MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 4 This week of sexy exhumations, exemplary celebrity, and severed heads kicks off today with a snake-based tragedy in Indiana. Mere hours after Steve "Crocodile Hunter" Irwin was fatally stung by a stingray in Australia, Patrick Von Allmen—a 23-year-old in Lanesville, Indiana, with "10 to 12 years" experience handling reptiles, according to relatives—was crushed to death by his pet python. The story was weird even before the murder by snake: According to the Associated Press, early this evening Von Allmen retreated with his 14-foot pet python to the shed behind his family's home, telling relatives he was going to treat the snake for a medical condition. Three hours later, a family member visited the shed, finding the snake loose and Patrick Von Allmen dead. A medical examiner confirmed Von Allmen's death was consistent with asphyxiation caused by compression of the neck and chest, and the python, which had only been with the family for five months before killing one of its members, was returned to the Von Allmen home. No, really.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 Speaking of disturbing occurrences, today cranks it up a few notches thanks to the death-defying horniness of Nicholas Grunke, the 20-year-old Wisconsin man who became so smitten with a newspaper photograph of 20-year-old Wisconsin woman, Laura Tennessen, that he knew he had to meet her, whatever it took. Unfortunately, Tennessen died in a motorcycle accident in late August, the aforementioned newspaper photo accompanied her obituary, and "what it took" for Grunke to meet Laura was a quiet night and a shovel. According to the police report obtained by the Smoking Gun, Nicholas Grunke allegedly plotted with his twin brother, Alex, and 20-year-old friend Dustin Radke to rob Tennessen's grave "so he could have sexual intercourse with her"; in a police interview, Radke said he and the Grunke brothers stopped at a Wal-Mart to buy condoms on their way to the cemetery. Lucky for all, the Grunke brothers' Sleepless in Seattle–meets–Weekend at Bernie's plot was foiled pre-coitus, when police received a report of a suspicious vehicle near Cassville's St. Charles Cemetery. Cops first found a "very nervous" Alex Grunke, who spilled the beans on the grave-robbing scheme. At the gravesite, police found a hole dug down to the coitus-foiling concrete vault encasing Tennessen's coffin, from which Nicholas Grunke and Radke had apparently fled. Within hours, the missing pair was apprehended while walking about eight miles from the cemetery, and all three men are facing sexual-assault and theft charges that could land each of them behind bars for up to five years.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6 Speaking of postmortem roughhousing, tonight brought a grisly bit of business to the dance floor of a bar in Uruapan, Mexico, where shortly after midnight 20 men wielding firearms and wearing ski masks barged into the Luz y Sombra club. After firing shots in the air and forcing patrons to the floor, the men dumped five male heads on the dance floor, along with a handwritten note that declared the buzz-killing head dump to be "divine justice." According to Reuters, the beheadings are believed by locals to be "score settling between drug traffickers," but relatives who identified three of the victims denied they were involved in crime. Meanwhile, two of the victims remain unidentified and police are still looking for all five of the bodies.

>> Meanwhile on Capitol Hill: A 34-year-old man was stabbed several times in the abdomen, chest, and hand late this evening near Cal Anderson Park. Details come from Seattle police spokesman Rich Pruitt, who told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that the stabbing occurred around 10:30 p.m. on the 1800 block of 11th Avenue; the stabbing victim was reportedly leaving the park when he spotted the suspect and tried to walk around him, after which the suspect attacked the man with a knife and fled. The victim was taken to Harborview, where he underwent surgery for life-threatening injuries; the stabber is still at large—news reports give no physical details and have provided no updates. Night walkers: Please be careful. SPD: Please catch this freak.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7 The week continues with the Lifetime-worthy saga of Lamia Ennassime, the young Moroccan woman forced into veritable slavery in Pierce County. Details come from the Associated Press, which reports 12-year-old Ennassime left Morocco in 2001, coming to live with her aunt and uncle in Tacoma, with the understanding that she would help with childcare and housework. According to court papers, the young girl not only made breakfast and dinner, did laundry, and cleaned the house, she also worked weekends and summers without pay at the family's espresso stand; at one point, the family took a month-long trip to Morocco and left the young girl to run the espresso stand 14 hours a day, seven days a week, confiscating her tips upon their return. Faced with regular threats of deportation, Ennassime suffered in silence until July 2005, when, with the help of friends and an immigrant-rights group, she escaped to a safe house and has remained free since. Today in federal court, her aunt and uncle pleaded guilty to forced labor and harboring an illegal alien, with the U.S. attorney's office recommending a sentence of six months home confinement, three years of probation, and $65,226 in back wages to be paid to their niece.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 Nothing happened today, unless you count Hot Tipper Matt's report of extreme public grooming, featuring a fiftysomething man sitting in the stairwell of a local office building, where the man was scraping dead skin from his feet with a razor blade. "There was a pile of skin on the floor," reports Matt, who immediately ordered the man to stop and leave. "He got up, walked to the door, then turned and called ME disgusting," says Matt. "Just thought I'd share."

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 The week continues with some striking words from an unlikely source: Brad Pitt, whose forthcoming Esquire profile finds him announcing that he and Angelina Jolie won't be getting married until the United States' marriage laws aren't riddled with bigotry. "Angie and I will consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able," says Pitt in the Esquire hitting stands September 19, instantly making Last Days worship him. Scoff if you must, but this is huge—Pitt and Jolie are two of the biggest movie stars in the universe, and their willingness to attach themselves in all of their hyperprivileged, heterosexual glory to gay marriage is celebrity deployed for as good a purpose as any, and we love them for it.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 Speaking of gushy love: Like all Americans worthy of the name, Last Days loves Bob Dylan, and it is with great pleasure that we close the week with news of Dylan'slatest record, Modern Times, debuting at number one on the Billboard album chart. Not only is Modern Times Dylan's first number-one album since 1976's Desire, it marks the first time he's made three ace records in a row since his alleged peak in the late-mid-'60s. Plus, it's fucking gorgeous, adding another ravishing chapter to the postmodern-spin-on-the-oldest-song-in-the-world experiment introduced on Time Out of Mind and perfected on Love and Theft. Yes, we live in a world of religious fascism, African genocide, and hopeless war; nevertheless, to live in age when Bob Dylan is making artistically bracing records that manage to hit number one on the pop charts is cause for celebration.

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