MONDAY, OCTOBER 13 This week of babysitting pimps, Craigslist-enabled clobberings, and erotic public suction kicks off today with a grade-A Last Days nightmare story. The featured players: 43-year-old Jon Pomeroy and 44-year-old Rebecca Long, the married couple from Carnation, Washington, charged today in what investigators say is the worst case of child abuse they've ever seen. Details come from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which reports that Pomeroy (a software engineer) and Long (a stay-at-home stepmom to Pomeroy's kids from a previous marriage) were arrested last Friday after a two-month investigation, instigated by a neighbor's call to Child Protective Services to report the screaming coming from the couple's home.

Investigators arrived to find a 14-year-old girl—Pomeroy's daughter/Long's stepdaughter—malnourished, dehydrated, and weighing less than 50 pounds. As the girl told police, her condition was primarily the work of her stepmother, who'd allegedly kept food and water from her stepdaughter for years—restricting her water intake to half a Dixie cup of water each day, restricting her food to occasional pieces of toast, and forbidding the girl from brushing her teeth lest she sneak an extra sip of water while rinsing. According to court documents, both the girl and her (apparently untortured) 12-year-old brother were forced to sleep on the floor of their parents' bedroom, the door of which was reported blocked with a heavy dresser after the girl was caught sipping water from the toilet. Making things ickier: the fact that the Pomeroy-Long household underwent a preliminary CPS investigation in 2005, after a teacher voiced concerns about the then-11-year-old girl. "During that investigation, caseworkers found evidence of neglect, including that Long was locking the girl in her room for extended periods of time," reports the P-I. "The couple's children were not removed from the home, and instead, the agency tried to correct the behavior and monitored the family until it was satisfied a month later that the girl's living conditions were safe." All was quiet until August 22, 2008, when police served a search warrant on the Carnation home and found the 14-year-old girl looking "pale, emaciated, and half her age." After being hospitalized for two weeks with severe malnutrition, the girl was placed in foster care, along with her brother; both are reportedly doing well. As for the parents: Both Pomeroy and Long have been booked into the King County Jail on charges of first- and second-degree criminal mistreatment. If convicted, each faces three to four years in prison, during which time Last Days will work to pass a ballot initiative giving us the right to stone them to death in the center of town. Stay tuned.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14 Meanwhile in Oregon, a man in the town of Tigard learned a bracing lesson about the power of the internet, as a man and a woman responded to his Craigslist advertisement, then tied him up, beat him silly, and stole his truck. "Investigators did not say what the [Craigslist] advertisement was about," reports Portland's KATU News, "but it brought a man and a woman to the victim's home about 10:00 p.m." Once there, the pistol-packing male visitor beat and bound the unnamed Craigslist ad-placer, whose stolen truck was later found abandoned and whose wounds were treated at a local hospital. The criminal couple remains at large.

••Meanwhile in Ohio, firefighters in the city of Canton responded to a call about a fiery domestic hubbub outside the home of 36-year-old Shane Helson, who reportedly decided to spice up his annual Halloween yard display with a burning wooden cross. The Associated Press provides some background on Helson, who greeted police by continuing to spray lighter fluid on his burning cross: "Helson is white, as is next-door neighbor Stephanie Blankenship. But her husband is black, and Blankenship says they have had problems with Helson and his roommate before and she feels intimidated." For his allegedly misunderstood Halloween decoration, Helson was fined $100, ordered to complete 75 hours of community service, and barred from burning any more crosses in his yard.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15 The week continues with the final presidential debate of 2008, an anxiety-inducing 90-minute grotesquerie in which one candidate continued to appear almost preternaturally presidential while the other seethed with barely contained rage and repeatedly flashed a darting lizard tongue.

••Speaking of terrifying creeps: Today also brought the virtual return of Monday's stepmother from hell Rebecca Long, who in addition to being an alleged stepdaughter-starving monster is also an avid knitter, as evidenced by her well-maintained knitting blog Shades of Green: "A glance at my stash growth is eye-popping. Why yes, I've bought yarn for 72(!) more projects than I've finished since November 3. Yowser!"

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16 Nothing happened today, unless you count the sucky hubbub that went down early this morning northwest of Detroit, where a man in Saginaw County's Thomas Township called police at around 6:00 a.m. to report "suspicious activity" at the local car wash. As the Associated Press reports, an officer arrived to find a 29-year-old man in the act of "receiving sexual favors" from a high-powered car-wash vacuum. The vacuum vandal is being held in the Saginaw County Jail.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17 Today brings the return of Last Days' newest feature: the weekly pimp bust! This week's star: James Nathaniel Weathington, the 33-year-old Seattle man sentenced today to 227 days in jail after pleading guilty to second-degree promotion of prostitution and witness tampering. Details come from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's police blog Seattle 911, which reports that Weathington was arrested by vice cops at an Aurora Avenue motel in March. According to charging documents, he'd acted as a 23-year-old woman's pimp for several years in several states, where the woman would post ads on Craigslist, and Weathington would drive her to appointments with her johns. During the trysts, Weathington would reportedly wait outside in the car, sometimes with the woman's young children in the backseat, thus earning him the moniker the "babysitting pimp." Next up for the jailed Weathington: a possible transfer to Nevada, where he's wanted on charges of promoting prostitution and "pandering a child."

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18 Meanwhile in Iraq: An estimated 50,000 supporters of Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr took to the streets in Baghdad to protest against plans to extend the U.S. mandate in Iraq. (As the BBC reports, the UN mandate for U.S.-led coalition forces expires at the end of this year, and a new deal drafted by Iraqi and U.S. negotiators—which would require U.S. troops to withdraw by 2011 and give Iraq the right to prosecute Americans who commit crimes while off-duty—is awaiting approval from the Iraqi government. Stay tuned.)

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19 Nothing happened today.

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