The saddest story of the day

It’s slow. I’m sure there will be more lit stuff tomorrow, but for whatever reason — my brain is mush, the Paris Hilton hacking story is so incredibly over, you name it — I seem to be seeking out more crime stuff today, like this story of the mother and son murdered in Texas a few days ago:

DALLAS, Texas (CNN) — A Texas man arrested for the slayings of a pregnant woman and her 7-year-old son told police he suffocated Lisa and Jayden Underwood in their home, police said Tuesday.

Stephen Dale Barbee, 37, was arrested early Tuesday in Tyler, about 130 miles east of Fort Worth, and then transferred to Fort Worth, said Lt. Gene Jones, a Fort Worth police spokesman.

Jones later confirmed to reporters that Barbee confessed to the killings and led police to a makeshift, shallow grave where two bodies were found.

Jones said that the bodies could not yet be positively identified, but that their ages were consistent with those of Lisa Underwood, 34, and her son.

Horrible, no question, and since this is Texas, it’s a fairly good bet that the death penalty will be strictly enforced so long as Barbee doesn’t plead out. But here’s the big inconsistency:

Barbee, who police said earned a living clearing trees, said there was blood throughout the living room.

"During this fight Barbee held Underwood on the floor where she was suffocated and died," Gallaway said. When her son entered the room screaming, Barbee placed his hand over the child’s mouth and nose and suffocated him, the detective said.

He said the police officers who went to the empty Underwood home Saturday night found "a large amount of blood in the living room on the carpet, furniture and walls.

"The amount of blood inside the residence was indicative of a person or persons suffering serious bodily injury," the affidavit says.

So…noses bleed that much? Since when?

In related news, I made the mistake of turning on the TV as I exercised last night and there was Nancy Grace on her new show on CNN Headline News. Somehow, I had managed to miss the woman’s charms, and now I wish I could have kept my purity intact. Especially as she had a habit of baiting her guests and milking this story for all it was worth, especially by having the kid’s grandfather on at the same time. Yikes.