More stupid criminals

Or why I believe that euthanasia can be a good thing.

In October in Evansville, Ind., Terrence L. Mackey, 63, was sentenced to 29 years in prison for a May 2005 bank robbery, but not before he tried to defend his behavior to Federal Judge Richard L. Young, blaming the robbery on federal corrections officials. He would have turned his life around before now, Mackey said, if officials had just sent him to a prison close to his mother's home in Florida when he was locked up for a 1982 crime. And as to the charge that he shot at police as he fled the bank robbery, he claimed self-defense: "The police were shooting at me." [Evansville Courier & Press, 10-26-05]

Cary, N.C., software developer Brian T. Schellenberger, 43, told FBI agents in December 2003 that he had been influenced by a workplace motivational poster, "Achieve Your Dreams," that energized him to fulfill his own dreams. His major life transformation, unfortunately, was that "I decided to get rid of the obsolete idea of morality." Specifically, he told the agents that he was inspired to move beyond his mere passive collecting of pornography and to begin creating his own child pornography to satisfy long-held fantasies about young girls. (He also later enlisted a man, unsuccessfully, to kill his wife in exchange for pornography from his collection.) In October 2005, Schellenberger, though subsequently remorseful, was sentenced to 100 years in prison. [Raleigh News & Observer, 10-20-05]

Police in Twin Falls, Idaho, confiscated almost $1 billion in counterfeit money in October in a doomed scheme in which the loot consisted only of bills of the denomination of $1 million (which does not legally exist); a man from Buhl, Idaho, had tried to give a bank that amount as collateral for a loan. And according to police in Lafayette, Ind., in September, Earl Devine's counterfeit money was not much better: Though a popular name for $100 bills is "Benjamins" (for the face of Benjamin Franklin), Devine's $100 bills still had the face of Abraham Lincoln from the $5 bill he allegedly used as a model. [Fox News, 10-17-05]

Neelesh Phadnis, 24, acting as his own lawyer, earned himself a conviction in Seattle in October for killing his parents, in large part (according to a Seattle Times story) because of his defense that the crimes were committed by, first, a gang of 400-pound Samoans, later augmented during his testimony to include their girlfriends, two whites, two blacks, a Native American and a transsexual, and later still, to be described as more than 30 armed Samoans. (They were all slow runners, too, for Phadnis said he outran them all to escape, despite being seriously wounded. When he finally summoned the police, he told the arriving officers that he was too tired and hungry to talk about his parents' bodies and that they should "go home.") [Seattle Times, 10-7-05, 10-8-05]

In September, Anthony R. Martin, 52, of Belleville, Ill., became the latest person to call the police and complain that someone had stolen his illegal drugs. But there was more: Martin told the investigating officer that a hostile neighbor had taken his marijuana plants, but when he showed the officer the room where he usually kept them, the plants were actually still there. Martin then said whoever took them must have returned them. He was charged with growing marijuana. (He also admitted that he had been drinking that night.) [News-Democrat (Belleville), 9-10-05]

While these aren't my stories, they all are true...

To read shitloads of true weirdness, go to "Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird" here:

http://www.newsoftheweird.com/archive/index.html

It's a daily read for me which only confirms my belief that we should begin culling the herd a bit...

Have a swell day!

(Note: this is one of a few posts I've had saved for days like today where I really don't have anything to write about, nothing extraordinary or remarkable has happened to me... I know it's hard for some of you to believe because I always have something to say... Ha, ha ha! But I've got nothing to say this morning of any great importance. I've been in a pretty good mood all week, I get to see my 'son' for the first time in over two years in a little more that a week... And I've really got nothing to bitch about. Give me time, I'll find something!)