Newsettes
I come across a lot news articles that I want to post, but I dont want to make a new thread every single time something I think is interesting comes up.
Here I will, and you may post little news articles, which I have called [I]Newsettes[/I], that are worth a read, but not a thread.
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Interesting stuff about the mounds:
[QUOTE=local paper, ohio section][B]Serpent Mound rock samples show evidence of meteorite[/B]
Monday, April 18, 2005
CLEVELAND — Scientists studying recent rock samples taken from beneath an ancient earthen mound are trying to determine what caused unusually high concentrations of a metal rarely seen anywhere but near Earth’s molten core or in asteroids and comets.
Serpent Mound, an earthen snake effigy believed to have been built from about 1000 B.C. to A.D. 200 is about 60 miles east of Cincinnati. Some believe the 1,348-foot-long mound had a religious function for its builders, although nobody knows for sure what philosophy and beliefs shaped its origin because the mound builders left no written records.
Geologists only recently discovered high concentrations of iridium 1,412 feet beneath the mound. The levels of the silver-gray metal, occasionally brought up in lava from volcanoes, measured 10 times beyond what is usually present in the Earth’s crust. Since there are no lava fields in Ohio, some geologists point to the iridium as evidence that the mound sits upon a slightly oblong crater created when a massive extraterrestrial object slammed into Earth.
“I think we can say with authority today that this is an impact from a meteorite,” Mark T. Baranoski, a geologist with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said. “It affected the region in a spectacular way.”
Mike Hansen, a retired state geologist who runs an earthquake warning system and teaches at Ohio State University, said there is no doubt that the Serpent Mound area was disturbed by some unknown force. But Hansen thinks the stresses were triggered by natural shifts in the Earth’s crust.
Fine grains of sand taken from beneath the mound appear deformed under a microscope. Around the time the rocks were deformed, Africa was pushing into North America and the Appalachian Mountains range was thrusting up higher than today’s Himalayas, Hansen said. He said a major tectonic event like that could have created the underground chaos at Serpent Mound.
Hansen concedes, however, that the meteorite hypothesis is gaining adherents among geologists.
The object, if it did strike Ohio, would have been gigantic, possibly up to three times larger than the Cleveland Browns Stadium and traveling up to 45,000 mph. The heat, blast and shockwaves from such a crash would have carved a 1,000-foot-deep hole and crushed rocks miles below the five-mile-wide crater.[/QUOTE]
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I, personally, wouldn't fuck with anyone who deals with poison and hornets all day.
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
A car was dragged 800 feet by an 18-wheeler on Interstate 10 after the driver, who was talking on his cell phone and speeding, got stuck under the semi's trailer Monday morning, authorities said.
Surprisingly, no one was injured, said Officer Jim Oien, a state Department of Public Safety spokesman.
Justin Mitchell Oaks, 21, was not paying attention when his Toyota Corolla drifted underneath the semi-truck in the westbound lanes, Oien said.
The car turned sideways and became lodged underneath the semi. The truck's rear tires were grinding on the car's passenger-side door, next to Oaks' wife, as the Toyota Corolla was dragged almost the length of three football fields to the Miracle Mile exit. (The DPS identified the woman as his girlfriend on Monday; she called the Star Tuesday to identify herself as his wife.)
Tire marks could be seen running up the side of the car when it stopped.
"They were lucky they didn't get squashed," Oien said.
Sometimes the rear wheels of a truck will roll over a car in a situation like that, he said, and in those cases, the people inside the car usually are killed.
The westbound lanes of the freeway were closed for about an hour while workers extricated the car.
Besides receiving a speeding ticket, Oaks was charged with driving on a suspended license.
He also received a drug paraphernalia violation after highway patrol officers found a pipe in the car.
Oaks was booked into the Pima County jail, but was released later Monday. He could not be reached for comment.
His license was suspended last year for a previous speeding ticket, according to Arizona Supreme Court records.
Oaks also pleaded guilty to reckless driving and drunken driving in Bowie Justice Court last year, records show. Bowie is about 100 miles east of Tucson.
Oaks also was arrested twice last year and charged with possession of marijuana and robbery.
He is scheduled to appear in court for those cases, according to Pima County Justice Court records.
Oien said it probably is never safe to talk on a cell phone while behind the wheel.
[QUOTE](The DPS identified the woman as his girlfriend on Monday; she called the Star Tuesday to identify herself as his wife.)[/QUOTE]
hahaha, why she even bothered
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[QUOTE]In an unexceptional, wood-paneled courtroom on the fifth-floor of the downtown Superior Court here, the story of the city's worst mass murder is unfolding in chilling detail.
The tale emerging from the trial of Marcus Wesson rivals an Anne Rice novel, with testimony of incest, child brides, vampire aliases, coffin beds and an apocalyptic obsession that led a one-time bank teller to turn his extended family into a reclusive cult.
Wesson, 58, stands accused of killing nine of his children, including seven he sired with his own daughters and nieces. He is also charged with molestation and rape. The murder victims, ranging in age from 1 to 25, were discovered in the family's home March 12, 2004, after a standoff with police over a custody issue. Each had been shot once through the eye and piled in a back bedroom ringed with antique coffins.
The prosecutor claims Wesson had preached that it was better for the family to die and "go to the Lord" together than be separated by child protective services.
The case horrified Fresno, where many citizens watched on live television as Wesson, a hulking man whose rope-like dreadlocks swing past his waist, emerged from his house wearing a blood-soaked shirt and a menacing stare.
During jury selection for Wesson's capital murder trial this spring, several prospective panelists were excused after they indicated they were terrified to be in the same small courtroom as the accused killer.
Exactly what occurred in the back bedroom as the Wesson residence was surrounded by police remains something of a mystery even now, halfway through what could be a three-month trial. Most eyewitnesses are dead, and one who could shed light on the shootings, Wesson's wife, Elizabeth, says she is too traumatized to remember anything significant.
Her husband maintains that his 25-year-old daughter, Sebhrenah, carried out the killings on her own initiative and then killed herself. Her 18-month-old son with Wesson, Marshey, died in the massacre.
There is some evidence to support Sebhrenah Wesson as the shooter. The .22-caliber handgun was found under her arm, and her DNA was on the weapon. Her sister and cousins have described her as a gun fanatic who liked to play "army."
But the prosecutor has told jurors that it does not matter who pulled the trigger. Wesson is charged under the theory of "aiding and abetting" murder, and jurors can convict him even if they find he induced his daughter or anyone else to kill.
Poverty, abuse, obedience
Since the trial opened March 3, prosecutor Lisa Gamoian has called a string of family members, including his wife, children and nieces, in an attempt to establish that Wesson controlled everything and everyone in their house.
