Quiet side street becomes talk of the town after what appeared on road
The ECHO was able to geolocate the image to Castle Drive near its junction with Feather Lane, a road just outside of the town centre. We have chosen to blur the pictures slightly to leave something to readers' imagination, but the full pictures were shared online.
In comments on the Facebook group, some people have found the drawings to be amusing - comparing them to the famous Cerne Abbas Giant, the Olympics logo, and the Easter bunny. One commenter compared the graffiti to the work of 'W**ksy', a professional artist and surveyor who launched a campaign against potholes in Manchester by drawing images of male appendages around them.
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While some were offended, others defended the drawings and those behind them. One person said: 'We were this age once! I'm sure all lads did the same [...] it's bloody stupid. But we all were/are. What happened to the inner child. Being a kid is way more amusing than being an adult. No harm done. They probably had a laugh doing it and have gone home.'
However another strongly disagreed and said: 'If my children had done this, I'd have been furious with them and incredibly disappointed that they were so lacking in awareness.'
Wirral Council, which manages the 737 miles of road in Wirral, removes graffiti on any property it owns. It will also remove racist or offensive graffiti from most private property as well as most graffiti if it can be seen from the road.
The local authority was approached by the ECHO for comment who directed it towards its graffiti reporting page.
As for when the graffiti could be removed, the local authority said: 'We will aim to remove racist or offensive graffiti within 24 hours of it being reported (Monday to Friday). If the graffiti cannot be removed straight away, we will try to cover it until it can be removed.
'We will aim to remove all other graffiti within 15 working days.' Information on graffiti removal and how to remove it can be found here.

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New York Post
5 hours ago
- New York Post
7-Eleven employee, 24, left brain-dead after manager ‘sat on top of her' in violent ‘senseless' attack dies
A California 7-Eleven employee was left brain-dead after her manager sat on top of her during a 'senseless' on-the-job attack — and died Wednesday after she was taken off life support. Jessica McLaughlin, 24, was working at a Los Angeles 7-Eleven on June 24 when her unidentified female manager — who remains at large — 'violently and senselessly attacked' her after the pair got into an argument shortly after 2 p.m., the Los Angeles Times reported. 3 Jessica McLaughlin, 24, will be taken off life support following the attack that left her brain-dead. Facebook During the attack, the deranged Big Gulp slinger pulled McLaughlin's hair and sat down on her employee's upper body with her full weight, preventing her from breathing. 'She held her down, sat on top of her, and didn't let her breathe,' the victim's brother Sean McLaughlin wrote in a GoFundMe. Concerned co-workers tried to pry the madwoman off McLaughlin but became targets themselves, Fox11 reported. While they attempted to revive McLaughlin, the manager supposedly ran into the 7-Eleven's back office and tried to erase security footage, according to the GoFundMe. 3 Other 7-Eleven employees witnessed the attack and futilely attempted to revive McLaughlin. KTLA McLaughlin collapsed while struggling free and never regained consciousness. She was taken to Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital in serious condition, and doctors declared her brain-dead due to a lack of oxygen, the LA Times reported. Her family decided to take her off life support days after the attack, and she died Wednesday, according to Fox 11. 'Jessica had a way of making people feel safe, accepted, and loved. You could come to her with anything and know you wouldn't be judged,' her brother wrote on GoFundMe. 3 McLaughlin was declared brain dead at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital shortly after the vicious assault. GoFundMe 'She had such a beautiful soul and deserved so much better than the way her life was taken from her.' Cops are still seeking her suspected attacker, and the investigation is ongoing. 'Our hearts are with those impacted during this difficult time. The suspect has been terminated, and we continue to fully cooperate with law enforcement in their investigation,' 7-Eleven said in a statement.


