Imminent swirling vortex of damnation
Land developers for the iconic Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colo., (famous as the inspiration for the hotel in Stephen King’s “The Shining”) announced recently that they need more space and thus will dig up and move the hotel’s 12-gravesite pet cemetery. Neighbors told the Fort Collins Coloradoan in September that they disapprove of the construction noise, but somehow ignored the potential release of departed spirits (though an “Animal Planet” so-called dog psychic, who lives in Estes Park, seemed to volunteer her services to calm the pets’ souls).
The war against “doing the right thing”
Teach our children well: (1) Officials at Milford Haven School in Pembrokeshire County, Wales, punished Rhys Johnson, 14, in October for violating the dress code against shaved heads. He was helping raise money for an anti-cancer charity after a third relative of his contracted the illness. (2) North Andover (Mass.) High School punished honor student and volleyball captain Erin Cox in October for giving a drunk classmate a ride home. Cox was clean-and-sober, but violated the school’s “zero tolerance” attitude toward alcohol users (even though more student drunk-driving might result if sober friends feared school punishment). …
Walter Dixon knew that he was about to be relocated in December 2012 from a Joliet, Ill., correctional facility to begin serving a new federal drug conspiracy sentence, but instead, state officials mistakenly freed him. Dixon protested, but said he was aggressively dismissed from the premises. It was not until September that he was finally re-arrested and began his new sentence. (Dixon was easily located because, though free, he had met regularly with his parole officer and was taking several vocational courses.)
Advice of counsel
After consulting with a lawyer, Evan Dobelle, president of Massachusetts’ Westfield State University, accused of billing the state for unauthorized travel expenses, is reportedly considering claiming that he actually “self-reported” the violations as soon as suspicions turned up. Dobelle says he would thus be entitled to the protection of the state “whistleblower” statute, which shields inside informers when they expose wrongdoing. (Dobelle was placed on paid leave in October.) …
In September, landlord Elwyn Gene Miller, 64, went on trial in Iowa City for spying on tenants in the small apartment building he owns after apparently having constructed peepholes allowing him views into bathrooms and other areas and having been spotted climbing from a crawl space after accessing one of them. Nonetheless, as Miller’s lawyer pointed out, the law applies only to peeping for “sexual gratification,” and there is no “first-hand knowledge or observation” that Miller was “aroused” at the time he was spotted. (At press time, the judge was mulling a decision.)
Compelling explanations
Lame: (1) In October, Jeffrey Laub, 39, was sentenced on several traffic charges, including leading police on a 111 mph, “Dukes of Hazzard-style” chase through Logan Canyon in Utah, with the explanation only that he needed an emergency restroom because of something he ate. Judge Thomas Willmore called the excuse “one of the worst” he had heard, since Laub had passed several public toilets during the chase. (2) Riverview, Fla., schoolteacher Ethel Anderson, 31, was convicted in September of having sex with a 12-year-old boy she was tutoring, despite her attempt to explain away the key evidence — “hundreds” of sexual text messages — as mere “rewards” to get his attention and encourage progress in math.
People with issues
Among the many arrested recently for having solitary sex in public was Philip Milne, 74, ultimately convicted in the U.K.’s Bedford Magistrates’ Court of touching himself on a transit bus, although he claimed he was merely “shampooing” his troubled genital area and resented “being treated like a hardened criminal.” Also, Stuart Clarke, 48, of Provo, Utah, had some explaining to do after an incident on Delta Air Lines in 2012. He said that he was rubbing his exposed penis only because it burned from accidental contamination with peppermint oil (which so distressed him that, upon landing, he left behind a checked bag). The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force found that out and is currently investigating whether there is more to the “peppermint oil” story than embarrassment-avoidance.
Least competent criminals
(1) A Tucson, Ariz., man apparently escaped a traffic stop in August, but not unscathed. After fleeing to a dead-end street, he climbed out the passenger window, but his foot got caught, and his still-moving car’s back tire ran over his sprawled torso. The motorcycle officer was not able to catch the injured man, who staggered off into the neighborhood. (2) Lucas Burke, 21, and Ethan Keeler, 20, attempting to break into a safe at New Yard Landscaping in Hopkinton, N.H., in October, possibly seeking drug money, unwisely chose to use an acetylene torch. Included in the safe’s contents was a supply of consumer fireworks, and, according to the police report, the resultant explosion “blew their bodies apart.” CV
