Tag: Mercury News Weird.

City public defenders are calling for an investigation into how a handcuffed woman gave birth inside a Brooklyn courtroom as she awaited arraignment on low-level drug charges.

Samantha Randazzo gave birth to a healthy baby boy just before 12 a.m. Saturday inside Brooklyn Criminal Court on Schermerhorn St. in downtown Brooklyn.

“The baby came really quickly,” Randazzo’s lawyer, Wynton Sharpe, told the Daily News. “It was a happy and sad situation given the circumstances. It definitely changed the whole energy of the courtroom.”

Randazzo was sitting on a bench in the courtroom, awaiting to be arraigned, when her water broke. The judge immediately cleared the courtroom while the court officers rushed to help Randazzo, according to Sharpe.

Several public defenders witnessed the event. A group of NYC public defender organizations issued a statement late Saturday condemning Randazzo’s treatment and demanding an investigation into how she wound up giving birth under the circumstances without adequate medical attention.

“No person should ever be forced to give birth in handcuffs or endure labor while restrained, exposed, and denied basic medical care and human dignity. What occurred in that courtroom was not simply a failure of protocol or preparedness. It was a profound moral failure and a devastating reflection of the cruelty embedded in our carceral system,” the statement from the Legal Aid Society, Brooklyn Defender Services, New York County Defender Services, The Bronx Defenders, and Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem said.

“A child entered the world in a courtroom while their mother was in chains,” the group said.

According to the statement legal proceedings continued and courtroom staff could be heard joking about the incident while it happened, adding to Randazzo’s humiliation and dehumanization.

But Randazzo’s lawyer denied that his client was handcuffed or shackled as she gave birth.

“People were suggesting she was ankle restrained and handcuffed at the time she gave birth and let’s just say that’s a little bit more colorful than the actual circumstances,” Sharpe said. “There were no restraints at that point.”

Randazzo entered the courtroom with her feet free and her hands cuffed behind her back, according to a court official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“When she was on the bench to be arraigned, she was rear handcuffed but then as soon as her labor started to become apparent, the cuffs were removed,” the official said.

Court officers’ “priority was the health and safety of the mother and child, the public was taken out of the courtroom,” the official added.

Court Officer Robert Winkler assisted with the delivery and performed chest compressions to help the baby start breathing.

“Nobody seemed to remember a similar case of a baby being born in a courtroom before. I know they have been born in subways and taxi cabs,” the official said.

Police arrested Randazzo around 6 p.m. on Thursday, according the NYPD, more than 24 hours before she gave birth in the courtroom. She and another woman were caught with a small amount of heroin and cocaine on the roof of Nostrand Houses, the NYCHA development where Randazzo lives in Sheepshead Bay, police said. It wasn’t immediately disclosed what type of drugs were recovered.

Both women were charged with trespass and possession of a criminal substance, cops said.

Randazzo was wearing “baggy clothes,” and did not tell police officers she was pregnant when she was first taken into custody, according to a statement from the NYPD.

At around 3:30 a.m. Friday, she told police that she was pregnant and going through withdrawal.

Randazzo was taken to South Brooklyn Health and was discharged at 8:09 p.m. Friday. She was then taken to Brooklyn Central Booking, where she gave birth about four hours later, according to a timeline provided by police.

“When I spoke to her in the back, she appeared to not be doing too well,” Randazzo’s lawyer, Sharpe confirmed. “I noted she wasn’t feeling too well and I was like come on we are going to get you out of here as soon as possible.”

But, before that could happen, Randazzo went into labor.

“Our team of uniformed UCS officers acted with swift professionalism to ensure the safety and sanctity of life for all individuals in court on Friday, personifying the everyday virtues of their sworn service,” said Al Baker, spokesperson for the state Office of Court Administration, which oversees state court officers. “We are delighted both mother and baby are well.”

An ambulance picked up Randazzo shortly after she gave birth and took her and the baby to the Brooklyn Hospital Center.

The Brooklyn DA has dismissed the case against Randazzo, a spokesman confirmed.

Randazzo has several previous arrests, including for burglary, domestic violence, grand larceny and drug possession, according to a police source. She had an open warrant for failing to show up for her scheduled court appearance in at least one of those cases — which is why cops took her into custody instead of issuing a desk appearance ticket, the source said.

