The 75 Things New Yorkers Talked About in 2011

New Yorkers

IT was a year in which the words “till death do us part” took on new, life-changing meaning for thousands of gay New Yorkers and significantly less for one overexposed Kardashian.

It was a year in which smart, talented women ruled the music scene (Adele), the best-seller lists (Tina Fey) and the box office (“Bridesmaids”), and starred in the best new show on television (Claire Danes in “Homeland”).

It was a year in which America’s pastime reasserted its power over sports fans in one compelling night, even if the Yankees came out on the losing end.

It was a year in which protests toppled dictators in the Middle East and turned an otherwise obscure park in downtown Manhattan into a weekend tourist attraction for many New Yorkers and a handy photo opp for celebrities (Kanye West, Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin, Penn Badgley) eager to show their solidarity with the “99 percent.”

It was a year in which Mormons sang, Chaz Bono danced and Anderson Cooper talked.

It was, as always, a year of memorable moments — some awe-inspiring, some laughable, some just head-shaking. (Charlie Sheen? Winning? Really?) Here are some of the most compelling topics of conversation of 2011.

1. The G.O.P. debates. The best reality TV show not on Bravo.

2. The best moment of the debates: “Oops.”

3. The second-best moment of the debates: Ron Paul’s errant eyebrow.

4. Regis Philbin calls it quits after 28 years.

5. Kim Kardashian calls it quits after 72 days.

6. Adele.

7. Kate Middleton’s wedding dress (by Sarah Burton): Grace Kelly reborn.

8. Princess Beatrice’s fascinator (by Philip Treacy). Laugh if you will, but it raised $131,000 for charity.

9. Pippa Middleton’s derrière (by nature). The backside that launched a thousand paparazzi shots.

10. The D.S.K. whiplash. He’s guilty! No, he’s innocent! Hey, maybe he’s guilty after all.

11. The Alexander McQueen show at the Met. A tortured British designer proves almost as popular as King Tut.

12. Steve Jobs. Fittingly, many people learned the news of his death on their iPhones.

13. Occupy Wall Street. Brought the phrase “the other 99 percent” to a zillion T-shirts and bestowed unexpected, late-in-life fame to a former Ed Koch aide, John Zuccotti.

14. Chaz Bono on “Dancing With the Stars”: a transgender star is born.

15. Ellen Barkin on Twitter. Never has unbridled profanity been so entertaining.

16. Sept. 28 and the most thrilling three hours in baseball history. Final scores: Philadelphia 3, Atlanta 2; Baltimore 4, Boston 3; Tampa Bay 8, New York Yankees 7.

17. “9-9-9.”

18. “Homeland.” Angela Chase grows up into a pill-popping, bipolar, line-crossing C.I.A. operative. The most compelling character on television in 2011.

19. You’re never too young to be a cougar. Selena Gomez (19) snares Justin Bieber (17).

20. Splits: Arnold and Maria, Ashton and Demi, Scarlett and Ryan, Candace Bushnell and Charles Askegard.

21. Funny women: Tina Fey, Mindy Kaling, Chelsea Handler, “Bridesmaids,” the showstopping moment at the Emmys when all the nominees for best actress in a comedy series came up onstage together.

22. Serena Williams has another meltdown at the United States Open.

23. Al Sharpton gets a TV show on MSNBC. We’re waiting to see if Tawana Brawley will ever be one of his guests.

24. Keith Olbermann leaves MSNBC to go to Current TV, is never heard from again.

25. Zooey Deschanel: adorable or irritating? Discuss.

26. The Uniqlo phenomenon. Its ads were inescapable (especially for anyone who rode the subway).

27. Anderson Cooper’s disappointing talk show. Sigh. He should have waited for Regis to retire.

28. A hearty farewell to bin Laden, Qadaffi and Kim Jong-il.

29. Anthony Weiner resigns after reports surface that he has tweeted pictures of his naked torso to young women across the country. Insert joke here.

