My friend and mentor, Kirk Shreve, died unexpectedly three years and two weeks ago. Kirk was a really stellar guy; I learned so much from him. He buried my Grandma Mastroberti six months before he died.Slog:
The concept of treating one's spouse with love, honor, and respect has taken a beating of late, so it's truly a thrill to read of the deaths of Sir Edward Downes, 85, and his wife, Joan, 74. The much-honored British orchestra conductor put his eternal mark on "til death do us part" by flying to Switzerland last week to take his own life at the side of his cancer-ravaged wife.
Unlike newly enlightened Washington State, Britain's archaic no-assisted-suicide laws have resulted in a bizarre travel industry as 120 or so dying citizens have left the country in search of dignified deaths. This case has raised the tension level over that misbegotten system (particularly since Sir Downes wasn't terminally ill), but let's leave that debate for another day. The loveliness of this story is the best encapsulated in this first-hand report of their deaths:
On Friday, the children said, they watched, weeping, as their parents drank "a small quantity of clear liquid" before lying down on adjacent beds, holding hands.
"Within a couple of minutes they were asleep, and died within 10 minutes," Caractacus Downes, the couple's 41-year-old son, said in the interview after his return to Britain. "They wanted to be next to each other when they died." He added, "It is a very civilized way to end your life, and I don't understand why the legal position in this country doesn’t allow it."The couple had been married 54 years.
NYT:The slain officer, who was assigned to patrol housing projects and was wearing plain clothes, was shot in the arm and chest after a team of three other plainclothes officers in a car saw him chasing a man on East 125th Street between First and Second Avenues with his gun drawn, Mr. Kelly said.Sources identified the officer who fired the shot as Andrew Dunton, a four-year veteran of the force from Long Island...
The shooting has once again raised questions again about departmental procedures involving communications among plainclothes officers — particularly those in different units — as well as issues of race.Officer Edwards was black, and Officer Dunton is white.
ALLENDALE, S.C. - James Hines was a giant — a 6-foot-7, 300-pound preacher and funk musician so big that after he died in 2004, a macabre rumor began circulating in this small town that the undertaker had to cut off his legs to fit him in the coffin.This week, after years of whispers, Hines' body was exhumed, and the gruesome story appeared to be all too true.
The coroner's office said only that it had found "undesirable evidence," and a criminal investigation has been opened. But Hines' widow said investigators told her that his legs had been cut off between the ankle and calf, and his feet had been placed inside the casket.
From MSNBC:A dead body is seen frozen in a block of ice located in an elevator shaft in a former Detroit Public Schools warehouse building Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009 in Detroit, Mich. The Detroit News newspaper says it took making three calls to Detroit authorities over two days before they recovered the body of the man. Authorities used saws to extricate the body Wednesday afternoon, the Detroit Free Press and WDIV-TV said. Investigators said they think the body was there for several months. The man's name and the cause of his death weren't immediately known.
Xin Yang's head was cut off with a kitchen knife, just weeks after arriving in the United States from China to study accounting.Her alleged attacker, Haiyang Zhu, also from China, was arrested at the scene by an officer who arrived less than a minute after receiving an emergency call.
On January 7, he wrote on a Chinese-language blog he had been so frustrated over stock losses and other problems that he thought "only of killing someone or committing suicide".
Miss Xin, 22, was believed to have been having coffee with Haiyang in the campus Au Bon Pain cafe.
Seven witnesses from the cafe have said there was no argument or shouting prior to the killing on Wednesday at 7pm.
The officer on the scene reported finding 25-year-old Haiyang holding her head in his hand, according to a police affidavit.
RIP, Xin.
HOUSTON - A Texas death row inmate with a history of mental problems pulled out his only good eye and told authorities he ate it.Andre Thomas, 25, was arrested for the fatal stabbings of his estranged wife, their young son and her 13-month-old daughter in March 2004. Their hearts also had been ripped out. He was convicted and condemned for the infant's death.
