1 February 2025
Our second item too is from Australia. Upon arrival at a social-media friend's party in Sydney, a Melbourne woman found that she was the only one obeying the 'wear white' dress code. At the venue, a church, he asked her to act as the bride in a prank wedding to boost his 17,000-strong following on Instagram. She honoured the request, after ringing a friend to be sure a ceremony without banns etc. holds no legal weight. When he asked her, two months later, to add him to her application for permanent Australian residency, she did not love hearing that she was really his wife. She then found documents bearing her 'signature'.
A family court found little credence in the man's claims that videos from the church prove the devoutly religious woman was willing, that she'd moved in with him, and that he wasn't even an online influencer. Accepting the unwitting bride's explanation 'we had to make it look real', the judge declared the wedding unreal - i.e., annulled.
On the opposite side of the world, we find Florida's Donald Calloway,
arrested by Polk County sheriff's officers for sexual contact with a
horse. Responding to a woman's report of having found the 53-year-old
Lake Wales man masturbating next to the head of her 24-year-old horse
and seen him try to shove his penis into one of the animal's nostrils,
they sought clarification. The witness - Calloway's girlfriend -
therefore supplied a video that Sheriff Grady Judd characterised as
accurately showing the actions described.
After he was read his rights, Calloway shrugged off his 'dumb
decision' by stating that 'I haven't had any sex in probably two
months' and 'maybe it was just a sexually frustrated moment'. It is
unclear whether he is less sexually frustrated in jail.
Jones, 21, whom authorities found back in Michigan with lock picks and arm burns, has been charged with risking catastrophe, six counts of attempted criminal homicide, and arson.
Responding to reports of vandalism, police officers in Deltona, Florida, encountered two paint-dappled teenagers attacking a vehicle with yellow spray paint and eggs. The elder of the two, aged 18, explained that she'd been getting back at her ex-boyfriend. The cops, in turn, explained that the car belonged to the ex's neighbour. In addition to reporting her for vandalism and contributing to the delinquency of the 16-year-old girl accompanying her, Volusia Sheriff's Office '[d]eputies witnessed her driving her vehicle with two open containers of Four Loko in plain view' and under their contents' influence. The other girl was busted for having marijuana.
When California's Jamison Webster failed to return home after visiting son Richard Leyva at a Motel 6 in El Cajon, California, her other son visited the motel and promptly rang the police to report that only her Hyundai Sonata was there - with her corpse in the boot. Before officers arrived, 'Leyva got into the Hyundai and drove off, striking his brother in the process', prompting an attempted traffic stop, then a pursuit that ended with a crash into two other vehicles and a stun-gun deployment. Both Leyva, 24, and Webster, 51, were removed from the scene for further investigation.
Off to a good start...
When a couple at a restaurant in Livingston, Tennessee, complained
about foreign matter in their food, manager Patrick Jones apologised
profusely. He recalls telling the refund-seeking pair: 'It looks like
somebody pulled a wad of hair out of their head and placed it right on
your plate. That's awful.' After Jones issued a refund, a fellow
Steel Coop customer alerted him that the woman had passed the man a
chunk of hair from behind her head to spice up the meal. So Jones ran
outside in pursuit. Around a corner, the man was on one knee
proposing marriage to the woman.
That did not deter Jones from informing them that they are personae
non gratae at the eatery or stop owner Cindy Cooper from posting the
incriminating CCTV evidence online. She reports that a relative later
paid the pair's $20 bill.
Plotting to get his former girlfriend deported, Jose Pablo Romero piled pressure on his 19-year-old wife for help in framing her. This included punching his wife, cutting her hair off, and stabbing her in the abdomen. As soon as she'd made it through emergency surgery, he asked her to blame the stabbing on his ex. The attempts to secure her testimony ultimately succeeded, after he carved an 'X' from her shoulders to her waist with a box-cutter and left her in a field; however, she testified against him rather than on his behalf.
Romero was convicted of numerous offences and locked up. That was 10 years ago. Romero, now 48, has now sought and been denied parole, with District Attorney Krishna Abrams reminding the California Parole Board that his victim is suffering for life.
And family values...
One of the roughly 200 children adopted or fostered by a Winfield,
Missouri, woman complained to authorities about frequent beatings and
paddlings with various household items. They followed up only after
the girl's absence from school revealed rumours that the 70-year-old
woman had exchanged her for a monkey owned by a fellow exotic-animal
collector. Child-welfare officials in Texas found the girl and have
placed her in a group home, where she is reportedly thriving.
