1 February 2025
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Who doesn't like a wedding?...
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.
- 11 March 2025
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When Michigan's Harrison Jones uncovered his ex-girlfriend's plans to
travel to Bensalem, Pennsylvania, for purposes of finally seeing a
male online acquaintance in person, he undertook the same 1,130 km
pilgrimage. Number-plate cameras linked the ensuing 'intentionally
set and incendiary' fire at her 21-year-old suitor's home to the black
sedan driven by Jones. All six residents escaped the blaze, some by
jumping from upstairs windows, but two dogs perished and the home
was a write-off.
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.
- 26 March 2025
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Family fun...
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.
- 14 April 2025
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A charming relationship...
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.
- 16 May 2025
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Gotta love your in-laws, it seems.
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.
- 25 June 2025
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A visitor to Disneyland Paris rang the police to report getting cold
feet after having received a five-digit sum to play the bride's father
in a mock wedding there. His unease stemmed from the bride being, in
the words of one of the 100 French extras recruited as wedding guests,
'a little girl dressed in white with her hair all done up'. This
nine-year-old Ukrainian girl, who had arrived in France two days
earlier, was to be filmed becoming the 'wife' of Jacky Jhaj, a
39-year-old sex offender wanted in the UK.
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'.
- 19 July 2025
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Witness the patriotic fervour displayed by
Arthu Sahakyan, who declared that the MAGA flags will remain in place at
his Diamond Bar, California, home even though the same cannot be said
of his wife, Arpineh Masihi, who has been carted off by ICE agents.
Masihi, who has borne him four children, entered the US legally at age
3 as a refugee from Iran but was later convicted for theft. Ever
since, the family had been working within the immigration system to
bring her back into federal good graces. Sahakyan stated: 'Even
though my friends say "take the flag down - you're going through a
lot', I'm like "no; the flag stands".'
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'.
- 28 August 2025
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After his 11-year-old step-daughter gave birth at home, Oklahoma's
Dustin Walker was charged with felonious child neglect for not having
sought any prenatal care for her. His response that he'd been utterly
unaware of the full-term pregnancy prompted further questions, the
answers to which crystallised in a paternity test showing a 99.9%
match between his genetic material and the infant's paternal DNA. He
now faces more charges, while wife Cherie is accused of enabling child
sexual abuse. Also, both stand accused of neglecting their shared
children, ages 9, 7, 6, 4, and 2, who were removed from the home after
being found unclothed and wallowing in dog faeces.
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'.
- 7 October 2025
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Two people who connected via a dating app decided to meet in an
Aventura, Florida, hotel room. One of them was a foot model who sells
her used trainers online. The other was Elmoncy Sercle, 28, who
allegedly began the first date by asking to sniff her feet and
purchase her shoes. When she expressed openness to only the second of
these requests and cited a $1,000 price tag, he sprinted for the car
park. Chasing him on the assumption that he'd stolen something from
her, she ended up with arm and chest bruises allegedly inflicted by
his SUV. The police caught up with him only after he attempted to
book a room at the hotel again.
- 14 October 2025
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Kentucky brings us a special relationship and a rather
strong case against Daniel A. Kearney, 39 in relation to the death of
his partner, Damian Poole. Poole's decomposing gunshot-riddled
body was discovered in his McCreary County home, along with the bodies
of his two dogs. This is thanks to Kearney having penned a 'to-do'
list that features such items as steps for removing blood stains,
'paint everything', and reminders of what evidence to hide where - and
because he hadn't followed his own instructions. For example, Kearney
did not spread the ashes on the road in another state.
He too faces charges of abusing a corpse and tampering with physical
evidence. But he is accused also of murder and cruelty to animals.
- 11 December 2025
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When a New Jersey man felt horny at 4am, he thought the best solution
was to send the text message 'bring ya ass' to his 'side chick',
29-year-old Taija Russell. She obliged; however, he had fallen asleep
by the time she reached his home to supply the sex requested. He
didn't hear her at the door and failed to answer her eight calls or
respond to her text messages - which culminated in 'You wasted my
money to come out here' and 'I see you wanna die'.
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.
- 8 January 2026
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A 15-year-old Bradenton, Florida, girl saw someone wearing a surgical
mask drive away from her home in a silver Honda Odyssey minivan,
shortly before she found her 54-year-old father shot in the abdomen.
He died, but not before identifying suspects as requested: 'possibly my
ex-wife'. When cops then visited the woman in question, Susan Erica
Avalon, 51, they interrupted her cleaning of the interior of her silver
Honda Odyssey to ask whether they could speak with her about her ex.
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.
- 11 Febuary 2026
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An exemplar family, with a father keeping his children away from
alcohol:
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.
- 6 March 2026
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Today we have a fucked-relationship-adjacent item:
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.'
- 2 April 2026
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Let's start with a happy family:
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.