What is it with these freaky ministers? White shoes, wigs, rubber suits! Why did it take an autopsy to find two rubber suits?

A Montgomery minister found in his home this summer died with his hands and feet bound behind his back and dressed in two rubberized suits, an offical autopsy showed.

The Montgomery Advertiser obtained a copy of the 13-page report on Friday, one day after District Attorney Ellen Brooks authorized its release.

The Rev. Gary Michael Aldridge was found dead June 24. Police ruled the 51-year-old pastor of Thorington Road Baptist Church was alone at the time of his death and that there was no foul play involved.

The autopsy, prepared by Senior State Medical Examiner Dr. Stephen Boudreau of the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, lists “accidental mechanical asphyxia” as the cause of death. It gave a one-paragraph description of what the examiner saw when he conducted the autopsy on June 25.

A toxicology report showed no signs of drugs in Aldridge’s system, but did find traces of ethanol, also known as ethyl alcohol. Boudreau explained that a body that is decomposing creates ethyl alcohol. Aldridge’s death has been the subject of rumors since the church asked the community to “refrain from speculation” until police completed their investigation.

Brooks said Friday that her office gets hundreds of cases requiring autopsy reports every year.

“I don’t know anything about any speculation,” she said. “I’m a prosecutor. I have no case to prosecute. It is not a criminal matter at this point. If you’re asking about idle curiosity, I’m not going to comment on that.”

Capt. Huey Thornton, a police spokesman, said Montgomery Police used an out-of-state agency during its investigation, but he would not name the agency. He said the agency corroborated MPD’s finding that Aldridge was alone when he died.

The Montgomery Advertiser requested a copy of the autopsy in a July 11 letter to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences. On July 12, the department replied that “… the report(s) cannot be released to the public at this time because the District Attorney has determined that the case is still under investigation. …”

After police reported on Wednesday they had completed their investigation, the Advertiser made another request for the autopsy report.

Rod Kennette, deputy director of the state Department of Forensic Sciences, said he received Brooks’ authorization to release the report shortly before 5 p.m. on Thursday.

The medical examiner who conducted Aldridge’s autopsy said Friday the long wait for the autopsy findings was not unusual.

“These things happen,” Boudreau said. “We see probably two of these a year. If you’re not used to seeing that sort of thing, it’s probably unusual.”

Here’s the full autopsy report on The Smoking Gun.

A: NUNS GONE WILD!

Italian archbishop closes convent after nuns come to blows

1 day ago

ROME (AFP) ? A convent in southern Italy is being shut down after a quarrel among its last three remaining nuns ended in blows, press reports said Sunday.

Sisters Annamaria and Gianbattista, reportedly upset about their mother superior’s authoritarian ways, scratched her in the face and threw her to the ground at Santa Clara convent near Bari in an incident in July that was kept quiet until now.

Archbishop Giovanni Battista Pichierri tried to reconcile the nuns but finally decided in late August that they had “clearly lost their religious vocation” and asked the Vatican for permission to close the convent.

Sisters Annamaria and Gianbattista moved to another convent, but Sister Liliana barricaded herself inside, refusing to leave, the reports said, adding that she suspected Battista Pichierri of planning to cede the convent to another community.

Liliana has been at the convent since its founding in 1963.

Someone call in the Army of Mary!

They’re calling it the “Oliver Twist” case, which makes it sound all cute and … smudgy. However, the reality of “asleep in a McDonald’s parking lot” isn’t exactly picturesque:

SEASIDE HEIGHTS, N.J. - A man who authorities say was seen on a surveillance video using his 4-year-old granddaughter to steal a purse from a boardwalk arcade worker was arrested Saturday in Connecticut, police said.

Police said 52-year-old Daniel Twomey was arrested at about 10 a.m. after being found asleep in his car in a McDonald’s parking lot in Greenwich, Conn. Police tracked him using a tip that a signal from his cell phone had been traced to the area, said Greenwich Sgt. Jim Marr. Seaside Heights police said the theft happened just after midnight Sunday at Lucky Leo’s in Seaside Heights.

The video shows an adult with shoulder-length brown hair using a foot to push the girl under a swinging security door and the child steals a worker’s purse. The investigation eventually focused on Twomey after an anonymous phone call and his attempt to use the victim’s ATM card, Szalkowski said. The girl was identified as his granddaughter, said Szalkowski.

Twomey faces potential charges of endangering the welfare of a child and employing a minor in a criminal act, Szalkowski said. Bail had been set at $150,000 upon Twomey’s arrest,

and he’s been ordered not to have contact with his grandchildren.