Lincoln County Prosecutor Mike Wood, reports that the foster mother
is in jail, at least for the moment. Though two witnesses admit to
having obeyed requests to take the girl to Texas and bring back a
monkey, this does not constitute proof of a trade, Wood pointed out.
Brazil's Jordelia Pereira Barbosa embraced the Easter spirit by sending chocolate eggs to her ex-boyfriend's family. Not keen to receive credit, she bought these while in disguise and had a bicycle courier deliver them. Receipts nonetheless emerged, shortly after the children of her ex's current partner, Mirian Lira, were rushed to hospital with symptoms of acute poisoning - poisoning that proved fatal to seven-year-old Luis Silva.
Investigators then recalled an incident in which Barbosa, 35, had attempted to insinuate tainted sweeties into a chocolate tasting at Lira's workplace. This plot failed because she could not supply credentials from the company she claimed to represent.
Someone else with love for the in-laws...
Meanwhile in Australia, a trial now making headlines is making clear
that 50-year-old Erin Patterson can boast a more impressive
dead-in-law tally. Though her estranged husband did not accept the
invitation for a home-cooked meal cum discussion of her medical
issues, his parents, aunt, and uncle did. Having enjoyed a beef
Wellington preparation inspired in part by a notice from the Victoria
Department of Health, all four were hospitalised the next day with
medical issues of their own. In the absence of evidence that they'd
consumed the locally growing death-cap mushrooms mentioned in
state-wide health advisories, three of the four ultimately succumbed
to Amanita mushroom toxins in the following week.
While Patterson's claimed cancer diagnosis had given her a cover
story for eschewing the beef dish, it soon became apparent that was
cancer-free and had lied about having suffered symptoms similar to her
guests' and about having foraged for mushrooms. Patterson, 50,
maintains that she is innocent of anything murder-related.
And finally, another way of nourishing relations with food
During a late-night domestic-disturbance call-out in Port St. Lucie,
Florida, Allyson Swan told the police that all was fine - her wife, in
a 'drunken rage', had merely thrown nachos on the floor and rolled
around in them. The wife offered an alternative explanation for her
cheesy clothing, the hole in the wall, and her head injuries: she'd
been preparing cheese-covered crisps when Swan started kvetching about
her late-night eating habits and weight, shoved a handful of nachos
down her knickers, and started beating her. Officers found the latter
account more credible, and Swan, 39, has been charged with battery
causing bodily harm.
According to Meaux prosecutor Jean-Baptiste Bladier, Jhaj, who has filmed many of his escapades over the years, had engaged in identity theft - posing as a Latvian man named Clyde - for purposes of hiring the amusement park for his roughly 130,000-euro non-nuptials and been 'made up professionally so that his face appeared totally different from his own'.
He explained that the US very much should vet Iranian nationals, 'because of the sleeper cells', and that Donald Trump, with immigration policies designed to strengthen national security, 'is not trying to do anything bad'.
In an even more cheerful family-relations story, 45-year-old Old Order Amish Church
Marcus Miller is believed to have been subject to a 'spiritual
delusion' when swimming far enough out into Ohio's Atwood Lake that he
could not be rescued. His son Vincen, age 4, died simultaneously,
cast into the water by the 40-year-old mother as a gift to the Lord in
parallel with her husband's 'test of faith'.
The couple's 15-year-old daughter and twin 18-year-old sons later
told authorities that they'd seen her leave in the morning with the
boy, then return alone. That was before she drove the three teenagers
into the lake aboard a golf cart. Though all four emerged on their
own, first responders prevented her from leaving the scene when
witnesses expressed concerns about the missing family members.
Sheriff Orvis Campbell reported that she was taken to a locked
mental-health facility and drew a map that helped investigators
recover the bodies. Campbell concluded in summary that the pair were
'devoted to the Bible and that just manifested itself incorrectly'.
He too faces charges of abusing a corpse and tampering with physical evidence. But he is accused also of murder and cruelty to animals.
So she purchased lighter fluid, matches, and a cigarette lighter at a nearby petrol station. And he awoke. He escaped from his burning residence by removing a window frame and climbing through the opening. In a plea deal, Russell has admitted to arson.
Back in April, the same petrol station provided supplies to Tasia Young, 33, who had similar aims. Her arson was prompted by her boyfriend sending her home during a threesome while letting the other woman stay.
