Quote:

Ga. Community Horrified by Corpses
Sun Feb 17, 2:11 PM ET
By KRISTEN WYATT, Associated Press Writer

NOBLE, Ga. (AP) - Distraught families began the wrenching task of trying to identify loved ones Sunday in this rural community where dozens of decomposing corpses were being removed from a crematory.

People completed Red Cross paperwork to help identify the bodies and several dentists opened their offices to make dental records available.

Pat Higdon of Chattanooga, Tenn., made the drive to fill out paperwork for her husband, Tommy Higdon, who died of lung cancer last fall. She said she chose to cremate his body because she couldn't afford a burial.

"He looked like a corpse for two months before he died. He just laid there with his mouth open and his eyes open," an emotional Higdon said. "I can't bear to think he still looks like that, only he's lying in a shed or a creek somewhere."

The crematory's operator, Ray Brent Marsh, 28, was charged with five counts of theft by deception, a felony, for taking payment for cremations he didn't perform. Walker County and state authorities said other charges are likely against Marsh.

A magistrate released Marsh on Sunday after he posted a $25,000 bond.

At least 80 bodies have been found in storage sheds and scattered in woods behind Tri-State Crematory in this hamlet about 25 miles south of Chattanooga, Tenn. Of those, 13 have been identified. The discoveries began Friday when a woman walking her dog found a skull.

Officials said they will also search Marsh's entire 16-acre property and a small adjoining lake. Officials, who have set up a morgue at the site, say the property could yield several hundred bodies.

"They've found so many other partial skeletal remains and evidence of graves, we don't know how many more are out there," Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead said late Saturday.

When asked why the bodies had not been cremated, Marsh said the crematory incinerator was not working, Bankhead said.

Stanley Payne of Chattanooga said he believed the Marshs' crematory would properly handle the remains of his mother, who died two years ago.

"We were childhood friends growing up together," Payne said of the Marsh family. "We trusted them. Everybody trusts everybody here, and everybody believes everybody."

Rusty Cash, of East Ridge, Tenn., said he considers himself one of the lucky ones — authorities told him Sunday they had identified the body of his mother, Norma Hutton. After the call, Cash opened the urn he had received from the crematory.

"It looked like burnt wood chips as far as I could tell," Cash said.

Dr. Kris Sperry, Georgia's chief medical examiner, said authorities suspect Marsh may have provided ashes from wood chips to clients as the remains of loved ones. Authorities have asked families to return ashes for examination and have established an information center.

The crematory owners, Ray and Clara Marsh, turned the business over to their son in 1996. The couple has turned over company records to authorities and were cooperating, Walker County chief deputy Hill Morrison said.

Thomas Ware, who has been living for about six years in a nearby house he rents from the Marsh family, said he never noticed any smells or other signs that bodies were not being handled properly.

His uncle died about two years ago and was sent to Tri-State for cremation, said Ware, 30, who had Clara Marsh as his ninth-grade teacher. Now he and his family are afraid the cremation never took place.

Between 25 and 30 funeral homes in Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama routinely sent bodies to Tri-State for cremation, Bankhead said.

Some of the bodies had been delivered to the Tri-State Crematory within the last few days, and some bore hospital toe tags, Bankhead said. Others had apparently been there for three years or more, authorities said.

Some bodies were found in rusty coffins, some as much as 10 years old, that had evidently been buried and then later disinterred, Bankhead said.

"At one time they apparently were buried in the ground in some other cemetery and were dug up and taken to the crematory," he said. "We don't know why that is."

Gov. Roy Barnes declared a state of emergency in Walker County. The declaration makes state assistance available to local authorities for the cost of the operation.

The Georgia Environmental Protection Division began testing well water from the area for contaminants on Saturday but results were not yet available.

not one of you selfish fucks wished me a happy birthday yesterday. i hate you all!!

Quote:Son of Sam
Will Go Up for Parole
Killer serving 6 life terms



A quarter century after terrifying New Yorkers with a random killing spree aimed at young women, David Berkowitz — the infamous Son of Sam killer — is set to go before the state Board of Parole in June for the first time.

State officials told the Daily News that if Berkowitz wins parole, he could walk out of prison as soon as Aug. 5. Some victims' relatives say they will fight to see that never happens.

"I think it's nuts he's even coming up for parole," said Rose Lauria of the Bronx, whose 18-year-old daughter, Donna Lauria, was shot dead by Berkowitz in front of her apartment on July 29, 1976, while talking to a friend named Jody Valenti. Valenti was wounded in the thigh.

