The Great Cleavage Calamity

March 04, 2011

There's something strange going on in Florida. Voluptuous overreactions are popping out of seemingly innocent situations.

Earlier this week, we brought you the story of a Naples woman who assaulted her roommate over missing Thin-Mint Girl Scout cookies. And today ...

Laura Campanello was leaving a meeting with her son’s guidance counselor at Bayshore High School in Manatee County. As she passed a woman in the hallway, she could not help but notice that there was a nook (or perhaps a cleft or a gulf) visible in the woman's chest area that was not appropriate for an institute of learning.

When she complained, she was informed by a school official that he could not tell an adult woman how she should dress. This simple statement apparently sparked a sense of liberation within Ms Campanello because, according to official reports her reaction was:

“Oh, then I can … just do this!”

Whereupon she pulled down her own shirt and, as described by Deputy Greg Jenkins, “reached in with both hands, pulled both breasts out and squeezed them together.”

Despite accounts by witnesses who seem unusually willing to tell the story over and over, Campanello denies exposing her breasts. “I am a proper person,” she said, adding that Deputy Jenkins was a “chubby, rude, lewd, and lascivious” man.

She was booked into the county jail on a misdemeanor and released after posting $220 cash bond.

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Man Steals $314 From Stripper's Garter

February 14, 2011

The dancer said that 19-year-old Ronnie Menard was “eager” to get a lap dance.

Apparently, that's not unusual.

But it was not lust that drove Ronnie to that Fort Myers, Florida gentleman's club. No, although his heart was pure his pockets were empty. Now your average criminal might target a convenience store at a time like this. Or a bank. Or he might mug an innocent victim on the street.

But Menard hit upon a novel idea: robbing mostly naked women … that's the ticket!

As she was preparing to perform the lap dance (one can only imagine what that entails), the woman said she felt her garter snap and suddenly Ronnie jumped up and ran out of the club.

He was caught when another dancer said she knew him and where he lived.

We are left with the question of how a dancer can fit $314 in a garter belt (unless there is a new $300 bill we haven't heard about). We'll file that under the heading “professional secrets.”

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Kenneth Douglas Pleads Guilty to Sexually Abusing Two Corpses

October 23, 2009

In the 30 years that I've been researching criminal cases and writing about them I have, almost needless to say, come across some pretty sick and demented individuals.  The case you are about to read about surely has to fall somewhere on my Top 20 list, making it a contender for the grand prize winner as the sickest of the sickest.  It was covered thoroughly by my colleague, David Lohr, on his Criminal Report Daily blog, and I am thankfully merely updating this ghastly case here without having to go into a lot of detail.  Having said that, readers beware—this case is disturbing.

To recap this sordid affair, nearly 27 years ago, in 1982, 19-year-old Karen Range opened her door to salesman David Steffen, who beat her and slashed her throat so severely that he nearly decapitated her.  Because of the presence of semen found inside Range's body, police at the time believed that Steffen had also raped her.  Steffen was originally convicted of Range's rape and murder and was sentenced to death.  Steffen was cleared of Range's rape, however, because of DNA analysis that was completed later on (please see Accused Necrophiliac May Have Violated Other Corpses as well as Convicted Necrophiliac Charged in Two Additional Cases) criminal issues involving Kenneth Douglas.  Douglas, it turned out, had been convicted of drug trafficking in 2008 and had been ordered to provide a DNA sample which was then matched to the semen found inside Range's body.

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