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Doc calls accused killer sexual sadist
A forensic psychologist testified the man accused of killing a Park Avenue dry cleaner and brutally beating a Central Park jogger may have been a sexual sadist, but didn't suffer a mental disorder that would relieve him of responsibility for his crime. John Royster's defense attorneys admit he beat the women, but say he was not responsible for his actions. Forensic neuropsychologist Daniel Martell testified today as part of the prosecution's rebuttal case in Manhattan State Supreme Court. Martell said that after 13 hours of conversation with Royster, he concluded that he was a sexual sadist, a malingerer and exhibited antisocial behavior and mixed personality disorder. The psychologist disagreed, however with the defense contention that Royster suffered from 'de-personalization.' The testimony included a videotape of Royster describing how, when a cat walked across his computer, he hurled it into a wall, then threw it down a flight of stairs and repeatedly kicked it. He said that when a 12-year-old neighbor complained about his abusing the animal, he grabbed him around the neck and starting to strangle him. Martell said that behavior was part of a pattern he saw in Royster that continued in the attacks carried out in a vicious crime spree in the summer of 1996. He said Royster liked to take out his rage on people weaker and smaller than himself. The 22-year-old drifter is accused of the brutal beatings of three women in early June of 1996: a piano teacher who was beaten and sexually assaulted as she jogged in Central Park in an attack that left her in a coma for weeks; a woman walking along the East River who needed reconstructive surgery on her face; and a Park Avenue dry cleaner who was killed in the brutal attack.

Lawyer: Accused killer was lovelorn
The man accused of killing a Park Avenue dry cleaner and brutally beating a Central Park jogger committed the vicious crimes only after he was spurned by his Japanese love. That's the case John Royster's attorney has put before a Manhattan court, claiming that the 23-year-old man was crazy when he carried out attacks on four women in June of 1996. Defense attorney Daniel Gotlin introduced five love letters from Royster to the woman into evidence in Manhattan State Supreme Court today. The first four were written to try to win back Mari Obokata, but the fifth was sent from jail in October 1996 after Royster had been arrested. Writing neatly and precisely, Royster says: 'Being with you was the straw that broke the camel's back, as they say. Please forgive my selfishness and childish behavior and again thank you!' In a videotape Gotlin played in court, Mari Obokota said that after she broke up with Royster he called her every day, even after she went back to Japan. He launched a daily letter-writing and phone campaign to win her back, giving up on May 17, 1996, when he sent his last letter two weeks before the attacks started. The first victim was a piano teacher who was walking in Central Park. She was left in a coma for weeks, and had to be re-introduced to her closest friends. She still has no memory of the attack. A woman who was beaten while she walked along the East River had to have her face reconstructed, and she, too, lost conciousness during the attack.

Cops still hunting jogger slayer
Exactly one year after the brutal slaying of a jogger in Central Park, New York City police said Tuesday they are still hoping for a lucky break in their hunt for the woman's killer. Despite the offer of a $67,000 reward, no one has come forward with information that could lead police to a suspect in the early-morning beating death of Maria Isabel Monteiro Alves, a 44-year-old Brazilian immigrant. 'It's never too late for a lucky break,' Assistant Chief Kevin Farrell said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. There were apparently no witnesses to the crime, and the rain that morning washed away most of the physical evidence that might have aided police in their investigation, Farrell said. The woman was not even identified until police ran a composite sketch in newspapers and on television news. 'We are again requesting assistance from the public in solving this horrendous crime,' Farrell said. Alves, who worked in an upscale Madison Avenue shoe boutique, was killed after she went jogging at 6 a.m. as she usually did. An attacker dragged her off a path in a deserted section of the park and brutally assaulted her, fracturing her skull and battering her face before dumping her bloody body in a stream. Her jogging shorts and underwear were found around her ankles, leading police to suspect she may have been sexually assaulted as well. A homeless man who was overheard muttering about the killing surfaced as a prime suspect early on, but police who questioned him decided he was a deranged man looking for attention.