'Protest Like Crazy'

Although she doubts Berkowitz will get paroled, Lauria said the approaching hearing makes her nervous.

"We are going to protest like crazy," she said.

Lauria and her husband, Michael Lauria, a retired bus driver, are in the local chapter of Parents of Murdered Children and have been activists for the rights of crime victims.



"Donna's name is on a brick at a victims memorial in Albany," Rose Lauria said. "I don't understand the system. He'll get out over my dead body. My religion says you have to forgive, but with him, no way, no how."

In the steamy summer of 1977, the chilling brutality of the Son of Sam killings overshadowed even the death of Elvis Presley.

Within that year, there had been a series of nighttime shootings targeting young couples and teenage girls. The killer used a .44-caliber revolver and taunted the city with letters to Jimmy Breslin, then a Daily News columnist.

Panicked couples avoided lovers' lanes, believing they were the killer's stalking grounds. Because the female victims tended to have long, dark hair, many women lightened theirs and wore it in a bun.

Before his capture on Aug. 10, 1977, Berkowitz killed six and wounded seven. The postal clerk said he was under orders of a dog owned by a next-door neighbor named Sam.

State Board of Parole spokesman Tom Grant would not assess Berkowitz's chances of gaining release, though he noted just 3% of parole-eligible inmates doing time for murder or attempted murder were released last year.

If the parole bid is rejected this time, Berkowitz, under the law, will get another crack at it in two years — and two years after that, and so on, as long as he remains alive and in prison.

However, even the staunchest advocates of inmates said Berkowitz, because of his notoriety, has virtually no chance of ever getting out.

Said Robert Gangi, director of the Correctional Association of New York, "If Jesus Christ himself came down and urged the governor to give Berkowitz parole, it wouldn't happen."

Model Inmate Since 1989

That opinion is shared by Sam Rivera, an ex-offender who serves as director of client training for the Fortune Society, a charity that assists parolees coming out of prison.

"I don't see him ever getting out," he said, noting that Spike Lee's 1999 film about the killings, "Summer of Sam," only reinforced the image of Berkowitz as a diabolical criminal. "If he is old and dying in prison, that is what people will want to see."


Berkowitz claimed that 'Sam' — a.k.a. black lab Harvey — made him kill.
At Sullivan, located 80 miles northwest of New York City in Fallsburg, Berkowitz works as a program aide, helping mental health unit prisoners. Known to the system as Inmate No. 78A1976, he has not been accused of violating jailhouse rules since 1989, when he was sanctioned for refusing a direct order, officials said.

The three-member parole panel that will evaluate Berkowitz will consider not only his prison record, but the impact of the crimes on families of victims as well as the effect on community safety if he is released.

Since being locked up, Berkowitz, who turns 49 on June 1, has insisted he had accomplices. Indeed, his claims have convinced the Laurias, and Neysa Moskowitz, the mother of murder victim Stacy Moskowitz, that the shootings were carried out by a satanic cult that included Berkowitz.

"Hating him only makes me sick," Moskowitz said when reached at her home in Florida. "And in my case, it's different. I know for a fact he did not kill Stacy. He told me he was there and he feels he could have stopped the killing, but he did not shoot the gun. He has written to me and apologized to me. But he has spent so many years in jail now, I don't think he could make it on the outside world."

She said she believes the theory advanced by Maury Terry, author of a Son of Sam book, "The Ultimate Evil," that Berkowitz carried out only two of the eight attacks but was blamed for all by city police, who were under political pressure to solve the case in a summer when then-Mayor Abe Beame faced reelection.

No Hope of Getting Out

Terry, who has visited Berkowitz some 90 times in the past nine years, said, "He insists to this minute that he was not the only one involved."

Berkowitz, he noted, has admitted to two shootings that left three dead, but claims to have been a bystander at the other six shootings.

Police have discounted the theory that Berkowitz had accomplices.

As for the parole hearing, Terry said: "He has no hope, no dream, of ever getting out," adding, "He has adjusted to it as best he can. He thinks he belongs there."

At the same time, he said, Berkowitz still plans to show up for his hearing. "'They'll just rubber-stamp this and back I go,'" Terry quoted Berkowitz as saying.

Berkowitz, raised Jewish, became a born-again Christian in prison in 1988. "He's been at it very fervently since then," Terry said. "But he doesn't wear it on his sleeve. He saves it for the chapel."

If Berkowitz wants forgiveness, he won't find any from Michael Lauria.

