Remains Confirmed as King Richard III's

LONDON—Researchers said the long-lost remains of King Richard III have been found and identified—after sitting under what is now a parking lot in the English Midlands for more than 500 years.

The findings could solve a centuries-old mystery involving one of England's most-storied rulers, who has remained in the public fascination through a Shakespeare play and Hollywood movies.

University of Leicester researchers said at a news conference Monday that DNA tests on bones recently unearthed in an archaeological dig in Leicester match samples taken from two living descendants of Richard's sister. A separate skeletal analysis showed striking similarities between the unearthed bones and features Richard was said to have had, they said.

"It was the result we were all waiting to hear," the university said. "In one of the most important announcements in the University's history, our academics have today revealed that the…skeleton is indeed that of King Richard III."

Richard III, the controversial 15th century English monarch, was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. The story goes that the body was taken to nearby Leicester, about 100 miles north of London, after his death. Until recently, no one had tried to dig up his remains.

In September, archaeologists at the University of Leicester acted on a hunch that Richard may have been buried under a city council parking lot. Archaeologists started to dig and within a week had found a skeleton and a medieval friary, raising hopes that Richard's remains had been found.

Tests showed the man whose remains were found was likely to have been killed by one or two injuries to the skull, which fits with the story that Richard was killed in battle by sword or ax.

"The corpse was subjected to 'humiliation injuries'—including a sword through the right buttock," the university said.

The skeleton also has a curved spine, just as Richard was reported to have. Radiocarbon dating revealed the individual had a high-protein diet, including significant amounts of seafood, a sign he was of high status, the university said.

"I'm delighted it's been proven to be Richard, but after all the humiliation he has suffered in his reputation it's a shame his remains now have to be flashed around on the Internet," said Sally Henshaw, secretary of the Richard III Society branch in East Midlands. "At least we know we'll be able to put him to rest finally and he will be buried as an anointed king should be."

The bones will be reinterred in Leicester, where his remains stayed for more than 500 years. Some Richard III enthusiasts had called for the skeleton to be buried in York and others in Westminster Abbey or Windsor Castle, where other monarchs are interred.

"It's fantastic—absolutely brilliant," said Richard Smith, another member of the Richard III Society. "I'll be able to visit him frequently so that'll be very fortunate for me."

Stephen Stearns, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Yale University, said it is perfectly possible to recover mitochondrial DNA from a 500-year-old human skeleton and get an accurate read on whether it matches a living descendent.

Still, Dr. Stearns expressed some reservations. He said the University of Leicester is known for its evolutionary geneticists, but there is always a chance evidence can be tampered with or for other distortions.

"Scientists only trust a conclusion that's been shot at as hard as possible and still remains standing. And that process hasn't really started yet."

Still, he said, "It's pretty convincing to the evolution geneticists who look at it. I think you can say either it's Richard III or there was another hunchback who was killed at the same place at the same time. However the DNA evidence makes it unlikely it's another hunchback."

Leicester officials said they hope the prospect of a proper burial site would be a boost to tourism, creating a focal point for a king who ruled England for just two years, but whose story has long captivated enthusiasts.

Richard became king in 1483, taking power from his nephew, the 12-year-old Edward V. Richard said Edward was an illegitimate heir as the product of his father's second marriage. Richard was said to have imprisoned his two nephews in the Tower of London. Within months of Richard's taking the throne, the two nephews disappeared, and some assumed Richard had them murdered.

Some historians say Richard was an evil, power-hungry ruler who murdered family members to quicken his rise to the throne. William Shakespeare's "Richard III" helped to popularize this depiction, describing Richard as a crippled villain who killed anyone in his path to the throne.

Others say this description is fictional, and one spread by Henry Tudor, Richard's successor, whose army killed Richard in battle. Shakespeare was born about 80 years after Richard died and wrote during the Tudor dynasty. Pro-Richard enthusiasts say a closer look at Richard's reign shows he was one of the most progressive rulers of his time and one who promoted foreign trade and books.

