The Incredible Shrinking Hogzilla II Is a Pet Pig

Is Hogzilla II a hoax, a tall tale gone out of control, or simple wishful thinking?
To see a larger version of the top two pictures >> Click Here

The folks at NBC News in Oxford, Alabama put up a slide show of what the Stone family says is the skull of their "giant hog."

The last photo in the series shows young Jamison Stone holding the giant pig skull. By clipping that picture and pasting it on another photo of Jamison (wearing the same shirt) that can be found earlier in the series, we can get some sense of scale for the skull.

By comparing the much-circulated picture of Jamison and the "giant hog" with a picture of Jamison holding the hog's skull, we can get some idea of how much "forced perspective" was at work in the original hog photo widely circulated on the internet. The folks at StinkyJournalism.com are clearly right -- this is some type of photographic hoax.

One way to look at the photo is to simply move the pig skull from the right photo to the left and then move it up close to the top of the pig's head (since no animal has very much flesh over the top of its cranium due to the need to cool off the brain quickly when overheated). The gap below the bottom of the jaw bone and the bottom of the photo of the pig's head gives some some idea of the degree of artifice in the photograph.

Photo shows real skull of hog properly sized (facing forward) next to pig.
The pig looks so large because the boy is standing many feet
behind the pig -- a type of photographic forced perspective.

Bottom line: This was a big hog, but it was no bigger than any really large farm pig of the type commonly made available (for a price) at other canned hunts. And let's note, once again, that this WAS a canned hunt. The pig, it turns out, was penned in a 150-acre fenced enclosure and it had been trucked in from somewhere else in the not-too-distant past.

Quote of Note from The Los Angeles Times:

Eddy Borden, owner of the spread where the hunt occurred, declined to comment on how the hog got into the 150-acre area where it was killed by Jamison Stone of Pickensville, Ala.

Borden said he was getting tired of questions about the hog, which Jamison's father said weighed 1,051 pounds and measured 9 feet, 4 inches from the tip of its snout to the base of its tail. The kill drew international attention.

"I didn't ask for the publicity. I just want it to all go away," said Borden, whose Lost Creek Plantation is in eastern Alabama.

Woops! A public relations stunt gone bad. Ouch. One thing is for sure: Mr. Borden knows how much he paid for that hog, and that price was based on weight, and there is probably a receipt of sale somewhere. Another thing for sure: that hog was not in that 150-acre pen for very long, as a big hog can wreck a lot of ground pretty quickly. This hog was taken out of this kill pen dead at about the weight he was put in alive.

Hogzilla Update:
OK, it's all over. This was a pet pig, and a hat tip to the always-readable J.R. Absher over at the Outdoor Life Newshound blog who has the full story gleaned from the Anniston Star, the local Alabama newspaper. The long and short of it is that "Fred" was a pet pig and a gentle swine that played with the previous owner's grandchildren. I hate it when I'm right. Honestly, it's a burden.

• For those who are interested in reading about the limits of ethical hunting (and why this kind of "Hogzilla" nonsense is very bad for real hunting, see a blog post from last year entitled (all too appropriately) : "Hunting and Fishing Like Adults."

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Hogzilla II: Terrific Hunting Story or Sad Artifice?

The "pig in a poke" story that is circulating on the internet is that on May 3, 2007, an 11-year old boy by the name of Jamison Stone killed an 1,051 lb. wild feral hog. The pig was supposedly over 10' 7" long and was shot with a .50 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver shooting 350 grain bullets. Killing the hog, we are told, took 3 hours and 8 bullets.

A lot of skepticism was expressed right from the beginning. First of all, the pictures were clearly staged to make the pig look as large as possible -- a common trick done by all hunters and anglers.

Adding fuel to the fire, it turns out no one in authority was actually there when the pig was weighed. You would think that would be required if you were claiming a world record feral hog. Yet, it seems no one thought of that. Hmmm. . . .

