Virginia Man Battles Michigan Over French Ship
The wreck was discovered in 2001 by private explorer and Fairfax County resident Steve Libert. Libert says archaeological studies present good evidence that it is the Griffon, the oldest known shipwreck in the Great Lakes.
Michigan authorities aren't sure -- but if it is, they say, it belongs to the state.
"The state has possession of the Great Lakes bottomlands," said Nate Bailey, a spokesman for the state attorney general's office. "Any materials in those bottomlands are the property of the state."
Libert, who won't say where the wreck is, counters that the Griffon would be the property of France, but he wants custodial rights to explore the wreck and rights to movie and book deals.
"If it turns out to be the Griffon, we don't own it but we want rights to salvage it," Libert said. "Then the French will decide what to do with the vessel."
"If the French proclaim the wreck is their property, you would be talking about the king of France, which doesn't exist anymore," Bailey said. "That would be a wholly separate matter, which the State Department would take up with the French government."
-- Kari Lydersen
The search for good press has led Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca to Hollywood. His department, beleaguered by a series of jail riots, wants to allow two production companies to make reality TV shows with its recruits and deputies.
Under the working title "The Assignment," Studio City-based 44 Blue Productions Inc. intends to film the daily activities of the department's personnel, including those working in the jails, in the detective bureau, in specialized divisions and on patrol. Meanwhile, Los Angeles-based Scott Sternberg Productions Inc. would follow selected cadets through their training under the tentative title "The Academy."
"I see these reality TV programs as being positive, somewhat educational, definitely entertaining," Baca told the Los Angeles Daily News.
Baca's move may have been prompted by a desire to improve the image of a department criticized for not moving swiftly enough to quell racial fighting in its jails. Another possibility is that the department looks at the shows as a recruitment tool. Like many police agencies nationwide, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is having trouble attracting eligible candidates.
-- John Pomfret
The Yankee said he "captured" the Bible.
Some folks in Decatur, Ga., where the Good Book was taken during the Civil War, say he stole it.
Either way, more than 140 years after a Bible belonging to local family was taken around the time of the Battle of Decatur, the book has come home.
A Union soldier named Amariah Spencer lifted the book and wrote in it, "Captured in Decatur, Georgia. July 20, 1864." The family of a Decatur tanner named William Wood had been inscribing births and deaths in it; the Spencer family did the same.
The book fell into the hands of a Colorado banker, who recently sent it to the DeKalb History Center in Decatur, where the "capture" is being reconsidered.
" 'Captured' " laughed Ann Earle, a historian at the center, mocking the inscription. "He stole it. Something like a Bible would be easy to take, but you would think people would have some ethical considerations."
-- Peter Whoriskey
Alfred Gaynor would like you to buy the hair off his head. He could use the $25.
In the custody of the state of Massachusetts now and probably forever, Gaynor tends to be referred to as a "former handyman." But it was his sideline that gained him infamy.
He is serving a life sentence for raping and strangling four women in the late 1990s. He got attention last year when a New York prisoners' rights group sold Gaynor's crayon painting of Jesus for $250 and gave him the money.
This time, it's his hair. An auction Web site that trades in the memorabilia of killers indicates that someone in Fergus Falls, Minn., is asking $25 for a plastic packet containing Gaynor's locks. By the end of the week, there had been no bidders.
The state legislature is considering a bill to halt crime profiteering.
"Just when you think you can't be any more disgusted by the actions of perpetrators and some members of the public, you find, sadly, that you can be," state Rep. Peter J. Koutoujian (D) told the Boston Herald. "Whomever would pay even a penny for a lock of Mr. Gaynor's hair must be as sick and twisted as Gaynor himself."