San Francisco Chronicle
12 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
The Latest: Bryan Kohberger pleads guilty in University of Idaho stabbings
Bryan Kohberger pleaded guilty Wednesday to murder in the fatal stabbing of four University of Idaho students in 2022. He agreed to the plea deal just weeks before his trial was to begin to avoid the death penalty, which prosecutors had said they intended to pursue. Kohberger, 30, has been charged with killing Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen at a rental home near campus in Moscow, Idaho, on Nov. 13, 2022. The northern Idaho farming community of about 25,000 people was rocked by the killings and hadn't seen a homicide in about five years. Here's the latest: The father of one of the victims left the courtroom before the hearing started Kaylee Goncalves' father, Steve Goncalves, left the courthouse shortly after arriving on Wednesday, before Kohberger entered the courtroom. He appeared frustrated. 'I'm just getting out of this zoo,' Goncalves said in a video posted on X. The Gonclaves family had previously said in a Facebook post that they were 'beyond furious at the State of Idaho' for offering Kohberger a plea. As he walked out of the courthouse on Wednesday, he told a reporter that the rest of the Goncalves family felt it was important to be in the courtroom, but that he had no plans on going back. The hearing has adjourned ___ Kohberger remained expressionless as he entered the guilty plea As Kohberger pleaded guilty, some of the victims' loved ones looked down while others craned to see him. The judge will sentence Kohberger at 9 a.m. on July 23. Documents in the court file won't be unsealed until after sentencing. Bryan Kohberger formally pleads guilty to killing four University of Idaho students in a plea deal to avoid the death penalty ___ Prosecutor describes the evidence they had built against Kohberger Prosecutor Bill Thompson mapped out how police were able to map Kohberger's movements using data from his cellphone, and provided a precise timeline of the stabbings. Kohberger slipped through the sliding back door where the four victims were staying, Thompson said. He first killed Madison Mogen. He then killed Kaylee Goncalves. Kohberger stabbed Xana Kernodle, who was collecting a DoorDash order, as he was leaving Goncalves' room. He also killed Kernodle's boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, who was asleep in bed, with a long-blade knife. Kohberger left a sheath from his knife in Mogen's room. Thompson emphasized that there was a 'single source' of male DNA that matched Kohberger's left on the sheath. There is no evidence that any of the victims were sexually assaulted The prosecutor said he wanted to emphasize that point so that members of the public would not speculate about whether there was a sexual component to the crimes. Bryan Kohberger tells judge he is guilty of killing 4 University of Idaho students The hearing is ongoing and the admission is not the formal plea. Loved ones cry as the victims' names are read As the judge read the names of those Kohberger is accused of killing, people in the section for families teared up. One wiped their eyes with the back of their hand. Others cried into their tissues. Kohberger remained unemotional as he confirmed to the judge that he stabbed the four victims almost three years ago. Kohberger confirms he understands the plea agreement and the consequences he is facing Judge Hippler addressed Kohberger, wearing a gray shirt and dark tie, directly to explain the possible penalties to the crime that he is set to plead guilty to. Kohberger confirmed to the judge that he was pleading guilty' freely and voluntarily' because he was, in fact, guilty, and not because he had some other incentive. The families maintained stoic expressions across the courtroom from Kohberger as he gave his short, affirmative answers to the judge. The judge says he learned of the guilty plea on Monday, just like everyone else The judge wasted no time to address the controversy around the decision to offer Kohberger a plea to avoid the death penalty -- a decision that one victim's family has vehemently opposed. 'This court cannot require the prosecutor to seek the death penalty, nor would it be appropriate for this court to do that,' Hippler said. He also addressed criticisms that the families were not given time to weigh in on the plea deal. 'I, like everyone else, learned of this plea agreement Monday afternoon and had no inkling of it beforehand. Once I learned of the defendant's decision to change his plea in this case it was important that I take the plea as soon as possible.' Judge admonishes those who have tried to contact the court and influence his decision Judge Steven Hippler said his court received numerous emails and phone messages ahead of the hearing, during which Hippler can accept or reject the plea agreement. He said the efforts by members of the public were inappropriate and also said that no external opinions would influence his decision. 