While in the Grayson County Jail in Sherman, Thomas plucked out his right eye before his trial later in 2004. A judge subsequently ruled he was competent to stand trial.
On Dec. 9, a death-row officer at the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice found Thomas in his cell with blood on his face and took him to the infirmary.
""Thomas said he pulled out his eye and subsequently ingested it," agency spokesman Jason Clark said Friday.....
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in October upheld his conviction and death sentence for the death of 13-month-old Leyha Marie Hughes. Also killed March 27, 2004, were his wife, Laura Christine Boren, 20, and their son, 4-year-old Andre Lee.
Thomas, from Texoma, walked into the Sherman Police Department and told a dispatcher he had just murdered the three and had stabbed himself in the chest.
Thomas told police how he put his victims' hearts in his pocket and left their apartment, took them home, put them in a plastic bag and threw them in the trash.
Court documents described the three victims as having "large, gaping wounds to their chests."
Dakota Culkin, the 29-year-old sister of actor Macaulay Culkin, died yesterday from injuries sustained after she was hit by a car in Los Angeles Tuesday."She was taken to UCLA hospital with massive head trauma and passed away on Dec. 10th at 12:45 PM," the LAPD said in a statement. "The driver stopped, rendered aid, and identified himself as required by law. Detectives have determined that the driver was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol, so no crime was committed."
In a statement to reporters, Macaulay Culkin's spokeswoman, Michelle Bega, called Dakota's death a "terrible tragic accident" and said the family had no further comment.
From Seattle PI:GAINESVILLE, Ga. -- An Army wife accused of setting her apartment on fire botched an attempt to collect on her husband's $400,000 insurance policy when he survived and her two children died instead, a federal prosecutor said.Billi Jo Smallwood, 35, was denied bond at a Friday hearing in northeast Georgia, where she appeared on federal charges of damaging government property by fire.
"She set fire to her own home in hopes of killing her husband and wound up killing her kids," Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Gabay-Smith said.
::shakes head:: What an awful story. Gay couples in Arkansas who would love to have a family can't adopt kids. Unfortunately, crazy, irresponsible bio moms everywhere are permitted to raise their children with no questions asked.
Rest in peace, Sam and Rebekah
FLAGSTAFF, Arizona (AP) -- A man who police believe was shot and killed by his 8-year-old son had consulted a Roman Catholic priest about whether the boy should have a gun and had taught him how to use firearms, the clergyman said.Vincent Romero, 29, and Timothy Romans, 39, were found fatally shot in Romero's home Wednesday. The Very Rev. John Paul Sauter said the man, Vincent Romero, 29, wanted his son to learn how to hunt, but the boy's stepmother, Tiffany, suggested that he have a BB gun.
Police say the boy used a 22.-caliber rifle Wednesday to kill his father and another man, Timothy Romans, 39, of San Carlos.
Romero was an avid hunter who taught his son how to use a rifle to kill prairie dogs, said Sauter, of St. Johns Catholic Church.
"He wanted to make sure the kid wasn't afraid of guns, knew how to handle it," the priest said. "He was just too young. ... That child, I don't think he knows what he did, and it was brutal."
The boy, who faces two counts of premeditated murder, did not act on the spur of the moment, St. Johns Police Chief Roy Melnick said.
EVANSTON, Ill. — A 90-year-old woman apparently has been living in a house with the bodies of her three siblings, one of whom may have been dead since the early 1980s, police in suburban Chicago said.The bodies were found Friday morning after an advocate called police, said Evanston police Cmdr. Tom Guenther.
The woman was taken to a hospital for observation. The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office said Saturday that the siblings had died of natural causes, but it would not say how long they had been dead.
The office has identified the dead as Anita Bernstorff, who was born in 1910, Elaine Bernstorff, born in 1916, and Frank Bernstorff, born in 1920. Anita Bernstorff was last seen alive in May 2008, Frank Bernstorff in 2003 and Elaine Bernstorff in the early 1980s....
