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Woman killed psychic for failing to save love-life
A woman faces the death penalty after she travelled 2,500 miles - most of the way across the United States - to murder a fortune-teller in California who she blamed for her failed love-life.

Tanya Nelson and her accomplice Philippe Zamora, both of Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, murdered Ha 'Jade' Smith and her 23-year-old daughter Anita Vo because Smith had been unable to get Nelson's lover to return to her with her 'magic powers'.

The court in Orange County, California, heard that Nelson, a long-time friend and client of the victim, was angry when Miss Smith wrote to her saying that she couldn't change reality.

She allegedly hired Zamora and persuaded him to take part in the killings by promising to arrange gay sex partners for him, according to the Orange County Register.

In April 2005, the pair travelled to California and tricked their vitim into letting them into her home, where Nelson reportedly stabbed Miss Vo and Zamora killed Miss Smith. The wounds on the victims' faces were painted white, apparently to hide the injuries.

Nelson is also said to have stolen jewellery and cash from the bodies.

Philippe Zamora has pleaded guilty to murder and faces a minimum of 50 years in prison. He has been the prosecution's chief witness against Nelson in the trial.

Tanya Nelson has been charged with two counts of murder plus the special circumstances of committing multiple murders, murders for financial gain, and murders during the commission of robbery, burglary and by lying in wait.

If convicted, she would become the second woman in Orange county history to receive death penalty