Tag: oregon

Oregon man who dismembered handymen, fed them to pigs, serving 50-year sentence in women’s prison after identifying as trans

A trans-identified male convicted of murdering and dismembering two handymen and then feeding them to his pigs has been serving his 50-year sentence in a women’s correctional facility in Oregon.

Susan Monica, born Steven Buchanan, was sentenced to serve at least 50 years in prison in 2015 after being found guilty of murder and abusing the corpses of two handymen, 59-year-old Stephen Delicino in 2012 and 56-year-old Robert Haney in 2013, according to an Oregon Live report from that time.

According to the Willamette Week, Monica is serving the sentence out at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, located around 16 miles south of Portland, Ore. The facility accommodates all State of Oregon female adults in custody.

The Oregon Department of Corrections lists Monica under the female name, and he is described as being “female” in official documents, according to the Daily Mail.

Monica, who previously served in the Vietnam war and is a US Navy veteran, bought the 20-acre farm in Oregon where the gruesome murders took place in 1991.

Delicino was hired by Monica to work on the farm in 2012. There was allegedly a confrontation between the two after the handyman was said to have been found with Monica’s gun.

Monica claimed that during the altercation, the gun misfired and hit Delicino in the back of the head, killing him. Monica also claimed that he shot Delicino in self defense, with senior assistant deputy district attorney Allan Smith telling the jury in closing arguments that Monica’s changing stories never matched the forensic evidence.

Monica told investigators that Delicino was eaten by his pigs before being buried on the farm.

Just one year later, Monica hired Haney to work as a handyman on the farm. The man’s children became worried when they hadn’t heard from their father in over two months and filed a missing persons report with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office.

Haney’s son, Jesse, visited Monica’s farm on January 1, 2014 to ask for his father’s items back and ask where he was.

“We hadn’t seen or heard from my dad for two months. We just all started to panic,” Jesse said in a documentary about the murders.

“His leather jacket was there. His dog was still running around and all his tools were there… It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up,” Jesse said.

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Highly-contagious infection spread by feces breaks out in Portland as homeless crisis sparks disease common in Third World

A highly contagious infection that is spread through tiny particles of fecal matter has broken out in Portland – with officials warning that the homeless population are most at risk of catching the illness.

Shigella is a bacteria that spreads through human feces. People transmit the infection after getting the microbes on their hands and then touching their mouths.

People can also spread the intestinal infection through sexual intercourse. 

Multnomah County in Oregon has warned that homeless people and same-sex male partners are most at risk because of their lack of access to hygienic facilities.

In the last month, 45 cases have been found in Portland, bringing the total from 2023 to 218. The influx of infections were reported among unhoused people in downtown Portland’s Old Town neighborhood.

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Oregon Secretary Of State Says Drug Decriminalization Measure Has Improved Treatment, Though Gaps Still Remain

Measure 110 has helped the growth of treatment and recovery services for drug addiction, but the state can do more to better manage the program, according to a report released Wednesday by the Oregon secretary of state’s office.

Lawmakers mandated the financial review, which looks at services that were established starting in 2022, two years after voters passed Measure 110, decriminalizing possession of small amounts of drugs and putting a share of cannabis revenue into treatment and recovery services.

Since 2022, the state has awarded $264 million in grants to 233 providers throughout Oregon that provide treatment, counseling and harm reduction, which can include distribution of clean needles. The review looked at where that money has gone and what providers are reporting to state officials. It did not consider how many people have been treated or received services or gauge the impact to society.

The findings come amid a call by Republicans for repeal of Measure 110, consideration by Democrats of needed changes to the law and a fentanyl-fueled rise in addiction and overdoses.

“Since it’s been implemented, the top question on everyone’s minds has been: Is Measure 110 working?” Audits Director Kip Memmott said in a statement. “It’s a complicated question to answer and much of the public conversation about Measure 110 is outside the scope of this review. We identified important progress being made, but it’s clear there is still much work to be done.”

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The first humanoid robot factory is about to open

A factory planning to pump out 10,000 two-legged robots a year is taking shape in Salem, Oregon — the better to help Amazon and other giant companies with dangerous hauling, lifting and moving.

Why it matters: Agility Robotics says that its RoboFab manufacturing facility will be the first to mass-produce humanoid robots, which could be nimbler and more versatile than their existing industrial counterparts.

  • China seems to think so: Beijing recently announced a goal of mass-producing humanoid robots by 2025.

Driving the news: Agility Robotics, which makes a bot named Digit that’s being tested by Amazon, plans to open RoboFab early next year, inaugurating what CEO Damion Shelton calls “the world’s first purpose-built humanoid robot factory.”

  • “We’ve placed a very high priority on just getting robots out there as fast as possible,” Shelton, who’s also a co-founder, tells Axios.
  • “Our big plan is that we want to get to general-purpose humanoids as soon as we can.”
  • There’s a growing backlog of orders for Digit, which the company says is the first commercially available human-shaped robot designed for warehouse work.

