Archive for the ‘crime’ Category

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Serial Killer Followup

Friday, March 30th, 2012

You may remember my mention of Robert Ben Rhodes (the truck driver accused of torturing, killing and raping as many as 50 women) who was awaiting trial in the same Big Spring, Texas jail that also housed child-abusing polygamist Warren Jeffs.

Rhodes has been sentenced to life imprisonment rather than the death penalty. This is disappointing, since he was already serving a life sentence for murders committed in Illinois and if any U.S. criminal currently behind bars in the U.S. deserves the death penalty, it’s Rhodes. But he’d been awaiting trial since 2009, which suggests there was some problem with prosecution evidence. And since he’s already 66, there was a good chance Rhodes would have died behind bars before the sentence was carried out anyway…

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A List of the Top 25 Noir Films

Wednesday, February 29th, 2012

Haven’t seen a lot of these, but the ones I have are all worth watching. Though I still think Sunset Boulevard is a bit of a stretch as Noir. It’s sui generis..

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J. G. Ballard and the London Riots

Saturday, August 13th, 2011

J. G. Ballard fans will find this Andrew Fox piece on Ballard’s works and the London riots of considerable interest.

Having been interned as a child in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in World War II (the source of Empire of the Sun), Ballard has always been interested in what happens when you strip away the veneer of civilization. Much of Fox’s piece concerns Ballard’s later novels, which I have not read, “all of which feature middle class professionals either diving into or being pulled into revolutionary, nihilistic violence due to ennui, boredom, or a cancerlike consumerism which has replaced religion and patriotism at the center of their psyche.” (Though I have a number of Ballard first editions, I’m still catching up on the reading them, having just finished The Crystal World earlier this year.) Ballard’s penultimate novel, Millennium People, evidently features “middle class professionals in suburban London instigating terrorism and revolution in an effort to shock a sense of meaning back into their lives.” Which does tie rather neatly into the London riots of the last week…

Also, I must have missed this Theodore Dalrymple piece on Ballard.

(Hat tip: Instapundit.)

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That Didn’t Take Long: Warren Jeffs Found Guilty

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

“A Texas jury convicted polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs of child sexual assault on Thursday.” Which is to say, the same day the “defense” rested. It’s like that episode of Get Smart where 86 is on trail, and the jury comes back with a guilty verdict in less than 30 seconds. “They must have decided in the hallway.”

So, how’s that “I’ll be my own defense lawyer” thing working out for you, crazy pedophile polygamist guy?

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Crime Blotter Update: Warren Jeffs Trial Nears End

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

You might remember my previous update on convicted polygamist Warren Jeffs, former president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Jeffs is on trail for child sex abuse of one of his 12-year old “wives.” The defense has just recently rested in that trial. Will he be convicted? Well, since:

  • The prosecution played an audio sex tape of Jeffs have sex with said 12-year old while three of his other “wives” watched, and
  • Jeffs is acting as his own attorney (oooo, bad idea, space cadet, albeit not as bad as being a crazy pedophile cult leader);

    • Signs would point to Mr. Jeffs spending more time in correctional facilities in the near future. (Insert you own joke about the new “wives” he’ll meet there.)

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    This Week in Criminal Stupidity

    Wednesday, July 27th, 2011

    Protip: If you’re trying to sell meat door to door out of a truck, don’t try to sell to a game warden.

    Especially if you don’t have retail truck dealer’s license.

    And you’re wanted in California for burglary.

    And the truck you’re driving is stolen. (Scroll down to July 18 on the link.)

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    Today’s Fark-Ready Headline: “Did mother’s urge to play Yahtzee cause son to strangle her?”

    Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

    The family involved seems a wee tad dysfunctional. Mama Mason’s boys (yes, there are three involved) don’t seem like the sharpest points in the punch-kit:

    The charges said Jacob Cobb strangled his mother on the living room floor. Then he or his brother Andrew put a plastic bag over her head and tightened a belt around her neck. Clemens allegedly drove her body west to South Dakota, then east to Glenwood, Minn., before storing the corpse in a garbage can in a shed for months until the ground thawed enough for the two elder brothers to bury it.

    Sounds like the makings of a good Coen Brothers movie. Or a bad Joe Pesci movie…

    Bonus One: The climatic battle scene from the South Park episode “You Have Zero Friends”.

    Bonus Two: Body Count’s “Momma’s Gotta Die Tonight”:

    (Both of those are a little NSFW…)

    (Hat tip: Bill Crider.)

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    Lists of Top Crime Films

    Monday, June 27th, 2011

    Ever since the 70s Crime Film Festival I’ve been a bit on a crime film kick, having watched Get Carter, Mean Streets, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Casino and Scarface. Along the way I’ve found a few Best Crime Films lists that may be worthy of your attention:

  • Here’s a list of Top 25 Crime Films I can’t really quibble too much about, though I’d probably change the order on some.
  • Here’s the IMDB Top 5o Crime Films List, which is a bit more eclectic.
  • Here’s a Top 100 List broken out by sub-genre. Unfortunately, in addition to expanding the list to include things like Westerns, it also lets some dubious crap in. (Constantine and Rendition? Really?) And Ronin is a great car chase surrounded by a pretty mediocre thriller.

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    Starr Faithfull, Andrew J. Peters, and the Scandals of Yesterday

    Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

    Today we come up on the 80th anniversary of an unsolved death that marked a major scandal for a prominent political figure. The badly bruised body of beautiful 25-year old girl washed up on the beach at Long Island, her liver showing traces of Veronal (the first commercially available barbiturate). The body turned out to be one Starr Faithfull, a “good time girl” well known on the Boston social scene.

    That would be interesting enough. But it turned out that Starr Faithfull kept a diary, in which she described having an affair with a prominent political figure. The figure turned out to be Boston Mayor Andrew James Peters, who denied the affair, but who ended up paying $20,000 worth of hush money to Starr Faithfull’s father.

    John O’Hara would later use elements of the story in his novel BUtterfield 8, though set in New York rather than Boston, which lead to Elizabeth Taylor’s Academy Award winning performance in the movie of the same name.

    But the movie (I haven’t read the book) changes one very big detail: the first time she had sex with Peters, Starr Faithfull was eleven years old.

    As to whether she was murdered or not, that remains unresolved to this very day…

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    Liberty County Mass Grave: “Never Mind”

    Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

    You know that 0-30 range for that mass grave? It turned out to be on the low end of that range. Namely zero.

    Can I say I’m psychic for thinking this was bunk?

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