30. Same-sex marriage comes to New York State.

31. Cathie Black’s short, shockingly inept stint as New York schools chancellor.

32. O.K., she was a terrible chancellor, but no one deserved that unpitying photo of her that New York magazine ran on its cover.

33. Nascar fans boo Michelle Obama and Jill Biden when they show up at a race — to promote a charity.

34. Here, there and everywhere. The ubiquitous Nicki Minaj.

35. The Murdoch phone-hacking scandal. Has there ever been a better example of schadenfreude?

36. Mia Farrow’s and Woody Allen’s son, Ronan (né Satchel) is named a Rhodes scholar.

37. The Netflix debacle.

38. Waiting for “Downton Abbey” to return.

39. The end of Elaine’s.

40. In August, Mayor Bloomberg announces a deputy mayor has resigned to pursue “private-sector opportunities in infrastructure finance.” Left out of the announcement: The official had been arrested days earlier after allegations of a domestic dispute with his wife.

41. Brian Williams: the next Walter Cronkite or the next Johnny Carson?

42. Blake Lively and Leo DiCaprio

43. Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds.

44. Ryan Gosling’s abs.

45. The heat wave in July. The hurricane in August. The blizzard in October. Mother Nature must be awfully angry about something.

46. The terrifying Tiger Mother.

47. Elizabeth Taylor goes out with a bang. The auction of her jewelry, gowns and other belongings at Christie’s raises $156 million, much of which will go to her AIDS foundation.

48. The maddeningly catchy (or maybe just maddening) “Moves Like Jagger.”

49. Getting lost at “Sleep No More.”

50. Getting a lap dance from Hugh Jackman.

51. Planking.

52. “Twilight.” Isn’t it over yet?

53. The body count at “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.”

54. The guessing game at Dior.

55. Andy Rooney signs off for the last time

56. Lady Gaga, yes. Jo Calderone, no.

57. Michael Fassbender. And not just because of the frontal nudity in “Shame.”

58. Meryl Streep. And not just because she nails the accent (again) in “The Iron Lady.”

59. R.I.P., R.E.M.

60. The two Emmas (Stone and Watson) rocked the red carpet in 2011.

61. “The Book of Mormon.” Never has blasphemy been so hilarious.

62. Oprah takes a year — and three finale shows — to say goodbye.

63. The 10th anniversary of 9/11.

64. Gospel brunch at Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster Harlem.

65. “I simply do not know where the money is.”

66. The seatmates from hell. Gérard Depardieu is escorted off an Air France flight after he urinates in the middle of the cabin. Alec Baldwin gets into a fight with flight attendants over his refusal to stop playing “Words With Friends” on his iPhone.

67. The scandal at Penn State: What did JoePa know, and when did he know it?

68. Mothers of reinvention: Tina Brown and Arianna Huffington.

69. The end of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

70. The nearly two-day waits to buy a new iPad 2. (One woman spends 41 hours in line at the Apple store on Fifth Avenue, then sells her spot for $900.)

71. Tebow Time.

72. Natalie Portman and Benjamin Millepied.

73. A fond farewell to Erica Kane and the rest of Pine Valley.

74. The now officially annoying James Franco.

75. The revival of Larry Kramer’s 1985 play, “The Normal Heart.” An eloquent reminder that Silence = Death.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 29, 2011

In a previous version of this article, listing No. 69 referred to an event that occurred in 2010, the Marina Abramovic retrospective at MoMA. And while some models in the exhibition were nude, Ms. Abramovic herself was not.

News by NYtimes


Read current news at http://bbc-cnn-worldnews.blogspot.com

Man burns woman alive in Brooklyn building lift

Woman burnt in Brooklyn building lift

The surveillance video, its images disturbingly clear, ends with a woman being burned alive in the elevator of a Brooklyn apartment building on Saturday.