His death at the Battle of Bosworth Field, outside of Leicester, marked a pivotal moment in English history and in the struggle for power between the House of York and the House of Lancaster, known as the "The Wars of the Roses." Richard was the last of the Plantagenet kings to rule and his defeat by Henry VII began the start of the Tudor dynasty, which lasted for more than a century.

We Told You So: Richard III Society Celebrates Their Hero’s Rediscovery

You have to be quite a bastard to get your own royal fan club. Charles I has one—The Society of King Charles the Martyr celebrates the 17th-century Stuart king who was executed in the English revolution.

And so does Richard III, in the form of the Richard III Society, whose members (aka Ricardians) are devoted to rehabilitating the name of the most notorious medieval monarch: a man whom Shakespeare famously painted as a deformed, black-souled fiend, determined to “seem a saint, when most I play the devil.”

The Ricardians have been in good spirits this week, after the remains of their hero were formally identified by a team of cartographers, archaeologists, genealogists, bone specialists, and DNA analysts, working out of Leicester University and coordinated by Philippa Langley, a member of the Richard III Society. At a press conference, Monday, the team stated that it was “beyond reasonable doubt” that a skeleton dug up last fall under a parking lot was indeed that of the long-lost king.

The skeleton had a curve in its spine, a lump hacked from its skull, spindly arms and the marks of “humiliation wounds” inflicted after death, including a knife to the backside. It had been buried in a shallow grave, perhaps with its hands tied, certainly with little ceremony. It had not exactly rested in peace.

The revelation has been a massive (and craftily orchestrated) PR coup for the city of Leicester. It has also been a boon for the Ricardians. Their chairman, Dr. Phil Stone, wrote yesterday that he hoped the discovery would “open up the debate about the king and his reputation.” And it has.

Some backstory—in case you skipped history and/or English lit (and/or all the news this week so far). Before Richard III was king he was a notably loyal lieutenant to his brother, King Edward IV, keeping order in the north on behalf of the king. But when Edward IV died, Richard usurped the crown from his brother’s 12-year old son, Edward V, justifying his actions on the spurious grounds that the boy and his brother were illegitimate. Later, Richard quite probably—although this is ultimately unproven—had Edward V and his brother murdered.

Despite a reign that featured some relatively enlightened policies, particularly in the realms of social justice and public finance, Richard’s brief reign was stained by the crime of his usurpation—a wild action that threw into disarray the fragile politics of a realm only recently recovered from civil war.

The immediate product of the usurpation was Richard’s own defeat: killed by another usurper, Henry Tudor, at the battle of Bosworth on August 22, 1485. But the longer-term product was a blackening of Richard’s name. Successive writers loyal to the incoming Tudor regime built up an image of Richard from a usurper king who met a sticky end to a crippled beast whose inner malice was perfectly expressed by his outward grotesqueness. “That crewell nature of his did so rage agaynst yt self in that lyttle carkase,” wrote the early 16th-century historian Polydore Vergil. Everyone else—More, Edward Hall, Raphael Holinshed, and Shakespeare—followed suit.

That image is what the Ricardians still kick against today. The gap between the Tudors’ black propaganda and the reality of Richard’s life and career seems to strike them as an offense against all reason and honor. They have striven long and hard to humanize the man—as has been done this week—in the hope that it may help others to reassess his reputation.

Not everything, of course, has turned out perfectly. When I spoke to one Ricardian last fall, before much work on the skeleton had been completed, she speculated that “if [the skeleton] is Richard and he wasn’t a hunchback, then we can say ‘that’s one thing the Tudors got wrong. What else did they get wrong?’”

Unfortunately, we now know that Richard was, if not precisely a hunchback, pretty heavily afflicted by a spinal deformation from around the age of 10. His weak, thin, arms, and lopsided shoulders would have presented exactly the sort of impression that the Tudor writers gave him. Vergil again: “He was lyttle of stature, deformyd of body, thone showlder being higher than thother.” So in fact, one of the earlier Tudor propagandists got it spot on.

Where does this leave Richard? Historically, we haven't learned very much at all. The Leicester findings mostly confirm reports about the last hours of his life and his death. As was suspected, he was killed by a blow from behind while unhorsed. He was clearly abused after his death. He was buried in ignominy. Moreover, his appearance matches what many of his detractors stated, even if his character is no better known. Of his deeds nothing changes. He was a loyal servant, a dastardly usurper, and a well-meaning but doomed king.

