LIKE many adopted children, Matthew Roberts set about finding his biological parents with a mix of nerves and excitement. In particular, he hoped that discovering his father’s identity would help him to work out what made him the man he had become.

But nothing could have prepared him for being told his dad is… serial killer Charles Manson.

Matthew, 41 – who bears a haunting resemblance to his father – sank into depression after discovering his identity.

He has since been in contact with his dad in a series of letters to his California prison and Manson has replied – each time chillingly signing off with a swastika.

Now Matthew, who was given up for adoption as a baby, has told of his horror at finding out he was the son of a monster.

He says: “I didn’t want to believe it. I was frightened and angry. It’s like finding out that Adolf Hitler is your father.

“I’m a peaceful person – trapped in the face of a monster.”

Matthew grew up in Rockford, Illinois, and didn’t know he was adopted until his sister told him when he was ten.

He loved his adoptive parents but always knew he was different. He says: “My parents were great people, but very conservative.

“They were products of the Fifties and I didn’t relate to them. My biological parents were products of the Sixties and I take on a lot more of those characteristics.”

He also reveals his adoptive father tried to discourage him from getting in contact with Manson, telling him: “Nothing good will come from this.”

Matthew, who now lives in Los Angeles, began investigating his family history 12 years ago when he contacted a social services agency who located his mother, Terry, in Wisconsin.

He wrote to her straight away and their early exchanges will be familiar to adopted children everywhere.

She confirmed she was his mum and told him she had named him Lawrence Alexander – and that she would tell him his last name in time.

The jigsaw of his life was beginning to take shape but it was still missing a crucial piece – his father.

Terry remained tight-lipped about his identity but after Matthew pressed her for details in a string of letters, she eventually revealed the awful truth.

She said she met commune leader Manson in 1967 – two years before the infamous “Manson Family” murders in Los Angeles for which he is still in jail at the age of 75.

But back in 1967, Terry had been one of many who were transfixed by Manson’s charms.

Her father had tried to chase him away when he met Terry, calling him a “white-trash biker bandit” but she found him charismatic and hypnotizing.

So she hopped on a bus with his Family and ended up in San Francisco. There she claims she was raped by Manson in a drug-fuelled orgy, after which she returned home and Matthew was born on March 22, 1968.

Terry always believed Manson was the father of the baby she gave up for adoption. And after seeing a picture of Matthew, her worst nightmare was confirmed. For he is the spitting image of Manson, with the same nose, mouth, eyes and large forehead. They even have the same thick, arched eyebrows and long, thick, dark hair.

Like his father, Matthew is a songwriter and poet. He is even worried that he may have inherited his father’s schizophrenia.

Matthew, now working as a DJ, recalls hearing mum Terry’s bombshell: “She even said, ‘You look just like him’.

“I’m not nuts but I’ve got a little bit of it. It’s scary and upsetting. If I get worked up, my eyes get really big and that’s really freaked some people out before.

“I’ve tried to tone that down quite a bit. I don’t like having that effect on people.

“I don’t even like the fact that I’m big. It makes me even scarier. My hero is Gandhi. I’m an extremely non-violent, peaceful person and a vegetarian.

“I don’t even kill bugs. I’ve had long hair all my life. I could make it go away, but I can’t let the world and their fears change me.” After discovering the truth, it took Matthew five years to pluck up the courage to write to his father at Corcoran State Prison in California.

Manson replied to Matthew’s letter straight away and has since sent him a string of ten handwritten notes and postcards signed with the wartime Nazi symbol.

Matthew says: “He sends me weird stuff and always signs it with his swastika. At first I was stunned and depressed. I wasn’t able to speak for a day. I remember not being able to eat.”

According to Matthew, the letters mainly rambled and said “crazy things” but Manson did confirm he could be his father.

In one twisted letter he wrote: “The truth is the truth. The truth hurts.”

In another note Manson talked about meeting Matthew’s mother. He wrote: “I remember her. We came back to LA on the super-cheap train.”

