Mystery Thriller from Hollywood

Hollywood; that alluring, almost magical place, where for years people across the globe have travelled to in search of fame, fortune or just to view the famous Hollywood sign. Now it seems people want to expand on this and have resorted to pinching Tinseltown related objects.

This news story taken form the LA Times is a nice little piece that contains tales of crime, intrigue and conspiracy within a small LA community. Perfect for NewsSpeak.
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First it was directional signs for tourists that vanished, and now 1923 bronze 'Hollywoodland' plaques marking the stone gateway to the community have disappeared. Theories abound.

Residents living on the narrow lanes beneath the Hollywood sign have quarreled for months over small directional signs pointing tourists to a place where the iconic Tinseltown symbol can be viewed and photographed.

The road signs benefited homeowners on the street that dead-ends at the locked fire road that leads to Mt. Lee and the Hollywood sign. Unfortunately, the signs funneled sightseers and tour buses onto other nearby streets. Then the signs mysteriously disappeared. Whether that's a crime depends on which street you live on.

But now real thieves have stolen two signs that nearly everyone in the hillside neighborhood mourns losing: the historic 1923 "Hollywoodland" bronze plaques that marked the stone gateway to the community.

"I was made aware of them being missing Saturday by a neighbor who wanted to show the plaques to a friend," said Jeff Meyer, owner of the nearby Hollywoodland Antiques shop and the caretaker of the gateway's clock.

On Tuesday, there were plenty of theories circulating at the north end of Beachwood Drive as to who may have taken the pair of 18-by-24-inch commemorative fixtures.

Tourists were at the top of the list, because the popularity of GPS devices has soared and droves of visitors are sent daily into Beachwood Canyon, thinking they can actually walk to the Hollywood sign.

Scrap metal scavengers were next, although many thought them unlikely suspects because lettered bronze markers are becoming harder to sell, despite a booming metals market.

Finally there were whispers that it might be one of the residents living beneath the Hollywood sign who is disgusted with the deluge of tourists that often clogs the neighborhood.

"Maybe it's an odd coincidence, but there's been an internal battle going on up here about signage. Maybe the controversy over that is behind this," Meyer said.

Authorities have no suspects, but people like Meyer are closely watching Craigslist and EBay to see if the two plaques pop up for sale.

Hollywood historian Greg Williams — whose family owns property in the Beachwood Canyon area — said he figures the plaques were swiped to be melted down. He said police would not take a report from residents over the weekend because the gateway is considered city property.

"My best guess is it was taken for salvage. Tourists don't usually go out with crowbars," and the Hollywoodland gate is not a traditional visitor attraction, Williams said.

"All the homeowners are upset," he said. "It's pretty despicable, but in this day and age anything is possible."

Sarajane Schwartz, president of the Hollywoodland Homeowners Assn., said the plaques' theft is only one example of lawlessness the neighborhood has recently experienced.

Anti-Semitic and anti-gay slurs were painted on a wall over the weekend, and the tourists' directional signs were taken. "And our homeowners association email was hijacked and illegal emails sent out," she said.

Schwartz was critical of what she described as efforts by the city "to designate our neighborhood as a tourism area. We're really mystified by that."

While her area has traditionally welcomed tourists, the onslaught of Hollywood sign searchers brought on by GPS devices is something "we can't manage anymore," she said.

The five directional signs pointing tourists away from Deronda Drive and toward another viewpoint were paid for by previous leaders of Schwartz's homeowners association and by another homeowner group: the competing Beachwood Canyon Neighborhood Assn.

Since their disappearance in February, there has been conflicting speculation over who was responsible. Before the $1,500 tourist signs were removed, one was covered over with a plastic bag by a resident disgruntled over traffic in the area.

"These signs literally said, 'Come on in,' " said Schwartz, who has lived in the canyon more than 30 years. "We're not Disneyland. We're not a tourist attraction."

Rival Beachwood Canyon Neighborhood Assn. President Fran Reichenbach speculated that the influx of tourists — "memento seekers" — might be to blame for the theft of the Hollywoodland plaques. She doubts that the plaques' disappearance is tied to the controversy over the directional signs.

Most residents support preservation of Hollywoodland's history, even if they are opposed to the wave of tourists, she said.

But Reichenbach said the tourists aren't going away. "They're here — it's a revenue stream that shouldn't be overlooked" for Los Angeles, she said.

So speculation continues and theories abound in Hollywoodland.

"I personally find it very suspicious the plaques were taken at this time when the two rival factions have taken down signs and are hiding them from each other," 31-year-resident Brian Van Zandt said.

