OBSCENE GESTURE LEADS TO SHOOTING

Tracey Grissom and her ex-husband, Hunter Grissom, were not the perfect couple. Less than two years ago she accused him of raping her.

Earlier this month the 30-year-old Grissom was driving to work when she saw the ex at a boat landing. She got out of her car to take a picture "for litigation related to their divorce."

And according to the Georgia Daily News, that's when things went bad:

(The sheriff) says several witnesses watched as the man made an obscene gesture and the woman opened fire around 8 a.m. (on May 15).
Authorities say the woman called 911 after using all her ammunition and told them she shot her ex-husband.

All her ammunition. She apparently made sure.

The couple have a four-year-old daughter.

MMM ... URN COOKIES

Anita Lewis of Elmira, N.Y., held a rummage sale, during which time she sold a ceramic turtle for 50 cents. The buyer said he was going to use the turtle as a cookie jar.

Inside the turtle: the ashes of Lewis' husband's former wife.

The Associated Press reports:

Lewis said she had hauled items into her yard early Saturday while her husband slept. The buyer quickly selected the large turtle container, despite being unable to get the lid open.

Her husband's previous wife collected turtles.

"We have lots of turtles," Anita Lewis said. "It didn't even register that this was the one (containing the ashes)."

WOMAN SHOT WHILE SINGING

On stage, no less. The Associated Press reports from Wyoming:

Robin Munis was struck in the head with one gunshot that came from outside the Old Chicago restaurant where she had been performing just after midnight Saturday, Cheyenne police Capt. Jeff Schulz said. No one else was hurt.

Witnesses saw her husband, David Munis, in the area, but no one has reported seeing the shot fired, Schulz said. No weapon was found.

The estranged husband is a National Guardsman with sharpshooter training. Cops say they warned him on Friday to quit harassing his soon-to-be ex. The fatal shot came from the parking lot and went through a glass door.

SEX OFFENDER THREESOME

At first it reads like a straightforward news story: Man finds out ex-wife's boy toy is a sex offender and kills him.

But it's so much richer than the usual rage killing.

Willie Tarpley Jr., 48, stabbed Lee Alexander, 25, with a samurai sword on Saturday night. Police say Tarpley went to his old house, found the sword and threatened to cut off Alexander's head.

Being fond of his head, Alexander fled. Or tried to. But he crashed into Tarpley's Corvette in the driveway. Cops say that's when Tarpley plunged the 42-inch katana blade into Alexander's armpit.

It's true, Alexander was a registered sex offender. In 2000, when he was 18, he was convicted of lewd and lascivious behavior with a minor.

But Tarpley and his ex-wife have a past, too. According to the Tampa Tribune:

Tarpley himself is a registered sex offender, as is his wife.

In 1988, Tarpley and his wife were convicted in a high-profile case concerning a woman who once worked for Willie Tarpley as a nude dancer. The Tarpleys were accused of kidnapping the woman, beating her, gluing her eyelids and genitalia shut and tattooing a four-letter word on her forehead, according to Tampa Tribune archives.

The couple, along with two other people, pleaded guilty to false imprisonment, battery and sexual battery charges. Each was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The Tarpleys did about six years in prison; they were released around 1994.

Willie Tarpley Jr. is now charged with second-degree murder. He's being held without bond.

THREE TIMES A LADY KILLER

Everette Simpson died on April 3 of smoke inhalation suffered in a house fire in Covington, La. His wife, Estelle, and her brother, Allen Martin, 75, were dead inside the house, but they didn't die from the flames or smoke. They'd been beaten dead.

The who was immediately clear -- Everette did it. The why and how are now much clearer. Everette Simpson had experience.

According to The Associated Press:

He spent nine years in a California prison for second-degree murder of his first wife, who was hacked 16 times with a butcher knife in 1960, and 11 years in Louisiana for manslaughter of his second wife, attacked with knife and hatchet and then smothered with a pillow in 1983, authorities said.

First wife Virginia Hudson was 35 when she died. Her husband was convicted of second-degree murder. Second wife Ruby Richardson died in 1983.

GAMBLING SHE WON'T GET CAUGHT

Judy Lea Fairbanks, of Bellevue, Neb., went to a casino in Council Bluffs, Iowa, over the weekend. She decided to take her husband along for the ride. He's disabled. Problem.

The Daily Nonpareil reports:

Fairbanks, 52, was charged with wanton neglect of a dependent person for leaving her husband unattended at the Horseshoe Casino, located at 2701 23rd Ave. in Council Bluffs, shortly after 10 a.m. Saturday.

According to a Council Bluffs Police report, Fairbanks taped a sign to the window of the vehicle that said, "I have a disability. Do not be alarmed. I am resting. Please do not call security."

Fairbanks' husband cannot speak or care for himself, according to the report.

Officials estimate he had been left in the vehicle on the third floor of the parking garage for approximately one hour before he was discovered sleeping in the front passenger seat by authorities.

The temperature was approximately 28 degrees at the time Fairbanks' husband was found, according to the National Weather Service.

Police say they investigated a similar complaint involving the same couple last month. Bet it doesn't work out.