The town of Malone, New York is about as upstate as you can get – remote, rural and pretty quiet. Its most notable resident, musician Bob Mould, wrote about the place in his memoir: “Malone was terribly dull and seemed more tolerable when I was inebriated.” He’s describing life in his early teens, mind you.
Still, even he would probably not consider the story of local-in-trouble Clyde Gardner a way to liven things up.
A New York man came up with an unusual plan to hurt his ex-girlfriend: kill a bear, skin it, and then dress up in the carcass and attack her.
The Associated Press reports that Clyde Gardner, of Malone, N.Y., planned to wear the bear hide and claws to attack his ex-girlfriend and kill her, leaving no trace of his foot or fingerprints at the scene of the crime.
The article points out that even Gardner realized that his “blame a random zombie bear attack” plan was not going to set a world record for workability, and decided to go the more conventional route of hiring a hitman. Well, actually he tried to hire a friend, but the guy immediately went to police.
At trial, Gardner said he was drunk and would have stopped the plan once he sobered up.
Sorry to say prosecutors did not ask if Gardner would have worn a bear carcass while stopping the plan. Or a Gumby costume, even. But we do know this: if they’d asked why he thought up the bear scheme at the start, they would’ve gotten this answer.