"I miss them. They made you feel good when you walked past them and saw something historical smile back at you."

All Shook Up.

This story follows on from the previous one in the sense that it is also set in Birmingham, UK. This time it has a more international feel and the main subject is a worldwide iconic figure. It occurred within the dazzling world of an Elvis impersonator convention, where two Elvis lookalikes became involved in a love tussle. One lookalike is even facing up to the likelihood of experiencing the true ‘Jailhouse Rock’.
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AN ELVIS tribute singer has admitted attacking a rival impersonator he wrongly believed was trying to seduce his wife at a lookalikes convention in Birmingham.

Michael Cawthray, of Epperton Road South, Rhos-on-Sea, pleaded guilty to assaulting Jeffrey Burton, a US citizen, causing him actual bodily harm at Warwick Crown Court yesterday.

The 48-year-old victim suffered a suspected broken nose during a scuffle at the Metropole Hotel at the NEC in the early hours on January 9 last year.

He was treated in hospital.

At an earlier hearing, the court heard that Mr Burton persuaded Mr Cawthray’s wife Sioned to share a nigh-cap in his hotel room when Cawthray burst in.

Mr Burton’s father, James Burton, was Presley’s guitarist from 1969 until the star’s death in 1977.

Following his guilty plea a High Court judge told Cawthray, aged 43, that the court will want to consider a sentenced that will address his ‘insecurities arising from jealousy and ill-temper’.

The convention was organised by the Elvis European Championships Ltd, of which Cawthray is a director.

He and Mr Burton were both staying at the hotel.

After Cawthray had entered his plea, Mrs Justice Dame Julia Macur commented: “He has no previous convictions, but they were serious injuries.”

Regan Peggs, defending, pointed out: “It was a relatively small fracture to the nose, rather than what was first thought. Having said that, there will have to be a pre-sentence report.”

Adjourning for the report to be prepared, Mrs Justice Macur told Cawthray: “You are pleading guilty to a nasty assault, with injuries that are certainly not insignificant, although thankfully not as bad as first thought.

“I think the court will benefit from having a report on you.

“While I give no indication as to sentence, the court will want to consider whether there is any community sentence which can address your insecurities arising from jealousies and ill-temper.”

"I've been a bit weird."

As regular NewsSpeak readers will know, this blog mainly provides news stories that take place outside the UK and covers a vast range of international sources. NewsSpeak came across the following story on Austrian based site 9News, and it features a man from Birmingham, UK.

This story is just too good to pass on and it is nice to know that the UK has more than it’s fair share of ‘weird’ stories.
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A English man has tried to take pictures of women in a shopping mall toilet disguised as a mannequin.

University of Birmingham student Joel Hardman was caught trying to secretly film women on his mobile phone, the Birmingham Mail reports.

The 22-year-old from Edgbaston was seen sneaking into the women's toilets "dressed like a mannequin with a mask and a wig" earlier this month.

When security guards nabbed him after he emerged from the locked cubicle, Hardman admitted to performing a sexual act and said: "I've been a bit weird."

He also told police he found the sound of women on the toilet sexually exciting and said: "It's good you've caught me — maybe now I'll stop."

Police found three images of women's feet taken beneath cubicle doors on his mobile phone, and an audio recording of a flushing toilet, the court was told.

Hardman told Birmingham Magistrates' Court he felt "sexual gratification out of everything that goes on in women's toilets".

When asked to explain his outfit, he said he wore the clothes to a fancy dress party and then tried it out at the shopping mall.

Hardman confessed he had done it before in the women’s toilets at a university campus, but moved to the shopping centre because it was busier.

The student was released on bail on the condition he stayed away from public toilets.

District Judge Lesley Mottram said Hardman could face jail time because of the "aggressive nature" of the crime and the case is adjourned until May 10.

Amateur horror filmmaker takes his work a little too far…

There is an ongoing debate regarding horror films and the influence they have over viewer’s actions. Many experts are divided over the issue and NewsSpeak takes the view that of course the human mind is susceptible to outside influences including fiction, however, the actions of oneself is entirely one’s own.

The following news story set in Canada focuses on a trial of a man who has admitted to killing someone in 2008. The defendant was trying to make a horror film based on a previous film and claims the murder was accidental. Have a read and form your own opinions; if you click on the link above you will find content related to the story.
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An amateur filmmaker admitted Wednesday he lured a total stranger to a garage, knifed him to death, cut up the body and dumped it down a sewer, but he said it was all done in self-defence when a movie publicity stunt went wrong.

“I started thinking to myself, ‘How could I have been so stupid?’” Mark Twitchell told jurors at his first-degree murder trial. “All the precautions I took, but you just can’t predict human behaviour.”

