Keira Knightley is dead?

"A British model turned Los Angeles bounty-hunter who inspired an upcoming movie has died of undetermined causes in Hollywood but the studio said on Thursday it planned to go ahead with its August release."

Jury acquits police chief of attempting to murder an innocent man

In Black River Falls, WI, the message is clear: leave the gunfire to the professionals:

Hoskins misinterpreted John Ellingson's attempt to scare away teenagers pranksters coming to toilet-paper his house by rigging his yard with noisemakers that sounded like gunfire...."[Ellingson] reasonably believed that [Hoskins] was a raging lunatic," Oswald said. "That provoked the attack from Mr. Ellingson."

Y'know, where I grew up, the farmers had shotguns loaded with rocksalt to chase us off of their property. Ain't no Statie gonna fuck with that.

"We both know that I'm training to be a cage fighter."

Parents can be such a drag. You know, sometimes all you want to do is keep up the appearance that you're a jetsetting, Nike-sponsored tennis player, and your folks stand in your way. Thus, you have no choice but to maul them to death:

But when Blackwell's parents - retired accountant Brian Blackwell, 71, and his wife Jacqueline, 60 - prevented him securing the money he needed to keep up his story, he beat them with a claw hammer and stabbed them up to 30 times with a kitchen knife at their £350,000 bungalow in the affluent village of Melling, on Merseyside.

What drove him to do this? Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Some of the diagnostic criteria for this mental disorder are illusions of grandiosity and self-importance; obsession with affluence, success, and sexual performance; and agility with clawhammers. You can find out if you're suffering from NPD here. I know I'm most certainly not--it just seems that way because I'm wildly successful and a really great lay, to boot.

Purchasing the services of a lady of ill repute without getting caught: A how-to guide

According to an anonymous Sun-Times letter-writer, you'd have to be a total asshat to get caught soliciting a pro:

When I say it's easy to avoid arrest, this is what I mean: a legitimate hooker will usually walk down the sidewalk, while an undercover police woman posing as a hooker has to plant herself at the same spot the whole time she's out there. You can't very well have a parade of backup officers following her, can you?

Don't end up like these guys. [Why are they all leaning?--Ed.]

Previously: That's Not Happiness to See Me, Is It

Neighborhood Meth Watch

No one stepped up to the plate to swing at the "Albino Poo" (does drug slang ever get old or stop evolving?) you may know more commonly as metamphetamine or meth, so allow me to start this Horse Mumpy race by sprinkling a little Gyp Hawaiian Salt on your Jib Nuggets. As a public service, here are the KCI's top signs you may be living near a meth lab:

* Unusual, strong odors (like cat urine, ether, ammonia, acetone or other chemicals).
* Residences with windows blacked out.
* Renters who pay their landlords in cash. (Most drug dealers trade exclusively in cash.)
* Lots of traffic - people coming and going at unusual times. There may be little traffic during the day, but at night the activity increases dramatically.
* Excessive trash including large amounts of items such as: antifreeze containers, lantern fuel cans, red chemically stained coffee filters, drain cleaner and duct tape.
* Unusual amounts of clear glass containers being brought into the home.

Blottered adds, you live next to this guy:

More pictures of meth users here.

Jack the Ripper

Sometime in the early hours of the thirty-first of August, 1888, Mary Ann Walker was murdered in London's East End. Known to friends and acquaintances as Polly, Walker was plying her trade as a prostitute through the night in an effort to earn enough for a bed at the flop-house where she was staying when she became the first of Jack Ripper's five known victims. (Some speculate there were more.)

The Ripper was never caught and his identity has never been established. The latest theory claims that the Ripper was a merchant seaman who performed similiar grisly acts in Latin America, according to the Mirror.

Over the years there have been plenty of plausible explanations of the Ripper's identity. My personal favorite was told to me by a white bearded reactionary in a pub in southwest Ireland after we had both had a few two many pints of the dark stuff. He was convinced that the murderer was a woman named Annie Wood Besant. A socialist and feminist agitator, Besant had helped organize the Matchgirls Strike after the sources for an article she had published on the poor working conditions of women in London were fired by their employers.

As I recall, Besant's alleged motive for the murders involved the strike--the murdered women were either scabs or police informants. It was also possible, he told me, that the murders were part of Besant's initiation into the weird Theosophist cult that was then lighting fires in the minds of the era's intellectuals. Or maybe it wasn't the Theosophists at all, but a far more sinister cult. The last thing the old guy said before wandering off was: "Feminism is a murder cult founded by Medea."

3 dead as Slashdot loses another contributor

IT expert goes on shooting rampage when the repo men show up:

"Mr Sacco," he said, "you've got to let me in. You know very well that your house has been repossessed." Sacco replied, "Wait here a minute." Then he went to get a hunting rifle from his collection of 30 guns [Always choose the right tool for the job--Ed.] and shot the surveyor in the face. Standing on his balcony, Sacco then began firing at passers-by. The first to be wounded was Matilda Panicali, a lawyer, shot in the back as she drove past the house. The man in the car behind said: "The lady's Fiat suddenly stopped. I didn't understand why. [Because for once, it wasn't due to mechanical failure--Ed.] I looked up, and on the balcony I saw a man in a green shirt and khaki trousers [Hm, this man is about to shoot me; I wonder what he's wearing?--Ed] with a hunting rifle in his hand."

The carabinieri were finally to apprehend Sacco, who they found sitting on a sofa in his underpants."They wanted to take everything from me," he said. "They wanted to take my house." But they can never take my pants, he added.

Pass the dutchie round the world

BBC News World Edition comes out swinging, with both fists clenched with bundles of stats, pow-pow-punching at the War on Drugs like it was Clubber Lang slowing in the third round. The first 4 paras are as follows:

- The number of people taking illegal drugs worldwide rose last year by about 15 million to 200 million, the UN annual drugs report says. POW!

- The value of the global drugs trade, which the report says is about $320bn, is higher than the gross domestic product of 90% of the world's nations. BIFF!

- It also says Afghanistan produced 87% of the world's illegal supplies of opium last year. BAMM!

- Cocaine production fell in Colombia, but rose in Peru and Bolivia. KABOOM!

And to all you midnight, midday, and midmorning tokers, thanks for making bud the most widely used drug: 160 million strong and rising.

Let's Go Meth!

If there's one type of criminal activity we never get tired of around here, then it has to be the operation of backwoods meth labs. (In fact, I kinda wish we named this site MethLabbed.com.) It represents the tragic-comedy of what America, the land of abusing opportunity, is all about: drugs and rednecks. There's something charming and made-for-tv movie-ish how it's usually a couple of guys with their girlfriends of 2 weeks attempting to build their little own "We Ain't Crossing County Lines" cartel. And you won't find more insightful coverage than the local reports of meth lab busts in places like Benton, Arkansas: "Benton narcotics officers raided a clandestine methamphetamine laboratory in northeastern Saline County on Tuesday evening..." Clandestine!! Perhaps the qualifier is necessary and some of the open-air meth labs operating from a booth at the farmer's market have still escaped Johnny Law's watchful eyes. Anyway, there's a goldmine of material here so we're looking for a dedicated meth lab correspondent and my eyes are on Gawker Media/Kinja tech guru Jim Nachlin.