Another oddity to the story is that the scale to which the pig was hitched does not actually weigh things by the pound -- it is marked off in 10-pound increments. A weight of 1,051 pounds was technically not possible. The boy's father now says the pig was over 1,050 pounds, and they assumed the little mark above that was for 1 pound. He now says the pig must have weighed 1,060 pounds. OK, but in truth this man aparently had no idea how that scale worked, and neither did anyone else at the weigh-in with him.

That's not a small problem.

Another wrinkle in the story is the gun itself. Who the hell gives a .50 caliber handgun to an 11-year old kid? And does anyone think an 11-year old boy is going to be able to fire off 8 rounds from a .50 caliber and still have a wrist that can work? It might be true, but one wonders . . . .

Here's the most interesting bit: this pig was shot at a pay-to-shoot game farm. If you look at the price list at the entirely fenced Lost Creek Plantation, you find that large boars are priced at $2 a pound on the hoof, while commercially-sold farm hogs are normally sold for about $50 per cwt (i.e. per 100 pounds of pig on the hoof). That means this pig cost about $500 to buy (assuming no major premium was paid for its size) and could be sold for over $2,000 at a canned hunt. So there's the business math for you business majors.

But wait, there's more. Lost Creek Plantation was opened up just one-year ago. Hmmm . . . . Yep, I'm thinking the same thing too. This is a simple artifice. What we might call a "stock and shoot public relations" stunt.

Here's how you do it: Go out and get the biggest dam pig (or deer or elk) you can from a commercial breeder of such things. Raise it up in a pen a little bit more (and maybe feed it steroids), and then release into "the wild" of a large fenced compound. Get the animal used to coming to a scatter-feed bucket so you can be sure where it will be at least twice a day.

A few months after you have placed the pig in the wild, get the animal killed in the most sensationalistic way possible. A kid with a .50 caliber handgun would be great. So too would be a woman archer, or a guy with nothing but a spear and a dog. Ooga-Ooga. The Walter Mitty crowd will go ape-shit on this story, and bingo: Instant clients for your canned-hunt franchise.

Want to bet that this is exactly what happened? There's a reason this pig was not frozen or properly weighed -- it would put a crimp in the story. An examination of the ears and the hide might reveal the absence of the type of rips and gashes you would expect to find on a feral hog that had fought its way to the top in the woods among other wild pigs. An examination of the skull might reveal this "feral hog" to be nothing more than a domestic pig of the type to be found in any slaughter house. A look at the hooves might tell you if this pig once spent a lot of time on concrete. A look at the tusks and teeth might tell you how much of its food came out of the forest, and how much came out of a bucket.

So was this pig over 1,000 pounds? Who knows, and more importantly who cares?

The largest pig ever raised was not 1,000 pounds, but a 2,552 pound China Poland monster by the name of "Big Bill." A 1,000 pound pig is a very big pig, but it's not a world record by any stretch.

Bottom line: What you have here is a very nice "pig-in-a-poke" story concocted by a brand new "pay-to-shoot" game farm that (surprise, surprise) managed to get an 11-year old kid to shoot the stocked animal.

Did the kid shoot the pig all by himself? Maybe. But again, who cares? This not a "wild" pig, and this was not hunting.

As for the hog's size, no one will ever know as the photos are designed to obscure the truth, and the pig was never properly measured.

Was it a very big pig? For sure. But if you have the money, you can shoot a pig just as big or even bigger, and you can even call it "Hogzilla III" if you want -- just put your money down, and try to forget that that giant animal now running between the fences was called "Rosie" just 6 months ago and was trained to come to a slop bucket.
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Hogzilla II Update #1:
It seems that Alabama Fish and Game officials have a few questions about that monster pig as well. They want to know how this huge hog miraculously got into a 150-acre fenced pay-to-shoot hunting place (of all the places for a giant pig to show up on its own), and whether anyone broke Alabama state law prohibiting the transportation and release of live feral swine. They also want to know if the hunt complied with the state's "fair chase" law which requires that animals on hunting plantations have a reasonable chance of escape. I'm sure some interesting stuff is going to reveal itself. So far we've learned this pig was in a 150-acre pen. Hmmm. . . .