But in the beginning, it seemed routine: a man dressed as an exterminator, wearing gloves, with a protective mask perched atop his head and carrying a container on his back, takes the elevator to the fifth floor. Sometime later, an older woman carrying groceries took the same ride to the fifth floor.

Two cameras recording from different positions, one inside the small tiled elevator and another in a hallway, show the doors open and the man with the container approach. The man, who appeared to be in his 40s, first sprays the woman in the face, then douses her methodically from head to toe with what a city official said was an accelerant as she turned and cowered, raising her hands, the grocery bags hanging from her wrists.

Having cornered the woman in the elevator, the man struggles to light a barbecue lighter. He then ignites a Molotov cocktail - a wine or Champagne bottle filled with accelerant with a rag stuffed in its neck. He retreats and comes back again, spraying more liquid on his victim.

And suddenly the silent video goes white with a conflagration in the small space: the woman, on fire.

Investigators are poring over the footage, a disturbing silent film capturing what is perhaps a singular act of violence: a woman being burned alive. The crime took place on Saturday afternoon at 203 Underhill Avenue in Prospect Heights. The police identified the victim as Doris Gillespie, 64. One neighbour said that Gillespie was a postal worker.

News by TimesofIndia

Read current news at http://bbc-cnn-worldnews.blogspot.com

Woman decorates ceiling with 1,700 Christmas baubles

Woman decorates ceiling with 1,700 Christmas decorations (Pics:Rex)

According to Sylvia her best bauble buying experience was when she visited Macy's in New York and was overwhelmed with the choice on offer.

On that trip she walked away with 30 new decorations and even had to buy a new bag to carry them all home in.

Some of her most expensive baubles cost £14 each and were brought from Harrods in London.

News by Mirror


Read current news at http://bbc-cnn-worldnews.blogspot.com

Why Muslims more devout than others?

Muslims at Pray in Mosques

Conflict, theology and history make Muslims more religious than others, experts say

(CNN) – Every religion has its true believers and its doubters, its pious and its pragmatists, but new evidence suggests that Muslims tend to be more committed to their faith than other believers.

Muslims are much more likely than Christians and Hindus to say that their own faith is the only true path to paradise, according to a recent global survey, and they are more inclined to say their religion is an important part of their daily lives.

Muslims also have a much greater tendency to say their religion motivates them to do good works, said the survey, released over the summer by Ipsos-Mori, a British research company that polls around the world.

Islam is the world's second-largest religion - behind Christianity and ahead of Hinduism, the third largest. With some 1.5 billion followers and rising, Islam's influence may be growing even faster than its numbers as the Arab Spring topples long-reigning secular rulers and opens the way to religiously inspired political parties.

The case against TLC’s “All-American Muslim”

But while there's no doubt about the importance of Islam, experts have different theories about why Muslims appear to be more religious than members of other global faiths - and contrasting views on whether to fear the depth of Muslims' commitment to their faith.

One explanation lies in current affairs, says Azyumardi Azra, an expert on Islam in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim majority country.

Many Muslims increasingly define themselves in contrast with what they see as the Christian West, says Azra, the director of the graduate school at the State Islamic University in Jakarta.

"When they confront the West that they perceive or misperceive as morally in decline, many Muslims feel that Islam is the best way of life. Islam for them is the only salvation," he says.

The case for TLC’s “All-American Muslim”

That feeling has become stronger since the September 11 attacks, as many Muslims believe there is a "growing conflict between Islam and the so-called West," he says.

"Unfortunately this growing attachment to Islam among Muslims in general has been used and abused by literal-minded Muslims and the jihadists for their own purposes," he says.

But other experts say that deep religious commitment doesn't necessarily lead to violence.

"Being more religious doesn't necessarily mean that they will become suicide bombers," says Ed Husain, a former radical Islamist who is now a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

In fact, Husain argues that religious upbringing "could be an antidote" to radicalism.

American Muslim women who cover explain their choice

The people most likely to become Islamist radicals, he says, are those who were raised without a religious education and came to Islam later, as "born-agains."