But even in the absence of much new information, the Richard III Society will surely flourish. The evidence was not quite as helpful to them as they may have hoped, but the publicity has been tremendous. Richard is being debated. Indeed, 527 and a half years after his violent death in the English Midlands, Richard III finds himself dug up, plastered all over the TV bulletins, and trending on Twitter. That’s the way to get yourself a new generation of fans.

What we learned about Jodi Arias Monday

Jodi Arias took the witness stand on Monday and told the jury she regrets saying her infamous words: “No jury will ever convict me.” She went on to explain that she said that because she planned to kill herself, and didn’t expect to be alive to stand trial.

For almost two-and-a-half hours, Arias answered questions about her childhood and teen years. Arias looked directly at the jury when describing what she said was her parents’ physical abuse and her teenage relationships.

Arias’ mother appeared calm in the gallery as her daughter told stories about how she and her brother were beaten with a wooden spoon and a belt.

“[My dad] didn’t leave welts as often as my mom, she also used a belt. My dad was very intimidating, so I don’t think he needed to hit as quite as hard to get the point across,” Arias told the jury.

Arias said when she was 17, she moved in with her boyfriend, Bobby Juarez, to escape the abuse and soon dropped out of high school so she could work to support herself.

Arias’ defense attorney, Kirk Nurmi, spent most of the afternoon questioning Arias about her tumultuous, teen relationships.

Juarez and Arias started dating when she was 15. They met at a fair. Arias says he had “wild ideas” about vampires and wanted to move to San Francisco to find them.

While Arias and Juarez were broken up for the first time, Arias moved to Costa Rica as a foreign exchange student. There, she began dating the son of her host family.

Arias told the jury that she had feelings for him, but wasn't in love with him. "I wouldn’t say totally in love, but it was my first taste of being, like just feeling like warm about somebody,” Arias said.

After she returned to California, Arias and her Costa Rican boyfriend broke up. Arias and Juarez got back together, and she eventually moved in with him and his parents.

Arias discovered that Juarez was cheating on her. So, they broke up and Arias moved out. One day, Juarez showed up at Arias’ new home and they started fighting. "Our argument escalated, and he approached me and spun me around. And he was very much into martial arts and he had some kind of hold, I guess it was called a strangle hold. So he started strangling me. Just for a few seconds. And then he let go. I almost passed out. I fell on my knees,” said Arias.

Arias says that even after the abuse, she continued to hang out with him and even supported him financially. Arias says Juarez was her first love. Arias and Juarez broke up and got back together many times.

Arias moved to Medford, Oregon, to be near Juarez. Eventually, they broke up for the last time and Arias started dating Juarez’s friend whom she identified as Matt McCartney.

Arias is back on the stand Tuesday, and based on the telling of her life story so far, In Session’s legal experts believe Arias’ testimony could continue for another two to three days.

Alabama hostage: 5-year-old boy "happy to be home," says family member

MIDLAND CITY, ALA. For six anguished days, people in this small Alabama town asked just one question about the 5-year-old boy being held hostage in an underground bunker by a menacing, unpredictable neighbor: "Is he free yet?"

After FBI agents determined that talks with an increasingly agitated Jimmy Lee Dykes were breaking down, they stormed the closet-sized hideout Monday afternoon and freed the kindergartner. The 65-year-old armed captor was killed by law enforcement agents, authorities said.

"They did have a camera inside and they were able to observe his movements," says CBS This Morning senior correspondent John Miller. "As they watched him handling the weapon, he was getting more and more irrational."

Sheriff Wally Olson said late Monday that Dykes was armed when officers entered the bunker to rescue the child. He said the boy was threatened, but declined to elaborate.

"That's why we went inside - to save the child," he said. " ... It's a relief for us to be able to reunited a mother with her child."

Interviewed Tuesday, the boy's great uncle, Berlin Enfinger, told ABC's Good Morning America that the child was relieved to be home after his rescue a day earlier. An FBI Hostage Rescue team launched the rescue attempt after concerns mounted that Dykes was growing more unstable and presented a growing threat to the boy's safety, a U.S. official told CBS News.