'Court is not supposed to, and this court will never, take into account public sentiment in making an opinion regarding its judicial decisions in cases. I always will make decisions based on where the facts and the law lead me, period,' the judge said. Kohberger watched without reaction as the judge issued his warning. The victims' families sit together as they wait for the hearing to begin They waited with somber, quiet expressions. At least 100 people were in attendance in the courtroom, and nearly 12,000 people tuned in to watch a livestream of the proceeding. The victims' families arrive at court About an hour before Kohberger was set to plead guilty, the family of Ethan Chapin, a 20-year-old freshman killed that night, walked into the courthouse. Ethan's mother, Stacy Chapin, and father, Jim Chapin, support the plea deal, their spokesperson said Tuesday. Family members of the other slain students, including relatives of victim Kaylee Goncalves, began filing in afterward. ▶ More about the victims Dozens of reporters gather outside the courthouse Long before the sun rose on Wednesday morning, television reporters from across the country quietly set up cameras outside the courthouse in Boise, Idaho, sipping energy drinks and greeting one another. Reporters and true crime enthusiasts seeking a place in the courtroom began to trickle in as early as 2 a.m. MT — nine hours before the hearing would actually begin. The group grew to some 40 people by 8 a.m., when they were let into the building, chattering about the case. The hearing is set to begin at 11 a.m. local time. ___ This item has been corrected to show that the hearing is scheduled to start at 11 a.m. local time, not 11 p.m. Victims and their families have limited input on how crimes are prosecuted The family of Kaylee Goncalves says it opposes any deal that would take the death penalty off the table. Prosecutors stressed in a letter to victims' families, obtained by ABC News, that they had met with available family members last week before extending the offer. Idaho, among other states, guarantees crime victims the right to communicate with prosecutors. This right largely means being kept informed and participating as a case proceeds — but it does not give victims or their families the final say in how prosecutors try a case or whether they can offer or approve a plea agreement. There is no appeals process for victims or families who disagree with a prosecutor's decision, but that doesn't mean there isn't recourse if a victim believes their rights have been violated. Locals share relief and anger over the plea deal Moscow resident Luke Brunaugh, who said he lives less than a mile from where the killings happened, didn't like that a deal would mean the death penalty option would go away, saying that should be the punishment for murder. 'I think it's just unfair to the families,' said Brunaugh. 'It allows him to hide. He never had to really go to trial. He is answering to his crimes, but not to the fullest extent in my opinion.' Heidi Barnett said she felt trepidation when her son chose the University of Idaho as his college three years ago. Visiting him in Moscow on Tuesday, Barnett said a long trial would have been very emotional for the families. 'I would think life in prison sometimes would be harder, so I kind of looked at it that way,' she said. 'I'm not the parent, but I would be happy with that.' Kohberger decided to ac cept a plea deal only after failed efforts to strike the death penalty failed His attorneys tried to bar prosecutors from seeking the death penalty on an array of grounds — that it would violate standards of decency or flout international law, that prosecutors had failed to provide evidence properly, that their client's autism diagnosis reduced any possible culpability.

Miami Herald
13 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Causeway cannibal, Versace, Mob hits. See biggest Miami crime through the years
South Florida has been home to some sensational crimes through the decades. The Miami Zombie. The Facebook killer. Cocaine Cowboys. Miami River Cops. Here's a look at 15 sensational crimes: Causeway Cannibal Ronald Poppo made it to 65 despite living on the streets of Miami for more than half of his life. Then on Saturday of Memorial Day weekend 2012, Poppo ventured onto the pedestrian path of the MacArthur Causeway to catch some sleep during the steamy afternoon. Rudy Eugene, 31, a former North Miami Beach High School football player, had been on South Beach for the holiday. Eugene walked west along the MacArthur, shedding his clothes along the way, until he came upon Poppo. Unprovoked, Eugene, who came to be known as the Miami Zombie, straddled his victim, punched him, stripped off his clothes and tore away most of Poppo's face and teeth. Eugene, who refused to stop the mauling when confronted by officers, was shot dead police. Poppo was left blind and in long-term care. Blood and toxicology tests on Eugene detected traces of marijuana but nothing to explain his actions. It wasn't enough that Alberto Mesa stabbed his 18-year-old girlfriend Dina Tormos 111 times, beheaded her with a hunting-type knife and left her body inside his Miami apartment. What Mesa, 23, took from that apartment elevated Mesa's act to a true only-in-Miami moment: At dawn on March 2, 1985, under the Metrorail station near Southwest 33rd Court and 29th Terrace, Mesa stripped bare and leaned against a support column, clutching the severed head of the woman he had dated for six months. As police officer Derek Aycarte, 22, approached, Mesa hurled the woman's head at the cop and shouted, 'I killed her. She's the devil!' Mesa, who believed he was possessed, was found not guilty by reason of insanity in a non-jury trial. He was committed to the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services. Cocaine Cowboys The first clue that something wasn't quite right about that white Ford Econoline in the lot of Dadeland Mall in Kendall on July 11, 1979, was the