Merry Christmas!

Greenspan's Body Count: Mildred "Dodie" Harrington

This century's most prolific serial killer may have slowed down in his old age, but he still manages a killing on occasion.

Today's episode of Greenspan's Body Count is the sad tale of an old woman alleged murdered for money by her own grandson:

A Texas man accused of murdering his grandmother in her East Dundee home for a share of her inheritance was nearly $162,000 behind on his mortgage and had charged at least $27,100 on her credit card in cash advances in the six months before her death, witnesses testified Friday.

Richard Schmelzer, 44, of Frisco, a Dallas suburb, is charged with fatally stabbing Mildred "Dodie" Darrington in her bed in July 2014.

[...]

Schmelzer was $161,715.92 behind on the mortgage when Darrington, 85, was killed. Schmelzer and his wife took out the loan in February 2007 and were in arrears within 18 months, McCarty testified.

Greenspan's Body Count stands at 256.

Low-information letters to the editor

Joshua Lazerson in The Coast News:

An open letter to Darrell Issa

I have lived in Encinitas for the past 23 years, so you have served as my representative in Congress for the whole of your Congressional career.

Nonetheless, this will be the first time that I have communicated with you, and I am doing so based on the expectation that you will emerge the victor in this season’s congressional district contest.

Issa has been in Congress for 16 years, and has had an extremely high national profile as the Chairman of the frequently news-making House Oversight Committee from 2011 to 2015. But he has only represented Joshua Lazerson's Encinitas since 2013 after district realignment in 2012. Lazerson must have been spending much of that time in Encinitas living under a rock.

But I'm sure the rest of Lazerson's 1700-word lecture on everything from global warming to single-payer healthcare to racial reparations is really insightful.