Some headlines really say it all.

Man found with backseat corpse faces 2nd-degree murder charge

this is wrong in so many ways.

This picture, if it works out and I can actually post it, goes with the post which follows it. Clear as mud.

The title is twofold - without a cow story in the news for the last few weeks I feel uninspired AND ‘Where’s my Cow’ is the title of a children’s book in a fabulous murder mystery by Terry Pratchet called ‘Thud’. A late comer to Terry Pratchet’s work, I find his my recent books much more readable than his first which were too, um, well, vague in a way but he is definately an author worth taking to bed - if you don’t plan on getting much sleep - oh wait - I mean because you are up all night reading.

In any case, Terry Pratchet is a man who sees behind the veil of consensus reality and if you want read a real manual on magic read his children’s book - ‘The Wee Free Men.’ The BEST! All of his books contain references to ‘higher knowledge’ for those with the ‘ears to hear’ and all that esoteric stuff. The man is frickin brilliant! And now I must go look for my cow.

Oh my gosh the cow came back. Like a bad spaghetti western, the irrepressible bovine has returned! Talk about a story that just begs to be written - actually it’s practically writing itself. What to call such a story? The Cow with No Name? Shall we call him Paddy? Something about Cows? What was that sticky white stuff? Spy Cows?

You’ll remember from our last episode - oh wait - blogs are read backwards in time so unless you’ve been following along you wouldn’t know about the cow that fell through a mini-van windshield and then we had the farmer who shot a cow accidentally mistaking it for a coyote and now this! A cowknapping! Or perhaps the cow was the mastermind and the media cleverly twisted the story around to protect the little related calves and calfettes - or maybe the cow was actually the driver and the brother of a highly placed politician. We’ll probably never know the true story but here’s what the media is saying about the lastest farm animal incident. … and I’m going to milk it for all it’s worth!

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Thieves in Malaysia stole a cow, squeezed it into the back seat of a car and drove off with it but abandoned the animal when the getaway vehicle crashed into a tree, police said Thursday.

The cow, injured in the crash, was slaughtered by villagers. The thieves managed to push the cow into the back of a mid-sized sedan Tuesday night but were spotted by villagers who gave chase, said a local police official in the northern state Kedah. He declined to be named, citing protocol.

The driver lost control during the chase and drove into a tree, injuring the cow, he said. By the time villagers got to the crash site, one person was seen running from the car but police believe more people were involved in the theft, the official said.

It was not clear how they managed to push the cow into the car or whether the animal had been sedated. A blurry photograph in the New Straits Times newspaper showed the cow’s head with closed eyes sticking out of the back seat window of the crashed car.

I don’t know why there are so many bad movies out these days when writers only have to read the headlines for inspiration. Take this dynamic duo for example: what on earth could be the back story to inspire such desperate measures on their part, much less carry a loaded gun. Surely this pair would be better off….well … writing situation comedies.

MELBOURNE, Australia - Two Australian robbers thought they were hauling away a big sack of cash from the Cuckoo Restaurant but it turned out to be bread rolls - and one of them accidentally shot the other in the buttocks during the heist.

Benjamin Jorgensen, 38, and his accomplice Donna Hayes, 36, were sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty to robbing the restaurant in the southern Australian city Melbourne on April 1 last year.

During the April Fools Day holdup, Jorgensen grabbed what he believed was a bag with the Cuckoo’s daily take of about $27,000 in cash but later found it was full of bread rolls, the Victorian County Court heard.

He also fired his gun accidentally during the heist, shooting Hayes in the buttocks.

Judge Roland Williams told the robbers they were a “pair of fools,” before sentencing Hayes to eight years in prison and Jorgensen to seven.

Earlier this week, defence lawyer Greg Thomas said Jorgensen had been under the influence of drugs at the time, had made a full admission to police and was remorseful, News Ltd. newspapers reported.

© The Canadian Press, 2008

Dovetailing nicely with the story of the cow who crashed down on a minivan earlier this month, comes this choice morsel from the Canadian Press. (I have to wonder, however, why all this amusing stories come from other countries than Canada; and I can wonder, since as a Canadian, I know there are many ridiculous things that happen in this country too) But back to the cow.  For the sake of a story: this could be a revenge seeking relative - the cow, not the guy with the gun. Maybe the cow knew something and the guy with the gun, who possibly allegedly was involved with in the first incident, had to shut the cow up before he talked. Shades of Animal Farm …………………

Man says he shot cow after mistaking it for coyote; authorities are skeptical

Published: Thursday, November 22, 2007 | 8:24 PM ET

Canadian Press: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

COLFAX TOWNSHIP, Mich. - A man says he shot and killed a neighbour’s cow after mistaking it for a coyote.

Authorities and the cow’s owner are skeptical. The undersheriff in northern Michigan’s Benzie County says he doesn’t see how anyone could confuse a 635-kilogram, pregnant cow with a coyote, which typically weighs about 13 kilograms.

Shooting coyotes is illegal during deer-shooting season and authorities asked the county prosecutor to bring charges.

Undersheriff Rory Heckman says the 42-year-old man told authorities he was out to shoot coyotes near his home Saturday when he killed the cow and then tried to drag it home.

The owner of the cow, DeAnn Mosher, says her husband thought that their neighbour should go through some therapy looking at repeated pictures of cows and coyotes, because they look nothing alike.

When I see headlines like this I start to wonder….

