Human voodoo head in airline baggage

[Felix the Cat]

http://www.sploid.com/news/2006/02/human_voodoo_he.php

A human head was found in the baggage of a woman returning to Florida from Haiti.

"It still had teeth, hair and bits of skin and lots of dirt," a U.S. Customs spokeswoman told the Associated Press.

The woman, 30-year-old Myrlene Severe, is a Haitian-born permanent U.S. resident.

Severe told Customs cops she brought the head back from Haiti to protect her from evil.

But it didn't work so well. She's being held by the feds on a $100,000 bond and could get a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison for "failing to declare the head and transporting hazardous material in air commerce."

She was arrested at the Ft. Lauderdale airport after customs inspectors found the grisly parcel.

[Berianidze]

not that it really matters, but I wonder if it was normal sized or one of those shrunken heads?

[Jaybird]

Can you imagine the look on the customs guy's face?


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4703328.stm
Voodoo head found in air luggage



Human head found
US immigration officials have arrested a Haitian woman after baggage screeners found a human head in her luggage at a Florida airport.
Myrlene Severe, 30, has been charged with failing to declare the head on a customs form and transporting "hazardous material".

She arrived at Florida's Fort Lauderdale airport on Thursday on a flight from Cap Haitien in north Haiti.

Ms Severe said that the head was to ward off evil spirits, officials said.

"Severe stated that she had obtained the package, which contained a human head, from a male in Haiti for use as part of her voodoo beliefs," the US Attorney's Office said in a statement.

'Hair and skin'

A spokesman for Miami's immigration and customs agency told the AFP news agency that the head was not simply a skull.

"It had teeth, hair and skin, and quite a lot of dirt," she said.

Ms Severe, a US resident, appeared in court on Friday in Fort Lauderdale. She could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

The practice of voodoo, an Afro-Caribbean religion whose roots go back thousands of years, is still widespread in Haiti.

The Haitian government officially recognised voodoo as a religion in 2003.

[Kodos]

Just can't heads through customs anymore, too bad because you need them to collect on contracts sometimes...

[SteamshipTime]

Glorious diversity.

[il ragno]

Myrlene Severe, 30, has been charged with failing to declare the head on a customs form and transporting "hazardous material".

You think maybe a white woman caught with a severed head in her baggage might get charged with something a bit more severe than failure to declare a head, and transporting hazardous material? Like....ohh, I dunno....murder?

Thank you for flying Air 'Kwa!

[Jimbo Gomez]

It is actually quite unlikely that she killed the 'donor' of the head. In all likeliness, she either dug up and decapitated a freshly buried corpse, or just bought the head. Not saying that is respectable behaviour, but it ain't murder.

[Dan Dare]

This certainly sheds a different light on the tonnes of "Bushmeat" that are intercepted annually at London Heathrow on flights from Africa.

[Jimbo Gomez]

This certainly sheds a different light on the tonnes of "Bushmeat" that are intercepted annually at London Heathrow on flights from Africa.


Thank you so much for putting that thought into my head.