Scrivener.net

Smart criminals of the week

A fine an example of how intelligence of a certain sort runs in families, noted for us by Roland Patrick...

Nicholas Coan, 28, was shot Friday night by his 27-year-old girlfriend during the latest of the couple's many arguments, police and witnesses said. The girlfriend was apparently angry that Coan had brought home a .40-caliber pistol and hadn't told her where he had been.

So, police said, Coan cocked the pistol and handed it to her. She took it and fired ...

Coan "looked at me and said, 'I can't believe she shot me,' " said Coan's roommate, Mathew Mitchell...

And what's Mom been up to?

Meanwhile, Coan's mother, Elizabeth Coan, 45, was arrested Sunday in a separate case and charged yesterday with solicitation of first-degree murder, solicitation of first-degree assault and solicitation of malicious placement of an explosive. She was also charged with two counts of solicitation of witness tampering, a gross misdemeanor.

According to King County prosecutors, Elizabeth Coan had asked Nicholas Coan to arrange the killing or intimidation of five witnesses in her pending identity-theft case... But Nicholas Coan, working with police, recorded several conversations with his mother ... [Seattle Times]

Hey, if you can't trust your own loving, sterling-character, flesh-and-blood son not to rat you out to the police on a murder-for-hire deal, who can you trust?