Assuming, of course, Wright was actually running for office, other than in the fetid minds of corporate media and Wingnut bloggers.

A lot of breaking news today.

From the SF Chronicle. I just love black widow stories and this one is rife with fun details - especially the names! “Bagwell” … “Bridewell” … well, at least she’s doing God’s work.

MARIN COUNTY
Police seek local victims of alleged ‘Black Widow’
Woman left a trail of tragedy in her wake, used beauty to lure men, authorities claim

Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, July 6, 2007

Sandra Camille Bridewell lives these days in a cramped cell in the Brunswick County Jail in North Carolina, a long way away from her days as a charming and attractive Marin County socialite whom male admirers showered with money and gifts.

Now 62, she is awaiting trial on charges of swindling an elderly woman she was hired to care for.

Investigators say heartache and tragic death have followed her from coast to coast. Over the years, at least one of her three husbands and a best friend have died under strange circumstances. She is, to this day, the only suspect in the death of her third husband in 1985, a homicide case that Oklahoma City detectives recently reopened.

Which explains the unusual step taken by Brunswick County sheriff’s Detective Marty Folding, who is pulling out the stops to keep Bridewell behind bars. He put out a nationwide plea for law enforcement officers and people who have known Bridewell to come forward with anything they know about her criminal exploits.

“We need to get the other agencies to start looking at her again,” said Folding, who is leading the investigation. “If they don’t, this woman is going to walk out again free.”

What is it about this woman that has created so much alarm? Numerous interviews and searches through newspaper archives, court documents and dozens of articles on the Internet paint a picture of a person who apparently uses people for their money, status and connections and drops them as soon as they are no longer useful to her.

She has used a variety of names over the years, including Sandra Camille Powers, Sandra Stegall, Sandra Rehrig and Camille Bridewell. But she is best remembered by acquaintances as the Black Widow.

She comes off as intelligent and charming, but investigators believe she should never again be out on the streets.

“It’s nothing we’ve been able to establish on the evidence, but, boy, I’d be scared to live with her,” Folding said. “As far as financial fraud, I feel that’s the way she has made her living for years. If she committed (any) murders, I want her to pay for them. That’s why we wanted the media and the national attention on this — to try to get the eyes opened again.”

Bail in the North Carolina fraud case is set at $1.5 million, with a bail reduction hearing scheduled for Wednesday.

Bridewell did not respond to a written request for an interview, but she is presenting herself as a devout Christian and has made it clear that she believes she is doing God’s work.

Bridewell easily wove herself into the social fabric of wealthy Marin County after she arrived in the Bay Area in 1987, according to those who encountered her. Dark-haired and curvaceous, she moved into a home on the water in Belvedere and used her Southern belle allure to mesmerize wealthy men.

Elizabeth Merrill of Tiburon said she met Bridewell at a ladies’ luncheon at the Franciscan Club in 1988 and later introduced her new friend to a wealthy financier from Hong Kong. He was smitten, Merrill said the other day. Dennis Kuba, a horseman and Santa Rosa lawyer, and Thomas Finney, a married insurance executive from Southern California, were similarly captivated.

According to subsequent lawsuits, Bridewell allegedly persuaded the men to lend her what was calculated to be about $100,000.

The money was never paid back, and Kuba and Finney sued in an attempt to collect the debt, but by then Bridewell had disappeared. That’s when rumors surfaced about a previous life in Dallas, one that prompted investigators, former friends and in-laws of Bridewell to begin calling her the Black Widow.

That life began in 1967, according to court records, when Bridewell married a Dallas dentist named David Stegall. The couple had three children and traveled in wealthy circles, friends and relatives said.

On Feb. 22, 1976, Bridewell found her husband dead in a bedroom with slashed wrists and a bullet in the left temple, according to several news accounts. Dallas investigators concluded the fatal wounds were self-inflicted. Records showed that Bridewell collected more than $300,000 after selling the house and receiving her husband’s life insurance.

In 1978, she married Bobby Bridewell, a hotel and real estate developer, who also hobnobbed with the cream of Dallas society, acquaintances said. He adopted her children and then, in 1980, was stricken with cancer. He died two years later at 41.

Meanwhile, according to investigators and acquaintances, Bridewell had made friends with her dying husband’s doctor, John Bagwell. She called Bagwell’s wife, Betsy, her “best friend,” investigators confirmed.