Muslims raised with a grounding in their religion are better able to resist the distortions of Islam peddled by recruiters to radical causes, some experts like Husain argue, making them less likely to turn to violence.

But he agrees that Muslims are strongly attached to their faith, and says the reason lies in the religion itself.

"Muslims have this mindset that we alone possess the final truth," Husain says.

Muslims believe "Jews and Christians went before us and Mohammed was the last prophet," says Husain, whose book "The Islamist" chronicles his experiences with radicals. "Our prophet aimed to nullify the message of the previous prophets."

The depth of the Muslim commitment to Islam is not only a matter of theology and current events, but of education and history, as well, other experts say.

"Where religion is linked into the state institutions, where religion is deeply ingrained from childhood, you are getting this feeling that 'My way is the only way,'" says Fiyaz Mughal, the director of Faith Matters, a conflict-resolution organization in London.

The Ipsos-Mori survey results included two countries with a strong link between religion and the state: Legally Muslim Saudi Arabia, which calls itself the guardian of Islam's two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina; and Indonesia, home of the world's largest Muslim population.

The third majority Muslim country in the study is Turkey, which has a very different relationship with religion. It was founded after World War I as a legally secular country. But despite generations of trying to separate mosque and state, Turkey is now governed by an Islam-inspired party, the AKP.

Turkey's experience shows how difficult it can be to untangle government and religion in Muslim majority countries and helps explain the Muslim commitment to their religion, says Azyumardi Azra, the Indonesia expert.

He notes that there has been no "Enlightenment" in Islam as there was in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, weakening the link between church and state in many Christian countries.

"Muslim communities have never experienced intense secularization that took place in Europe and the West in general," says Azra. "So Islam is still adhered to very strongly."

But it's not only the link between mosque and state in many Muslim majority countries that ties followers to their faith, says professor Akbar Ahmed, a former Pakistani diplomat who has written a book about Islam around the world.

Like Christians who wear "What Would Jesus Do?" bracelets, many Muslims feel a deep personal connection to the founder of their faith, the prophet Muhammad, he says.

Muhammad isn't simply a historical figure to them, but rather a personal inspiration to hundreds of millions of people around the world today.

"When a Muslim is fasting or is asked to give charity or behave in a certain way, he is constantly reminded of the example set by the prophet many centuries ago," argues Ahmed, the author of "Journey Into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization."

His book is based on interviews with Muslims around the world, and one thing he found wherever he traveled was admiration for Muhammad.

"One of the questions was, 'Who is your role model?' From Morocco to Indonesia, it was the prophet, the prophet, the prophet," says Ahmed, the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington.

But while Ahmed sees similar patterns across the Islamic world, Ed Husain, the former radical, said it was important to understand its diversity, as well.

"There is no monolithic religiosity - Muslims in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia are following different versions of Islam," says Husain. "All we're seeing (in the survey) is an adherence to a faith."

Political scientist Farid Senzai, director of research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding in Washington, raised questions about the survey's findings.

"Look at the countries that are surveyed - Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Turkey," he says. "There are about 300 million Muslims in those three countries, (who make up) about 20% of Muslims globally."

Islam is "incredibly important" in Saudi Arabia, he says.

"But in Tunisia or Morocco you could have had a different result. It would have been nice if they had picked a few more Arab countries and had a bit more diversity," says Senzai.

The pollster, Ipsos-Mori, does monthly surveys in 24 countries, three of which are majority Muslim – Turkey, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. The other countries range from India to the United States, and Mexico to South Korea, and are the same each month, regardless of the subject the pollsters are investigating.

In the survey released in July, about six in 10 Muslims in the survey said their religion was the only way to salvation, while only a quarter of Hindus and two out of 10 Christians made that claim about their own faiths.

More than nine out of 10 Muslims said their faith was important in their lives, while the figure was 86% for Hindus and 66% for Christians.

