Uncle John’s True Crime Read Online Free

doing some time of his own. “He thinks he’s going to walk,” Warden Lars Aake Pettersson told reporters. “But that’s probably not going to happen.”
    TWINS: Tony and Terry Litton, 19, of Cardiff, Wales
    BACKGROUND: Tony was about a year into a two-year sentence for burglary when Terry came to visit him at the Cardiff prison in March 1990.
    TWO-TIMING: Somehow, the brothers managed to strip down to their underwear and switch clothes in the middle of a bustling visitors room without attracting the notice of the guards. When the visit was up, Terry went back to Tony’s cell and Tony walked out of the prison with the rest of the visitors.
    A word of advice to identical twins: if you and your sibling plan to trade places, don’t have your names tattooed to the backs of your necks. Tony and Terry did; when an inmate noticed that Tony’s now read“Terry,” he alerted a guard. The twins’ dad, Ken Litton, couldn’t figure out why they pulled the stunt, especially since Tony was about to come up for parole anyway. “This time they’ve gone too far,” he told reporters. “The police won’t see the funny side of it.”
    OUTCOME: Tony was caught three days later and returned to jail to serve out his full sentence (no parole this time), plus extra time for the escape. Terry served some time of his own for helping him. (No word on whether they were allowed to visit each other in prison.)
    TWINS: Ronald and Donald Anderson, 43, of Oxnard, California
    BACKGROUND: In July 1993, “Ronald” checked himself into the county jail and began serving a six-month sentence for assaulting his estranged wife. Four days later he was arrested again, for assaulting his wife a second time. But how could he have done it if he was still in jail?
    TWO-TIMING: Police checked the fingerprints of the man who’d checked himself into jail as Ronald; sure enough, it was Donald. When asked why he was serving his brother’s sentence for him, Donald explained that he was better suited for jail time than Ronald was.
    Donald was speaking from experience—it was the third time he’d gone to jail for his brother. Years earlier he had served a two-month jail sentence for Ronald in Philadelphia, and when he moved to California he did time in the Ventura County Jail for traffic tickets that Ronald had run up using Donald’s driver’s license. In the 1970s, Donald even shipped off to Korea for Ronald after Ronald joined the Army, and then decided he didn’t want to go.
    OUTCOME: For the second assault on his wife, Ronald was convicted of spousal battery, attempted murder, and robbery (he stole his wife’s purse) and given the maximum sentence of 14 years in prison. He is now serving time for both of his convictions. Donald got off scot-free—apparently it’s not a crime in Oxnard to do someone else’s time. Today he lives in an apartment across the street from the jail. “If I could take my twin’s place now, I would do it,” he said.
    ***
    “The best car safety device is a rearview mirror with a cop in it.”
    — Dudley Moore
    Odds of winning if you challenge a traffic ticket in court: about 1 in 3 .

POLICE BLOTTERS
    Don’t have a lot of time but still want to read interesting little stories? Just check out the police blotter of your local paper .
    • “A man reported a burglary around 10 p.m. Thursday after he returned home and found his 36-inch Samsung TV missing. It had been replaced with an RCA TV. Decorative items were placed around the new TV in an apparent attempt to fool him.”
    • “A green and gold colored bird on Southwood Drive appeared injured. It ran into the bushes when questioned by police.”
    • “A male was yelling and screaming obscenities in his Randolph Avenue driveway. Police reported he actually was trying to rap.”
    • “The glass to a snack machine in the Knott Hall commuter lounge was reported to be broken. Campus Police responded and removed all remaining snacks.”
    • “A 22-year-old man was