I'm a big fan of Chuck Shepard's News of the Weird, which local alt paper Free Times runs every week. The news items he publishes are usually weird, sometimes outrageous, and almost always funny. But there's one recurring feature that can't be described as anything but bizarre:
Murders with the middle name "Wayne".
Probably the most famous, or infamous, murderer who falls in this category is John Wayne Gacy, also known as "The Killer Clown". From 1996 to 2008, Shepard compiled a list of 224 people charged with murder who shared this middle name. Although the list hasn't been updated in quite a while, he continues to compile articles on the subject.
Surprisingly, only 11 of them have the first name John, and that was only good enough for 2nd place on the list. The most common? Michael, with 19 appearances. David (10), Timothy (8), and Robert (7) round out the top five.
Heck, you can use Google to find a handful more in the news, including this one from a couple of weeks ago.
I wonder if Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt ever tackled this in their "Freakonomics" studies. Does having this middle name "Wayne" make you more likely to stab, shoot, dismember, beat, pour acid on, set afire, or use a steamroller on other people?
Just to be on the safe side, there's no way in hell I'm giving any child of mine the middle name of Wayne.
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