Blottered in review

I am far too stupid to really understand what's happening, and the fine print of some of these documents looks like an orgy of ants from the lofty heights at which I am perched, but something terrible seems to be happening. Being stupid, I'm not entirely sure if the following three examples are connected and if you have a more educated opinion on it all, please feel free to plug your sphincter with it.

What we've learned thus far is that some backwater burg in one of the richest states in the God-blessed Union can take your ancestral home and put up a toxic chemical plant that rips off its consumers who have no where but the tundra or some lawless nation to turn to for alternatives.

Additionally, should you with you "share" material that you already payed for with your closest compadres, you can, in all sincerity, go fuck yourself, as Grokster goes down (up?) in flames. Once thought by pundits retardant, turns out they're retarded. Thank God, another tundra-comprised nation is impervious to name-calling. Goooooooo Vikings!

Phew. That's a lot of bile. Let's take a breather. Here's a word from our sponsors.



This all in one head harness gag with blindfold makes for good slave training. The harness is all leather and has 4 straps. 1 strap goes over the head, 2 around the head and 1 chin strap. The inside of the blindfold is soft cotton for a comfortable fit. The gag can be removed so the blinfold and harness can be worn alone. The red ball gag is a respectable 1.5" in diameter.

We're back, and capping it all off like a love-cream facial, a kids' kicks company thinks it's a wittier Andy Warhol with a dash of Alanis Morissette. How do you go on when it turns out that the world hates you? Turns out the answer to that question isn't important at all because, hahahahha, they don't!

Sleep easy tonight and in the morning start making some protective headgear for God sake.

Inside the Assassin's Studio

By show of voice vote, who would you rather bunk with in a prison cell?
James Lipton or BTK

Blottered Clobbered

The entire TOP Media network (also including Young Manhattanite, Krucoff.com, The 6th Beatle email newsletter) was brought down today BY THOSE EVIL CORPORATE BLOODSUCKERS AT NIKE!! Or so I wish. Actually, it was due to some problem with our hosting provider. The sites loaded but we couldn't post or FTP any files all day. Technical support says:

We detected a file system problem with your particular webserver. The problem was temporary and has been resolved. Server functionality has been fully restored. We will be monitoring the server's functionality for the next 24 hours to ensure stability.

In any case, we regret that we have no readers who could possibly be affected by this inconvenience.

The Headless Whore of Montreal

A woman’s voice announced from the loudspeaker that Air Canada flight 750 from Montreal to LaGuardia would be delayed another hour, so I ordered another Molson Export and a shot of Canadian Club. I had been in the airport for three hours already. I had no idea how much I had already had to drink.

The rumor had spread among the other would-be passengers that rain and fog in New York were causing the delay. Time was that no-one in their right minds flew through a storm sober, especially not the pilots. That had all changed after Islamic militants weaponized three planes on September 11, 2001. Ever since, airplane passengers had been forced to endure their voyages as sober as, well, as an Islamic militant. A small victory for someone and a small defeat for someone else, I suppose, and I’m pretty sure I am among the elses.

I wasn’t sure if I was drunk yet but I was certain I would be if they announced another delay. In that case I wouldn’t even try to board the plane. I would turn in my ticket, arrange for a flight out the following day, and go to see a whore named Mary Gallagher in Montreal’s Griffintown.

From the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, Griffintown was a working-class Irish neighborhood, Montreal’s version of South Boston. It survived waves on immigration, floods and economic depression but was eventually leveled by an unstoppable menace that wrecked so many North American cities in the middle of the twentieth century—urban planning. They tore down the Griff and put up on industrial park.

These days the Griff is mostly remembered for Mary Gallagher, a thirty-eight year old prostitute whose corpse was found mangled in the apartment of colleague in June of 1879. Gallagher’s death had put an end to a three-day drinking-binge she had been on in the company of Susan Kennedy and a stevedore named Michael Flanagan. Some say Kennedy and Gallagher fell-out over money or the attentions of Flanagan. Given their profession, I suppose it could have been both. They found Gallagher in Kenney’s apartment, her head and one-hand severed from her body. Kennedy was convicted of the crime.

This might have just been one more gruesome murder in a neighborhood that had its share but for the fact that seven years later someone swore they saw headless Gallagher near the spot where she was murdered. Now they say she returns every seven years. Last night was the seventh anniversary of her last manifestation.

I drank down my whiskey. I had by now convinced myself that waiting around on a warm night in Montreal for the ghost of a headless prostitute had far more promise than spending another hour in the airport bar.

“We will begin boarding flight 750 to New York’s LaGuardia airport,” the loudspeakered woman announced.

I raised the glass of Molson to Mary Gallagher. I wasn’t going to get to watch for her after all. Maybe next time, Mary. Maybe next time.

[Prostitute slain in 1879 said to return every seven years--Montreal Gazette]

Three down, the rest of you to go

A Colorado woman, claiming that Castle Rock police did not do enough to prevent her estranged husband from killing their three young daughters, lost her battle as the Supreme Court ruled that police cannot be sued over the way cops enforce the laws.

"The deaths of these girls, while tragic, I think the learning experience we gained from this will help us deal better with these situations in the future," Police Chief Tony Lane said.

So there you have that. It might be poor grammar but you can't deny the logic of a good learning experience.

Dumpster diving

Grand Pobah of the Internet, Whatevs,, jumps on the copyright infringement spotting bandwagon by pointing out how the editorial cartoonist Mike Thompson stole, stole I tell you!, from the Garbage Pail Kids. It didn't seem to elicit the same response from Dishord, who when reached for comment said, "Ian will rip off your head and shit down your neck you if you mock his art."

Hide your computer

An editorial in Pop Sci from Cory, of Boing Boing, about the Grokster case. Remember where you were the day American innovaction was ... murdered.

He's pleading guilty

Saving Wichita taxpayers millions of dollars and likely slamming the door on a full explanation as to why he committed his crimes, Dennis Rader -- better known as the BTK killer -- pleaded guilty to 10 charges of murder this morning in court.

"In an extraordinary hearing, Rader said he killed because he wanted to fulfill sexual fantasies. He described the killings in detail in a voice devoid of emotion."

Sentencing will be held on August 17, but it's pretty unlikely it'll be anything less than a life sentence. I've been obsessed about the case for years, and am still somewhat amazed that a suspect was caught and will be punished for these crimes. The only question is, how many more did he kill?

Big bang boom

As the DC murder rate drops from 248 murders in 2003 to 198 in 2004, the House Government Reform Committee will be sighting the District's gun control laws in its cross-hairs. Expect a big push from the NRA and anyone who else who enjoys a gleaming 50-caliber.

"The possession of unregistered firearms has been illegal in the District since 1976. Registration of all handguns, automatic firearms and high-capacity semiautomatic firearms is also prohibited. Opponents of the restrictions say they are unconstitutional under the Second Amendment, but courts have upheld the District's gun control laws." [via NRA]

Baltimore: Take The Wire Tour

Baltimore is now a top ten world-class travel destination, according to Frommer's, and while you may be spooked by recent FBI statistics that show an increase in violent crime, it was the first time in five years there wasn't a decline. Seriously, take the kids, slap on the fanny packs and catch the wonderful views from the Inner Harbor or spend an afternoon in The Western. And remember, it's Charm City and at least your chances of getting forcibly raped are still probably lower than the country's average.

