Author Ashley D. Turney

My HS Oklahoma History teacher has read all 3 of my historical fiction books so far. He's a big history buff and a man of very few words. His daughter-in-law told me he read each in less than two days and told her they were really good and recommended them to all the family.

This week California's governor moved to spare Richard Allen Davis, the man who kidnapped 12-year-old Polly Klaas from a slumber party and killed her. In 1996 Davis used his sentencing to read a statement to the court claiming she said this to him before she died: "Just don't do me like my dad." He said it was how he knew he had not attempted "any lewd act." Her father, Marc Klaas, was in the courtroom. He went for Davis and had to be restrained. Moments later the judge sentenced Davis to death: "You made it very easy today by your conduct." A courtroom camera recorded all of it. Polly was taken on October 1, 1993, in Petaluma. Davis walked into her bedroom with a knife, tied up her two friends and carried her out. That same night two deputies stopped him when his car got stuck on a rural driveway. Nobody had told them about the kidnapping, and they let him go. Two months later he led police to her body. He had been out of prison for four months. In the video below, Davis, 42, sits at the defense table, reading from a sheet of paper without looking up. He says the girl spoke to him as he walked her up an embankment. "Just don't do me like my dad." Shouting breaks out in the gallery. Marc Klaas goes toward Davis. Bailiffs grab him and walk him out. Over shots of Davis, Marc's voice from the podium: "When you get to where you're going, say hello to Hitler, say hello to Dahmer and say hello to Bundy." On November 5, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced he would commute all 548 death sentences in California to life without parole. For Davis, the state Supreme Court still has to sign off. Marc Klaas said a prosecutor once told him to "trust the system." "Today, 30 years later, I'm finding out that that's not the truth." Did Newsom spare a man the jury and judge said earned death, or end a sentence California has not carried out since 2006?

FR.

Despite all you hear about the Southern Baptist Convention being oppressive to women because we will not allow women to serve as pastors, Baptist women report being the happiest. Interesting!