If Better Homes and Gardens had a police force, I’d be in jail for a severe furnishings violation.
Today I went from this:
to this:
In a matter of a day of posting a craigslist ad.
I need the money and to move. Sold it for a hard-to-beat price. A chap who seemed quite nice in a construction-meets-intelligence way drove 30 minutes to have a look.
“It’s perfect,” he says. He’s using it as a coffee counter at his tent at a street fair and when that’s over, it’ll go into his large kitchen for his wife to use.
So a craigslist story with a happy ending.
Not all of them are so. Very recently we had the craigslist killers. A couple posted an ad to sell a diamond ring. That was their first mistake. Thugs troll craigslist for sellers of big-ticket items, show up and rob the place.
Except in this case, there was murder. A woman, 20, answered the ad posing as a daughter with a phony husband buying it as a Mother’s Day present.
The couple, faithful, religious and trusting folk, their second mistake, invited the “buyers” in for the transaction, their third mistake. Two thugs hiding in wait burst in.
All brandished guns. They tied up the wife and husband and dragged the couple’s two boys (11 and 14) into the room too. Kicked the wife in the head and pistol-whipped one of the boys. The father sprang into action. He was shot dead, in his home, in front of his wife and sons.
All over a diamond ring.
And other personal belongings as the four ransacked the home, taking whatever they wanted including the wedding band off the wife’s finger (which was eventually recovered).
Story short, the four were apprehended, three of them apparently on their way to Mexico; the fourth turned himself in. All are about 20 to 25 years old with rap sheets and faces that look and smell of danger (one a lying sociopathic SOB).
They’re in jail. They’re also suspected in another local craigslist crime. Per modus operandi, they responded to a for-sale ad for a big-screen TV as a way get into the home and steal. No one was killed in this incident.
My instincts for people are spot on (and that includes you too, the bloggers : -) ). Though my gut told me the fellow coming for the cart was OK – and he absolutely was – I'm spooked by the craigslist killings so took precautions by rolling the cart outside my abode.
My area, and state, are havens for felons released, thieves, murderers, child molesters, illegals and gangs running drugs. They come specifically to Washington state for its well-known lack of supervision. Plus there's the proclivity of these blue-state officials to legislate and respond from the attitude of: "Oh, you poor man, you a bad childhood, that’s why you killed five people. {pat pat pat on the wrist} We’re sympathetic. We’re compassionate. We’ll let you go and give you another chance that you deserve. But don’t do it again, OK?”
Anyone from Arizona or Texas wanting to work out a home exchange, PM me!
I'm serious! I'm so outta here politically!
In the meantime, I've got a little needed cash, a chap got exactly what he needs for his coffee tent at a terrific price and I lived to tell the tale of a craigslist transaction gone successful.
Others were not so fortunate. Not a day goes by that I don't think of Charlene and Jim (craigslist victim) and their two boys with a prayer in my heart and true compassion.
Not the "compassion" that sets the bad guys free.
Barefoot Blogger 