O-Bits: Murder Most Fouled-Up Edition

We lead off today’s O-Bits with a story about a trio of murder suspects who escaped from a Texas jail…only to be apprehended less than an hour later, when they stopped at a Sonic Drive-In for a bite to eat. It’s a story that has us wondering whether they were really smart guys that made a stupid mistake, or idiots who got lucky in breaking out, but reverted to their moronic state once they breached the walls. We’re leaning to the latter, mostly because of their dining choice. Nothing against Sonic (or Rally’s, their Hardee’s/Carl’s Jr.-like twin), but if I had escaped from jail,  it’s probably wouldn’t be my first choice to stop for dinner…

 

We’re old enough here at O-Bits to remember Dan White’s “Twinkie Defense” when he was tried for the murder of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk. It got the charges lessened from murder to manslaughter, so an enterprising defense attorney in Colorado is trying a new tack and claiming his client, Aiden von Grabow, killed a twenty-year-old woman because of the Accutane he was taking. It’s not the first time the acne medication has been blamed for a tragedy. A 20-year-old pilot who crashed his plane into a building was prescribed the drug. It’s great at clearing the skin, the argument goes, but muddies the mind, with side-effects that include depression and suicide. We hope this doesn’t lead to a rash of educators singling out kids whose acne has subsided but still mopes around school.

 

In Manchester, England, Tyrone Patrick, a 32-year-old man admitted to the court he was drunk, coked up, and generally being a “loud mouth,” but he didn’t kill a 34-year-old Mike Grimshaw. Sure, Patrick made obscene remarks about Grimshaw’s fiancé, but he’s always like then when he’s drunk. But even in that drunk, drugged state, he claims to have a clear memory of who stabbed Grimshaw, and it wasn’t him. That didn’t stop him from running just as fast as he could, and hiding out, though.

Steven Mirkin

Steven Mirkin’s diverse career has taken him from politics to pop culture to high art, offering him a front row seat to some of the most fascinating events and personalities of our time: writing speeches, fundraising appeals and campaign materials for Ed Koch, John Heinz and independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson; chronicling the punk/new wave scenes in New York and London; interviewing musicians such as Elton John, John Lydon and Buck Owens; profiling modern masters Julian Schnabel, Paul Schrader and Jonathan Safran Foer; and writing for TV shows including 21, The Chamber, Let's Make A Deal, and Rock Star: INXS.

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