Possible occult murder case in PA

by **professorpan** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 10:35 am

<a href="http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/12252047.htm">www.timesleader.com/mld/t...252047.htm</a> More items fuel cops’ occult hunt in fatality Friend of homicide victim Stephen Novak denies group involved in satanic rituals. By DAVID WEISS dweiss@leader.net NANTICOKE – A crucifix, bottles of holy water, a 666 sticker, a medal of the grim reaper, and a coffin with a gargoyle were among the 45 items police seized from Brandon Obaza’s home last week, court papers say. The items, which police say could be related to the occult or satanic worship, were detailed in an inventory sheet related to a search warrant in the investigation of Stephen Novak’s homicide. Investigators from the city, state and Luzerne County executed the warrant for Obaza’s East Ridge Street home on July 22, six days after the 24-year-old Novak was found pinned under a Jeep owned by the Obaza family in a wooded area off West Main Street July 16. No one has been charged in the death, but police said they believe Obaza left the homicide scene to return to his home. The inventory sheet also said police seized a gold-colored ceremonial dagger, spikes, a star-shaped candle holder, a black box containing religious items, syringes, bibles, two dolls, six guns, and a pistol crossbow . Police said they want to examine any items related to the occult or satanic worship to see if it is a link between the two close friends. But that’s nothing more than a stereotype, said a friend of Obaza and Novak. The friend, Josh Jones, said he’s known both men for years. And he can assure people Obaza and Novak, along with other friends in their group, did not dabble in satanic worship. “We’ve been stereotyped,” the 24-year-old Wilkes-Barre resident said. “Brandon and Steve were inseparable. They were like brothers.” Police have been pursuing the satanic aspect of the case since finding Novak’s body. It was found several hundred yards from an area where police investigated a pile of 25 to 30 burned and mutilated animal remains found in a “circular-type altar” in April 2004. Police, at the time, could not speculate whether the animal slayings were related to any type of satanic rituals. And, in the days after the death, police found various items, including compact discs and literature related to the occult and satanic worship, animal skulls, and weapons at the Obaza and Novak homes, they said. Jones admits he and his friends, at times, dress in all black, hang out in the popular wooded area near where the animal bones were found, and listen to dark metal music such as Cradle of Filth and My Dying Bride. But the group was never into rituals, he said. “We listen to it,” Jones said. “We like music.” The group, with Novak and Obaza, had a “good time” together, Jones said. They would congregate like most other friends, having pizza or sometimes going out in the wooded area just to get away from everyone, go for a walk, or sit around and have a few beers, he said. Jones spoke Wednesday, a day before police revealed what they found at the Obaza home. Jones could not be reached Thursday after police filed the inventory report. Police also secured two additional search warrants Wednesday at District Judge Donald Whittaker’s office to examine contents of four garbage bags given to police by Obaza’s mother, and to examine contents of two computers. Obaza’s mother found some “disturbing” items in Obaza’s room and put them in the bags to be thrown out, police said. Police believe there might be forensic evidence in the bags and computers, the warrants state. They also want to examine the computers to see if Obaza frequented Web sites “associated with the occult and/or satanic worship” or see any electronic communications between Obaza and Novak.

by **professorpan** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 10:48 am

Hmmm... while there are some disturbing elements here, the "evidence" of Clive Barker books, videogames, and a Giger calendar (stuff you could find in the bedroom of many brooding mall goths) reminds me of the West Memphis 3 case I have been posting about. I have to wonder if the popularity of shows like "CSI," which often feature occult crimes, has infected the police departments and residents of small towns? While it may turn out that there were occult links to this murder, the items presented as "evidence" don't indicate anything other than a fascination for the dark-themed music and occult trappings. The mutilated animal remains give one pause, though. Sounds like a group of messed up kids.

by **Rigorous Intuition** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 11:23 am

