Manuel Noriega had a staff witch

Manuel Noriega, once the merciless dictator of Panama, spent the last years of his life feared by no one. "Nobody even knew who he was, hardly," historian R.M. Koster told The Miami Herald.

Noriega ruled as a military dictator from 1983 until he was ousted by U.S. troops in 1989; he died late Monday at the age of 83 after a failed brain tumor surgery in Panama, where he was under house arrest after previously spending years in both American and French prisons.

But long before that, Noriega cultivated an image of being an "assassin, a rapist, a torturer, [and] even a deadly practitioner of black magic," The Miami Herald writes. On that last point: "Noriega was the only chief of state in the Western Hemisphere who had a staff witch, imported from Brazil."

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Read more about Noriega's rise and fall at The Miami Herald.