We're not sure which would be more emotionally scarring to a child, seeing your father murder your mother or realizing that your father is Steve Buscemi in drag.

They were farm folk. She didn’t know how they would handle news that the man she had lived with for years — her high school sweetheart and the father of her two children — had begun dressing as a woman.

But she knew they had to know. So one day last winter, she gathered the bunch, told them the deal and kept it simple.

“She told us she had to try to make it work for the kids,” her sister, Angie Bublitz, said by telephone from Iowa. “Beyond that, we didn’t know what was going on down there.”

It wasn’t good. Finally, on the night of July 14, the tensions and raging emotions running through the Belton home erupted in two gunshots.

The couple’s 18-year-old daughter ran into the kitchen and found her mother dead on the floor. Her father, wearing women’s clothing, sat on the floor, smoking a cigarette.

Michael Adams Jr., 37, was charged with second-degree murder. His preliminary hearing is set for Aug. 27.

Hartwig’s parents declined to talk about Adams. Her father, Dennis Hartwig, said: “A big part of our life has been ripped from us. We will never be able to understand what happened.”

Transgender issues, such as cross dressing, often perplex people. But this case surprised even the experts.

Cross dressing, they said, seldom leads to violence. If it does happen, “it’s usually the cross dresser that gets killed,” said Helen Friedman, a clinical psychologist and professor at the St. Louis University School of Medicine.

And then there’s this irony: Adams was in the midst of a formal transition from male to female. He dressed as a woman. Took hormones to change his body. And went by a new name — Mischelle.

But when Amber Hartwig told him she was leaving, he seemingly bounced back to the role of the scorned and desperate man.

Experts hope this case gives no one the idea that cross dressers are predisposed to violence or abuse.

Some male cross dressers simply have a “female side” they wish to express but have no desire to make a physical change. In transgender cases such as Adams’, the person feels more female than male. Cross dressing eases the anxiety of being trapped in the wrong body. These are the ones who sometimes seek a full “gender transition” through hormone therapy and surgery.

Randi Kaufman, a Cambridge, Mass., psychologist, said males who cross dress typically began doing so in childhood or early adolescence. Some resist the urge, sometimes forever.

Does this mean that the victim was a lesbian?

“It is not uncommon to stay ‘in the closet’ because they fear social judgment,” Kaufman said. “They feel shame and worry that no woman, or man, will want to be in a romantic relationship with them.”

A cross dresser may go through periods known as “splurge and purge,” in which he buys a lot of women’s clothes and later throws them all away, fearing that his wife will find the items and think he is having an affair.

But while the idea of another woman would be shocking and upsetting to a mate, learning that a spouse wants to become a woman is usually an even bigger shock, Kaufman said.

“Some couples stay together, but many do not.”

When Adams came out, Hartwig tried to keep things as normal as possible for the children and to make the best of it because, Bublitz said, “that’s just how she’d always been.”

Hartwig worked in the optical department of a Wal-Mart. Adams was a carpenter. Their daughter graduated this spring from Belton High School. Their son is 10.

Hartwig, 36, was soft-spoken and a favorite of neighborhood kids, who would gather around her car when she got home from work. She was often seen at her son’s school.

“She had her flower beds and she worked in the garden around back,” said neighbor Sheela Martin.

Family and neighbors knew the past few months had been terribly hard for Hartwig. She felt that her family was falling apart and that she was powerless to do anything about it.

“She wanted him to find help,” said her mother, Linda Hartwig.

Days before the shooting, Martin said she had talked with Adams, who had told her earlier that he was taking hormones.

On this day, he was dressed as a woman, and his hair hung shoulder length.

Martin asked him if he had thought about what he was doing.

“He told me he had … and then he started crying,” Martin recalled. “He said, ‘I didn’t know it would be this hard.’ ”

The Hartwigs said Amber had it harder.

“All she wanted all along was to keep things normal for her kids,” Bublitz said. “Staying there was probably not something I could do.

“But that was Amber. She stayed as long as she could. Then it was too late.”

By the night of July 14, police said, the couple had been arguing for some time.

According to court documents, the family had made a trip to a Belton grocery. On the way home, Adams tried to jump out of the car but was restrained by his daughter.

That incident perhaps pushed Hartwig to her limit.

After arriving home, she told her son and daughter to pack, that she was leaving and taking them with her.

As they gathered their things, they were startled by the two gunshots.

Police think Adams shot Hartwig in the head with a .45-caliber handgun and then inflicted a superficial bullet wound to his upper chest.

In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, Adams kept saying he wanted to die.

Later, during questioning by a detective, he said he did not know what happened. Nor, he said, did he know where he lived or the names of his children.