These Irish eyes are crying

Ireland customs agents are cracking down on the super-dee-duper rich who are trying to avoid paying the whopping 21 percent VAT on a luxury car. Your tricked-out '57 Bel Air is safe, they're look for Aston Martins, Ferrari's, Maseratis and the like. It seems a loophole allows Seamus to run the mileage up to 6K kilometers on his whip and avoid the hefty import tax.

If you see a man in a bespoke suit and monocle hitchhiking on the road from Dublin Port, where his Porsche or X5 was seized and now sits idle, help a brother out and loan him your walking shillelagh.

Someone get this guy a Blogger Pro account!

Eric Rudolph, right-wing terrorist and Billy Ray Cyrus lookalike, has shared with us all an account of his life on the lam.

Crime fiction review roundup

The first here is not a review, but an essay from the Virgina Quarterly called "The Wagon" about a cop at a crime scene: " 'His arm . . . Watch the head . . . He’s leaking there.' My partner never wants to double bag the dead the way I do. I dread the fluid drips that in the smallest amount will ruin a uniform."

The NY Times runs down The Power of Three, The Water Room, and To Darkness and to Death.

In The Guardian, Julian Barnes' Arthur & George, which recounts Conan Doyle's own detective adventures, is reviewed.

The Guardian also has some short fiction by by Patricia Highsmith.

The Washington Post looks at Disturbed Earth, the fifth in the Artie Cohen mysteries; and The River House, which "reads like a suspense novel written by Richard Yates."

Like a punch to the gut

It takes a lot to surprise me when I read about a missing persons story. Usually, something adds up all too well -- someone disappears, they either ran away or were murdered soon after being abducted -- or is essentially complete bullshit. But I'm having a hard time figuring out where to slot the outcome of the three formerly missing boys in Camden, NJ, all found dead in the trunk of a car by one of their fathers. Evidently the vehicle was parked behind the home of 11 year old Anibel Cruz for over three months and had been searched before, but it was "unclear" whether the trunk had been searched.

Um, WTF? You search a car but not the trunk? It just sits there? Who opened it? Did the kids decide to play a hide and seek game gone horribly wrong, or did someone put them there?

Obviously answers will be forthcoming in the days to come, but the people of Camden will remember Cruz, Daniel Agosto and Jesstin Pagan as a trio of fun-loving boys, who played video games, riding bikes, and other kids' stuff.

Except now they won't.

Low Country safe from the peril of multiple orgasms...at least today

Maybe dirty, but not a bomb:

A SLED helicopter descended at about 11:40 a.m. to drop off two bomb technicians and left about seven minutes later, once they had unloaded. They soon removed the contents of the package and saw there was no bomb inside. Actually, there were two vibrators. "We don't ever just open something," said special agent Jim Lowder, one of the bomb specialists. Lowder declined to go into specifics about examining the package, citing security procedures.

I used to work in this town. It's one of those places where the cops look like Cooter and all they do is hand out speeding tickets to everyone who passes through the 20 MPH zone. This must have been like Christmas and their birthday put together.

Roll on, my man. Roll on.

Should Atlanta pave the way and make impersonating a handicapped person illegal, this sort of thing could have been prevented: a trio in Honolulu used the rear compartment of a wheelchair to rip off a retail store. Two of them got nabbed but the third got away, bless his little Timmy-fied, useless legs. Even though the article states that the police report didn't mention if any of the perps were, in fact, handicapped, you know this third dude was. He probably had the above suped-up super chair with a fully bored, Hemi-mod in the back. Cops can't catch that shit, man. Even those bike cops they got down there can't keep up when you spring for the BFG Krawler's. Little dude be buggin' on down the beach, while Cleatus-on-a-bike falls so far behind he's still yesterday's news.

This just in: This just in

Gothamist reports that the Daily News is reporting on the serial rapist who attacked three Manhattan women this month. Gothamist reports that "[i]n all instances, the attacker, who the local tabloids are calling the Spiderman Rapist, has entered through an open window, so police are asking women to make sure their windows are closed and air-conditioners are secure." If you know anything about the crime, you are urged to go to Gothamist.com where they will point you to the article in Daily News where they got their information from.

Lessons for the Bereaved

A word of advice to the families of crime victims. When your sister is stabbed to death, try to remember that you're not Jimmy Cagney, okay?: "She'd give a meal to a bum in a New York minute. She'd open the door for anybody. New York ate her like cotton candy."

Eavesdropping The Ball

How the hell did we miss this??! Last night the multi-defined Jonah Peretti (Director of R&D at Eyebeam, Huffington Post webmaster, brother of Chelsea Peretti) moderated "an investigative evening with masters of eavesdropping! Hear how online conversations are snooped for financial gain; the covert ways in which our government employs espionage; the 'best of' overheard conversations from the city that never sleeps; the new methods used by private investigators and how eavesdropping fuels art." The extent of our eavesdropping experience is limited to the childhood practice of unscrewing the bottom part of a telephone receiver to listen to sibling conversations without the fear of getting caught by giggling or heavy breathing. We could use an update in the latest technologies. If anyone attended this event please send in a summary to tips [at] blottered [dot] com. Thanks.

Cop Killing: The Soundtrack

We would never advocate violence against the police but there's no denying the passion of those who do and their excellent taste in music. Citizens Against Cops offers 21 mp3's of anti-police songs including East Bay classics, Operation Ivy's "Officer" and Schlong's "Gee Officer Krupke" among the mainly punk/hardcore/rap online compilation. Cover art is available too. Burn copies, burn in hell, just as long as you burn.
How To Kill A Cop: An Instruction Manual [Officer Jelly Nutz via A Best Truth via IT blog]

Nike's "Skateboarding IS a Crime" Campaign

In one of the grossest displays of copyright infringement, Nike has stolen the intellectual property (album art, graphics, logos, etc.) of Dischord Records/Minor Threat for their latest skateboarding campaign. They made no attempt to ask for permission and Dischord's official statement starts: "No, they stole it and we're not happy about it." Blottered endorses a ban on all Nike products and the smashing of skateboards over the heads of kids wearing Nike apparel, but we hope there's a huge backlash from the skating community first. Glen E. Friedman and Stacy Peralta better rally the Dogtown faithful.
Nike Campaign "Borrows" Album Art [Pitchfork Media]

Take my house, please; and my pride

First the courts took away our right to not have our house taken when the city wants to build a Wal-Mart, now they're corralling the homeless into "beggar zones" so that fat people wearing fanny packs and flip-flops can slap their kids and engorge themselves on their self-hatred which can only be stopped by shopping and getting fatter don't have to think about their there-by-the-grace-of-god good luck. The sweet city of Raleigh, NC, for example, licenses its panhandlers. Read that again slowly. And in Atlanta, panhandlers will soon be forced to sit quietly with a cup but not follow, gesture, or even talk to anyone. That rules out even the down-on-his-luck mime.