Hogzilla Update #2:
It looks like Hogzilla was not that large. See my analysis based on the pictures of the skull and photos of Jamison Stone holding the same.

Hogzilla Update #3:

OK, it's all over. This was a pet pig, and a hat tip to the always-readable J.R. Absher over at the Outdoor Life Newshound blog who has the story gleaned from The Anniston Star (a pretty good Alabama newspaper). The long and short of it is that "Fred" the pig was a gentle swine that played with the previous owner's grandchildren. Now the story has slid into sick. I hate it when I'm right. Honestly, it's a burden.

• For more on the limits of ethical hunting, see >> Hunting and Fishing Like Adults, an essay sparked by another pathetic and stupid canned hunt, this time by a country-music star.

A Nice Day on the Creek

No pictures this time, as I gave my ancient digital camera (an eBay cheapo) to my son for his Utah rafting trip. If it dies, it had a good life.

My idea was that I would get a new camera, but I haven't done that yet as I had to order a new computer this weekened as this piece of ... Microsoft ... is about to die. On the upside, I managed to keep Windows ME (that used to stand for "Millenium" back when everything was being named after The Millennium). The new machine should arrive at the end of the week with Microsoft "Vista" on it, and I am sure it will be a total disaster. In the meantime, I am using dial up. Welcome to the 20th Century.

The good new is that out in the field I use the kind of medievel equipment that Jacques de Fouilloux would recognize, and I know how to maintain it.

The first groundhog of the day was almost a "gimme," as there had been two young ones in this sette last weekend, and Mountain nailed one while the other bolted. This time Mountain entered the same eye as before, and Pearl grabbed the remaining little bolter as it exited.

The rest of the day was nice, with another small one accounted for along a fenceline sette, and a larger hog bolted out to ... well, my posthole diggers.

That one was a little odd.

The groundhog bolted, I yelled, Pearl ran ahead of it, and then the groundhog froze on the other side of the fence, right in front of me, not moving a muscle and trying to blend in to the dirt pile. Pearl did not seem to see it, and was nosing around about 15 feet ahead. Mountain was still in the ground.

Thinking quick, I reached over the fence with the posthole digger, and clam-shelled the little bugger up over the fence like it was a piece of Dim Sum caught in giant pair of chopsticks. A quick tap, and it was all over.

The dogs located a fourth groundhog, and it whistled quite a lot underground and then it disappeared. Seriously -- presto, change-o, gone. My guess is that it bolted from an unseen hole, but with groundhogs you never really know; it could have dug away in the soft earth. No problem; we'll be back soon enough.

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The Bunko Tales Told in Emails

The picture, above, was sent to me during the middle of Hurricane Katrina. It purported to be an Alligator found swimming down the middle of a road in the Ninth Ward, New Orleans.

The only problem, of course, was that the picture does not show an Alligator -- it shows a Nile Crocodile. And though this 21-foot beast is very real, it was shot in the Congo in front of the Petroleum Club, Plage Sportive, in Pointe Noire back in 2003.

Then, of course there was the email of the giant snake. It seems "an Australian sheep farmer was puzzled at the disappearance of sheep on his farm" and then one day he found the animal, below, killed by an electric fence on his property.





But, of course, it could not be true.

The snake shown is an African Rock Python, which is not found in Australia.

A quick search turned up the true story: the snake was found dead at the Silent Valley Game Ranch in South Africa. The snake had just eaten an impala and was trying to go under the fence when it was killed by the electricity from the fence.

