Canadian serial killer Karla Holmolka gives birth

Between 1990-1992, Karla Holmolka, together with her husband Paul Bernardo, raped and murdered at least four teenage girls, including her own sister. In return for testifying against her husband, Karla received a plea bargain, pleading guilty to manslaughter and receiving a 12 year prison sentence. She finished serving her time and was released on July 4, 2005. Paul is still in prison. In 2005, That 70's Show's Laura Prepon starred in a film about the couple's crimes.

Now it is being reported in the Canadian media that she, using the name Leanne Teale, gave birth to a seven pound boy at a Montreal hospital on February 3rd.

The lawyer for the families of her victims said, "There is a very distressing irony that their children won't grow up to have children, and the person who willingly participated in their abduction, kidnapping and sex torture and murder is now having a child."

Source: The Globe and Mail, City News

Not Starring Justin Timberlake, Borat, Michael J. Fox or Jessica Alba

Monday Night Shoot All

Nolle Prosequi

Expect some changes around here soon. There's a new sheriff in town, and his name is Reggie Hammond. You all be cool, right on.

Guns Don't Kill People. People Kill People.

"A body found in north-east London has been identified as that of a banker who was questioned by the FBI about the Enron fraud case. Police said they were treating the death in Chingford of Neil Coulbeck, who worked for the Royal Bank of Scotland until 2004, as "unexplained"."
[BBC]

"Coulbeck joins convicted Enron kingpin Ken Lay and U.S. Export-Import Bank chief (and Cheney crony) Phlip Merrill on the roster of convenient deaths related to the U.S.-Enron collapse. Lay's involvement with Enron's crimes is well known. Less documented is the deep criminal involvement of the U.S. Export-Import bank -- a little-understood federal agency that shovels billions to "foreign" companies and governments to encourage exports of American goods and services. In reality, the Ex-Im bank mostly hands taxpayer money to American corporations with foreign operations such as Enron, which took some $800 million from Ex-Im between the two Bush presidencies.
[Sploid]

"A coroner in Texas has ruled that Clifford Baxter, a former senior executive of the bankrupt US energy giant Enron, committed suicide."
[BBC]

"According to a police source, Skilling was running up to people in bars and on the street, pulling open their clothes, and claiming that they were undercover FBI agents. The source said police took Skilling to a hospital for observation and he was not charged with a crime. Skilling is facing 35 federal counts including fraud, insider trading and other crimes in the collapse of Enron."
[Capital News 9]

This post brought to you by And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead.

Whip City

Nothing really starts your day off right as does a big picture of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie on the front page of your local paper. And to find that Whip City itself is the center of attention, well...lemme tell you.

According to TMZ, "...the FBI and Massachusetts authorities raided a Westfield, Mass. home Tuesday night and seized photos of a baby shower held by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt."

But according to the local paper here, "The FBI somehow got left out of all the fun. Michael G. O'Reilly, supervisor of the FBI's Western Massachusetts office, said yesterday his agency had not been involved, as did Enfield Police Chief Carl J. Sferrazza."

No matter. For those of you not familiar with this very important case, it goes like this. Jolie's brother took the offending photos. His camera was broken so he brought it back to Best Buy so that they could fix it. Best Buy sent the camera, with the memory stick still in place, to Precision Camera and Video repair in Enfield Conn. Why you might ask did the Best Buy in LA send the camera, literally, all the way across the country? Well, actually, your guess is as good as mine, though the store does claim online to be the largest camera repair facility in North America, and they do repair warranty repair for all the major camera manufactures.

Again according to TMZ, "...two employees at Precision, Bill Keyes and Adam Beckwith, discovered the pictures in the digital camera. We're told that Keyes told authorities that Beckwith downloaded the photos."

Keyes than floated a balloon out to Celebrity Baby Blog and others, attempting to ascertain the value of his sweet find.

But somebody dropped on a dime on him, and that's when the authorities in LA contacted the authorities out here, and a search warrant was served on Keyes home. The photos now sit safely in the Wesfield Police Department, awaiting a safe return to their rightful owners. I imagine they will be escorted back to Jolie on Air Force one itself.

[TMZ: Police Raids Over Jolie-Pitt Baby Shower]

Who Killed The Electric Car?

Opening in NY and LA on June 28th.

Because even though it's just a car, that doesn't make it any less of a crime.

The Case

Q&A

Tickets:

The Angelica

Lincoln Plaza

In LA:

Arclight Cinemas

Link to the NOW segment with the Director of Who Killed The Electric Car

[You Tube, in three parts]

[Sony Pictures Classics/Who Killed The Electric Car.]

How Many Policemen Does It Take...

to retrieve a football?

Ray Markham found out when he decided to make a stand against rogue footballs and refused to return one after it smashed a window:

The 68-year-old, who lives next to a policeman in Cubbington, said he was then arrested by four Warwickshire Police officers for theft of the ball... Mr Markham said: "If it hadn't been a policeman next door let's be honest, I wouldn't have had four policeman on my doorstep, I wouldn't have seen a policeman. They can't come out to burglaries, do you think they would've come out, four policeman to collect a ball?"

With the current World Cup fever gripping the UK and our brave boys doing their bit overseas it's surprising that Markham didn't find himself crucified in his front garden as a warning for others to be more reverent of out national sport. Or is that cricket? I forget.

BBC: Man arrested over ball in garden

How Do You Put A Corporation In Jail?

You don't. You can't. It's only a piece of paper that exists, most likely, in some back room of a drab looking state building in Delaware. A small white piece of paper, with more rights than a person, yet without the unfortunate application of responsibilty and accountability that we ourselves have to be saddled with.

I want to be a corporation.

"Drugmaker Merck & Co.'s research facility in West Point dumped a chemical compound that included cyanide into the sewer system, killing more than 1,000 fish in Wissahickon Creek, federal authorities said Thursday."

"It's hard to believe that a huge company like Merck would take this long to get to the bottom of such a serious problem," said Tracy Carluccio of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, a nonprofit environmental group.

Um, actually, no. It's not.

And than, as if on cue from the devil himself, "A week after a contaminant was released into the Wissahickon Creek, killing more than 1,000 fish, malfunctions at the Ambler sewage treatment plant Monday night sent 55,000 gallons of raw sewage into the waterway."

Philadelphia Inquirer

Merck & Company Inc.
West Point Facility
P.O. Box 4
770 Sumneytown Pike
WP20-208
West Point, PA 19486
Montgomery County

Contact:
Steven C. Wittmer
Director, Site Environmental Management
Merck & Co. Inc. - West Point
215-652-6427
215-652-3931 (fax)
steven_wittmer@merck.com

Arson. It's What All The Kids Are Doing

Awoke to the sun shining thru my blindless windows at 5am-ish. Heard the familiar sounds of heavy trucks backing up and moving around sluggishly. I made a mental note about this, as I used to hear this every morning when the garbage trucks would come slumbering down the street. I no longer hear these sounds though, as garbage trucks are no longer allowed to do pick-ups before 7am due to the unfortunate noise they produce.

Then I smelt the smoke. That unmistakable smoke smell.

Looked out the window, and this is what I saw.

Put on my pants, grabbed the camera, woke the roommate, and went outside.

And I took photos.

I took photos of a house burning down to the ground, a target of a succesful arson attempt. Only a few short weeks after a similar attempt in March.

At approx. 2 am this morning, someone walked up to the back porch, poured gasoline all over it, and set it ablaze. Six people lived in that house, and all six made it out safely.

Video of the firefighting effort, and of the subsequent demolition, here.