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Man high on bath salts kills neighbor's goat, police say

By Gary A. Harki
The Charleston Gazette

Mark Thompson, 19, of Alum Creek, is charged with animal cruelty

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Police say an Alum Creek man high on bath salts killed his neighbor's pygmy goat and that neighbors found him in his bedroom, dressed in a bra and panties, next to the dead animal, said Lt. Bryan Stover of the Kanawha County Sheriff's Department.

Mark Thompson, 19, of Greenview Road, is charged with animal cruelty after police got a call from a woman who said he stole her goat at about 3:15 a.m. Monday, Stover said.

Lisa Powers said she bought the goat on Friday as a gift to her 4-year-old grandson. They named the male goat Bailey after a female character on the Disney Channel television show "The Suite Life on Deck."

"The baby just loved him," she said.

Powers' nephew, Joshua Pollis, got a call from a neighbor early Monday morning, she said.

"They told him that my goat was wandering around in Mark's house and he'd better come and get it," she said. "They called my nephew because he'd been there before."

Pollis and two women walked into Thompson's house looking for the goat, according to the criminal complaint filed in Kanawha County Magistrate Court.

The three entered the house and made their way to Thompson's bedroom door when Thompson spoke to them, Powers said.

"He told them, 'Don't come in, I'm naked,'" Powers said. "But they opened the door and he was standing there with his pants down. He had on women's clothing and the goat was dead and there was blood everywhere. It was just a scene."

Thompson ran out the front door when Pollis asked him about the dead goat in his room, according to the complaint.

Police got a search warrant for the house, and searched the woods for Thompson. They found him several hours later.

Thompson allegedly told police he was on bath salts for about three days.

When police entered the house they found fresh blood near the front door of the bedroom and in Thompson's bedroom to the right of the front door. Inside the bedroom police found the small gray and white goat wearing a pink collar lying dead on the floor, blood coming from its neck, according to the complaint. There was a pornographic magazine photo laying a few feet from the goat, the complaint states.

"We know the animal had at least one stab wound," said Cpl. Sean Snuffer, a detective with the Sheriff's Department. "They are also searching for signs of sexual trauma."

Police took the dead animal to a veterinarian for a necropsy, he said.

Police are continuing their investigation. Thompson was arraigned Monday afternoon and taken into custody by Adult Protective Services.

Snuffer said the people in the community where Thompson lives told police they have been concerned about his mental health.

"I don't think they are very happy, the community over there," he said. "From what I understand they have been fearful of him before."

Powers said she and her family have lived next to Thompson for about three years. She said she took him to church with her family more than a year ago.

"Then he stole the communion wine and went out the downstairs door," she said. "I never took him back. ... We tried to be friends with him until we saw how he was."

Powers said she asked him not to come back to her house.

"He'd come anyway," she said. "He's just been a menace since I've been here. ...

"He runs through the woods, screaming and cursing and hitting things. What scared me was I didn't want him to hurt one of my grandchildren."

She said police have been diligent in their investigation.

"They tried to find fingerprints on the chain the goat was tied to," she said.

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BEIJING, China - Watermelons have been bursting by the score in eastern China after farmers gave them overdoses of growth chemicals during wet weather, creating what state media called fields of "land mines.

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Prices over the past year prompted many farmers to jump into the watermelon market. All of those with exploding melons apparently were first-time users of the growth accelerator forchlorfenuron, though it has been widely available for some time, CCTV said.

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In March last year, Chinese authorities found that "yard-long" beans from the southern city of Sanya had been treated with the banned pesticide isocarbophos. The tainted beans turned up in several provinces, and the central city of Wuhan announced it destroyed 3.5 tons of the vegetable.

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JUNE 9--In an embarrassing about-face, federal prosecutors yesterday abruptly dropped criminal charges against an Indiana man who they accused of bugging his ex-wife’s automobile.

The FBI last Friday arrested David Voelkert, 38, largely on the basis of messages the South Bend man recently exchanged with a purported 17-year-old Facebook friend named “Jessica Studebaker.”

In fact, the “Studebaker” account was created last month by Voelkert’s ex-wife Angela, 29, in an apparent bid to extract information she could use against him in an ongoing child custody fight.

As described in an FBI affidavit, David Voelkert’s Facebook correspondence with “Studebaker” included an admission that he had placed a GPS device in his ex-wife’s vehicle to surreptitiously monitor her movements. He also wrote about his desire to “find someone to take care of” Angela, and told “Studebaker” that “you should find someone at your school…that would put a cap in her ass for $10,000.”

For her part, Angela Voelkert sought to use the Facebook exchanges against her ex-husband. In a June 1 Superior Court application for a restraining order against him, Voelkert attached several pages of Facebook messages exchanged between “Studebaker” and David Voelkert. The messages showed her ex-husband telling “Studebaker” about the tracking device, as well as his concern the teenager could “get arrested as an accessory to all this.”

Voelkert spent four days in custody until federal prosecutors moved yesterday to drop charges against him. He was freed after proving to investigators that he knew all along that his ex-wife was the one sending him messages from the “Studebaker” account. Voelkert explained that he played along with the ruse so that he could use his ex-spouse’s machinations against her in their custody case.

To support this contention, Voelkert provided FBI agents with a May 25 notarized affidavit in which he describes receiving a friend request from “Jessica Studebaker,” whom he suspected was his ex-wife. “I am lying to this person,” he stated, “to gain positive proof that it is indeed my ex-wife trying to again tamper in my life.” He added, “In no way do I have plans to leave with my children or do any harm to Angela Dawn Voelkert or anyone else.”

The allegedly incriminating Facebook messages sent by Voelkert came on May 31, six days after his sworn affidavit was notarized. Voelkert kept one copy of the affidavit, and gave a relative a second copy for safekeeping.

Federal investigators, who interviewed the bank employee who notarized the affidavit on May 25, confirmed that the document was authentic, triggering the government motion yesterday to dismiss Voelkert’s case. “The request is based upon information learned in the government’s ongoing investigation of the case,” wrote prosecutor Jesse Barrett, who declined to comment about the matter when contacted by a TSG reporter.

Magistrate Judge Christopher Nuechterlein yesterday signed an order dismissing the case against Voelkert.

The “Studebaker” account remains on Facebook and includes the above image of an unknown girl. The profile claims that she is 17, has worked at Subway, and attends James Whitcomb Riley High School in South Bend. In a May 24 post, “Studebaker” claimed to be “Sittin in study hall bored out of my freakin mind.”

At press time, she currently has 63 friends, one of whom remains David Voelkert. (3 pages)

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Man brings gun to South Memphis birthday party after his kids don't get any cake

By Mike Mueller
Memphis Commercial Appeal

Police arrested a man in South Memphis on Saturday after he allegedly threatened the host of a child’s birthday party with a gun because his children didn’t get any cake or ice cream.

Joseph Hayes, 48, was arrested in the 1300 block of Clementine late Saturday night and was charged with aggravated assault.

According to a police affidavit, Hayes became upset and began yelling at the victim because “Y’all didn’t save my kids no damn ice cream and cake.”

Hayes then left the party and went to his apartment.

According to the affidavit, he returned with a small black handgun tucked into the back of his pants, approached the host, lifted up his shirt and said, “I ain’t scared to go to jail, just take care of my kids."

The host then called police and said she was in fear of her life.

After being arrested, Hayes told police at 201 Poplar that he did not bring a gun to the party, just an object that looked like one when tucked in his pants, the affidavit says. Hayes’ bond is set at $30,000 and is scheduled to appear in court Monday.

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