Their disturbing testimony about the family's lifestyle has left some jurors looking disgusted, others in tears.
"According to the newspaper, my whole family, my way of life is not normal," Elizabeth Wesson acknowledged during a week-long turn on the stand earlier this month.
The witnesses, even some who still pledge allegiance to Wesson, have described him as a domestic dictator who espoused a home brew of evangelical Christianity, the occult and sexual mania.
Raised a Seventh Day Adventist, Wesson worked for a short time at a bank, according to his wife, but began telling people that God was speaking through him and that the end of time was near. He took up with a woman 13 years his senior in San Jose, fathered a child by her and then married her 15-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. He had 10 children by Elizabeth, and her sister gave him her seven children to rear.
Wesson home-schooled the children and said he couldn't work because he had to keep his divine knowledge "anonymous."
"The outside world had lost eternal life," one niece, Sofina Solorio, quoted Wesson as saying. "It was nothing but distractions," she told jurors.
For a time, the family lived in a tent in the mountains and on a houseboat on the northern California coast. They had little money. In a diary read in court this week, one daughter, Kiani, bemoaned that they had nothing to eat but rice.
"I hope we make it today. I can't go any longer," she wrote a year before the massacre.
Wesson was a strict disciplinarian, hitting even the youngest children with a stick if they misbehaved. Two jurors began crying when Solorio recalled how he beat her 1-month-old son, a child he fathered, until his legs bled because the infant wouldn't stop crying.
When she testified that he stabbed her in the chest when she talked about leaving the family, one woman on the panel let out a surprised yell. Solorio later displayed the scar on her chest for the jury.
A religion of polygamy, incest
The most stunning testimony has related to Wesson's sexual proclivities. According to the witnesses, he separated sisters from their brothers. "So we wouldn't have sexual feelings for them or other men," his niece, Ruby Ortiz, recalled. Females were forced to wear head scarves and long skirts.
The girls raised by Wesson, now young women in their 20s, testified that when they reached the age of 8, Wesson began what he called "loving" — molesting them in their beds.
"He did it so we would be better women," testified one niece, Rosa Solorio, 23.
According to the witnesses, Wesson said his conduct was consistent with the Bible and that "Jesus was a womanizer." The family studied the Bible three times a day, with Wesson interpreting passages for the group. Among his favorites were those dealing with polygamy.
"God's people are becoming extinct," Sofina Solorio recalled him saying. "We need to preserve God's children. We need to have more children for the Lord."
He married himself to several of his nieces and daughters in home ceremonies. Ortiz recalled how they stood alone in her bedroom with her hand on the Bible and his hand pressing hers and recited marriage vows. He gave each of his young wives a necklace and gold band.
Wesson fathered children with three of his nieces and two of his daughters. Outsiders were told the girls had gone to a sperm bank to be artificially inseminated.
In his opening statement, defense lawyer Ralph Torres conceded that Wesson "was a flawed man" who engaged in "deviant behavior."
"But he is a deeply religious man, a zealot, who believes in the Lord, Jesus Christ," Torres said.
Vampires and immortality
The Wessons moved into the residence where the slayings occurred about six months earlier. The building, built for commercial use, was frequently cold, the witnesses testified. To keep warm, the children slept on antique coffins Wesson collected.
Some witnesses have testified that the Wessons planned to use the coffins to make furniture, but the wooden boxes were part of his obsession with the dead and undead. He was fascinated with vampires, in whom he saw similarities to Jesus Christ.
"They both live forever. They are both immortal," Rosa Solorio explained to jurors.
He gave his children vampire names, including his 1-year-old son by his daughter, Kiani. He called the boy "Jeva," a combination of Jesus and Vampire. He referred to himself as "Je Vam Marc Sus Pire."
The world Wesson created came suddenly to an end. Two renegade nieces heard that he was planning to take the family to Washington State, where his parents lived. The women, Sofina Solorio and Ruby Ortiz, had left their children fathered by Wesson in his care and returned to get them March 12, 2004, in the company of a dozen relatives.
Witnesses testified that Wesson greeted the mothers' demands calmly, while the women of his household reacted angrily.
"Judas! Judas!" and "Bow down to your master!" his daughters told Solorio and Ortiz, according to testimony.
An hour and a half after police were summoned to the residence, the children were dead and Wesson arrested.
At first Wesson was very cooperative with police as they tried to establish who had custody of the two children. But later, he slipped back inside the house and into a back bedroom. During the siege, some neighbors claimed they heard shots, but the officers said they did not.
The renegade nieces claim the deaths resulted from a preexisting suicide pact Wesson made with the "wives" in case authorities ever tried to break up the family.
The loyal followers
Relatives who remain loyal to Wesson and who have been called to the stand by prosecutors have disputed the existence of a pact. One, his daughter, Kiani, claimed that a passage from her diary, "We lived for Christ, now we must die for Christ," was only "a figure of speech."
Those who still pledge allegiance to Wesson include Rosa Solorio, who proudly displayed the gold band from Wesson that she still wears on her ring finger and said she remained willing to die for him.
His only legal wife, Elizabeth, sobbed throughout her week-long testimony, which she is giving in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Grilled by Gamoian about why she didn't do more to protect her daughters from sexual abuse, she insisted she did not know of the abuse.
"How can I protect them if they didn't tell me? They never told me anything," she said.
When the prosecutor pressed her about what she saw in the bedroom, Elizabeth Wesson said she saw her husband leaning over their 17-year-old daughter, but refused to describe anything else in the room.
"I just see her eyes. I just see her eyes," Elizabeth Wesson repeated dozens of times.
When Gamoian kept questioning her, she spat, "Why are you such a bitch?"
Throughout much of the trial, Wesson has sat quietly between his lawyers writing continuously on a legal pad. At court breaks, he taps his fingers on the defense table as if playing a keyboard or waves them in the air like a conductor. But when the prosecutor and his wife feuded, he appeared fully engaged in the legal process.
"Objection!" he shouted at one point. "The prosecutor is angry —"
Judge R. L. Putnam quickly cut him off. In the trial realm, unlike in his family world, Wesson does not get to decide which behavior is permitted.
The trial is expected to continue through May.[/QUOTE]
dang, i heard nothing of this until now. and i dont knowhow i came across it, but its fucked. cassun, you live in california, right? you had to of heard about this. . . .
thats [I]reeeeaaaaaallllllly[/I] fucked
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wait, didn't think happen in california?
fresno, it says
[IMG]http://img77.imageshack.us/img77/3760/rosinhighminsig3jo.gif[/IMG]
sounds like something that happened near palm springs about 2 or three years ago.