Recently in Nora Springs, Iowa, Dennis and Linda Hartwig hosted a celebration of life for their daughter. Friends drove up from Belton to pay respect to the person kids said was the nicest woman on the block.

And to the farm girl who never stopped tending her garden.

“Amber is home now,” her father said.

Courtesy of the Kansas City Star

He came in through the bathroom window...

A man caught on tape running through an Abington apartment building hallway wearing a woman’s dress and then naked broke into two homes Friday, police said, adding that he smeared lip stick on walls and rummaged through female victims’ underwear drawers.

The unidentified man, seen in video images released by Abington police from surveillance video at an apartment on Old York Road, may turn himself in today after talking, Deputy Chief John Livingood said yesterday after talking to an attorney who said the suspect contacted him.

Livingood said a witness saw the man flee the apartment building naked with a stolen laptop.

“The girl comes home into the apartment complex and sees this guy running through the hallway naked,” Livingood said. “She also sees that he came from a friend’s apartment that police come to find has been burglarized. … It’s a bit unusual to say the least.”

Later the same day, police believe the man vandalized a house a few blocks away on Old York Road, writing “swear words” on the walls in lipstick, Livingood said.

Courtesy of the Philadelphia Metro

The male robber was wearing red and white face makeup, a red and purple wig, a fake nose and a denim dress. A clerk says the clown asked for help in a feminine voice, saying, “Will you help me? My husband is out of work.” The employees ignored his pleas and the jilted suspect pulled a gun and robbed the store. After collecting an undisclosed amount of cash, the clown unexpectedly fled on foot and not on a unicycle or in a tiny car full of other transvestite clowns.

Courtesy Idle.Slashdot.org

Stephen Murdoch aka MOOBS

Sgt. Todd Bullock says 45-year-old Stephen Murdoch of Tustin was arrested early Tuesday after a security guard spotted him in a workout room that was supposed to be closed and locked.

When police peered inside, they saw Murdoch — also in a miniskirt, fishnet stockings and heels — hiding behind exercise equipment and watching an adult film on a laptop.

Officers noticed Murdoch was sweating profusely and talking quickly. They arrested him on suspicion of drug possession after allegedly finding marijuana, methamphetamine and pipes in his bag.

Murdoch did not return a call seeking comment Wednesday.

Courtesy Google News

Gary Marie, 42, of Burnley, Lancs, would break into empty houses or spy on his female victims to indulge his sexual fantasies, Preston Crown Court was told.

One woman had since tried to commit suicide while another, a 15-year-old schoolgirl, suffered regular nightmares.

Balaclava-clad Marie was spotted by officers on a routine patrol in Padiham in the early hours of March 19 last year.

The perv tried to escape on a bicycle down a back street but when cornered he pulled out a CS gas canister and squirted the spray in the faces of six officers.

The defendant was eventually overpowered and arrested, and was found to be wearing a woman’s white thong and a black sports bra.

His balaclava had been fashioned from a pair of knickers and he also carried a device for turning keys and a pair of gloves, the court heard.

Richard Haworth, prosecuting, said a mobile phone and digital camera were recovered following his arrest.

He said: “These items supported the evidence that the defendant was entering the homes of complete strangers and committing acts of a sexual nature.

Weird

“There was footage of him touching himself while wearing women’s underwear.”

Images of bedrooms that Marie had filmed were published in a local newspaper and a number of people came forward to police.

It emerged Marie broke into the home of one of his victims on the night he was arrested. No-one was in the family home at the time as he walked into the bedroom of a 15-year-old girl.

Video footage showed him lying on her bed with her knickers on his head as he pleasured himself. At one point he smiled and waved at the camera as he mentioned the girl’s first name.

In the girl’s victim impact statement she said she had changed mentally and physically since the trauma.

She stated: “I have started to have nightmares. I do not like being on my own. I no longer trust men.”

Other victims included a woman whose underwear Marie stole from her house and filmed himself wearing. Images taken of her through a window at her home were also recovered.

‘ This is one of the most complex and difficult-to-understand cases that I have confronted in my period of service on the Bench. ’

In her victim impact statement, the woman said she was “shocked” at what happened and felt “violated” and “dirty”.

Mr Haworth said she later tried to kill herself with an overdose of tablets and alcohol.

Marie also filmed a 14-year-old girl from outside her home as she undressed in her bedroom and had photographs of another schoolgirl which were believed to have been taken in a handbag theft in a local park.

Marie was convicted of more than two dozen offences at his trial at Preston Crown Court in February.

These included six counts of voyeurism, ten counts of possessing indecent photos of children and six counts of assaulting police officers.

