Category: Strange

John Ray’s Box of Human Bones

Posted on by TL

I really don’t get this guy at all.

Park Forest resident John Ray still has his box of human bones.

Recall Ray’s tale of how he came by the remains:

Ray said he bought the grisly collection, albeit accidentally, at an estate auction in Shipshewana, Ind. There he bought a tattered, 150-year-old book titled “The History of the American Indian.” Packaged with the book was a cardboard box layered in duct tape.

“The dealer said, ‘Wait till you get home to open it up,’ ” Ray said of the box. “He said, ‘You’ll really be pleased with it. It’s like a little gift from Santa Claus.’ ”

But Ray said he didn’t wait until he got home. When he got to his car, Ray split the box open with a pocketknife. To his shock, the book was packaged with the bones. He marched back to the dealer, who refused to take back the “gift.” The dealer claimed to have bought the remains at a separate estate auction earlier in the year.

According to the Southtown Star:

Ray, who claims he’s kept a box of human bones in his Park Forest residence since 1982, said he plans to take a few bones to Indiana’s LaGrange County Sheriff’s Department in the next few weeks.

The next few weeks?  Does this man really care that he has the remains of a human being in a box in his home?  Or is it about him?

Ray said he hoped to start the process this week by digitally photographing all the bones and sending the photographs as well as their lengths and proportions to the LaGrange County Sheriff Department.

Afterward, Ray said he would deliver the bones to the department in person.

“Those bones being buried wherever they belong would be a great ending to this story – whatever direction it heads,” Ray said.

I don’t get this at all.  How do you walk around your home for 26 years with a box containing the remains of a human being?  If someone sold you a box of human bones, wouldn’t you call the police — immediately?  Was this person the victim of a homicide?

My disquietude with this grisly tale only heightened the other day during a chance encounter with John Ray.  As I was walking my dog around the neighborhood, Ray was outside.

He approached me and asked, “You been reading about me?”

All I could think of was that box of bones nearby somewhere inside his residence.

“I’m wondering who keeps a box of bones in their house for 26 years?” I said.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked.

“John, I’m walking my dog.”

“Oh, okay.”

No, I did not want to “talk about it.”

A credible source in Park Forest reports that Ray is writing a “screen play” about the bones.

Sounds like it’s all about him.  In 26 years, the Park Forest police have no record of a call for service about these remains.  Only recently was Ray concerned enough to come forward.

Ray recently told the Southtown Star, “Whoever this kid is, he deserves better.”

No kidding.

Man Keeps Human Bones in Box for 26 Years

Posted on by TL

This one is just too strange to pass up.

According to a report in the Southtown Star, a man in Park Forest, IL, has kept “a disorganized heap of crusty human bones” in a box for 26 years.

According to the report, John Ray claims he bought the box of human remains in 1982:

It was the year Ray said he bought the grisly collection, albeit accidentally, at an estate auction in Shipshewana, Ind. There he bought a tattered, 150-year-old book titled “The History of the American Indian.” Packaged with the book was a cardboard box layered in duct tape.

“The dealer said, ‘Wait till you get home to open it up,’ ” Ray said of the box. “He said, ‘You’ll really be pleased with it. It’s like a little gift from Santa Claus.’ ”

But Ray said he didn’t wait until he got home. When he got to his car, Ray split the box open with a pocketknife. To his shock, the book was packaged with the bones. He marched back to the dealer, who refused to take back the “gift.” The dealer claimed to have bought the remains at a separate estate auction earlier in the year.

But Ray never called the police, until recently.  According to the story, he waited to call the police to avoid trouble.  “I did put it off,” Ray said. “I was a teacher, I was afraid.”

Ray claims he called the police after he retired from teaching in 2001, but they never called back — a claim Park Forest Police dispute:

Park Forest Deputy Chief Mike McNamara said he doesn’t know whether Ray phoned the department but that people who do find bones should call police.

“We would probably contact the crime lab, and they would take it,” McNamara said. “It depends if it was an ancient skeleton – sometimes they take them to an archaeologist to examine.”

