The Beat January 2003

From the I-can-like-totally-relate Department:

BANDERA, Texas, Dec. 5 – A jury sentenced Steven Brasher, 42, to life in prison for killing Willie Lawson, 39, a longtime friend he accused of drinking the last beer in the refrigerator.

Testimony showed that Brasher shot Lawson in the head after the two argued about the missing beer. In a taped statement played during the trial, Brasher said, “There was only two beers left, and I told Willie not to take my last beer.”

From the I-need-this-like-I-need-a-hole-in-the-head Department:

HOLLYWOOD, Fla., Dec. 27 - A member of a sect that believes life on Earth was created by extraterrestrials claimed Friday to have produced the world's first human clone, a baby girl.

The 7-pound baby was born Thursday by Caesarean section, said Brigitte Boisselier, a chemist and head of Clonaid, the company that did the experiment.

Clonaid was founded in the Bahamas in 1997 by Claude Vorilhon, a former French journalist and leader of a group called the Raelians. Vorilhon and his followers claim aliens visiting him in the 1970s revealed they had created all life on Earth through genetic engineering.

Boisselier, who claims two chemistry degrees, identifies herself as a Raelian "bishop" and said Clonaid retains philosophical but not economic links to the Raelians. She is not a specialist in reproductive medicine.

From the Way-more-than-one-sucker-born-every-minute Department:

Los Angeles, Dec. 20 – Ray Wallace, the man who owned the construction company in California where the tracks that sparked the Bigfoot frenzy were found, died three weeks ago. His family has now admitted that he made the tracks himself from wood carvings, and would let his workers “discover” them later.

Wallace kicked off a cottage industry of Bigfoot sightings, recording fake Bigfoot calls, faking photos, and staging films in which, his wife also admitted, she was sometimes dressed up as the creature.