[eggplant43]

Ohio Horror: 1 Man, 3 Dead Wives

COLUMBUS, Ohio, June 2, 2003


On a Sunday morning nearly 24 years ago, Lois Willis drove to her daughter's house to help with a cousin's bridal shower. The door was locked, so she left a note and went for breakfast.

An hour later, she returned to find the door ajar, her note on the ground, a stereo playing and no one in sight.

Willis walked through the house calling for her daughter, Lori. She couldn't bring herself to look in the basement.

"The first wife had been murdered there," she said. It was also where an in-law would later find Lori's body.

Last week, Lori's widower, Gerald "Bobby" Hand, 54, was convicted of murder in the deaths of his fourth wife, Jill, and a friend. Though he was charged only in the two Jan. 15, 2002, slayings, prosecutors suspect Hand of having also been involved in the deaths of Lori and his first wife, Donna.

Prosecutors said he was mired in debt and eager to collect on insurance. Hand's defense attorneys said the state lacks evidence to link him to their killings.

During the trial, Hand testified that he heard Jill cry out, saw a figure in the hall and grabbed two .38-caliber revolvers - firing as he rushed from his bedroom. The "intruder" turned out to be longtime friend Walter "Lonnie" Welch.

Hand acknowledged shooting Welch but denied any involvement in the deaths of his wives.

"I did kill Lonnie Welch after he was shooting my wife," Hand testified. "I can't explain why. I feel like I'd do it again if I could."

Prosecutors contended that Hand, owing more than $200,000 on 33 credit cards, shot Jill to collect about $700,000 in life insurance. They say he lured Welch to the house and shot him to keep him from telling people how the two men had successfully plotted to kill Hand's first two wives.

Hand "could eliminate a man who knew too much about the defendant's murderous past," prosecutor David Gormley told jurors.

Hand's first wife was Donna Anderson, whom he met in the late 1960s.

"He had a Corvette, she was kind of smitten with that," said her brother, Steven Anderson.

The couple married in 1968. But around Thanksgiving 1975, Donna wrote her sister Connie, saying she was concerned for her safety and wanted a divorce.

In March 1976, Hand told police he returned from the YMCA one night to find Donna's body in the basement, a plastic dry cleaner's bag over her head and spark plug wire around her neck.

Detectives said she had hung herself, and insurance companies and the state agreed. Hand received $17,386 in life insurance and $50,000 from the state's Victims of Crime Compensation Fund.

Meanwhile, Lori Willis married Hand in 1977. Welch, an on-and-off employee at Hand's radiator shop, was the best man at their wedding.

"She was unhappy and she wanted out of the marriage," said Terri Sizemore, a friend of Lori's.

When Lois Willis couldn't find Lori that Sunday morning in 1979, Hand's mother came over with another son, Samuel, who made the grisly discovery. Police say Lori had been strangled with a plastic dry cleaner's bag and shot twice in the head.

A police detective recalled Hand didn't show much emotion.

"He wasn't crying," Sam Womeldorf said.

Hand collected $81,598 from insurance but was denied a crime-victim claim. It is unclear why. Ten years later, Hand married wife No. 3, Glenna Castle, who left him.

Right around the time of Lori's death, Jill Randolph moved with her husband, Gary, from Clarksburg, W.Va., and raised three daughters. After Gary Randolph died of cancer in 1989, the widow met Hand at a dance. He courted her lavishly, but friends were worried.

"I said, 'Jill, you can do so much better than this,"' said Sandy Moore, 57. "She said, 'But Sandy, I can't help it, I love him."'

In October 1992, Hand married Jill on her lunch break from the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

She was happy at first but seemed to grow sadder, co-workers said. Hand sold his business and was working as a security guard. By early 2002, Jill wanted a divorce.

"I said, 'I know you're going to leave and divorce him,"' Moore said. "And she said, 'I have to."' Jill was dead within a month.

Welch's relatives say he was haunted by the deaths of Hand's first two wives.

A cousin, Pete Adams, testified that in September 1979, "He started crying, and he said, 'I killed Lori and I killed Donna Hand.' He said he did it for Bob."

Another cousin said Welch told him he had sneaked into the house through a basement window and killed both women.

Hand's attorneys say those relatives are repeating media accounts. Attorney Terry Sherman says evidence shows no signs of entry through a basement window, and describes Welch as a cocaine addict prone to irrational acts.

Hand's family declined to comment. Rob Hand, Gerald and Lori's son, has previously said he believes his father is innocent.

At the arraignment last summer, Jill Hand's friend, Sandy Moore, hugged Hand's only surviving ex-wife, Glenna Castle. Moore says she told Castle: "I'm so glad you're alive" and Castle told her: "I only am, because I got out with the clothes on my back and I hid."

[eggplant43]

Strange Way To Catch A Plane
MEDFORD, Ore., June 3, 2003


A man running late for his flight to Phoenix called in a phony bomb threat Monday in hopes that the plane would be delayed long enough for him to get on board, police said.