Ray may be in for more trouble, according to Bob Nale, former president of the South Suburban Archaeological Society:

“There are some fairly stringent laws, and some of them are being enforced with some big-size penalties,” Nale said. “Then there’s the other option – take them out in a field and bury them deep.”

The Illinois Human Skeletal Remains Protection Act instructs anyone who discovers human remains to report the incident to the coroner within 48 hours or face misdemeanor charges.

The Illinois attorney general’s office points to state statute prohibiting the sale of body parts.

Under the law, anyone who buys or sells a human body or any part of a human body is guilty of a Class A misdemeanor for the first conviction and a Class 4 felony for subsequent convictions.

According to a second report, a local funeral home has offered to bury the remains, but Ray is “weighing the option.”

Ray said the estate auction dealer told him the bones belonged to a boy who claimed to be one of the last Delaware Indians. The boy was beaten to death at a bar, Ray said the dealer told him while refusing to take back the bones. Ray said he does not know the dealer’s name.

McNamara suggested Thursday that Ray turn the bones over to Shipshewana police.

“If this was a homicide, and the bones are 40 to 50 years old, they would have an open case on it, and they’d have evidence to solve the case,” McNamara said.

Who keeps a box of human bones for 26 years?

Unbelievable.

Awe nuts, the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s off the deep end again

Posted on by TL

Let me begin by saying that I have tremendous respect for Jesse Jackson, Sr. if it is still 1988.

His speech at the Democratic Convention is electrifying and incredibly inspirational. I’m sitting in the living room of my parents’ house watching the convention, and I’m hoping against hope that Jesse Sr. could have won the Democratic nomination for president.

It’s 1988, and there’s a lot I don’t know about Jesse Jackson, Sr., except for that speech.

Two decades later, I know a lot more. And I don’t like what I see any more.

From the Chicago Tribune’s Swamp:

Not realizing a camera and microphone were live, Jackson whispered in a television studio on Sunday that Obama had been “talking down to black people” in his calls for more parental responsibility among blacks and an expansion of faith-based charities.

“I want to cut his nuts out,” Jackson added, gesturing as if grabbing part of the male anatomy and then pulling.

I get it that Jesse likes to make himself the story. Sometimes I can even accept that. This time, however, Jesse was off the charts. Consider this: Jesse was in a Fox News studio. How can any reasonable person conclude that the microphone might not be in a Fox News studio, or any studio?

Jesse rushed to apologize, but this time he looks downright silly:

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

“I offer apologies because I don’t want harm to come to this campaign,” Jackson said.

“I said something I regret was crude. It was very private. And very much a sound bite,” he said. “I find no comfort in it, no joy in it.”

Not, “I apologize because I was wrong.” This is, “I apologize because I got caught. That was meant to be private. But I meant what I said.”

Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. was not pleased with dad:

Jackson’s son U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., who has distanced himself from his father before, offered an especially pointed reaction: “I’m deeply outraged and disappointed in Rev. Jackson’s reckless statements about Sen. Barack Obama,” the junior Jackson said. “Reverend Jackson is my dad, and I’ll always love him . . . [but] I thoroughly reject and repudiate his ugly rhetoric. He should keep hope alive and any personal attacks and insults to himself.

I’ve heard Congressman Jackson take some playful, tongue-in-cheek jabs at his father in the past.  During some friendly gatherings, the congressman would say he didn’t want to be the kind of guy who showed up just for the cameras.  Then he’d pause thoughtfully, wait for the chuckles.

We all got it.

This time, however, the congressman was on fire, and spot on.

I enjoyed NBC’s Matt Lauer’s clumsily interview with Dr. Michael Eric Dyson on the Today Show this morning. How will the Black Community respond? As if all African Americans think in concert, like all whites, all men, all women, all gays, all lesbians, etc. Dyson carefully observed that “some” blacks will say this, “some” will say that. In other words, people might actually see things differently.

Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell calls the senior Jackson’s explanation absurd:

Jackson’s faux pas turned up the volume on a whispered conversation.

But there’s no need to worry.

Black Democrats have supported a long line of presidential contenders who had to walk the same fine line.

They are not about to abandon Obama because he finds more opportunities to talk about black pathology than he does white racism.

Besides, the reverend’s comments were so beneath the dignity of the cloth he wears on the road he has traveled, the Obama campaign won’t have to deal with them — period.

But if Jackson keeps making loud noises, he’ll find out how quickly even a civil rights icon like him can get left behind.

The weird right is enjoying this spectacle, but this will pass.  It won’t be long until another far-right icon is forced out of the closet.

The media will want to stay with the distraction for a while longer, I’m sure.  This is much more fun than actually doing critical thinking and writing about real issues.  And I’m sure this will not be the last time the Rev. Jackson pulls a “Michael Richards.”

Senator Obama graciously accepted Jackson’s apology, and he’s moving on.  This is just another distraction.

A terror attack would be great for John McCain

Posted on by TL

A “senior adviser” to John McCain told Fortune Magazine that a terror attack would be “a big advantage” for John McCain.  Charles R. Black, Jr. was forced to “recant” his opinion:

First, McCain said the substance of Black’s comments were untrue.

“I’ve worked tirelessly since 9/11 to prevent another attack on the United States of America,” McCain told reporters today. “If he said that, and I do not know the context, I strenuously disagree.”

Then, outside a fundraiser in Fresno, Black read a statement aloud to reporters from handwritten notes:

“I deeply regret the comments – they were inappropriate. I recognize that John McCain has devoted his entire adult life to protecting his country and placing its security before every other consideration.”

We’re all waiting for the infamous “October surprise.”  Terror attack or no, however, we all know that McCain and his ilk are hoping for a bomb to go off.  That would be so sweet for John.

Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.) put it best:

“For the McCain campaign to say it would benefit politically from another September 11 attack is disgraceful. That Mr. Black would even think in those terms, let alone express the thought publicly, is very sad. John McCain was right to disavow his remarks. The politics of fear have no place in our national life.”

But McCain’s camp is thinking in those terms.  And, I would argue, deep down inside, so is John McCain.  These remarks don’t just slip out.  Somewhere along the line, the “insiders” were joking around, maybe tipping back a few, and in grand “group-think” mentality, convinced themselves that John McCain would, in fact, benefit from a terror attack.

Problem is, after the buzz wears off, you’re not supposed to say those things in public.

Unless, somewhere deep inside, you really mean it.

Former Fox News Radio reporter tries to take gun to court

Posted on by TL

News from Pittsburgh:

A radio reporter was arrested this morning and accused of trying to take a loaded handgun into the Allegheny County Courthouse.

The county sheriff’s office said KDKA reporter Rob Milford was stopped at 9:25 a.m. after a .38 caliber snub-nosed revolver was found in his briefcase at a courthouse screening station. Mr. Milford said he didn’t realize he had put his gun in the briefcase, said Sheriff William P. Mullen.

Don’t you check your briefcase for snub-nosed revolvers before heading to court?

Mr. Milford, a morning general assignment reporter, arrived at KDKA in April 2006 after working for CBS Radio News and Fox News Radio. He reported from the Iraq war twice, once when he was embedded during the initial invasion in 2003.

The man’s a real war hero, another safely “embedded” journalist writing one side of the story from Iraq. Why bother interviewing Iraqis?

Rezko’s Plan for a Third Airport

Posted on by TL

Tony Rezko allegedly tried his hand at starting a “pay-for-play” third airport in Will County.

I had my doubts the first time I read this, but, knowing Rick Bryant, this report is accurate.

Bryant writes in eNews Park Forest:

Two years ago – before Rezko’s indictment and trial – the Congressman and I (as executive director of the Abraham Lincoln National Airport Commission) were invited to meet with state officials about the third airport, a project we’ve championed for 14 years.