With more humorous quips than Lennie Briscoe clip show

At the last last Little Gray Books event, How to Commit the Perfect Crime, musical impresario Jonathan Coulton rocked a duet called "One More Score" [mp3 link], a desolate Springsteen's Nebraska-era story song about a caper-filled love gone wrong. At the end there's a bit with teddy bear with diamonds in its belly that will, if you weren't there, leave you a little confused -- much like the Boss's refusal to not suck anymore.

Sadly, let Blottered be the first to report that Coulton can no longer listen to himself sing live. Send him a note to cheer the guy up, won't you?

Forget About Snow, How Many Words Do They Have For Beer?

One of the great things about living in the age of social statistics is the creative uses ordinary citizens can find for carefully collected data. The teenage younger brother of a good friend of mine recently told me that the road trip he had planned to take with some buddies had recently been rerouted when they discovered a website providing details on underage drinking on a state by state basis.

By far the most intersting statistic on the site is the information on the cost of drinking per youth in the state. Or, as my young friend put it, "How much damage the kids do to themselves per teenage capita, yo."

So where are the kids going on their summer road trip? Not Nevada (which is ranked #4). It's off to the lands of the ice and snow, of the midnight sun and the whiskey flows. Alaska, baby, Alaska.

"Fuck Me" or "Rape Me," either way you're a-ok

"An Italian librarian who lent a government-recommended book to a 14-year-old was cleared 17 June of charges that she lent obscene material to a minor." [Index Online]

The book was originally published in French as Baise-Moi, which in English is "Rape Me." In Italy, it was published as Scopami, which translates as "Fuck Me." Which only shows that Italian marketers are familiar with the phrase "you can't rape the willing."
[via Bookslut]

Boosting and sweeping

According to the Food Marketing Institute, Organized Retail Theft -- professional shoplifting -- accounts for $34 billion in losses across the retail industry each year. The shoplifters, known as boosters or sweepers, operate under a strict set of guidelines, and can earn up to $100,000 dollars a year. The Food Marketing Institute has also developed a list of the fifty most shoplifted items, which suggests that the average shoplifter suffers from migraines, vaginal dryness and hemmeroids, and uses lots of razors and Oil of Olay. Some kind of drunk yeti with a funny walk I’d wager. Shouldn’t be too hard to pick it up off of a security camera.

Pistol-packin' mama*

So a Queens transit cop has announced that s/he's transitioning from M to F.

"Everyone's been very supportive, and I'm very happy about it," said a smiling Officer June Lo, who, until earlier this week, was known as Officer John Lo.

I'm happy for J.Lo, but it blows my mind that the NYPD would be so accepting of this, given its completely intolerant conservative reputation. Maybe, to them, it's okay because they're accustomed to being up close and personal with asian trannies.

Lo isn't the first transgender cop, though she may be one of the better-looking. (I will cut Sgt. Gonzales some slack, though--her looks are pretty much on par with the average genetic female Philadelphian.) Both the SFPD and the NYPD have, in recent years, tried to recruit a more diverse police force. But what sort of self-respecting gay man would join with a starting salary $34K?

*That's the hed I imagine the Post would've liked to print.

Roughed up in Russia

At one point, weren't we all wondering what poor old John le Carre would write about now that the Cold War went kaput? Quickly, though, a new form of diabolical Russian rose to the forefront: the Russian mafia was birthed at once, in toto, complete with cute and tiny black Armani suits and slick shades. Turns out these heavies are easily subdued with a business card from "a middle-aged Moscow bank director who loves Kurt Vonnegut" and what you really got to worry about are the shake-downs to your mom-and-pop store courtesy of Pres. Putin's goons.

Family Ties, Gags, Bounds

When I went to Modesto, CA several years ago I learned a couple of things. First, one of the more boring drives in the continental United States is available by the Greyhound bus making all local stops from San Francisco to Modesto, unless you're a huge taqueria aficionado. Two, what Bakersfield is to SoCal, Modesto is to NoCal. In other words, imagine the least desirable city to live in the Canadian province of New Jersey. It is no small wonder suburbia's Sim City of Sin and Shit is connected with the likes of Gary Condit and Scott Peterson. You can keep up with the latter by subscribing to the Peterson family email newsletter but I suggest using caution with any "remove me" requests.

From: Janey Peterson [mailto:trialupdate@sbcglobal.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2005 12:47 PM
To: trialupdate@sbcglobal.net
Subject: newsletter

Dear Friends,

I know it's been a long time since you've heard from us. Quite frankly, we were rendered speechless by the verdicts. Although our path to justice has been lengthened, we remain unwaivering in our knowledge of Scott's innocence. We continue to stand on the truth and we continue to seek justice.

We will be sending out a newsletter every 4-6 weeks from PetersonInvestigation.com. I will automatically add you to the list of those to receive the newsletter by e-mail. If you DO NOT want to receive the newsletter, just reply to this e-mail and type "Remove" in the subject. If you have been forwarding the updates or you know of anyone else who would like to receive the newsletter directly, they can log onto www.PetersonInvestigation.com and enter their e-mail on the left side and click on the "subscribe" button.

Thank you for your continuing support.

The Peterson Family

Related: "You might throw Modesto in their also as it is just down the 99 and has a decent sized dept and plenty of meth to bust." Departments in San Joaquin County? [Officer.com]

Who Killed Father Ryan?

This is an amazing story about a man who confessed to a crime he didn't commit: Murdering a priest. It's very complicated:

On Dec. 4, 1982, a deeply suntanned man, about 40 years old, walked into the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Boise, Idaho, and readied himself for confession. He never got a chance to recount his sins to the priest. As he waited – perhaps not realizing it would be several minutes before the confessional was available, or perhaps despairing of the condition of his soul – the man swallowed a cyanide capsule. A few minutes later, he was dead.

And that's just the first paragraph.

James Reyos has been paroled, but is still trying to gain a pardon. It's not looking too hopeful. Because, unfortunately, in Texas, the defense attorneys like to sleep in the courtroom and stuff. An interesting thing to note in the article: Apparently the Catholic church kept absolutely no records on its brethren until the 1980s. So priests could be like Secret Agent Men, popping up here, disappearing the next day, no fingerprints on file, nothing.

We had a priest go missing in my hometown but it turned out that his car slid down an embankment in a snowstorm.

They found him that spring. (via MeFi.)

Is Your Local Abortionist the New Crime Fighting Superhero?

Thanks to Steven Levitt's Freakonomics we all know that legalizing abortion was responsible for the dramatic drop in crime in American cities, right? Not quite. In a series of pieces on his website, the incredibly prolific Steve Sailer has leveled a devastating critique of Levitt's theory.

The basic gist of Sailer's debunking is that Levitt's theory fails in two ways. First, the first generation of teenagers from whom the worst would-be offenders were supposedly purged by abortion went on one of the bloodiest murder sprees in American history. Second, Levitt's assumption that abortion reduces unwanted births ignores the fact that legalizing abortion actually increased unwanted pregnancies. Taken together this amounts to a knock-out blow against Freakonomics most famous chapter.

