24 AUG 07: THE CASE OF THE "SCARLETT" SCOUNDREL

(BLOGGER'S NOTE: In the great "Dragnet" police drama tradition, the story you are about to read is true -- but a name has been changed, to protect possible embarrassment.)

Mrs. Chambers was in the lobby of police headquarters, and she was not a happy woman. But then again, how many people do you see stopping by police stations with "thank-you" platters of cookies and doughnuts?

Mrs. Chambers was at police headquarters to complain about a theft she said could total $5,000. Sad to say, for many drug squads these days this amount almost qualifies as a misdemeanor.

Mrs. Chambers didn't think the police were doing enough to solve a break-in at her home. She claimed a couple of weeks ago, someone took a portrait of the late actress Vivien Leigh - perhaps a portrait from her role in "Gone With the Wind." Mrs. Chambers seemed to think detectives were muttering Clark Gable's famous quote from that movie under their breaths....

Mrs. Chambers explained to an officer who met her in the lobby that she bought the portrait of Vivien Leigh at a yard sale two years ago for 80 dollars. She figures it's appreciated to the point where it could be worth $5,000 today. I hope no one's suggested that Mrs. Chambers invest in web site names.

But here's the twist: Mrs. Chambers explained her portrait of Vivien Leigh was not exactly stolen - it was replaced. A nearly-identical portrait was put in her house by the thief. So as might say in Auburn, the criminal attempted to have a Leigh Scot-Free.

Mrs. Chambers says she knows the portrait currently in her house is a replacement, because she put some sort of identifying code on the portrait she bought. It has her "signature," she told the officer. Perhaps this is one time when the little yellow tag does NOT mean a big savings....

Police went to Mrs. Chambers's home about two weeks ago, when she reported the portrait swap. But she complained to the officer in the lobby they "seemed more interested in the TV set and the portrait of me on the wall, than in what I had to say." Maybe the detectives were checking to see if her portrait was switched, too.

Apparently unsatisfied with how the investigation was going, Mrs. Chambers said she called police to her home again last Sunday. That time, she claimed she had a "rattler in my fish bowl" - as in a rattlesnake. Did the portrait swappers come back to leave something threatening? Or are Mrs. Chambers's fish that valuable, too?

Mrs. Chambers admitted the main reason for the second call to police was NOT about rattlesnakes. She wanted to report some stolen jewelry as well. It turns out a female officer responded to that second call - so lost jewels should have been sufficient to get her attention.

The officer in the lobby told Mrs. Chambers he had checked the police department's files - and could NOT find a report on her original complaint. There was no paperwork about portraits of Vivien Leigh. But he stopped short of speculating they might be "Gone With the Wind."

We'd love to tell you the rest of this true story - but at that point we had to move on, so (groan) we didn't hear it. But based on the evidence we've presented, what conclusions would you draw from it? First of all, I'd be careful if someone sells portraits of Vivien Leigh at area flea markets - especially if the seller insists on a thousand-dollar starting bid.

(Of course, you also should be on the lookout for someone selling Vivien Leigh portraits on eBay. If the picture is on a piece of toast, be especially suspicious.)

I'm tempted to draw a second conclusion, from how the police responded to Mrs. Chambers's first complaint -- that they decided she's crazy. After all, who goes scouting around people's homes for portraits of dead movie stars? And then SWAPS them, instead of stealing them? I thought "Planet Hollywood" restaurants worked a bit differently from this....

Mrs. Chambers certainly didn't help her cause by calling in an update on a crime, under cover of a rattlesnake. She may not have realized "Fear Factor" isn't on TV anymore.

Police departments sometimes have to deal with callers who, to put it politely, are delusional. It's like 911 operators taking calls from people with problems which are really not emergencies. You want to "believe the victim" - but if they call over and over again, they start building rap sheets as long as some hardened criminals.

E-MAIL UPDATE: Our Wednesday exclusive on NBC-38 still is bringing comments and ideas....

I can predict the furture of WLTZ's anchors. It will be a black woman and a white man just like channel 4 and 10. They tried to reverse it on Fox 54 and look what happened. They left! To this day I still mix up Dee Armstrong and Teresa Whitaker when flipping.