EDIT: is "under a dead ohio sky" a TOOL quote, bychance?
yea, the clipy said it was last year or so. funny how the news says, `trouble in compton` when theres something somewhere else, and maybe worse...like they have to chose which ones to make a deal about.
`Hey Mary!? We have some guy who fucks and marries his children and relatives. kills them all and then. .. .. .then thats it. That sucks, throw that out`
`Mmyes, John, you're probably right`....`Oh! look at this! Guy cheats on his wife and kills her, and she was....*gasp* pregnant!'
`Good call, Mary. Good call`
Edit:
yes, it is!
[IMG]http://img77.imageshack.us/img77/3760/rosinhighminsig3jo.gif[/IMG]
no shit, huh? i think it has to do with americans thinking murder is entertainment, but fucking your own children before murdering them is just plain wrong.
[QUOTE=alex cassun]no shit, huh? i think it has to do with americans thinking murder is entertainment, but fucking your own children before murdering them is just plain wrong.[/QUOTE]
alex cassun says, `dont fuck your children before murdering them`
in other news there are girls selling their virginity for millions of dollars.
everything googles pulls up for `good news` is for religion and health.
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that virgin bitch was just toying around. she didn't even take the million and a half bucks the canadian offered.
i didnt read it, hahaa
[IMG]http://img77.imageshack.us/img77/3760/rosinhighminsig3jo.gif[/IMG]
i'm a newsette
[url=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&f=176][img]http://www.italiamia.info/immagini/banner468.gif[/img][/url]
all it takes is $60 and a dream.
do you dance and sing?
yes
[url=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&f=176][img]http://www.italiamia.info/immagini/banner468.gif[/img][/url]
all it takes is $60 and a dream.
prove it.
no
[url=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&f=176][img]http://www.italiamia.info/immagini/banner468.gif[/img][/url]
all it takes is $60 and a dream.
Supporters say the law is a logical extension of common law that allows homeowners who fear for their lives to use deadly force to defend themselves from an intruder in their homes.
The new law expands that doctrine to include people in public places who feel threatened and could be subject to death or great bodily harm.
"To suggest that you can't defend yourself against a rapist, who's trying to drag you into an alley, or against a carjacker who's trying to drag you out of your car is nonsense," said Marion Hammer, a former president of the National Rifle Association.
"The ability to protect yourself, your children or your spouse, is important, no matter where you are."
Critics of the new law, called the "Stand Your Ground" bill, have few objections to allowing people to protect themselves in their homes but say the bill will create a "Wild West" mentality in public, where residents may shoot first and ask questions later.
"There are going to be a lot of repercussions," said Rep. Eleanor Sobel, a Democrat. "You could have someone reaching into their pocket and if the person felt threatened he could shoot."
Like many states, Florida courts have ruled that homeowners have a right to defend themselves in their homes. Florida courts have expanded the doctrine to include employees in their workplace and drivers who are attacked in their automobiles.
Outside the home, however, courts have ruled that most victims must at least attempt to escape before using deadly force, a provision gun advocates say puts victims at greater risk. The new law removes that requirement if a person has a reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm.
"All this bill will do is sell more guns and possibly turn Florida into the OK Corral," Rep. Irv Slosberg, a Democrat, said during recent debate on the bill.
The girl's parents, Tina Brick and Gregory Brown, had stopped at the gas station early Wednesday when a repossession worker spotted the parked pick-up truck, reported WCPO-TV, Cincinnati.
The worker took the truck while the parents were inside, oblivious to the fact that 2-year-old Katina Brown was sleeping in the back seat.
After the company called police to report the repossession, police called them back to ask if there was a child in the vehicle. The company's owner went outside and found the girl sleeping in the truck.
Police said the girl was asleep the entire time and was unaware that anything happened.
They also said they found three guns inside the truck. The father has been charged with child endangerment and weapons charges.
The repossession company will not be charged with any crimes, officals said.
In an outrageous affront to U.S. labor laws, a California company plans to anchor a 600-cabin cruise ship just beyond the three-mile limit off the coast of El Segundo, near Los Angeles, and stock it with foreign software programmers.
Story Continues Below
The company, SeaCode, will seek to classify the workers as "seamen," avoiding U.S. payroll taxes and the need for immigration visas.
Programmers from places like India and Russia would work 8-hour or 10-hour shifts, either day or night. Take-home pay: About $21,500 a year.
Compare that to the salary of an American programmer – median salary for programmers is around $60,000, and those with extensive experience can make $125,000 or more - and U.S. companies like SeaCode could reap a windfall.
SeaCode says it will charge clients the same rate as firms in developing countries. The company says the significant benefit of having the low-cost programmers near the U.S. is that clients will be spared from long flights to India and other far-off destinations to check on projects.
By using foreigners working on boats, SeaCode also believes projects will get done more quickly as their programmers toil both day and night. "Try to get American software engineers to work at night," SeaCode co-founder David Cook told Forbes magazine, explaining his delight in the outsourcing scheme.
But Jack Martin, special projects director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, complained: "All it would do is be a further contribution to eroding the job opportunities for skilled American workers."
SeaCode is close to making an offer for the Carousel, a ship now sailing around the Canary Islands. The vessel would dock in Long Beach once a month to take on supplies and dispose of waste – isn't that nice? But legally speaking, the SeaCode scheme could face stormy seas.
"It's not my prerogative to tell them to take a hike," said El Segundo Mayor Kelly McDowell. "I'll leave that to the Coast Guard."
Eighty years after a famed courtroom battle in Tennessee pitted religious beliefs about the origins of life against the theories of British scientist Charles Darwin, Kansas is holding its own hearings on what school children should be taught about how life on Earth began.
The Kansas Board of Education has scheduled six days of courtroom-style hearings to begin on Thursday in the capitol Topeka. More than two dozen witnesses will give testimony and be subject to cross-examination, with the majority expected to argue against teaching evolution.
Many prominent U.S. scientific groups have denounced the debate as founded on fallacy and have promised to boycott the hearings, which opponents say are part of a larger nationwide effort by religious interests to gain control over government.
"I feel like I'm in a time warp here," said Topeka attorney Pedro Irigonegaray who has agreed to defend evolution as valid science. "To debate evolution is similar to debating whether the Earth is round. It is an absurd proposition."
WIDESPREAD DEBATE
Irigonegaray's opponent will be attorney John Calvert, managing director of the Intelligent Design Network, a Kansas organization that argues the Earth was created through intentional design rather than random organism evolution.
