news & blues

news & blues Mother’s Day Special

Curses, Foiled Again

While arguing with the mother of his 4-year-old son at her apartment in St. Clair Shores, Mich., Antonio Owens, 27, “grabbed a kitchen knife and said he is going to cut the gas line and burn down the place,” police Detective James Wagner reported. “He tried to get the stove away from the wall to get to the gas line” before both parties realized the stove was electric. (Oakland County’s Daily Tribune)

Mother of the Year

Police responding to a call from an 11-yearold boy in Surprise, Ariz., who reported that his mother was leaving him and his 6-yearold brother, said that Christina Muniz, 29, told them she was abandoning her two boys because she was sick of them and wanted to pursue her dream of becoming a stripper. Officers called Child Protective Services, which presented Muniz with a temporary custody notice placing the children with their father in Phoenix. When she saw the notice, “she looked at the 11-year-old and told him she never wanted to see him again,” police Sgt. Mark Ortega said, adding that as CPS workers started to take the children away, the 11-year-old tried to hug his mother goodbye. “Christina made a fist with her right hand and she punched him in the stomach.” (ABC News)

Dishonor Roll

Florida authorities accused high school senior Rachel Anne Hachero, 17, of pistolwhipping her mother and forcing the woman to buy her a car. According to Lee County deputies, Hachero, an honor student with scholarship offers from several Ivy League schools, became upset because her mother refused to co-sign for a car. She bashed her mother in the head with a 9mm Sig Sauer handgun, threatened to kill her and demanded the mother accompany her to a car dealership, where she signed for the daughter’s car.

Despite the beating and the threat, the mother declined to prosecute because of Hachero’s status as an honor student and her acceptance by the Ivy League schools. Deputies arrested her anyway. (Naples Daily News)

Slightest Provocation

Authorities in Carroll County, Ga., said Robert Edward Tyrrell Jr., 29, held his 51year-old mother hostage at gunpoint for at least six hours after they got into an argument because she wouldn’t iron his clothes. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) Kendall Anderson, 16, admitted hitting his mother 20 times with a claw hammer while she was asleep at their Philadelphia home. When the attack didn’t kill her, he said he dragged her downstairs and tried to “cremate her” in the kitchen oven. That attempt failed, too, so he beat her in the head with a chair leg before dragging her body outside and hiding it under debris in an alley. Anderson blamed his mother for provoking the attack by taking away his PlayStation video game to punish him for getting into trouble. “I couldn’t stand the arguing,” Anderson explained to Homicide Detective Thorsten Lucke while confessing to the murder, but he added, “I really miss my mom. She was the only person who cared for me.” (The Philadelphia Inquirer) Massachusetts authorities concluded that Joseph Cummings, 51, killed his pregnant girlfriend, her sister and then himself during an argument over the last name of the baby that the girlfriend, Kimberly Nguyen, 35, was carrying. “She wanted to hyphenate the name,” said Steve O’Connell of the Essex district attorney’s office, “and he did not.” (Boston Globe)

Every Day Is Mother’s Day

While Karen Remsing, 42, was visiting her terminally ill 15-year-old son at a Pittsburgh hospital, police said she temporarily disconnected an intravenous tube that had been providing a sedative to the boy, then stole syringes from a hospital tray to siphon the drug, which she injected into herself. Police added that when Remsing reconnected the tube, an air bubble formed that further threatened the boy’s life. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

We All Scream

A British ice cream parlor began selling ice cream made from human breast milk. “It’s good enough for our kids, good enough for our ice cream,” declared Matt O’Connor, founder of London’s The Icecreamists, which pasteurizes the milk, then churns it together with vanilla pods and lemon zest, and serves it in a martini glass for 14 pounds ($22.77). The breast milk is provided by nursing mothers who answered an ad at an online mother’s forum offering 15 pounds ($24.39) for every 10 ounces. Donor Victoria Hiley, 35, said she believes that if adults realized how tasty breast milk actually is, then new mothers would be more willing to breast-feed their own infants. (Associated Press, Reuters)

When Guns Are Outlawed

A 49-year-old Australian mother told police in Mackay that a man wearing a leather mask broke into her home and attacked her with a rubber dildo. Prosecutor Sgt. Sabine Scott said the dildo “appeared to be wrapped in such a way with duct tape to make it a better bludgeoning weapon.” (Mackay’s The Daily Mercury) Police arrested Adyan Sanchez, 30, in Bradenton, Fla., after she assaulted her boyfriend with a plate of tamales when he called her a “bitch” in front of their year-old son. Officers said they found alleged victim Roberto Olvera with “tamale sauce all over his pants.” (The Smoking Gun)

Contract Follies

Seattle authorities who charged Graydon R. Smith, 31, with domestic violence crimes against his pregnant 19-year-old girlfriend said Smith told police officers that the woman signed a statement giving him permission to abuse her anywhere on her body except her pregnant belly. (Seattle’s KOMO- TV News)

Negotiating Power

Florida authorities said Patty Bigbee, 45, tried to sell her 12-year-old grandson for $75,000, but the buyer talked her down to $30,000. The buyer turned out to be an informant and notified Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents, who arrested Bigbee at the scene of the would-be transaction.

(Orlando Sentinel)

Second Amendment Follies

Allen Jones told authorities in Baldwin County, Ala., that he was bringing his loaded Glock .40 handgun from the glove compartment of his truck into the house when he tripped and fell and accidentally shot himself in the leg. Aleisha Jones was bathing their young son when she heard her husband’s call for help. Both she and the boy arrived at the same time, and the boy grabbed the gun. Aleisha Jones said that when she tried to take the gun away, it accidentally fired, hitting her in the neck. Neighbors who heard the gunshots alerted the sheriff’s office, which reported that husband and wife were hospitalized in stable condition. (Mobile’s WPMI-TV)

News and Blues is compiled from the nation’s press. To contribute, submit original clippings, citing date and source, to Roland Sweet in care of The New Times.