[angelize56]

Update to post # 642 ^ there.

Foul Play Suspected After Man Washes Ashore Tied To Sons

POSTED: 6:33 am EDT June 21, 2004

PLEASANT PRAIRIE, Wis. -- Three bodies lashed together with nylon rope that washed ashore over the weekend have been identified as a father and two sons, and police are considering the deaths as homicides. (I wonder though if it was at the hand's of the Dad or someone else?)

The bodies of 45-year-old Kevin L. Amde, 3-year-old son Tesla E. Amde and 6-year-old Davinci Amde were found by a resident Saturday on Lake Michigan's Pleasant Prairie beach, Police Chief Brian J. Wagner said.

"We consider these deaths to be very suspicious and this case is being handled by law enforcement as a homicide," Wagner said Sunday.

The three, from Chicago, were last seen May 6, when the father and younger son picked up the older boy from his school, Wagner said. Veronica Amde, Kevin Amde's wife and the children's mother, reported them missing to Chicago police on May 11.

The Kenosha County Medical Examiner's Office said the amount of time the three were believed to be in the water was consistent with how long they had been missing -- about six weeks.

No official cause of death was released. Wagner said there was no evidence of violent trauma on any of the bodies.

Wagner said they were tied together with nylon rope, either through belt loops, a belt or around one child's waist. Also tied to the bodies were two nylon book bags, each containing personal belongings and two plastic bags filled with sand.

This added 48 pounds of weight, he said. (Definitely sounds intentional!)

Kevin Amde was identified by his driver's license and work identification, Pleasant Prairie police Lt. Paul Ratzburg said. He declined to say where Amde worked or what type of job he had.

Chicago police Sgt. Stephanie Stuart said Amde often took his children on trips without telling his wife. They would visit museums in Chicago, go fishing or come to Wisconsin, where they had extended family in Racine, near the beach where the bodies were found.

Stuart said there was no indication the couple, who had been married five or six years, were having problems, and Wagner said he had no knowledge of Amde having mental health or criminal problems. They had only the two children, Wagner said.

"From every indication that we've gotten so far, he was a very loving father," Stuart said. "He had no enemies."

Wagner would not say whether any suspects had been questioned. He had not received finished autopsy reports from the Kenosha County Medical Examiner's Office.

"We're not prepared to rule anything in or out at this point," he said.

The Associated Press could find no telephone listing for the family.

Wagner said Veronica Amde did not want to comment.

[angelize56]

This poor guy!

Dead man lay in driveway for 4 days
Monday, June 21, 2004 Posted: 2:12 PM EDT (1812 GMT)

SHEPHERDSTOWN, West Virginia (AP) -- A man who apparently was pinned by a van he was working on lay dead in his driveway for up to four days before a neighbor noticed him, police said.

Allan P. Burfoot, 57, of Shepherdstown, was found Sunday morning, State Police Trooper H.D. Heil said.

"The parking brake wasn't on and the vehicle wasn't in gear, and it apparently rolled onto him" as he worked on the vehicle, Heil said. He was pinned under the front passenger side tire, he said.

Checking messages on Burfoot's answering machine, investigators believe he was pinned as early as Wednesday, Heil said. Burfoot's closest relative, a sister, lives out of state.

[~Candy~]

Don't try that at home

[ashes@work]

I heard about this, this morning... i was wondering if it was him or someone elses doing.. sounded fishy

[~Candy~]

fishy?

[ashes@work]

no pun intended of course

[angelize56]

I can vouch for Fishy's whereabouts!

[angelize56]

I won't hazard a guess as to where her "trigger points" are!

Doctor Jailed for Billing for Sex
Mon Jun 21, 2004 08:11 AM ET

PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) - An Oregon doctor, who had sex with a patient and then charged the state about $5,000 for his "treatments," has been jailed for 60 days and stripped of his license, officials said on Friday.

Dr. Randall J. Smith, 50, told the woman that massaging her "trigger points" would ease her pelvic pain. The treatments led to sexual intercourse and Smith billed the Oregon Health Plan for the 45-minute sessions at the Adventist Health Medical Group clinic in Gresham, Oregon, near Portland. (NICE TRY!)