America West clerks at the Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport became suspicious and notified police after the man came to their desk asking about Flight 6262, which by then was on its way back to the airport because of the threat, said Medford Police Lt. Mike Moran.

The man was held on outstanding, unrelated criminal charges and being questioned by the FBI, Moran said. The suspect was not immediately identified.

The plane, an America West express shuttle operated by Mesa Airlines, returned to the airport around 3 p.m., after the threat was called into America West headquarters.

The plane had been in the air for just a few moments when a flight attendant took a call from the pilot, said passenger Barbara Tatom of El Paso, Texas.

"She just turned white," Tatom said of the flight attendant. "I thought 'Oh my God, I think we're in trouble.' "

The 30 passengers were evacuated and a bomb squad searched the plane with the help of a dog. All bags were rechecked for any trace of an explosive device.

Nothing suspicious was discovered, said Capt. Joe Puckett of the Jackson County Sheriff's Office.

Officials believed the call was a "credible threat" because the caller referred to a specific flight, airport spokeswoman Kim Stearns said.

"The individual was firm and gave information for a specific flight," she said.

[eggplant43]

Building a Cruise Missile in His Backyard


Jun 5, 9:26 am ET

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A New Zealand handyman with a passion for jet engines says he is building a cruise missile in his backyard using parts and technology freely available over the Internet.
Bruce Simpson, a 49-year-old Internet site developer, has a site entitled "A DIY Cruise Missile" on which he says he was prompted to build the missile because so many people had told him it could not easily be done.

"I decided to put my money where my mouth is and build a cruise missile in my garage, on a budget of just US$5,000," he said on his Web site (www.interestingprojects.com).

"I like to think of this project as a military version of 'Junkyard Wars'," he says referring to a television program about teams building big machines from scrapyard materials.

He said he would publish step-by-step instructions on his Web site about how to make the jet-powered missile, which would be able to fly 100 km (60 miles) from his home, north of the main city of Auckland, in less than 15 minutes.

The missile could carry a small warhead weighing 10 kg (22 lb), would be hard to detect on radar, and would be impossible for the New Zealand Air Force to stop, Simpson said.

"Obviously the goal is not to provide terrorists or other nefarious types with plans for a working cruise missile but to prove the point that nations need to be prepared for this type of sophisticated attack from within their own borders."

The New Zealand Herald newspaper reported Simpson had imported a radio control transmitter, global positioning equipment, and a flight control system, among other things, without encountering problems from New Zealand customs.

"We are aware of the initiative," a Defense Force spokesman told Reuters, but declined any further comment.

[eggplant43]

Friday, June 6, 2003

Police: Failure to scoop poop becomes felony

Pantagraph staff

BLOOMINGTON -- Failure to scoop the poop landed a Bloomington woman in the coop Thursday morning.
Police said the 23-year-old woman was being issued an ordinance-violation ticket about 10:40 a.m. in downtown Bloomington because she hadn't cleaned up after her small dog at Monroe and Center streets.

The woman walked away from the city police officer and refused to return, which netted her a misdemeanor obstructing police charge, a police report said.

While in custody the woman kicked and shoved the arresting officer, which resulted in her being booked into jail on a preliminary charge of aggravated battery -- a felony, police said.

The woman remained in McLean County jail pending formal charging and a court appearance this afternoon, according to jail records.

McLean County Animal Control took the dog.

[Wino]

Hmmm...seems she would make a nice new addition to the TSG Random group - we need someone with a mild, temperate attitude!

[eggplant43]

How to Live Large, and Largely
For Free, Jennifer Voitle's Way

A Laid-Off Wall-Streeter Eats, Travels
And Stays in Hotels as Part of Work
By ROBERT FRANK
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- On the breezy patio of the Silver Lake Golf Course here, Jennifer Voitle was hard at work.

"Cheers," she said, hoisting a frosty Corona with lime. Tanned and relaxed after playing a few holes, she finished up the beer and ate a cheeseburger. The golf and burgers were all part of the job, as were the strict instructions from her boss to "consume at least one alcoholic beverage."

Her morning jobs were equally trying. She went dress shopping, stopped into a bank to cash a check and visited a Saturn dealership to look at new cars. After golf, she was headed to Manhattan for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant. All these activities were paid jobs. Her total earnings for the day: about $300. "Can you believe they call this work?" she said.


Jennifer Voitle has mastered the Freebie Economy. A former investment-bank employee who was laid off two years ago, Ms. Voitle has found a new career in the arcane world of dining deals, gift certificates and "mystery shopping," where companies pay her to test their products and services. She gets paid to shop, eat at restaurants, drink at bars, travel and even play golf. Last month, she made nearly $7,000 from her various freebie adventures. By the end of the year, she could be making more than she did in investment banking, not counting her steady supply of handouts.

