NEWS & BLUES

Curses, Foiled Again

Police investigating the murder of Juliana Mensch, 18, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., identified James Ayers, 32, and Nicole Okrzesik, 23, as their suspects after obtaining the couple’s Internet searches, texts and Facebook messages. Five days after the victim was strangled, police found her body under a pile of clothing in the couple’s apartment, where Mensch had been staying. Among their Google searches and pages visited were: “Whats on those rags that make people pass out,” “ways to kill people in their sleep,” “could you kill someone in their sleep and no one would think it was murder” and “how to suffocate someone.” They exchanged hundreds of messages after the crime, some arguing over getting rid of the body: “If the smell gets worse were f***ed.” The police affidavit says Okrzesik posted pictures on Facebook of her and Ayers at a bar “partying” a few hours after Mensch was killed, with the comment: “Wooooo — at Wet Willie’s South Beach.” (HLN-TV)

After arresting Keenan Alex, 28, for stealing a bait car, Los Angeles County sheriff’s detective Anthony Shapiro testified in court that Alex made incriminating statements after he read Alex his rights. The Cadillac Escalade, which was left with its engine running and keys in the ignition, was rigged with cameras for a TruTV reality show. The unedited video shows Shapiro didn’t read Alex his rights. As a result, Alex went free and Shapiro was placed on leave. (Los Angeles’ KTLA-TV)

What Could Go Wrong?

Latvia’s AirBaltic airline disclosed it began testing “SeatBuddy,” a new service that lets passengers pick their seats based on whether they feel like talking with their neighbors about business, chatting for pleasure, working or resting during flights. Passengers can also specify whether they’d like seatmates to speak the same language, belong to the same generation, work in the same business or share other cultural traits. Noting the service will be free while its “future commercial potential” is explored, AirBaltic expects that seating like-minded people together will make trips more pleasant. “The main thing is how you feel,” airline official Janis Vanags said. “How do you want to feel on this flight? How do you want the people around you to feel on this flight?”

Last December, Air France-KLM introduced a similar service, called “Meet & Seat,” which connects passengers through Facebook and Linkedin. People choose seatmates after browsing each other’s profiles. (New York’s Daily News)

A Tidy Sum

Navy investigators indicated a fire on board a nuclear-powered submarine that injured seven people while it was in dry dock at Maine’s Portsmouth Naval Shipyard started in a vacuum cleaner used to clean work sites at the end of shift. Although firefighters contained the blaze to the USS Miami’s forward compartment, which includes crew living quarters, command and control spaces and a torpedo room, the Navy said it “developed an initial rough repair cost estimate of $400 million.” It also reckoned the disruption to planned work on other vessels as a result of the fire cost another $40 million. (Fox News)

Shirking-Class Hero

When postal worker Jacquelyn V. Myers, 55, reported she was unable to deliver the mail because of a lower back injury in May 2009, her supervisors relieved her of mail carrying and put her on “light duty.” In the following months, the Tallahassee, Fla., woman took part in more than 80 long-distance races and triathlons, including the Boston Marathon. What’s more, after the injury claim, her race times improved. In May, a U.S. District Court jury convicted Myers of health care fraud and making false statements to collect workers compensation. (Associated Press)

Problem Solved

As part of the Arizona Department of Transportation’s “Pull Aside, Stay Alive” campaign to promote safe driving during haboobs — severe dust storms that occur in desert areas, especially around Phoenix and Yuma, during the summer — the agency invited residents to tweet haikus about dust-storm safety. (Associated Press)

When Guns Are Outlawed

A woman told Seattle police she was walking her dog in a city park at 2 a.m. when a man approached her complaining she was keeping his friend awake by making too much noise. He then picked up a pooper-scooper and began swinging it at the woman, who said she used her own pooper-scooper to defend herself for nearly a half-hour before she was finally able to leave the park. Police couldn’t find the attacker. (Seattle’s Post-Intelligencer)

Ignorance Isn’t Bliss

When sheriff’s deputies identified Matthew Burghardt as the person who ran over 10 mailboxes with his pickup truck in Jefferson Parish, La., they said he told them “he didn’t know it was illegal to run over mailboxes” but demanded a citation. Instead of issuing a ticket, deputies booked him on three counts of property damage and eight counts of hit-and-run driving. (New Orleans’ The Times-Picayune)

Spoilsportsmanship

Prior to the start of the Euro 2012 soccer championship, Poland’s Krakow Post warned potential troublemakers that local law enforcement officials had formed anti-hooligan squads equipped with shotguns capable of firing “baton rounds that probably won’t kill you as long as you’re 30 meters away,” a truck-mounted water cannon affectionately known as “the typhoon,” a high-tech sonic cannon that can induce involuntary urination and dogs “trained to bite you directly in the testicles.” (Agence France-Presse)

Living Off the Grid

After a security camera showed Manuel Ovalle, 35, in his neighbor’s back yard, walking away with two dark-colored bags, police in Mesa, Ariz., said Ovalle admitted filling the bags with water he’d taken from the neighbor’s swimming pool because he doesn’t have running water. The arresting officer also found a stolen Playstation 3 game console in Ovalle’s living room but noted it couldn’t be used because the home has no electricity. (Phoenix’s The Arizona Republic)

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.