Tag Archives: criminals

Everything’s Bigger in Texas

From the Houston Press:

Every now and then, Hair Balls reports the oddest, funniest, and most puzzling names we come across in Harris County official records — usually but not always the crime reports.

As always, a couple of disclaimers are in order. Not all, indeed not necessarily any, of these people were convicted of a crime. Additionally, the crimes they are accused of — those that have been accused, that is — are in some cases as minor as driving on a suspended license or possession of small amounts of pot.

And so, without further ado:

Patronne Dextrexxe Brooks: Puts us in mind of both tequila and porn.

Pearlie Mae Cobbins: Now this is just a classic — if I still had my 1976 Caddy Coupe de Ville, this would be her name.

Anal Exceus: Oy.

Tito Kunta Hunt: Someone like both Roots and Yugoslavian strongmen, but the resulting name comes across as naughty.

Whithworth Treasure: Sounds like the leading man in a romance novel written by a sixth grader.

Willie Nelson de Ochoa: Only in Texas.

Shi’tia Alford: Might as well have alerted CPS the day they put this on the birth certificate. That name is child abuse, pure and simple.

Heavenleigh Flores: Not super classy, but I kind of like it.

Dacodunn Ahito Dante Antoine: Wow. Read it out loud. It sounds like some awesome foreign language. Fun name.

Stylz Montavian Murry: I got stylz, baby, Montavian stylzzzzzz

Aristotle Onassis Harris: Who knew some Houston mom would find a Greek shipping magnate so inspiring?

Chastity Spotts: I learned about those in health class.

Charmin Crew: No squares in stall two. Send in the Charmin Crew.

Petrono Tum Pu: Sounds like stomach medicine you’d find in Indonesia.

Joey Perfecto: Sounds like someone Eugene Levy would have played on SCTV.

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He’s Always Been Trouble

Sometimes urban legends come true:

Murder Trial Begins
By Dewayne Patterson
The Daily Sentinel (Ala.)

Jury selection began Monday in the capital murder trial of a Bridgeport man accused of killing two people in 2006.

Braxton Lynn Hicks has remained in the Jackson County Jail since being charged in the October 2006 deaths of Benny Cameron, 73, and Mary Ann Allison, 71.

Cameron and Allison were found dead in the Alabama Barbershop on Seventh Street in downtown Bridgeport, where they had an apartment in the back.

When the couple was found, they appeared to have been dead for several days, according to reports.

Autopsy reports showed they both died from blunt force trauma to the head. Investigators have said robbery was the apparent motive in the slayings. Hicks was indicted by a grand jury in December 2006 for capital murder. Jury selection is expected to last most of the week, with opening statements possible by Friday.

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Dumb Names = Life of Crime

From the Calgary Herald:
For Pete’s sake: a name means something when it comes to crime

Cheryl Chan, Canwest News Service

VANCOUVER – What’s in a name? Possibly a life of crime.

An unpopular name – like Alec, Ernest, Ivan, or Malcolm – is more likely to spell trouble than favourites Michael, Matthew or Christopher, according to research presented Saturday at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of B.C.

“There is a positive correlation between unpopular first names and juvenile delinquency,” said Daniel Lee, an economics professor at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania.

His study, the first to examine the link between names and crime, compiled the first names of all males born between 1987 and 1991 in a large unnamed American state, and calculated a Popularity Name Index, or PNI, for each of the 15,021 unique names.

Michael, the most popular name, had a PNI of 100 while David, a name given half as frequently, had a 50 PNI.

The study then compared the names and their popularity ratings to the first names of male youth in the juvenile justice system from 1997 to 2005.

Using regression models, Lee and co-author David Kalist found that regardless of race, the more unique, rare and unpopular the name is, the more likely it popped up in youth crime files 10 to 18 years later.

While half of the names in the state population have a PNI of 20 or more, half the names of the juvenile population have a PNI greater than 11.

Lee calculated that for every 10 per cent increase in the popularity of a name, there is an associated 3.7 per cent decrease in the number of troublemaking kids with that name.

However, research also showed that the PNI of a juvenile’s name is also associated with other factors, such as socio-economic conditions and family structure.

“The PNI is positively associated when the kid is living with both parents and negatively associated when living only with the mother,” said Lee, adding that juveniles with more unpopular names also tended to live in the state’s more disadvantaged counties.

The findings indicate that while the popularity of a juvenile’s name has a correlation with crime, it doesn’t necessarily cause the crime, said Lee.

“We’re arguing it’s not the name per se, that causes the juvenile to behave badly, but it’s the family background,” he said.

So, for parents who are already stressed out trying to find the perfect name for their kid, Lee has a word of advice: “It’s all right to give unique names to your children, but make sure you become a good parent.”

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