The group is one of many that have been formed over the last several years to challenge the validity of evolutionary concepts and seek to open the schoolroom door to ideas that humans and other living creatures are too intricately designed to have come about randomly.
While many call themselves creationists, who believe that God was the ultimate designer of all life, they are stopping short of saying creationism should be taught in schools.
"We're not against evolution," said Calvert. "But there is a lot of evidence that suggests that life is the product of intelligence. I think it is inappropriate for the state to prejudge the question whether we are the product of design or just an occurrence."
Debates over evolution are currently being waged in more than a dozen states, including Texas where one bill would allowing for creationism to be taught alongside evolution.
Kansas has been grappling with the issue for years, garnering worldwide attention in 1999 when the state school board voted to downplay evolution in science classes.
Subsequent elections altered the membership of the school board and led to renewed backing for evolution instruction in 2001. But elections last year gave religious conservatives a 6-4 majority and the board is now finalizing new science standards, which will guide teachers about how and what to teach students.
The current proposal pushed by conservatives would not eliminate evolution entirely from instruction, nor would it require creationism be taught, but it would encourage teachers to discuss various viewpoints and eliminate core evolution claims as required curriculum.
School board member Sue Gamble, who describes herself as a moderate, said she will not attend the hearings, which she calls "a farce." She said the argument over evolution is part of a larger agenda by Christian conservatives to gradually alter the legal and social landscape in the United States.
"I think it is a desire by a minority... to establish a theocracy, both within Kansas and growing to a national level," Gamble said.
OLD TESTAMENT TEACHINGS
Some evolution detractors say that the belief that humans, animals and organisms evolved over long spans of time is inconsistent with Biblical teachings that life was created by God. The Bible's Old Testament says that God created life on Earth including the first humans, Adam and Eve, in six days.
Detractors also argue that evolution is invalid science because it cannot be tested or verified and say it is inappropriately being indoctrinated into education and discouraging consideration of alternatives.
But defenders say that evolution is not totally inconsistent with Biblical beliefs, and it provides a foundational concept for understanding many areas of science, including genetics and molecular biology.
The theory of evolution came to prominence in 1859 when Darwin published "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," and it was the subject of a 1925 trial in Tennessee in which teacher John Thomas Scopes was accused of violating a ban against teaching evolution.
Kansas School Board chairman Steve Abrams said the hearings are less about religion than they are about seeking the best possible education for the state's children.
"If students... do not understand the weaknesses of evolutionary theory as well as the strengths, a grave injustice is being done to them," Abrams said.
[QUOTE=alex cassun]This is awesome. Way to go Kansas. What we need right now is to deevolve (pun intended, i'm sure) a good 80 years. If you work a little harder, we can make all these dirty negros actually work, too.[/QUOTE]
What makes me laugh is, the same state supposedly has some of the finest journalism schools in the country.
A spokesman for the hospital in Somerset, southwest England, said Friday that the Brazilian Wandering Spider was freed in the hospital garden by a staff member who did not realize he was facing an exotic killer.
The spider, deadlier than a Black Widow and known for its speed and aggression, normally lives in more tropical climes but is thought to have arrived in England in a box of bananas.
The [b]13cm[/b] hairy creature reached chef Matthew Stevens in his pub kitchen earlier this month in Bridgwater, Somerset, and bit him twice on the hand.
Stevens, 23, photographed the spider with his mobile phone, thinking it dead after it had fallen in the freezer and been stunned by the cold.
Just to make sure, he then poured boiling water over the stunned spider and placed it in a jar, according to a report in The Times newspaper Saturday. Later he also cooked the spider in the microwave.
But by the time he was taken to the hospital, dizzy and shaking and with his hand badly swollen, the spider had shaken off the ill treatment and was up and moving again, struggling to get out of the jar.
It was taken with Stevens to the hospital, and then inadvertently released.
The photo Stevens took with his mobile phone was sent to Bristol Zoo in western England, where experts identified the spider while doctors treated the cook with oxygen and a saline drip. He was released a day later.
Officials at the hospital said the Brazilian Wandering Spider was unlikely to pose a risk to public health since it "would have died very soon after being released" because of the cold.
[QUOTE]Infant doused with pepper spray as families brawl at Idaho Wal-Mart
04/05/2005 8:10:00 PM
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PONDERAY, Idaho (AP) - A woman doused a two-month-old girl with pepper spray while feuding with the infant's family in an Idaho Wal-Mart, police said.
Lorlie Gantenbein, 36, of Sagle, Idaho, was charged Tuesday with felony injury to a child. She was released after posting $5,000 bail.
The infant was recovering at home after being sprayed Monday, Police Chief Mike Hutter said. The baby was treated at a hospital.
The cause of the dispute between the families was not immediately known.
"It sounded like this has been going on for a while," Hutter told the Bonner County Daily Bee newspaper.
"It just escalated."
Police said Gantenbein's 16-year-old daughter sprayed the infant's grandmother and aunt, one of whom was holding the child. Gantenbein then took the canister and sprayed the baby, authorities said. The juvenile was cited with two counts of battery.
Gantenbein did not immediately return a call left at her home Wednesday. Authorities said she has not yet been had a lawyer appointed. [/QUOTE]
What a bitch.
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"... got this store bought way of saying I'm ok..."
[QUOTE]GEORGETOWN, Texas — Molly Daniels spent weeks surfing the Internet, gathering information for a bizarre and grisly plot of deception.
She learned how to burn a human body beyond recognition. She sought clues on ways to deceive arson investigators, and took meticulous steps to create a new identity for her husband.
Daniels then dug up a woman’s corpse, staged a fiery car accident to fake her husband’s death, and had him re-emerge as her new boyfriend. Authorities say it was all to collect a $110,000 life insurance policy while hiding her husband, Clayton Daniels, from the cops.
Molly Daniels pleaded guilty this past week to felony charges of insurance fraud and hindering apprehension, and was sentenced to the maximum 20 years in prison.
“This was a ghoulish, horrific crime,” said prosecutor Jane Starnes at the sentencing hearing Thursday.
Molly Daniels, 22, insisted the plan wasn’t motivated by greed, but rather was a desperate attempt to keep her husband out of prison stemming from a sexual assault charge.
“It was about keeping our family together,” she tearfully told jurors.
The plot began to take shape last year after Clayton Daniels, 24, pleaded guilty to sexual assault charges. He was allowed to stay out of prison after the plea, but never reported to his probation officer, drawing a 30-day jail sentence.
Three days before he was to report to jail last June, police found a burned-out Chevrolet at the bottom of a roadside cliff. The corpse behind the wheel was unrecognizable, its head and limbs burned away.