I know what you mean. And I agree with your other post about the need for caution. Often, the more "Satanic" something appears, with an overt affectation of evil, the less truly dangerous it is. I think for many, the "Church of Satan" was just a goth'd up Playboy Club. It's what the "good Christians" and the upstanding citizens are doing under the cover of America's churches and lodges (Ponchatoula; Toledo RC sex ring, priest charged in ritual slaying of nun) that is far more sinister.

by **proldic** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 8:38 pm

"Satanists brutally torture and crucify 12-year-old boy" 08/02/2005 [Pravda] ...The whole of Russia was discussing the shocking accident in the city of Krasnoyarsk (Siberia), when five teenage boys mysteriously disappeared and then were found dead in a sewage well. The horrible story repeated again, although this time in the Moscow region. Three boys (two brothers and their friend) between eleven and thirteen years of age, residing in a small regional town, were missing on July 19th. One of the brothers was found dead on Sunday morning, whereas the fate of two other boys still remains unknown. The schoolboys disappeared all of a sudden: they went out and never returned home. The progression of the story with the three missing boys in the Moscow region resembled the previous accident in Krasnoyarsk. The police believed at first that the boys had left for an adventure, trying to put their efforts to the test and see if they could live without parents or not. The police started looking for the boys several days later, when it became clear that the story was not that prosaic as it could seem. A group of guest-workers incidentally came across the mutilated body of one of the boys on Sunday morning. The boy's mother, who had to identify the body of her son, Mikhail, said that she was more than just horrified with what she had seen. The woman identified her little boy by his clothes only: the child's face and hands were brutally disfigured. Forensic officers found peculiar marks on Mikhail's hands and feet, which let the experts conclude that the boy had been crucified. The boy's neck was tied around with rope, although the child did not die from strangulation. Most likely, the teenager died of unimaginable tortures two days ago; the precise cause-of-death statement is expected during the forthcoming several days. The boy's body was found in the woods near the local cemetery. However, Mikhail was killed somewhere far away from his town, where he had been kept on a leash for a week. Investigators say that the three teenage boys from the town of Dedovsk, the Moscow region, Pavel Sokolov (11 years old) and two brothers, Mikhail and Alexander Yelshins (12 and 10 years old respectively), did not return to their homes on July 19th. Alexander Yelshin and Pavel Sokolov took a suburban train and traveled towards a large pond in another town of the Moscow region. Mikhail Yelshin joined the two boys about two hours later. The body was identified as 12-year-old Mikhail Yelshin. Forensic experts say that the boy died of mechanical asphyxia, or strangulation, although it is a preliminary conclusion: the boy could have been tortured and beaten to death. Investigators believe that a murderer or murderers either performed a bloody ritual using Mikhail Yelshin as a victim, or tried to represent the crime as if it had been committed by Satanists. Investigation is underway.

by **biaothanatoi** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 3:36 am

It's what the "good Christians" and the upstanding citizens are doing under the cover of America's churches and lodges (Ponchatoula; Toledo RC sex ring, priest charged in ritual slaying of nun) that is far more sinister. Agreed. I'm reading Noblitt and Perskin's "Cult and Ritual Abuse" at the moment, and their cross-cultural analysis of traumatic ritual is very interesting. I didn't expect to be convinced but I think they make their case - what we call "ritual abuse" has been documented by countless anthropologists and ethnographers as traumatic rituals and initiations, carried out in secret, at the centre/periphery of various religious and cultural traditions. So is "Satanic ritual abuse" simply ritual abuse within a Christian framework? If every religion has a "ritual abuse" flipside, can we reasonably give that flipside another name ("Satanic") within our own culture, simply to demarcate such practices off from the hegemonic public religion? Yep, ritual abuse goes against every Christian moral in the book, but ritual abuse is about cosmology, not theology - it's about the place of suffering and sacrifice within the cosmic order. Ritual abusers are often operating within an explicitly Christian framework, but they "read" it inversely.

Possible occult murder case in PA

Possible occult murder case in PA

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"messed up kids"

Bloody ritual or attempt to represent crime as Satanic?

Re: Bloody ritual or attempt to represent crime as Satanic?

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