In Norway, a man who murdered 77 people — who was sentenced to only 21 years — is seeking release after 10 years in prison.

You may remember Anders Behring Breivik, who hunted down children at a Labor Party summer camp. The sentence was 21 years because that was the maximum permitted, though the judge was able to add a provision for "preventive detention," based on his future danger to society. But, technically, he's eligible for parole, and he's taking advantage of this access back into the public eye.

WaPo reports that it is "unlikely that he will ever be released." His presentation to the court reflects an awareness of that: His lawyer says he's "not expected to show remorse," and he's having a "neo-Nazi leader" testifying for him. And if he sticks to his past courtroom behavior — as seen in his litigation over his prison conditions ("isolation in a three-room cell — equipped with video games, a DVD player, a typewriter, books, newspapers and exercise equipment") — he'll give a Nazi salute.

"Mr. Sirhan’s assassination of Senator Kennedy is among the most notorious crimes in American history."

"After decades in prison, he has failed to address the deficiencies that led him to assassinate Senator Kennedy. Mr. Sirhan lacks the insight that would prevent him from making the same types of dangerous decisions he made in the past." 

Said Gavin Newsom, quoted in "Gov. Gavin Newsom rejects parole for Sirhan Sirhan, convicted of killing Robert F. Kennedy" (L.A. Times).

The fork as a weapon.

In the previous post, discussing a WaPo article about various characters in the January 6th incident at the U.S. Capitol, we encountered a man named Pete Harding, who "said that the only weapon he carried was a dinner fork, which he put in his pocket." He said — humorously, I think — "Fortunately, I didn’t have to wield the kitchen fork menacingly."

So I want to look into the topic of the fork as a weapon. When I was a college student and went through a phase of thinking I might take a course in "creative" writing, I considered writing a story about a perfectly friendly dinner between 2 characters that somehow escalated into a murder scene, with the fork as the weapon. Why not the knife?! The knife isn't interesting. The fork would be interesting, no?

Interesting — but way too much work! Too much work to write the description. And, of course, too much work to commit murder with a fork. But it would be a gruesome scene. It's for someone else to scribble out details like that. Like Harding's fork, my fork story remained in my pocket, unbrandished. 

But is a fork a plausible weapon? There's something called a military fork:

But we're talking about the table utensil of our time. 

I see that using a fork to fight is common enough in popular culture to have a page to itself at TV Tropes: 

[I]f chaos breaks out at the dinner table, a diner may have to get creative with what they have on hand, turning their utensils into an Improvised Weapon. Normally played for laughs (especially if there's Sword Sparks), but if the chips are down, things can get pretty ugly: this can lead to sickeningly devastating effect in the hands of someone skilled/determined enough.... Subtrope of Improvised Weapon. Compare Frying Pan of Doom....

That sounds funny, but remember that an improvised weapon — a fire extinguisher — was [allegedly] used at the Capitol and it killed a police officer. 

"Simon told police that he was walking his dog with his girlfriend in the 3000 block of North Fox Street when he told the dog to poop."

"He then heard a voice from a ground-level apartment yelling at them and asking if they were going to train the dog or just yell at it, according to the probable cause statement. Simon said he tried to ignore the yelling but then saw the man point a gun at him."

From "Suspect in homicide near Coors Field opened fire because of dispute over dog poop, police say/Michael Close, 36, accused of firing on victims from his apartment while they were walking their dog" (Denver Post).

"Bedeviled for over 34 years by the mysterious killing of Olof Palme, the Swedish prime minister who was shot in the back by an unknown assailant on a quiet Stockholm street..."

"... Sweden’s judiciary finally made its case on Wednesday. At a news conference in Stockholm, the prosecutor Krister Petersson said that there was 'reasonable evidence'that the assailant was Stig Engstrom, a graphic designer at an insurance company, who killed himself in 2000, at the age of 66....It was hardly a surprise, however, as the Swedish case was widely considered solved in 2018 by a freelance journalist, Thomas Pettersson, whose reporting led to Mr. Engstrom.... There has been widespread criticism about the way the Swedish judiciary and the police have handled the case over the past decades. The mystery endured through six investigations and three commissions over the years, but Mr. Engstrom eluded suspicion though he had presented himself to the police as a witness to the killing.... At the time of the killing, investigators were focused on the suspected complicity of Kurdish militants, and Mr. Engstrom was not taken seriously, according to Mr. Pettersson.... 'He has the right timing, the right clothing; he has unique information, he lied, he had close access to guns of the right type,' Mr. Pettersson said. 'He was right-wing and Palme unfriendly,” he added. “He had a deep political interest and a deep anti-Palme sentiment.'"

The NYT reports.

You'll have to take my word that this was my theory all along.

I didn't want to cast aspersions on a particular individual on this blog, so I never wrote it on the internet, but I said it out loud around the house. This was always my theory: "Woman Who Blamed Trump after Giving Her Husband Fish-Tank Cleaner Now Under Investigation for Murder" (National Review).

"Lee Boyd Malvo, half of a two-man sniper team which terrorized the Washington region and killed 10 people in October 2002, was married in a ceremony at Red Onion State Prison..."

"... in Virginia this month.... Malvo, who was 17 when he committed the crimes, was arrested with John Allen Muhammad, and ultimately convicted of two murders in Virginia and six murders in Maryland. He was given life sentences without parole in all eight cases. Virginia recently changed its rules to consider parole for juvenile offenders after they have served 20 years, but if Malvo, now 35, were paroled from Virginia, he would then have to begin serving his Maryland sentences. Carmeta Albarus, who helped Malvo’s defense team in 2003 break the psychological grip Muhammad had exerted over the teenager, said Tuesday that she was a witness to the marriage. 'I was honored to be there,' Albarus said. 'It was a beautiful occasion, given the circumstances of where it took place... She’s an absolutely wonderful individual.... I believe the institution was very accommodating'...."

WaPo reports.