Darren Vann, who police say has admitted to seven murders around Gary, Indiana, almost killed ex-girlfriend Ceritha Grant by setting fire to her - shown here in this shocking police photo. When Ceritha met Vann his idea of a night out was to visit Barnes and Noble and read Harry Potter books.Vann was very clean living and didn't smoke, drink or take drugs. He locked Grant in their apartment for a whole week. 'The only time I saw him was when he brought me my three meals a day,' she tells MailOnline in an exclusive interview.In a jealous rage, Vann took her hostage and threatened to set fire to her and the apartment block.

NEW Customs Border Protection officers (left) conduct pre-screening measures on a passenger arriving from Sierra Leone at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago last week. Pictured right, a CDC kit that travelers from Ebola-stricken West African nations will be given containing information cards and a thermometer. They will be required to make daily check-ins with state or local health officials to report their status.

A Missouri police officer's full account of why he shot dead unarmed teen Michael Brown has been revealed for the first time - and he describes a frantic struggle inside his police car during which Brown grabbed the officer's gun, twisted it around and pointed it at him. Darren Wilson's testimony, as leaked to the St Louis Post-Dispatch, fills in holes in the chronology of the shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, on 9 August left by an earlier excerpt of his testimony leaked at the weekend - and is sure to further stoke the controversy surrounding the shooting. The police officer's dramatic account of events depicts a life-or-death struggle inside his police car with the 'incredibly strong' teen - after Brown allegedly punched him in the face and reached for his gun. And, significantly, Wilson claims he shot Brown dead as the teen charged at him on the street - after the alleged attacker apparently retreated for a period when he was shot in the hand by Brown during the struggle in the car. A grand jury decision on whether Wilson should be indicted on criminal charges is expected within weeks. A separate leaked autopsy report also appears to show Brown has marijuana in his system when he was shot. The police also say Brown had marijuana on him at the time.

The murderer appeared in court on Tuesday (left) as the jury was sworn in Phoenix, Arizona. Arias sat quietly next to her legal team and appeared to have had her hair cut to shoulder length and was wearing a new pair of glasses. Her defense lawyer warned the jury that it will see graphic evidence about the killing and relationship between Arias and victim Travis Alexander (below right).  The 34-year-old Arias was convicted of murder last year (top right), but the first jury was deadlocked on whether to give her the death penalty or life in prison.

A federal jury returned guilty verdicts for all four former Blackwater security guards charged in the 2007 shootings of more than 30 Iraqis in Baghdad. The jury found Nicholas Slatten (top left) guilty of first-degree murder, and the three other three guards - Paul Slough (bottom left), Evan Liberty (top right) and Dustin Heard (bottom right) - guilty of at least three counts of voluntary manslaughter. The four men were charged with a combined 33 counts in the shootings. Jurors reached verdicts on only part of the charges after weeks of deliberations. The shootings caused an international uproar over the role of defense contractors in urban warfare.  The trial focused on the killings of 14 Iraqis and the wounding of 17 others. The defendants' lawyers said the guards were targeted with gunfire from insurgents and Iraqi police, leading the guards to shoot back in self-defense. Federal prosecutors said there was no incoming gunfire and that the shootings by the guards were unprovoked.

According to a Facebook page which updates their followers Ashley and Tyson Gardner, from Utah, flew to see a specialist surgeon in California yesterday following a meeting with their doctor about their two sets of identical twins. They were forced to make the emergency trip after finding out that one set of twins have twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS) a condition which affects identical twins, causing an unequal flow of blood between the twins. Pictured: Left when Ashley found out she was pregnant and right, last week.

NEW PIERS MORGAN: Why would any beautiful woman choose to desecrate themselves in such an awful way? Well, we know why. To try and fight the ravages both of age and in this case, the outrageous Hollywood sexism which dictates most actresses over 50 are never seen or heard of again in celluloid circles.

Jeffrey Fowle, 56, greeted the media with his wife and three young children outside their home in rural Miamisburg, Ohio on Wednesday morning. Mr Fowle had earlier landed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton after being flown in by the Department of Defense. He was met on the tarmac by his wife and elated children who rushed to hug him after having no idea that their father was returning home.

The elderly man can be seen stepping into the ring to spa with the confident professional, before a few hooks leave his young sparring partner collapsed against the ropes. Wearing a woolly jumper and tracksuit bottoms, the older man did not seem like a dangerous opponent at first glance, but after 16 seconds his adversary is on the floor.

The Facebook COO and author of 'Lean In' has been living with her family at their new home in nearby Menlo Park, California for the past year. Sandberg and husband David Goldberg, CEO of survey Monkey, bought their Atherton, California home in 2004 for nearly $8million and profited more than $1million in this sale. The new owners are inheriting a home that has been visited by the likes of President Obama, Lady Gaga, Condoleezza Rice, Gloria Steinem and Michael Bloomberg.

NEW A Kurdish official from the war-torn town said there was a suspected IS chemical attack last night, which has caused people to lose their eyesight, blistering on the skin and respiratory problems. Testing on victims has not taken place because of the intensity of the fighting there, but a Kurdish doctor in the town, who was also injured by the strike, says he is '75 per cent' sure it is a chemical weapon.