Flaws In the Penal Penal System

The question: Do the rapists and pedophiles who go to jail receive "prison justice" (read: their brown-stars punched harder and more often) because of their one-poke-over-the-line crime? That's what cops were talking about on the "Big House" discussion board over at Officer.com. Unfortunately the answer, for the most part, is all pieces of shit are treated equally.
Is there still "Prison Justice" for Pedophiles and Rapists? [Officer.com]

Goodbye, Little Tacoma Boy

23 year old Ryan Hade was killed a couple of weeks ago when his motorcycle collided with a pickup truck near Tacoma, WA. Sad enough, but made even more so due to Hade's horrific past: in 1989, he was known to the general public as the Little Tacoma Boy, raped, mutilated and left for dead in a Tacoma Park. His abductor and would-be murderer, Earl Shriner, is still in prison after being sentenced to a 131-year prison term.

The News Tribune's Paul Sand remembers Hale:

The horror of the attack spurred nationwide media coverage, an outpouring
of community support for Hade and greater focus on sex offenders. Through it
all, his family kept his name from being publicly revealed.

In the years since the attack, Hade lived every day like there wouldn’t
be another, his family and friends said this week.

“He survived something that was extreme and consequently he lived his life extreme,” said his mother, Helen Harlow, who became a children’s rights
crusader after helping start the Tennis Shoe Brigade. “You cheat death once, you
figure you can cheat it just about any time you want.”

Hade's abduction spurred greater focus on sex offenders and prompted tougher laws. Would that there could have been a less extreme way to do so, but unfortunately, that's usually how it goes.

Fine-be-gone

Stay with me here; admittedly it's a little like the my brother's friend's friend's brother who knows a guy . . . but

Bruce Schenier points to Radar Buster who links to a miraculous product that makes your license plate invisible. No word on whether it will work when you're hiding out in the girls' locker room.

That's not happiness to see me, is it?

Just to piggyback on yesterday's post, the Chicago police department is now publishing photos of tricks and hoes on the intarweb. As you can see, they apparently come in all different shapes and sizes.

This is another good reason not to visit Chicago. I have my political career to think of.

Ain't No Justice Like Angry Mob Justice

...Especially when it's angry Mob mob justice:

Twelve policemen were injured and three of their cars destroyed when a crowd of some 200 people - mostly women - apparently tried to free an alleged thief arrested by police in a Naples suburb. Three women - a mother and her two daughters - were arrested on Monday evening and have been charged with causing grievious damage, resisting arrest and injuring public officers, as well as aiding and abetting crime, Italian state radio, Radio 1, reported.

Twelve cops! And Italian cops aren't exactly finocchio. Moral of the story: Do not fuck with the women of Naples; we will cut you. (Via Mob Magazine.)

Blowback from South of the Border

The concept of “blowback”—originally referring to unburnt gunpowder that can blow back into the face of a shooter after firing a gun—is used by the Central Intelligence Agency as shorthand for the unintended effects of U.S. covert actions. Political scientist Chalmbers Johnson’s book Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire details the best known example of blowback—the US arming of the mujahidin during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan leading to the postwar rise of the Taliban and providing a base of operations for Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda.

This weekend the Dallas Morning News reported that blowback now comes in a Tex-Mex flavor too. During the 1990s, US special forces trained elite cadres of the Mexican military to battle drug lords in Mexico. In 2001, a small group of these elites—now known as the Zetas—broke away from the military to take up more profitable positions with the drug cartels.

The Zetas are suspected of being involved with a shooting last December which the Morning News describes as the result of a long standing feud between rival Mexican drug cartels.

In other news, US training of Iraqi security forces continues.

Twin Kings Benevolent Goodness and Almighty Leader

The gentle giants Microsoft and China have teamed up to become a truly unstoppable entity. China ponies up its hundreds of millions of "human capital" and Microsoft sees their warm bodies with billions of dollars and, lo, we all yearn to know what they will come up with.

"Chinese bloggers using a new Microsoft service to post messages titled 'democracy,' 'capitalism,' 'liberty' or 'human rights' are greeted with a bright yellow warning." Microsoft, dancing the semantic rumba, says it's all been done before and nothing to get your noodle in a twist about. In the U.S., after all, the words "whore" and "pornography" are routinely blocked. See, no biggie.

Sadly, no one took into account the possibility that my Chinese brothers might wish to e-mail me a reminder that I am a "democratic whore," or direct me to their Flickr slideshow of "human rights pornography." Such short-sightedness from everyone, i swear.

Blog & Order: Special Events Unit

John Hodgman and Adam Stein of The Petersons

Blottered Team Party Bust coated our hair with gel, covered our feet in wingtips, and crossed the river to Galapagos in Brooklyn last Thursday for a special edition of John Hodgman's Little Gray Book Lecture series, No. 31: How To Commit The Perfect Crime. We've long resigned ourselves to the fact we'd never be perfect criminals due to excessive sweating and nervous twitching in even the calmest of situations. Taking the roommate's ice cream without asking is as far as we go these days and usually this is remedied by an adjustment in the rent split. Long gone are the days (or more specifically, late nights) of mailbox mutilation, tearing up the greens on golf courses, and the credit card scheme that offered free gas, clothes, tire rims, and all the liquor you wanted in the dimly populated bar establishments near army bases. Fortunately, John Hodgman assembled a panel of experts to set the record straight and then bend it in all sorts of directions. [More...]

Blottered: Still Accepting Blogger Applications

We weren't fooling around when we held open enrollment to join the prestigious masthead of Blottered. Welcome to The Future of Global Community Media: this is open-source blogging, citizen journalism with no stinkin' credentials, full court press democracy, a star chamber where Michael Douglas orders the killing of Catherine Zeta-Jones, and an angry mob of villagers with torches and pitchforks. Everyone is invited to participate and only a modicum of talent and interest are required. Post a few times a week or three daily (though maintaining an average of one a day would be pretty cool), it's your decision. Sure, you could think of us as a blogging community college (that would be Harvard on the East River) with no admission restrictions but we're not too far from being recognized as the Huffington Post of Crime. Please email us at tips [at] blottered [dot] com with "McGruffPo" in the subject line if you want to take a bite out of crime and spit it back up.

100 Jake and the Fatman going hungry

According to Pamela McKay, of brucegreenwood.com, the hit series "Jake and the Fatman," a crime drama staring William Conrad as a DA and the debonaire Joe Penny as his special investigator, has "the dubious distinction of being the only show with 100 episodes that was never picked up for syndication."

Clearly, this show missed its day in the sun, as today the three-hundred pounds of icing on the cake is the fat dude and a skinny sidekick combo.

How to Spot a Hollywood Villian

Hint: He's probably blond. Likely rich. Definitely white.

Steve Sailer explains the strange politics of racial sensitivity that exclude most minority actors from playing bad guys.

Update: Philip Seymour Hoffman has just been cast as the villian for the next Mission: Impossible.

Want to commit the perfect crime? Go to Yellowstone National Park.

Brian C. Kalt, an associate professor at the Michigan State University College of Law, has found a loophole in the 6th Amendment that would allow the perfect crime to be committed in two specific parts of Yellowstone National Park. He has written an article for the Georgetown Law Journal about the legal oddity called "The Perfect Crime."