“Even the metal on the car was melted, it was so hot,” said Thomas Vasquez, Molly Daniels’ defense attorney.
Molly Daniels told friends and relatives her husband had died. Her co-workers raised $1,000 for her and attended a memorial service.
A few weeks later, Molly Daniels introduced “Jake Gregg,” her new boyfriend, to their children, ages 4 and 1.
He looked a lot like Clayton Daniels but had dyed black hair. Investigators say Molly Daniels also had forged documents to create a new identity for him, including a fake birth certificate and a Texas drivers’ license.
Neighbor Scott Regier said he had barely known Clayton Daniels, and never got a good look at “Jake Gregg” because the man was rarely outdoors.
“Before the whole incident, we’d wave and say hello,” Regier said. “Afterward, when they pulled in the driveway, she would get out of the minivan, open the garage, and he would pull in. The guy never got out.”
Investigators had been suspicious from the start. The accident scene had no skid marks or signs of a high-speed crash. The hottest spot of the fire was the driver’s seat, and charcoal lighter fluid had been used as a fire accelerant. DNA samples from the burned corpse couldn’t be matched with one from Clayton’s mother.
Searches of their home and the computer Molly Daniels used to surf the Web revealed the scheme to get Clayton a new identity. Officers also found a list of plastic surgeons in Mexico.
Investigators said Molly Daniels told them the body was taken from a cemetery a few miles away. The body was an 81-year-old woman who had died in 2003 and was buried in an area used for people who can’t afford a burial plot or have little or no family.
“We felt because she was older; there would not be much family impact, if any,” Molly Daniels testified.
Vasquez said he couldn’t explain why anyone who went to such great lengths to mislead investigators would stay in their home where they could be so easily discovered. But he said the fact that they didn’t leave proves that their motive wasn’t insurance fraud, he said.
“This wasn’t about money. They could have taken the money and gone to Mexico,” Vasquez said. “She felt everything was falling apart and had to take action somehow. It was misguided, but (her family) was the motivation.”
Molly Daniels’ father, John Honea, attended his daughter’s sentencing.
“I thought I taught her better,” Honea said.
Clayton Daniels is in custody awaiting trial on arson charges. He could face up to 20 years.[/QUOTE]
All that for 110,000$
[IMG]http://img77.imageshack.us/img77/3760/rosinhighminsig3jo.gif[/IMG]
thats dedication.
Remember: After establishing a false identity, exhuming a corpse, and torching a car to fake your husband's death and collect insurance money, invest the money in plane tickets to some other country. Not a $10 package of Just for Men hair dye.
[i]* * * * * The More You Know[/i]
[URL=http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=2005-05-19T114738Z_01_L19634971_RTRIDST_0_ENTERTAINMENT-PEOPLE-FREEMAN-PIRACY-DC.XML]http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=2005-05-19T114738Z_01_L19634971_RTRIDST_0_ENTERTAINMENT-PEOPLE-FREEMAN-PIRACY-DC.XML[/URL]
[QUOTE]CANNES, France (Reuters) - With high-speed Internet connections on the upswing, piracy could hit the movie industry as hard as it did the music business, Hollywood actor Morgan Freeman warned.
Freeman is telling movie makers that they must wise up quickly to stay ahead of illegal downloaders and file sharers who are using new software and high-speed broadband connections.
His company Revelations Entertainment and chip maker Intel Corporation have set up a "virtual digital home" in a hotel suite to demonstrate to industry movers and shakers in town for the annual Cannes Film Festival the potential of new technology.
Downloading films on to a PC and playing them in different rooms through an integrated system is one of many benefits digital technology can bring. The downside is that file sharing could cost studios and actors dearly in the future.
"One of the things that is terrifying the industry about digital content is that once it gets into the home, what happens to it?" Freeman told Reuters in an interview late Wednesday.
"Some government entities say that if it's on the Internet and accessible, then how can we call it piracy?"
By using an electronic key system, Intel's Kevin Corbett said that films could not be used by unauthorized users. But it would offer the unauthorized user the opportunity to pay for the movie and watch it legally.
"This technology can help us to stop the same chaos (as in the music industry)," Freeman said. "It is too late when the public is two or three steps ahead of you, and then you are playing catch-up," he said.
Citing the example of Sweden, where he said illegal peer-to-peer file sharing was a growing problem, he warned that the spread of broadband would only make life harder for the movie industry.
Freeman believes smaller, independent companies will develop the technology to protect new films, while major studios appear relatively unconcerned about their movie libraries, as opposed to new releases, being shared.
Freeman recalled how the music industry failed to adapt to the peer-to-peer networks that allowed users to share MP3 music files. The industry estimates that piracy has cost it hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue over the last few years.
While a movie involves a far larger file, broadband and increasingly popular file-sharing programs like BitTorrent are making it increasingly easy to handle the information. [/QUOTE]
Am I the only one who thinks it's funny that people in the entertainment industry are quick to point out downloading music or movies will hurt their respective industries, but don't seem to take a few minutes to calculate even a ballpark figure on how much money it costs their industries each year?
tyler durden strikes again:
It seems there was a reel mix up and, at some point in the film, Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi started to speak Japanese.
People at the Loews Cineplex at Monmouth Mall in Eatontown chanted, "stop the movie, stop the movie" during Wednesday's midnight premiere.
The lights came on and the manager told the audience that the movie would not continue.
Loews marketing senior vice president John McCauley tells the Asbury Park Press the audience was offered the choice of squeezing into other theaters, getting a pass for another showing or receiving a refund.
It's not known how the Japanese version was spliced in.
[QUOTE=Reuters][B]Volvo seeks permission to drink and drive[/B]
Thu Jul 21, 2005 1:28 PM ET
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Carmaker Volvo has asked for special exemption from Sweden's tough drink-driving laws so its test drivers can have a glass too many to test new safety systems that warn if a driver is not reacting to danger.
Volvo, whose success rests on its reputation for building safety-conscious family cars, will only let its drunk drivers take the wheel on its own test tracks near the west-coast city of Gothenburg if it gets permission from the Swedish government.
"It's a matter of developing technical systems that warn if the driver isn't reacting properly," said Christer Gustafsson, spokesman for Volvo Cars, which is owned by Ford.
"That means if the driver is tired, sick, drunk or under the influence of other drugs. We want to do this in a controlled environment in Sweden," he told Swedish news agency TT.
The new safety system is still at the development stage and Gustafsson said he could not give more details about how it works. "It's all about preventing accidents," he said.
Sweden has one of the best road-safety records in the world thanks partly to drink-driving laws which are among the toughest in Europe. The laws apply to private and public roads.