"He's happy to be home, and he looks good," Enfinger said.

CBS affiliate WKRG in Mobile, Ala., reports the boy was reunited with his family just in time: On Wednesday, he celebrates his sixth birthday.

Alabama hostage taker Jimmy Lee Dykes died at cops' hands
FBI: Boy, 5, safe, kidnapper dead, in raid on Ala. bunker
Almost a week after Dykes was accused of fatally shooting a school bus driver on Jan. 29 and grabbing the child from among a busload of students, authorities were undertaking an extensive investigation of the standoff site — some 100 acres in Midland City where Dykes had built his bunker.

An official in Midland City, citing information from law enforcement, said police had shot Dykes. The official requested anonymity because the official wasn't authorized to speak publicly about the investigation into the case that had captured national attention.

But federal authorities were tight-lipped about specifics of how they ended the standoff.

A law enforcement source did not disclose Dykes' motives but said he had issues he had wanted to air and one of them was of an anti-government nature, according to CBS senior investigative producer Pat Milton. The source did not elaborate.

Neighbors said they heard a bang and gunshots, but the FBI wouldn't confirm that. Authorities also kept under wraps exactly how they were able to monitor Dykes and the boy in such a confined space.

"We have a big crime scene behind us to process," said Special Agent Steve Richardson of the FBI's office in Mobile. "I can't talk about sources, techniques or methods that we used. But I can tell you the success story is (the boy) is safe."

Daryle Hendry, who lives about a quarter-mile from the bunker, said he heard a boom Monday afternoon, followed by what sounded like a gunshot. Dykes had been seen with a gun, and officers concluded the boy was in imminent danger, Richardson told reporters.

It was not immediately clear how authorities determined the man had a gun.

The boy was reunited with his mother and taken to a hospital to be checked out. Officials have said he has Asperger's syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Richardson said he saw the child at the hospital and he was laughing, joking, eating and "doing the things you'd expect a normal 5- or 6-year-old to do."

The rescue capped a hostage drama that disrupted the lives of many in a tranquil town of 2,400 people set amid peanut farms and cotton fields some 100 miles southeast of the state capital of Montgomery.

It's a small, close-knit community that has long relied on a strong Christian faith, a policy of "love thy neighbor" and the power of group prayer.

The child's plight prompted nightly candlelight vigils. Fliers appealing for his safe release and ribbons placed on a chain-link fence at the school where the kindergartner was enrolled.

While a town anxiously waited for days, authorities had been speaking with Dykes though a plastic pipe that led into the bunker. The shelter was about 4 feet underground, with about 50 square feet of floor space, built like the tornado shelters frequently found in the South.

Authorities sent food, medicine and other items into the bunker, which apparently had running water, heat and cable television but no toilet.

The standoff unfolded just a few hundred yards from U.S. 231, a busy four-lane highway where both sides of the road were lined with law enforcement vehicles from local, state and federal authorities.

When it was over, one acquaintance, Roger Arnold, commented: "He always said he'd never be taken alive. I knew he'd never come out of there."

FBI bomb technicians later scoured the property for any explosive devices as they prepared to more extensive study the site, FBI spokesman Jason Pack said.

But authorities did not immediately say whether they had determined the property had been rigged with any explosives.

Asked about local disclosures that Dykes had been killed by law enforcement officers, Pack responded in an email early Tuesday: "The facts surrounding the incident will be established by a shooting review team" from Washington in coming days.

At the request of law enforcement authorities, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta had approved the provision of certain equipment that could be employed to assist in the hostage situation, according to a U.S. official who requested anonymity to discuss a pending law enforcement matter. It is not clear whether the equipment was actually used.

Neighbors described Dykes as a nuisance who once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to shoot children for setting foot on his property and patrolled his yard at night with a flashlight and a firearm.

Government records and interviews with neighbors indicate that Dykes joined the Navy in Midland City and served on active duty from 1964 to 1969. His record shows several awards, including the Vietnam Service Medal and the Good Conduct Medal. During his service, Dykes was trained in aviation maintenance.