In 2018, a Bronx woman went into labor in a holding cell in the courthouse and was brought to the hospital handcuffed and shackled. Public outcry prompted the NYPD to update its rules for handling pregnant prisoners, although New York State law already prohibited shackling pregnant prisoners during labor and delivery at that time.

The woman in that case went on to win a $610,000 settlement from the city.

A federal court judge this week agreed to ban a Bay Area lawyer from appearing in court in a high-profile case against Uber, after the man directed vulgar insults at an attorney for the ride-hailing giant and made “inappropriate references” to his opponent’s daughter.

During a video meeting in the case — a consolidation of thousands of lawsuits by women alleging Uber failed to prevent them from being sexually assaulted by drivers — David Grimes, a lawyer representing plaintiffs against Uber, asked opposing attorney Christopher Cotton if he was a pedophile, compared him to a rapist, and called him a dirtbag, a scumbag, an idiot, and an epithet related to a sexual act, Cotton said in a court declaration.

“Mr. Grimes made inappropriate references to my daughter,” Cotton said of the March 9 meeting. “Mr. Grimes shouted his comments on several occasions, including shouting over me as I spoke.”

Grimes also asked Cotton’s colleague Ricky Brown, who joined Cotton in the meeting, “Is Chris touching you right now?” the declaration said.

Uber, in a court filing seeking to have Grimes thrown off the case, said the San Francisco attorney had also misbehaved earlier.

In a February 2025 meeting, Grimes made profane and insulting comments to another Uber lawyer, the filing said.

“Mr. Grimes’ conduct is beyond the pale,” Uber said in a court filing.

Court documents did not make clear what Grimes said about Cotton’s daughter.

Grimes, and the San Francisco law firm Levin Simes which employs him, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Levin Simes in a court filing admitted that Grimes’ conduct was “outrageous” and “improper.”

According to Grimes’ profile on Levin Simes’ website, he has “a diverse set of skills in finance, writing, and stage performance,” along with “a particular commitment to representing victims of sexual assaults by drivers for Uber.”

A day after insulting Cotton, Grimes emailed him and apologized for his conduct, saying it was not appropriate or professional, Cotton’s declaration said.

“By way of explanation, if not excuse, I have been suffering from a chronic condition for the past year and a half that causes my nervous system to leap into fight-or-flight mode very quickly, and it is very difficult to get it to disengage,” Grimes wrote, according to the declaration.

Starting this year, lawyers in California have been required by The State Bar of California, which oversees attorney licensing and discipline, to annually re-affirm a civility oath pledging to conduct themselves with “dignity, courtesy, and integrity.” The Bar, asked whether it had received any complaints about Grimes’ conduct in the Uber case, said disciplinary complaints and investigations are confidential, so it could not say if it had received complaints about Grimes or was investigating the matter.

The Bar as of May 8 had recorded no disciplinary actions against Grimes, a licensed California attorney since 2018, with a law degree from the University of Southern California.

On March 20, Levin Simes partner Laurel Simes wrote Judge Charles Breyer, who is overseeing the case, to say her firm had addressed the matter “directly with Mr. Grimes.” Since Grimes was an employee, she wrote, the firm was “not at liberty to discuss the specifics of any of the personal issues that may underlie his conduct.” Simes said her firm was “working to provide resources to Mr. Grimes which might be helpful to him,” and taking measures “to ensure that any such conduct is not repeated.”

Meanwhile, Levin Simes sought to keep Grimes on the case, saying in a March 25 court filing that Laurel Simes, after coming into Grimes’s office while he was on video with Cotton and Brown, “immediately intervened after observing the situation … and directed that the Zoom meeting be terminated.” The firm said in the filing that Grimes had represented clients in the case for several years, and suggested that his removal could disadvantage those plaintiffs and benefit Uber.

The law firm proposed that Grimes no longer appear in court in person for the case, and avoid interacting with Uber’s lawyers.

However, on Wednesday the firm and Uber filed a joint request with Breyer to allow Grimes to stay on the case, and Breyer gave his approval Thursday.

The requested limitations Uber had agreed to were the same Levin Simes had proposed, but with one additional restriction: Grimes would not be able to appear in court by video, either.

A man found inside a closed Best Buy store in Pasadena was arrested on suspicion of burglary as people lined up outside ahead of a Pokémon card release in the early hours of Wednesday morning, April 29.

Best Buy’s security alerted police to the man inside the store on the 3400 block of East Foothill Boulevard around 1:15 a.m., Pasadena police Lt. Tim Bundy said.