Stockholm County Traffic Police said the most drivers could drink without risking a heavy fine is one beer, while drivers caught well over the limit can be sent to prison.[/QUOTE]
The "drinking and driving legally" bit isn't shocking, but what I want to know is, how can a car warn a driver if he or she's not reacting to danger? How can the car actually "seek out" danger?
let this be a lesson to all women:
Christopher Offord, 30, was sentenced Wednesday by Circuit Judge Dedee Costello, who said the brutality of the crime outweighed any mental problems Offord may have had.
"The defendant struck his wife approximately 70 individual blows after spending a happy interlude with her," the judge said. "Her desire to cuddle after sex does not justify the extremely violent, brutal response of the defendant."
Offord pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the 2004 slaying of Dana Noser, 40, at his apartment.
He confessed to a bartender at a sports bar before his arrest. He told investigators that his wife had been nagging him to come back to bed.
Offord did not speak in court but said in a jailhouse interview in June: "I figured I killed her so I deserve to die."
[QUOTE=local paper]In the time it took to pour a cup of coffee, Kassandra Long lost her Jeep and her cat Tuesday morning.
Long, 29, of Perry Township said she was driving to her job at a downtown law office when she stopped at the SuperAmerica store near the corner of Tuscarawas Street W and Maryland Avenue to get a cup of coffee.
There was no line inside, so Long said she jumped out of her Jeep Grand Cherokee, leaving behind her keys and her cat, Shy. Long had her cat in a pet carrier for a vet appointment later in the day.
Long was in the store less than a minute, she said. When she came out, the dark purple 1995 Jeep and Shy were both gone.
Long is concerned about her cat — a black, medium-haired female with a patch of white on her chest and a long tail.
“She hates it outside and it’s going to rain for two days,” Long said.
She filed a report with Canton police, who noted the missing Jeep but not the cat.
[B]Long said she wants her Jeep back, but she’s really concerned about her feline friend of the last two years.
“I want my kitty back,”[/B] Long said. “Just drop her off somewhere safe.”
Long is asking anyone with information about Shy to call her at xxx-xxx-xxxx[/QUOTE]
shucks, thats so fucking cute 
[IMG]http://img77.imageshack.us/img77/3760/rosinhighminsig3jo.gif[/IMG]
.jpg "Dr.Jekyll8Mr.Hyde's picture")
What a great idea for a thread. 
Here's a change of pace from today's debate. It's cute as hell. And I just started the new book which makes it fun.
[QUOTE]And in other news...
[SIZE=4]Harry Potter and the gay fantasy [/SIZE]
[B]Giles Hewitt | New York, United States
31 August 2005 09:32 [/B]
As Harry Potter fans speculate what still lies in store for the world's favourite boy wizard, few envisage him leaving Hogwarts and settling into a committed gay relationship with arch foe Draco Malfoy.
But some do.
"Draco's breath is warm against his neck, his body gradually relaxing as Harry holds him, refusing to let go, and Harry discovers this is the most comfortable he's ever been in his entire life."
Welcome to fan fiction, or "fanfic" -- stories, millions of them, that people write about their favourite characters from literature, television and film, and then post online.
Fanfic has been around for three decades in one form or another, but it is only in recent years with the rise of the internet that it has emerged as a literary sub-genre with global appeal.
The largest repository on the web is at fanfiction.net which boasts an archive of well over one million stories about every imaginable fictional character, from Hamlet to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Most popular are the Harry Potter fanfics, which number more than 200 000 and range in ambition from a snippet of imagined conversation between two minor characters to complex, novel-length adventures divided into cliff-hanging chapters.
Some websites, like sugarquill.net, are exclusively for Potter fanfics, and draw contributions from amateur writers as far afield as Australia, Iceland, the Philippines and India.
"For most people, I think, it's just about the excitement of writing something, having it read and getting the feedback from the online reviewers," said sugarquill co-founder Jennie Levine (33) a librarian at the University of Maryland.
The major attraction of fanfic is that it presents aspiring writers with a ready-made fictional universe, complete with defined characters.
"It makes for a good starting point," said Levine. "That said, we also hope it would be a springboard for people to eventually write their own original stories."
Sugarquill is selective about the stories it posts and has 25 volunteer editors, or "beta-readers," through whom all submissions must flow.
A large number of fanfic writers are "shippers," so called because they specialise in developing romantic liaisons between their favourite characters.
Sugarquill accepts "ship" submissions, but only those that are respectful of the Harry Potter canon, and none that portray overt sexual acts.
"We don't have them doing it on the sofa," Levine said.
Other sites have them doing it everywhere, in every way and in every possible combination.
"I don't feel it’s my job or anybody else's to say what their kick should be. As long as it's well written, I'll post it," said Vikki Dolenga who set up the adult-themed Potter fanfic site, Restrictedsection.org, in 2002.
Dolenga (34) a client support specialist for a health care data company in Chicago, insists the stories on her site, which gets close to 200 000 hits a day, are examples of "erotica" rather than pornography.
A large number of submissions to the site fall into the category of "slash" fanfic -- so called because it explores homosexual pairings of traditionally straight characters, such as Harry and Draco.
Slash has it origins in fanfics written in the mid-1970s that imagined breathless couplings between Captain Kirk and Mr Spock from the iconic Star Trek series.
With content ranging from unfulfilled homoerotic yearnings to the sexually explicit, slash writing is, perhaps surprisingly, dominated by straight women writers.
"I find it extremely liberating," said Lauren (28) an advertising copywriter in New York. "I'm not sure why I prefer slash to het [heterosexual] ... maybe I just find it easier to write smut from a distance."
Lauren specialises in Potter slash, but is quick to point out that her stories all take place in a future where the characters are in their twenties, or older.
The growing, internet-generated popularity of fanfic has attracted mixed reactions from the original authors of the works being co-opted.
"I do not allow fan fiction," Vampire Chronicles novelist Anne Rice wrote in a statement on her official website in 2000.
"The characters are copyrighted. It upsets me terribly to even think about fan fiction with my characters," Rice said.
Potter creator JK Rowling and her publishers have adopted a more conciliatory approach, objecting only to fanfic that is sexually explicit, violent or profane.
Websites like Restrictdsection.org have received cease-and-desist orders, but can usually remain up and running by simply adding registration and password procedures that deter people under 18 years of age.
"It's 2005 and we're still here," Dolenga said. "Though I don't think we'll be winning one of [Rowling's] best website awards." - Sapa-AFP [/QUOTE]
the perfect solution for Kansas:
But Is There Intelligent Spaghetti Out There?
