenarians, in masks, allegedly waiting in a sports-ground car park and taking turns. Morty has filed plenty of family feuds settled in the will. This one, allegedly, skipped the paperwork.

Russia is drawing up urgent measures to shrink its brown bear population after at least 22 people were killed by bears since spring, Reuters reported on 30 September. This week a 23-year-old man gathering berries in Kamchatka was killed; the week before, a woman was fatally mauled in her own garden in Siberia. The Krasnoyarsk region alone has recorded seven deaths in September.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Patrushev says the plan is to lift hunting quotas, set regional population limits and hand local authorities more power. Investigators have opened a criminal negligence case against Krasnoyarsk’s environment ministry, and next door in Khakassia a deputy regional head described the town of Abaza as “effectively under siege by bears.” The bear count has more than doubled in three decades to about 308,000, blamed on milder winters, a dry spring that left the berries thin, and food waste left lying around.

So the bears are hungry, the people are out picking the same berries, and the paperwork has reached the stage where a ministry needs a defence lawyer. Morty files a lot of causes of death, but “out-competed for blueberries” is a grim new one.

A man in his 50s died at Brooklyn’s Utica Avenue subway station on 29 September after his bag got caught in the closing doors of an A train and the train pulled out of the station. It happened at about 5:48 p.m., in the thick of the evening rush in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He was dragged as the train left and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police say no criminality is suspected. The MTA is investigating how he became caught, and it is still unclear whether he was getting on or off. Early reports differ on the exact details of the final seconds, which is normal this soon after.

Every New Yorker has heard “stand clear of the closing doors, please” so many thousands of times that it has stopped being a sentence and become weather. A bag in the doors is supposed to be a two-second nuisance, the kind of thing you yank free and forget by the next stop. Morty has filed a great many causes of death, and “bag caught in the doors” is one of the least fair entries he has ever had to type. Nobody should lose a life over luggage.

Gabe Reilly, a 27-year-old Salt Lake City firefighter and experienced BASE jumper, died on Sunday 27 September after a wingsuit jump from a 700-foot cliff in Cache County, Utah. He jumped at about 9:10 a.m. just east of Millville Canyon, near Leetham’s Hollow, with a group of eight to ten people. The sheriff’s office said “something went wrong and he did not have enough lift with his wingsuit.”

Search and rescue teams, county fire crews, deputies, Life Flight and a state helicopter responded, and he was declared dead at the scene. Reilly had served four years with the Salt Lake City Fire Department and was the son of a retired firefighter. The department remembered his “infectious smile, kind heartedness, and his free-spirited nature.”

BASE stands for Building, Antenna, Span and Earth, which makes it the only hobby whose name is a list of things to jump off. A wingsuit turns a human into a nylon flying squirrel, and on a good day it looks exactly like flight. Morty, who processes the paperwork on the bad days, notes that gravity has never lost a case on appeal. It does not care how experienced you are, how kind you were, or how many people you pulled out of burning buildings.

Caleb Flynn, a 40-year-old former American Idol contestant and church worship leader, is on trial in Ohio accused of murdering his wife, Ashley Flynn, a former teacher and mother of two who was shot at the family’s Tipp City home on 16 February. He has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors allege he shot her as she slept and staged a break-in. His defence says police moved too fast and nobody can prove he pulled the trigger. The gun has never been found.

Prosecutors point to an 18-month affair with Alleigha Botner, now 24, a former intern at his church, who testified that she believes he did it. Jurors also heard texts prosecutors say Flynn sent, including “I just want her dead and gone.”

Then came the music. Investigators recovered AI-generated love songs from Flynn’s phone, allegedly made for Botner, and prosecutors played them in court. Botner said the song was written “to show how much he cared about me.” Morty has sat through many things in the line of duty, but a synthetic ballad entered into evidence, with no skip button, is a new low for the jury box. The trial continues.

Kylo, a six-year-old Portland Police Bureau K-9, was shot and killed on Thursday 24 September, on what the bureau says was scheduled to be his last shift before retirement. He was wounded at about 1:45 p.m. in Southeast Portland during an arrest attempt by a U.S. Marshals-led violent offender task force, and died after being rushed for emergency veterinary care.

The man the task force was looking for, who police say was wanted in connection with a homicide in Gresham that morning, was also killed. Police say shots were fired as he tried to run, and a gun was recovered at the scene. Four officers were involved, and the two from Portland are on paid leave, as policy requires. Police have not said whose gunfire hit Kylo.

Morty has seen enough cop films to know the one rule every screenwriter obeys: never let anyone mention they are one day from retirement. It is the most reliable plot device in fiction, and apparently nobody sent reality the memo. Police Chief Bob Day said the bureau’s dogs are part of its family, and that this one hits a little more personally. The bureau called Kylo “a true protector of the peace.”

Osiris, a 26-year-old female beluga whale, died at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium on Monday 21 September, two months after she arrived from the shuttered Marineland park in Niagara Falls, Ontario. A week earlier Shedd said she was improving after dehydration and an electrolyte imbalance. Then, in the aquarium’s words, “her condition declined rapidly.” A necropsy is under way.

She is the third Marineland beluga to die at Shedd since late August, after Peekachu and Rain. A fourth, Jelly Bean, died after being sent to Oceanogràfic in Valencia, Spain, and Shedd also lost Beethoven, a 34-year-old beluga who already lived there. Lori Marino of the Whale Sanctuary Project says there was no transparency about how sick these whales were when they left Ontario.

The route to Chicago is the absurd part. Marineland, criticised for years over conditions at the park, closed, asked Ottawa to let it ship its 30 belugas to China, was refused, and then warned it might have to euthanize them. Morty has seen plenty of negotiating tactics, but threatening to put down your own whales is a new one. Shedd says it always knew the outcome for every animal “could not be guaranteed.”

On the night of 16 February 2022, Microsoft executive Jared Bridegan, 33, dropped his twins off at his ex-wife Shanna Gardner’s home in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Minutes later he stopped for a tyre left lying on Sanctuary Boulevard and was shot dead. His two-year-old daughter was strapped into her car seat behind him. A bullet narrowly missed her.

Prosecutors call it a murder-for-hire that was years in the planning. A detective testified that Gardner and a friend traded texts as far back as 2015 about finding someone who could “do magic” or perform “a permanent disappearing act”, and that “funeral potatoes” was code. Her lawyer, Jose Baez (yes, the Casey Anthony one), says prosecutors are deliberately twisting her words. Morty would point out that most casseroles get through life without a defence attorney.

In August a jury took four hours to convict her estranged husband, Mario Fernandez Saldana, of first-degree murder. The key evidence was $10,000 in cheques he had written to the alleged gunman, Henry Tenon. On 18 September the state merged Gardner’s and Tenon’s trials and dropped two of her charges. She still faces murder and conspiracy, has pleaded not guilty, and goes on trial in May 2027.