Armageddon fundraiser porn, five bodies, and a Mormon assassination plot

Fleshbot points to a court case weirder than Michael Jackson and the Scott Peterson trial combined. Murder, dismemberment, lapsed Mormons, the death penalty, and Playboy model Kerissa Fare. Oh, and Rohypnol (thanks, virgil).

This week, a jury in Martinez, a small town outside San Francisco, will retire to consider the bizarre, brutally violent cult surrounding one Glenn Taylor Helzer, a lapsed Mormon accused of bludgeoning and dismembering five people in an elaborate extortion racket intended to hasten the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Helzer, a former stockbroker who has already pleaded guilty and faces the death penalty, exerted a charismatic hold over an eclectic group of followers including his younger brother, a former girlfriend turned Playboy centrefold model, and a self-described "good witch" who once offered to raise money for Armageddon by appearing in porn films.

Link to story in UK's Independent