If Mary takes over your soul, does that make you a reconstituted virgin, Catholic style? Actually, that problem is already solved, if she’s only possessing nuns. What about the Sons of Mary?

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (AP) — Six Catholic nuns have been excommunicated for heresy after refusing to give up membership in a Canadian sect whose founder claims to be possessed by the Virgin Mary, the Diocese of Little Rock announced.

The Rev. J. Gaston Hebert, the diocese administrator, said he notified the nuns of the decision Tuesday night after they refused to recant the teachings of the Community of the Lady of All Nations, also known as the Army of Mary.

The Vatican has declared all members of the Army of Mary excommunicated. Hebert said the excommunication was the first in the diocese’s 165-year history.

“It is a painfully historic moment for this church,” Hebert said.

The six nuns are associated with the Good Shepherd Monastery of Our Lady of Charity and Refuge in Hot Springs. Sister Mary Theresa Dionne, one of the nuns excommunicated, said the nuns will still live at the convent property, which they own.

“We are at peace and we know that for us we are doing the right thing,” the 82-year-old nun said. “We pray that the church will open their eyes before it is too late. This is God’s work through Mary, the blessed mother, and we’re doing what we’re asked to do.”

At a news conference, Hebert said the nuns “became entranced and deluded with a doctrine that is heretical.” He said church officials removed the Eucharist — which Catholics revere as the body of Christ — from the monastery on Tuesday night.

Hebert said the sect’s members believe that its 86-year-old founder, Marie Paule Giguere, is the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary and that God speaks directly through her. Excommunication bars the nuns from participating in the church liturgy and receiving communion or other sacraments.

The diocese said the action was taken after the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a declaration dated July 11 that the Army of Mary’s teachings were heretical and automatically excommunicated any who embraced the doctrine.

Hebert said the diocese had known for years that the nuns were following the sect and said church officials in the past had encouraged them to come back into the fold.

According to the Catholic News Service, the Army of Mary was founded in Quebec in 1971 by Giguere, who said she was receiving visions from God.

Dionne said she does not know if Giguere is the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, but said she believes God communicates through the sect’s founder.

“She is doing only what God and Mary tells her to do,” Dionne said.

A spokesman for the Army of Mary called the excommunication of the nuns and the other members of the sect an injustice. Father Eric Roy said Giguere has not claimed to be the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, and said the 86-year-old Quebec woman “receives graces” from the Virgin Mary and God.

“The Virgin Mary took possession of her soul. I would rather say it that way,” said Roy, superior general of the Sons of Mary, an associated group.

I’ve got your soul, and I’m not giving it back!

Mary’s still trying to get partial custody of her kids.

Grandparents Dan and Diane Winkler contend Winkler is an unfit mother and the children have a better chance at a normal life* with them.

But Gold-Bikin said Winkler?s manslaughter conviction shows the jury believed her testimony about domestic abuse. Among other things, Winkler claimed she was forced to submit to sex acts she considered unnatural.

?Should we take these children away from a loving mother and give them to somebody who hates her?? Gold-Bikin said. ?Here is a little backwoods woman married to a very popular preacher and her entire self-worth has been undermined. She?s been made to parade around in high heels and no clothes, to do things she considers perverted. And she?s got nobody to talk to because nobody is going to believe her.?

No trial date is set on the termination petition.

*Dan Winkler is also a Church of Christ minister.

CHRIST’S RESTAURANT, 4253 E COMPTON BLVD, COMPTON

* Date Closed: June 27, 2007
* Date Reopened: July 17, 2007
* Reason for Closure:
Prevention of entrance and harborage of vermin
Vermin infestation

I know it’s wrong, but I really love to read the LA County Dept of Health’s list of restaurant closings, if only for the names alone.

My friend Elise over at LAist did this listing more justice. Even though I told her she could use my picture with a mouse popping out of my dinner, she took the high road.

Up in Santa Barbara, they’re evicting nuns:

“We’re just so hurt by this,” Escalera, the order’s local superior, said this week. “And what hurts the most is what the money will be used for, to help pay for the pedophile priests. We have to sacrifice our home for that?”

Guess how they found out?

She said she remained upset that the archdiocese had not contacted the nuns directly but had chosen instead to send a letter to the convent in Los Angeles, which then notified the Santa Barbara sisters. “We’re not even worth a phone call,” she said. “That’s one of the things that hurts so much.”