A recent study from San Jose-based Cisco found that nearly 80 per cent of customers use the web to shop. To attract customers back to supermarkets and the high-street, retailers are embracing mobile technologies - known as mobility. This includes sending 'beacons' and offers to customers as they walk round shops. Augmented reality helps buyers find and search for specific items, and smart lighting links with an app to provide an indoor GPS of shops. Rapid Scan checkouts mean people can pay for items much faster, and apps let people scan and pay for groceries on the go.

Researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration discovered both ships on the ocean floor 30 miles from Cape Hatteras, the agency announced Tuesday. 'This is not just the discovery of a single shipwreck,' said chief scientist Joe Hoyt of the NOAA Office of Marine Sanctuaries expedition that made the discovery.

Video footage shot by people on the ground at different locations shows how the aircraft spirals out of control after the crash in Gangshan District in south Taiwan's Kaohsiung city. A Lieutenant Colonel piloting the jet ejected from the aircraft after realising he had lost control of the plane, but was killed upon impact.

WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT: Jon-Luc Laporte, of American Canyon, California, was jailed for barreling into the women at speed (pictured right) and then running over one victim in the parking lot. Both women (pictured top left) survived the collision and were hospitalized with moderate injuries. 

But the simple video, which shows Jennifer LaFace, from America, dancing alone in her bedroom to the hit song 'Teach Me How to Dougie' has been viewed over four million times since it was re-posted on Facebook. Part of the videos appeal is not just the unbridled fun Jennifer is clearly having but the fact that she made it to inspire her sister, Colleen Madeya, who has ovarian cancer, as she began her seventh day of chemotherapy.

Cynthia Kaye Wood, 19 (left and right), was arrested this month after allegedly trying to strangle her 4-month-old son to death while he was hospitalized in Houston, Texas. The baby boy survived both attacks and is reportedly doing fine. Wood is now under investigation in Mississippi for the death last year of her toddler daughter Madilynn (center). At the time, the medical examiner ruled Madilynn's death due to complications from a seizure disorder, but that ruling will now be reviewed.

A stay-at-home dad in Florida who shot dead two of his children and wounded a third (right, with their mother) before killing himself was in the midst of a nasty divorce from his wife and had told her to call if off or he would go after their kids. According to wife Cynthia Mohney's lawyer, David Mohney (left) told her on the morning of the murders, 'If you don't come back to me and stop the divorce, I will kill our children.' He then reportedly punched her in the mouth at their Port Orange, Florida, home, and added, 'If you're going to take my kids away, you will not have them and you will go through the rest of your life without children.' 

Misty Beaty of Iowa went to the hospital for stomach pains on Monday morning and hours later gave birth to a healthy baby boy named Briggs(right). Misty Beaty and Scott Steele (left) from Cedar Rapids had absolutely no idea that Misty was pregnant until the moment she gave birth to Briggs Beaty on Monday morning. It was especially a surprise for Scott who was diagnosed with colorectal cancer five years ago and was told he was sterile.

New photos show the aftermath of a brawl involving almost every member of the Palin family (inset) that happened in Anchorage, Alaska, this past September. During the fight, a 'heavily intoxicated' Bristol Palin (who may appear on the right in a police photo) screamed 'who the f**k are you?' at the male host of the South Anchorage party her family gate-crashed last month before punching him at least six times in the face, according to the police report released today. Now police have also released photos they took on the scene after the incident occurred, featuring open wounds (left) on guests, raw knuckles, and the blood-soaked pavement.

Lucia Cordaro, 37, is convinced that her security system, set up outside her home in Chester, has captured a clear image of one of the tiny mythical winged creatures flitting past the lens. She said she was getting in to bed when she heard a noisy motorbike revving outside her house. After creeping downstairs to investigate the commotion, the mother-of-one heard a bang and thought that somebody had hurled a missile at her window. But when she looked at the CCTV footage on her laptop she was shocked to see what she thought was a tiny tinkerbell flying past the camera.

A white-tailed eagle with a camera strapped to its back was released from the Eiffel Tower by its handler, flying over the Seine and down into the Trocadéro Gardens in the French capital. The stunt was organised by an organisation to draw attention to the plight of the white-tailed eagle which has been extinct from France for 50 years.

Oregon shoppers were stunned with the automatic doors of their local supermarket opened and a baby bear strolled down the aisle before it was captured by police using a shopping basket. Shoppers filmed the bear, left, as it walked into the store and past the oral hygiene products.

A nasty car crash involving three cars in Pennsylvania was captured on video by a cellphone after a man noticed the erratic driving of a woman in front of him. The offending driver, who was behind the wheel of a white SUV, was swerving all over the road on Route 21 in Uniontown, Fayette County, on Monday morning before making an improper left turn (left). She struck an oncoming car (center), which then ricochets into the third car filming the accident.

Tim Charles, 33, London recruited 34 subjects by posting adverts on Gumtree and Craigslist. He then captured their faces before after and during drinking a shot of tequila. He was inspired to create his series Shot Face after seeing his girlfriend's reaction after drinking a straight measure in a bar.