At the time, the governor was running for re-election and facing angry south suburban leaders who were running a massive ad campaign criticizing Blagojevich for reneging on his promise to build the airport.

Feeling heat from his voter base, the governor agreed to have two of his top aides meet with Jackson and ALNAC.

At the last minute, however, there was a change of plans.  Instead of meeting with the Governor’s aides, we would be meeting with Tony Rezko.

So, on Sunday, June 25, 2006, at the Chicago Four Seasons Hotel, Rezko showed up by himself.  He said he could offer gubernatorial support for ALNAC’s airport plan – if the governor were allowed to make key appointments to ALNAC’s Board.

Wow.  It’s worth it to read Bryant’s entire commentary.

To be honest, I tire of the back-and-forth sniping between Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Senate Majority Leader Debbie Halvorson.  Both are good people.  That’s not the issue.  But both, at times, have postured unnecessarily over the Third Airport, bringing each other down in the process.  Thankfully, Bryant, a top aide to Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., only takes a backhanded slap at Halvorson in this piece.

ALNAC’s model for building the airport comes with built-in accountability and ethics designed specifically to eliminate kickbacks and graft, thus creating 15,000 private-sector jobs at a low-cost airport that will attract low-cost carriers during this challenging economy.

Rezko’s model and the Senate bill would turn ALNAC’s innovative plan to construct a privately funded, publicly accountable, low-cost airport into a taxpayer-funded, pay-to-play, high-cost airport.

Bryant’s point, however, is clear enough: a third airport would be much less expensive and more accountable to the public under ALNAC.

I simply find it astounding that Rezko tried to put his finger in the third airport pie.

Guard Destroys Million-Dollar Painting

Posted on by TL

A security guard at the Carnegie Museum of Art told police he “didn’t like” the $1.2 million painting he allegedly destroyed.

The suspect — Timur Serebrykov, 27, of Pittsburgh — is being held in the Allegheny County Jail on a felony charge of institutional vandalism, police said.

According to a police affidavit, surveillance video from May 16 shows Serebrykov defacing Vija Celmins’ “Night Sky #12” at the museum on Forbes Avenue.

The affidavit said there was an “obvious large vertical gouge” in the middle of the piece.”I did it with a key… I didn’t like the painting… I’m sorry,” Serebrykov told Detective Daniel Sullivan, according to the affidavit.

Very strange.

R. Kelly has a mole on his back

Posted on by TL

R. Kelly actually had an expert testify about the mole on his back:

R. Kelly‘s mole returned to the forefront of his child pornography trial on Thursday, as a forensic video analyst testified the blemish on the R&B star’s back is not identical to the dark mark seen on the man in the sex tape.

The mole has emerged as the surprise crux of the singer’s defense in the three weeks since testimony began. From the onset, his attorneys have told the jury that the caterpillar-shaped mark along Kelly’s spine would clear him of the crime.

Ugh. There are many things I didn’t need to know about R. Kelly, and I certainly didn’t need to know, nor could I have cared less, that Kelly has a mole on his back.

He could’ve had the bloody thing removed in his doctor’s office sometime over the past six years this trial has been delayed.

In addition to Kelly claiming he’s not the guy, the defense is also claiming the girl is not the girl:

Shonna Edwards, 27, said she was formerly in a singing group with her cousin, who prosecutors allege is the underage girl in the tape. The group toured throughout Europe in the late 1990s, she said.

“Was the female in the [sex] tape your cousin?” asked defense lawyer Ed Genson.

“No, she definitely wasn’t her,” Edwards said.

Similar words from an uncle later on.

On the other hand, the fiance of the prosecution’s star witness reportedly wanted $300,000 to keep her quiet:

Jack Palladino — a private investigator best known for being hired by Bill Clinton to track down women he’d been linked with — testified Thursday that the fiance of the prosecution’s star witness wanted a $300,000 payoff to keep the witness quiet.

The star witness, Lisa Van Allen, testified Monday that she had engaged in threesomes with R. Kelly and the underage girl who allegedly appears in a sex tape with the singer.