She gets free gas, free groceries and free clothes. When her car breaks down, she gets paid to have it repaired. She can make $75 for test-driving a Land Rover, $20 for drinking at a bar and $25 for playing arcade games (she keeps any winnings). Golfing is her latest passion, and in addition to playing on courses around the country free of charge, she gets free food and drinks and gifts from the pro shop.

Weekend trips to Hawaii and Mexico? "I don't pay for anything except occasional meals," she says. She does much of her work on a free hand-held computer.

"My friends tell me I should just get a job," says Ms. Voitle, who is slim and blond and gives her age as "somewhere over 30." But, she says, "most full-time jobs out there don't make economic sense."

Number-Cruncher

Ms. Voitle never planned on becoming a freeloader. A trained engineer and financial expert, with four advanced degrees and a gift for numbers theory, Ms. Voitle worked for years as a number-cruncher for Detroit's auto factories. Her real dream was to make it big on Wall Street. In 2000, she got her break when Lazard LLC, the storied investment bank, hired her to analyze fixed-income derivatives in the firm's asset-management business.

Single, with a salary of more than $100,000, Ms. Voitle bought a house in leafy Baldwin, N.Y., complete with a pool and gym. She spent weekends golfing, traveling or playing with her cats -- Continental and Northwest. In the fall of 2001, she was laid off. With thousands of other investment-bank workers losing their jobs, Ms. Voitle couldn't find any financial work. Last summer, her unemployment checks ran out and both her electricity and phone were shut off.

"I woke up one morning and said, "That's it. I have to start looking for money, wherever I can find it," she says.

Trolling the Internet, she discovered an ad for mystery shopping. "I thought, 'this looks too good to be true,' " she says. Mystery shoppers get paid to sample a company's service or products and write a report on their experience. For companies, mystery shopping is popular way of checking on quality. For Ms. Voitle, it was a quick source of cash and freebies.

Her first assignment was a Pathmark grocery store, where she received free groceries and $10 for a quick report. She worked her way up to gas stations, clothing stores and restaurants. She quickly discovered that the best-paying mystery shopping jobs were for upscale businesses like banks and high-end car dealers. She earns $75 for test-driving a Land Rover, compared with about $30 for a Ford.

Volume is critical. On any given day, she will mystery shop gas stations, grocery stores, golf courses, clothing stores, casinos, hotels, insurance companies and restaurants. She even gets paid to shop for apartments and interview for jobs. She can make as much as $50 for applying for a job at a major company, and reporting back on the performance of the people who do the hiring. The only catch: If she's offered a job, she has to turn it down. "For someone who's unemployed, I get a lot of job offers," she says.

Not that freeloading is easy. Ms. Voitle spends most of her day racing around New York in a battered Mercury minivan, piled high with files and road maps, empty 7-Eleven cups and nutrition bars. She says she usually gets home after 11 p.m. and writes reports on her computer until 1 or 2 in the morning, starting again the next day at 6:30. Her cellphone rings constantly. Usually the calls are from companies that use her as a shopper.

"A golf course in Hawaii?" she says to a recent caller. "I think I can do that."

Beyond mystery shopping, Ms. Voitle also collects gift certificates, travel deals, two-for-one coupons and cross-promotional deals. She does detailed cost-benefit analyses of most of her deals. She's always on the lookout for what she calls "freebie synergies," or combining multiple deals to get more value. Before she sets out each morning, she plans a detailed travel route to make sure she hits the greatest possible number of stores.

On a recent morning in Long Island City, she mystery shopped a bank and earned a quick $15 for visiting the teller and trying to cash a check. She spotted a Saturn dealership across the street and got a $50 gift certificate to Target for test-driving a car -- another cross-promotion. Pulling out of the car dealership, she saw a bridal shop and made another $15 for trying on dresses for half an hour.

Ms. Voitle does have a few real jobs -- but they also include multiple freebies. She stocks grocery-store shelves for consumer companies, getting as much as $13 an hour in salary and $100 a day in travel expenses, which she can use to subsidize her mystery shopping. On Sundays, she sells printers at a computer store, where she can buy technical books for $1 and sell them on the Internet for $50. She can write off her cellphone bills because she provides preparatory phone interviews for people looking to find work on Wall Street.

"I couldn't believe there were all these opportunities out there," says Gordon Stewart, a friend of Ms. Voitle's who works in finance. "She's discovered this whole other economy."

So far, Ms. Voitle's ventures haven't attracted any scrutiny. She follows the general rule of her employers not to mystery shop more than three of the same businesses a day and to file detailed reports on her store visits. She once mystery shopped so many grocery stores during one period that the mystery-shopping company put her on grocery suspension for three months. Ms. Voitle mystery shops for several concerns, including mystery-shopping firms ICC Decision Services and Customer Perspectives LLC.

