Lawrencia Ann Bembenek was a tall, striking young woman. She could have chosen nearly any career, but she wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps. He had briefly worked for the Milwaukee Police Department, and from a young age she wanted to become a police officer.

The youngest of three girls, she grew up Catholic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the 1960s. She ran the hurdles on her high school track team and took up the flute, graduating in 1976. For a couple of years, she attended junior college before working as a waitress and model. …

Dear Texans,

I am very disappointed but let me tell you the good news before you toss this letter in your ten-gallon-hat-shaped wastebasket.

You. Are. In. Charge. Of. Texas.

Governor Greg Abbott is only a temporary, fleeting entity. He’s a snowflake on the hot stove of politics, a cow-patty on the vast rolling hills of the Lone Star State.

Under Greg Abbott’s protection, care, and governance many of you were recently forced to burn your home furnishings so you wouldn’t freeze to death.

You were required to rustle up your own clean drinking water.

You needed to move out of…

Orange Socks were all she wore and the nickname stayed,
but Corona Girl had more — a T-shirt with a beer
logo, and a single earring hanging like a tear. The girl
was saved: they learned Sue Ann was her given Christian name.

One-Eyed-Jack was murdered on the road
by his friend, somewhere in the wintry wilds of Tok —
Benton County Jane Doe was nothing more than bones,
found on Route 102 with buckshot in her skull.

Her name was Windy Point because her killer guessed the animals would steal her bones on that lonely Colorado slope; The Woman…

SERIOUS

Dear Self,

I’m sending this to you from a loving place because you deserve care and compassion and consideration all the time — but especially when you’re worn out. And sometimes that happens without warning and it’s nobody’s fault, certainly not yours.

And yet your mind, or should I say your Psychic Overlord, gives you a hard time when you’re exhausted — expecting too much from you just when you have nothing to give.

Some of the thoughts that rise to the surface when you’re knackered are clues — not clues that you’re a bad person, but little warnings that…

Dear Kanye West,

I’m sorry for your troubles (lately). Still, I’m trying hard to understand why, with your vast economic resources, you can’t get some help or, in the words of Clint Eastwood when asked for comment during Charlie Sheen’s rehab intervention #2, ‘Man up, Charlie.’

Wow, I’m name-dropping like a mo’ fo’ up in here.

Anyhoo, I hardly know the first thing about you, Kanye. What I’ve combed off the furry, flea-infested hide of social media is this:

• You are/were married to another celebrity called Kardashian
• Nearly everyone, but especially you, thinks you’re a genius
• You dissed Taylor Swift…

I first heard of Richard William Davis while listening to the true crime podcast Murder Squad. Because this man lived in Arkansas in the late 1970s till his death fifty years later, I naturally wondered if he could be associated with missing children in our state.

He lived in North Little Rock, then in 1980 moved north to Cabot (in Lonoke County, central Arkansas) and spent the rest of his life there. He died at aged 70 in 2012. In his lifetime, he was restless and moved all over the US — like Israel Keys, who left a string of…

When I read a missing person’s case, I’m sucked in — trying to piece together the few clues to imagine who the culprit is. As true crime readers know, this is a hazard of delving into hundreds of murder stories. You begin to see patterns, whether you want to or not.

Are you just as likely to come up with a good profile as an FBI agent?

You might be. It all depends on how that agent uses his experience and gut instincts, and how methodical and fact-based your sleuthing is.

The study

One method of doing research is by examining other…

I’ve been a diet junkie since 13 when I first learned that by eating less I could lose weight. Eureka! Problem solved, right?

A typical teenager, I dove right in with a 700-calorie-a-day diet. One day I noticed progress: my jeans were roomier. A moment later, I nearly passed out. My first experience with how unsustainable diets are didn’t sink in and like most people I failed to appreciate the lesson that day, or the next approximately 400 times. I kept trying different diets, combined with punishing exercise regimes. I lived the yo-yo life.

I got old and stumbled onto…