Whereas your rank-and-file, blue collar smuggler may try to sneak some Cuban cigars or
extra bottles of alcohol past American customs, there are others, like Haitian national Myrlene Severe, who tried to do
the same with a severed head.
As Erik reported last month,
startled customs officials at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport discovered an actual human head in
Severe’s luggage that still had “teeth, hair and bits of skin.”
Severe, who confessed that the rotting noggin was to be used for voodoo practices, was detained and charged with “smuggling a
human head into the U.S. without proper documentation, failure to declare the head, and transporting hazardous material
in air commerce.”
Last Friday, attorneys hammered
out a plea bargain agreement in which Sever will plead guilty to the charges. In return, she will not be
deported (she is a legal Florida resident) and will serve only a year in prison instead of the potential 15 years she
was facing.
Frankly, I think the judge should have been a little tougher and made an example out of her. Otherwise
we’re never going to stop this epidemic.