Redneck Crime

A 45-year-old South Texas woman scheduled to face negligent homicide charges will not show up for her trial tomorrow morning—the sixth trial date set for the case. Brazoria County District Attorney Jeri Yenne has dismissed the charges for lack of evidence. The woman has not and apparently will not be convicted, so her name will not be appear here. But how could any self-respecting redneck reporter resist sharing a few juicy details of a death-by-enema case?

Yep, that’s right… A gal stood by her man in May 2004 at their home near Houston and administered an enema of not one but two large bottles of sherry. Her 58-year-old machinist husband died of alcohol poisoning as a result, but she swears she was just doing what he told her to do. According to police, the man’s blood alcohol level rose to 0.47 percent, nearly six times the level considered legally drunk in Texas.

The widow told the Houston Chronicle that her husband had been addicted to enemas since childhood and often used alcohol in that manner to get drunk. Supposedly, a throat ailment left him unable to drink booze.

In a telephone interview with Reuters, District Attorney Yenne said the dead man had “a severe alcohol issue,” and it was not clear that his wife had committed a crime. A charge that the accused had burned her husband’s will a month before his death was also dropped, she said. “We were never able to verify there was a signed, executed document.”

Guess this guy liked to literally booze it UP. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) Thought I’d heard or read it all when it comes to methods of mayhem and murder, but this one sure never popped up on my screen before. The possibilities downright blow my mind. And just think of what that poor lil’ widder-woman had to endure at cocktail hour each day.—Tex

Texas has long enjoyed its own form of justice, but recent revelations about local law enforcement training methods have even the most macho Texans rolling their eyes.

The police chief in Alton, a small town in the Rio Grande Valley, has been charged with two counts of sexual assault for allegedly violating two male employees during parties at his home. According to court documents, Chief Jose Luis Vela, 42, is accused of performing oral sex on a male employee after the man passed out drunk at a party about a year ago at Vela’s home, and also of violating a different male employee with an object while that man was passed out at yet another party in July. Vela was being held in the Hidalgo County Jail on $200,000 bond for the two felony charges. Sounds like this good ole boy had a real odd way of practicing equal opportunity employment.

The Houston Chronicle reports that a Houston ISD police officer was suspended this month after complaints from residents and school district leaders about a crude “Ghetto Handbook” passed out by the man during a roll call in May. The eight-page handout, subtitled “Wucha dun did now?,” supposedly included definitions meant to enable a reader to speak Ebonics “as if you just came out of the hood.” Ebonics (derivative of ebony and phonics per Webster’s) is a nonstandard variety of English spoken by some black Americans. The pamphlet listed definitions for terms like “foty: a 40-ounce bottle of beer;” “aks: to ask a question;” and “hoodrat: scummy girl.” I’m hoping “hoodslime: the idiot passing out this book” was included as well. Officials have suspended the officer without pay and ordered him to attend diversity training. That oughta teach the sucker!

Now don’t get the wrong idea… We’ve still got plenty of good guys in white hats protecting and serving us Texas folk. Somebody just really needs to come up with a good redneck detector that would disqualify in a heartbeat this kind of riff-raff from entering public buildings, much less getting anywhere near their personnel offices.–Tex

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