“Cow falls off cliff and crashes onto van on highway; motorists unhurt”

Lucky motorists. The article goes on to say that the happy couple in the minivan, were on a trip, celebrating their first wedding anniversary when a six hundred pound cow fell from the sky onto their vehicle. They were inches from death as the bovine fell from an overhead cliff two hundred feet above.

Now when I read something like that, I have to wonder … did the cow fall … or was he pushed? Is a cow viable as a murder weapon? The ‘old school’ of mystery writing praises ingenuity in the method of death. Definitely all trace of fingerprints would be wiped out and well as all the other evidence probably.

How strong would you have to be to push a cow over a cliff? It would be doable other wise there would never have evolved the questionable entertainment of cow tipping. Is that what happened? Two teenagers were too close to the edge and old Bessie dropped off? Was there a lookout with a cellphone watching for the van, rate of travel and cow trajectory carefully calculated on a Blackberry? Do Blackberries calculate? So much research to do… Was it a milk cow?

Oh yes … inspiration for writing whodunits are everywhere and this one seems pretty promising. The only thing is, after it’s all over, would the reader be echoing the words of the mini driver, shaking their collective heads: “I don’t believe this. I don’t believe this.”

Here’s a story that turned out a bit different than I assumed from the headline. I thought that the sheriff was going to be the groom - assuming the sheriff was a guy (are there any women sheriffs out there?) but I couldn’t figure out how he was going to marry more than one of them.  Duh - too much morning, too little coffee.

Michigan sheriff offers to marry fugitive robbers if they surrender

Published: Tuesday, October 2, 2007 | 9:26 AM ET

Canadian Press

LAPEER, Michigan - The Lapeer County, MIchigan, sheriff wants to help two bank robbery suspects tie the knot.

Sheriff Ron Kalanquin says he wants the Lapeer couple off the streets before their cash runs out and they attempt another robbery.

A 24-year-old man and a 23-year-old woman are suspected of taking about five thousand dollars in the September 19 robbery of a Lapeer County Bank & Trust branch in Deerfield Township, about 100 kilometres north of Detroit.

Detectives determined the robbery money was used to buy wedding rings, pay back rent and pay the woman’s lawyer for work done in a child-custody case.

Kalanquin says the couple met after the man was released from the county jail and introduced to her by another ex-con.

Kalanquin has appealed to the couple’s relatives and friends to alert police to their whereabouts.

More than 100,000 cans of Moosehead beer stolen from Ont. trucking facility

Published: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 | 2:22 PM ET

Canadian Press: THE CANADIAN PRESS

MISSISSAUGA, Ont. - Drinkers of Moosehead beer in Ontario are being advised to stock up on their favourite brew after thieves made off with more than 100,000 cans and bottles.

Two tractor-trailers carrying 70,000 cans and 44,000 bottles of Moosehead Lager were stolen early Wednesday morning at a transport company’s facility in Mississauga, Ont.

The beer company says the retail value of the load is $200,000.

“Moosehead drinkers in Ontario would be wise to stock up today,” company spokesman Joel Levesque said in a release.

“We expect it may take until early next week to replenish the stolen beer.”

This is the second time in three years that Moosehead has been hit with a major beer heist.

In August 2004, a truck containing 50,000 cans of Moosehead Lager bound for Mexico was stolen.

Only 14,000 of the cans were ever found.

“We can’t believe that of all the beer available in Canada that Moosehead would be targeted again,” Levesque said.

Mystery boy found in iron coffin identified as 15-year-old who died in 1852

Published: Thursday, September 20, 2007 | 3:53 AM ET

Canadian Press: By Randolph E. Schmid, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON - Researchers have solved the mystery of the boy in the iron coffin.

The cast-iron coffin was discovered by utility workers in Washington two years ago. Smithsonian scientists led by forensic anthropologist Doug Owsley set about trying to determine who was buried in it, so the body could be placed in a new, properly marked grave.

The body was that of 15-year-old William Taylor White, who died in 1852 and was buried in the Columbia College cemetery, they announced Thursday.

“The mystery of this young boy’s life and a strong sense of responsibility to properly identify him kept me and the entire team focused and determined. This was not a one-person project. It took more than three dozen people nearly two years to make the ID,” Deborah Hull-Walski, an anthropologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, said in a statement.

The researchers believe the coffin was inadvertently left behind when the cemetery was later moved.

White, from Accomack, Va., was a descendant of Anthony West, one of the Jamestown settlers, they announced. He was a student in the preparatory school of the college, which later became George Washington University.

White was one of several potential candidates the team focused on after studying census records, obituaries and other public documents.

They then tested the DNA of known living descendants to make the positive identification.

The pathologists and forensic anthropologists reported that White had congenital heart disease, a ventricular septum defect, which is a hole in the heart, that contributed to his death.

They found an obituary published in the Daily National Intelligencer newspaper of Washington on Jan. 28, 1852, confirming White died Jan. 24, 1852, after a short illness.

Clothing historians were able to determine that he was dressed in a shirt, vest and pants that are consistent with clothing styles of the early to mid-1850s.

“Thus is cut off, in the morning of his days, one in whom many hopes were centred-and who had the fairest prospects of happiness and usefulness in life,” the Religious Herald newspaper of Richmond, Va., said in its obituary.

The cast-iron coffin was shaped a bit like an Egyptian mummy case and is of a type called Fisk style patented in 1848. This particular model was popular in the early 1850s among the well-to-do, Owsley said.

Because they are sealed, cast iron coffins tend to yield well-preserved bodies. Indeed, the young person looked not unlike an ancient mummy, even though he had not gone through the Egyptian embalming procedures.