And just to tie it back to dogs, the Silent Valley Game Ranch does have Jack Russells -- they had one that was gored by a Wart Hog.
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Coffee and Provocation

TV Shows Have Screwed Up a Whole Generation of Hunters:
A hat tip to Steve Bodio for pointing to this great little bit by David Petzal at Field and Stream. Entitled "More Sad Tales of Computer-Age Hunters," it describes the collision that occurs when the false expectations of fantasy hunters slam up against the real world of hunting and fishing on open land and open water. Bingo. Excellent and well said.

Like Catching a Shot Put:
The same Dave Petzal, cited above, also wonders about an 11-year old kid shooting a .50 cal eight times at anything. Glad I am not alone in this regard. He writes with some authority: "About the .500 S&W. I can distinctly remember when the .45 ACP was thought of as a veritable cannon, and the .357 magnum was considered so terrifying that only FBI agents were manly enough to shoot it. Yet here is an 11-year-old shooting something with one hand that kicks as hard as a .338. I shot a .500 S&W when it first came out in 2003, and it reminded me of the time when, as a kid, I tried to catch a 12-pound shot put."

Kissing the Sphinx and Other Tricks of Forced Perspective:
Over at Stinky Journalism, they have done a very nice analysis of the new "hogzilla" photo and found it wanting. In fact, their analysis was apparently good enough that The Today Show scraped their invite to Jamison Stone and his father.

Alabama's Inquiring Minds Want to Know:
It seems that Alabama fish and game officials have a few questions about that monster pig as well. They want to know how this huge hog miraculously got into a 150-acre fenced pay-to-shoot hunting place (of all the places for a giant pig to show up on its own), and whether anyone broke Alabama state law prohibiting the transportation and release of live feral swine. They also want to know if the hunt complied with the state's "fair chase" law which requires that animals on hunting plantations have a reasonable chance of escape. I'm sure some interesting stuff is going to reveal itself. So far we've learned this pig was in a 150-acre pen. Hmmm. Stay tuned.

The Number of the Beast:
Jim Stevens Chief Financial Officer of the AKC, has told the board of that august organization that AKC events (i.e. dogs shows) "lost approximately ten million dollars in 2005." In order to recoup the money lost by holding dog shows the AKC has decided it will continue to register puppies from places like the Hunte Corporation and other commercial breeders (sometimes referred to as "puppy mills"), just as they have done for decades. Since it costs $15 to register a puppy with the AKC, the AKC will have to register 666,666 "misery puppies" a year from these commerical breeders in order to recoup the money lost by the rosette chasers. You can do the math yourself -- I did not make up this equation which gives you the Mark of the Devil and the Number of the Beast.

PayPal Comes Through:
A few weeks back, I got a little over $400 stolen from a PayPal account that was hacked into by someone overseas (the money was converted to U.K. pounds). The folks at PayPal investigated and refunded the whole amount to me in pretty short order and with a great deal of professionalism and assurance that all would be made right. They were true to their word.

Head of FDA Sentenced to Death:
The head of the FDA has been sentenced to death. Unfortunately, it's the head of the FDA in China. He is being sentenced to death for accepting $850,000 in bribes and looking the other way on questionable drug approvals. I certainly hope Members of Congress bring up this story repeatedly the next time the head of the US FDA is called up to testify about toxic dog food, payola to FDA officials from drug companies, and uninspected meat packing houses. As a friend of mine once observed, "the safety coming of a gun has a way of focusing the mind."

Melamine Toxin Added to Animal Feed in America:
It turns out that American companies have been putting Melamine into animal feeds over here all on their own. You see, the Chinese aren't smarter than we are, and people are the same all over! Now, doesn't that make you feel better?

Virginia Resident Mauled and Killed by Own Dogs

Goochland County, Virginia resident Bethany Stephens was mauled to death by her two 125-pound Pit Bulls

Some will say that a dog that weighs 125 pounds is not a Pit Bull, but Ms. Stephens  disagreed.

