Top Five Posts in 2013

Loyal blog readers, thank you for making this a great first year for Devils Walk Among Us.  We started in August and have grown every month with loyal readers and loyal Floridians feeding us material.  As a year-end wrap-up, here are the top five stories of the first (partial) year of the blog, 2013:

1.   1. Devil Surfing Snakes Among Us: Florida and Rattlesnakes Make Bold Move for Title

Drunken feral hogs had an early, and really, unchallenged lead as top animal scourge of the blog.  Drunken feral hogs in Australia, North Carolina and Texas were all wreaking havoc.  Florida also had a solid lead among states represented on the blog, but Oklahoma and Louisiana were coming up strong and vying for the title. That is, until loyal reader Matt Sawicki sent in story about surfing rattlesnakes in Florida.

Christmas in Chicago: Teen Kills, Beheads and Butchers Housemate

While Christmas in Akron, Ohio involved a potentially justifiable chest-stabbing to defend home-apple fritter making (see story on this blog earlier today), things in Chicago got a lot more macabre.  The Chicago Tribune reports that Alex Valdez, an 18 year-old who was asked to move out of the Northwest Side apartment he shared with his aunt and her boyfriend killed the older man with a hammer and then cut off the man’s head, ears and nose and then left them on his aunt’s bed as a “present.”  Not a merry Christmas in that household.  Police arrested Valdez after he got tired from all the murdering and dismembering and called 911 to report there was a dead body in the apartment (and apparently didn’t think the police would put two and two together and link up his blood-covered clothes and the report and arrest him).  Or maybe not.  The Tribune reports that When the 911 dispatcher asked Valdez if he had performed CPR, the young man laughed and said Diaz-Hernandez had been decapitated, [Assistant DA] Sawyers said.

Potentially Justifiable Stabbing on Christmas: Don’t Mess With the Woman Making Apple Fritters

I consider myself a pretty level-headed guy.  I can be hard-headed.  I have been called defensive, and got defensive about it (giving reasons for being defensive, which I thought were justified). But, get between me and an apple fritter and I lose my shiat.  I absolutely do.  I also live about three miles from Christy’s Donuts in Houston (non-paid endorsement), which has the best apple fritters I’ve ever had in my life.  It takes serious self-control to stay out of Christy’s.  Once I get started and eat one of their apple fritters, all I can think about for the next week is how I deserve another apple fritter, how I will actually swim another ten laps to burn the calories for that apple fritter, and why I need to drive past West Gray and Montrose so I happen to be at that stoplight and can turn there.  It is also why I have never made apple fritters at home.  I am one home-made batch of apple fritters away from a 50-inch waist and weighing four bills.  I won’t start, because I don’t think I could stop.  So, yes, I think I understand those who struggle with addiction to meth. 

Contisha Hayes: Fritter Defender

I also understand Contisha Q. Hayes, of Akron, Ohio, who was arrested on Christmas for stabbing her sister who started pulling her hair and generally jacking with Contisha while Contisha was cooking up a batch of apple fritters.  YOU DO NOT MESS WITH THE WOMAN MAKING APPLE FRITTERS.  There, I said it loud.  It may be a little over the top. For the prosecutors and defense attorneys of Houston, if there is ever a jury trial of anyone involved in a case involving Christy’s Donuts or any fritter-related incident of any sort, here is your warning that I may not be the most unbiased juror.  Because, I understand the deeper meaning when the police report says that Contisha’s sister started to “play fight” and pull her hair while she was frying up a batch of what was probably lightly cinnamoned, apple infused dough which was probably just about ready to be taken off at the perfect time for glazing.  Making fritters is not an easy task   Too short in the fryer and they are doughy and ruined.  Too long and the outside gets burned and they are hard.  Then they need to be glazed while still hot so that the glaze can settle and not get too thick and so hot that the glaze all melts off either. It is a delicate art which should not be messed with by “play fighting.”

So, while I don’t condone it, I understand it when I read in the Beacon Journal,  that Contisha “pulled out a knife and stabbed her sister Tamara D. Delaney, 21, in the chest.”  The chest-stabbing is the quickest way to stop the hair-pulling, “play fighting,” fritter-messing up, general jackassery that can ruin Christmas.  Like a sibling chest-stabbing and night spent in jail could theoretically ruin Christmas. Continsha, in the mug shot, doesn’t look like Christmas was ruined, though.  She looks like a woman who did what she had to do. She looks like a woman who isn’t going to get her hair pulled the next time she’s making fritters. 

Full story and picture credit: Akron Beacon Journal

North of the Artic Circle: Drunk Alaska Cop Repeatedly Sexts 12 year-old Girl

Leon Outwater, a 22 year-old village police officer in the tiny town of Kobuk, Alaska, has been arrested for sending at least 20 text messages to a 12 year-old girl in town soliciting sex.  His excuse is that he was drunk. Shrewd defense.  He was apparently on the job for a month.  Shrewd hire Kobuk.

This all went down on November 16 and 17, and the girl’s mother got suspicious over the texts on the phone she had given the girl. The mother wisely called police in the larger village area to report the town cop.  He got wind of it and deleted the messages, leading to an evidence tampering charge.  More shrewd behavior by Outwater.

At least there is no evidence he had any actual physical contact with the girl.

Since he has been charged, it is unclear whether Outwater has been fired or suspended from his job. In a town of 140 people north of the Arctic Circle, it may be hard to find police officers, but it has to be easier than this.

Full story: http://www.adn.com/2013/12/20/3239912/troopers-kobuk-police-officer.html

New Hampshire, Gets in Sword-Attack Mode, Introduces State to Blog

There are a few clear ways to get onto this blog: (1) be a drunken feral hog doing what drunken feral hogs do: (2) become an all-star Floridian; (3) attack someone with a sword.  We have profiled more of the first two than I can link up here easily.  On the third count, we have linked to sword wielding robbers who were grabbed by the cojones on the way to failing, and a man who demanded insanely good tacos for free with a samurai sword, while failing.

Steven Austin - Sword Hitter Without Tacos

A man in New Hampshire has introduced that state to this blog with a sword. WMUR reports that Steven Austin, 34, attacked a woman with a sword.  Police were called to the scene, where he reportedly had hit the woman in the head with the sword.  She had non-life threatening injuries. 

That’s all that was reported, leaving a few questions and assumptions: (1) the sword was either very dull or he hit her with the butt end, I’m guessing it was a dull replica sword and some sort of Dungeons & Dragons weekend reenactor sword rather than a replica samuri sword hung on the wall – the dudes I knew who kept those things kept them sharp; and (2) there must be no good tacos in New Hampshire if there were none reported as part of a plot to get tacos as part of this sword-assault. Had this sword attack occurred in South Texas, tacos surely would have been involved.  New Hampshire is not known for too much.  It is known for being home to those who want to live free or die.  It is known for being cold.  It is not known for tacos. 

If it is going to get back on this blog on a regular basis and have any chance of competing with Florida, it is going to have to do some serious stepping up. It could start with getting some better Tacos.  Mix those with the swords that seem to be prevalent there, and you have the recipe for at least one more post.

Full, brief story and picture: http://www.wmur.com/news/nh-news/police-man-arrested-after-attacking-woman-with-sword/-/9857858/23562282/-/mrivu5/-/index.html#mid=17376772