Smith must also perform 200 hours of community service and pay $1,105 in fines and is on probation for 18 months as part of the plea agreement. He also turned in his medical license.

Though he pleaded guilty to submitting false health care claims, a felony, Smith maintained the sex with the 47-year-old woman was consensual.

Adventist repaid about $5,000 to the state, David Russell, clinic administrator for the hospital said.

[ashes@work]

Two Inmates With Artificial Limbs Escape From Nashville Jail

POSTED: 9:32 am EDT June 22, 2004
UPDATED: 9:44 am EDT June 22, 2004

WEIRD PHOTOS: News Of The Strange Slideshow

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Three inmates, two with artificial limbs, escaped from jail by squeezing through an 8-inch gap onto the roof and using bed sheets to descend three stories. Two were captured Monday.



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William Clay Bohanan, 40, Berl Keith McKinnie, 38, and Billy Leo Potts Jr., 39, fled Saturday night from a special needs cell at the medium- and maximum-security jail in Nashville.

Left behind in the inmates' beds were dummies made by stuffing newspapers into jail-issued orange jumpsuits, authorities said.

McKinnie has a prosthetic foot and Potts a prosthetic leg. He was caught by the U.S. Marshals Service in north Nashville late Monday night about two miles from the jail.

Bohanan -- awaiting trial on homicide and arson related to a 1993 fire in which two children died -- was captured about 15 miles east of the jail, officials said.

Potts remained at large.

McKinnie faced charges related to a police pursuit in a stolen car. He also is a suspect in a homicide case and wanted for an aggravated sexual assault in Chicago. Potts faced charges including robbery and theft.

[ashes@work]

Britney's puppy love nightmare
By Tony Bonnici and Laura Benjamin, Daily Mail
22 June 2004
All she wanted was a cuddle with her new puppy. But in the complicated world of Britney Spears nothing is that simple. Instead, the troubled 22-year-old singer found herself at the centre of a major incident when she called at a pet shop to collect the latest member of her entourage.


Look here too!

• Britney cancels tour
• Britney is 'engaged'
• 'Outrageous' injury for Britters
• Spotted a celeb? Let us know!


Spears, who is recuperating after serious knee surgery, had decided a fluffy white Maltese terrier was just the thing to cheer herself up.

There were squeals of delight as she and her mother Lynne picked up her new pet near her home in Santa Monica, California.



Other stories:




Imran divorces Jemima

Liv Tyler 'is pregnant'

Claudia Schiffer expecting again

Britney's puppy love nightmare

Affleck's big poker win

New drama for Jagger

Britney engaged?

Neighbourly Love

Who's the baddest?





But as Mrs Spears drove them away, a photographer who had been waiting outside the shop claimed she had run over his foot.

Within moments, Britney and her mother were surrounded by an unwanted entourage of police, paramedics and even the fire brigade.

As the circus unfolded around them, a miserable Britney, who had to cancel her world tour last month because of her knee problems, could only sit and wait.

The first police to arrive sealed off the area.

Then more police swarmed around the shop. In the end, there were ten patrol cars at the scene.

Two ambulances arrived, brimming with paramedics. Then the local fire crews turned up.

Even when it became obvious they would not be needed they found an excuse to stay for at least half an hour.

In the midst of all the pandemonium it was left to a single female officer to ask Mrs Spears what had happened.

Once coaxed out of the car, she happily gave her version of events.

If the presence of so many officers was meant to reassure her rather fraught daughter it did not work.

Looking tired and distressed, Britney started yelling. Then she sulked. Eventually she burst into tears.

Finally, after answering the police officer's questions Mrs Spears was allowed to go.

One of her daughter's minders took over the driving.

The photographer who claimed to have been hurt was taken to hospital. It is not known whether any charges will be brought.

[ashes@work]

2 in a year.. why not

Britney engaged?
By This is London
21 June 2004
Navel-baring pop superstar Britney Spears is engaged again - this time to boyfriend of two months Kevin Federline, according to US reports.

It would be 22-year-old Britney's second marriage in a year, coming just months after her disastrous 55-hour Las Vegas nuptials with childhood friend Jason Alexander.


Look here too!

