Lead Story
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On an 88-degree day in July, Susan Guita Silverstein of Stamford, Connecticut, told emergency workers not to break the window of her Audi A4 to rescue her 23-month-old son, whom she’d accidentally locked inside along with the keys. Despite their warning her that it was dangerous for her child to remain in the hot car as long as he had, Silverstein insisted they wait while she got a spare key from home. After she’d gone, firefighters smashed the window and removed the boy, who was described as “nonresponsive”; police arrested the mother for reckless endangerment on her return.
In August a missing 14-year-old girl from Brookfield, Wisconsin, was found safe in Baytown, Texas, with a 37-year-old man she’d met online. The girl’s mother had reported her daughter missing 12 days earlier, then left for a vacation with her boyfriend in Lake Tahoe; she explained to police that the plane tickets were nonrefundable.
Lena Driskell, 78, was indicted for murder in August after the fatal shooting, apparently in a jealous rage, of her 85-year-old former boyfriend at their Atlanta senior citizens’ home; upon her arrest she allegedly told police, “I did it, and I’d do it again.”
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Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Shawn Belschwender.