Ms. Stephens, age 22, fancied herself a Pit Bull lover. On her Facebook page she had links to "Pit Bulls and Parolees", "Stop Pit Bull Bans (Ban the Deed Not the Breed)", "American Bully World and Reaper Bulls XL, XXL" and "Extreme Bully Style Pit Bulls and Phantom Rolls XXL Bully Pits".

Over-large molosser-type Pit Bulls (there is no terrier in them) have always been bred, from the time of Bill George to today, with the modern massive American Pit Bulls beginning with dogs bred by John D. Johnson in the 1970s.

And what of Ms. Stephens?

She is quite dead.

Ms. Stephen had defensive wound on her arms consistent with her being alive and trying to fight off her dogs. Her throat was ripped, and she was bitten hard around the face and through the skull.

Sheriff James L. Agnew said:

It was an absolutely grisly mauling. In my nearly 40 years in law enforcement, I’ve never seen anything quite like it. I hope I never see anything like it again...

There were various articles of clothing, under clothing, scattered about the area not far from the body and torn into small pieces, there were patches of blood....

There were no strangulation marks, the victim had puncture wounds in the skull and this was not a homicide.

It took deputies more than an hour to wrangle the dogs which were standing over her body when her father found her. Neighboring Henrico County Animal Control was called for assistance, and they provided tranquilizers to subdue the dogs. Deputies spent eight hours collecting more than 60 pieces of evidence.

The two dogs, Tonk and Pacman, were reported to have come from the same litter, but one had recently come back to Ms. Stephens.

Killings of people by dogs is pretty rare in the U.S. -- only 20-30 deaths a year -- but serious dog bites are a great deal more frequent, and Pit Bull dogs are implicated in a disproportionate majority of these serious attacks.

In neighboring Maryland, Pit Bulls are deemed to be inherently dangerous a stance embraced by the courts after a particularly serious mauling case.

The core problem with Pit Bulls, as I noted back in 2012, is that this is a breed caught between two lies:

When it comes to Pit Bulls, two lies are commonly told.

The first lie, exemplified in the U.K.'s Dangerous Dog Act, is that Pit Bulls are as dangerous as wild lions.

Because of this patent falsehood, Pit Bulls can only be kept in Britain with specific permission from a court, and can only be walked when muzzled.

The second lie, told by Pit Bull aficionados, is that Pit Bulls are no different than any other dog. If you disagree with this statement, be prepared to be called a "breed bigot".

Here's the truth: both claims are lies.

In the United States, where Pit Bulls are a common dog, more people are killed by lightning strikes than by Pit Bulls. In fact, more children are killed by their parents than by Pit Bulls.

Does this mean Pit Bulls are just like every other dog in the world?

No. That too is a lie.

In the U.S., where Pit Bulls account for 2 to 3 percent of all dogs, this breed type (it is not a formal breed) accounts for over 50 percent of all serious dog bites.

And while Pit Bull-related fatalities are low (about 10 a year), for every fatality there are thousands of hospitalizations and emergency room visits. Those who focus solely on the low number of Pit Bull fatalities are lying by omission when they fail to mention the physical and emotional scars left by Pit Bull attacks.

So, does this mean that Pit Bulls are a problem?

Yes it does.

And part of the problem is that this breed -- like most others -- comes with a code inside it.

Of course, we all know that dogs come with a genetic code.

When we talk about Pointers and Setters, everyone knows these dogs are particularly "birdy."

When we talk about retrievers, everyone agrees this breed is particularly biddable, loves water, and has a desire to bring things to hand.

When we talk about Jack Russell Terriers, everyone agrees they hate rats, and have a natural inclination to go to ground.

But Pit Bulls?

The Pit Bull community wants us to think these dogs are just like any other! Never mind the illegal kennels here in America that crank out line-bred fighting dogs like Pez from a dispenser. Never mind the history of this dog as feral hog hunter, pit fighter, and junkyard protector.