• Britney's 'Outrageous' injury
• Britney cancels tour
• Bum deal for Britney



New York gossip column Page Six reported on Friday that Britney accepted 26-year-old dancer Federline's proposal soon after she moved him into her California home – despite the fact he is currently expecting his second child with ex-girlfriend Shar Jackson.

Britney, whose single Everytime topped the UK charts yesterday, will have plenty of time on her hands for wedding plans after cancelling her Onyx Hotel tour last week following a nasty fall which left her knee requiring surgery.

[Deke40]

Somebody from our area finally makes the news.

Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
LAKE JACKSON -- Police have seized a computer they think 11- and 13-year-old boys were using to make counterfeit money at home.

Although the paper didn't look authentic, the pair had little trouble passing fake bills to harried convenience store clerks during busy times, police said Wednesday.

"We're not talking about brilliant geniuses here," said Lt. Robert Turner. The counterfeit bills not only lacked the watermarks and embedded plastic strips of real money, most of the $20 bills had one side printed upside down.

The youths apparently used a scanner, computer and color printer to make fake bills. When they got the colors to match real money, they cut the fakes out with scissors and tumbled them in a clothes dryer to make them appear old, police said.

Turner said he is taking the computer to the U.S. Secret Service today so computer experts can clone the machine's hard drive and see if any images of the fake money remain.

Even if the youths tried to delete computer files they used in the scheme, the information may still be on the computer's hard drive, Turner said.

He said it may take a month or more for experts to retrieve the information. No arrests have been made, he said.

Brazoria County police departments began looking for the computer after getting tips that youths were selling fake $20 bills for 50 cents or $1 to other youths.

Police think the pair also made $100, $50, $10 and $5 bills.

The computer belonged to a 21-year-old college student who lives with his grandmother in Clute, police said. The owner told police he never used the machine to make fake money but loaned the computer to two young friends who did.

When police raided the home and seized the computer Tuesday, they found the computer's owner using it.

"He was writing a term paper on it when we seized it," Turner said.

"He didn't get to finish the paper. We had him stand away from the computer so he couldn't push a button to erase anything."

Turner said the pair probably didn't buy any large items with their homemade money.

Local police have been getting reports of one or two counterfeit bills a month since January. The bills have shown up in Lake Jackson, Clute, Freeport and Angleton.

Those involved in making and passing the phony money could face state and federal charges, Turner said.

[Raziel_Storm]

Too close to home I take it.

I currently have a dangerous man who lives around the corner from me on TV...

[eggplant43]

COLUMN ONE

Offbeat Dollars for Scholars

If you're tall or can summon a duck, you've got a shot at financial aid. Does qo'mey poSmoH Hol ring a bell? It may be worth $500.

By Rebecca Trounson

Times Staff Writer

June 25, 2004

The annual duck celebration in Stuttgart, Ark., was winding down — the Queen Mallard beauty pageant was over and the world's best duck dog had been determined. Then Daniel Duke stepped onto the Main Street stage.

Duke, a teenage veteran of more than a dozen duck-calling contests, wowed the judges with his renditions of the four required blasts: hail, feed, comeback and mating. Duke, from the nearby town of Brinkley, triumphed — and bagged one of the nation's more unusual college scholarships.

"I knew I had a shot at it," the 19-year-old said of the $1,500 award, which he hopes to use to attend the University of Arkansas. "And I think it's pretty great you can get a scholarship for calling ducks."

Others might, too.

With the cost of a college education rising relentlessly, students are scrambling for scholarships. Some win awards based on financial need or exceptional smarts. Some are gifted athletes. Others get help from foundations, companies or service clubs.

But some, like Duke, are able to snag scholarships because of less conventional talents, interests or physical attributes.

For certain scholarships, for instance, it might be helpful to be tall or left-handed, short or heavy. Or to be skilled at designing and crafting stylish garments made of wool — or duct tape. Or to be deeply interested in the study of water bugs or winemaking, funerals or fungus.

Each issue, each interest, it seems, has its own awards.

There are scholarships for welders, fly fishers and pie makers, for golf caddies and skateboarders. There is one for pagans and another for parapsychologists. There is even one sponsored by fans of Klingons, the fictional bumpy-headed aliens of "Star Trek" fame.