The federal district court for the district of Wyoming is defined as including all of Yellowstone National Park including 50 square miles in Idaho. However, the 6th Amendment requires that when a crime is committed, the jury be drawn from the state and district where the crime was committed. So by commiting your crime in the Idaho part of the park, the jury would need to be drawn from Idaho but also the district of Wyoming... population zero. Therefore, it would be impossible for a speedy and public trial because there is no possible jury pool. (In the Montana part of the park, there are only 40 people eligble for jury duty but it would be hard to get a jury of 12 people.)

The catch? Don't plan your crime or receive some assistance somewhere else because then you could be tried in that other area for planning the crime there.

Want a map?

Listen: Brian C. Kalt talks about his article on NPR's All Things Considered.

Or, Never underestimate the power of Google

It hit the NYT over the weekend but I've been following the case of Jayant Patel, psycopathic MD extraordinaire, for a little while now. After flitting from New York to the state and then Oregon, all the while leaving droppings in the form of fraud, misconduct and gross negligence, he turned up in the town of Bundaberg to save the citizens from a revolving door of disgruntled physicians.

And it might have worked, except for his pesky habit of doing bad, bad things. Like not washing his hands during procedures (because "doctors' hands don't have germs.") Or operating without the anesthetic (bringing to mind a rather hilarious Monty Python sketch.) Or letting patients die because he couldn't be bothered with referring them to a facility that could actually save their lives.

So naturally, it's a big scandale and the closet has been rattled free of all sorts of nasty skeletons. The problem is that Patel resigned, fled the country for parts unknown (but it looks like a mansion in Oregon's a good bet) and they are having some difficulty enticing him back to be judged for his mistakes. Gee, like I'm so surprised...

Actually, I've just been promoted to Deputy Director of Thuggin'

This gallery of compliment cards from the golden age of Chicago gangs harkens back the days when the Thee Almighty Midget C-Notes roamed the streets, kicking ass and trading business cards.

Or, the Angie Harmon effect

DallasNews.com: "Last season, a third of the Top 40 shows on television were procedurals, loosely defined as programs that depict a crime each week and solve it. Most of the other top-rated programs were reality shows or comedies, with only six dramas having nothing to do with crime making the list."

I blame it on the BGoPCD effect (beautiful girls of procedural crime dramas), which include every ADA ever and ever on Law and Order. God knows, we don't watch that show for that wank Watterson or Orbach's Borscht Belt schtick.

Honey, have you seen my $25 million?

The grift, the con, the flim-flam, the hotness that is Angelica Huston and Annette Bening vying for the love of John Cusack. The long history of the mountebank posing as an in-the-know is storied and some of the more famous grifts have been turned into some fine Mamet movies, even if the dialogue spews faster than an AK-47 and contains all the realism of Alchemy, 1947.

New York Magazine, this week, profiles the Yalincak clan who have a tendency to cut checks their collective ass can't cover. By a long shot.

Pre-Meditated Vomiting

Here's one way of sticking it to the man: "[An] Olathe Northwest High School student was charged June 13 in juvenile court with misdemeanor battery for allegedly intentionally throwing up on his Spanish teacher, David Young. The father of the student, whose name has not been released because he is a juvenile, said his son did not mean to blow chunks on the teacher but he was overcome by the stress of final exams." The school cafeteria's taco bar is still closed pending an appeal.
Vomiting Student Charged With Battery [ABC News]

Marcus Wesson Convicted on All Counts

Wow. What with that other trial going on just up the way, the media neglected to fully exploit the amazing saga of Marcus Wesson, who on Friday was convicted of murdering nine of his incest-bred offspring. The LA Times gives the rundown on all 23 counts of his conviction, while the BBC notes that Marcus, a vampire-and-Jesus-obsessed bigamist, just wanted his wives to make "babies for the Lord." Well, if you put it that way.

Blottered: Bustin' Our Cherry Tops

Welcome to Blottered, a blog about crime that will attempt to cover everything under the dark of night and in a trenchcoat, from suburban vandalism to international drug-diamonds-strip clubs-porn-fur-monkey paws-bootleg DVDs-money laundering-mailorder bride-weapons rings. More background is available here. This is a group blog, a baker's dozen so far, and we're always looking for more so please contact us if you're interested. Here's a sample of current contributor credentials brighter than an interrogation room's swinging light.

*I am a law student at Brooklyn Law School, summer-in-DC clerk, homesick for NY, and eager to write for your new crime blog.

*I studied criminology in college and even have a semester of a Criminal Justice PhD at John Jay under my belt.

*I'm interested in playing crime blogger. Granted, I'm just some chick in the midwest who is totally not cool and reads Curbed with a quiet desperation (such desperation that I'm actually moving to NYC this summer. If that helps, that is. If not, pretend I didn't mention it.), but that's all I've got.

*I have no knowledge of crime except for being accused of trespassing once (charges dropped) and watching lots of Cracker on BBC America, but I'm sure that's nothing a little del.icio.us keyword fishing and some strongly worded google alerts (assault + Squid + Wheelchair) won't fix.

As if that's not enough we also have two people with law degrees (one who is actually practicing law), the crime fiction columnist for the Baltimore Sun, two marooned ex-editors of Gridskipper, the son of a CT preacher man, and FishbowlNY's Foreign Correspondent.

Got something to share with us? Our mouths are open at: tips [at] blottered [dot] com.

Ready, aim, and stand very far back

Our camo-clad boys at Superpants.com believe in taking things one step at a time. So they start you off with this Zenlike still-camera shoot of a man and his firearm. So serene, it makes me yearn for simpler times.

In this second video, some German (Swedish? Norwegian?) dudes take it up a notch, and then another, and then one more. The target? a computer. Watch as they work their way through progressively bigger guns: a sidearm, to some two-man M60 action, and ending with enough explosives to clear up the more ornery "blue screen of death."

Reporting, or film treatment

You can just picture Jennifer 8. Lee hunched over her computer, her eyes burning from excitement, her palms sweaty as candy-colored dollar signs dance above her head and Bruckheimer's booming voice intones, "More action! More action! We need more action!"

Jennifer 8's got the facts, and damn are they good. Cackling to herself as she types, helplessly letting the words stream forth from her mind's eye, she revels in how an old lady jumped from the second story screaming, "We're all going to die" and then her grandson swung from the fire escape and used his foot to reach a ladder and climb down and then the old lady's daughter fell off the ladder and hit the street on her back, and just when 8's getting to the part about how the property's management company has neglected tenants' complaints, her head explodes from excitement and the possibility of Hollywood's tender embrace, and the article ends.

Well that makes it all better, eh?

Darian D. Flagg apologized Thursday to his girlfriend of eight years -- mother of two of his children -- for shooting her seven times last November.

Them versus us, not so much

Serious infractions of the rules can be costly. For example, in New York, drunk driving can cost you your car. But not all rules have penalties so harsh. In NASCAR, something called "unapproved windshield mounting" will cost you 5 large. Maybe not a crime Lenny Briscoe will hunt you down for, but certainly something you oughtta arrest Tawny Kitaen for.

