Ridin' the Storm Out
No matter how lovely Jan. 22's storm may have been, it sure wasn't enough to keep some people from being nasty to one another. The snow may have cooled the blood in general, but still, with all those folks trapped inside together, a little mayhem seemed inevitable.
According to his family, Avinash Rookhum was a straightlaced accountant. But he was still human, and on Jan. 22 his manly urgings were so overpowering that even a Hell Storm wasn't enough to keep him inside. He followed his wing-wang out into the blizzard and hired himself a hooker named Qwanyel Cullins, promising her $300 for her services.
The pair checked into the lovely Ozone Park Econo Lodge, and soon thereafter things got ugly. According to Ms. Cullins, Rookhum got too rough with her, so she was forced to punch him.
Then she stabbed him a few times with one of those "courtesy knives" the hotel provides all of its guests.
With Rookhum dead, Ms. Cullins went through his pants, grabbing his keys, wallet and cellphone before fleeing. Outside, she dumped the Japanese-style knife and the wallet, but cops soon tracked her down and charged her with murder.
In the end, the joke was on Cullins-Rookhum was only carrying $40, according to the Daily News.
Two Staten Island women got into a domestic argument Monday, and apparently took turns weakly swinging a baseball bat at each other. According to the Post, Anthza Bain, 38, told police that her roommate, Kimberly Bailey, 39, struck her in the wrist with the bat, which left her bruised but still able to swing the bat herself. She then whacked Bailey in the face, splitting her lip. Both are facing "sort-of assault" and weapons charges.
A man wandered into the emergency room of a Queens hospital on Jan. 24th. After waiting patiently for a bit to be seen by someone, he popped into the bathroom. Then he died, the Post said. No one knows why.
The thing about murder-suicides is that more often than not, the "murder" part tends to go much better than the "suicide" part. Make of that what you will.
The latest textbook example occurred in Queens on Jan. 25, when a 40-year-old man, after getting into a spat with his 29-year-old girlfriend, stabbed her several times. Seeing that she was plenty dead, he turned the knife on himself. But when push came to shove, all he could muster the courage for were a few little scratches and gouges. Police arrived on the scene and brought him to the hospital, where he'll recover quite nicely.
Nicole duFresne, a 28-year-old actress and playwright, learned the hard way early Thursday morning that you should never, ever ask a mugger holding a gun, "What are you gonna do, shoot us?"
Police are also searching for a very angry, very confused Columbia student (we'd guess a freshman) who just discovered the Dead Kennedys. On Jan. 24, according to the Post, a student freshening up in a Lerner Hall bathroom noticed that someone had scrawled angry graffiti on the walls. Police report that whoever's responsible for the message has a problem with whites, Jews, Asians and, um, Nazi Punks.