To even suggest that Pit Bulls might have a different genetic code inside them than Pugs, Standard Poodles, Pointers, or Salukies is heresy among many breed-blind Pit Bull defenders.

Of course, canine genetics is only part of the equation. Along with nature comes nurture. In the right hands, even a Pit Bull with a lot of drive can end up being a happy, docile, and extremely playful family dog.

The sad truth, however, is most Pit Bulls in America do not end up in the right hands. This is a breed that tends to attract "the wrong types" to the point that research has shown that U.S. Pit Bull owners are far more likely to have criminal records than other dog owners.

The predictable result of too many boisterous Pit Bulls meeting up with too many ill-prepared and unstable owners is that the dogs suffer.

And in America, Pit Bulls suffer terribly.

Nearly a million Pit Bulls were euthanized in American shelters in 2009 -- more than the sum of all dogs of all breeds registered by the American Kennel Club last year.

In the last decade, about 8,000,000 Pit Bulls were euthanized in U.S. animal shelters -- approximately four hundred million pounds of dead Pit Bull.

What makes this particularly distressing is that Pit Bull euthanasia rates in the U.S. have been on the rise for 30 years, even as all other canine impounds and euthanasias have been on a steady and steep decline.

What's going on with Pit Bulls?

The problem is not Pit Bull haters.

Ironically enough, the problem is Pit Bull lovers.

After all, it's the Pit Bull "lovers" that are breeding these dogs.

It's the Pit Bull "lovers" that are acquiring these dogs.

It's the Pit Bull "lovers" that are too often abusing the dogs through ignorance and neglect before abandoning them to their death a year or two after acquisition.

You mean Pit Bull "haters" are not the problem?

No, they are not.

The problem is young numbskulls who acquire these dogs in ignorance and haste, discover that they are too much dog to handle, and who then abandon them at leisure.

So what to do?

One of the most obvious ways forward, is to do with Pit Bulls what we have done for hawks, guns, and and cars in the U.S.: require a license conditional upon passing a basic training course.

When "hunter safety" courses were mandated in the U.S., accidental shootings fell to the point that golf and tennis are now deemed to be more dangerous than hunting.

When falconers were required to serve two-year apprenticeships, the longevity of captive birds soared, and concerns about raptor abuse plummeted.

And, of course, driving courses and driver's licenses have been in place since the beginning. Do accidents still happen? Sure, but no one argues that driver's license enforcement is not Step One to improved highway safety.

With dogs, however, the assumption is that everyone knows everything they need to know about dogs at birth -- and never mind if that is demonstrably wrong, especially for large game-bred breeds like Pit Bulls.

And the consequence of this crazy idea?

Millions of dead dogs.

What is bizarre here, is that you would think there would be a natural constituency for a simple Canine Safety and Responsibility Course.

After all, teaching such a course could be a small money-maker for sponsoring groups such as the Kennel Club, Dogs Trust, the RSPCA, and dog-activity clubs.

Would a Canine Safety and Responsibility Course solve every Pit Bull (or dog) problem in the world?

No, of course not.

But it would solve a lot of them, and it would also serve as the "edge of the wedge" when it comes to tackling the human problems that too many dogs face -- ignorance about costs, responsibility, health, and training.

I am sure Bethany Stephens meant well. But meaning well does not give you a stable life style, real dog training, or the experience and physical size to handle two 125-pound dogs.

Most Pit Bulls are fine (there is one asleep at my feet as I type this), but these are not "nanny dogs" that can be "loved into being good," as if human emotion and intent is a quick and ready substitute for 5,000 hours of dog training and socialization.

A Pit Bull is a serious thing; every bit as capable of mayhem as a gun or a car. Owning one should be a right that is counter-weighted by a legal responsibility to carry insurance, to have at least 100-hours of dog training under your belt, and to have a properly fenced yard. 

If you're not serious enough about owning a Pit Bull to meet these expectations, then you are not serious enough to shoulder the responsibility of caring for, and training, a dog that requires daily exercise, daily training, and a jaundiced eye towards its potential for mayhem.