Judi Hess, president of Customer Perspectives, Hooksett, N.H., confirms that Ms. Voitle has done several mystery shops for the company over the past year and that "we wouldn't keep using her unless she was a good shopper." A spokesman for ICC Decision Services declines to comment on Ms. Voitle.

Ms. Voitle says her ultimate goal is to return to Wall Street or get a job at a large financial institution. If that fails, she's considering writing a book or holding seminars on living for free.

"I think it could help a lot of unemployed people," she says. "But I'm not sure they'd pay for it."

[angelize56]

I'll take that kind of job! I've done that for Burger King in the past. Had to time their speed of service at the drive-thru and use a thermometer to see what degree the food I ordered was at. Got $10 and a free meal for 2 minutes work!

[eggplant43]

'Street Family' Eyed For Murder
PORTLAND, Ore., June 12, 2003


Police raided downtown homeless shelters and arrested 11 people in the death of a mentally disabled woman whose body was found beside railroad tracks last month, police said.

Jessica Kate Williams, 22, belonged to the same "street family" as those arrested Tuesday, police said. Williams was killed because she violated the family's code, Portland police spokesman Sgt. Brian Schmautz said. He declined to give specifics.

A friend of Williams said Wednesday that she was killed because she falsely told police that another member of her street family had tried to make her into a prostitute.

"Jessica was labeled as a liar and a snitch," said Jeff Cameron, 19.

Those arrested ranged in age from 16 to 27. Two, both 18, were charged with murder; all 11 were charged with assault, coercion and kidnapping.

A 12th person, a 17-year-old boy, was charged Wednesday with aggravated murder. He remained at large.

A train engineer found Williams' body beside the railroad tracks at the Steel Bridge on May 23. She had been stabbed and bludgeoned to death, an autopsy concluded.

Williams was born with fetal alcohol syndrome and had the mental capacity of a 12-year-old, her family said. Her 18-year-old sister, Noel Williams, told The Oregonian that she was "a big teddy bear, the sweetest, most kind person."

Although she had a home, Williams occasionally spent nights at a shelter for homeless youths. In the week before her death, Williams had reportedly lived beneath the bridge.

Long-term homeless youths generally join so-called street families for mutual support. Schmautz said the families even have a "mother" and a "father," although members generally have no biological ties.

[plschwartz]

Ehrlich Asks Attorneys to Determine If State Can End Hickey Contract

[plschwartz]

Emirates approve hike in blood money

AP[ THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 2003 06:37:46 AM ]

DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates' advisory council has approved an increase of 50,000 dirhams (US$13,736) in blood money for victims of murder or accidental death, newspapers reported Wednesday.

If approved by the leaders of each of the seven emirates, it would be the first increase in more than 12 years.

The Federal National Council, an appointed group that issues nonbinding decisions to the government, approved the amendment Tuesday to a 1991 federal law regulating the payment of blood money, the English-language Gulf News and the Gulf Today newspapers reported.

Blood money is the compensation that an Islamic court orders a convicted attacker to pay to the victim or the victim's relatives. It is also paid in cases of vehicle or other accidents that result in a death.


FNC officials were not available for comment Wednesday.


The amendment, which raises the ``diya'' or blood money payment to 200,000 dirhams ($54,945), has to be endorsed by the Supreme Council, which is headed by the leaders of each of the seven emirates.



Approved by the Emirates Cabinet last month, the amendment is aimed at serving as a deterrent in addition to compensating for the loss of the deceased, the papers said.



The Supreme Council first introduced blood money in 1983 at an amount of 70,000 dirhams ($19,230). The amount was increased to 150,000 dirhams ($41,208) in 1991.



The Emirates has a very low crime rate, but a high road accident rate that results in many deaths every year. Recent official figures show more than 560 people died in road accidents in 2001, 32.5 per cent of them Emirates nationals.



The FNC, established in 1972, is the closest thing the Emirates has to a parliament. Member of the 40-person body are appointed for two-year terms by the leaders of the seven emirates.

[eggplant43]

AG says teen ran bogus airline
Reilly says teen ran bogus airline

By Diane E. Lewis, Globe Staff, 6/13/2003

It seemed like a pretty good deal: Luxury flights from Los Angeles airport to Honolulu and back for as little as $89 each way, starting July 3.

Called Mainline Airways LLC, the online venture created by Luke R. Thompson, a Babson College student in his freshman year at the Wellesley institution known for its entrepreneurial studies, promised ''personal TVs in all classes of service as well as a very affordable first-class cabin.'' Another online pitch to consumers described Mainline as a discount provider with all of the amenities of more traditional competitors.

The company website, www.mainlineairways.com, also offered a cancellation and reservation change policy, links to other companies like Southwest Airlines, and two roundtrip flights daily from Los Angeles to Honolulu.

But six months after the 18-year-old from Yardley, Pa., launched his website, he and his business were slapped with a Suffolk Superior Court order Wednesday barring advertising, selling tickets, or making reservations for air travel. The restraining order obtained by Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly also prevents Thompson from withdrawing money from any of his bank accounts.

