True Story Ideas

Roland Vincent Carnaby, 52, was initially pulled over during a routine traffic stop Tuesday, but drove off when the officer discovered his concealed weapon license. A high-speed chase ensued, during which Carnaby was said to be armed.

Houston officers said they shot him as he was getting out of his Jeep SUV because he made a sudden move, according to MyFOXHouston. He died en route to the hospital, police said.

During a close inspection of Carnaby’s vehicle, police found two pistols and a rifle.

While the CIA denies that Carnaby worked there, friends insist he was a federal intelligence agent, according to The Houston Chronicle. His SUV was reportedly owned by the National Association for Intelligence Officers and he was the president of the organization's local chapter.

Friends say they witnessed Carnaby socializing with local law enforcement officials and high-level CIA bureaucrats.

Car dealer Alan Helfman told the Chronicle that he met Carnaby more than a decade ago when "a mutual friend high in law enforcement" brought him to buy a car.

Carnaby told Helfman that he was a federal officer who worked in intelligence, and the two became close.

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TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. (AP) - A woman convicted two weeks ago of being the "D.C. Madam" hanged herself Thursday, apparently making good on her vow never to go to prison for running a high-end Washington prostitution ring.

The body of Deborah Jeane Palfrey was found in a shed near her mother's home about 20 miles northwest of Tampa. Police said the 52-year-old Palfrey left at least two suicide notes and other writings to her family in a notebook, but they did not disclose their contents.

Palfrey apparently hanged herself with nylon rope from the shed's ceiling. Her mother discovered the body. Officers were outside the mother's white and pink home in the community of mostly retirees.

Blanche Palfrey had no sign that her daughter was suicidal, and there was no immediate indication that alcohol or drugs were involved, police Capt. Jeffrey Young said.

A man who answered a phone listed for Palfrey's mother declined to comment.

"This is tragic news and my heart goes out to her mother," said attorney Preston Burton, who represented Deborah Jeane Palfrey in her trial.

A federal jury convicted Palfrey on April 15 of running a prostitution service that catered to members of Washington's political elite, including Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican. She was convicted of money laundering, using the mail for illegal purposes and racketeering...

One of the escort service employees was former University of Maryland, Baltimore County, professor Brandy Britton, who was arrested on prostitution charges in 2006. She committed suicide in January before she was scheduled to go to trial.

Palfrey said last year that she, too, was humiliated by her prostitution charges, but said: "I guess I'm made of something that Brandy Britton wasn't made of."

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A bit off-topic (as usual) but your idea is a really good one brokenfingers. But something that I find even more fascinating, and probably we should all be recording as writers, is strange sometimes mundane events that we see everyday.

Example: The other day I was in a service station pumping petrol into my car and I heard what was obviously a domestic argument start in another car. It was loud, and everyone was looking around to see the source of this woman swearing like crazy. Then as I turned my attention back to the task in hand I glanced up to see dozens of twenty dollar notes floating through the air and two guys running running around trying desperately to catch them. The woman had obviously made a gesture. Kind of mundane but out of the ordinary, and i thought "Now this is like a scene from a movie or something." All day I had this image of money floating through the air stuck in my mind.

Sorry, off topic, and perhaps it a different thread possibility, but as well as big news stories it would be interesting to hear what others have mentally recorded recently from their own ordinary day to day lives.

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RESERVE, La. — The death of a woman whose body was found hanging from a tree branch in this southeastern Louisiana town is being investigated as a homicide, although there is no evidence of foul play, authorities said.

An autopsy was ordered following Thursday's discovery of the body by a St. John the Baptist Parish employee who had just finished cutting grass in a canal.

The body had not been identified, said sheriff's Maj. Mike Tregre. Tregre said standard procedure calls for an initial homicide investigation.

The body, which was decomposing, was hanging from a tree limb not far off the ground, Tregre said.

The parish employee, Lonnie Ellis, who was driving a tractor, said he saw the woman hanging from a noose in a tree inside a wooded area.

"It stung me," Ellis said. "I wasn't sure and I got a co-worker to come back and take a look. We thought it was a joke."

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The tree became famous after Caleb Johnson found a body hanging from a branch.

In the South that typically meant another young black man swinging from a rope. Lynching season was not so distant a memory for some, but that morning it was not a black man hanging from a tree, but a white girl.

Lucky for him he wasn’t alone. In his boat sat two other men—white men, all the better—who had paid for his help in scouting out a camp they wanted to build as a base for hunting, fishing, and serious drinking beyond the frowns of wives and Baptist preachers.

“Damn,” said the banker perched on the bow. “Look, there’s a body.”

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'Crazy' Ants Swarm Houston Area, Ruin Electronic Devices

DALLAS — In what sounds like a really low-budget horror film, voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area, shorting out electrical boxes and messing up computers.

The hairy, reddish-brown creatures are known as "crazy rasberry ants" — crazy, because they wander erratically instead of marching in regimented lines, and "rasberry" after Tom Rasberry, an exterminator who did battle against them early on.

"They're itty-bitty things about the size of fleas, and they're just running everywhere," said Patsy Morphew of Pearland, who is constantly sweeping them off her patio and scooping them out of her pool by the cupful. "There's just thousands and thousands of them. If you've seen a car racing, that's how they are. They're going fast, fast, fast. They're crazy."

The ants — formally known as "paratrenicha species near pubens" — have spread to five Houston-area counties since they were first spotted in Texas in 2002.

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Man Visits Mother's Grave, Finds His Own Already Occupied Beside Her

COLERAIN TOWNSHIP, Ohio — A southwest Ohio man who planned to be buried next to his mother found someone else already in his grave.

David L. Bingham says someone who shares his name has taken over his final resting place in Colerain Township. He said he hadn't visited his mother's grave since 2005, but was surprised to find someone had been buried next to her in 2006.

Bingham said the cemetery called it an error and offered to move his mother, the other David Bingham or to have Bingham's cremated ashes buried between them. He says he rejected their options.

The two David Binghams are not related.

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Children's Remains Exhumed in Hopes of Solving 100-Year-Old Serial Killer Mystery

University of Indianapolis researchers who are waiting for DNA test results that may identify the decapitated body of serial killer Belle Gunness have decided to exhume the 100-year-old remains of three children in hopes of finding a few more clues about the widow accused of murdering as many as 30 men, women and children, the Chicago Tribune reported.

The children, uncovered in an Illinois cemetery, are believed to have died in a house fire at Gunness’ LaPorte, Ind., farm that put authorities on the trail of the serial killer. After the blaze, police found 11 dismembered bodies buried on the property.

There has been suspicion that Gunness staged her death because her crimes were about to be uncovered, the Tribune reported.

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Man Attacks Bus Driver, Attempts to Commandeer Vehicle

MILWAUKEE — Police in Milwaukee on Friday were searching for a man who tried to commandeer a transit bus after beating up the driver.

Milwaukee County sheriff's deputies on Thursday released surveillance video of a man in a red shirt and bandanna boarding the bus in Milwaukee Wednesday, then pummeling the driver while saying "Remember me?"

"The suspect got onto the bus with the sole intent of attacking the bus driver and then ultimately making the bus crash," Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke told FOX News.

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