ACTION ALERT: Call Judge William Kellough

Perhaps you will remember the horrific story from June of 2008 where a man kidnapped three children from a South Tulsa tanning salon. Brandon Brixey, the suspect in this case was charged and went to trial facing two counts of first-degree rape, one count of lewd molestation, one count of kidnapping, one count of first-degree robbery, and one count of eluding an officer.

In a surprise move yesterday Brixey plead guilty to all counts, just days before the prosecution was set to rest their case, and after the ten-year-old victim took the stand to detail how she was brutally raped by Brandon Brixey.

Brixey, a previously convicted felon is eligible for multiple life sentences, and Tulsa County District Attorney Tim Harris, intends to ask for the maximum sentence so that, "he would take his last breath in prison."

Interestingly enough, the judge in the case, Tulsa County District Judge William Kellough, is eligible for re-election this year. We need to put the pressure on Judge Kellough, he needs to understand the the citizens of Tulsa County do not want violent child rapists on our streets. Call his office at 596-5200 and let him know that you want Brixey to get the maximum sentence that the law will allow. Kellough will decide Brixey's sentence at a hearing set for April 19th, so don't let up. Call his office, and make sure that everyone you know calls his office.

[UPDATE] Listen to DA Tim Harris talk about the case on Pat Campbell's show.

Digging Through the Trash: Last Act of the Desperate

This weekend I found myself digging through our trash in search for our checkbook....twice. On Saturday at 5pm I had my wife tear out a check so that I could pay for my dinner at Tim Coager's fundraiser in Owasso. Sometime between 5pm and 9pm the checkbook went missing. There was, on our part, a 99.9% certainty that the checkbook had never left the house, and about an 80% certainty on my wife's part that she had put it back in its place after she handed me my check.

So where was it? I tore the house apart looking for it, and couldn't find it. The next morning I asked the kids if they had seen it. A likely suspect was the 3-year-old, but as any parent with a 3-year-old knows, obtaining actionable intelligence from a toddler is next to impossible. He told me he had taken it, he assured me that he didn't know where it was, he told me that he knew what it looked like, and he told me that he didn't know what it looked like. It all just depended on how I asked the question.

The night before I had looked in the trash can, but avoided any real sifting of the trash. The next day, however, required more drastic measures as I had searched the likely spots for the checkbook at least 10 times. A second bag was retrieved and I transferred the contents of the trash from one to the other, once piece at a time. No dice...just stinky hands.

Instead of looking for places it should be, or places it might be, I transitioned to looking for it in places that it couldn't be, the impossible places in the house. I grabbed a flashlight and crawled around on my belly looking for it under things. I looked under the drawers under the premise that some how it had gotten pushed out and behind the cabinet. Theorizing that the errant book wanted to be in the trash but couldn't quite get there I looked next to the trash can, under the fridge. Not finding it there, I found my eyes looking at the oven, figuring I had nothing to lose I shined the light in-between the impossibly small gap between the oven and the floor. A silhouette with a striking similarity to the checkbook appeared, and my heart skipped a beat. I jumped up, moved the oven and there it was!

I went back to the 3-year-old and asked, "Did you put Mommy's check book under the oven?" He cocked his head ever so slightly, donned an incredibly charming but devious smile and said, "Yes!" Next time I'll check the oven before I check the trash...