Now hold on a minute here - I don't think Roszell Gadson and Deborah Singer were fired from WXTX "News at Ten." In fact, I think they actually got along. But then, you can't see if they're kicking each other's shins under the anchor desk.

Travel to Dothan, and you'll find the big TV station has an African-American male anchor paired with a white woman. Perhaps viewers there accept it because they realize the man also is a Church of Christ minister.... [True!]

Another reader wants to move on down the dial:

While you are on the subject of TV stations it seems to me that WTVM must be the audition station for the corporation that owns them. They seem to have a new reporter every week and they certainly don't seem to discriminate against the beauty impaired. In my opinion they devote more news time to Auburn-Opelika than to Columbus. Maybe it is because the purchase of the stations was financed by the Alabama Teachers Retirement Fund.

When you get around to McBarron, I went into her vitamin shoppe one time. It seemed to me that the prices on the "supplements" were higher than prescription drugs at a pharmacy

Ouch! Maybe I'm alone here, but I don't think Andrew Wittenberg is that bad-looking at all. I mean, he IS a newlywed....

So did WTVM show more Columbus news when it was owned by Aflac during the 1990's? And is WRBL losing viewers because it's owned by Media General -- which means it's probably biased toward stories about the headquarters city of Richmond, Virginia?

Since e-mailers keep bringing up Jan McBarron - I'm not really sure where she's based these days. To watch the infomercials she hosts with husband Duke, I might have guessed they bought a nice condominium along the east coast of Florida.

We'll keep thinking about "The Doctor" - but now let's check what news was "in" on Thursday:

+ Several Columbus gas stations which raised prices 25 cents a gallon on Monday knocked them back down 25 cents. The Circle K in my neighborhood went back to $2.42 - so is it too late to file a price-gouging complaint?

+ Southeast Canners announced it's adding about 50 jobs to its Columbus bottling plant. But I was a bit disappointed - because they're hiring electricians and plumbers, not taste-testers.

+ Phenix City Councilor John Storey told WRBL the owners of Club Roc have dropped their lawsuit against the city. Some of us hope Save-A-Lot now will reclaim its old supermarket site - and actually open the new stores we were promised about four years ago.

+ Atlanta police announced two teenagers had been arrested on charges of stealing the identities of 15 Fort Benning soldiers. The suspects are accused of using the soldiers' credit card numbers to buy top-dollar items at fancy Atlanta shopping malls. Once again, the reputation of Peachtree Mall takes another hit....

+ Rep. Lynn Westmoreland helped clean up a Columbus veteran's home, on the first day of the "House of Heroes" project. Thankfully, Westmoreland's staff briefed him in advance - and told him this had nothing to do with saving a cheerleader.

+ Columbus city officials held a public hearing on plans for a skateboard park in South Commons. I expect WDAK Radio to have a big advertisement there -- to encourage boarders to try a 540.

(Some people are saying the skateboard park should wait until after Columbus city officials "clean up" Victory Drive. If these skeptics were in charge of local government, the Montgomery Cottonmouths would be a hockey legend by now.)

+ The evening news reported the level of West Point Lake is nine feet lower now than it was last August. That's the bad news - but the good news is that the chances of catching fish ought to be nine percent better.

+ Authorities in Maryland announced Arthur Bremer soon will be released from prison, 35 years after he shot George Wallace. I hope he isn't planning a "victory tour" of Alabama - because large numbers of people in more than 40 counties still want to get even.

+ Members of last year's Columbus Northern All-Stars went to the Little League World Series, and cheered a Warner Robins team on to a playoff victory. So THIS time did the players take any homework with them?!

(What does it say when a Columbus bar I visited has two TV screens showing the Little League World Series - and NONE showing Atlanta baseball or pre-season N.F.L. football? It's like baseball players around here are over the hill at 22, if they haven't made the major leagues.)

+ Instant Message to that complaining mom at Park Elementary School in Hamilton: I've been thinking about this. Your son was suspended for throwing grapes in the cafeteria, right?! Then write a book about how this was handled -- and call it "The Wrath of Grapes."

COMING SOON: The Columbus "rush hour" most people probably never see....

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