Posted 3/17/2009 06:38:00 PM by Douglas

Almost three years later, but the severed head finally has a name.

Police have used DNA to identify a man whose head was found three years ago in the back of a city garbage truck.

The remainder of Kevin Thomas Walsh’s body still hasn’t been found but police said on Monday they hope that knowing more about his background may provide clues about his death. Walsh’s family provided DNA samples for matching.

Police continue to investigate Walsh’s death as suspicious.

Searching for "severed head", as I do most Tuesday afternoons, reminded me I first blogged this story here. Still, even if he was sleeping in a trash bin and was decapitated post mortem, I'd still say that's got a hint of suspicion about it.

The AGN story. Check out the head before it was liberated. Is it just me, or does that sketch look NOTHING like that guy??

Posted 3/29/2006 05:08:00 PM by Douglas

More on the severed head.

Investigators spent a second day combing through garbage at the Amarillo city landfill Tuesday, searching for parts of - or a whole - body that belongs to a severed head found in a garbage truck Monday.

Despite a day of rooting through debris dumped at the landfill since Friday, Potter-Randall Special Crimes Unit investigators came away with no new clues and are pondering their next step, unit coordinator Lt. Gary Trupe said.

OK, fair 'nuff. That's almost as good as saying "no comment," but whatever. Still, this is the stance they're taking:

Investigators on Tuesday did not know enough to say whether foul play was involved in the death of the man, who remains unidentified.

No foul play, eh? I would love to hear how anyone's head is liberated from their bodies when foul play isn't involved. Actually, I'd think a decapitation is the very definition of foul play, whether it's pre or post mortem.

But apparently, that's just me.

Posted 3/28/2006 05:50:00 PM by Douglas

Why I read the Amarillo Globe News: Stories like this. A bit of background; a severed human head was found by the guys on the trash truck. Potter County JP Dysart, take it away:

Potter County Justice of the Peace Haven Dysart did not have a lot to work with Monday after a human head turned up in a trash truck.

"I wrote down the time, location and where the head was found," he said. "If we don't find anything else, we still need to have some kind of identification. We will send it off, probably to Lubbock."

Wow, he must have seen at least three whole episodes of Law & Order to figure that one out. Write down the time. Ok, got that one. Now, where to send the severed human head? Probably Lubbock. Those guys at Tech really get off on this kind of shit. They're just like that gal on Crossing Jordan, but with a cowboy hat and a dip of Copenhagen in their lip. But it gets better:

Police were not calling the situation a crime on Monday while looking for clues, such as evidence of how the person who's head was found died. Police did not release an estimated age, the race or gender of the person.

Not a crime? Even if this was the garbage of a funeral home, this would be a crime, wouldn't it? You can't just throw away someone's head, can you? So how on earth could it not be a crime? Did someone on that particular trash route just happen to have an extra human head this week? Come on, people. [HC story here.]

Posted 1/13/2007 07:25:00 PM by Douglas

Nine months later and the mysterious severed head still doesn't have a body. Or a murder charge.

It may be one of the strangest cases homicide investigators have ever seen in Amarillo.

They had a head, but no name and no body.

When an Amarillo solid-waste employee started a compressor on his trash truck March 27, he saw a head in the hopper of the truck. The discovery led investigators to days of searching the city's landfill for the body to match the head, but they found nothing.

Now, about 8½ months after the discovery, investigators are still puzzling over the death of the man, who they only know as a white male, about 38 to 58 years old.

Bizarre. So it hasn't been ruled a homicide, but it's hard to imagine that this isn't part of some kind of crime.

Posted 12/09/2006 02:05:00 PM by Douglas

Parenthood may be difficult, but judging by the six billion people on the planet it's obvious that it's not impossible to ensure your children remain safe during their formative years. That is, unless you're stupid enough to un-leash a wild cougar at a seven year old's birthday party.

A 4-year-old girl was mauled at a children's birthday party by a cougar that had been brought in by a wild-animal business to entertain the youngsters, authorities said.

The girl was attacked on Nov. 18 at the home of Goya Foods president Francisco Unanue during a party for his 7-year-old child and suffered severe cuts on her eyelid, cheek and ear, authorities said. Doctors sewed back part of her severed ear.

Police said Wild Animal World owner and trainer Corinne Oltz removed the leashed cougar from its cage to show it to the children, but the girl sneaked behind Oltz and startled the animal. The declawed cat seized the child's head with its teeth.

The 62-pound cougar was destroyed last week so that it could be tested for rabies; it did not have rabies.

It's horrible that a four year old got mauled, but why did they have to kill the cougar? Couldn't they have "destroyed" Oltz for removing the leash, or how 'bout Unane for hiring a frigin' cougar for a birthday party? Geez.