If ever there was a headline that made you look at an article, the one appended to this post is probably it. This story has it all. Sex, sizzle, alleged nefariousness and a pinup girl pinned down by a tragic mishap. Oh, and we can’t forget the 285-pound corpse falling from the sky.
Ok, it didn’t fall from the sky, but rather the rafters of a barn. Perhaps I should explain.
A former police chief of a small town in Washington State is facing charges of workers’ compensation fraud. L&I investigators say she has been untruthful about her inability to work. While serving as the police chief for Coulee City, she was called to the scene of an apparent suicide. A 285-pound man (who apparently was a suspected domestic violence suspect, although I am not sure why that is relevant to the story. Oh well, we’ll MAKE it relevant) had hanged himself in a barn. When she attempted to remove the man from the rafters, he fell on her. Washington State Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) reports she suffered back, shoulder and abdominal injuries.
The 47-year-old woman also claimed to suffer severe psychological trauma that prevented her from working or being around other people. She began seeing a psychologist, telling him she was having nightmares and was unable to leave the house. The psychologist determined she was suffering from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
I suppose that is what psychologists do.
An L&I investigation found a discrepancy in that claim, as they say while telling the state she could not work due to her on-the-job injuries, she was working and volunteering in the world of pinup models. She currently faces two charges of making false or misleading statements to collect more than $67,000 in workers’ compensation benefits
The L&I investigation discovered that during the period she could not work she was “photographing pinup models, organizing pinup pageants and fundraisers, and was often photographed herself.” Additionally, “she posted on social media in 2015 that she appeared as a model and photographer in 52 publications, including three magazine covers and three calendars, according to charging documents.”
She also allegedly setup her own modeling, event and photography business that she licensed with the state Department of Revenue during the period in question.
There are some lessons we can learn from this. First, never stand under a 285-pound corpse when you are cutting the rope that holds it to the ceiling above you. Better to stand aside and let the chips fall where they may (my apology to the man’s family of his nickname happened to be “Chips”). If you cannot stand aside and let gravity do its thing in good conscience, you should probably wait until someone can help you. Second, if you do get crushed by a now deceased domestic violence suspect, and you claim you can no longer work due to the physical and mental trauma, you best not engage in the very public world of calendar pin ups. That is not a vocation that exactly flies under the radar. I mean, people literally hang your picture on the wall. The third and final lesson is that domestic violence suspects can continue to perpetrate injury and harm even after they have shuffled off this mortal coil. This guy took one last stand and lashed out at the man, even though in this case “the man” was a woman. A woman who worked as a pinup model ironically pinned down by a mishap on the job.
And one who, it appears, will continue to get an education in the finer nuances of law enforcement investigation and prosecution. There is a bright side to this tale, however. In the event the woman is convicted of fraud, she’ll have plenty of calendars to hang in her cell with which to count the days until the end of her sentence.