“They were monitoring the live cameras for the store, and they saw that there was a guy inside their closed and locked store,” Bundy said.

A manager met police and opened the door. Police found the man, identified as a 45-year-old transient, and arrested him without incident, Bundy said. There were no signs of forced entry.

The suspect told police that he went in during business hours and just got locked in. He ate some snacks and drank sodas from the store and took headphones out of the package, police said. Police had prior contacts with the suspect for theft, Bundy said.

Police have no knowledge of the burglary being connected to the Pokémon card release. The suspect did not mention the cards, they said.

“They (police) said there’s someone in the building,” said Tony Funtes, who was outside the store waiting for the card drop.

Collectors were waiting for a drop of Pokémon 151 cards, Funtes said. He had been waiting since 11 p.m., while others had arrived earlier in the night.

Thieves do at times target Pokémon cards and other valuable collectables.

In Anaheim in February, thieves tunneled through the wall of a collectibles store, stealing $180,000 in merchandise including Pokémon cards valued at hundreds of dollars each.

In Burbank, Pokémon cards were among $100,000 in merchandise stolen from a sports cards store in December 2025.

 

As guests dove for cover and Secret Service agents spirited high-level federal officials out of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, one man could be seen casually finishing his salad.

Michael Glantz, a senior agent with Creative Artists Agency, appeared unperturbed amid the chaos as Secret Service agents swirled around him and freaked-out fellow diners huddled under their tables.

Elsewhere in the room, one journalist could be seen pouring himself another glass of wine — perhaps understandable under the circumstances — and other guests apparently grabbed bottles on their way out.

But Glantz was the only one to go viral.

The approximately 2,000 attendees of the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner had barely dug into their spring pea and burrata salad when a series of apparent gunshots rang out on the other side of the doors to the ballroom at the Washington Hilton. Heavily armed Secret Service agents burst in, charging through the dining area to fetch federal officials, including President Trump, and hustle them offstage. They also yelled at everyone to get down, and scores of journalists, celebrities and other public officials huddled under their tables.

Glantz remained upright at his otherwise empty table, and his nonchalant noshing was caught on a CNN livestream of the room.

Social media went wild, dubbing him “the salad man,” according to The New York Times. CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter identified him as Glantz, who represents the network’s Wolf Blitzer.

“CAA super-agent Michael Glantz is the man eating his salad in this viral video,” Stelter wrote on X above a clip of the incident.

Glantz pleaded curiosity. He didn’t want to miss a second of the action, he told TMZ.

“Not every day you see something like that go down,” Glantz said.

Besides, he told The New York Times, he has a bad back and couldn’t actually get onto the floor or get up off it. That combined with his “hygiene freak” streak made him choose salad over sullying his new tux on the ballroom floor.

“I’m a New Yorker,” he told The New York Times, explaining his aplomb. “We live with sirens and activity happening all the time. I wasn’t scared. There are hundreds of Secret Service agents hurtling themselves over tables and chairs, and I wanted to watch.”

Glantz was also glad to supply some levity in the wake of the “horrific moment,” he told TMZ.

An instant fan club of sorts coalesced around Glantz.

“A very chill man, I didn’t see him flinch for a sec, didn’t duck, didn’t even put his fork down, and while the Secret Service scrambled and everyone else hit the floor, he just kept eating like the moment was someone else’s problem and he was vindicated in the end,” wrote one admirer on X. “Absolute legend.”

PACIFIC GROVE – Past comments about Pacific Grove’s Lovers Point are drawing renewed attention after Navy Undersecretary Hung Cao was appointed acting secretary of the Navy following the resignation of Navy Secretary John Phelan.

Cao, a Navy combat veteran and former Republican Senate candidate in Virginia, made the remarks during a 2023 interview while campaigning for office. In the interview, Cao referred to Lovers Point as being in Monterey and claimed the area had become “a really dark place” with “a lot of witchcraft,” adding that “the Wiccan community has really taken over there, and that “We can’t let that happen in Virginia.”

Lovers Point is located in Pacific Grove, not Monterey. According to the Monterey County Historical Society’s website, the location was once known as “Lovers of Jesus Point” before it was known as today’s Lovers Point. Pacific Grove was founded in 1875 as a Methodist summer retreat and later developed into a residential coastal community.