By SARAH BOXER
The New York Times
August 29, 2005
Is the super-intelligent, super-popular god known as the Flying Spaghetti Monster any match for the prophets of intelligent design?
This month, the Kansas State Board of Education gave preliminary approval to allow teaching alternatives to evolution like intelligent design (the theory that a smart being designed the universe). And President Bush and Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee both gave the thumbs up to teaching intelligent design.
Long before that, Bobby Henderson, a 25-year-old with a physics degree from Oregon State University, had a divine vision. An intelligent god, a Flying Spaghetti Monster, he said, "revealed himself to me in a dream."
He posted a sketch on his Web site, venganza.org, showing an airborne tangle of spaghetti and meatballs with two eyes looming over a mountain, trees and a stick man labeled "midgit." Prayers to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, his site says, end with "ramen," not "amen."
Then, Mr. Henderson, who says on his site that he is desperately trying to avoid taking a job programming slot machines in Las Vegas, posted an open letter to the Kansas board.
In perfect deadpan he wrote that although he agreed that science students should "hear multiple viewpoints" of how the universe came to be, he was worried that they would be hearing only one theory of intelligent design. After all, he noted, there are many such theories, including his own fervent belief that "the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster." He demanded equal time in the classroom and threatened a lawsuit.
Soon he was flooded with e-mail messages. Ninety-five percent of those who wrote to him, he said on his Web site, were "in favor of teaching Flying Spaghetti Monsterism in schools." Five percent suggested that he would be going to hell. Lawyers contacted him inquiring how serious he was about a lawsuit against the Kansas board. His answer: "Very."
This month, the news media, both mainstream and digital, jumped in. The New Scientist magazine wrote an article. So did Die Welt. Two online encyclopedias, Uncyclopedia and Wikipedia, wrote entries on the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The Web site Boingboing.net mounted a challenge: "We are willing to pay any individual $250,000 if they can produce empirical evidence which proves that Jesus is not the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster."
Now, Mr. Henderson says on his Web site, "over 10 million people have been touched by His Noodly Appendage." But what does that mean? When push comes to shove, will the religion that has come to be known as Pastafarianism do what it was intended to do - prove that it is ridiculous to teach intelligent design as science?
Mr. Henderson, who said in an e-mail message that his divine vision was induced by "a lack of sleep and a mounting disgust over the whole I.D. issue," has wit on his side. His god not only resembles human brains (proof, a fan writes, that "we were created in His image") but also looks like the kind of bacteria that proponents of intelligent design hold up as too complex to be the work of evolution alone.
Two dozen academics have endorsed the pasta god. Three members of the Kansas board who already opposed teaching intelligent design wrote kind letters to Mr. Henderson. Dozens of people have posted their sightings of the deity (along with some hilarious pictures). One woman even wrote in to say that she had "conceived the spirit of our Divine Lord," the Flying Spaghetti Monster, while eating alone at the Olive Garden.
"I heard singing, and tomato sauce rained from the sky, and I saw angel hair pasta flying about with little farfalle wings and playing harps," she wrote. "It was beautiful." The Spaghetti Monster, she went on, impregnated her and told her, "You shall name Him ... Prego ... and He shall bring in a new era of love."
Parody is a lot of fun. And parody begets more parody, especially on the Internet. It's contagious. But has anyone ever converted to a parody religion?
The history books show that parody isn't always the smartest strategy when it comes to persuasion. Remember Galileo? Some recent scholars say that it may not have been his science so much as his satire, "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems," that got everyone steamed up. Under threat of death, Galileo ended up recanting his view that the earth revolves around the sun, and had to wait 350 years for vindication.
And yet the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster flourishes. It even has schisms. A rival faction, based on SPAM (Spaghetti & Pulsar Activating Meatballs), has formed. And there's bickering, Mr. Henderson said in an e-mail message, about whether the god is made of spaghetti or linguini. Those people, he noted, "give me a headache."
sexist egotistical lying hypocritical bigot
art thou a farker, mrs. rachelgita?
[QUOTE][SIZE=4][B]Saudi billionaire boosts News Corp. voting stake[/B][/SIZE]
Wed Sep 7, 2005 2:49 AM ET
By Georg Szalai
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Saudi Arabian billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said Tuesday he now holds a 5.5% voting stake in Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and is ready to raise his stake, especially if it is necessary to shield Murdoch from any potential hostile takeover attempts by the likes of John Malone's Liberty Media.
Investment vehicles controlled by the prince's Kingdom Holding Co. have converted what was last reported to be a 3% non-voting stake in the entertainment conglomerate into the new voting holding.
In an interview on CNBC Tuesday, Alwaleed said he has communicated his strategy to Murdoch and was "mobilized and ready" to further boost his voting stake "if we feel that the strategy of Mr. Murdoch and his son and his family is being threatened by any outsider." He added: "Clearly, this is something we will not accept, because we are very happy as shareholders with what Mr. Murdoch is doing."
A News Corp. spokesman Tuesday declined to comment on the news, but company sources said the Saudi prince has long been regarded by Murdoch as an ally in his showdown with Malone.
Liberty officials couldn't be reached for comment.
In November, Malone shocked Murdoch and Wall Street observers by announcing he had converted non-voting shares in News Corp. to build a close-to 18% voting stake in the conglomerate. The Murdoch family held a 29.5% stake as of November.
News Corp. late last year put in place a "poison pill," an anti-takeover measure that effectively freezes in Liberty's stake in the company. Last month, News Corp. said it has extended the provision until November 2007 after Malone had said talks about a potential buyback of Liberty's stake have gone nowhere, and a deal was unlikely to happen this year.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter[/QUOTE]
Hmmmmmm...
[QUOTE]
[B]Girl captures gator after watching TV show[/B]
By The Associated Press
(9/07/05 - TTARENTUM, PA) — Crocus, a 2-foot pet alligator escaped from his backyard enclosure, but was captured by a girl who used what she learned on a nature TV program.
Nicki Hilliard and several friends saw the animal swimming in the Allegheny River. Hilliard said she learned how to catch the animals safely by watching the television show "Crocodile Hunter." The secret is to grab the animal's snout and hold its mouth closed.
The kids put the animal in a beverage cooler and took it to the police station, where it was locked inside a cell until owner Belinda Thomson arrived to claim it.
Thompson said neighborhood cats opened the fence in her back yard, enabling Crocus to escape. [/QUOTE]
What a great pet alligators make...
[IMG]http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b394/wenknee/milkmen.jpg[/IMG]
[url=http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005410429,00.html]brass balls[/url]
BLIND MAN RAPES HIS GUIDE DOG.
