xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
In an October decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit voted, 8-7, not only to affirm Paul Gregory House’s 1986 rape-murder conviction but also to keep him on Tennessee’s death row, despite subsequent knowledge that the prosecutor’s primary evidence was faulty. The eight judges accepted the conviction, even though the rape evidence was based, nearly archaically, on a match of blood “type” in semen found on the victim; much more sophisticated DNA testing later showed that the semen was not from House but from the victim’s estranged husband (who, it was subsequently learned, allegedly “confessed” the crime to three witnesses, evidence that was too belatedly offered to satisfy the majority judges).
The man arrested for attempting to strangle another to death in Livingston, Mont., in August: 35-year-old Vincent Murders. And the bar that was closed down in August in an Hispanic neighborhood of Houston because it was widely believed to be an open drug and prostitution market: the Blo-N-Go cantina.
According to police in Edmond, Okla., Trent Spencer, 27, whose marriage was apparently in trouble, decided to hire two students to break into his home and menace his wife so that Spencer could conveniently drop by, see the danger in progress, and heroically rescue her. The grand scheme started off as planned, but when the wife broke free of her duct-tape binding, she called the police, and when the fake burglars were eventually caught, they ratted out Spencer, who was charged in October with causing the false police report.
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or [email protected]
Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd
NEWS OF THE WEIRD