One night in June 1982, Betsy Bagwell put some meat in the sink to thaw and told her children not to “pig out” while she went out to do an errand, according to various accounts to reporters and investigators. Before she could prepare the meal, though, she was found dead inside her Mercedes, which was parked near a rental car lot, investigators have said.

The county medical examiner ruled that Bagwell had shot herself in the right temple with a stolen .22-caliber revolver.

Two years later, Bridewell met Alan Rehrig, a handsome 29-year-old former basketball and football player at Oklahoma State University. Rehrig married Bridewell after she told him she was pregnant. She was 40 at the time, but she told the groom she was 36, according to his mother, Gloria Rehrig, who said Bridewell later informed her new husband that she had miscarried.

Her obsession with the Dallas beau monde put a strain on their marriage, and in 1985 they separated.

Then, on Dec. 7, 1985, Rehrig agreed to meet Bridewell at a storage locker in Dallas to move some belongings. His body, dressed in shorts, was discovered four days later by Oklahoma City police slumped inside his Ford Bronco. He had been shot twice with a .32-revolver and his body had frozen in the cold.

Bridewell, who was the beneficiary of her husband’s life insurance policy, insisted that Rehrig never showed up at the storage locker. Oklahoma police and the FBI began investigating Bridewell. Among the things they and the Rehrig family learned was that Bridewell had undergone a hysterectomy almost a decade earlier.

Rehrig’s mother filed a petition in Texas to prevent Bridewell from getting the insurance money.

“It took two or three years for her to bleed me dry in terms of legal fees and I finally had to give up and she got the insurance money,” Gloria Rehrig said. “She got $100,000 from Al.”

Some years later, Bridewell traveled through the South, presenting herself as a Christian missionary, according to Folding, the North Carolina detective. Allegations of credit card misuse and unpaid debts followed her wherever she went, Folding said.

In December 2003, Bridewell was back in California and ingratiated herself to Stephen and Karen Retter of Novato. Stephen’s then 92-year-old father, John Retter, needed help, so they let Bridewell, now using the name Camille, move into his Santa Rosa home.

One day the elderly man’s wife found Bridewell whispering “I love you” to him and kicked her out, according to Stephen Retter.

The family said they later discovered that Bridewell was soliciting checks from the elder Retter. Santa Rosa police were called in but no arrest was made, Retter said.

Last September, Bridewell moved into the Southport, N.C., home of 77-year-old Sue Moseley. This time using the name Camille Powers, she ran up a $1,900 bill on Moseley’s credit card and dipped into her bank account to purchase clothes and other items, according to Folding. She was arrested on March 2 on charges of credit card fraud, theft of credit cards, forgery and passing forged checks.

Folding said two people in two different states have come forward saying she scammed them also. Oklahoma City detectives, meanwhile, are investigating the Rehrig slaying anew.

Bridewell, Folding said, is using her time in the North Carolina jail to spread the Lord’s word.

“She’s a very, very smart lady, and she is good,” Folding said. “She’s back there right now, I can tell you, preaching to the other inmates.”

The BBC version is semi-tongue in cheek.

US crowd beats passenger to death

An angry Texas crowd has beaten and killed a 40-year-old car passenger after a driver injured a young girl near the site of a busy local festival.

Police said the driver of the car had stopped to check on the health of the girl, said to be aged three or four.

But when the passenger got out to see how she was, he was set upon by a group of up to 20 people before being left lying in a car park, police said.

The girl was hit at low speed and was not seriously injured.

The incident happened near Austin, Texas, as crowd of between 2,000-3,000 people gathered for the annual Juneteenth festival, which commemorates the freeing of American slaves.

‘Group mentality’

According to reports, the driver of the car hit the girl at a low speed while moving through a car park, and then stopped so his passenger could check on her condition.

But the angry crowd quickly turned on David Rivas Morales, 40, beating him before leaving him lying on the ground.

He was taken to hospital but pronounced dead soon afterwards. A preliminary autopsy listed “blunt force trauma” as the cause of death, the Associated Press reported.

The driver was able to leave the scene in his car.

“Mr Morales could have been assaulted by two to 20 folks,” said Harold Piatt, from the Austin police department.

“It’s that same crowd mindset of being one face in 1,000. Things get out of hand pretty quickly and people don’t have the good sense to stop.”