"In a lot of countries, he would have been dead a long time ago," the father said. "Donna was my only daughter. I never got to walk her down the aisle. He gets to see his family when they visit him in prison. I go to a grave to see my daughter."

At long last, our collective wait is over. Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Hulk Hogan will finally be on tv again at tonights No Way Out ppv. I hate long hype times like this one but I think it may be well worth it.

My best guest is that Jericho is going to be aided by the big guns to help him retain the title and set up the Wrestlemania main events with Stone Cold and The Rock vs two of the three "founders and Triple H vs Y2J.

Please God, if there is one, do not let Angle win his match vs HHH. If they pull that one on us, it is quite possible the Wrestlemania title match will be Angle/Austin yet again.

Speaking of Austin, they can not let this man out of character ever again. I watched a little of his hosting of MadTv last night and I have to say that it was utter shit!

I never watch this show, but come on, how many people didn't see this happening? And it figures, "May Sweeps" is when they are shooting people and having cripples swim. I swear within ten years, network TV will be showing full penetration sex and live executions in order to drive ratings.....

Quote:Los Angeles (Reuters) - Taping of the NBC hit show "Fear Factor" has been suspended indefinitely after an apparent accidental shooting death of a contestant. Earlier today, during a taping of an episode which was to air during May sweeps, Heather Ferguson, 24. a corrections officer for Riverside County Jail in Los Angeles was shot and killed during a botched stunt.

The stunt, which entailed contestants being shot by an Army Ranger sniper with a rifle from a distance of 500 feet went awry as Miss Ferguson fainted, and the bullet missed her protective military-issue Spectra vest, and struck her in the neck. Paramedics on scene attempted to stop the bleeding, but were unable to repair her severed carotid artery.

Miss Ferguson was the third contestant during NBC's "Police Officer Fear Factor" to be shot by 18-year Army Ranger sharpshooter veteran Kevin Atkin. Contestants were to stand against a wall and be shot in the chest by Mr. Atkin. The previous two went off without incident as the Spectra vests, which are more protective than Kevlar, stopped the sniper's bullet easily. NBC Spokesman Lee Snyder said, "We are all deeply affected by this tragedy, and our hearts go out to Miss Ferguson’s family and friends." Mr. Snyder continued, "Every precaution that could be taken, was taken, and it was just a matter of a freak occurrence as Miss Ferguson apparently passed out and started to fall right as Mr. Atkin was shooting. If that bullet had hit her vest, there is no possibility we would be talking about this incident now."

NBC has recently come under fire for the boundary-pushing show. Women's rights groups protested the show's Super Bowl halftime special featuring Playboy Playmates as "sexist and exploitive". And as recently as last week, a taping of "Disabled Fear Factor" was blasted by the American Association for People with Disabilities (AAPD) as "heartless" and "Nazi-esque" for events that were set up for handicapped contestants. The event that drew the most fire was one that required contestants to swim the length of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. While no one was injured during the taping of that show, NBC was forced to issue a statement confirming that the all contestants, including Cesar Cabral, a paraplegic, were fully aware and accepted all risks during the contest.

Heather Ferguson is survived by her parents Robert and Sheila Foley of San Diego, two brothers, and her fiancé William Delano of Los Angeles.

Neither a spokesman for The Los Angeles Police Department nor Fear Factor host Joe Rogan were available for comment, however, no charges have been filed at this time.

If you are having any problems with the board, etc. Please report it here if there are any bugs or problems you are having.

Oh and no fucking bullshit in this thread for once.

Why do they sugar coat shit in the news all the time? Mike Darr, the outfielder who died this week while driving drunk, is being mourned right now by the sports community. This fuckin asswipe was driving fuckin drunk and killead another person besides himself while doing so. He is a scummy shit and no big fuckin loss but reporters writing about this story act like is was such a shame God took such a talent away from us. What a load of fuckin dog shit. He was a pice of shit drunkard who helped make the planet wiegh a little less.

One of his teammates, Tom Davey was qouted of saying the following:

Quote:His spirit is still here. You can still think of Mike. And when you do, he puts a smile on your face. To look over at his locker right now and know he's not going to walk through this door ... it's crazy.

My parents are away and left me with here with my brother and a bird who hates us both. He's been running around the house all day (he can get out of his cage on his own), putting holes in things, and he most recently climbed on top of my head and started pecking at me....if I ooops step on him..will I go to hell?

This thread iz fo' jivin' da Kid Afrika way. Maybe dis here ius what he wanted in da first place. A little late, but dis here iz how we's should gots adressed him. you know das right! :bouncer: :bouncer: :bouncer: