The Clear Lake Mannequin Murders

Yesterday's journey to my old hometown zone to see my little Grand Nephew, Spencer Jack, went well. For the most part.

A couple of Spencer Jack's Old Crone Aunts wore on my nerves, just like they always do. But I'm used to that, for the most part.

Though I'm not around such types when I'm in Texas and it is a tad jarring to expose oneself to a pathology one generally avoids, I survived the few hours exposure to the extreme negativity and likely will not have any of that radiation exposure again for several years. Maybe a decade.

I am always such a naive optimist that I somehow think the Old Crones will somehow someday cease being such tiresome bitter nags. But, I think only extensive therapy and perhaps some potent meds could render some people's bad side neutralized. What I do know for certain is that it is in ones best interest to avoid toxic people as much as one can.

I don't have time this morning to Blog about Saturday in all its gory detail. I'm up early to go to Fremont Sunday Market again with Lulu.

But, I had to share a news story my nephew Joey and his mom, my favorite ex-sister-in-law, Cindy, told us yesterday. Joey lives in this little town called Clear Lake. As long as I can remember there's been this funny, slightly creepy thing in one Clear Laker's yard. That being this guy would dress up all these mannequins to suit the season. Like for 4th of July they'd be all red, white and blue.

Well, in the past week the mannequin family was brutally murdered. A makeshift memorial has grown up at the crime scene, much like what I saw up in Oklahoma City at the Murrah Memorial.

Below, from the Skagit Valley Herald (a much better paper, in a little bitty town, than the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, in a, supposedly, big town) is an amusing, albeit sad telling of the tragic crime and its aftermath.

By TAHLIA GANSER Staff Writer
CLEAR LAKE — What started as a plus-sized bust has ended as part of a disturbing crime scene.

More than 15 years ago, Jamie Lanning was working at the Sedro-Woolley dump when he discovered a large foam dressmaker’s torso. The bust, which Lanning said “put Dolly Parton to shame” begged for the rest of its womanly body.

A short time after, amidst the unwanted heaps of trash, he found a fiberglass woman’s head. Later he discovered a fiberglass waist and legs sticking out of a JC Penney’s trash bin.

With a slight “reduction,” and some metal bar reinforcements, the busty Clear Lake mannequin Lucille was born and installed on Lanning’s front lawn.

She was eventually joined by a male mannequin that Lanning named “Will.” When Lanning learned that he was going to be a grandpa, he used a basketball stuffed under the dress of another female mannequin he named Jill to represent the child who would become Zachary, now 10.

When Zachary was born, a child-sized mannequin joined the family as all three greeted motorists passing by Lanning’s home on Highway 9, on the south side of Clear Lake. Lanning and his long-time girlfriend, Barbara Rumsey, would laugh at drivers’ reactions to the mannequin family.

The couple will laugh no more at drivers gawking at the mannequin family.

In a “vicious” attack Saturday night vandals used hammers or bats to beat Lucille, Will and the boy mannequin Lanning named “Zach,” after his grandson. Will and Zach were damaged beyond repair.

Lucille suffered the least damage of the family, but was turned by the vandals to view the grim site of Will and Zach’s dismembered limbs strewn across Lanning’s yard.

A hole in Will’s neck revealed his mannequin innards. His arm, tattooed with a heart and the name “Rosie,” stuck out of Lucille’s red pants. His head was scalped. Zach’s face was severed from the rest of his youthful body, still dressed in a blue soccer shirt. All of his fingers, except for the middle one, were broken off his right hand, and the left hand lay fingerless. His leg was placed in a compromising pose with Will.

“We’ve had vandalism before, but it has come to an end here,” the 80-year-old Lanning said as he looked at the crime scene from his wheelchair Monday afternoon. “They’re done for.”

He discovered the bludgeoning Sunday morning, after the late-night attack.

Skagit County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Bart Moody responded to the crime scene shortly after.

“Of course we would like to catch someone doing stuff like this,” said Chief Criminal Deputy Will Reichardt. “Right now we have no leads, and there is no evidence of who did this and no witnesses.”

Reminiscing on the lives of Lucille, Will, Zach and Jill, who was stolen years ago, Rumsey paged through several of her 20 photo albums, each filled with faded photos of the fiberglass family. Each one pictures the family standing in various poses and different coordinated outfits.