Oscar Ray Bolin was convicted yesterday, for the third time, of killing a
Tampa woman in 1986. He was convicted of three murders, then had them
overturned on appeal, then convicted in each on retrial, and had them
overturned again, and now we've finished the trifecta. Even given that the
death penalty has been imposed, you'd think that by now, Bolin would be
tired of all this hopeless mishegas, but he has just kept appealin'
and appealin', and Bolin-watchers know why: his wife. Rosalie is a manic
criminal investigator who married the guy by telephone in 1996 and is
certifiably the only person on the planet who thinks he's innocent. So,
there's your explanation: Oscar Ray Bolin, vicious murderer, probably well
into the "acceptance" phase of his life, keeps appealing because he is the
only death-row inmate in history who's whipped. [Tampa Tribune]
Pensacola Evangelist Prepares for Prison Ministry
A federal jury yesterday convicted Kent Hovind (who founded the creationist
theme park Dinosaur Adventure Land) and his wife of quite-massive tax fraud,
most notably their steadfast refusal to fork over to the gov't their
employees' withholding tax (on the ground that people who work for God aren't
taxable). [Pensacola News Journal]
"Ahead of the Curve"
That's what Yr Editor calls it when reporting something out of the
mainstream, i.e., either you'll be reading about it in the next day or two
in the real news, or Yr Editor's been bamboozled altogether. Anyway, it says
here that a fella named Justin Steele, 22, dove off the suicide-friendly
Sunshine Skyway this week (197 ft), and swam away in basically tip-top
shape, but only one Tampa Bay news outfit has seen fit to report it.
[WTSP-TV (St. Petersburg)]
Floridians with Worse Sex Lives than You
Sheriff's deputies in Orlando took Marlon Fryer into custody after an
officer witnessed him standing outside an apartment window with his zipper
down. According to the deputies, Fryer's thing was watching teenage girls
while they sleep. [WKMG-TV (Orlando)]
And Sarasota County school bus driver Amber Hamilton, 24, was
arrested after allegedly showing nude pictures of herself on her cell phone
to some of the kids on her Phillippi Shores Elementary School route.
[TheSmokingGun.com]
And David Stewart was acquitted in Shepherdsville, Ky., on Tuesday.
Some readers may remember (if only from News of the Weird!) that a spate of
phone calls was reported to fast-food restaurants, from 1999-2004, in which
the caller impersonated a cop or other authority figure and demanded the
manager interview (while he listened in) and frisk/fondle a female employee,
who the caller said has evidence of a crime but that unusual interrogation
techniques are required. In the Kentucky case, for example, the manager was
instructed to tell the woman to strip naked and jump up and down and then
for the manager to sniff her sweaty body and try to identify the smell,
which would tell the caller if she had ingested illegal drugs. (Folks, Yr
Editor just reports these as they're published.) Anyway, as a result of a
big dragnet of the six or seven states in which such calls had been
reported, David Stewart of Pensacola was arrested and, according to officers
on the scene, blared out a gushing near-confession. Well, Kentucky was the
first state to try him, and there was photographic evidence that he bought
the particular calling card in question at an F State Wal-Mart and that
calls were made on the card that coincide with the crimes committed (which
are impersonating a police office officer and fraud). The jury said on
Tuesday: not enough evidence for us that he was actually the caller. A civil
lawsuit (for, gasp, $200m) remains, from the aforementioned up-and-down
jumper, against McDonald's for not protecting her better. The other states
want to get hold of Stewart but may also have evidence problems. [Louisville
Courier-Journal]
Your Daily Loser
Orlando motorist Noel Methot, 24, was having a really intensive argument on
her cell phone with her boyfriend as she passed signs that are usually
effective in alerting drivers (at least non-telephone-using drivers) that
the road near Lake Haven is about to end. Her car nearly hit a woman's dog,
flew through the air 20 to 30 feet off Palmer Avenue, and landed in a pond.
[WFTV-TV (Orlando)]
More Things to Worry About Today
Pyros in training: Chucky Hill, 9, in Miramar, and an unnamed 4-yr-old, in
Daytona Beach, and actually, the 4-yr-old's ahead of Chucky at this stage of
his development because it's his second accidentally-torched family home in
four months [WPLG-TV (Miami)] [WKMG-TV (Orlando)] . . . . . Dwarf-bowling in
bars is so 20th century, but dwarf-wrestling is now! (at
Tampa's James Joyce Pub) [Creative Loafing (Tampa)] . . . . . From the
Monday governor's debate, by the silver-haired (if not silver-tongued)
Charlie Crist, opposing gay marriage because "marriage" is a "sacred"
relationship "like I had, before I got divorced." [St. Petersburg Times]
