Crime Scene

Beer gets seat belt, child gets floor seat

A few months ago, we brought you the story of a Florida woman who buckled up a case of Busch beer but not the 1-year-old girl in the back seat.

We hope she didn't start a trend.

CNN has the story of an Australian man who put a seat belt around a 30-can carton of beer and left a    5-year-old child on the car's floor.

Constable Wayne Burnett told the Associated Press: "The child was sitting in the lump in the center, unrestrained."

"I haven't ever seen something like this before," he said. "This is the first time that the beer has taken priority over a child."

The driver was fined about $700.

Read the full story here.

Young man headed to Death Row

At 21 years old, Dane Abdool (left) on Monday became one of the youngest people waiting to be executed in Florida.

An Orange County jury in December convicted Abdool of first-degree murder for dousing his 17-year-old girlfriend with gasoline, lighting her on fire and leaving her to die on a roadside in February 2006.

On Monday, a judge upheld the jury's recommendation that Abdool be sentenced to die for the crime. Here's a story from the Orlando Sentinel, along with a photo gallery from the trial.

Prom dress is criminal

Houston school officials deemed Marche Taylor's dress too skimpy for prom.

She didn't get a chance to dance with friends. She left in handcuffs.

The fabric crosses over her chest, leaving her stomach exposed. A cape trails from the short skirt.

Taylor, left, even offered to cover up her custom-made dress, but officials said that wouldn't do.

"They didn’t give me any options but to go to jail or go home," she told KHOU.

Taylor said everyone liked the dress, but Madison High School Principal Aubrey Todd told KHOU it was a violation of school rules.

"It was revealing in such nature it was not appropriate for the prom," Todd told the station.

You be the judge.

KHOU's site says she wasn't charged.

We're all going to Hell, Exhibit No. 248

On Mother's Day, 2008, some New York mom decided to give, rather than receive.

What did she give? Her own child.

At least signs point that way from this New York Post story:

A baby was found abandoned on Mother's Day outside a Queens home, police said last night.

Neighbors heard the cries of the girl, who is about 1 to 2 months old and appears to be Asian, coming from the steps of the house on Holly Street in Flushing at about 10 p.m.

Your money quote: "Of all days. It's unbelievable," said one shocked officer.

Irony defined

The stories about pot smokers in Texas just keep piling up.

This one's, like, the definition of irony.

Cornelia Mayo (left) was at the courthouse this week because she was a potential juror in a marijuana-possession trial. During a break in jury selection, Mayo went outside the courthouse and SMOKED A JOINT. She was arrested.

Good thing she knows her way around the courthouse -- she'll be back there next week, as a defendant.

More details at the Houston Chronicle.

Stoned out of their skull UPDATE

Some new details and photos today from the nasty using-a-corpse-head-to-get-high story from yesterday.

Turns out all three suspects are kids -- two are 17 and one is about the same age -- who were homeschooled. Police named the 17-year-olds: Matthew Gonzalez (far left) and Kevin Jones.

Gonzalez threw up when police confronted him with the accusations that he and his buddies dug up a corpse, decapitated it and smoked pot out of the skull. Police believe the body belonged to an 11-year-old boy who died in 1921.

These and more shocking details from the Houston Chronicle.

Getting stoned out of their skull

Never thought the day would come that we credit Perez Hilton for breaking a crime scoop, but here we are.

Two Texas men and a juvie are accused of digging up a corpse, decapitating it and using the head as a pot-smoking device.

There are no good quotes from this short story, so we'll leave it to our editor for the final word on this dead-head bong:

"That shouldn't be allowed."

Granny: Thug video is fine with me

The grandmother of an 18-year-old Lake Worth man told investigators she consented to him filming her while holding a weapon, cursing and saying things like, "This is for all the pigs."

We wrote about Michael Alfinez when he was arrested last month after police discovered the footage in his car during a traffic stop. They charged him with elderly abuse and weapons charges. Apparently, he planned to submit the granny footage to a video series called Gangstas & Thugs.

Now, in a court affidavit, Alfinez's grandma, Marie Huertas, says she wasn't being abused and she wants prosecutors to drop the charges.

"I miss him and love him very much," she said to investigators, according to The Palm Beach Post, which also has a video on its site.

New day, new gator sighting

This time, one pops up at a Palm Beach County elementary school.

No word if it had one eye and was responsible for lopping off Chubbs Peterson's hand.

2-year-old learns to smoke pot

Krystle Weber probably should have skipped this lesson: letting friends teach her 2-year-old son how to smoke pot.

A cell phone video caught Weber sitting in a room as her friends showed the boy how to smoke a joint.

"I swear to God, I better not get in trouble for all this," Weber, of Wisconsin, said in the video.

The video captured the incident 7 months ago, and Weber and two of her friends have since pleaded guilty in the case.

A test after the incident did not find marijuana in the boy's system.

Weber's also taking parenting classes -- has her son back.
Watch the newly released video at NBC 6.