Tortures' Conviction Too Little Too Late

On my visit home for my uncle's 50th birthday party, I encountered yet another example of the depravity of my hometown -- the town that brought you the implant-slashing ex-fiancée and the shoplifting, baby toting moms. This time it was the conviction of 24-year-old Vanessa Woods and her 26-year-old lover Riginald Hardin for torturing their 20-month-old daughter, known in court documents as Baby Woods.

Convicted of felony child abuse and felony torture of a child the pair will serve 12 years on the abuse count and a life sentence on the torture charge. What's confusing about their convention is that the pair will be eligible for parole seven years into the life sentence. After 19 years in prison emdash; for inflicting third degree burns on their infant's feet and anus, second degree burns on her legs and burning her with cigarettes, among other atrocities emdash; the two could be back on the streets.

What sort of rehabilitation will Woods and Hardin receive during the decades they spend behind bars? There are no guarantees. Most likely they'll not receive any intensive treatment or counseling or rehabilitation of any substantiative merit. Usually I'm among the first to call for rehabilitation before retribution, but the heinousness of Woods and Hardin's crimes and their remorselessness make forgiving them unthinkable and freeing them unethical.

Repossession by Force

Diamonds are forever, unless you break up and someone wants the ring back. Breast implants, however, are even more permanent. When gift giving, buyer beware: breast implants (or implants of any kind, for that matter), aren't returnable and should your lover leave don't expect her to leave the implants at the door before she slams it shut.

Apparently no one sent Thomas Lee Rowley the memo.

After Rowley's girlfriend left him the 28-year-old Victorville man decided to take matters into his own hands. Telling his roommate, "I'm gonna cut 'em out and get 'em back." Rowley set out to reclaim the implants, he says, he purchased for his 26-year-old ex girlfriend.

Waiting in the bushes outside his ex's mother's house, Rowley held a large kitchen knife. When his ex approached he leaped from the bushes and plunged the knife into her head and breasts more than six times. While his efforts were too imprecise to allow him to repossess the implants, they did serve to puncture one.

Rowley is now on trial for attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, stalking, burglary, and false imprisonment. Too bad he didn't get the memo: if you give a woman breast implants, she takes them with her when she leaves.