Thread: Woman charged with 'smuggling human head'

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/20 ... 567597.htm

Last Update: Saturday, February 11, 2006. 10:12am (AEDT)
Woman charged with 'smuggling human head'
A Haitian national who packed a skull in her suitcase on a flight to Florida's Fort Lauderdale airport in the US has been charged with "smuggling a human head".

US prosecutors say they have also charged Florida resident Myrlene Severe, who was arrested on Thursday, with failing to declare the head on a customs declaration form and transporting hazardous material.

They say the skull had "organic matter" on it.

"Severe stated that she had obtained the package, which contained the human head, from a male in Haiti for use as a part of her voodoo beliefs," the US attorney for the Southern District of Florida said in a statement.

"Severe also stated that the purpose of the package was to ward off evil spirits," the US attorney's office also said.

While 80 per cent of Haiti's 8.5 million people are Roman Catholic and 16 per cent Protestant, more than half also say they practice voodoo, an Afro-Caribbean religion whose roots go back to Africa.

Each of the charges carries a maximum punishment of five years in prison.

It was unclear who Severe's attorney was, but the prosecutor's office said bail was set at $US100,000 during an initial appearance before a US magistrate in Fort Lauderdale, and Severe would be arraigned on March 2.

-

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/ne ... 839168.htm

Posted on Fri, Feb. 10, 2006

Skull aboard flight from Haiti likely used in Vodou

BY JERRY BERRIOS
jberrios@MiamiHerald.com

The Broward Medical Examiner said this afternoon that he believes a human skull brought into Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport Thursday had been used in some kind of Vodou ritual.

The skull is that of a black man who was in his 40's or younger, Dr. Joshua Perper said. It arrived in a cotton bag labeled for wild rice, carried by Myrlene Severe, aboard a Lynx Air International flight from Cap-Haitien, Haiti, according to Zachary Mann, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. An agency officer detected the unusual object in the woman's luggage during a routine security check, and was turned over to the medical examiner's office for further testing.

''We do see human body parts come in, but typically they're used for research purposes,'' Mann said.

Perper said it was the first skull he has seen in his 12 years in Broward County that had been used in Vodou.

Severe, of Miramar, was arrested and charged with smuggling a human head into the country, according to Miami Herald television news partner CBS-4. A federal magistrate set bond of $100,000. Court documents indicate that Severe obtained the package from a man in Haiti to ward off evil spirits, CBS-4 said.

A witness who appeared to know Severe told TV reporters that the woman had the skull because of her interest in science.

The investigation is being jointly handled by Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the Broward County Medical Examiner's Office.

Severe, 30, is being held in the Broward County Jail.