Slain jogger's body is flown home
The jogger slain last weekend in Manhattan's Central Park was expected to be flown back to her native Brazil Saturday night with her mother, who arrived in New York City Friday to claim her daughter. As the body of 44-year-old Maria Isabel Monteiro Alves and her mother, Lidia Pinto Machado, were preparing for their 11-hour flight home, police in New York were getting ready to release a sketch of a new suspect in the brutal slaying. Several suspects investigators had picked up in connection with the viscious murder and possible sexual assault had to be let go after they could not be tied to the Sept. 17 attack. One homeless man who police found wandering in the park wearing blood-soaked pants was freed after DNA tests showed the blood to be his own. Another homeless man was released after a witness could not pick him out of a lineup. Police were back in Central Park on Saturday scouring the woods around the stream in the north of the park near East Drive, where Alves was found, looking for new clues. Police were expected to release the sketch of the new suspect Saturday night based on descriptions by at least two people who heard a homeless man muttering on the street that he killed the woman. He was described as a slightly-built, 5-foot-10 black man in his 40s, wearing a black leather baseball cap with an orange or red logo. Police said that Alves was killed on Sunday she after she went jogging as she usually did at 6 a.m. An attacker dragged her off a path and brutally assaulted the woman, fracturing her skull and battering her face before dumping her bloody body in a stream.

Jogger's mom: Don't forget my daughter
The mother of the jogger slain last weekend in Manhattan's Central Park arrived in New York City from Brazil Friday and made a tearful plea that her daughter's death not be in vain. 'Please, do not forget her death,' Lidia Pinto Machado said at a news conference in City Hall. 'Please, help. Please, write about it, talk about it.' Pinto, wearing black and crying throughout, said her daughter Maria Izavel Monteiro Alves loved the park where she was beaten to death, and possibly sexually abused, by an unknown assailant. 'She enjoyed nature. She used to tell us that when it rained, the park was even more beautiful,' she said. She added that Monteiro, who left Brazil two decades ago, wanted to return 'but she knew she had more opportunities in New York...She had many friends in New York.' Monteiro, 44, worked in an upscale Madison Avenue shoe boutique. Police say that on Sunday she went jogging at her usual time of 6 a.m. and was dragged off the path and viciously attacked, her head bashed in and her bloodied body dumped in a stream. She was identified on Monday and her mother and sister-in-law flew into New York from Rio de Janeiro Friday morning to claim her body and return it to Brazil for burial. 'You have no idea how much I'm suffering,' Pinto said. 'I will take my daughter back and try to survive without her.' Pinto thanked New Yorkers for their generosity, the press for its interest in the case, and police for their massive investigation, one of the biggest manhunts in the city in recent memory.

William Kustler, civil liberties lawyer
United Press International Colorful civil liberties lawyer William M. Kunstler, who gained fame by defending 1960s radicals and other unpopular causes, died Monday. He was 76. Kunstler died of cardiac arrest at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York, where he had been under treatment for a heart ailment since Aug. 28. William Moses Kunstler was born July 7, 1919, in New York City, the son of Frances and Moses Bradford Kunstler. He graduated from Yale University in 1941. He obtained a law degree from Columbia University and was admitted to the New York bar in 1948. Kunstler became a lawyer in 1948 after serving in the U.S. Army during World War II. He and his brother served as counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union in struggles involving the civil rights movement. He became nationally known when he defended the Chicago Seven, a group of activists accused of inciting riots during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. During the trial of the Chicago Seven, Kunstler often found himself clashing with Judge Julius J. Hoffman. The Chicago Seven won acquittal on conspiracy charges but were found guilty of inciting to riot, a verdict later overturned by an appellate court. But Hoffman convicted all of them -- and Kunstler -- for contempt and improper conduct. Another court made Hoffman's convictions stand but suspended the sentences, and Kunstler did not go to jail. The case cemented Kunstler's image as an iconoclast, a reputation he nurtured throughout his life.

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