He had some scrapes with the law in Florida, including a 1995 arrest for improper exhibition of a weapon. The misdemeanor was dismissed. He also was arrested for marijuana possession in 2000.

He returned to Alabama about two years ago, moving onto the rural tract about 100 yards from his nearest neighbors.

Ronda Wilbur, a neighbor of Dykes who said the man beat her dog to death last year with a pipe, expressed relief like other neighbors who described the suspect as volatile and threatening. "The nightmare is over," Wilbur said.

On Sunday, more than 500 people attended a memorial service for bus driver Charles Albert Poland Jr., hailed as a hero for protecting nearly two dozen other children on the bus before he was gunned down.

"This man was a true hero who was willing to give up his life so others might live," Gov. Robert Bentley said in a statement after the rescue.

Jodi Arias Trial: Arizona woman testifies to killing lover, wanting to commit suicide after

(CBS/AP) PHOENIX - Jodi Arias took the witness stand in a surprise move Monday, admitting to the jury that she killed her ex-boyfriend - claiming it was self defense - and saying that she had plans to kill herself after.

"Did you kill Travis Alexander on June 4, 2008?" asked her defense attorney Kirk Nurmi.

"Yes I did," Arias replied. "He attacked me and I defended myself."

Arias went on to recount a series of events from her upbringing that brought her to Alexander's home on the day she killed him. She is charged with killing the 30-year-old Alexander, a successful businessman and motivational speaker, in what prosecutors described as a jealous rage after she found out he planned to take a trip to Mexico with another woman.

Authorities said Arias stabbed and slashed the victim 27 times, slit his throat from ear to ear and shot him in the forehead, leaving his bloody body in the bathroom of his suburban Phoenix home to be found five days later by friends.

The trial began in early January with details about Arias and Alexander's torrid romance after they met at a conference in Las Vegas in late 2006. She claims they dated for about five months, then broke up but continued to see each other for sex up until the day of his death. She initially told police she knew nothing of the killing, then later blamed it on masked intruders. She eventually admitted her involvement, but claimed self-defense.

Arias said she lied early in the investigation about not being at the scene of the killing because she planned to commit suicide and never have a trial.

"At the time, I had plans to commit suicide. So I was extremely confident that no jury would convict me because I didn't expect any of you to be here," Arias told jurors. "I planned to be dead."

She described how an idyllic childhood in California turned abusive when she was about 7 years old. She said her parents beat her with belts and wooden spoons, and the abuse later escalated into shoving her into furniture and slapping her in the face for misdeeds such as sneaking out of the house.

Arias recounted other stories from her youth, describing how she met her high school boyfriend at a carnival when she was 15 and he was 18. Arias said she broke it off because "he had all kinds of wild ideas," adding that he believed in vampires and wanted the pair to move to San Francisco to hunt them.

She said months after she broke up with him, she learned he was so distraught over the relationship that he had slit his wrists and tried to kill himself.

Arias said she reconnected with him about "19 months" later after a man she met in her father's restaurant told her that the "second coming" of Jesus Christ would occur in late 1997.

"I was really naive and I kind of believed him," Arias testified. She wanted to warn her former boyfriend, she said.

But she said it wasn't long until the relationship turned stormy. She came across romantic emails he exchanged with another woman. He later tried to strangle her, she said, and told her "how he would kill each member of my family."

Her defense attorney asked repeatedly why she stayed with a man like that, apparently attempting to establish a history of such relationships and submissiveness in a move to compare how Alexander treated her, according to The Associated Press.

"It just felt natural," Arias replied. She was in love.

Defense attorneys depicted Alexander as a liar and a cheater who told Arias and other girlfriends he was a devout Mormon saving sex for marriage, while in reality he was having sex with other women. Prosecutors portrayed Arias as a jealous ex-girlfriend who stalked him for months after their breakup until finally snapping and killing him.

Authorities said Alexander was shot in the head with a .25 caliber gun, the same caliber Arias' grandparents reported stolen from their Northern California home about a week before the killing.

Arias could get the death penalty if convicted in the murder trial. She is to return to the stand Tuesday.