Where it stands: Agility has produced about 100 robots since its founding in 2016, and plans to move Digit production from its Tangent, Oregon headquarters to the more spacious 70,000-square-foot RoboFab facility in the coming months.

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Oregon Democratic candidate vows to ‘reclaim her sexuality’ after footage of her working as a $500-per-hour dominatrix at Manhattan BDSM dungeon was leaked, leaving her ‘hyperventilating and crying’

A Democratic Congressional Candidate is ‘reclaiming her sexuality’ after a clip of her working at a Manhattan BDSM dungeon was leaked.

Courtney Casgraux, 41, is a self-described ‘international businesswoman’ who is running for a seat in the United States House of Representatives for Oregon‘s first district.

The single mother of a teenage son was exposed in a video leaked on Reddit for working as a dominatrix in Manhattan during hers 20s and 30s. 

Casgraux would charge clients $500 for playing the dominant role in BDSM activities.

The California native returned to the BDSM industry when she began working at Donatella’s Dungeon – a hidden S&M club in Midtown Manhattan, The New York Post reported.

She launched her campaign to represent Portland‘s western suburbs on June 7 – a few months later she discovered provocative footage of her working as a BDSM dominatrix had been leaked to the public on Reddit.

The bombshell August 31 leak shocked Casgraux and left her in a state of panic: ‘I was like, “Who did this?” and I just started calling every single person that I pretty much knew from my past … I was like hyperventilating, crying,’ she said.

She described the upsetting moment she saw the video: ‘My heart just kind of sinked in and I went psycho.’

The political candidate never discovered who exposed her in the Reddit post – she thinks that whoever is responsible was attempting to ‘shame’ her.

‘To shame me for something that helped create the life that I have today where I have opportunity … made me really mad. Because it felt like an attack on women, not just an attack on me,’ she said.

She is now reclaiming her sexuality – starting with a Playboy campaign collaboration.

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Oregon Is Removing a Requirement for High School Students to Show ‘Essential Skills’ Before Graduating

Last week, the Oregon Department of Education unanimously voted to remove a requirement for Oregon high schoolers to demonstrate basic mastery in reading, writing, and mathematics in order to graduate. The requirement, which was most often met using students’ standardized test results, has been paused since 2020.

According to state documents, the “Assessment of Essential Skills” benchmark is typically met when a student meets a cutoff score in a statewide standardized test, though alternatives can be used for students who opt out of the test, such as samples of classroom work or scores from other tests like the SAT or ACT.

While score cutoffs have been unavailable since the pause in 2020, a state guide from the 2016-2017 school year lists the cutoff for one popular test, the Smarter Balanced test, which student take in their 11th grade year, as a score of 2515 for reading and 2543 for math. Based on score percentile data from 2017-2018, assessments would put those scores roughly in the 25th and 45th percentiles respectively (assuming no major changes in student performance over one year). 

While the math cutoff in particular might seem high, both ranges would barely put test takers just a few points into the “Level 2” range in Smarter Balanced’s 4-level scoring range. Level 2 scores are defined by the testing organization as meaning that a student has a “partial understanding of and ability to apply the knowledge and skills associated with college content readiness,” adding that a student in this level would need “support” to be ready for college.

While not every high school graduate can or should go to college, if a high school student can’t even demonstrate “partial” understanding of the subject matter of their classes, letting them continue on to their senior year and graduate high school without additional intervention is clearly irresponsible.

However, critics have framed the extra remediation many low-performing Oregon students receive as damaging. Department of Education officials opposed the policy in part because “higher rates of students of color, students learning English as a second language and students with disabilities ended up having to take intensive senior-year writing and math classes,” extra remediation that “denied those students the opportunity to take an elective,” according to The Oregonian. 

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Trans-identified male violently beats female student in Oregon middle school

A young female student was violently beaten by a trans-identified male in the hallway of an Oregon public school.

The shocking incident occurred at Hazelbrook Middle School in the Tigard Tualatin School District, which is right outside of Portland, Oregon.

The brutal beatdown captured on video shows the trans-identified student, a biological male, throwing multiple blows to the female student’s head after he violently grabbed her hair, yanked her back and forth, then knocked her down flat in the school hallway.

As the girl lay on the ground, he viscously grabbed her by the hair, dragging the girl across the ground before violently assaulting her further.

“I didn’t do anything! I didn’t do anything!” the victim can be heard pleading to the trans attacker, according to the video.

“Touch me again, b-tch,” the trans student threatened before walking away.

The female student stands up and walks over to the person filming the incident in tears and says, “I can’t breathe.”

The victim’s mother posted about her daughter’s “horrific” attack on social media, demanding answers from the school and threatening legal action against the trans attacker.