And Manson – who grew up without a father figure – even compared his childhood to Matthew’s.

He said: “You got the same father I got. A hobo just left on the midnight train and died, lost at sea.” Then in a postcard two years ago, addressed to Matthew’s birth name Lawrence Alexander, Manson sent his son his prison phone number.

But Matthew has never made the call to his dad.

He says: “There’s always a subconscious block.

“What I’m worried about is that you think you’re going to meet your birth mother or father and they’re going to love you and welcome you with open arms. But he’s not that kind of person.”

Despite Manson’s evil actions, Matthew confesses he now battles confused emotions towards his biological father.

He says: “If I did talk to Charlie on the phone, I would say, ‘I truly understand what it’s like to be you, more than anyone could ever imagine on so many levels’.

“He’s my biological father – I can’t help but have some kind of emotional connection. That’s the hardest thing of all – feeling love for a monster who raped my mother.

“I don’t want to love him, but I don’t want to hate him either.”

SOURCE: The Sun

Compelling new data that chemical and fossil evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars was carried to Earth in a Martian meteorite is being elevated to a higher plane by the same NASA team which made the initial discovery 13 years ago.

Sources tell Spaceflight Now that the new data are providing a powerful new case for the Allen Hills Meteorite to have carried strong evidence of Martian life to Earth — evidence that is increasingly standing up to scrutiny as new analytical tools are used to examine the specimen.

Credit: NASA

The latest findings are the product of new research using more advanced High Resolution Electron Microscopy than was in existence when the initial findings were made and announced by NASA and the White House in 1996.

Those laboratory sensors are being focused directly on carbonate discs and associated tiny magnetite crystals present inside the meteorite Allen Hills ALH 84001.

Sources tell Spaceflight Now that the more detailed data on magnetite crystals and carbonate discs now available largely counter a wide range of opposing theories as to why the finding should not be supported as biological in origin.

Now, 13 years after the Martian meteorite life story emerged, the science team finally feels vindicated. Their data shows the meteorite is no smoking gun but is full of evidence that supports the existence of life on the surface of Mars, or in subsurface water pools, early in the planet’s history.

The new data are expected to be addressed publicly within days by NASA Headquarters in Washington, where they could become part of the political debate on future NASA mission directions.

READ MORE along with pictures of the actual meteorite.

SOURCE: SpaceFlightNow

Sometimes wrongdoers outsmart police.

And then there are those suspects who make cops’ jobs a whole lot easier.

Here are seven recent examples of how to do that:

1. Wear a stolen state trooper’s watch. OK, Angel Cruz, 54, of Philadelphia, couldn’t have known he was breaking into a trooper’s personal car at a T.G.I.Friday’s in Wilmington on Sunday afternoon, according to Delaware state police. As trooper and wife left the restaurant, he saw a Chevy Blazer parked close to his car, then take off. The trooper drove his wife home, then spotted the Blazer at a Sears – where Cruz was breaking into an SUV, police said. Cruz’s legal problems were further compounded because the Blazer was stolen, and he was wearing another trooper’s anniversary watch, which was stolen in 2007, according to a news release.

2. Crash in front of police. While Gloucester Township police were investigating one crash Sunday morning, an 18-year-old woman approached, tried to make a U-turn, struck a parked van and overturned, according to township police. Luckily, fire department personnel were on the scene to free her. She was charged with reckless driving. The first crash involved a red Saturn that struck a tree. The owner of that car claimed it was stolen, but wound up getting arrested when police found the intoxicated driver and learned he lived at the owner’s address, police said.

3. Leave wallet at bank robbery. As Lloyd Virgil Barclay, 51, of Philadelphia gave Bethelhem bank tellers notes demanding money on Wednesday, he put his wallet on the counter, police said. He left with about $800, but forgot the wallet, which had two photo IDs, a Social Security card and his Philadelphia criminal registration card. The ID photos matched the man’s picture in surveillance footage.

