Age categories

I was diddling with my blog post categories today. I never know whether to put eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds in the “teens” category or not. On the one hand, they are in the teen years. On the other hand, they are legally adults. I’ve noticed newspapers have the same problem. Sometimes you see, say, a nineteen-year-old girl called a “teen” and a “woman” in the same article.

Abraham Shakespeare’s funeral

Abraham Shakespeare’s funeral was today. Dozens of relatives attended, including Shakespeare’s eight-year-old son. (I’m not sure just how many kids he had; at least two.) There were a lot of very angry people there crying out for justice. They’re not ready to forgive yet. Two of the cops who investigated the case got a standing ovation.

It seems unlikely that there will be much in his estate, and no doubt the lawyers will spend forever squabbling over it. I really hope Shakespeare’s children will not be left in poverty. I read he created a $1 million trust fund for one of his sons; I hope that fund still exists and didn’t get stolen also.

Another article says Dee Dee Moore will not be getting any support from her family:

Her parents, Linda and Patrick Donegan, said Wednesday night that the [bail] money won’t be coming from them. “None of our family has any money to bail her out,” the mother said.

The Donegans said they feel bad for Shakespeare’s family.

“If she’s responsible for it, she’s going to answer to the man upstairs,” Moore’s father said.

People tend to get bailed out of jail this way: they contact a bail bondsman and give him ten percent of whatever the bail might be — in Dee Dee’s case, her bail is $1 million, so she must give a bondsman $100,000 (I believe this can be cash, or property in the equivalent). This money is his to keep, forever. The bondsman comes up with the remaining 90%. He gets it back at the end of the trial, provided the defendant doesn’t skip town. As one of the commenters noted, Even if she comes up with the 100,000, she’s still got to find a bondsman willing to take a 900,000 chance. The woman sounds like she’s a bottle short of a six pack and, given the likelihood of a murder charge, a real flight risk. So, yeah, Dee Dee isn’t going anywhere.

But in the meantime…when will someone actually be charged with Shakespeare’s murder? That hasn’t happened yet.

Michael Snyder’s body found, wife charged with murder

Michael Snyder, a 43-year-old master mechanic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, disappeared in 2002. His wife, Ellen, said they got into an argument in a restaurant in Phoenix on January 15 and he just walked away. Curiously, Ellen did not report her husband missing, even though he left everything behind including a very good job, a house he’d built himself and was proud of, and a little daughter he loved. It was Michael’s mother who finally filed the MP report in May. Then, in October 2003, Ellen told the cops she’d spoken to Michael and he was all right. This statement turned out to be a lie.

Well, big surprise — Michael’s body was found buried at his former home a few days ago. The house was foreclosed on after he disappeared and a new owner built a garage over the spot where he was buried. The police had to tunnel through the garage floor. They knew exactly where to look, though. Ellen’s son told them he had helped his mother dispose of the body. He was only seventeen years old.

So Ellen is facing murder charges. Michael was shot to death, just like his stepson said. I can only imagine the guilt and anguish that young man has been carrying around for the past eight years. I think it’s horrible that Ellen used her own child to help cover up a murder. And horrible for Michael’s daughter, who will grow up knowing her daddy was murdered and her mommy did it. Presumably, before this she thought he had abandoned her.