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May 2000


14 May 2000

Maryland's Gregory W. Kasey, Sr, decided to take the rap for his son Gregory W. Kasey, Jr, who had violated the terms of his probation. When the judge discovered what was going on, he had the younger man hauled off to jail. Meanwhile, the 41-year-old received a four-year prison sentence for his efforts. This is in addition to his current 20-year sentence for assault with intent to murder.
Of his father's selfless deed, the younger Kasey said, 'It showed me he still cares'.

Having a good day, dear?
Pam DeVincent took boyfriend Michael Sgalla seriously when he handed her a .38 revolver and told her to shoot him if she really did hate him that much. Sgalla was taken from his Virginia trailer to hospital after suffering a shot to the shin. She is being charged with endangerment with a firearm.

It may be old news, but it is now becoming much bigger business.
Working mothers can now devote even more of their waking hours to their children. Kimberly Sedlacek, of Tacoma, Washington, said the daycare Web cam doesn't distract her from her work for Boeing. Rather, 'if I didn't have it, that would be more distracting'.
Six companies are now selling day-care Web cameras. They are led by the New-York-based ParentWatch, whose systems are used in more than 150 child-care centres. Darius Vasefi, a vice-president of KinderView, said: 'It's a way of portraying trust, saying "Hey, we've got nothing to hide"' to parents who are willing to pay $24.95 a month for this reassurance.
'You get to check in on your children and know they're safe', said Sedlacek, whose four-year-old daughter's dance performances are available online each Friday. A sales executive for the Georgia-based Kids'R'Kids daycare chain explained that privacy is not a problem, because 'our centres always had an open-door policy. Parents could come in any time, and this just expands on that'.

The Associated Press reports on a man's attempt to steal a trailer from an Albuquerque, New Mexico, Home Depot store. Edward Hall hooked the trailer to his pickup truck, but it came unhitched a few kilometres down the road. He decided to try again. The second trailer suffered the same fate, ending up along the side of the road about 75 yards from the first one. On the third attempt, the trailer clipped the patrol car that the sheriff's deputy had parked while investigating wreckage at the side of the road.
Now you get to imagine the ensuing chase. Edward Hall decided not to break 40 km per hour, in a detective's words 'probably because he knows the trailers, at high speeds, don't stay on very well'.

In case my sister felt left out, here is an Iowa item. Des Moines's David Parks wanted his mother, Michaeleen, to give him money for his rent. She said she couldn't give him money until she got paid at the end of the week, so he locked her in her closet for three days. Well, he did unlock the closet when he beat her with the belt. And I guess he opened the door when he fed her (only the best stale popcorn). He was considerate, letting her defecate in a garbage bag and not following through on his threat to cut off her toes.
After three days, Parks decided his mother needed medical attention. To keep a low profile, he took her to a beauty salon, from which one of his friends took her to a drugstore whence she was able to ring the police.

Captialist pigs! Russian state television has done us proud. They broadcast 'before and after' interviews of a woman whose husband died in Kosovo. Before the RTR correspondent told the womman her husband had been shot, the camera crew captured the dressing-gown-clad woman preparing dinner for herself and her daughter.
The report said, 'She is very puzzled by the interest television is paying to her, an ordinary textile worker'. An RTR editor said, 'It was a chance occurrence of circumstances'.

Don't try this at home if your books don't balance. In the course of an audit, the Denver police department discovered $100000 missing from their evidence room. Eric Russell came forward to explain where at least some of the money got to. The retired employee of Waste Management of Colorado said that he found money in the locked basement's rubbish bins 'routinely' from 1994-98. He also claimed to have found 'all kinds of things [...] knives, evidence bags [...] awful crime scene photographs, and objects tagged as evidence in cases'. Although he re-sold some items, this did not include seized drugs, he said.
The department have asked Russell to return any evidence he still has. Now that they have reviewed their waste disposal procedures, it may be a while before they lose the items again.

An 11-year-old boy was suspended from school for five days. The boy's parents offered to make him apologise to the girls he offended. After the boy served 3/5 of his sentence, the Mamaroneck, New York, school relented when the youth's parents called in a lawyer. The lawyer, Ronald Kuby, said the school's concern was misplaced, for the boy 'had never heard the term sexual harassment and may not even know what sex is'. His antics consisted of approaching two girls in the schoolyard and chanting 'Roses are red / Violets are black / Your chest is as flat / as your back'.

30 May 2000

According to a Reuters report, a North Carolina mother was charged with child abuse following her 10-year-old daughter's 'rebirthing' session.
Trying to bond with the girl she adopted in 1996, Jeane Newmaker went to a psychotherapist, who prepared the simulated womb that daughter Candace was meant to crawl out of.
Denver psychologist Albert Magliolo said including the mother among the five people facing prison time may be a 'social statement' more than anything else, because 'you go to an expert who will take the responsibility for you'.
'Rebirthing' usually, as far as I know, does not involve placing pillows around the child and pressing on them to simulate contractions. It did in this case, however. 'Therapist' [a title that required no certification the last time I checked] Connell Watkins hoped this would cause the girl to make her way out of the blanket via a twist in the material, located above her head.
The girl didn't figure this out in time, and she died the next day in hospital.

In Derry, New Hampshire, Mahlon Donovan woke up in the middle of the night. At 3:00am, a car crashed through the bedroom ceiling. The 65-year-old man said, 'I could feel the heat from the exhaust system coming through the sheets'.
Also to feel the heat is the woman whom police later arrested for driving while intoxicated.
Although Donovan said 'The thing was right in front of my face', the accident didn't rouse his wife.

What a way to go! A Misourri man pushed steak down his girlfriend's throat, eventually killing her. James Krebs was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter after plea-bargaining.
Krebs dsecribed telling his girlfriend that her steak had too much fat on it. She said she would eat what she wanted. Krebs said it was at this point that he shoved a bunch of meat down her throat. She reportedly died of asphyxiation.

According to UPI reports, a Lawrenceville, Georgia, couple sued the Towne Park Homeowners Association in an attempt to recover their fine for displaying tacky lawn ornaments. The association placed a lien on their home and set the fine at $3400 ($25 per day) as a penalty for the evils of pink flamingoes.
Sympathetic homeowners in other locales put up their own lawn flamingoes in solidarity.

Kentuckian Gemini Wink went to see the alligators near a friend's house in Tampa, Florida. Being a clever chappie, he marked his path with duct tape so he could find his way back after taking pictures of the swampful of gators. Just before nightfall, he lost track of his trail of tape, and he began to worry about being eaten by the alligators.
His solution was to climb a tree and tape himself to it so as not to fall 12 metres to the ground while sleeping.
Meanwhile, Wink's friend rang emergency services. Deputies had to help him untape himself before he could walk the 400 yards back to his friend's house.


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© 2000 Anna Shefl