''In effect, [Thompson] has been grounded,'' Reilly told reporters at his office yesterday. ''He has been prevented from doing business as Mainline Airways. Our investigation indicates that this was not a legitimate business, a legitimate airline. . . . It had no planes and no pilots.''

An investigator for Reilly, Dante Annicelli, bought a $428.92 round trip ticket from Los Angeles to Honolulu, but allegedly found that Mainline was unregistered at Los Angeles International Airport. Violation of Massachusett's consumer laws carries a maximum penalty of $5,000 per charge.

Thompson did not return telephone calls to his home in Pennsylvania yesterday.

A spokesman for Babson College said the college, which offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in business, could not comment on Thompson's actions. Babson is also investigating the student's business venture.

Consumer advocates said yesterday the case highlights the potential of Internet fraud. They maintained that as Internet use has grown, so have fake auction sites and bogus online service centers whose discount offers to shoppers are used to steal credit card numbers and, in some cases, personal identities.

''My guess is that this is the tip of the iceberg,'' said Deirdre Cummings, consumer program director at the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group. ''It is very easy to start a website. For a $50 fee and an annual renewal rate of $25, you can start.'' She noted that a hosting company will provide a website for between $10 and $50 a month.

Court records indicate that Thompson registered his site with a company called Hosting-Network Inc. of Fort Myers, Fla. Authorities said they tracked down the hosting site by contacting a website registration listing service known as Network Solutions.

Meanwhile, Hawaii state officials are probing Thompson's business activities as well. Last week, they obtained a temporary restraining order against the teenager barring him from advertising his firm, selling tickets, or using any money he may have acquired through Mainline Airways' transactions.

Stephen Levins of Hawaii's Office of Consumer Protection in Honolulu said the investigation began after Thompson spammed the wireless carrier, T-Mobile.

''He sent e-mail messages to people touting $89 and $99 fares from Los Angeles to Honolulu and back,'' said Levins. ''Our investigation revealed that [the company] did not appear to be much more than a website. The website was detailed and comprehensive and told about the aircraft, leather seats, and individual viewing monitors.''

Levins said investigators grew suspicious when they discovered that Thompson had not filed any of the required documents with the state of Hawaii or with the Federal Aviation Administration. ''There was no prospectus,'' Levins noted. ''Even if you are running a charter operation you have to file with the FAA and you must comply with requirements here concerning our charter law. ''

On June 10, four days after Hawaiian officials slapped him with a restraining order, Thompson faxed a two-page letter to the consumer protection office there, denying any wrongdoing. The letter said Mainline Airways ''has decided to go beyond simply complying with the order you obtained to put a temporary hold on our sales. . . . We have decided to voluntarily and permanently cancel all plans of chartering aircraft between [Los Angeles and Honolulu airports]. . . . At this point, we feel that we will actually achieve better public relations by canceling our plans and insuring that all credit card authorization transactions are reversed rather than by continuing operations as planned.''

The letter also said the airline was canceling its operations because of ''negative public sentiment that has been received because of this action preventing us from engaging in any transactions with customers . . . as well as lackluster sales.'' The fax said the firm had received ''just 120 prereservations'' from customers.

[eggplant43]

Homeless serving as billboards

By Andrew Kramer

The Associated Press



PORTLAND — Peter Schoeff, a 20-year-old homeless man, woke up in an abandoned house and planned to spend his day Dumpster diving and asking for spare change.

"We dig in trash, but usually, you can't find anything good in the trash," he said. "Just half-eaten sandwiches, cold French fries, crumbs in a bag of chips."

So a slice of hot, fresh pizza dripping with cheese seemed like a good deal — especially since all it required of him was holding a sign for about 40 minutes. The sign said: "Pizza Schmizza paid me to hold this sign instead of asking for money."

In what advertising industry watchers said is a first, a Portland pizza-by-the-slice company has hired homeless people off downtown sidewalks to take part in a guerrilla marketing campaign. They are paid in pizza, soda and a few dollars.

"I think it's a fair trade," said Schoeff, sitting on a backpack by a trash bin on a street corner. "We're career panhandlers, that's the only other way we can get money."

The signs were meant to be humorous, said Andre Jehan, the owner and founder of Pizza Schmizza, a 26-restaurant company operating in Oregon and Washington.

"People don't have to feel guilty, while still appreciating the person is homeless. It's a gesture of kindness more than anything," said Jehan, sitting at an outdoor table at one of his downtown Portland restaurants.

A dozen feet away, a homeless teenager squatted under an awning and asked passers-by for spare change.

Kipp Cheng, a spokesman for the American Association of Advertising Agencies, said he'd never heard of the tactic before, but wasn't surprised. From the sandwich board to cigarette girls to aerial banners, companies are forever searching for creative means to convey their messages to consumers, he said.