So, R. Kelly’s not the guy, the girl is not the girl, but Lisa Van Allen might have kept quiet about the whole thing for a few bucks? Everyone’s bending over backwards to drag each other further into the mud.

Mr. Kelly may be innocent — and he is, right now, innocent until proven guilty. But we need to remember what this is really about: the awful reality that an underage girl may have been horribly violated. If she was, we don’t need another sexual predator driving around the south suburbs of Chicago looking for his next conquest.

Pfleger Pflummoxes with Pfustian Prelection

Posted on by TL

Archbishop George must have turned Cardinal red.

What was the Rev. Michael Pfleger thinking? Was he jealous of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright? Did he really want to make his debut on the world stage on You Tube?

Pfleger’s rant was juvenile and sad:

”I really don’t believe it was put on,” Pfleger said. ”I really believe that she just always thought, ‘This is mine! I’m Bill’s wife, I’m white, and this is mine! I just gotta get up and step into the plate.’ And then out of nowhere came, ‘Hey, I’m Barack Obama,’ and she said, ‘Oh, damn! Where did you come from? I’m white! I’m entitled! There’s a black man stealing my show!’ ”

Mimicking Clinton mopping tears, Pfleger added, “She wasn’t the only one crying, there was a whole lot of white people crying.”

Cardinal George clamped down:

“To avoid months of turmoil in the church, Fr. Pfleger has promised me that he will not enter into campaigning, will not publicly mention any candidate by name and will abide by the discipline common to all Catholic priests.”

Pfleger apologized:

“I apologize for the words that I chose. I apologize for my dramatization that was, for many people who do not know me, simply typical dramatics I often use in sermons,” said Pfleger, reading from a statement as nearly two dozen church leaders surrounded him. “I apologize for anyone who was offended and who thought it to be mockery, that was neither my intent, nor my heart.”

What is truly sad in all of this is, Pfleger is a good man. He is. And we desperately need a dialog on race in this country. White entitlement is real, but Hillary Clinton is not running because she feels entitled. That’s just silly. Hillary is doing something historic, and she should stay there as long as she pleases.

But the Democratic nominee will be Barack Obama, and the overwhelming majority of Democrats, whether they support Clinton or Obama not, will support Obama in November.

Pfleger will, well, pfade. He’ll be a priest again, and that is as it should be.

Barack Obama resigned his membership at Trinity, and that’s probably a good thing for now. Republicans are salivating, but that is only temporary. Only Democrats are having a dialog on race — and every other social issue, for that matter. Republicans embrace social issues and “compassion” once every four years, tops.

Look, McCain/Bush2 will no doubt fill the stage at the Republican Convention with every minority and minority child he can find in the Republican ranks, but that will be an artificial statement.

It’s still time for change. That’s the only constant in this election cycle.

Want to be a witness at the R. Kelly trial?

Posted on by TL

This could be your chance to make the big leagues.  After six years of lurid publicity, the defense has suddenly unearthed a surprise witness.  After six years of delays, the defense claims a witness called them today, for the first time.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times:

Testimony from a woman who says she had a sexual encounter with R. Kelly and an underage girl could be undermined by another witness in the singer’s child pornography trial who claims to know damaging information about the woman.

The judge abruptly halted proceedings Wednesday about an hour before the woman, who is from Georgia, was set to testify that she had an encounter with both the R&B superstar and the female who is depicted in a sex videotape at the heart of case. The Georgia woman also was expected to tell the jury that the woman was a minor at the time of the video recording.

The show will go on.  I’m just a bit surprised at this development.  How likely is it that a new witness no one apparently knew about would call the very day this woman was set to testify?  That’s downright uncanny, as if this witness, a man, had some kind of sixth “R. Kelly” sense.

The defense appeared to be as shocked as well:

“We never knew about the witness until 9 a.m. [Wednesday],” defense attorney Sam Adam Sr. said. “The witness called us.”

Want to be a witness at the R. Kelly trial?  Apparently there are still openings.

This one ain’t over until R. Kelly sings.