Our first story starts on a dark summer’s night in May. Twenty-one-year-old Richard McTear Jr. was with the woman he loved, 17-year-old Jasmine Bedwell and her adorable 3-month-old son. As Richard looked at Jasmine, he was overwhelmed by her beauty and could do nothing but…attack her.

To further prove his love to her, he took her baby, Emanuel Wesley Murray and threw him onto the concrete. When he saw this wasn’t enough, McTear drove off with Jasmine’s baby and threw him from a car window while driving on the highway.

Baby Emanuel died.

Needless to say, this was the end of Richard and Jasmine’s love affair. Although at his May 20 court appearance, McTear professed his love to Jasmine by screaming, “I love you, Jasmine!” Jasmine just wasn’t having it, but a 40-year-old Ida Williams was.

Just when McTear thought he could never be loved again, “Ida the Spider,” who has served five prison terms and just got out of jail on June 3 accepted his marriage proposal.

Now, as McTear was told of the state’s intention to pursue the death penalty for him, McTear’s fiancée (Williams) told the St. Petersburg Times that McTear is “beautiful, sweet, kind, gentle.”

McTear now faces the death penalty and Williams faces a life without the love of her life.

This next story also takes place in sunny Florida, and with the most unsuspecting of couples.

Victor Clavizzao and Jacqueline Dean both had bad luck with life and love. They found what they were looking for when they found each other.

Clavizzao, 46, is running away from his fraud charges while Dean is a registered sex-offender. None of this matters, of course; not when true love is involved.

Clavizzao has so much love to give that this is his fifth marriage. He’s also still legally married to his first and fourth wife.

Dean knew of Clavizzao’s undying love for her when he suggested that they go to Lisbon, Ohio to get married (away from the Florida court system that may know of his polygamy).

How precious, Dean must have thought. It would be like a romantic honeymoon.

Dean decided not to invite her ex-husband who had killed her lover with a samurai sword a couple of years ago in Brandon, Fla. Clavizzao was pleased by her choices.

Luckily, Dean and Clavizzao were in Ohio because a little magical fairy told them that the Ohio court system wouldn’t check on Clavizzao’s marital status if he checked the “previously married” box, but said “none” in the number of times box.

Tricky.

Now the happy couple lives in their beautiful St. Petersburg home, which is in foreclosure.

And they all lived happily ever after.

…. Who says dreams can’t come true? For these two happy successful couples, they were able to find true love in the most awful of situations. Maybe Disney would be interested in making a film of their love stories.

Or maybe not.

Sure, for many of us what we see on television doesn’t come as a surprise. We’re all pretty well aware of what’s going on in the Middle East. We know that the economy is in the toilet. Yeah, yeah, yeah…

As I watched the news last night, I wasn’t surprised to see the same old stuff: shooting, robbery, fire, economy, Obama, missing person, rape, cat serial killer.

Cat serial killer?

An 18-year-old in Miami is suspected of killing (the better word is mutilating, in my opinion) neighborhood cats.

What is known is that someone is responsible for a killing spree that has left many cats dead. Whether it is this man or not is still under investigation.

The suspect, Tyler Weinman, appeared in court Monday and is facing 19 counts of animal cruelty, four charges of burglary and 19 counts of improperly disposing of animal carcasses. If convicted, he could be facing more than 150 years in jail. That’s right, 150.

Before I make any type of joke about cat people being a little bit weird, let me admit that I have a cat. I would be very heartbroken if my cat were to die, especially in a brutal way. However, I know for a fact that I wouldn’t be saying half of the things that people are saying on this topic. Miami New Times collected some of these ridiculous threats, which include such goodies as:
- “”He should be sprayed down with raw meat juices and then put in a cage with the mountain cougar along with our other large feline friends.”
- “Keep Guantanamo open just for this guy. Hood him and waterboard him! Obama will understand.”
- “Tie him up, cover him in Fancy Feast, and let 300 hungry stray cats go at him.” (My personal favorite.)

Really? I’m about animal rights the same as the next guy but…are you serious?

There were no angry people voicing their opinion on the serial rapist. There were no people urging Guantanamo to stay open for the man that opened fire in the Holocaust Museum, and I want to know why.

(Let’s not even discuss that there are men and women running around – convicted rapists – that served maybe a quarter of the sentence that Weinman is facing. One quarter!)

It’s slowly been happening over the years, we’re becoming less interested in the rights of people and more interested in the rights of animals. The Sarah McGlachlan animal cruelty commercials are breaking our hearts more than the Feed the Children commercials. We’re more willing to help a hurt animal on the side of the road than help our neighbor who has no food.

The only reason I can come up with is that we have lost all faith in humanity. Is it because we see people doing all of these terrible things on the news every day? We all must believe that people are intrinsically bad and that animals are intrinsically good.

I guess we figure that rape, murder and robbery will be a part of all of our lives forever. But, kitty killing… that’s just unacceptable.