The search has become more frenetic lately because of what's known in advertising circles as "ad clutter" — the fragmentation of traditional outlets such as television and newspapers into cable channels and the Internet — and the search for alternatives.

Schmizza has also tried handing out fake parking tickets with pizza coupons and putting up fake election placards reading "Elect Schmizza for Dinner."

The homeless were a new advertising vehicle — and an opportunity to help, Jehan said.

He's proud to see Pizza Schmizza's name associated with helping the homeless, he said.

But critics of ad clutter are not impressed.

Gary Ruskin, director of Portland-based Commercial Alert, an ad-watchdog group founded by Ralph Nader, said homeless people acting as billboards should be paid minimum wage.

"If they don't get minimum wage, this is exploitation," he said.

The ads blur the gritty reality of homelessness with a society dominated by corporate images and brand names, Ruskin said.

"People don't want to get hammered with an ad every time they turn their head. Most advertising is either somewhat of a lie or deceptive, and it's an assault on our attention."

Jehan said the idea sprang not as a stroke of marketing inspiration but from the guilt he felt passing homeless people begging for money.

"I got tired of not being able to make eye contact with these people. I thought, 'What skills could they have?' Holding a sign was an obvious one," he said.

Nate Sandall, an analyst at Standard Insurance, grinned as he passed Schoeff and his sign.

"It's unusual, it's creative. At least they aren't asking me for change," he said. "Now, if every business did this, it would get old in a hurry."

[eggplant43]

Stabbed 14 times over a haircut
By Wayne Howell
11jun03

IT was the hairdo that almost cost a hairdresser her life. Heidelberg hairdresser Luul Jimale thought she had done a reasonable job of trying to redden Farhia Ali Mohamud's jet-black hair one Friday last year.

But after a weekend of phone insults, the irate customer returned to her shop on the Monday morning and stabbed Ms Jimale 14 times.
One of the blows punctured the hairdresser's lung and came within a centimetre of killing her.

Yesterday Mohamud, 34, of Bell St, Heidelberg, pleaded guilty in the County Court to intentionally causing serious injury and aggravated burglary.

The court heard that Mohamud had attended the Luula Shop, in the Mall on Bell St, on June 14 for a cut and colour.

Everything had appeared to be fine when Mohamud looked in the mirror and declared "this is nice", the court heard.

Things were not quite so fine when Mohamud looked in her purse and said, "Oh, I don't have any money with me", Ms Jimale told the court.

But there was no indication of the hair-raising terror Ms Jimale was about to endure.

She said her nightmare began two days later when Mohamud phoned her at home saying she wasn't happy with the "do".

Ms Jimale, 34, said Mohamud not only refused to pay the $80 for the cut and colour but threatened to damage her hairdressing salon.

She said things got really ugly when Ms Mohamud insulted her family and repeatedly threatened her life.

" `You will die. Your tongue will be removed . . . you will go to grave and I will go to jail.' That's what she told me," Ms Jimale said.

After the irate customer kept calling back, Ms Jimale said she disconnected the phone.

Cross-examined by Mohamud's counsel, Greg Hughan, the hairdresser denied calling Mohamud's eldest child a *******.

Ms Jimale said that on the following day, at work, she had her head down writing an appointment when Mohamud attacked her with a knife, stabbing her 14 times.

She denied insulting Mohamud or fighting her before being stabbed.

Prosecutor Alexander Albert said that one of the stab wounds pierced Ms Jimale's left lung, causing it to collapse.

He said one of the blows had come within a centimetre of killing her.

Mr Albert said Ms Jimale, bleeding profusely, grabbed a hammer and chased Mohamud out of her shop.

He said Ms Jimale had hit Mohamud's car with the hammer before collapsing and being taken to hospital.

Mr Albert said Mohamud had run all the way home instead of getting in her car because the wounded Ms Jimale had been so close behind her.

Mr Hughan said he would be arguing his client should get a lesser sentence because she had been provoked by Ms Jimale's insulting her family.

He said his client had lost control after Ms Jimale called her eldest child a *******, a particularly hurtful insult in Somalia, from where they both migrated in the mid-1990s.

Mr Hughan also said his client had stabbed Ms Jimale only when she thought Ms Jimale was reaching into her pocket for a weapon.

The plea hearing before Judge Carolyn Douglas was continuing.

[eggplant43]

Published Tuesday
June 17, 2003

Wife lived with fear in sealed home

BY LYNN SAFRANEK



WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
A key-operated deadbolt secured the front door of David and Polly Mitchell's northeast Omaha home. A combination padlock barred their back door.


The home at 2518 Maple St. in northeast Omaha that David and Polly Mitchell shared, with ground-floor windows covered in foil. David Mitchell was charged last week with false imprisonment of his wife.

Two boards nailed across their basement door blocked the only other entrance. Aluminum foil covered the inside of every ground-level window. Some of their windows were nailed shut.