Ipsos-Mori surveyed 18,473 adults via an online panel in April and released the findings in July. Results were weighted to make the results as representative as possible, but the pollster cautioned that because the survey was conducted online, it was harder to get representative results in poorer countries where internet access is not widespread.

CNN polling director Keating Holland also warns that in an "opt-in" survey, where respondents actively choose to participate, results tend to come from "people who are confident in their opinions and express them openly... not good for intensely private matters like faith or income or sex."

Online surveys in countries that are not entirely free are also open to the possibility that pollsters get "the approved response" in those nations, "where the people who are most likely to be willing to talk about such matters are the ones who hold, or at least verbalize, opinions that won't get them in trouble if they are expressed," Holland says.

That may have been an issue in Saudi Arabia, where respondents were given the choice of not answering questions on religion due to their potential sensitivity in the kingdom. The Saudi sample was the smallest, with 354 participants, meaning "findings for Saudi Arabia must be treated with caution," Ipsos-Mori said.

About 1,000 people participated in most countries, but sample sizes were smaller in the three majority Muslim countries and in eight other countries.

The survey participants did not reflect the true percentage of Christians and Muslims in the world. Christians were over-represented – as were people who said they had no religion – and Muslims were under-represented.

Nearly half the respondents identified themselves as Christian. Eleven percent were Muslim, 4% were Buddhist, 3% were Hindu and 3% were "other." A quarter said they had no religion and 6% refused to say.

Fiyaz Mughal, the interfaith expert, argues that even though the countries surveyed might not be representative of the entire Muslim world, the findings about Muslims rang broadly true. Muslims in different countries were committed to their faith for different reasons, he says.

"Saudi Arabia is an institutionally religious state. Indonesia has religion tied into its culture," says Mughal.

But Muslim immigrants to Europe also show strong ties to their religion, either as a defense mechanism in the face of a perceived threat, or because of an effort to cling to identity, he contends.

He detects a link between insular communities and commitment to faith regardless of what religion is involved. It is prevalent in Muslim Saudi Arabia, but he has seen it among Israeli Jews as well, he says.

"The Israeli Jewish perspective is that (the dispute with the Palestinians) is a conflict of land and religion which are integrally linked," Mughal says.

"What does play a role in that scenario is a sense of isolationism and seclusion in Israeli Jewish religious communities, a growing trend to say, 'Our way is the only way,'" he says.

Religious leaders of all faiths need to combat those kinds of attitudes because of the greater diversity people encounter in the world today, he argues.

They have a responsibility to teach their congregations "that if they are following a religion, it is not as brutal or exclusive as possible," Mughal says. "Things are changing. The world is a different place from what it was even 20 years ago."

Politicians, too, "need to take these issues quite seriously," he says.

"In the Middle East there are countries - the Saudi Arabias - where you need to be saying that diversity, while it may not be a part of the country, is something they have to deal with when moving in a globalized area," he says.

But Senzai, the political scientist, says that it's also important for the West to take the Muslim world on its own terms.

"Many Muslims want religion to play a role in politics," he says. "To assume that everyone around the world wants to be like the West - that they want liberal secular democracy - is an absurd idea."

– CNN's Nima Elbagir and Atika Shubert contributed to this report.


Read current news at http://bbc-cnn-worldnews.blogspot.com

Thanksgiving kicks off fight for holiday sales

Holiday Shopping

(Reuters) - The holiday shopping season is in full swing on Thursday, with retailers hoping consumers will spend big despite worries about the fragile economy and their own precarious finances.

The shopping period has been underway for some time as retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Toys R Us started early by offering layaway programs.

But shoppers are looking for major bargains and retail executives are predicting a more competitive season than 2010.

An Old Navy store in Watchung, New Jersey, was teeming with shoppers on Thursday morning, while a line outside a Best Buy in Union, N.J., included shoppers who had pitched a tent to stay warm until the store's midnight opening, according to Charles O'Shea, a Moody's senior retail analyst.

