The Key West Citizen has an exhaustively reported story today by Chris Tittel about a weird murder that's got Pulp splattered all over it. Hard-luck factory worker Johnny Ray Holt in Alabama robs girlfriend's parents' house, drives down to Key West, kills a man in his house and steals his car. The kicker is that a homeless man practically witnessed the daytime murder. He saw the victim, Rodger Keller, walk into his house, heard the sound of a gunshot, saw a man matching Holt's description leave the house, and even saw blood in the house when he looked to see if Keller was okay. The homeless man told construction workers nearby about it and asked to use a cellphone to call 911. They blew him off. He knocked on the door of a neighbor who also told him to get lost. The neighbor: Circuit Judge Mark Jones. The homeless man gave up. Keller's body wasn't discovered for another three days later.
Fortunately for Smith, the good law enforcement folks in Crisp County, GA had Jones' back. They picked up Holt on an arrest warrant for the burglary in Alabama before the murder was discovered. He had Keller's driver's license with him and had used Keller's stolen credit for phone sex calls in Georgia. The ensuing investigation revealed that Holt and Keller had a history. A history that, according to Tittel in his Story of the Day, involved theft and naked pictures of the 24-year-old Holt in 63-year-old Keller's home.
These Florida tales in paradise just warm your heart, don't they?
Like Rats On A Sinking SunCruz Ship
In the Sentinel's story on Jack Abramoff's impending sentencing we learn that Abramoff and his former partner Adam Kidan hate each other these days. Sean Gardiner quotes Kidan as saying, ""I was his best friend and his business partner. He wrote e-mails to people saying I'm more like his brother than a friend. I don't know why he's doing this to me. Clearly, he's completely controverting the facts of the case."
Can't think of two men who deserved each other more. Shame their beautiful bond had to be broken by a silly federal case that helped to reveal the dark underbelly of the Republican Party.
Sentinel Proves It Really Can Do Simple Math
After the Pulp revealed that a subject in its photo essay on the homeless, Invisible Lies, had duped them about his service in Vietnam, the newspaper kept the bogus information up for several days. This despite the fact that if what Larry Masters was saying was the truth, he served in the jungle as a "tunnel rat" when he was just 14-years-old.
Good news, bona fide veterans: The Sentinel finally excised Larry Masters' claims about Vietnam from its Web site. It may have taken a while, but the Pulp done good, ma, the Pulp done good.