Cao’s comments also linked Wicca with witchcraft, terms that are related but not identical.

Cao assumed the acting secretary role after the resignation of John Phelan, marking another leadership change for the Navy during the Trump administration. National reports said Phelan was given the option to resign or be dismissed. Cao’s past remarks have resurfaced as he steps into the temporary leadership position.

Urine trouble.

A Queens man apparently upset over a dog peeing on his lawn Thursday stabbed the couple walking the French bulldog during a brawl on the street, even slashing his own father as he tried to calm him down, police sources said.

The showdown unfolded as the stabber stormed up to the dog walker and her boyfriend, both 39, after he saw the pair’s pooch relieve itself on his lawn on 229th St. near 141st Ave. in Laurelton about 11 a.m., sources said.

As the argument continued, the man and a friend urinated on his neighbor’s yard in apparent retaliation for the dog’s actions, shocking video obtained by the Daily News shows.

A brawl broke out shortly after that, with one man whipping out a blade and plunging it into the dog walker’s back. The girlfriend suffered a wound to her left hand.

When the stabber’s 62-year-old father attempted to intervene, he too was cut in the left hand by his son, according to cops.

Video obtained by the Daily News shows the dog-walking couple arguing with two men at the scene. The video shows the men sauntering down the block, reaching into their trousers and urinating in apparent retaliation on the front yard of another home.

The footage then shows the woman pulling out her phone to record the lewd act as the two men approach her boyfriend a second time and a fight breaks out. It’s unclear in the video at what point the victims are stabbed in the wild fracas, which lasts for nearly a minute. During the brawl, another man can be seen dashing into the fray in an apparent bid to break up the fight.

Responding officers took 34-year-old Akeem Alexander into custody. He is charged with assault, cops said.

“It’s totally shocking,” a relative of the Alexander’s, who refused to give her name, told The News near the scene. “I just want to emphasize that they’re a good family and solid citizens.”

A neighbor witnessed the stabbing’s bloody aftermath.

“They brought the older gentleman out on a stretcher,” said Jimmy White, 74, a retired Air Force veteran who lives nearby. “There were five ambulances and about seven police cars.”

“The fight was over the dog. But for them to come out and start stabbing, this couldn’t have been the first time,” he said. “Something had to lead up to this. Now they have to risk Rikers and jail.”

The dog walker, her boyfriend and the stabber’s father were all taken to Jamaica Hospital, where they are expected to recover.

Dog feces could be seen lying within a dried pool of blood outside Alexander’s 229th St. home.

Another neighbor told The News the victims had been called out before for letting their dog relieve itself on other people’s property.

“(The fight) was over the dog that poops on everybody’s lawn,” said the neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous. “They never pick up.”

The fight was similar to a clash in Brooklyn where a 75-year-old woman was attacked for complaining that a dog walker was not cleaning up the pooch’s poop.

Cops have yet to make an arrest in the April 6 clash on President St. near Troy Ave. in Crown Heights.

Linda Scott was outside her home about 9 a.m. when she got into an argument with two women with two unleashed dogs.

The Brooklyn grandmother was upset that the women were allowing their dogs to defecate in an empty lot next to her property, her son told the Daily News at the time.

Video obtained by The News shows the victim arguing with the dog owner when the woman in red storms up and starts swinging. The attacker repeatedly punches the elderly victim until she collapses on her front lawn, then kicks her and stomps on her face, the video shows.

By Natasha Chen, Alex Stambaugh, Chris Boyette, CNN

A nuclear physicist and MIT professor fatally shot outside his Massachusetts residence. A retired Air Force general missing from his New Mexico home. An aerospace engineer who disappeared during a hike in Los Angeles.

These are among at least 10 individuals connected to sensitive US nuclear and aerospace research who have died or disappeared in recent years, prompting concerns whether they are connected and fueling speculation online about the possibility of nefarious activity.

The FBI now says it “is spearheading the effort to look for connections into the missing and deceased scientists,” adding that it “is working with the Department of Energy, Department of War, and with our state … and local law enforcement partners to find answers.”

Separately, the Republican-led House Oversight Committee announced Monday it will investigate reports of the deaths and disappearances of the individuals, whom it said had access to sensitive scientific information.

The reports “raise questions about a possible sinister connection” between the deaths and disappearances, the committee said in its statement, seeking briefings on the matter from the FBI, the Defense Department, the Department of Energy and NASA.

The Defense Department said only that it would respond to the committee directly, and the Department of Energy referred questions to the White House.

In a post on X, NASA said it is “coordinating and cooperating with the relevant agencies” in relation to the scientists.

“At this time, nothing related to NASA indicates a national security threat,” NASA spokesperson Bethany Stevens said.

The cases vary widely in circumstance. Some involve unsolved homicides, while others are missing persons cases with no signs of foul play. In at least two instances, families have pointed to preexisting medical conditions or personal struggles as explanations. Authorities have not established any links between the cases.

The White House said last week it is also working with federal agencies to probe any potential links between the deaths and disappearances, with President Donald Trump referring to the matter as “pretty serious stuff.”

“It’s very unlikely that this is a coincidence,” House Oversight Chair James Comer, a Republican, told Fox News Sunday. “Congress is very concerned about this. Our committee is making this one of our priorities now because we view this as a national security threat.”

Rep. James Walkinshaw, a Democrat who also serves on the Oversight Committee, agrees an investigation into the disappearances and deaths is warranted, but he said he is not convinced there is a coordinated motive behind the cases.

“The United States has thousands of nuclear scientists and nuclear experts,” Walkinshaw told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Tuesday. “It’s not the kind of nuclear program that potentially a foreign adversary could significantly impact by targeting 10 individuals.”

Circumstances vary case by case

The string of mysterious deaths and disappearances began in 2023, lawmakers say, with the death of Michael David Hicks, a scientist who worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for nearly 25 years.

Hicks, 59, died July 30, 2023. During his career at JPL, he specialized in comets and asteroids, according to the American Astronomical Society. His cause of death was not disclosed.

His daughter, Julia Hicks, told CNN her father had been struggling with known medical issues and that the recent speculation has her “shaken up.”

“From what I know of my dad, there’s no train of logic to follow that would implicate him in this potential federal investigation,” she said. “I don’t understand the connection between my dad’s death and the other missing scientists.”

“I can’t help but laugh about it, but at the same time, it’s getting serious,” Hicks said.

Hicks told CNN no one in elected office or at any federal agency had reached out to her to inquire about her father’s death as of Tuesday afternoon.

In the years since, several others connected to JPL have also died or disappeared: Frank Maiwald, a specialist in space research, died in Los Angeles in 2024 at 61. Monica Reza, a 60-year-old aerospace engineer, disappeared while hiking in a Los Angeles forest in June 2025. She served as the director of the NASA Lab’s Materials Processing Group, the House Oversight Committee said.

Also missing is William Neil McCasland, a retired Air Force major general, who hasn’t been seen since he walked out of his Albuquerque, New Mexico, home on February 27, leaving behind his phone, prescription glasses and wearable devices. The FBI is now involved in the search.

McCasland was at the center of some of the Pentagon’s most advanced aerospace research and once commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Months after the 68-year-old went missing, officials still can’t say where he went, why he left or whether someone else was involved.

His wife, Susan McCasland Wilkerson, disputed at the time speculation that his disappearance was tied to his work at the base — long rumored to house extraterrestrial debris linked to the alleged “Roswell incident,” despite Air Force denials.

“It is true that Neil had a brief association with the UFO community,” McCasland Wilkerson said in a Facebook post. “This connection is not a reason for someone to abduct Neil. Neil does not have any special knowledge about the ET bodies and debris from the Roswell crash stored at Wright-Patt.”

“No sightings of a mothership hovering above the Sandia Mountains have been reported,” she added.

McCasland Wilkerson did not respond this week to CNN’s request for comment on this story.

Two others missing, Melissa Casias and Anthony Chavez, worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a leading nuclear research facility in New Mexico.

Casias, 53, was last seen walking on a highway near Talpa, New Mexico, in June 2025, according to New Mexico State Police, leaving her belongings at home and a phone that had been factory-reset, NBC News reported.

The New Mexico Department of Public Safety told CNN there is an open missing person investigation into Casias’ disappearance but added no foul play is suspected.

Chavez, a 78-year-old retiree who worked as a foreman supervising construction at the site, also disappeared in May 2025, according to Los Alamos police. A detective told CNN there are no signs of foul play, but exhaustive searches have yielded no signs of activity or indications he was planning to leave.

His friend, Carl Buckland, told CNN he’s glad authorities are looking into the case: “It’s about time.”