O'Shea said he was visiting various retailers to gauge consumer traffic. The big draws are deals, like t-shirts for $6, down from $12. Bargains like those will be a fixture for the season, he said.

"There is no question that the shopper is looking for deals," O'Shea said. "Nobody wants to feel like they're leaving money on the table, especially when they have less money now."

Millions of U.S. people will head out to shop once they are done with their turkey dinners, getting a jump-start on "Black Friday" - the single biggest shopping day of the year, which sets the tone for the entire season.

Still, many others will be watching their pennies.

Paula Taero, a 58 year-old housekeeper from Queens, New York who was shopping on Thursday at a Kmart in Manhattan, said she is cutting back this year on her Christmas shopping.

"Santa will buy for others. I don't have so much money this year."

Wal-Mart, Old Navy, which is part of Gap Inc and KMart, owned by Sears Holdings', are among the few retailers open on Thanksgiving. Toys R Us opens Thursday evening.

To narrow the gap in store hours with rivals, discounter Target Corp, electronics chain Best Buy and department store chains Macy's Inc and Kohl's Corp will open at midnight - their earliest starts ever.

Others, including J.C. Penney Co Inc, are opening early Friday morning as they did last year.

The National Retail Federation expects sales in November and December to be up 2.8 percent over last year, but below 2010's 5.2 percent gain. So retailers, online and offline, see little margin for error.

BARGAINS OR BUST

Wal-Mart starts its Black Friday "doorbuster" deals on Thursday at 10 p.m. at its stores. Amazon.com Inc, not to be outdone, will offer its deals online at 9 p.m.

Newspaper inserts on Thursday morning were boasting of the usual "Black Friday" bargains to get people into stores. For example, Staples Inc was offering an ink jet printer for 60 percent off, while Target was offering 46-inch, high-definition televisions for about 45 percent off.

The knock-down-drag-out fight comes as the rebound in sales cooled in October, when many top chains like Macy's and Saks reported disappointing sales.

It will be even tougher for chains that have struggled with sales declines lately, like Gap and Penney.

The NRF expects 152 million people to hit stores this weekend, up 10.1 percent from last year.

But much of that traffic will be fueled by bargain hunting, analysts said, with the real test coming after the weekend when retailers see if spending happens only if there are big bargains on the table.

Last year, after a strong Black Friday weekend, shoppers sat on their hands until closer to Christmas.

This year, those looking for steals beyond the requisite "Black Friday" specials may be disappointed.

In a research note on Tuesday, Wells Fargo economist Mark Vitner said: "Bargain hunters may have a tougher time finding those markdowns this year, as retailers are keeping a sharper eye on profit margins."

Either way, middle class shoppers are also more frugal now, taking a page from their lower income counterparts, Andrew Stein, vice president of marketing planning at Sears Holdings told Reuters.

"The Kmart customer has always been a value shopper. The rest of the country is behaving like the Kmart shopper now," he said, noting that there were a lot of people at Kmart's layaway lines on Thursday.

Read current news at http://bbc-cnn-worldnews.blogspot.com

Lee Evans Not Guilty: New Jersey Man Acquitted Of Murdering 5 Teenagers In '78

Lee Evans

NEWYORK, N.J. — One of the nation's most baffling cold cases remains unresolved after a jury on Wednesday acquitted a New Jersey man of locking five teenagers in a vacant home in 1978 and burning them alive in retaliation for stealing his marijuana.

No bodies were ever found, and Lee Evans, who represented himself against 10 murder-related charges, was able to poke holes in the testimony of the star prosecution witness.

Despite hearing the phrase "not guilty" 10 consecutive times Wednesday morning in a Newark courtroom, Evans said he did not feel vindicated.

