Lead Story
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Tamara Tootle, formerly a phys ed teacher at Ernest Ward Middle School in Pensacola, Florida, was arrested on bribery charges in April; according to authorities, in 2004 and 2005 she’d offered her students a deal in which anyone who didn’t want to participate in gym class could pay her a dollar a day and receive a perfect grade without ever suiting up, and about 150 kids took her up on it. Tootle’s name came up while police were investigating Terence Braxton, another gym teacher at Ward who in May pleaded guilty to bribery for independently operating a nearly identical scheme.
Reuters reported in March on Isdaan, a restaurant in Gerona, the Philippines, where customers can pay to vent their frustrations by smashing things–dishes, old TVs–against the “wall of fury.” And in May BBC News reported on David Lucas, a farmer in Suffolk, England, who in July will be forced by a new European Commission regulation to give up his lucrative sideline: building gallows for sale to Zimbabwe and other countries that still use them. A single Lucas gallows sells for roughly $23,000, while a trailer-mounted “multi-hanging execution system” is $188,000.
Recurring Themes
Arrested recently and charged with murder: Bruce Wayne Potts, 34 (DeSoto, Texas, February); Oral Wayne Nobles, 71 (Kingman, Arizona, April); Ronald Wayne Spencer Jr., 19 (Dallas, Texas, April). Arrested with body in car trunk and suspected of murder: Darrell Wayne Lewis, 33 (Tempe, Arizona, March). Sentenced after pleading guilty to murder: David Wayne Hickman, no age given (McKinney, Texas, May); Anthony Wayne Welch, 27 (Viera, Florida, March). Committed suicide while serving life in prison for murder: John Wayne Glover, 72 (Lithgow, Australia, September).
