The avenging Granny

[Desert Dog]

MELBOURNE, Australia -- Gun-toting granny Ava Estelle, 81, was so
ticked-off when two thugs raped her 18-year-old granddaughter that she tracked
the unsuspecting ex-cons down and shot off their testicles.

The old lady spent a week hunting those men down -- and when she
found them, she took revenge on them in her own special way,- said Melbourne
police investigator Evan Delp. Then she took a taxi to the nearest police
station, laid the gun on the sergeant's desk and told him as calm as could
be: 'Those bastards will never rape anybody again, by God.'

Cops say convicted rapist and robber Davis Furth, 33, lost both his
***** and his testicles when outraged Ava opened fire with a 9-mm pistol
in the hotel room where he and former prison cellmate Stanley Thomas,
29, were holed up. The wrinkled avenger also blew Thomas' testicles
to kingdom come, but doctors managed to save his mangled ***** , police
said. The one guy, Thomas, didn't lose his manhood, but the doctor I
talked to said he won't be using it the way he used to, Detective Delp told
reporters. Both men are still in pretty bad shape, but I think they're just
happy to be alive after what they've been through.

The Rambo Granny swung into action August 21 after her granddaughter
Debbie was carjacked and raped in broad daylight by two knife-wielding
creeps in a section of town bordering on skid row. "When I saw the look

on my Debbie's face that night in the hospital, I decided I was going to go out
and get those bastards myself 'cause I figured the Law would go easy on
them," recalled the retired library worker. "And I wasn't scared of them,
either -- because I've got me a gun and I've been shootin' all my life.And I
wasn't dumb enough to turn it in when the law changed about owning one."

So, using a police artist's sketch of the suspects and Debbie's description of
the sickos', tough-as-nails Ava spent seven days prowling the wino-infested
neighborhood where the crime took place till she spotted the ill-fated rapists
entering their flophouse hotel. I know it was them the minute I saw
'em, but I shot a picture of 'em anyway and took it back to Debbie and
she said sure as **** , it was them, the oldster recalled. So I went
back to that hotel and found their room and knocked on the door -- and the
minute the big one, Furth, opened the door, I shot 'em right square between
the legs, right where it would really hurt 'em most, you know. Then I went
in and shot the other one as he backed up pleading to me to spare him.
Then I went down to the police station and turned myself in.

Now, baffled lawmen are trying to figure out exactly how to deal with the vigilante
granny. What she did was wrong, and she broke the law, but it is difficult to
throw an 81-year-old woman in prison. Det. Delp said, especially when 3
million people in the city want to nominate her for sainthood and a medal.

---------------------------------------------

I vote for sainthood...

Chasin' my tail...

The Dog

[Pammy]

Another vote for sainthood. And she kept her gun! [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

[Uncle Deedah]

I just turned off the profanity filter, now we can say balls and dick and shit and all that fun stuff.

And two thumbs up for granny! On both counts!

[Pammy]

LOWLY SERF?

Unk, you're gonna think "balls and dick and shit and all that fun stuff" if you don't do better than that! [img]graemlins/thumbs_down.gif[/img]

[Aunt Bee]

Well, well, well, I see granny's eyesight is still excellent even if she is 81! As is her aim-LOL!! Cool the city wants her for sainthood! Wonder what THAT statue in the park would look like-- ROFLMAO!!! [img]graemlins/beer.gif[/img]

[Pammy]

Hi AB [img]biggrin.gif[/img]

I see you're a lowly serf too. And with 5 stars no less! You should at least be a general. I think we should gang up on Unk and hogtie him! [img]wink.gif[/img]

[Uncle Deedah]

Good heavens! Methinks the peasants are up in arms!

[Pammy]

Unruly peasant is much better. [img]graemlins/beer.gif[/img]

[Jack Booted Thug]

There, now you have stars too. Even if you are just an unruly pissant ....I mean peasant.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ August 07, 2002 10:11 PM: Message edited by: Jack Booted Thug ]</font>

[Pammy]

People are getting fed up:

Vigilante neighbors in court for branding molester

August 6, 2002

BY L.L. BRASIER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Three Pontiac men took the law -- and a blistering hot metal spatula -- into their hands when they learned a neighbor had been regularly sodomizing his 7- and 10-year-old nephews.