One endowment fund is for needy music students who can sing or play the national anthem "with sincerity." Another seeks clean-living young people who do "not participate in strenuous athletic contests." (An occasional Frisbee toss is probably OK, its gatekeepers say.)

"Some of these [scholarships] are so specific, it's like you're going to find one that says the kid has to have one brown eye and one blue eye," said Delisa Falks, associate director of financial aid at Texas A&M University. Even at that, she added, chuckling, "you probably could."

Such offbeat scholarships, privately funded and often from bequests, tend to be small, bringing a recipient anywhere from $500 to a few thousand dollars.

Some high school counselors say the awards are hardly worth the trouble and encourage students to focus instead on more traditional grants.

But others say a few thousand dollars is nothing to sneeze at, especially for what, in some cases, may amount to an hour or two of effort. And right now, the experts say, is an excellent time for next year's high school seniors to launch their search.

Even the quirkiest scholarships "help reduce a student's loan indebtedness and are a great way for them to be recognized for their talents and abilities," said David S. Levy, director of financial aid at Caltech.

Tiffany Chioma Anaebere, for example, was online one night last year while she was a senior at King-Drew Medical Magnet High School in Los Angeles. She happened upon a scholarship for tall kids. Anaebere, who stands 5 feet 11, figured she had a chance. The minimum for female applicants was 5 feet 10 and, for males, 6 feet.

She got in touch with the scholarship's local sponsor, the California Tip Toppers Club ("World's Highest Society"), filled out the application — including a shortish essay on being tall — and fired it off. She won, earning $1,000 to help pay her way at Stanford University.

Anaebere, who just completed her freshman year, said the award was not the largest she won. Yet it came in handy, she said, and she gets a kick out of telling her college friends about it.

"It was definitely the oddest one I got," said Anaebere, 18. "It really fits the mold of being able to win a scholarship for almost anything."

In Stuttgart, billed as the "Rice and Duck Capital of the World," Pat Peacock helps organize both the town's annual duck fest and the contest named after her stepfather and mother, Chick and Sophie Major. The 30-year-old scholarship, Peacock says, is for duck-calling high school seniors with any higher education plans, whether university or barber college.

Duke, the 2003 winner, wants to study agricultural business. But first, he hopes to do a little duck-hunting.

At Juniata College in Pennsylvania, left-handers are in luck. A 1922 graduate who met her future husband, a fellow lefty, when they were paired in a tennis class bequeathed $24,000 to the college to establish a scholarship in their name.

Since the Frederick and Mary F. Beckley award was first given in 1979, at least one student a year has received it and sometimes as many as five, Juniata officials said. It is usually worth about $1,000 a year to each recipient.

Jeannie Miller, who got the "lefty scholarship," as it is known on campus, for the last three years, said she enjoyed telling newcomers about it. "People would say, 'Oh, my God! That's so cool!' " said Miller, a recent graduate.

To be eligible, students must have spent a year at Juniata, have good grades and meet other criteria. As to how the college confirms left-handedness, "We pretty much take them at their word," Juniata spokesman John Wall said. "They don't have to go out back and throw or anything."

Good thing.

Miller, who used to play softball, confesses that she bats right.

Other scholarships are sponsored by organizations that are themselves a bit offbeat.

This year, the Free Spirit Alliance, one of the nation's larger pagan groups, is sponsoring two $500 scholarships and raising the funds atypically too, with a tattoo design contest. Applicants need not be pagan, organizers say, but spiritual open-mindedness wouldn't hurt.

The alliance, whose members includes witches, druids and shamans, is earnest about its scholarships. "The quest for knowledge is very important," said Glen Marshall, a computer security specialist who is its treasurer.

In a similar vein, the Klingon Language Institute, founded in 1992 by fans of "Star Trek" and its warrior Klingon aliens, offers its own $500 scholarship.

The award, for an undergrad or graduate student in language or linguistics, is a nod to the institute's own mission to go where few have gone before, exploring and promoting the extensive language created for use in several "Star Trek" films.

Funding comes from sales of the group's translation of "Hamlet," iambic pentameter reportedly intact, into what members like to call "the original Klingon." The reference is to a sly joke in one of the films about how Shakespeare is best enjoyed in his native tongue.