"It's a situation where I heard him say: `not guilty,' but the fact is, they put this horrible thing on you, and you still feel guilty," a visibly stunned Evans said moments after the verdict was read. He said of the verdict, "that was a jury, that wasn't the people," referring to the family members of the missing teens who packed the courtroom throughout the trial and have said publicly for decades they feel Evans is guilty.

Evans, now 58, said the revival of the long-dormant cold case had destroyed his life and livelihood.

"I'm literally tore up, ripped up inside from the case," he said. "How can you get past that?"

Several family members of the missing teenagers wept and hugged one another as the verdict was read.

"Not guilty does not mean innocent," said Terry Lawson, who was 11 when she saw last saw her older brother, Michael McDowell, climb into Evans' truck on the night he disappeared. "Mr. Evans may escape the law, but never the Lord."

McDowell said the families felt some relief by learning more about what happened to the boys.

"We are grateful this case has been brought before a jury, understanding it's difficult to ask 12 people to go back 33 years without the technology and DNA available today," she said, adding, "We know in our hearts what happened to the boys, and we know that Mr. Evans is a guilty man walking free today."

Acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn Murray said they were disappointed in the verdict.

"This is a case that has bothered the collective conscious of the Newark police force over 33 years," Murray said. "This case was never forgotten, it was never put on a back shelf."

Prosecutors sought to prove that Evans, who was 25 at the time, had planned to kill the teenagers as payback for breaking into his apartment and stealing a pound of marijuana a week before they vanished. Evans, who ran a handyman business, often hired the teens for odd jobs and paid them in marijuana, prosecutors said.

The case largely hinged on the prosecution's star witness, Evans' 54-year-old cousin Philander Hampton, who agreed to testify after pleading guilty in exchange for a 10-year prison sentence and $15,000 in relocation money. Hampton was sentenced under 1978 guidelines, and expected to be freed in a matter of months.

It was Hampton's comments to authorities in 2008 that helped revive the long-dormant case.

Hampton testified that Evans was angry about the marijuana theft and was bent on retaliation. He said he helped Evans lure the teens to a vacant Newark house on the night of Aug. 20, 1978, after asking them to help move some boxes, but then herded them into a closet and secured the door with a 6-inch nail. He said Evans poured gasoline around the perimeter, demanded that Hampton give him a match and set the house ablaze.

The bodies of 17-year-old Melvin Pittman and Ernest Taylor and 16-year-old Alvin Turner, Randy Johnson and Michael McDowell were never found. The boys were reported missing after the fire, and authorities at the time never connected the two events or examined the fire site as a crime scene.

The case was originally classified as a missing-persons case, despite the ongoing protests of family members who insisted to police that five grown teenagers wouldn't have simultaneously run away from home shortly after playing a game of basketball.

They insisted that Evans was the last person anyone saw the teens alive with. Evans told police at the time he'd dropped the boys off after hiring them for a few hours.

Over the years, investigators conducted a nationwide search for the teens, chased hundreds of dead-end leads and enlisted at least two psychics. The case went cold for decades, until a pair of Newark detectives on the cusp of retirement decided to rework it as an unsolved homicide.

During questioning by investigators in 2008, Hampton brought them to the site in Newark where he claimed the teens had been burned alive. The house had been destroyed in the blaze, and long since built over with new development.

Evans and the court-appointed attorney assisting him, Bukie Adetula, said the scenario to which Hampton testified would have been impossible and pointed out Hampton's criminal record and inconsistencies in his testimony.

Evans said he had lived and worked openly in the same community near Newark in the bordering city of Irvington, where many of the victims' families lived and saw him on a regular basis, and emphasized that fact as proof that he had nothing to hide.

Following the verdict, Evans was surrounded by family and supporters as he walked out of the Essex County Courthouse, saying he wasn't sure what he would do next or whether he would remain in the community.

Murray, the prosecutor, said, "with respect to this case criminally, this case is closed."


News by Huffingtonpost


Read current news at http://bbc-cnn-worldnews.blogspot.com