Scene and Heard: Scene's News Blog

• Maybe he used the missing funds for that nice tan of his.

Via the PD, Liptrap was indicted in June on charges of theft. Prosecutors say he pillaged the fund for himself for just over two years, yanking tens of thousands of dollars that he then used on golf and other personal joys on the taxpayers' dime.

The school contacted the auditor's office in September 2010 after noticing chunks of change missing from the athletic department's account. When thousands of dollars were traced to payments at Sweetbriar golf club in Avon, Liptrap said it was for the golf team to practice there. The golf team, of course, did not practice there.

And the dominoes began to fall, leading to his indictment and his admission that his part-time job while being principal was stealing from the school. His salary for his full-time job, incidentally, was $114,000 a year.

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Update: Former Fairview Principal Kevin Liptrap has apparently admitted to misusing the student activity funds, according to WOIO. Fairview Superintendent Brion Deitsch says around $50,000 was missing.

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• Google Images gave us this for haunted house, but we're not exactly sure what's going on here.

Update II: The last update on this story from back in October of last year had Cedar Point refusing to back down under pressure from the National Alliance on Mental Illness to change the names of two HalloWeekends attractions because they were insensitive. Well, skip ahead to August 2011 and Cedar Point has done just that. Two features — Dr. D. Mented’s Asylum for the Criminally Insane and The Edge of Madness: Still Crazy — will be renamed. Via WEWS, Cedar Fair CEO Dick Kinzel says the park acquiesced because it didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. No plans as of yet to rename the Magnum because some men still get coaster envy when visiting the park. — Grzegorek

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Update: Cedar Point announced today it won't bow down to the National Alliance on Mental Illness' concern over the park's attractions. The haunted houses don't represent reality, a park spokesman told the AP, and weren't meant to be insensitive or insulting.

Update III: The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office on Friday dropped the charges against Tom Ganley. According to WOIO, Assistant County Prosecutor Blaise Thomas said, "After further investigating the case of State v Ganley and consulting with the victim, this office made a determination to dismiss the case. This decision represents the desire of the victim not to go forward to trial. A motion was filed today with the court to enter a dismissal of the case without prejudice. (WOIO)

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Update II: 19 Action News is reporting a grand jury brought an indictment against Tom Ganley, charging him with gross sexual imposition and kidnapping after hearing the case. (WOIO)

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• Not father of the year.

Update II: Holt-Reid was sentenced to 13 years in prison. (AP)

Update: Dominic Holt-Reid will be sentenced today by a judge after pleading guilty to "attempted murder, weapons, and abduction counts," according to the AP. He faces 20 years in prison. (AP)

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A Columbus man has been arrested for some one-of-a-kind scumbaggery, according to police. 28-year-old Dominic Holt-Reid is accused to holding a gun to his pregnant girlfriend's head and forcing her to drive to an abortion clinic, according to the Dispatch.

Prosecutors tell the paper this is the first time they've ever seen anything like this.

• Here's a cute cat, because no one wants to see a picture of a staph infection.

Update: Caroline Slusher, who had been on the run since the MRSA incident in October, was arrested on March 30. She pleaded not guilty this morning to one count of theft and one count of robbery. (WOIO)

Some people use guns during robberies. Maybe knives, or a note of some sort, perhaps a threat of violence. Anything that will get the people around you to cooperate, give you what you want, and leave you alone long enough to get away.

But an infection? That's a new one.

A woman robbed a gas station on E. 152nd and used nothing more than an open sore on her arms and the threat of MRSA (a devastating, contagious, and antibiotic-resistant strain of staph infections) to put fear in employees and bystanders.

Eww.

One year ago the nation turned its eyes to a home on Imperial Avenue. By the end of the investigation at Anthony Sowell's house, 11 bodies would turn up.

Tonight, there's a rally and vigil in front of Cleveland's house of horrors to remember and honor the victims — the 11 women who died at the hands of the monstrous serial killer.

The Plain Dealer also published a remarkably detailed and sad look back at the case — from the first moments when cops and reporters arrived at what looked like a relatively normal crime scene, to when the full story of Sowell's heinous acts were uncovered. It's well worth your time. The first part is embedded below. The rest can be found here.

• Where can you order one of these babies?

Allen Allan — yes, that's his name — is a junior at North Olmsted.

When he saw two girls fighting in school recently, he did what any other curious, red-blooded male witnessing a catfight would do: he began filming it.

Allan then posted the video to Facebook, which is where his trouble with his school began.