By John Howell

Not that we’ve been dearth for local news from the bizarro world this spring — what with the whiskey still found in city limits and such — but Tupelo has lately been overblessed.

There were the two ricin guys, the one first picked up as a suspect in mailing letters containing the poisonous castor bean derivative to the President, the Senator and a Judge. He was well-known there as an Elvis Impersonator and had also been outed as a Mensa impersonator.
(Mensa, of course, is the high IQ society to which no one has ever suggested I should make application for membership.)

As it turned out, the first ricin guy — Kevin Curtis — had been accused of his false Mensa claim by J. Everett Dutschke, the second ricin guy who has now been charged with the toxic mailings.

And it appears that the Dutschke/Curtis rivalry ran so deep that Dutschke tried to impersonate Curtis in the letters  to throw the blame on him and was briefly successful.

And as the finger pointing shifted to Dutschke — ricin suspect number two — the story got curiouser and curiouser.

Dutschke had also recently pleaded not guilty to charges of having molested three under-age girls and had feuded with Curtis online about organ-harvesting, among other things.

And back during The 2007 elections, Dutschke had run against state representative Steve Holland where, in a political rally at Verona, he had said some mean things about Steve during a stump speech. Steve’s mama, Sadie Holland, herself a candidate for re-election as justice court judge, followed Dutschke at the speaking podium and so shamed him for his remarks that he apologized right then and there, according to those who attended.

Judge Holland was the recipient of one of the letters Dutschke is now charged with mailing.

And if the ricin letter episode had not been enough from the bizarro world, a short time before that some worthy Nimrod took his deer rifle and shot a 39-year-old circus elephant that was tethered and waiting to perform during the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus visit.