Sons kill mom over Yahtzee game in Minnesota

[somone]

http://www.startribune.com/local/125462323.html

Did mother’s urge to play Yahtzee cause son to strangle her?
By PAT PHEIFER, Star Tribune

Tamara Lee Mason wanted to play Yahtzee with her three sons after they all returned home from Christmas dinner at a friend's. When the boys wouldn't, she got mad, grabbed a few things and stormed out of the house.

That's the story Mason's oldest, Dylan C. Clemens, told investigators back on Dec. 27, according to criminal charges filed in Stevens County District Court. A much stranger story is laid out in criminal charges filed Tuesday against Clemens, 25. His half-brothers Andrew Q. Cobb, 18, and Jacob S. Cobb, 17, were charged Friday.

Mason's decomposing remains were found Thursday buried in the back yard of her home in Alberta, a town of about 130 people in far western Minnesota.

The charges said Jacob Cobb strangled his mother on the living room floor. Then he or his brother Andrew put a plastic bag over her head and tightened a belt around her neck. Clemens allegedly drove her body west to South Dakota, then east to Glenwood, Minn., before storing the corpse in a garbage can in a shed for months until the ground thawed enough for the two elder brothers to bury it...

[Poll_Blind]

1. Horrific beyond words.

PB

[my2sense]

2. I think there is

more to this story - not that it would justify a killing.

We live in a sick society. I'm wondering if our society was always this warped or do we just have more access to the utter nonsense that goes on.

[PavePusher]

8. There have always been sick, twisted people who do heinous things.

Thanks to the Electronic Age, we now have instantaneous access to it where-ever and when-ever it happens, 24 hours a day.

The perception of an increase is proven incorrect by the falling crime stats.

[RandySF]

3. Sounds almost straight out of the movie Fargo.

[undeterred]

4. Yahtzee doesn't seem like a game you can get worked up over.

:shrug: Maybe I didn't understand the rules.

[grasswire]

6. it's noisy

That damned constant rattling of the dice. I once lived in a apartment where the neighbors played yahtzee night and day. Gah! It was annoying.

[KittyWampus]

5. "not the most functional family" the sheriff says. HOLY COW, YOU THINK?

That is one screwed up story. May the mother somehow rest in peace.

I wonder if meth was involved.

[K8-EEE]

7. "small towns grow good people" said Quitter in her speech...

Maybe but also "grew" these freaks....

[PavePusher]

9. One incident does not characterize all small towns.

You find such stuff in cities as well.

Be careful about how close you get to geographical bigotry....

[K8-EEE]

13. I agree but I don't think people from small towns are any better

Or more evil or less evil than us city dwellers.....

[cali]

15. no, but the pressures are different. I live in a very small town

I don't lock the doors to my house- ever. Even when I go away for weeks. Hell, I don't even know where my house key is. How do you feel about doing that in the city?

[K8-EEE]

16. LOL believe it or not I have a back door with a broken lock

I understand what you are saying I just don't think either city people or small town people are superior. Really annoys me to see quitter saying that. Oh and btw....my grandpa lived in such a small town it wasn't even a town.....really, an area with ranches. And they knocked on his door once and asked if he had seen a guy and gave him a description, and he had at the store/gas station thing they have there, and that guy turned out to be on the FBI 10 most wanted list and he had in addition to other things "quartered" several people. JUST SAYIN'!

[PavePusher]

20. Agreed. n/t

[Union Scribe]

10. Normally I appreciate a quirky crime headline

But the Star Tribune's seems...wrong, on a number of levels.

[Warren DeMontague]

11. Clearly, Yahtzee makes people violent and must be banned.

Christ, imagine if a porno or a 1st person shooter XBOX game were somehow implicated in this story.

[ProfessorGAC]

17. Or A Lawn Dart

And, since we can't just ban Yahtzee, let's ban all games with dice. Then it isn't discriminating against Yahtzee lovers.

But, you know that some people want to knee jerk to the "ban solution" for nearly everything that goes haywire.

I've got a "mere" suspicion that this incident really had nothing to do with Yahtzee.
GAC

[BOHICA12]

12. Looks like her undoing was throwing three of the wrong kind. nt

[SoDesuKa]

14. Minnesota . . . Again

I'm not saying anything bad about Minnesota. But it has come a ways from the Mary Tyler Moore show, hasn't it?

Used to be all these nutty stories came out of Southern California, or Phoenix. Or Florida. After all, warm weather attracts the crazies. But Minnesota? How do they survive the Winter?

[AverageJoe90]

18. It's kind of a tough question to ask..........

But is it possible some child abuse may have occurred earlier in the family's history? That would help explain things to a point.

[Obamanaut]

19. Only in Flori....er, Only in Tex....Nevermind. Strange behavior is not limited to one area. nt

[Obamanaut]

21. Minnesota.

Yup