Her response 'Which one?' led them to send officers to the residence of Avalon's other former husband. Sure enough, someone had broken in via the back door there and left him with fatal gunshot wounds.
Sheriff Rick Wells quoted her current boyfriend as saying she'd showered fully clothed when returning home earlier in the day and that she'd been worried about not having paid child support on time.
More an 'oopsie' in a relationship:
Let's end with another AI item, from the Netherlands, where a couple
asked a friend to officiate at their wedding. That friend consulted
ChatGPT for assistance in drafting lighthearted yet endearing vows.
Hence, the two promised to 'laugh together, grow together, and love
each other, no matter what' but did not declare intent to honour all
the legal obligations linked to marriage under the Dutch Civil Code.
Therefore, a judge in Zwolle has ruled that they did not actually
tie the knot. While their vows called them 'a crazy couple', the pair
argued that it is hardly crazy to expect the official at a civil
ceremony to point out such omissions. They added that they would be
emotionally harmed by the date change associated with their marriage
certificate getting declared 'erroneously recorded'. However, unlike
the AI agent, the court stressed that it must not ignore the law.
A 41-year-old man pulled over by Westminster, Colorado, police for reckless driving admitted to 'acting like an idiot' but not to intoxication. After insisting that the officers had confused the smell of his nicotine pouches for alcohol yet declining to perform field sobriety tests, he was handcuffed. At this point, he deemed it worth telling the officers that his children were in the boot. They and several bottles of alcohol were recovered from the vehicle.
The three children, all under age 12, are being cared for by family members while their father awaits trial on various charges.
After a night out in Maidenhead, a woman staying at a hotel on her own for the first time awoke with a start: a man who'd been at the same party earlier was sexually assaulting her. The man, Kyran Smith, had provided Travelodge desk personnel with her name and claimed to be her boyfriend, so they provided her room number and a key card.
He was handed a 7.5-year jail term for the assault and trespassing, and Travelodge offered the victim, in her late 20s, a 30-pound refund alongside assurances that reception staff had followed established security procedures. She denounced the amount as 'very insulting'. As for procedures, 'if [...] the room booking is just for me, why would you think it's okay to let someone in in the middle of the night while I'm asleep? At least wake me up or phone the room or come up to the room. Anything is better than just giving someone a key card.'
In 2024, Georgia's Colt Gray executed a firearm-assisted outburst that executed two teachers and two schoolmates in Georgia. Before that, Colin Gray had tried to soothe his son's mental disturbance by offering to let him visit a school therapist... and by buying him an AR-15-style rifle for Christmas to nurture their bond via hunting together. After Colt bonded with the weapon itself, which he slept with, his mother urged her (now ex-)husband to revoke Colt's access to it. She cited the 14-year-old's shrine to school shooters as one reason for concern.
A jury in Barrow County has found Colin, 55, criminally responsible for murder and guilty of cruelty to children and reckless behavior. Colt's day in court meanwhile has not yet come; he has pleaded not guilty to, in all, 55 felonies and is being tried as an adult.
No noteworthy teacher-sex news items had reached my attention for quite a while. Perhaps
Washington high-school teacher and youth-group leader Madeline Gregory
was trying to rectify this when engaging in trysts with a 16-year-old
student in such locations as a classroom closet, a storage locker in
the gym, and the bushes outside Sprague High School. The case came to
police attention for the first time just after Valentine's Day, thanks
to the boy's mother investigating her son's newfound habit of frantic
typing on his phone into the wee hours.
There were text-message notes such as 'I don't want to lose you'
from the 29-year-old woman, who seems to have been desperate for her
student of two years not to break off the relationship. She'd told
him of her marital issues, threatened to kill herself if abandoned,
and ordered the youth not to date anyone else in the community - which
has a population below 600 (excluding sex-crime reporters).
This relationship tangle reached my attention because of London's
Court of Appeal:
A man sought to take over paternal responsibility for the baby listed
on the child's birth certificate as the offspring of his identical
twin. After explaining that she had had sex with the two men within
four days of each other and supports the responsibility claim, the
mother was told by Judge Sir Andrew McFarlane that 'DNA testing
establishes [only] that the child's biological father is one of these
twins', though reasonably priced tests might be able to tell beyond a
50% chance which is the father before the child reaches adulthood.
Since 'failure to prove [the paternity listed on the certificate]
means that that fact is not proved [but also] does not mean that the
contrary is proved', neither twin will have parental responsibility,
pending further arguments.