4. Lock getaway-car keys inside bank. Three men in wigs, two of them armed, duct-taped two workers and directed a half-dozen more into a restroom during a Bear, Del., bank robbery on Aug. 31, according to state police. Fleeing with their loot, they locked the bank’s doors – but left the keys to their Chevrolet Aveo behind. A Ford Focus picked them up, but attracted the attention of witnesses, and the car was intercepted on a nearby highway, police said. Two sets of Atlantic County, N.J., siblings, including the Focus’ female driver, were arrested.

5. Leave daughter, car at crash scene. On Thursday, Tiffany Hrycek ran a red light, hit another car, put her 10-year-old daughter on the sidewalk, and ran home, where police found her and arrested her, according to Delaware State Police. She apparently fled because she was worried about two warrants and her license was suspended.

6. When police arrive, be digging up pot. Johnstown, Pa., police went to the home of John Beltz Jr., 23, to arrest him for allegedly using a women’s identity to withdraw nearly $2,7000 from her bank account. They got a little bonus business, when they found Beltz standing next to a freshly dug hole and holding a marijuana plant, police said.

7. Stop with stolen loot where cops are having coffee. Inside a Mantako, Minn., Happy Chef, two deputies, who had been investigating burglaries, were taking a coffee break Wednesday night, when they got a call about a new theft. Then a pickup pulled up, matching a description, and in the back were the stolen goods, including electronics and jewelry, police said.

SOURCE: Philly.com

The saga of Tammy the Turnpike Turkey may have a romantic epilogue.

Finally captured at Exit 14B on the New Jersey Turnpike, Tammy may be pleased with her new home at the Popcorn Park Zoo in Lacy Township, New Jersey.

That happy ending is a long way from the place Tammy had called home since this past summer: Exit 14B on the New Jersey Turnpike.

That’s because Tammy, who had always managed to give Turnpike authorities the slip, met her match with NJ Fish and Wildlife Agents.

A “routine operation” is how Agent Tony McBride described the operation using a gun-powered net to snare the bird.

Tammy became a media star of sorts when the Turnpike Authority was formally notified of her residence at the Jersey City exit. Their concern was that when she was crossing the road to get to the other side (the Authority is not sure why she was crossing the road), cars, trucks and buses would often have to slam on their brakes to avoid hitting her.

“She’s learned how to navigate traffic,” said Bob Erikson of the National Wild Turkey Federation. But he quickly added that she has become a safety issue to motorists trying to avoid her.

The hunt for Tammy took longer than expected as Tammy stayed in a grove of trees or flew past agents despite repeated efforts to bait her with food.

Finally, when she emerged from the woods, the gun was fired, the net flew over her head and Tammy was headed to her new home.

“She should consider herself lucky she ended up at the Turnpike where people recognize that a week before Thanksgiving there’s only one way for this to end well,” said Turnpike spokesman Joe Orlando.

“A tom turkey we’ve named ‘Gobbler’ will be waiting for her,” said Popcorn Park General Manager John Bergmann.

SOURCE: NBC New York

Eating turkey might make you sleepy, but most Americans are not napping on Thanksgiving, according to a recent survey. Instead, they are sleeping in the next morning and eluding Black Friday discounts.

The telephone poll of 1,001 Americans found that 71 percent stay awake on the holiday despite turkey’s legendary soporific power while, curiously, more than half said they know someone who isn’t able to.

Contrary to popular thinking, it’s not the turkey’s fault that people tend to feel drowsy after the holiday meal. There is an amino acid in turkey that induces fatigue, but experts say it really just results from a combination of eating and drinking too much.

Meanwhile, seven in 10 surveyed said they do not shop the next day. For those who do, 67 percent woke up before 8 a.m., while 42 percent climb out of bed before 6 a.m. and 12 percent rise before 4 a.m. to hit the stores.

The telephone poll was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs on behalf of bedding products Web site SleepBetter.org between Nov. 5 and Nov. 8. The survey has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

SOURCE: WishTV.com

A man who was dubbed the human coral reef after huge shell-like growths appeared all over his body has been cured.

