BABE OF THE WEEK

This week's babe is Brazilian-born actress Morena Baccarin, currently starring in V on ABC. She plays Anna, the alien leader.

THIS DAY IN CRIME HISTORY: NOVEMBER 10, 1924

On this date in 1924, Chicago North Side gang boss Dean O'Banion was shot and killed in the back of the Schofield flower shop (pictured above), which served as his headquarters. Apparently, the Chicago Outfit, which ran the South Side, decided it didn't like the competition. They sent some of the boys to visit O'Banion in his shop. They gunned him down as he was working on a floral arrangement for mob luminary Mike Merlo's funeral.  The hit touched off a gang war between the two factions that would last five years, and would come to an end in the wake of the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

Dean O'Banion Online

Wikipedia - Dion O'Banion

Graveyards of Chicago - Dion "Deany" O'Banion

ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL

Since today marks the 20th anniversary of the demise of the Berlin Wall, I thought I'd post some pictures of my spring 1988 trip to Berlin. This first one is of the wall itself. Check out the graffiti.


Here's the famed Brandenburg Gate, which sat in East Berlin, just beyond the wall.


Here's an East German patrol boat, standing ready to intercept West Germans attempting to sneak into the Worker's Paradise by swimming across the Spree River.


"You are leaving the American Sector." Are you really sure you wanna do that?


Checkpoint Charlie, scene of so much fictional, and real-life, Cold War intrigue.


I went back to Berlin in the fall of '88 with my friend Mike. I have some pictures from that trip too, but I can't find them at the moment. If I run across them, maybe I'll post one or two.

IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED

Try, try again.  And again. And again...

Woman passes 950th driving test

A South Korean woman is celebrating after passing the written exam for a driving licence - on her 950th attempt.

After four years of trying, 68-year-old Cha Sa-soon finally managed to secure the 60 out of 100 points needed to pass the test.

The grandmother has spent more than 5m won ($4,200, £2,600) on application fees for the test.

She still has to pass the road test, but you have to admire Mrs. Cha's tenacity.

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent.

-Calvin Coolidge

THIS DAY IN CRIME HISTORY: NOVEMBER 6, 1982

On this day in 1982, Shirley Allen was arrested for murdering her husband Lloyd. The murder weapon? Poison. Anti-freeze, to be precise. The motive? Lloyd's life insurance policy.

It seems that old Shirley had lost a previous hubby, John Gregg, under mysterious circumstances in 1978. Unfortunately for Shirley, Mr. Gregg had replaced Shirley as beneficiary on his life insurance policy shortly before he died.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Shirley took another crack at whacking a husband while married to one Joe Sinclair. Joe noticed that his coffee tatsted a little off, and went to the police. He elected not to press charges and filed for divorce instead.

For Shirley, third time was the charm. And you can bet she did her homework and checked into Lloyd's insurance policy before she offed him. Gotta love a woman who learns from her mistakes. But Shirley never got to spend the money. Her daughter saw Shirley putting the antifreeze into Lloyd's drink and turned her in. An autopsy confirmed that Lloyd Allen had consumed a lethal dose of anti-freeze. Shirley Allen was tried and convicted of murder. She was sentenced to life in prison.

Maybe we shouldn't judge Shirley Allen too harshly. Her real motive may have been altruistic. Maybe she thought her husband needed anti-freeze in his system. After all, look who he was sleeping with. One. Cold. Bitch. Brrrrr.

Article on Black Widows at tru TV'S Crimelibrary

History Channel: A woman ices her husband with anti-freeze

Comment from Lloyd Allen's niece to my 2006 post on this crime

FRIDAY MOVIE QUOTE

"The cities are full of women. Middle-aged widows, husbands dead, husbands who've spent their lives making fortunes, working and working. And then they die and leave their money to their wives, their silly wives. And what do the wives do, these useless women? You see them in the hotels, the best hotels, every day by the thousands. Drinking the money, eating the money, losing the money at bridge, playing all day and all night, smelling of money. Proud of their jewelry, but of nothing else. Horrible, faded, fat, greedy women"

-Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten), Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

THIS DAY IN CRIME HISTORY: NOVEMBER 4, 1928

On this date in 1928, notorious gambler Aronold Rothstein lost his biggest bet.  When Rothstein, thought to be the brains behind the 1919 World Series fix, showed up at room 349 at the Park Central hotel in Manhattan, he was greeted with a bullet to the abdomen.  The shooting was allegedly motivated by an unpaid gambling debt.  As the story goes, Rothstein--the ultimate gambling fixer himself--thought that the poker game where he lost three hundred large was rigged.  As a result, he balked at paying.  Another theory has it that the Rothstein hit was perpetrated by rivals looking to take over his rackets.  Either way, Rothstein died the next morning.  He refused to name the shooter.  Four indictments were handed down in connection with the murder, but there were no convictions.  The case remains officially unsolved.