“Yesterday my daughter was attacked at school by a biological male student dressed as a girl. I cannot even put into words my anger at the situation after watching this horrific video nor my distraught knowing I can’t do anything because I will ultimately, end up in jail. To the school- Where were the supervisors? Why wasn’t anyone present in the hallways? I don’t want excuses, I want answers. Of course, the coward that he is fled after putting hands on her,” the mother said.

“HIS name is, [omitted] and as of right now the police cannot find him. We WILL be pressing charges. I want everyone to see this video. I want everyone to share this video. Assaulting someone is never ok BUT a boy/man should NEVER lay hands on a girl/woman and that’s on the parents for not raising a decent human being. Clearly, [omitted] isn’t a human of good values or morals,” she continued.

“In fact, he doesn’t seem like a good human being at all. He is known for being a bully and has done this to several girls. He is clearly, targeting females. [Omitted], if you see this just know we are coming for you and we will not stop until you are punished in the court of law to the furthest extent. You will NOT get away with this,” the mother said.

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Oregon’s Drug Problems Were Not Caused by Decriminalization

Three years ago, 58 percent of Oregon voters approved Measure 110, a groundbreaking ballot initiative that eliminated criminal penalties for low-level possession of illegal drugs. Last week, a group called the Coalition to Fix and Improve Ballot Measure 110 proposed two versions of an initiative aimed at reversing that reform, and recent polling suggests most Oregonians are open to the idea.

There are two main reasons for that reversal of public opinion, neither of which goes to the heart of the moral and practical case for decriminalization. Oregonians are understandably troubled by the nuisances associated with public drug use, and they are dismayed that, despite Measure 110’s promise of more funding for treatment, opioid-related deaths have continued to increase.

The main idea behind Measure 110 was that consuming politically disfavored intoxicants should not be treated as a crime. Since drug use itself violates no one’s rights, it is hard to argue with that premise.

Eliminating criminal penalties for drug possession, however, does not require tolerating conduct that offends, incommodes, or alarms people who have an equal right to use sidewalks, parks, and other taxpayer-funded facilities. That problem—which many major cities face, regardless of whether they routinely arrest people for drug possession—is distinct from drug use per se, just as disorderly alcohol-related conduct is distinct from drinking per se.

The alcohol comparison is instructive in another way. Even during Prohibition, which banned the production and distribution of “intoxicating liquors,” drinking was not a crime. The situation created by Measure 110 is analogous, with all the dangers that criminalizing the drug supply entails.

Just as alcohol prohibition exposed drinkers to the potentially deadly hazards of bootleg booze, drug prohibition forces users to rely on black-market products of uncertain provenance and composition. Measure 110 did nothing to address that problem, which has led to record numbers of drug-related deaths across the country.

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Bloodthirsty female kingpins of nationwide sex trafficking ring circulated videos showing brutal torture of rivals

The depraved ringleaders of a Queens-based, nationwide sex-trafficking and prostitution ring with “significant” ties to “China” posed for cheery selfies hours after a victim they targeted was “viciously beaten by a rolling pin,” prosecutors said.

The doe-eyed duo —  manager Yuan Yuan Chen and her boss Rong Rong Xu —  were part of a Flushing-based sex ring that extended all the way to Oregon and included hundreds of sex workers, most of whom were migrants from China forced to hand over their passports, according to U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace.

Prosecutors said both women made numerous trips from Flushing’s Chinatown to China.

Yuan Yuan Chen, 30, was indicted on September 15 after Xu, 31, was arrested last year.

The selfie they took together — just hours after allegedly siccing enforcers on rival sex workers at a Kansas hotel in 2020 — was included in paperwork prosecutors filed to deny Chen bail

In “complete disregard for the victim,” the two women “posed for nearly a dozen ‘selfies,’  smiling and having fun, hours after the victim . . . had been viciously beaten with a rolling pin,” prosecutors wrote.

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America’s First ‘Shroom Clinic’ Opens In Oregon

America’s first licensed health clinic to sell ‘magic mushrooms’ opened in June in Oregon and has been swamped with surging demand. The waitlist for the clinic exceeds 3,000 people, some of whom are searching for ways to treat depression and PTSD. 

No prescription or referral is needed for Epic Healing Eugene, but customers must be over 21 to receive psilocybin services. 

AP News said some customers complained the ‘mind-bending’ experience is too costly: 

“A client can wind up paying over $2,000, which helps cover service center expenses, a facilitator and lab-tested psilocybin. Annual licenses for service centers and growers cost $10,000, with a half-price discount for veterans.” 

Even though The Oregon Psychiatric Physicians Association opposed legalizing psilocybin in 2020, voters thought otherwise and also decriminalized the possession of hard drugs. 

Epic Healing Eugene’s owner Cathy Jonas told AP that providing legal access to mushrooms is a ‘dream come true’: 

“The plant medicines have communicated to me that I’m supposed to be doing this thing.”

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