Mr. Twitchell, 31, is charged in the death of Johnny Altinger on Oct. 10, 2008. He has pleaded not guilty.

The Crown has argued that Mr. Twitchell lured Mr. Altinger to a residential garage that night and killed and dismembered him to match a movie shot in the same garage by Mr. Twitchell and his buddies two weeks earlier.

The Crown has also entered into evidence a text document found deleted on Mr. Twitchell’s laptop hard-drive that details an unnamed author’s plan to explore his “dark side” and become a serial killer.

Mr. Twitchell said the garage movie, called “House of Cards,” gave him the idea that eventually got out of hand.

The eight-minute slasher flick revolves around a philandering husband who goes to meet a woman he met online. But he is instead tasered and abducted by a mysterious man in a hockey mask.

The killer takes the husband to a closed room, tapes him to a chair and obtains his computer pass code to clean out his bank account. He tells the victim he is being killed for his cheating ways, runs him through with a samurai sword and hacks up the body parts.

Mr. Twitchell told jurors that after the movie was shot he came up with a plan to make sequels for “House of Cards” and to create a buzz around what he hoped would be a franchise. His idea was for something he called multiple angle psychosis layering entertainment, or MAPLE.

Through MAPLE, he would put actual people through the same experience as the “House of Cards” victim, but not kill them.

That way, he said, when those people saw the movie, they would text or e-mail friends to say something similar had actually happened to them. That, he believed, would get people talking.

“We would be trying to keep the audience down the rabbit hole,” said Mr. Twitchell, referring to Alice In Wonderland.

He testified that on Oct. 3, 2008, he posed as an Internet date online to lure his first stranger, Gilles Tetreault, to the garage.

Mr. Twitchell said he had bought knives and created a “kill room” with plastic sheets on the walls and table to catch blood that was part of the hoax.

He said the plan was to surprise Mr. Tetreault, tell him it was all make-believe and ask him to write about it on the web.

But 10 minutes before Mr. Tetreault arrived, things changed.

“I got this spur of the moment idea,” Mr. Twitchell testified. “Instead of going through it in the regular way, I’ll actually try to scare this guy.”

Mr. Tetreault testified last week that when he got to the garage a man in a hockey mask tried to incapacitate him with a stun baton. He told court he fought back and managed to escape. Mr. Twitchell agreed that was pretty much what happened.

A week after that, Mr. Twitchell said, he lured Mr. Altinger, 38, to the same garage on the same premise.

But when Mr. Altinger arrived, Mr. Twitchell said he had reverted to his original plan of telling him it was a hoax and asking him to write about it on the web.

Mr. Altinger, he said, “did not seem humoured at it.”

The two began swearing at each other. Mr. Altinger called him “pathetic.” Mr. Twitchell called him a lovelorn loser. Mr. Altinger then kicked him and the fight was on, he said.

Mr. Twitchell said he grabbed a pipe and smashed Mr. Altinger on the forehead before Mr. Altinger wrested the pipe from him and set to hit him back. Mr. Twitchell testified he grabbed a nearby hunting knife and thrust out in self-defence.

“It was the sickest feeling ever,” Mr. Twitchell told court, fighting back tears and biting his lip.

“It all happened so fast.

“I saw it [the blade] sticking out of him.”

He told court he didn’t call for an ambulance because he knew Mr. Altinger would soon be dead from a wound to the heart. But he said he also knew that a man killed in a garage dressed up like a kill room would make him a murder suspect.

He told the jurors that, in a panic, he cut up the body, tried to burn it, cut it up some more then finally dumped it down a sewer. He said he later broke into his victim’s home and wrote e-mails under Mr. Altinger’s name to his friends, saying had run off to Costa Rica with a woman. He also stole his printer and laptop.

“It really comes down to trying to run away from something I should’ve faced head-on from the start.”

Mr. Twitchell also admitted that he wrote the 42-page document found on his laptop. He said most of it is an accurate description of his life during those turbulent weeks, though the names were changed.

But he said his preoccupation with serial killer thoughts was just research for his work. And, he said, the death of the Altinger character was made up.

The document details not a fight, but a surprise attack on a defenceless man as he enters the garage.

That didn’t happen, said Mr. Twitchell, but he explained he recrafted the death as a sadistic sneak attack to punish himself in a pique of self-loathing.

“It was like trying to kick yourself,” he said. “I would write any rude, crass or insensitive thing.”

Mr. Twitchell offered at the start of his trial to plead guilty to interfering with human remains, but the Crown rejected the proposed plea.