Institute director Lawrence Schoen said the scholarship, which last year had no recipient and few applicants, may suffer a bit from what he delicately termed the "spitting and barking" issue, the funny noises would-be Klingons use to speak their language correctly.

Nonetheless, "we take the work with the language very seriously," said Schoen, a research psychologist and former college professor. He cited the institute's motto: "Language opens worlds." Or, in the (original) Klingon: "qo'mey poSmoH Hol."

Finding and applying for any scholarship — oddball, obscure or mainstream — has never been easier, say Caltech's Levy and others. "I've had students sit down at a computer, put in a few hours' work and pick up $10,000," Levy said. "Every bit of it helps."

Websites such as FastWeb and FinAid, subsidiaries of Monster.com, and another run by the College Board, owner of the SAT entrance exam, ask students to answer a few questions online. Then, at no charge, they guide them toward scholarships that may fit their interests or talents.

Students should be wary, though, of websites or programs that charge for scholarship information or applications, said Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid. "If they have to pay to get money, it's probably a scam," he said.

Certain legitimate scholarships have evolved over time.

At Pennsylvania's Bucknell University, officials say the Gertrude J. Deppen scholarship was established in 1967 by Joseph H. Deppen in memory of his sister. The fund, Deppen specified, is for needy students who do not drink, smoke or use drugs and who come from one particular high school in Pennsylvania's coal country.

Because that school, Mount Carmel, is a football powerhouse, Deppen also required that those receiving his scholarship should not take part in "strenuous athletic contests," explained Linda Reinaker, Bucknell's manager of endowed gifts.

"The way we interpret that now is that they just don't participate in varsity sports," Reinaker said. "Intramural teams are OK."

As for the clean-living aspect, Reinaker joked that she does not make spot-checks at recipients' dorm rooms, but students are warned to avoid public infractions.

For some of the most lucrative scholarships, the main requirement — and the one that's hardest to meet — is the right name.

In 1978, for example, a young woman named Susan Hawley was a freshman at Texas A&M. She fell in love with a cotton and cattle farmer named Joe Scarpinato Jr., married him and dropped out after one year. From time to time, she thought about going back to school but knew her growing family could never afford it.

Eighteen years later, a letter arrived at her home in Hearne, Texas. "This man had left over half a million [dollars] to A&M and he wanted people with his name to go to college," she said. "They were trying to get in touch with everyone who had that name."

Her name, it turned out.

The endowment established by Lee Scarpinato, an A&M alum, is for any qualified undergrad, graduate or professional school student with his last name, by birth or marriage. It covers all tuition and fees, along with an allotment for room and board, an amount now worth about $12,000 annually, said Falks, the fund's coordinator.

After getting the scholarship, Susan Scarpinato went back to school, earning a bachelor's degree in agricultural development in 2002. She will complete her master's degree next year.

Now her son Joey, 18, has been accepted at A&M and also will benefit. "It's just a godsend," said Joey, who will start at the university this fall.

But his mother, sounding apologetic, admits to a quibble with the rules: What if her daughter, say, were to marry, take her husband's name and then wanted to go to A&M? And what about their kids? None would be eligible for the scholarship without that magic name.

Susan Scarpinato says she understands, though. "You know, it was his money and he did this incredible thing. And what he really wanted, I think, was for everyone to hear the name — 'Scarpinato' — called out when you walk across that stage."

So far, officials said, the Scarpinato scholarship has never gone wanting. That's not the case, though, at Loyola University of Chicago.

There, a lack of applicants for one highly specialized endowment has prompted admissions officers to page through out-of-town phone books whenever they travel, said Edward Moore, the university's scholarship director.

"They're trying to find Zolps," he said.

Or more specifically, eligible students who can prove two things: that they are Catholic and, since birth, have been named Zolp. Anyone who can and is otherwise eligible for admission can get a scholarship that covers tuition at the private Jesuit college, worth nearly $22,000 next school year.

"We'd really like to spend that money," Moore said.

Seven or eight years ago, in a more Zolp-abundant era, there were actually two enrolled at once. But the slots have stood empty in recent years.

"Three years ago, we had a Zolp prospect," Moore recalled. "But you know what? He got a golf scholarship and went somewhere else. Incredible."

[~Candy~]

Arkansas huh? Where's LAN MAN