Imagine that you broke the rules of your company. (Say, for blogging on the job.) You, poor bastid, would get the bum's rush by that dude in the blue jacket who you nod to as he guards your toilets.

In sports, the rules are subjective . Most players who get fined end up paying only a portion of the money. But in NASCAR, some even make the money back. "At the end of each season, fines collected from drivers and crews are pooled together and disbursed to the top 25 racers." And they get to speed.

It's a sliding scale out there, people. Take heed and get your ass famous as soon as possible. Not matter what it takes.

So cold

Stacy Horn's new book about the NYPD Cold Case Squad, The Restless Sleep, is coming out in July. In the meantime, go visit The Restless Sleep: The Blog It's still a bit sparse, but promising. They offer an "Ask a Detective" service, which will certainly come in handy for reference should I ever manage to get rid of my noisy neighbors...Dear Ask a Detective: I never thought it would happen to me, but it just so happens that I find myself faced with the task of disarticulation and flaying. Where's the best place to begin?

The latest in high-end thievery accessories

Gizmodo give the skinny on the booster bag.

Consider getting your hands on some of the RF-blocking foil and making a suit out of it. Then you could hide stuff up your butt and have your hands free to flip the security guard the bird.

That Tyco dude found guilty

Finally, some freaking justice has been served:

Former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski and ex-CFO Mark Swartz were found guilty Friday of looting Tyco of $150 million worth of undeserved bonuses and secretly forgiven loans.

Chicago: More like Krakow than Denmark

Taking the wind out of Jeffrey Eugenides, Neal Pollack points us to Gallery of Guns' article on Cook County juvenile detention, where young people who enter the juvenile justice system are four times more likely to suffer an early violent death than youths in the general population.

He also has a book, Chicago Noir coming out from the awesome Akashic Books.

Craigslist: Not just for rando hook-up fucks but for justice

Up in Putnam Valley, NY, someone named Frank Aquino done gone and dog gone kicked, "like a football," a deaf dog to death. What can you do? kgrossman implores you to "Unite and send faxes, e mails and letters to make sure this COWARD pays for his CRIME !! ROXI'S death MUST BE VINDICATED!"

I would have said "Roxi's DEATH must be VINDICATED," you know, to put the emphasis on the cruelty and justice stuff, rather than the fact that someone gave their dog a hooker's name.
[ed: I am stupid and have been corrected. Roxanne is a hooker's name and Roxi is that of a stripper. Touche, commenter]

True crime books: Put up your dukes

Among the sins one can commit, hating your brother is not even up there. Cain slewing Abel and all comes the obvious mind but that's killing (#6). Luke and Bo Duke got into were pretty good scraps but nothing a C&W tune couldn't set straight.

Killings recounted from books of superstition and car chases out of TV are well and good and highly enjoyable, but at the end of the day, it's all in the family. But not for Anne Bird, one tough bitch, evidenced by her book Blood Brother: 33 Reasons My Brother Scott Peterson Is Guilty, a true crime book whose description goes thusly:
"What happens if, after being given up for adoption in childhood, you reestablish contact with your biological family -- only to discover that your newfound brother is a killer?"

Also, if you'd like to review "Who's Afraid of a Large Black Man" by Charles Barkley for Blottered.com's Justice Books Series, please send it to info@blottered.com. Feel free to not read it and just make shit up. I'm sure he did.

That's Tinytown, Jake

The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death present the work of Frances Glessner Lee, a dollhouse enthusiast and criminal investigator who created a series of tiny crime scenes as a study tool for detectives in the 40s. The book has painstakingly cataloged the miniatures, from the tell-tale cigarette butts in the tiny ashtray to the little love letters left by a killer to indicate a suicide. Author Corinne Botz offers solutions to some of the crimes but leaves most of the cases for the reader to decipher.

Doll forensics has come a long way since the 1940s, but some things never change. Most doll murderers know their victim, making cases like this one easy to solve , but there are crimes on the outer reaches of doll desecration that can send even the most hardened detective back to the Matchbox beat.

Satan's Making A List, Checking It Twice...

Jan-Michael Vincent and Ernest Borgnine in Airwolf

The Top 10 Terrorist Wishlist:
#1. A nuclear bomb: 12 kilograms of plutononium is all it takes to make a nuclear bomb.
#2. A dirty nuke: A small amount of plutononium and uranium can make a radiation bomb. Everyone within 10 miles will die from radiation sickness. It can happen slowly over a period of a couple days before anyone realizes there is a radiation leak.
#3. A pinch: Otherwise known as an EMP. An Electro-Magnetic Pulse bomb causes a wave of electricity to go through a large area. It short circuits every computer and transitor in the area. See the movies "Ocean's Eleven" or the James Bond movie "Goldeneye" sometime.
#4. A long range ballistic missile: Not a nuke, but certainly enough to flatten a large bulding like the Empire State Building for example. Long range is a problem for terrorists because there is more chance that the United States will launch an anti-missile in time.
#5. A short range ballistic missile: There is almost no chance that someone could use an anti-missile against a short range missile fired from less than 20 km from the target. Packing the same damage as the long range, it also means the terrorists are more likely to get caught. However, the advantage of actually hitting the target (ie. the White House) is favourable.
#6. Anti-aircraft missile: Shooting down Air Force One or a commercial airliner will attract attention. Shooting it down over a city causes a greater effect however, as the plane can then crash into apartments in the middle of the city, or even houses in suburbia.
#7. Assault helicopter: An Apache helicopter (for example) with rockets & machines guns could shoot down airliners, assault the White House, blow up softer targets such as an oil company office building... and possibly even get away with it. Watch some old "Airwolf" shows from the 1980s and you'll get a better idea.
#8. Poison Gas: Everything from Saran gas to a simple mustard gas would be enough to kill everyone in a crowded subway.
#9. Germ Warfare: Much easier to come across than you'd think. Any pharmaceutical company could easily order samples of various diseases (including SARS) and then deliberately unleash those diseases in a populated place. A mall or airport in New York City would be a prime place to unleash such germs.
#10. ??? Thats the funny thing isn't it? There's so many deadly things out there that you'd never guess what it was until it was too late. It could be a submarine that sinks cruise ships. It could be a lone guy with a flamethrower that burns down all of Montana. It could be a remote controlled machine gun like in the movie "The Jackal".

via The Top 100 Terrorist Targets in the United States [Lilith Gallery]

George Would Be Proud

May 2 - Crime Blotter for Orwell, OH
3:50 am Domestic Violence - 100 block of S. Maple Ave.
6:20 am Adult misdemeanor arrest - 100 block of S. Maple Ave.
6:20 am Adult felony arrest - 100 block of S. Maple Ave.
8:00 am Felony warrant arrest - 20 block of Robert Ave.
9:10 am Theft - 100 block of E. Main St.
3:08 pm Public assist - 100 block of N. Maple Ave.
8:15 pm Hit-skip traffic crash - E. Main St.
10:00 pm Panic alarm - 100 block of Chaffee Dr.

Let's just say it was a rough morning on S. Maple.

The war is coming . . .

. . . take your pick:

(1) AK-47
(2) 12 Gauge

I got a shotgun for your muzzle

The book deal is a difficult and elusive beast. You must learn to deal with rejection, agonize over who to thank on the dedication page, and wrestle with the problem of where to host your book party.