He was also found guilty of aggravated burglary, burglary and possession of a firearm, namely a CS gas canister.

He did not give evidence at his trial and he refused to leave the cells on some days of the hearing.

Marie was handed an indeterminate sentence for public protection by Judge Stuart Baker and must serve a minimum of six years in jail.

Sentencing him, Judge Baker said: “This is one of the most complex and difficult-to-understand cases that I have confronted in my period of service on the Bench.

“Whatever the sexual orientation or gender issues, the fact remains you have invaded the privacy of a number of people. You have invaded their homes.”

Courtesy The Sun: United Kingdom

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Italian authorities have charged Gabriele with a laundry list of fashion crimes.

Cross-dressing Gabriele, who had long blonde hair, ran a sophisticated drugs and prostitution racket in Naples, Italy, and his clan had dozens of members.

His mugshot showed him as thick set and butch looking – but he also had very defined PLUCKED EYEBROWS and was wearing LIPSTICK.

The southern Italian port city is a popular destination for British holidaymakers en route to Sorrento.

But it is also home to the local Mafia, known as the Camorra.

A police spokesman in Naples said: “We have been on Kitty’s trail for several months and it is the first time that we have ever arrested a transsexual Mob boss.

“We think it is also probably the first case of its kind in the world.

“He was born Ugo Gabriele but told everyone to call him Kitty – he is very burly but at the same time you can tell he is trying to be a woman.

“He was a key figure in the Camorra and ran a drugs and prostitution racket out by the airport.

“We had tried to arrest him earlier this week but he escaped. But thanks to good police work we found him and arrested 27 other Camorra members.”

Traditionally the Mafia has been a haven of machismo although there have been gay mobsters in the past most famously John “Johnny Boy” D’Amato who was gunned down in New York in 1992 for being homosexual.

At his murder trial Mafia hit man Anthony Capo, a former soldier for the New Jersey-based DeCavalcante family testified that he killed D’Amato after finding out about his secret life.

He said: “Nobody’s gonna respect us if we have a gay homosexual boss sitting down discussing La Cosa Nostra business.”

Luigi Romolo Carrino, a top Mafia author, based in Italy, said: “There is a lot more homosexual activity in the Mob than you think but it is very discreet.”

Courtesy of The Sun UK

Jude Law stars as Minx in a credible new role in Rage

But in an unlikely reinvention, Primrose Hill stud Jude Law has lost himself in the make-up box.

Convincing Jude looks more like his ex-wife Sadie Frost as he dons a black crop wig and ruby sharp lipstick for his role in new film Rage.

Law, 36, is set to debut his gender-bending role as androgynous supermodel Minx at the Berlin Film Festival next week.

Courtesy Metro.co.uk

“I'm actually wearing her underwear.”

And the 22-year-old star, who has a huge female following, says he wasn’t cool until he was 12.

“Up until I was 12, my sisters used to dress me up as a girl and introduce me as Claudia,” he admitted.

“Twelve was a real turning point for me as I moved to a mixed school, and then I became cool and discovered hair gel.”

Even now, he revealed, he is shocked by the attention he is getting from women and doesn’t think he is interesting.

“If somebody asks me out on a date, I go out with them!

“But I never get asked. And I never know how to ask other people. I’m not good at the whole ‘dinner’ thing. I’m a bit of a loner.

“I’m boring. I stay home, watch TV and eat a lot of fast food. That’s really exciting, isn’t it?”

Courtesy of The Sun UK

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA– AFL bad boy Brendan Fevola hit a girl over the head with a fake penis during Mad Monday antics this week, prompting calls for a ban to the annual end-of-season ritual.

The Carlton star paraded outside a city bar in a nightie with a sex toy protruding from his pants on Monday, according to reports.

Fevola was on a alcohol-fuelled outing with teammates when he strutted across Melbourne’s Federation Square about 3pm (Perth time) wearing a pink night gown and a rubber penis strapped around his waist.

Video footage of the incident taken on a mobile phone was posted on YouTube.

“Fev had a foot-long dildo hanging out of his pink muu-muu in full public view outside the bar,” a witness told News Limited. “I saw him hit a couple of girls on the head with it.

“It was a bit off-putting.”

Carlton Football Club, which recently signed Fevola to a three-year deal worth about $750,000, refused to comment.

Victoria Premier John Brumby said Mad Monday was a “disgrace” and a poor example to the community.

“The (players’) behaviour is inappropriate,” he said.

“You expect footballers to have a bit of fun and let off a bit of steam at the end of the year but you don’t expect them to parade around Federation Square in public the way these footballers were.

“All of our elite athletes set an example to the rest of the community and this is a very poor example to set.”

Courtesy of The Western Australian Online