Phawker Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Valania will be on News Radio 77WABC in NYC tonight from 9 PM — 11 PM to discuss his Duffy’s Cut PW cover story with host John Batchelor. UPDATE: The interview was recorded moments ago, but will not air until Friday, some time between 9 PM — 11 PM. We will add a download link to this post as soon as it becomes available. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH: Exhuming The Old-Timey Mass Murder Mystery At Duffy’s Cut “The past is never dead. It isn’t even past.” —William Faulkner BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE PHILADELPHIA […]
GOING ROGUE: The Thrill Kill Cult Of Bravo Company
ROLLING STONE: The poppy plants were still low to the ground at that time of year. The two soldiers, Cpl. Jeremy Morlock and Pfc. Andrew Holmes, saw a young farmer who was working by himself among the spiky shoots. Off in the distance, a few other soldiers stood sentry. But the farmer was the only Afghan in sight. With no one around to witness, the timing was right. And just like that, they picked him for execution. He was a smooth-faced kid, about 15 years old. Not much younger than they were: Morlock was 21, Holmes was 19. His name, […]
CAPTURING THE FRIEDBERGERS: Or, 13 Snappy Answers To 13 Silly Questions For The Fiery Furnaces
FIERY FURNACES 1979: Matthew Friedberger and his sister Darth Vader Eleanor PHAWKER: Have you ever been arrested? If so please explain. MATTHEW FREIDBERG: Well rested, mostly. A-rested, rarely. Explain what? PHAWKER: Never mind. Have you ever knowingly killed anyone? If so please explain. MF: I read in an email very much like this one that we were just killin’ it every night cross Europe. Maybe you can explain that. Knowingly? PHAWKER: What was the last book you read? MF: Too personal. PHAWKER: Wow, that must have been some book! Okay, last album purchased? Was it worth it? MF: Dizzy Gillespie […]
KILLADELPHIA: 5 More Dead Since U Went To Bed
DAILY NEWS: Amid a busy weekend bustling with criminal activity, including four killings in about 12 hours, two stabbings and two shootings, police arrested two people accused of two of the crimes. Nicole Wilson, 26, was arrested yesterday after police said she beat a 66-year-old man to death at a Sunoco gas station in Logan. Police said Wilson beat the man after an argument over a cigarette about 4 a.m. on Broad Street near Windrim Avenue. The unidentified man was pronounced dead at Albert Einstein Medical Center at 5:23 a.m. Derrick Whitfield, 23, was arrested yesterday. Police said he shot […]
Muslim Wife Confesses To Killing Polygamous Husband
INQUIRER: Quietly in a Norristown courtroom yesterday, Myra Morton admitted for the first time that she shot her handyman-turned-millionaire husband in his sleep. Jereleigh “Seddik” Morton, 47, died in his Whitpain Township mansion with two bullets in his face Aug. 5, the morning he was to fly to Morocco and into the arms of Zahra Toural, the 35-year-old other wife he had met online and planned to impregnate. Myra Morton, 47 at the time, could no longer bear children. In 27 years of marriage she had gone from being a handyman’s wife to a millionairess scorned, and she now faces […]
WORTH REPEATING: The Rape Of Arkansas
FROM THE HUFFINGTON POST: Wayne Dumond raped Ashley Stevens, Clinton’s distant cousin, in 1984 when she was a 17-year-old high school student in Forest City, Arkansas. He was convicted in 1985 and sentenced to life in prison, plus 20 years. In 1992, Jim Guy Tucker, who became governor of Arkansas after Clinton left office, reduced Dumond’s sentence to 39.5 years.Shortly after taking office in 1996, Huckabee announced his intention to commute Dumond’s sentence to time served. A public outcry ensued. Twenty women members of the state House of Representatives protested the commutation proposal. The editorial pages of some Arkansas newspapers […]