You must slave for years, kiss the ass of agents, and take the word of publishers who say "a print run of 5,000 is great for a first-time author!"

On the other hand, you could take the easy way out: get yourself kidnapped, consult with God, and profit on the misery of untold hundreds.

How To Find An Illegal Card Game in the Windy City

"You wake up at O'Hare. You wake up at LaGuardia. You wake up at Logan." How is the itinerant compulsive gambler supposed to get his fix when he's away from his home game? Adrian Holovaty's website Chicagocrime provides this handy map of illegal card games in the Second City.

Chicagocrime, a mash-up of Google's map function and the Chicago Police Department's crime stats, is chock full of other useful information. Like where not to go if you don't want to die.

[Via every newspaper running Greg Sandoval's wire story for the Associate Press.]

CT's state Supreme Court, friend to the paparazzi

I used to think I was cool because I knew where Mel Gibson brainwashed his horde of God-fearing children when in CT, and that my brother once bilked Kathy Lee Gifford outta hundreds of dollars for an "antique" end table. Such information made the girls wilt like day-old bodega roses. I got miles of mileage out of this and it was hours before I slept.

I have nothing now. I am no one:

GREENWICH -- The state Supreme Court dealt Greenwich a potential knockout yesterday in a landmark public records case, ordering the release of all aerial photos of the town from a tightly kept database that includes images of celebrity homes.

Ipod Crime Spree

Apparently Ipods aren't just for stealing music anymore. Or for getting stolen by gangs of young thugs. Now members of the infamous criminal class known as the "disgruntled employees" are using their Ipods for corporate espionage.

Grand Theft Auto: Surrey, BC

The Integrated Municipal Provincial Auto Crime Team of British Columbia (IMPACT, naturally) , has developed a fleet of "baitcars” in an attempt to curb an epidemic of car theft in the Vancouver area. The vehicles -- which are tracked by GPS and equipped with audio and video-- are left for unsuspecting thieves, and the resulting images are posted on the site. In the video ONCOMING, a cranked-up car thief steals the bait car; tries, repeatedly and unsuccessfully, to fire a gun out the window; stops to break into another car to steal a Gameboy; rocks out to the Barenaked Ladies hit, If I Had a Million Dollars; and still manages to elude the police. Clearly he’s been playing his GTA. Next up for the IMPACT Team, Bait Bikes, Bait ATV, Bait Snowmobiles, and Bait Watercraft .

You know when the boyfriend goes to

Martha's Vineyard for the weekend with the guys, but comes back without a tan, because "it rained all weekend'"? Yeah well, think again: General Assembly drops indoor prostitution law. Gives one a whole new respect for Brown boys.

Chick Without Gun

I'm sure this happens to you all the time. You're at work and the dagger pains of chili con carne attack like a slow, calculating pendulum. When you get the chance to dart to the loo you haul ass quicker than a prison breakout. "Gangway!" echoes through the halls. Relief is finally found and you start to daydream about California mudslides or espresso machines with a near-orgasmic warm glow over your face. All but done now except for the thorough cleansing of hands with hot water and hand soap. Oh yeah, you walk out and forget all about your fuckin' 40-caliber Glock on the sink of the courthouse bathroom.
New York Sheriff's Officer Leaves Gun in Bathroom [Officer.com]

Insanity defense on trial

Whether or not to plead insanity after you've gone loco on a 5 yr old is one of ye oldest questions since "Did Grendel love his mother?" Why leave it up to your piddling Psychosis 101 training from grade school watchings of "Hotdog... the Movie" when you can hire a lawyer who clearly does not have your well being in mind and should be white-coat hugging himself all the way to Bedlam.

In 1980 Thomas Szasz testified for the prosecution in the trial of Darlin June Cromer, a 34-year-old white woman charged with kidnapping and murdering Reginald Williams, a 5-year-old black boy. Szasz explains why, unlike the defense experts, he did not conduct a “psychiatric examination” of Cromer:

“I regard the practice as the epitome of junk science and refuse to participate in it,” he writes. Not only is there “no objective test for mental illness,” but psychiatrists are supposed to determine a defendant’s state of mind at the time of the crime by talking to him many months later, a pretense Szasz considers “prima facie absurd.”

Mr. White in Miami with the niiiiice ass

Harvey Keitel-ish Det. Schillaci gets so much love on the message boards of the true-crime show "The First 48" you'd think he'd show his obsessed fans his perp-busting ass once in a while (it's smooth like a new-born brine shrimp's).

"Joe Shillaci is a super hero to me, he isn't fearless, he's a straight up modern day renegade who's willing to risk his life to solve a murder case. He's a master of undercover work, he's experienced loss and set backs and he has overcome! GO JOE, YOU"RE MY HERO!!!!!!!!!!!!"


". . . and yes although each of you have wonderful character and your own style it is the style of Srg Joe Schillaci that has won my heart .. Great Passion wonderful character and he really really cares .. i loved seeing him react and think and listen so intently always thinking ( love da guy he just sizzles and always makes me smile ) . . ."

Today's court-house-steps (nearly) shooting episode

MIDDLETOWN, Connecticut (AP) -- A man killed his ex-wife, wounded her lawyer and then shot himself Wednesday morning in a parking lot outside Middletown Superior Court, law enforcement officials said.

To do: Develop a hobby

Probably thinking I was someone else, the inimitable J Hodg-man sent me a personal invite to attend the Little Gray Book lecture entitled “How to Commit the Perfect Crime” on Thursday, June 16, at 7:30.

While flattered, the invite did not come with transportation to and from Williamsburg. So I will definitely jack a car, probably doublepark it, and maybe steal the show when I am arrested for loving Starlee Kine too, too much.

What color is your orange jump suit going to be?

Interestingly, despite CSI et al. being bigger loads of hooey than MJ’s innocence, there really is a National Automotive Paint File. On CourtTV.com you can color yourself interested in all sorts of “trace” evidence, including how to get busted by your bitchin’ Hemi Cuda’s plume crazy purple paint job:

[Paint c]hips from cars can be compared to samples in the National Automotive Paint File, which holds more than 40,0000 samples. Undercoats help to narrow down the possible manufacturers. . . . A trace of yellow paint was found in a spot where a rapist had hidden his car was traced to a specific model. When a suspect was located through a computer database that included those cars, his vehicle showed the scrape at the appropriate height. With the police on his trail and evidence accumulating, he confessed and was sent to prison.

You call it arson, I call it research, we all call it dastardly

CHICAGO A writer of books about Chicago fires now stands accused of setting one. David Cowan has been charged with one count of arson for allegedly starting a fire at St. Benedict Church on Chicago's North Side. The 41-year-old Cowan wrote "Great Chicago Fires: Historic Blazes That Shaped a City," and co-authored a book about a 1958 blaze that killed more than 90 children.

Next up:
Joseph Ellis beats up a cafeteria of septuagenarians and JK Rowling fails to float in Salem

Chicks with guns

"Bricklovinfreakboy" builds chicks with guns made out of legos. Some are quite stacked:
1) Flechette Gun
2) Assault Rifle