Finally, because I am from Virginia, and because I have written about the issue of Pit Bulls and southern culture before, let me say that I am not terribly surprised to find pictures of Ms. Stephens that suggest she was a young person acting out certain negative cultural manifestations and stereotypes.

As I wrote back in 2007, in a post on this blog entitled Black and White and Redneck All Over, and focused on the drama surrounding Michael Vick:

In Black Rednecks and White Liberals, sociologist Thomas Sowell suggests that the black pathology we see lionized by inner city thugs today is really just a kind of "black redneck" culture adopted from white rednecks in the South.

Sowell has a point. Both cultures embrace easy violence, routine inebriation, monthly government checks, and children born out of wedlock. Both cultures embrace prison tattoos and celebrate machismo posturing. Both cultures have a long love affair with fast vehicles, easy credit, and gambling.

Is it really such a shock, then, that a southern black redneck by the name of Michael Vick was caught with a dog fighting arena and a kennel-full of scarred Pit Bulls behind his house in Virginia?

Let's be clear what Vick was doing: He was raising dogs to fight each other to the death for entertainment purposes, and he had been doing it for at least 6 years as part of his "Bad Newz Kennels." The "winning" dog was lucky to survive his wounds, while the loser, if not killed outright in the fight, was shot, hung, or electrocuted.

Uh oh.

I’m talking about it now, aren't I?

Yes I am.

Just to clarify: just because you are poor does not make you a redneck. Just because you are rural or Southern does not make you a redneck. There are good people, black and white, who do not have a lot of money or a lot of education and who happen to live in the South and buy their towels (and their deer-hunting ammunition) at WalMart.

Most of these people marry their children's mother, do not routinely get drunk, pay their bills, work hard at their jobs, and go to church. Call these folks "redneck," and you may be picking up your teeth.

A redneck is someone who confuses bad choices for culture. But don't take my word for it. Listen to any of the rappers who feel they have to routinely give a shout-out to their fellow "Niggaz," while singing about drinking their "40s" and shooting their "trey-eights," and cruising for their "hoes."

Better yet listen to country music star Gretchen Wilson celebrate "Redneck Women," whom she defines as those who would "rather drink beer all night, in a tavern or in a honky tonk, or on a 4 wheel drive tailgate."

And if you have a problem with her lifestyle of public drunkeness, she sings, "I don't give a rip, I'll stand barefooted in my own front yard with a baby on my hip, cause I'm a redneck woman."

Is it an accident that there's a Pit Bull in that big picture on her web site? I don't think so.

Great. These folks are glamorizing the folks who keep showing up drunk and shirtless on "COPS."

Bad boys, bad boys, who you gonna call when they come for you?

Bad choices.

Make enough of them, and they have a way of catching up with you.

Bethany Stephens seems to have made more that a few of them, from the bad fake spray-tan and low-budget streaked-hair dye job you can see on her Facebook page, to the selfies with the Rebel flag behind her, to the KKK bikini picture, and the Dixie flag drape she also posted there.

Could she possibly have done anything more to signal her desire to date someone in the Ku Klux Klan?

This is someone who clearly wanted to trot out a Gretchen Wilson "Redneck Woman" persona. A pair of 125-pound Pit Bulls simply filled out that character, same as her over-large tattoos.

My condolences to her family and friends who no doubt loved her and will miss her.  The chance that Ms. Stephens would be mauled, killed, and chewed on by her own giant dogs was never a given, and always quite remote.  That said, it was never outside the bounds of possible, was it? 

It reminds me of the folks who drink too much and drive too fast. When they wrap their car around a bridge abutment everyone at the funeral says it was a terrible "accident" and no one stops drinking, and there may even be another drunk driving death as people speed away loaded from the funeral.

Bad boys, bad boys, who you gonna call when they come for you?