Two of the men held down the uncle while the third pressed the smoking spatula on his genitals, buttocks, stomach and legs. They paused only long enough to reheat the spatula on the kitchen stove for repeated branding before tossing the uncle out onto the sidewalk, breaking his arm.

The three men -- Billy Hatten, Dewon Williams and Randolph Evans -- were calm and coolly matter-of-fact Monday in Oakland County Circuit Court as they described their deeds in pleading guilty to the attack.

As their statements continued, several courtroom spectators started nodding their heads in seeming approval.

Criminal justice experts are not surprised by the reaction. Citizens, frightened and angered by recent high-profile crimes against children, are more likely to give tacit approval to the rough justice dealt outside a courthouse, they say.

The three men admitted in court Monday that they attacked neighbor Phillip Gibson in his Pontiac home Nov. 11, 2000, after the boys' weeping mother asked them for help. They said she told them her children had just accused Gibson -- their uncle -- of abusing them.

Hatten, who wielded the spatula, is a family friend who has known the children since birth.

He pleaded guilty to assault with intent to do great bodily harm and is to be sentenced to 18 months in prison by Judge Nanci Grant on Sept. 3.

His attorney, Amy Bowen-Krane, said that Hatten, 41, was an unsophisticated 10th-grade dropout who thought going after Gibson was the right thing.

"It was an emotional gut reaction," she said. "He had known these children all of their lives. Anybody who is a parent can understand this -- not condone it, but understand it."

Gibson was hospitalized for three weeks with first-, second- and third-degree burns.

In June 2001, Gibson, 38, pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct for the attacks on his nephews and was ordered to serve an 8- to 40-year prison term.

Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Ken Frazee said that no crime, even horrific assaults on children, merits vigilante justice.

"I don't condone what the victim did," Frazee said, after Gibson's attackers were led away. "It was repulsive. But he was punished at the hands of these defendants -- tortured -- and the law does not allow for that."

Evans, 37, who admitted holding Gibson down so he could be burned, also pleaded guilty to assault with intent to do great bodily harm. He faces a 19-month prison term under a plea agreement at his Aug. 28 sentencing.

Williams, who admitted throwing Gibson on the sidewalk, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault. Already serving alife sentence for murder in an unrelated case, Williams, 21, faces a year in prison for the assault. The Pontiac branding is part of what appears to be an increased level of vigilante actions, criminal justice experts said Monday. And with each additional and infuriating report of a kidnapped and murdered child or a raped teenager, Americans are more likely to be sympathetic to private citizens ready to act out their rage.

"Frankly, I'm surprised they didn't kill him," said Carl Taylor, a criminologist at Michigan State University who studies crime in urban settings.

Taylor said that child rape is so taboo that citizens, particularly those in communities that are traditionally suspicious of the criminal justice system, will sometimes act out on their own.

"We call it street law, or street justice," he said. "And it's actually quite common when you have cases of child abuse."

The nods of seeming approval for the three men did not surprise James Alan Fox, a professor in the college of criminal justice at Northeastern University in Boston.

"More people are likely to cheer than condemn vigilantes," Fox said. "They turn them into folk heros, even when what they've done is not heroic."

Fox said he has seen a shift toward more vigilante activity in the last 10 years as people grow increasingly disenchanted with a criminal justice system they think does not work. It is a perception perpetrated by high-profile news reports of repeat offenders who commit new crimes, he said.

"What you have is more media outlets seeking out and commenting on failures of the justice system, so you have the notion that it doesn't work," Fox said.

"Americans appear much more willing to take matters into their hands, either by taking a greater role in protecting themselves, or by . . . going after the bad guys," he said.

"That is not a good thing, because often the punishment is much harsher, more brutal, than what is appropriate," Fox said. "That's why we have laws, a system, to handle crime and punishment."