crudely stenciled red signs visible on each side of the vehicle. The company names didn't match: The right panel read: 'Happy Time Complete Supply Party.' The left: 'Happy Time Complete Party Supply.' One of Miami's top cocaine dealers, 37-year-old Jimenez Panesso, and his bodyguard, Juan Carlos Hernandez, 22, might have lived to see the 1980s had they paid more attention to their surroundings and driven off in their white Mercedes with its bulletproof windows. As Gerald Posner recounts in his 2009 book, Miami Babylon: Crime, Wealth, and Power — A Dispatch from the Beach, Panesso was a regular customer at the mall's Crown Liquors. The duo strolled inside. Two men from the Ford van followed. Wordlessly, one of the men shot Colombian drug lord Panesso four times in the face with a .380 Beretta. The other gunman sprayed the store with a submachine pistol. Two dead dealers, four others injured. Years later, Griselda Blanco, 'the Godmother of cocaine,' was linked to the hit. She was killed in Medellín in 2012 by an assassin on a motorcycle. You can almost see this one playing out on an episode of NBC's Miami Vice. The setting: aboard the Mary C at Jones Boat Yard on the Miami River. The date: July 28, 1985. A consortium of crooked cops in the Miami Police Department, masterminded by Armando 'Scarface' Garcia, a 23-year-old officer, storms the boat to rob men guarding a stash of 350 kilograms of cocaine. The startled men jump overboard but three can't swim and drown. The investigation, which made news around the world, lasted for years. More than 100 officers were arrested, fired, suspended or reprimanded. 'Stylish life, brutal death,' the Miami Herald headline read on July 15, 1997, hours after serial killer Andrew Cunanan, 27, gunned down famed fashion designer Gianni Versace, 50. The fashion mogul, who'd partied with Elton John, Sting and Princess Diana, was shot execution-style on the steps of Versace's Ocean Drive mansion, Casa Casuarina. He died three blocks from where he had just eaten breakfast at the News Café. Nine days later, Cunanan, who had left a trail of four bodies from Minneapolis to Miami before he came upon Versace, shot himself to death aboard a houseboat on Indian Creek. Brown, 51, awoke on Aug. 20, 1982, alongside his 10-year-old son. Brown, muttering to himself, clambered aboard his bicycle with its oversized tires and wire basket. A 12-gauge shotgun he had purchased at a nearby gun store just the day before hung off his back. Thirty minutes later, Brown arrived at Bob Moore's Welding and Machine Service on North River Drive, vowing 'to kill everybody.' Employees scattered as he opened fire in the shop. Within moments, eight men and women were killed and three were wounded, the largest mass murder in Miami-Dade history. Brown calmly rode off on his bicycle. Mike Kram, a neighboring metal shop owner, chased Brown in a 1981 Lincoln and crushed him against a concrete light pole with his car. The welder whose work upset the gunman escaped unhurt. Tanglewood mass murder Two beauty queen sisters, Denise and Diane Herthum, 20 and 18, members of a prominent Baton Rouge family, and a drug-dealing suspect, Jackson Smith, 31, were found slaughtered in the Tanglewood apartment Smith had been renting near the Miami River. The women were strangled and found with black hoods over their heads. Smith was shot. The Oct 19, 1972, crime became Miami-Dade's first noted mass murder. But what makes this one novel is that customs agents were stationed outside, 24/7, keeping the apartment under surveillance for narcotic activity. Yet no one saw the killers enter and the case was unsolved. The murders 'sent the investigation down the drain,' U.S. Customs officials told The Miami News in 1977. Many years later police linked execution-style killer Ricky Cravero to the slayings but no one has paid for the crime. FBI Suniland shootout The bloodiest shootout in the FBI's 107-year history shattered the quiet of an unincorporated South Miami-Dade neighborhood, now Pinecrest, on April 11, 1986, behind the Suniland Shopping Center that fronts South Dixie Highway. FBI agents Benjamin Grogan, 53, and Jerry Dove, 30, died in an exchange of gunfire with Michael Platt and William Matix, heavily armed bank robbery suspects. Platt, the more vicious of the two, would rival The Terminator, the killing machine made famous in the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Dove fired what should have been a deadly shot into Platt, decimating his right lung. But Platt darted around a car, ambushed the agents, and kept firing, even as other FBI agents hit him 11 more times. Injured agent Edmundo Mireles finally brought Platt down with a bullet to the spine. He also took out Matix. After five minutes and 145 shots, two agents and the suspects were dead, and six other backup FBI agents were wounded. In April 2015, the FBI dedicated its new $194 million Miramar headquarters in the names of Grogan and Dove. President Barack Obama signed the tribute. Fatty Walsh, bodyguard to a New York mobster, was murdered by rival underworld figure Edward Wilson on March 7, 1929, at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. Walsh came to his untimely end inside a vast 13th-floor, two-bedroom suite that was being run on the sly as a speakeasy during Prohibition. Or did he? Walsh's ghost supposedly haunts the hotel to this day. The No. 1 elevator, the main access to the 13th floor, has been known to automatically rise to that level and stay put. 