New York City rape-murder cannibal conspiracy trial headed to jury
Eyewitness News
NEW YORK (WABC) -- No one disputes that a retired high school librarian and an auto mechanic bonded over discussions of ghastly fetishes: abducting, raping and killing women and girls.
Jury deliberations were expected to start as soon as Wednesday in the Manhattan federal conspiracy trial of retired high school librarian Christopher Asch and Trenton, N.J., mechanic Michael Van Hise. Prosecutors say the two aimed to turn disturbing fantasies into deadly action, while defense lawyers say the men just thought up scenarios no more real than horror films or violent pornography.
The prosecution grew out of another shocking case - that of a police officer accused of plotting to kidnap and kill women and eat their flesh.
Asch and Van Hise are accused of scheming to brutalize female members of Van Hise's family, including girls under 10. Asch also is charged separately with plotting - and even amassing a macabre kit of apparent torture tools - to kidnap a woman who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local/new_york&id=9463253
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