Watertown man sentenced to burn at the stake for selling fake smartphones.
27 July 2014
Dissociated Press
Derek Shepherd, the Watertown man recently arrested for selling fake smartphones, learned his rather surprising fate at the Coddling County Courthouse on Friday, July 18. He was sentenced to burn at the stake. When the verdict was announced, bedlam ensued as protesters rushed the courthouse, signs in hand and chants on their lips.
Oddly, none of the protests were aimed at the harshness of the sentence. Rather, the demonstrators were split into factions based on the particular aspect of the sentence they objected to. For example, Stephanie Swann’s group wants to ensure that a “material other than a beautiful tree” be used to support Shepherd as he burns to death. Another group headed by Angela Ferlito argues that the “pollution spewed into the air by that monster’s burning corpse will not only endanger the planet but our very immortal souls. He needs to die by a solar powered electric chair. It is the only clean way!” Ferlito insists. Finally, Owen Matthew represents his funeral home. “I’m not saying this sentence needs to be carried out in my crematorium, (though it is the only one in a forty mile radius). I feel that in this age of political correctness and tender sensibilities, an execution that leaves a charred body in public view is not the way to go. A bit of time in my oven, and you get a discreet pile of remains. Do it my way, and we can sweep this whole matter under the rug. So to speak.”
No one familiar with Shepherd’s case is surprised at this latest bizarre turn. Coddling County Sheriff Brad Hedges says this case has been “a humdinger from the start. It didn’t help him any that Mr. Shepherd is the only man in this state who was never consumed by the overwhelming need to tip a cow over. That is so jacked up, I cannot even tell you. I mean, how deep does his madness go? Burning might be too brutal a way to do it, but there is no doubt in my mind that he has to die.” Hedges rubs at his hands as if washing Shepherd’s “affliction” away. “Just to be safe, of course,” the sheriff adds.
Derek Shepherd first became a blip on law enforcement’s radar after a number of complaints were filed with the State Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division. The complainant in each instance claimed that they had responded to a classified ad in their local paper offering ten dollar smartphones optimized for TV style viewing. Within a week of submitting payment, a package arrived with a note inside that explained the apparent absence of the phone: “If you watch TV on a smartphone, you get a smart TV. But a TV is an idiot box, so you have a smart idiot box. Smart and idiot cancel, so you just have a box. Like the one this note came in! Enjoy! Signed, Arndt U. A’Suker.”
If prosecuting such a brazen act of deception seems like a slamdunk, the reality is quite different, according to Coddling County State’s Attorney Clark Ryan. “Technically, no laws were broken,” Ryan says. “The ads claimed the object for sale was a smartphone optimized for TV viewing and the explanation given in the note is logically sound and mathematically precise. We use the exact same logic to prove that criminals are guilty, and it disturbed me greatly to see a con artist use our technique to scam people whose only flaw was trying to get a good deal on a smartphone for their children. Our poor kids.” Ryan pauses. “Our children don’t know the dangers of texting and driving and we can’t get federal grant money to help educate them until the number of traffic accidents caused by texting and driving reaches the national average. If each of those phones that bastard Shepherd promised had been real, we probably would have exceeded the average by now! That, that...monster! took more from us than just ten dollars here and there. He denied us the chance to protect our poor children! And I couldn’t do anything about it because he beat me at my own game. His logic was unimpeachable, as I said. Fortunately, where the law’s competence ends, the suspicious, pseudo-religious backward thinking of rural Midwestern hayseeds begins. It was time to turn Shepherd’s case over to mob rule.”
Shepherd was tried at the Coddling County Courthouse, but not by a judge and jury, at least not in the traditional sense. The trial was overseen by Lester Matthew, firewood dealer, local pastor and brother of funeral home director Owen Matthew. The jury consisted entirely of the congregation of Matthew’s church, The Fellowship of Tender Mercifulness. The locals were confident that the jury was sufficiently diverse, despite the fact that they were all members of the same congregation. The locals were equally confident when it was pointed out that every member of the congregation was either one of the pastor’s wives, one of his children or his brother. Doesn’t the nature of the relationships between the judge and jurors raise a strong possibility that the evidence won’t be weighed fairly? “What do they need with evidence?” local high school teacher Dixie LaRue huffs. “They know as well as we do that (Shepherd) done it. Hell, the only thing they do at the trial is decide which brother the county pays to dispose of the body. Not that they ever agree, mind you. Every trial, one or the other of ‘em is out protesting with Professor Ferlito and that tree-hugging nutjob.”
Fortunately for Derek Shepherd, the governor’s call came as Lester Matthew was about to put the torch to a stack of “his finest,” as he affectionately refers to the firewood he chose for Shepherd’s execution. Governor Antonio Ferlito’s call was a mixed blessing for Shepherd, however; his sentence was commuted---sort of--- from burning at the stake to death by solar powered electric chair, a new technology developed by Professor Angela Ferlito of Blue Mountain State University.
“I started out doing the mundane solar research, heating houses, that kind of thing,” Ferlito says. “Then a couple years ago I was tutoring my younger sisters in AP arithmetic and they told me that there were more and more weirdos moving into town all the time, and they wouldn’t get with the program, no matter how much they were made fun of and ostracized. I know from my one semester of psychology that those kids are going to become dysfunctional and have to be disposed of in some way. I wasn’t getting anywhere trying to convince people that larger windows will take care of their heating needs--no, I don’t know anything about “solar cells” but they sound different and are therefore the work of Satan--and I realized that solar powered execution equipment was an untapped area. That surprised me, considering how quickly this region seems to create dysfunctional, homicidal, suicidal school shooting weirdos. Solar powered electric chairs are definitely the future of state mandated death and I am proud to be making a difference here.”
State’s Attorney Clark Ryan doesn’t share Ferlito’s enthusiasm. Not that he thinks the technology will fail. He believes that Shepherd won’t live to see his execution date. “We do it medieval old school here,” Ryan says. “Prisoners have to buy their own food, and the only money Shepherd had on his person at the time of his arrest was the money he bilked from the good people of this state. That money is evidence, so he can’t buy food with it. He will starve to death long before Professor Ferlito works the kinks out of her new fangled sun powered death chair. Now, if you will excuse me, several new families have moved into the area, doubtless searching for the wholesome neighborly-ness you can’t get in the city. Our rambunctious youngsters will take their new classmates out into the fields to tip over a few cows and rape a few goats---hazing the new arrivals is a time honored tradition we are proud to uphold!--and I want to make sure the public health nurse has instructed them on contraceptive measures they can pass on to their new victims...er… friends. We will have no half-goat children. Not in this town, no sir. We tolerate no abominations here.”
Dissociated Press reporter Taliesin wrote this story far from his home state, lest his neighbors see him using his computer for something other than viewing photos of good ole’ fashioned cow tippings. He remained free of goat transmitted venereal diseases by practicing abstinence. So he was bullied a lot.