Redneck Crime

Two little show pigs in Leon County, Texas, met their maker one Saturday morning in June 2006. Shortly thereafter, their enraged owner, volunteer firefighter Daniel Tolopka II, 34, found them hanging from his neighbor’s tree. Recent trial records show that, according to special prosecutor Robert Gage’s opening statement, Tolopka then snuck up behind his neighbor, 50-year-old Joseph Clampitte III. Firing at least fourteen times as he moved forward from a distance of about 100 feet, Tolopka hit Clampitte from behind with five of those shots and killed him.

“I think the evidence will show that Daniel has an anger management problem,” Gage told a Leon County jury. (Duh?) Until that day, according to prosecutors, the two men had “a pretty good neighborly relationship.” Mr. Clampitt’s widow testified that her husband had been pretty excited when the pigs wandered into their backyard. Thinking they were feral, he shot and skinned the little critters.

Prosecutors said authorities learned of Clampitte’s death only after Tolopka called 911 with “a cock-and-bull story.” In a recording played for jurors, Tolopka calmly told the 911 operator, “My neighbor’s laying dead on the ground. Can you send somebody out, please?” He later told investigators that he was feeding his goats when he heard shots and that he then chased a stranger standing nearby. “Over and over again, he tells these lies,” Gage told jurors, adding that Tolopka had even washed his clothes and taken a shower before sending police “on a wild goose chase.”

On Friday, August 24, 2007, following a brief deliberation by the jury, Tolopka was sentenced to 99 years in prison—the maximum penalty. His lawyer, J. Paxton Adams, commented, “We had a lot of bad facts working against us.” (The Eagle-Bryan, Texas)

Think this story might have had a happier ending if those little pigs had come from a happier home (a nice brick one that no amount of huffing and puffing could blow down) and had wanted to stay there? So it goes in Redneck Land… –Tex