Further reading:

The American Mafia - Arnold Rothstein

Crime Magazine - The Last Hours of Mr. Big

DavidPietrusza.com - Rothstein

V

The last thing I need right now is to get hooked on another TV show. But with Chuck and 24 on hold until January, I guess I can deal with just one more. And this one looks really good.

THIS DAY IN CRIME HISTORY:NOVEMBER 3, 1883

On this date in 1883, infamous outlaw Black Bart robbed his last stagecoach. Bart, whose real name was Charles Bolles, began robbing stagecoaches at the ripe old age of 46.

He committed his first robbery in 1875 in Calavaras County, CA. The stage from Milton to Sonora was his target. He stopped the stage by pointing a double barrel shotgun at driver John Shine and calling for his accomplices--hidden in the bushes behind him--to open fire if Shine made a move for his gun. Seeing six rifle barrels pointing at him from the bushes, Shine decided that discretion was the better part of valor. He turned over the strong box and mail sack without incident and headed on down the road.

When Shine returned to the scene of the robbery, he saw that the rifle barrels were still protruding from the bushes. When he noticed they weren't moving, he moved in closer. That's when he realized that the rifle barrels were really sticks stuck in the bushes. Black Bart was working alone.

Over the next eight years, Bart committed twenty-seven more robberies. Bart never shot anyone, but he was shot twice. And he never robbed any of the passengers. In fact, during one robbery, a terrified female passenger threw her purse out the window to Bart. Bart picked it up, walked to the stage, handed it back to the lady and said " "Madam, I do not wish your money. In that respect I honor only the good office of Wells Fargo." What a guy!

Bart wasn't just a robber, he was a poet, too. At the scene of his fourth and fifth robberies, he left behind poems he had written signed "Black Bart, the P o 8." Here's a sample of Bart's verse, from the fourth robbery:

I've labored long and hard for bread,
For honor and for riches
But on my corns too long you've tread,
You fine-haired sons-of-bitches.

Pure Shakespeare. Old Bart was a true renaissance man. With a shotgun.

Bart's eight year robbery career came to an end in 1883, when he robbed a stage on Funk Hill, in Calaveras County, the scene of his first heist. Bart got shot and fled the scene. He left a number of personal items behind, including a handkerchief with a laundry mark. Wells Fargo detectives traced the mark to a laundry in San Francisco. Once they found the laundry, it wasn't long before they were on the trail of a "C.E. Bolton," who lived in a local boarding house, and was known to take frequent business trips. Business trips that just happened to coincide with twenty-eight stage coach robberies.

Charles Bolles eventually admitted to being Black Bart, and to committing several of the robberies. Wells Fargo pressed charges on his last robbery, and Bolles was tried and convicted. He wound up doing four years in San Quentin. He disappeared shortly after his release in 1888.

Further Reading:

BLACK BART: California's Infamous Stage Robber

Wikipedia article about Charles Bolles/Black Bart

LITTLE BRO ON TV

My brother Phil called me today to give me the heads-up that he'd be on TV. He was playing guitar at a rally in NY-23 for Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman. John Rich (of Big and Rich) was the main act, Rod Richmond opened for him. Rod asked Phil to sit in on guitar. In the picture above, Phil's the one standing on the left, behind the reporter-babe. You can check out the video from WWNY Channel 7 here. They were also on FOX News (Special Report, with Brett Baer), but I couldn't find any video online.

Update: It looks like WWNY, in it's infinite wisdom,took down the video and replaced it with one featuring John Rich. And so ends Phil's 15 minutes of fame.

BABE OF THE WEEK

This week's babe is actress Tiffani Thiessen, formerly known as Tiffani-Amber Thiessen. You can see her Friday nights on USA's new show White Collar.

JURY NULLIFICATION

On the surface, this story seems to defy logic.  From the Albany Times Union:

Man who threw feces in CA courtroom gets 31 years

SAN DIEGO -- A man who sneaked a bag of his feces into a San Diego courtroom during his home-invasion robbery trial, smeared it on his lawyer and threw it at jurors has been sentenced to 31 years in prison.
    
Superior Court Judge Frank Brown on Monday sentenced Weusi McGowan for robbery, burglary and two assault charges stemming from the feces-flinging incident during his January trial.

McGowan, who attorneys say suffers from mental illness, had asked for a mistrial because he believed jurors had seen him in restraints when he entered the courtroom.

OK, upon closer examination... this still defies logic.  I don't care how prejudiced a jury is after seeing a defendant in restraints, it can't compare to how they'll react to having poop thrown at them.  You don't have to be Johnnie Frickin' Cochran to figure that out.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

If you go trick or treating tonight, watch out for zombies. They're everywhere!