J.K. Rowling Hints At Harry Potter Date Rape

President George W. Bush, yesterday, May 1, 2006:

A new Iraqi government represents a strategic opportunity for America — and the whole world, for that matter. . . . This is a — we believe this is a turning point for the Iraqi citizens, and it’s a new chapter in our partnership.

Vice President Dick Cheney, December 18, 2005:

It’s an Iraqi government elected by Iraqis under a constitution written by Iraqis. . . . I do believe that when we look back on this period of time, 2005 will have been the turning point . . .

President George W. Bush, December 12, 2005:

It’s a remarkable transformation for a country that has virtually no experience with democracy, and which is struggling to overcome the legacy of one of the worst tyrannies the world has known . . . . There’s still a lot of difficult work to be done in Iraq, but thanks to the courage of the Iraqi people, the year 2005 will be recorded as a turning point in the history of Iraq.

President Addresses Nation, Discusses Iraq, War on Terror, June 28, 2005:

When the history of this period is written. . . . the liberation of Iraq will be remembered as great turning points in the story of freedom.

Mrs. Bush’s Remarks at Conference of Women Leaders, March 8, 2005:

People in the Middle East and commentators around the world are beginning to wonder whether recent elections may mark a turning point as significant as the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Press Briefing by Scott McClellan, January 31, 2005:

The election is a victory for the Iraqi people. It’s a significant step forward for freedom and it is a defeat for the terrorists and their ideology. It marks a turning point in Iraq’s history and a great advance toward a brighter future for all Iraqis

President George W. Bush, January 29, 2005:

Tomorrow the world will witness a turning point in the history of Iraq, a milestone in the advance of freedom, and a crucial advance in the war on terror. The Iraqi people will make their way to polling centers across their nation.

President’s Remarks in Grand Rapids, Michigan, July 30, 2004:

Saddam Hussein sits in a prison cell. America and the world are safer. . . . When it comes to fighting the threats of our world and spreading peace, we’re turning the corner and we’re not turning back.

President Bush, June 18, 2004:

A turning point will come in less than two weeks. On June the 30th, full sovereignty will be transferred to the interim government.

Remarks by the President to Military Personnel, June 16, 2004:

A turning point will come two weeks from today. On June the 30th, governing authority will be transferred to a fully sovereign interim government, the Coalition Provisional Authority will cease to exist, an American embassy will open in Baghdad.

Remarks by the President on Operation Iraqi Freedom, March 19, 2004:

Today, as Iraqis join the free peoples of the world, we mark a turning point for the Middle East, and a crucial advance for human liberty.

President Bush Discusses Freedom in Iraq and Middle East, November 6, 2003:

We’ve reached another great turning point – and the resolve we show will shape the next stage of the world democratic movement.

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, June 12, 2003:

The events of the last few months make clear that the Middle East is living through a time of great change. And despite the tragic events of the past few days, it is also a time of great hope. President Bush believes that the region is at a true turning point.

There’s a name for it when you are continually turning. It’s called “spinning.”

=================

Iraqis Begin Duty With Refusal, Washington Post, May 2, 2006:

The graduation of nearly 1,000 new Iraqi army soldiers in restive Anbar province took a disorderly turn Sunday when dozens of the men declared that they would refuse to serve outside their home areas, according to U.S. and Iraqi military authorities.

The graduation ceremony at Camp Habbaniyah, a base about 45 miles west of Baghdad, had been going well. The 978 soldiers, most of them Sunni Muslims, had just finished nearly five weeks of military training and were parading before a review stand to the sounds of martial music. They took an oath of service while U.S. and Iraqi officials delivered speeches hailing the event as an important step toward the formation of a national army.

Then some soldiers started tearing their clothes off to demonstrate their rage.

The protest was triggered by an announcement that the new soldiers, all residents of Anbar province — widely considered the heartland of Iraq’s Sunni Arab insurgent movement — would be required to serve outside their home towns and outside the province as well.

Heckuva turning point, Bushie.

Update: from yesterday’s press briefing —

Q Could we go back to Iraq? In the last three years, should — don’t the American people — shouldn’t they be somewhat skeptical when they hear a word like, turning point? Hasn’t — haven’t other things been portrayed as turning points

Followed by Scottie responding, “Well, let’s look at the facts. . .” and going on for three paragraphs, all while dutifully not-answering the question.