'They say Fatty Walsh wants company,' storyteller Linda Spitzer told the Miami Herald in a 2000 article. Don Aronow was rich, handsome and a standout among the powerboat set. U.S. Customs agents were so impressed with his Cigarette boats for their ability to reach speeds that helped them elude easy capture, they commissioned Aronow to build an intercept vessel dubbed Blue Thunder. Problem: The 59-year-old Cigarette boat founder and powerboat racer came to the attention of the wrong people. On Feb. 3, 1987, Aronow died on a dead-end street dubbed Thunderboat Alley, so-named for the Formula, Donzi, Magnum and Cigarette racing boats he sold nearby at his USA Racing office in what is now Aventura. Benjamin Kramer was jailed for ordering the hit, carried out by triggerman Bobby Young for $60,000. Prosecutors argued that Kramer, a rival who owned a casino and raced powerboats, wanted Aronow dead over a business dispute. In 1996, Kramer was sentenced to 19 years in prison for his role in the slaying; he was already serving a life sentence on federal drug-smuggling charges. Young, who served his sentence in Oklahoma for the Aronow murder, fled to Miami while on probation. In 2009, he died of natural causes at 60 at Jackson Memorial. Gus Boulis, a Greek immigrant who came to the United States as a 16-year-old stowaway, would find that submarines, as in sandwiches, were the key to his fortune in the new land. The founder of Miami Subs, and a string of other South Florida eateries, including the former The Italian Fisherman in the Keys, was driving his green BMW on Feb. 6, 2001, on Southeast 17th Street in Fort Lauderdale when he was blocked by a Mazda Miata. A black Mustang pulled up alongside his car and a hit man opened fire. The murder-for-hire of the 51-year-old was linked to a floating casino empire he founded, and lost. A group of investors, some linked to the Gambino crime family, gathered to buy the fleet but the deal collapsed and Boulis began making plans to regain the company. The move would prove his undoing. Two men pleaded guilty after their original convictions were overturned. Mob hit at steakhouse A member of the Gambino family, Thomas ''The Enforcer'' Altamura, a Mafia hitman, turned up for dinner on a 1967 Halloween night at the popular A Place for Steak restaurant on the 79th Street Causeway in North Bay Village. He would never enjoy his last meal. As Altamura, 53, strolled inside, rival Anthony 'Big Tony' Esperti, 37, a former boxer, rose from his seat at the Harbor Lounge bar and pumped five slugs into Altamura. Big Tony was a big hit with the crime scene investigators. 'What a beautiful hole that is,' the medical examiner was overheard saying when he saw the victim's head wound. Big Tony was sentenced to life for his handiwork and died in 2002. Stanley Cohen socialite murder Stanley Cohen, 52, a successful developer, married his secretary, Joyce McDillon, in 1974. Twelve years later, his wife, by then a cocaine-sniffing socialite, was convicted of hiring three hit men to kill Cohen in the bedroom of their Coconut Grove mansion on South Bayshore Drive. During her trial three years later in 1989, Frank Zuccarello testified, under a grant of immunity, that he, along with two thug pals, Anthony Caracciolo and Tommy Joslin, were hired by Joyce to kill Stanley on March 7, 1986. The wealthy developer, father of former WPLG-Local 10 reporter Gerri Helfman, was found with four bullet wounds to his skull as he slept in the couple's bedroom on a king-sized brass bed. Joyce was convicted of murdering her husband and sentenced to 25 years to life. In 2013, the Florida Parole Commission voted to set a target release date of April 2048. She would be 97. Facebook killer Derek Medina, 31, a Coral Gables High 2001 graduate, lived his life on social media, but few were interested. All of that changed on Aug. 8, 2013, when the South Miami man posted a grisly photo on Facebook: the corpse of his wife, 26-year-old Jennifer Alonso, as she lay slumped on the kitchen floor of the townhouse they shared on the corner of Miller Drive and Ludlam Road. Attached to the ghoulish photo Medina wrote: 'Facebook people you'll see me in the news.' What he did, police say, is murder his wife by firing multiple shots at her at close range after the two quarreled. The image, quickly removed by Facebook, went viral. Medina was charged with first-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty, citing self-defense. A jury is expected to hear a trial later this year. Meantime, Medina's self-published book, How I Saved Someone's Life and Marriage and Family Problems Thru Communication, is currently ranked 6,047,498 on Amazon. FDR assassination attempt Would-be presidential assassin Giuseppe Zangara, a Miami bricklayer, had it in for capitalists after the Great Depression and a 1926 Miami hurricane made finding work nearly impossible. Zangara bought a .32-caliber pistol for $8 at a downtown drugstore and two days later, on Feb. 15, 1933, he made his way to Bayfront Park. There, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was giving a speech to the largest crowd assembled in Miami. Zangara, aiming at Roosevelt, got off five shots but missed his target when a Miami housewife, Lillian Cross, grabbed his arm, and screamed, 'Don't do that!' But a wayward bullet struck Anton J. Cermak, the mayor of Chicago, in the stomach. He died from the wound weeks later on March 6. Justice was swift. Zangara was executed in the electric chair on March 20. He, too, was in a hurry. 'Pusha the button,' were his last words.