A string of deaths

In recent months, the deaths of several acclaimed scientists have also fueled speculation.

A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nuno F.G. Loureiro, was fatally shot at his home near Boston in December 2025 by a gunman who also opened fire on Brown University’s campus, killing two students. The 47-year-old physicist and fusion scientist had led MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, where he aimed to advance clean energy technology and other research.

Carl Grillmair was fatally shot at the age of 67 at his home outside Los Angeles in February. Authorities arrested a suspect whom they don’t believe knew Grillmair, according to KABC. The astrophysicist worked at the California Institute of Technology, collaborated with NASA and was renowned for his studies on the search for water on planets outside our solar system.

Former US Air Force intelligence officer Matthew James Sullivan, 39, also died in 2024 before he could testify in a federal whistleblower case about UFOs, Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri said, urging the FBI to investigate. His public obituary did not state how he died. CNN has reached out to his family.

Burlison, however, told Fox News that Sullivan died by suicide, calling it suspicious.

“He was scheduled to come in for an interview. Within two weeks, he had suspiciously committed suicide,” Burlison, a Republican, told Fox News.

In recent days, the 2022 death of Amy Eskridge has gained attention. Eskridge, 34, co-founded the Institute for Exotic Science in Huntsville, Alabama, according to her obituary.

Eskridge’s family said in a statement to CNN she was a “marvelously intelligent person” and suffered from “chronic pain.”

“People should realize that scientists die also and not make too much of this,” the family said.

Federal investigations underway

Trump said he hopes the disappearances and deaths are just a coincidence.

“I hope it is random, but we are going to know in the next week and a half,” Trump told reporters Thursday, adding he had a recent meeting on the subject.

The White House declined to elaborate on the meeting.

The White House is “actively working with all relevant agencies and the FBI to holistically review all of the cases together and identify any potential commonalities that may exist,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on X on Friday.

The investigation is being carried out “in light of the recent and legitimate questions” regarding the recent cases and “no stone will be unturned,” she said.

“We’re going to look for connections … on whether there are connections to classified access, access to classified information, and or foreign actors,” FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News on Sunday. “If there’s any connections that lead to nefarious conduct or conspiracy, this FBI will make the appropriate arrest.”

CNN’s Jason Morris, Annie Grayer and Kit Maher contributed to this report.

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Before bludgeoning his latest victim’s head and sawing apart her body, octogenarian serial killer Harvey Marcelin became so fixated on the victim that he created multiple Facebook accounts, all with the woman’s photo as his profile photo, prosecutors allege.

Sitting in a wheelchair, dressed in a black jacket, pants and a white shirt, Marcelin, 87, sat at the defense table in Brooklyn Supreme Court Monday, on trial for the gruesome murder of Susan Leyden, whose headless and limbless torso was discovered on a Brooklyn street in 2022.

“On Feb.27, 2022, Susan Leyden went over to the defendant’s apartment at 50 Pennsylvania Ave., carrying her grey and black rolling bag with her, there to see her friend,” Assistant D.A. Viviane Dussek told jurors in her opening argument Monday.

“Susan Leyden walked into that building not knowing she would never walk out again.”

Marcelin wound up using that very bag to dispose of Leyden’s torso, Dussek said.

After buying a reciprocal saw from a Manhattan Home Depot, he started, “cutting through skin, cutting through flesh, through tissue, through bones. So many bones. So many cuts,” Dussek said. “He packages Susan’s body up in plastic bags.”

Leyden, 68, was down on her luck — she lost her jewelry business, became estranged from her daughter and at some point ended up in a homeless shelter, Dussek said, but added that before the killing, “She started getting back on her feet, started getting back on track.”

Marcelin, who has identified as both male and female over the years, has already served time for fatally shooting one girlfriend in early 1963, then stabbing another to death on Oct. 30, 1985.

Before the trial began, Marcelin insisted he be referred to as Harvey, then clarified, “Well, Mr. Harvey, if you don’t mind.”

The jury won’t hear about the 1963 case, how Marcelin, was found guilty of shooting girlfriend Jacquieline Bonds in the hallway of an Harlem apartment, then chased her into a bedroom and shot her again. Judge Danny Chun ruled last week that the killing happened so long ago that it would serve only to prejudice the jury against Marcelin.

