A relatively clean story as crime stories generally go. A Palm Bay, Florida woman and her boyfriend were arrested Monday on suspicion of child abuse. To teach her a lesson for swearing they Dialed up the punishment and now everyone’s in a lather.

Yup, they washed their daughter’s mouth out with soap.

Police say Adriyanna Herdener and Wilfredo Rivera went too far by placing a bar of soap in the little girl’s mouth and letting it suds there for 10 minutes.

This reminds me of the scene with poor Ralphie in A Christmas Story. Wasn’t that kid forced to chomp on Lifebouy?

Me, I’d prefer Ivory.  99 and 44/100’s pure, you know.

Sure to be more on this story. Let’s see what comes out of the rinse cycle.

We love it when the creep is caught. We’ve been following the story of Nicholas Sheley, 28, and we’re glad to report he’s been captured in the St. Louis area.

Here’s a snip from the AP:

GRANITE CITY, Ill. (AP) — An exhaustive, two-state manhunt for an ex-convict suspected in eight grisly slayings has ended with the man quietly arrested outside a bar known as a police hangout.

Nicholas T. Sheley’s capture was only a matter of time because of the intense publicity surrounding the case, said Tim Lewis, police chief in the St. Louis suburb of Festus, Mo. Police knew from a number of witness reports that Sheley was in the area, he said.

“He was desperate and he gave up without a fight,” Lewis said Tuesday night. “He looks rough. He’s had a rough two days.”

Interesting, that he gave up without a fight. This is a guy who likely killed a 93-year-old and a toddler, among six others. Tough guy.

Here’s more, again from the AP:

The FBI on Tuesday launched a manhunt for Sheley, who they warned was considered armed and dangerous. He is suspected of killing, among others, a 93-year-old man, a toddler and a couple whose blood-soaked dogs were found roaming a motel parking lot.

Sheley has only been charged in the death of one of the eight. He faces charges of first-degree murder, aggravated battery and vehicular hijacking in the death of Ronald Randall, whose body was found Monday behind a grocery store in Galesburg, in northwestern Illinois, police said. An autopsy showed the 65-year-old died from blunt force trauma to the head, likely on Saturday.

Investigators said the other victims all appeared to have died in the same manner and that evidence linked to Sheley was recovered at each scene.

Authorities said the killings began with the beating death of 93-year-old Russell Reed, a Sterling man whose body was found stuffed in the trunk of a car Thursday. Sheley also is from Sterling, a town of 15,000 about 100 miles west of Chicago.

On Monday, police discovered the bodies of two men, a woman and a child in an apartment in nearby Rock Falls. Investigators believe they likely died late Saturday or early Sunday.

Sheley was acquainted with the male victims, Brock Branson and Kenneth Ulvey, both in their 20s, said Illinois State Police Region Two Commander Mark Maton. The Whiteside County coroner identified the remaining victims as 20-year-old Kilynna Blake, 20, and Dayan Blake, 2, both of Cedar City, Utah.

More than 250 miles away, the bodies of Tom and Jill Estes of Sherwood, Ark., were found Monday behind a gas station in Festus, said Lt. Bill Baker of the St. Louis Area Major Case Squad.

Get this snip about Sheley’s uncle, Joe Sheley, 47, who says Sheley recently struggled with drugs and his rap sheet includes arrests for home invasion.

“He’s been in trouble many times over the years, but something like this, yeah, it’s out of character,” Joe Sheley said. “He’s got a temper like anybody else. Just doesn’t want to be messed with. Won’t back down. But to go looking for a fight, looking for trouble, no.”

Jeesh! Temper? This guy’s a maniac.

Folks in St. Louis can rest easier tonight. And we can all wonder what made Nick tick.

He can fly through the air with the greatest of ease, but can Brian Keith Patch skate on a sex charge?

Patch, 36-year-old professional skateboarder, is set to be arraigned today on a charge that he had sex with a 15-year-old girl who had run away from home.

Patch of Westminster, California, is charged with one felony count of lewd acts on a child and faces a maximum of three years in prison if convicted.

In the world of skateboarding, this guy’s a superstar.  He has five X Games medals, and set a record of 58 feet for “longest air” in 2001 — a record that stood for five years.

Here’s a snip:

Patch is accused of letting the 15-year-old sleep at his house and having sex with her in his room on April 11, 2008, prosecutors said.

The girl later told her parents, who contacted police, prosecutors said.

Patch said Tuesday that he and the 15-year-old have known each other for about three years.

“We skated a lot of the same places,” he said.

While declining to comment on the allegation, Patch said that the truth will come out.

“She ran away, like, three days before,” Patch said. “She called all kinds of people looking for a place to stay. She called me. I told her I wasn’t coming home that night. I came home at two in the morning, and she was there outside my house.”

He let the girl sleep over and her father came to pick her up the next day, Patch said.

Patch says police interviewed him after the girl told her parents she was pregnant. Reportedly, he said this:

“If she’s pregnant, the cops have my DNA,” Patch said.

The question here, of course, is will he skate on the charges?

Murderers are always looking for ways to get rid of the evidence—including bodies.

Sometimes I think they are playing this game: Who can come up with the most depraved, painful way of killing another human being.

The longer I write these books and study criminal behavior, the more I understand that once the human mind has crossed the threshold of cruelty, evil knows no bounds.

Anything goes, in other words.

Most novice killers, however, will fall back on what they know.

In Fresno, Cali, a biochemist was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole last week for “killing her estranged husband,” the AP reported, “by knocking him out and stuffing him into a vat of acid, possibly while he was still alive.”

She hated that man. No doubt about it. Lots of anger in that crime.

Never underestimate the evil lurking in a scorned wife’s mind!

The AP picks up the story:

Larissa Schuster was convicted in December of murdering Timothy Schuster with the special circumstance that the murder was committed for financial gain. At the time of his death in July 2003, the Schusters were in the middle of a divorce after nearly 20 years of marriage.

Just days after Timothy Schuster was reported missing, his half-dissolved remains — intact from only the belt buckle down — were found inside a 55-gallon barrel concealed in a storage unit his wife had rented.

Kristin Schuster, the couple’s adult daughter, told the judge that she felt safer knowing her mother would be behind bars.

“I’ve been living for five years not knowing if I would have to worry for my own safety,” she said. “In your quest to become a dominating power freak, you became your own demon. You have hurt me for so many years and probably smiled inside, but look who’s smiling now.”

At the sentencing hearing for the 47-year-old Schuster, the judge also rejected her attorney’s motion for a new trial.

Prosecutors said Schuster and her former lab assistant, James Fagone, first immobilized Timothy Schuster with a stun gun and a chloroform-soaked rag. Then they bound his hands and feet, dumped his body headfirst into a barrel while he was still breathing and poured hydrochloric acid on him.

Fagone has already been sentenced to life in prison without parole for first-degree murder and burglary.

How’d you like to be the first crime-scene tech at that scene?

Can we punish someone enough for committing a crime like this?