Thank you, Mr. Bin Laden. That will be $5.
Sometimes when I lie awake in bed, when the covers feel too hot, when I could use the loving touch of a diabolical revolutionary, I think of Osama Bin Laden. I like to picture him eating a bowl of...
View ArticleCons or kids?
The War on Drugs is making South Carolina kids stupid. According to this report in today’s local paper, our local school district is about to face the possibility of increasing class sizes and...
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Charity Worley homicide update: Agents at the door
To have survived the pain to this point was an act of will Linda Casey wasn’t sure she had, which makes recent developments in the investigation into her daughter’s homicide all the more difficult to...
View ArticleBecause we said so…
Let me be clear from the outset: I believe the most dangerous sex offenders should be given life sentences. I don’t have to tell you who the most dangerous are. You know. Those folks need life terms...
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Charles Wakefield, finally free
It was, in the jargon of my people, a scoop. I happened on it almost by accident. I had a habit of checking through probation, pardon, and parole records to see who was staying in prison and who was...
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Amanda Smith: Not a murderer
I was fully prepared to write today about Amanda Smith avoiding the death penalty by pleading guilty to murder charges. I was fully prepared to accept that Solicitor Bob Ariail didn’t feel like he...
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Charity Worley: Reading between the profiler’s lines
Henderson County Sheriff’s investigators are trying to tell us something without actually saying it out loud. You don’t have to know much about law enforcement to know that investigators rarely get in...
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Eric Nicholson, ten years later
Eric Nicholson donated a pint of blood, told his wife Misty he loved her, and went back to work. It was December 6, 2000, a cold, clear day in Greenville, South Carolina. I don’t know how many times...
View ArticleCracking the comments code
This may surprise you, but I know a little more about crack cocaine than the average 37-year-old guy who grew up in a semi-rural community in southwest Missouri. I know how it’s made, how much it...
View ArticleUsing John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck died in 1968, four years before the landmark Furman v. Georgia capital punishment decision by the United States Supreme Court. It was the first moratorium on the death penalty in the...
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The kid you’ll never hear about
The gunfire started about the time we reached Field 4. Rat-tat-tats, small arms, over and over again. We were there for baseball practice. A sunny day in September. Mid-70s, blue sky, light breeze,...
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The monsters are real
I grew up on the west side of Springfield, Missouri. If you look on the left part of Springfield’s gridded streets you will find the map of my childhood. It’s where I rode my bike, learned to drive,...
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Dear Coach Pinkel
Updated below Tonight I sit here in South Carolina and look at my wife. She’s wearing a fleece with a tiger on the back. Today, I drove my car to the gym. It has a tiger on the front license plate....
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The F5 Nobody: A terrible idea to stop spree killers
When I was young, I had a recurring dream that the man who lived down the street planned to kill me. In reality, the guy worked for City Utilities and drove a green work truck. In my dreams, he crept...
View ArticleA letter to an American kid
I will never forget the day you were born. I will never forget the day you turned ten years old. They were both days that scared me until I could feel the fear in my gut. They were days that made me...
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This is our home
The kid’s shot to right field was the kind that made you gasp. It came off the bat like a laser, and it didn’t matter that little leaguer was barely 70 pounds. The ball didn’t just fly. It looked like...
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Giggling at hell
There’s a man who makes birdhouses. He’s a jolly guy, the kind you’d think would be good to suit up as Santa come December. He’s a craftsman who hits the southeastern arts festivals, sits in a...
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About that story from The Bitter Southerner
Some of you have been reading Rapid Eye Reality since 2001. Other folks have found it in the years since then. Some of you are just arriving after having read “Bust” on The Bitter Southerner. Welcome...
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We have clowns
“We have clowns.” “Hmm?” “Clowns. In the woods.” “Probably just a squirrel.” “You’re not listening.” “No. I am. You said we have clowns. Got it. Raccoon maybe.” “There were footprints. Very big...
View ArticleThe last lie you’ll believe
Somebody lied to you. You may not know it yet. You might be seething with hate. You feel it pressing down on your chest. You want to breathe, but you can’t. You see those people on the street, in the...
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