April 28, 2022: Dismember suspect vowed to behave

Prosecutors will be allowed to bring up the 1985 killing only if Marcelin takes the stand in his own defense, Chun said. Marcelin, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter, stabbed Anna Laura Serrera Miranda to death in their apartment, a year after being released on lifetime parole in the 1963 case, then brought down the body in a bloody garbage bag shoved into a shopping cart.

At a June 25, 2019 parole hearing, Marcelin vowed, “I give you my word, I will never re-offend.”

A gruesome discovery in the wee hours of March 3, 2022, proved that vow to be a lie, as prosecutors tell it.

At about 12:30 a.m., e-bike rider Ramon Lopez spotted a grey and black rolling bag near the corner of Pennsylvania Ave. and Atlantic Ave. in East New York, not far from Marcelin’s home.

Lopez stopped to have a look, and what he saw made him jump back, he testified. It looked like a torso.

“I saw kind of like the shoulder and one of the breasts and the neck. Chopped off, no head,” he told jurors. “I jumped back, scared, shocked, and called 911. When they got there, they were also surprised.”

Assignment – DISMEMBER

The jury saw photos and video of the scene, including one gory top-down photo.  One juror took a deep breath, rubbed her chest and took a swig of water after seeing the picture.

Police reviewed video from the scene and determined Marcelin left the bag, and when they checked his apartment, he answered the door, wearing the same tan pants and brown boots from the video, Dussek told jurors.

He had a Home Depot receipt in his pocket, and more video showed he was wearing the same outfit when he bought the saw and saw blades, the prosecutor said.

Cops searched the apartment, and found black plastic garbage bags tied up, with Leyden’s thighs, hand, arm and head inside, Dussek said. Marcelin also stuffed part of the victim’s left leg into his electric wheelchair and went shopping before disposing of the limb, prosecutors allege.

The victim’s right leg, left arm and left hand were never recovered, Dussek said.

Prosecutor allege that another woman, Lisa Lindahl, who was homeless and had a heroin and crack habit, visited Marcelin to do drugs in the apartment, and walked in on a crime scene. Lindahl is expected to testify for the prosecution.

“She’ll tell you that the apartment was dark when she arrived. It smelled of urine. It was disgusting,” Dussek said. “That’s when lisa made the next horrifying discovery. On the floor was.a body, a dead body, Susan Leyden’s body, with her head covered up. She was scared. She was scared, she was high. She didn’t know what to do.”

Marcelin’s lawyer, Alison Stocking, suggested Lindahl could be responsible for the killing, challenging the prosecution’s notion that the killing clearly happened before she arrived.

They want you to narrow your consideration of the timing of Susan Leyden’s death in a way that works better for their theory of prosecution” Stocking said, adding that Lindahl’s DNA was never tested against DNA found on a hammer, or found under Leyden’s fingernails.

Stiocking said Lindahl told police and a grand jury “the lies that were enough to get her out” of trouble after the murder.

“Of course she lied, she was desperate, and now instead of being charged with murder, Lisa Lindahl is the prosecution’s star witness against Mr. Harvey,” the defense lawyer said.

“Your task here is not to decide who is more likely the perpetrator, Mr. Harvey or Lisa Lindahl,” Stocking said. “If there’s reasonable doubt about who killed Susan Leyden, then you must find Mr. Harvey not guilty.”

The Pima County Sheriff’s Department is facing backlash not just for its investigation into Nancy Guthrie’s abduction but for posting that they’d found another elderly Nancy, leading many to believe it was the matriarch who’s been missing for more than two months.

The department shared on X, formerly Twitter, late Thursday, “Update: Nancy has been located,” along with the word “LOCATED” stamped over the missing person’s poster for Nancy Radakovich, which identified the 82-year-old as a vulnerable adult.

One user slammed the sheriff’s office as “absolutely brain dead to not know people would think this was Nancy Guthrie, they even look alike.”

Another asked why the department even identified the missing woman by just her first name: “Of all the posts you’ve made about a missing person being located … you chose THIS ONE to use first name only??”

The outrage ran the gamut from calls to “fire your social media manager” to dubbing the department “evil,” “a satirical organization,” and “a–holes on purpose.”

It’s unclear why Pima County has not removed the post to share the news again with Radakovich’s surname.

Guthrie — the 84-year-old mother of “Today” show anchor Savannah Guthrie — went missing from her Tucson, Ariz. home in the dead of night on Feb. 1, with authorities quickly dubbing her disappearance an abduction.