(and he's called Yoder, it sounds like Yoda. heh)
According to PETA, Yoder allegedly invited a woman to join him in the act. Tallahassee police report Yoder admitted to performing sex acts on the animal
[URL=http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45995]rape my dog i will[/URL]
[url=http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2005-09-07T124351Z_01_MAR745758_RTRIDST_0_OUKOE-UK-BELGIUM-CEMETERY.XML]my grandma always said it was better to be pissed off that pissed on. now here's a guy who's both![/url]*
*note: "a guy" being the dead guy. the buried one. not the chick. she's not the guy.
Either this kid knows whats up or he's had some kind of break with reality. Not sure if this is real. But I thought it was kind of funny.
Columbus and the New World
[IMG]http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b61/FearlessFife3000/Peter_2_colombus.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b61/FearlessFife3000/Fife_Post_Neg_3_b.jpg[/IMG]
thats great where did that come from?
kontraband.com
They've got all kinds of crazy stuff.
[IMG]http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b61/FearlessFife3000/Fife_Post_Neg_3_b.jpg[/IMG]
Brown's "request" for Homeland Security employees. [url]http://wid.ap.org/documents/dhskatrina.pdf[/url]
"Thank you for your consideration in helping us meet our responsibilities in this near
,catastrophic event."
Could he be any less urgent about his job?
"Consideration?!?!?" WTF?
[IMG]http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b61/FearlessFife3000/Fife_Post_Neg_3_b.jpg[/IMG]
near catastrophic event, huh? how nearer could they get?
[QUOTE=alex cassun]art thou a farker, mrs. rachelgita?[/QUOTE]
huh? you lost me there.....
sexist egotistical lying hypocritical bigot
[QUOTE=188416]BLIND MAN RAPES HIS GUIDE DOG.
(and he's called Yoder, it sounds like Yoda. heh)
According to PETA, Yoder allegedly invited a woman to join him in the act. Tallahassee police report Yoder admitted to performing sex acts on the animal
[URL=http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45995]rape my dog i will[/URL][/QUOTE]
cool, more seeing eye dogs stuff.
So...We are still going to die. Right?
the president of the nonviolent something or other club repsonds to a post regarding how looters should be shot by saying that anyone who stands in the way of looters looting should be shot--be in national guard, cops or George Dubya himself. Ironic enough to make for a good post, I've no doubt, but what makes it a great post is that this president of some nonviolent club is now being investigated and could spend five years in prison for making threats against the president. good times.
read the full article [url=http://www.tampabays10.com/weird/weird_article.aspx?storyid=18614]here[/url].
[URL=http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050913/ap_on_re_us/caged_children]If only this resulted in kids to be more well-behaved and not sexual predators...[/URL]
[QUOTE][B][SIZE=4]Neighbors Say Kids Found in Cages Polite[/SIZE] [/B]
By M.R. KROPKO, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 33 minutes ago
WAKEMAN, Ohio - The 11 children removed from a house where authorities say some of them slept in homemade cages are polite, well-behaved, well-dressed and appear to have been well-fed, neighbors and authorities said Tuesday.
Their adoptive parents, Michael Gravelle, 56, and Sharen Gravelle, 57, denied in a custody hearing Monday that they abused or neglected the children, who are ages 1-14 and have conditions that included autism and fetal alcohol syndrome.
No charges had been filed as of Tuesday afternoon, and messages left with the couple's lawyer were not immediately returned.
The Gravelles have said a psychiatrist recommended they make the children sleep in the cages, Huron County Prosecutor Russell Leffler told the Norwalk Reflector. The parents said the children, including some who had mental disorders, needed to be protected from each other, according to a search warrant on file at Norwalk Municipal Court.
Leffler refused to speak with an Associated Press reporter Tuesday at his office.
Neighbors said they often saw or heard the children playing, and the family yard was littered with toys — plastic cars, tricycles, slides and an overturned skateboard near a wooden ramp. Seven bicycles were piled in a storage shed.
"Those kids were dressed better than some of the kids who live in Cleveland. They behaved like any other kids when they were outside playing," said Jim Power, who lives across the street.
At night, authorities say, eight of the children were confined in 3 1/2-foot-tall wooden cages stacked in bedrooms on the second floor. The cages were painted in bright, primary colors, with some rigged with alarms that would send a signal to the downstairs when a cage door was opened. One cage had a dresser in front of it, county sheriff's Lt. Randy Sommers said Tuesday.
"The sheriff and I stood there for a few minutes and just kind of stared at what we were seeing. We were speechless," Sommers said.
No one answered the Gravelles' door Tuesday, and the gray, four-bedroom house was dark. A pig, roosters and other animals shared the yard outside Wakeman, a city of about 1,000 people 50 miles west of Cleveland.
The children have been placed with four foster families and were doing well, said Erich Dumbeck, director of the Huron County Department of Job and Family Services.
"We're still trying to figure out what happened in that home. We don't have any indication at this point that there was any abuse," Dumbeck said.
Sommers said a social worker investigating a complaint contacted authorities. Dumbeck would not discuss the complaint.
According to the search warrant, the cages had mats and the house smelled of urine. One boy said he slept in a cage for three years, Sommers said. A baby slept in a small bed, and two girls used mattresses
Deputies said they were called to the home last year when a 12-year-old boy was upset and ran away for several hours. He was found not far away.
Although the family has lived in Huron County for 10 years, the children were adopted through other counties and states, Dumbeck said. He said his agency was trying to determine how the adoptions were completed.
"I don't believe there were any caseworkers checking in with this family," he said. Reviews are ordered only when there is a complaint.
One of the children, a boy born with HIV, was adopted as an infant in 2001 through the Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services, the agency's director Jim McCafferty said. For caring for him, the Gravelles received a subsidy of at least $500 a month.
The private agencies who reviewed the couple's home life before the adoption gave them "glowing reports," McCafferty said.
Leah Hunter, who lives two houses away, said she often saw the children walking down the road.
"They looked OK. They hardly ever wore shoes but I'm a country girl and for me that's normal," she said. [/QUOTE]
She's filed suit against Orkin after allegedly being pinned down by an exterminator after she questioned the amount of the bill.
Patience Von Suttka claims Antonio Battle came to her home last year, and got out of control when she challenged the higher-than-usual fee for pest control. The woman claims Battle grabbed her walker, threw it across the room and then jumped on her.
She says he shoved a pesticide nozzle into her throat and sprayed it.
Battle was fired just hours later.
A grand jury has indicted him on charges of aggravated assault and carrying a concealed weapon.
The woman says she still suffers numbness in parts of her face and neck.