For its Halloween gala, the Kings Island amusement park near Cincinnati had set up an exhibit featuring skeletons dressed to resemble, among other deceased celebrities, Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ted Kennedy, Ed McMahon, TV salesman Billy Mays, Sonny Bono (his skeleton in front of a tree) and Ted Williams (his skeleton in front of a freezer). Alongside was a marker board labeled "agenda," with those names crossed off but others still listed, including Bernard Madoff and the comedian Carrot Top. (Following a WLWT-TV preview of the exhibit in September, the park quickly canceled it, with a spokesman declaring, "We were not intending to be distasteful.")
Robert and Roberta Masters of Prior Lake, Minn., were arrested in October and charged in connection with a series of mailbox explosions over the summer, which police say were carried out by seven teenagers who had been supplied by the couple. Police said Robert Masters bought black powder for the kids and had said it "would be a good educational tool for the kids to build pipe bombs." Roberta Masters allegedly encouraged the teens to learn on the Internet how to make pipe bombs because it would be "constructive" (but she said she had told them to be careful).
