Friday, July 24, 2009

Ooh La La!




In praise of Boogers:
Joyce McKinney was a former Miss Wyoming who was arrested in England in 1978 for allegedly kidnapping and tying Mormon missionary Kirk Anderson to a bed and forcing him to have sex with her. In August 2008, it was reported that Joyce McKinney is the same person as Bernann McKinney, the woman who claimed to have had her dog, "Booger," cloned in South Korea.
Her dog Booger. So sweet.

And from here:
Joyce Bernann McKinney was charged in Carter County with criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and failure to appear in court, said attorney David Crockett, who represented her in the Tennessee case. Authorities there said she instructed a 15-year-old boy to break into a house, and Crockett said she needed the money to buy a false leg for a beloved horse. (emphasis added)
Where to these people come from? Oh, I forgot. Wyoming. Home of Dick Cheney.

4 comments:

Julie Heyward said...

Yeah, but she used "mink-trimmed handcuffs" on the Mormon fellow. Give her points for style. More (from here):


"After fleeing Britain in 1978, Miss McKinney spent five weeks in hiding then resurfaced at the Hilton Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, dressed as a nun. In the 1980s, she was arrested near Salt Lake City airport, where Mr Anderson worked, for allegedly harassing him. A rope and handcuffs were in her car."

So, she was a girl scout...

I can see why Ray Girvan found her so interesting.

Ray Girvan said...

It's hard to convey how sensational the story was in 1977; it was the probably the first time what we'd now call tabloid news was given large, and well-illustrated, coverage in the more staid newspapers.

She's certainly a gift to headline writers. "Dog cloner Joyce McKinney sought over burglary to fund horse's wooden leg". I didn't know they made equine false legs (the standard tale is that horse + damaged leg = finito) but I imagine there's a steady trade for equipping donkeys that have been talked at too much.

Dr. C said...

Veterinary medicine is an interesting field. I've only had one personal encounter when I took a new dog my friend had given me to the vet because she seemed depressed. Indeed, she was depressed. So, rather than pay the exorbitant fees for a canine shrink, I gave her away.

Another friend of mine is involved with a company that produces pig bladder endodermal matrix (Acell). While obvious applications include wound healing (the matrix acts as an inert basement membrane and stem cells from surrounding tissue migrate and proliferate on the matrix) it also may be able to serve as a scaffold to regenerate structures (e.g. heart valve leaflets). For reasons that I don't understand, there has been little research in the plastic surgery community (human) on this. There is substantial work in the veterinary fields and maybe, in the future, it will be horse + damaged leg = non finito.

Ray Girvan said...

pig bladder endodermal matrix

That rang a bell. Bad Science mentioned the press coverage last year of its use on a damaged finger. The papers seemed to be embroidering the story; every time it was retold, the amount of lost finger differed.