Kouri Richins is a Utah-based mother of three who published a
children's book about grief in the wake of her husband's sudden death
in 2022. She could write about her experience of several other topics
also, such as how to forge documents for multiple life-insurance
policies not long before the insured dies from a fentanyl-laced
drink.
A recently-concluded court case, in which the jury took three hours
to find her guilty of murder, revealed also that she'd used trial and
error to learn the correct dose for poisoning one's cuckolded spouse:
Among the 40 witnesses was her housekeeper, who testified that Richins
had asked her for 'something stronger' than the usual pain pills to
help 'an investor Richins knew'. A bite from the Valentine's Day
sandwich Richins handed her husband a few days later left him breaking
out in hives and reaching for his son's EpiPen. He died in March.
Of the incident, officially termed a 'domestic disturbance' and a 'family annihilation', Shreveport city-council member Grayson Boucher lamented that 'we've more than doubled our homicide' figure 'because of one act of domestic violence'.
More a complex-family story than a fucked-family one, but still...
I have featured items about wrong-sperm lawsuits against fertility
clinics before. Our next story ramps this up a notch, with a white
Florida couple's implanted embryo emerging into the world as a girl of
South Asian heritage. After genetic tests confirmed that Steven Mills
and Tiffany Score's daughter, Shea, was not genetically related to
either of them, IVF Life, Inc., identified the South Asian couple
whose egg retrieval and embryo transfer occurred in the relevant span
of time.
Stressing their 'intensely strong' bond with Shea, the couple are
focused more on the fate of their unaccounted-for embryos. They want
IVF Life to pay for genetic tests of all children born in the five-year
window since their three embryos entered storage. The clinic, in turn,
have announced plans to cease operation in May.
Kaleb Mickens, a Texas 'influencer' with
the moniker Cash Cartier, rang emergency dispatchers to report that his
dog Soldier had rendered his girlfriend Sheila Cuevas unresponsive.
Animal-control officers hauled the dog away, putting Soldier down 11
days later. They then recognised that the canine had not caused
Cuevas's puncture wounds, broken ribs, drugging, or ultimate death.
In court, several female members of the multi-level marketing
'training team' via which Mickens had raked in as much as $20,000 a
week described torture and other acts of what the Tarrant County
district attorney called personal devastation. Mickens, 34, has been
assigned 40 years in prison, alongside a few years for other assaults.
The NL Times brings us the harrowing tale of a a Dutch man who put a
low-cost tattoo machine from AliExpress to extensive use, branding his
![[IMG: Some of the evil graffiti by Hans Hans Hans]](../clip/images/hanshanshans.png)
former girlfriend, 52, with more than 250 renderings of his name
(Hans), his initials, and claims of owning her. Though fixated on
branding portions of her body that he perceived to be the focus of
other men's physical attention, he ended up covering more than 90% of
her skin with ink over several years. Andy Han, with the organisation
Spijt van Tattoo, or Tattoo Regret, expressed disappointment that the
authorities had found it difficult to prove her lack of consent.
Stating that she had acquiesced only from a position of drug- and
alcohol-dependence amid 'stalking, threatening, and intimidation', he
argued that 'any reasonable person knows someone wouldn't voluntarily
get tattoos near the eye, on the nose, or on the ear'. On the
positive side, he reported solid progress with removing the 'sign of
control and possession', thanks largely to donations from the public.
Harvey Marcelin is an octogenarian who created multiple Facebook
accounts carrying the profile photo of one Susan Leyden, an
unfortunate woman who'd visited his flat to see a friend and never
left. Prosecutors allege that Marcelin, 87, bludgeoned Susan Leyden
to death, placed some parts of her body in plastic bags, and abandoned
her torso - in her own wheeled luggage - on a Brooklyn street near his
home. When arrested, Marcelin was in the clothes he'd worn when
buying the saws used in the dismemberment, with the corresponding Home
Depot receipt still in the pocket.
His attorney paints the murder as the work of the homeless woman who
told prosecutors what she'd seen when showing up to feed her crack and
heroin habit with Marcelin.
A judge had ruled that knowing Marcelin's history could prejudice
the jury at his trial. In 1963, he shot, cornered, and then killed
his girlfriend. In 1985, a year after his release on lifetime parole,
he stabbed a new girlfriend to death in their flat. And in 2019, he
told a parole board 'I give you my word, I will never re-offend'.