David and Polly shared the home at 2518 Maple St. with their four children - until June 2. That's when Polly and the kids, assisted by relatives and the police, escaped.

Police arrested David Mitchell, 35, last week, and he was charged with false imprisonment and making terroristic threats. Monday, Douglas County Judge Stephen Swartz set his bail at $1.5 million.

"I'm happy that me and my children are safe," Polly Mitchell, 28, told The World-Herald after her husband's arrest.

According to police officers, court records and family members, David Mitchell kept his wife a prisoner in her home for at least two years and perhaps many more.

When David Mitchell left Polly in the house, she stayed there - both because there was no physical way out and because she was too scared to try to leave, family members said.

He made threats that she believed. Fueled by worry that his wife was cheating on him, he told her that he would kill her and her family if she left him, her mother and sister said. If he couldn't kill her, he told her, he would find someone who could.

For nearly 10 years of marriage and in various houses and apartments, Polly Mitchell was locked inside every time her husband left the house, her mother and sister said.

And, they said, her family didn't know a thing about it.

"We knew he was real possessive, real jealous," said her mother, Toni Slatten. "We just didn't realize it was to that extent."

Cases like Polly Mitchell's occur more often than the public thinks, said Mary Larsen, director of the women against violence program at YWCA Omaha.

Severe abuse that results in prolonged isolation of the victim isn't unusual, Larsen said. What's unusual, she said, is that the public hasn't heard about more.

"I'm surprised that something like this didn't come out earlier," she said.

Mitchell listed his address as 3723 Bedford Ave., which is the home of his brother, Dan Mitchell, and where police arrested him Friday. Dan Mitchell said Monday that he had not heard from his brother and declined to comment further.

David Mitchell did not respond to a note left at his Maple Street house before his arrest.

* * *


Polly Slatten attended North High School. In the summer of 1993, when Polly was 17, she had a part-time job working behind the counter at Taco Bell. She met a customer there. He was David Mitchell.

The two married in September 1993, after a two-month courtship, without telling her family.

The beatings already had begun, Polly told police earlier this month. David Mitchell's arrest warrant details what she told officers:

A month into their relationship, he hid a tape recorder in their apartment to record what happened while he was gone. When he returned, he accused her of cheating on him. He hit her during that argument, knocking her to the floor.

About six months into their marriage, David Mitchell started locking up his wife every time he left the house, Slatten said.

The family thought that Mitchell was friendly but that he had his quirks.

He became nervous when leaving his wife alone at family gatherings, especially if men he didn't know were there, said Polly Mitchell's sister, Sylvia Slatten.

He refused to visit a family cabin because he was scared that someone there would kill him. He rarely ate at other people's homes, saying he was afraid of being poisoned.

He talked about a cure for cancer that he had found, but refused to elaborate for fear that someone would steal his idea.

"He told us he had it, but no details," Toni Slatten said.

Polly doesn't have a driver's license. David, who is self-employed, let her work only if she was with him, they said, and she never attended baby showers and other women-only events.

The couple have four children - two boys and two girls - who are now ages 2, 3, 7 and 8. The older children attend school.

Polly has a naturally good sense of humor and comes from a family of outspoken women, her mother and sister said. To her family, she remained outspoken and happy after her marriage but seemed somewhat withdrawn.

"She was always on guard," Toni Slatten said.

Polly's family asked her about David and what they noticed as a change in her behavior. But she had an excuse for every complaint.

"She would say things like, 'Well, he's had a hard life,'" Slatten said.

* * *


David Mitchell's mother shot and killed her husband in 1992.

Four months earlier, DeBois "Debbie" Mitchell had gotten a protection order against her husband, Dan Mitchell Sr.

"Every day he threatens to kill me if we don't get back together," she wrote in applying for the order.

Her husband, she wrote, followed her home from the doctor's office where she worked or had other people follow her.

A month before the shooting, after 30 years of marriage, the couple were divorced. But the fighting continued, according to court records.

On July 21, 1992, DeBois Mitchell drove to her ex-husband's Omaha home and repeatedly honked her car horn. Dan Mitchell got into her car. A struggle ensued, and he was shot.

DeBois Mitchell pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

"I don't know how you stayed with your husband as long as you did," the judge said during her sentencing.

She served less than one year in prison and now lives outside of Nebraska. She declined to be interviewed for this story.

* * *


Polly Mitchell called her mother-in-law three to four weeks before she escaped from her home, according to David Mitchell's arrest warrant. DeBois told her to get away from him because he has mental problems, the warrant stated.

About the same time, Polly contacted a domestic abuse counselor in Omaha.

She also called her mother. She told her that she wanted out.

"She was in a state of mind that she wanted to give her kids a better life and wanted to provide for them," Toni Slatten said.

Before the calls, the family's only phones had been cell phones, which David Mitchell carried and controlled, Toni Slatten said.

At some point, David had a phone line installed in their home for Internet access. Polly took advantage of that line in calling for help, her mother said.

