Daily Rotten Archives January 21, 2005 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 Private dick: Baretta asked me to whack wife CNN | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "A former police detective who worked for Robert Blake as a private investigator testified Thursday that the actor proposed kidnapping Bonny Lee Bakley, forcing her to have an abortion, and if that did not work, 'whack her.' ... [William Welch] said he had worked for Blake since 1988, locating people, doing background checks and other work. One day in 1999, he said, Blake asked to see him... 'He told me that he'd met a girl in a jazz club, that they had a one-night stand and she turned up pregnant,' Welch said. 'He wanted to do something about it.' Welch said he told Blake to give the woman money but Blake said he had done that and it didn't work. 'He said, "I've been thinking about this. We're going to hire a doctor and abort her and if that doesn't work we're going to whack her,"' ... 'And what did you say?' [District Attorney Shellie Samuels] asked. 'I said, "Robert, that's not a very good idea,"' Welch said. Under the prosecutor's prodding, Welch added that he said, 'Robert, are you out of your fucking mind?'" Read article... Preteens thwarted in alleged bus hijack plot Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | Submitted by: rephlex "Three 11-year-old boys and a 10-year-old girl tried to hijack their school bus near Punxsutawney this morning... one of the boys pulled a knife from a book bag and held it near another student. He demanded driver Janet McQuown, 52, stop and get off the bus. A police new release says she pulled over along Pine Tree Church Road in Oliver Township and 'the knife was removed from the juvenile's possession.' It doesn't say how... The news release did not immediately say what the hijackers intended to do with the bus." Read article... Alleged kidfucker not dead, just living in Idaho KBCI-TV 2 Boise | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "Ada County Prosecutors say by waiving his extradition hearing Wednesday, the man known in Boise as computer engineer Donald E. Dudley is admitting he really is 44-year-old Daniel James Farinholt, an alleged child molester... Detectives from California may take Farinholt back to Orange County as soon as Wednesday evening. Authorities say Farinholt has been on the lam for two and a half years after he was accused of sexually molesting his daughter in Orange County, CA. Police in California say Farinholt vanished in May 2002 after he set out in his newly purchased boat off the coast of El Segundo to fake his death at sea. Detectives in California said the death was immediately considered suspicious because there was only a small amount of blood found in the boat. Authorities say they also found extensive information about faking one's death at sea and creating false identities on Farinholt's computer which was seized after he disappeared. Boise Police say someone recognized Farinholt from his photograph on the America's Most Wanted web site." Read article... and This article... Benny Hinn not making Hindu friends BBC | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "Hardline Hindu activists in southern India have protested against the visit of American TV evangelist Benny Hinn... there have been a few incidents of stone throwing, damage to public property and attempts to stop traffic by protestors... The Benny Hinn website claims '4.8m people attended during three miracle-filled services' in Mumbai last year. Mr Hinn claims to have healing powers." Read article... Mom allegedly gives crack to toddler Columbia Daily Tribune | Submitted by: Mi Nomora "A mother accused of giving her 4-year-old son crack cocaine to 'calm him down' has been charged with first-degree endangering the welfare of a child. Michelle Shelton, 32, of Kansas City was arrested Thursday and was being held on $25,000 bond. Assistant prosecutor Peter Gromowsky said the case was unusual because of the amount of the drug found in the child's system... Police said some residents at the complex told investigators Shelton sometimes gave the boy crack cocaine to 'calm him down.' Social workers were sent to the apartment, where they took hair samples from Shelton and her son to test for illegal drugs. The tests came back positive in April, police said." Read article... Woman convicted of torching dead baby BBC | Submitted by: Vomit "A County Antrim woman has been put on two years' probation for trying to conceal the birth of a baby by setting fire to its body. Ashleigh Laura Hopkins from Huntingdale in Ballyclare admitted keeping the stillborn baby's body in a wardrobe for two weeks in December 2002... The court heard that Hopkins had set light to the bag in which she had kept the baby's body, beside Carnlea Road, about four miles from Ballyclare." Read article... Drunk cop kills self, sober cop St. Louis Today | Submitted by: dirtleg "An off-duty University City police officer was drunk when he made a U-turn into oncoming traffic and crashed into a Bridgeton officer's car, killing them both, authorities announced Thursday. The Missouri Highway Patrol said Officer Stephen Bastean's blood alcohol content was 0.188 percent - more than twice the legal threshold for being drunk, 0.08 percent - when his SUV hit a patrol car driven by Officer Scott M. Armstrong... Bastean, 26, had been scheduled to report to work about four hours after the crash... The damage to the cars was too extensive to determine whether either man was wearing a seat belt." Read article... Patriot Act author wilts during speech Orange County Weekly | Submitted by: juanholmes "Viet Dinh, the Bush-appointed former assistant attorney general and main author of the USA Patriot Act, began his Jan. 11 speech at UC Irvine's Beckman Center Auditorium by admitting, 'I am a complete intellectual fraud.' It was supposed to be a joke... One audience member who identified himself as Vietnamese-American asked Dinh whether he thought the war in Iraq was becoming another Vietnam. 'We don't have time to talk about Vietnam,' Dinh answered. 'We'd be here all night.' By then, he was stuttering mercilessly, often raising his voice and emitting a high-pitched laugh whenever he disagreed with a question. But when one woman drew the biggest applause of the evening by asking him why the Bush administration wasn't trying harder to understand why so many people throughout the world hate America, Dinh was momentarily speechless. 'I don't have anything intelligent to add to that,' he finally said." Read article... Teen guts, skins, cooks pets for class demo Cleveland Plain Dealer | Submitted by: Jonny Plasma "A Guinea pig and rabbit purchased from a Geauga County pet store ended up on plates at Ledgemont High School. A 16-year-old student skinned and cooked the animals during a living skills class on Wednesday... The student - whose name was not released - described what he did in terms of harvesting meat to fix a dish for classmates, Gage said. The principal described the boy as an active hunter... The hunt, however, usually doesn't take place at Pet Supplies Plus. The boy went to the Chardon store and purchased the Guinea pig and rabbit after coming up empty in the great outdoors. 'My skin's crawling over this,' said Linda Schempp, a spokeswoman for the pet store chain. 'We sell our animals to be family pets - not food.'" Read article... Scientists induce alcoholism in lab mice WebMD | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "A naturally occurring drug called ibogaine may yield new treatments for alcoholism. Ibogaine has been shown to reverse addiction to various drugs. Some reports have shown that even after a single dose cravings and withdrawal to cocaine and narcotics-type pain relievers such as morphine can be reduced... In lab tests, alcohol-addicted mice [?!] drank less alcohol after being injected with ibogaine. Ibogaine also helped the mice stay 'on the wagon' after being weaned off alcohol... But there's a big catch. Ibogaine is a hallucinogen, and at high doses it's toxic to certain nerve cells, which can lead to body tremors and difficulty walking, according to studies done on rodents. That's why ibogaine - which comes from the root bark of an African shrub - is not approved for human use in the U.S." Read article... Man, 48, fails to notice swallowing toothbrush Independent Online | Submitted by: bush is a zero-year president "A Saudi Arabian medical team removed Tuesday a toothbrush that had been in a man's stomach for 22 years... The 70-year-old unidentified man, had swallowed the toothbrush 22 years ago without realising it, as he had not experienced any pain until a few days. A hospital official Abdel Rahman al-Zahrani said the surgery to remove the toothbrush was successful." Read article...