Lin Tianzhuan was unable to move his arms and legs and said his “terrifying” condition made him feel like he was turning to stone.

The 38-year-old, of Shuimen in southern China, added people would scream when they saw him.

Horrified Lin became a hermit, hiding at the family home after he was shunned by friends and neighbors.

He began to notice the hard growths on his hands and feet when he was just 13.

He said: “They grew and grew and soon they were all over my arms and legs, my back and even my head. It was as if I was turning to stone and it was terrifying.

“Gradually my shell became thicker and thicker and I could no longer bend my arms or my legs. It was very frightening.”

But now, thanks to a year of treatment and surgery by doctors from a special skin clinic, he only has a few discolored patches of skin to show for his horrific condition.

Fuzhou Dermatosis Prevention Hospital vice president Dr Liu Yinghong said: “He may need radiotherapy for quite some time still but he has made very good progress.”

SOURCE: The Sun

FRIERSON, LA. – Flushed evidence doesn’t go far if your toilet’s on a septic system. DeSoto Parish sheriff’s Lt. Toni Joe Morris said Tuesday that deputies brought in a backhoe when drug agents raided a home and business and met the owner coming out of a bathroom.

He said a bag of methamphetamine and needles was floating on the sewage.

Deputies booked a 49-year-old man on Friday with possessing methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia, as well as possessing a firearm with drugs present.

Morris told The Times of Shreveport that a 27-year-old man was at the house and was booked with possessing methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia, and with parole violation.

SOURCE: Yahoo! News

AUSTIN, TX — An Austin man robbed a convenience store in the early morning hours Thursday while wearing boxer briefs on his head, according to police documents.

An arrest affidavit indicates Adam Fujawa, 31, walked into a convenient store at 2:18 a.m. Thursday covered in mud from the knees down when he asked to use the bathroom.

Fujawa reportedly told store clerk James Jepson that he had gotten mud all over the bathroom and asked to use a mop to clean it up.

After several minutes in the bathroom, police said Fujawa came out with an object wrapped in a towel and boxer briefs on his head.

Fujaway allegedly told Jepson to hand over the money in the register and apologized to him because he had been so nice to him.

Police said after Fujawa fled the store on foot, they used an air unit and K9 dogs to search for him.

They located Fujawa’s abandoned car around the corner from the store and later found Fujawa inside a taxi cab.

Police said he had $50 of mud-covered money and that the witnesses recognized Fujawa in a driver’s license picture from a wallet recovered from the abandoned vehicle.

SOURCE: WISH TV

“It’s her. It’s her. It’s still her. The same person, but different breasts each time!” For every woman who has ever regretted waking up in the morning with the same size breasts she had the night before, this Chinese TV commercial wants you to know your troubles are finally over!

According to this announcer, at least, it’s every woman’s dream to have a bigger cup size. Now, with the amazing She’s Mine bra, you can turn that dream into a reality. Not only does it increase your cup size, but it lets you change it to suit your mood. Need some guidelines? The commercial suggests “a B-cup for work, a C-cup for shopping, and a D-cup for partying.”

Note of caution: Video is over 4 minutes long — and it’s in Chinese.

The bra’s magic lies in its patented “God’s Hand” technology. Simply press the button, and the hidden, hand-shaped panels expand, lifting your breasts to provide cleavage like you’ve never had before. And the longer you press, the bigger they get!

But wait—there’s more! A pair of God’s hands is not all this incredible bra has to offer. It’s also made of a space-age fabric impregnated with minerals that generate ultraviolet light. This improves blood circulation, and in turn glandular health. And that, as we all know, is Mother Nature’s way of increasing breast size.

But in the end, seeing is believing. And this commercial provides abundant visual proof of the effects of the She’s Mine bra, not only on the wearers’ bustlines but on their mood.

Incidentally, the announcer assures us that people are going wild for it in Europe. What more proof could you possibly need?

SOURCE: Weird Asia News