Sylvia and Toni Slatten, devastated at how Polly had been treated, said they became convinced that David Mitchell posed a danger to Polly and agreed to keep quiet until she could be rescued.

They said they even faced David Mitchell at a family function and painfully pretended that nothing was wrong.

Polly and her children were rescued June 2. Police officers helped them crawl out of the house through a partially opened window.

Sylvia Slatten said she felt guilty after hearing about her sister's life: Why hadn't she seen it, why didn't she know what was happening?

Victims know the right time to leave their abusers better than any expert or family member, said Larsen of the YWCA. They know their partner and will be the best judge of the safest time to make a break, she said.

Sometimes victims wait for an emotional break from their abuser or want certain milestones to pass before leaving, Larsen said.

The best advice for family members and friends, Larsen said, is to "be patient and know that it's a process."

Polly and her children are in an undisclosed location today. David is the Douglas County Correctional Center.

"He made a great effort to ruin her life, but he's not going to do it," Toni Slatten said. "He underestimated how strong she is."

[eggplant43]

Aaaaaaaaagggggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!!


Jun 20, 9:16 am ET

By Ellen Wulfhorst
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Despite the bone through his nose, his shaved head and pierced face, the 25-year-old pacing a seedy stretch of New York sidewalk admitted he was terrified of what he was about to do.

But after a few minutes, a couple cigarettes and several deep breaths, he sat in the basement of a storefront tattoo parlor, closed his eyes and let a friend split his tongue down the middle with a scalpel.

The latest trend among teens and 20-somethings who indulge in so-called extreme body modification, forking one's tongue like a serpent's "is an art form," said T.J. McGillis, who offers the service for a $250 charge.

"Everybody wants to get it done. It could be the next mainstream thing aside from piercing," he said.

That may be an exaggeration. The number of people with split tongues is estimated at 1,500 to 2,000 people by the editor of a Web-based magazine devoted to body modification, but the trend is attracting enough attention that a few U.S. state legislatures have moved to ban the procedure.


Ian, the young man with the bone through his nose who did not want to reveal his last name, opted for tongue splitting after earlier adventures left him with huge rings in his ears, silver barbells piercing his face, myriad tattoos and who-knows-what-else under his baggy shirt and pants.

"I like the way it looks," he said, listing his reasons. "Two, I think it will be more fun during oral sex and the girls will get a kick out of it. Three, everyone and their mother has their tongue pierced and four, I'm an idiot."

FRESHLY CUT MEAT

The process is nothing short of gory. In Ian's case, his tongue was clamped in place, numbed and slit 2 inches up the middle, looking uncomfortably like a piece of raw liver freshly cut by a butcher.

Other methods entail tying increasingly tighter pieces of thread through a pierced hole or cutting with a laser.

Blood gushed out of Ian's mouth and over the silver barbell in his lip for a few minutes, then abated with several doses of mouthwash.

"Go home and pull it apart," McGillis ordered him, suggesting a regimen of separating the two halves each morning and night to prevent reattachment.

After splitting his tongue, Emrys Yetz, 20, said it wasn't long before he could move each half independently and do party tricks like picking up pens and pencils.

"It's done to better yourself," he said, opening his mouth to wiggle each half like a snail waving its antennae.

Yetz argues tongue splitting is no different than a far more socially acceptable face lift or breast enhancement. The only downside, he said, is eating ice cream, since it's harder to make a scoop of your tongue when it's split in two.

NOT ALL FUN AND GAMES...

Not surprisingly, doctors say there are more downsides to tongue-splitting than dripping ice cream.

"There's the potential for life-threatening hemorrhage and the potential for life-threatening infection," said Dr. Lee Pollan, an oral surgeon based in Rochester, New York.

If that's not enough, he added, tongue-splitting can damage speech and taste and cause permanent numbness.

And reattaching a split tongue can be a complex process of reconstructive surgery and skin grafts, he added.

Dire warnings notwithstanding, tongue splitting is kids being kids, said psychology professor Stephen Franzoi at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who specializes in issues of physical attractiveness and body esteem.

It's a form of self-expression, alienation, rejecting mainstream culture and asserting independence, he said.

Comparing tongue splitters to young people wearing long hair and ragged jeans in the 1960s, he said: "This is the same psychological process, albeit more extreme.

"We encourage kids to be independent and express themselves and find their own personal identity," he said. "Every generation has a different way to find themselves in our culture. Some of them are more extreme than others."

After splitting his tongue, Ian made plans to pierce each tip, even as one waiting friend dampened his hope that the girls would love it.

"I think it's gross. It creeps me out," said hairdresser Jill Johnson. "I've dated guys with tattoos all over. I've seen it all, but that's too much for me. Imagine when you're 60 years old and you have your tongue like that."

But for believers in modification, a split tongue is merely a start. Split penises, sliced lengthwise in half, are not unheard of among aficionados.