MONDAY, JULY 7
This week of fatal food, traffic-circle tragedies, and legitimate
American heroism kicks off with a movie-of-the-week-worthy murder
mystery—replete with transgenerational romance, natural
disaster, and crack—from Seattle’s Central
District. Details come from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer,
which identifies the saga’s subjects as 29-year-old Richard
Judlin and 46-year-old Eldora
Earlycutt, a
five-years-married couple who moved to Seattle after being driven out
of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. Things were
relatively quiet until this past Friday, when Judlin called police to
report that he’d stabbed his wife. “I think she’s dead,” said
Judlin, and he was right: Police arrived at the couple’s Central
District apartment to find Earlycutt dead from roughly 30 stabs to her
neck and stomach and Judlin ready to talk. According to King County
prosecutors, Judlin “told officers that he regularly smokes cocaine…
and just ‘clicked’ and stabbed Earlycutt to death without provocation.”
Judlin remains in King County Jail on charges of second-degree murder;
if convicted, he faces 12 to 20 years in prison.
TUESDAY, JULY 8 Speaking of Tuesday: Ruby Tuesday is a restaurant
that has Tuesday in its name, and today’s item concerns the deeply
unlucky man who ate at a Ruby Tuesday and died. Details come
from the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution, which presents the
story as an ongoing she-said/he-said. On one side: Linda
Hawkins, who accompanied her husband—35-year-old welder and
aspiring rapper Rodney “Krook” Hawkins—to an Atlanta-area
Ruby Tuesday last Thursday. According to Mrs. Hawkins, her
seafood-allergic husband ordered the Chicken Fresco—which
is topped with a tomato slice and chopped green herbs—but what
landed on the table was the Chicken Oscar, topped with asparagus
and crab meat, the latter of which caused Rodney Hawkins to
collapse, go into anaphylactic shock, and die at a hospital a half-hour
later. Meanwhile, Ruby Tuesday contends that Hawkins got exactly what
he ordered. “Our investigation of this incident, which includes
interviews with the server and manager on duty and the collection of
their written notes of what occurred, clearly indicates that the guest
ordered Chicken Oscar, a dish that contains crab meat,” said Ruby
Tuesday spokesman Rick Johnson to the AJC. Despite the
discrepancy in testimony and indisputable death, no criminal charges
will be filed. Condolences to all.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 9 In much better news: Today, Last Days is proud to
introduce (and spill a bunch of gushy ink over) our official Favorite
Person of 2008 (so far)*: L. F. Eason III, the 29-year veteran
of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture who chose to resign his
lifelong post rather than lower the flag for the freshly dead
ex-senator Jesse Helms. Details come from the North Carolina
News & Observer, which reports that the brouhaha began this
past Sunday, when Governor Mike Easley directed all state agencies to
honor the dead Helms by flying their flags at half-mast. Eason
responded with a directive of his own, e-mailed to his employees at the
state’s standards lab. “Regardless of any executive proclamation, I do
not want the flags at the North Carolina Standards Laboratory flown at
half-staff to honor Jesse Helms any time this week,” wrote Eason,
citing Helms’s “doctrine of negativity, hate, and prejudice” and brazen
opposition to civil-rights bills and the federal Martin Luther King Jr.
holiday. When ordered by his superiors to either lower the flags or
retire immediately, Eason chose the latter, giving up his
$65,000-a-year post rather than salute a bigot. “I designed and built
that lab,” said the 51-year-old Eason to the News &
Observer. “Even though technically the bricks and mortar belong to
the State of North Carolina, I feel very strongly that everything that
comes out of there is my responsibility.” Congratulations and best of
luck to the heroic Mr. Eason.
*Runner-up: Candy Finnegan from A&E’s Intervention.
THURSDAY, JULY 10 In much worse news: Today we turn to the story
that obsessed Seattle for the majority of the week, doomed to be
remembered as the Traffic-Circle Tragedy, in which a fussy but
friendly Rainier Beach resident—60-year-old James
Paroline—sprayed neighborhood ne’er-do-wells with his
garden hose and was fatally punched in the face by a man
who drove up a few minutes later. Details come from the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer, which reports the deadly punching took place
yesterday evening near the flower-laden traffic circle at 61st
Avenue South and Cooper Street, and identifies the punching suspect as
an “African-American man in his 20s,” whose punching of Paroline sent
the near-elderly man to the pavement and into a coma. Tonight, James
Paroline was pronounced dead at Harborview Medical Center. After a
weekend of hand-wringing and finger-pointing, next Monday will bring
official identification of the punching suspect, who fled the scene
after felling Paroline: Brian Keith Brown, a 28-year-old South
Seattle man with previous convictions for assault, drug possession,
theft, and obstruction of an officer, who’s now facing a $500,000
warrant for his arrest; stay tuned. For now, a moment’s silence for Mr.
Paroline, a Vietnam veteran known by some as a curmudgeon and others as
a sweetheart, who certainly didn’t deserve to die for getting someone
wet.
FRIDAY, JULY 11 Speaking of quick and random killings: Today we
acknowledge the deadly lightning fiesta that killed five people
over five days last week. Specifically, 16-year-old Landon
Dillard (struck while riding a bike at a Colorado summer camp on
July 3), 19-year-old Korey Moore (struck while boating in South
Carolina on July 5), 23-year-old Stephanie Dawn Kirpes (struck
while jogging along the shore in Virginia Beach on July 6), 16-year-old
Ben Richter (struck on his family’s Wisconsin farm on July 7),
and 16-year-old Lucian Ellis (struck while waiting out a storm
in a North Carolina beach hut on July 7). As the National Weather
Service’s John Jensenius told the Associated Press, “If the sky looks
threatening or they hear thunder, [people] need to get inside a
substantial building—one with wiring and plumbing—or a
hard-topped metal vehicle immediately.”
SATURDAY, JULY 12 “Dear Last Days,” writes Hot Tipper Laura
Rose, reporting the completely naked couple she saw standing
at the corner of Denny Way and Belmont Avenue. “This modern-day Adam
and Eve were high as kites and in love with everything. Over 20
minutes there was dancing, singing, butt-slapping, and one very close
and lengthy examination of a shaved pubic area. It was such a lovely
sight, one pedestrian (the only one to acknowledge the couple) tripled
back to walk by and admire the scene.”
SUNDAY, JULY 13 Nothing happened
today.
Send Hot Tips to lastdays@thestranger.com.
