The picture to your left is a still from the documentary Presumed Guilty, and profiles SF public defender Jeff Adachi when he was still an assistant public defender. Well, Adachi must have been inspired by the experience or something, because on top of his duties in criminal court, because the Chron is reporting that Adachi will be making his directorial debut at this year's Asian American Film Festival, with "The Slanted Screen," a documentary about the portrayals of Asian-American males in American movie history. Wha? Well, we suppose if the DA's really not charging anyone with crimes these days, Adachi's gotta do something to fill his time, right? (Are you sure this isn't just someone else named Jeff Adachi, guys?) At the preliminary hearing on the Pamela Vitale murder, a roommate of suspect Scott Dyleski testified that he saw a to-do list hidden in Dyleski's dresser drawer that said "knock out/kidnap, question, keep captive to confirm PIN, dirty work, dispose of evidence (cut up and bury)." Terrible. But also, can we just ask? Why do you need to write that down? Can't you just remember that on your own? And in the South Bay police blotter -- police confirm that a briefcase left outside the Fresh Choice in San Jose was not a bomb, someone in Palo Alto's guitar tuner was stolen, and someone else heard mysterious noises inside her house, ran downstairs, and found ..... (dramatic music) .... someone else's key chain on her kitchen counter! You know the would-be thief's all like, running home, pant pant pant, and then reaches into their pocket to open the door, and is like .....doh! more ›

We find this latest spate of murder-suicides (his dentist????) too depressing to go into right now, and the Vitale murder just gets sadder and sadder -- so it's a Friday Blotter of Other Crime. Geraldo Rivera's brother Craig was arrested on a DUI in Walnut Creek. Craig Rivera was working with Mark Furhman on a story for his brother's new show, about the Pamela Vitale murder (of course). A jury sentenced Marques Lott to life in prison for the killing of a college student right outside the Rockridge BART station in 1997. The victim, Lisa Smith, was an English major at St. Mary's who was taking Chinese classes at Berkeley over the summer. Lott, who is schizophrenic, was off his medication and decided to kill someone coming home late at night. ....and care to try J. Lo's Glow? The SF Fire Department was called to Macy's yesterday afternoon after a number of patrons reported "very mild respiratory distress" from a mysterious odor. Macy's claims it wasn't coming from inside the store, but the SFFD couldn't tell either way. more ›

Someone, please, adopt this dog! Just don't name him October. Did you catch some free theater this Thursday? Some local music? Or Bay Blogger MJ's event at Space180? Give Dubya the ol' na-na-na-na, hey hey hey, goodbye? Maybe you just stayed in and were inspired to cook like Julie and Julia. Well, you won't be checking out the live-action Buffy musical episode, anyways -- thanks, Fox. Best to drink those troubles away. In soberer news: we're still following the Pamela Vitale and Lashuan Harris cases. RIP, Bill King. RIP, Bay Area football season? And it was 16 years ago that SFist Rain's eagerly-anticipated Bay Bridge World Series Game 3 got rudely interrupted. And Muni? Still blows. more ›

To update you on where we're at on the two biggest crime stories in town: the Chron fronts a frightening photo montage of the teenager who allegedly killed Pamela Vitale (check it out on the newsstands -- yikes!!), and acquaintances say he kind of began a downward spiral after his older sister was killed in a car crash. And Lashaun/Lashuan Harris (spellings vary), the woman who threw her kids off Pier 7, reportedly told her cousin that she was going to feed her children to the sharks and left the house. The cousin tried to stop her but couldn't. Harris had apparently been saying this for some time, and other family members thought she would never do anything to hurt her children. Her family had been trying to get custody of the children, but had been denied. The VIllage People cop who got busted for crack failed to show up for his arraignment in Daly City, and a warrant's been issued. Hey, have you checked out the YMCA? And third graders in Mill Valley are happy again, after their classroom pet turtle, Myrtle, was anonymously returned after disappearing a few days ago. The principal isn't talking, but they think the turtle was returned by the turtlenapper's parents. The children are philosophical about not learning the identity of the thief, saying the teacher had "made a deal," which made sense because if they knew who did it, "a lot of people would be mad at him or her." The children then went back to encouraging Myrtle to eat the snails in her terrarium. "Go for the snail! Go for the snail!" more ›

We usually run the blotter crime roundup on Tuesdays and Fridays, but we're sorry to say that there's been enough breaking news in the area that we're running a special edition today. Everyone's still in shock over Lashaun Harris, the schizophrenic mother who dropped her three children into the 50-degree waters of the San Francisco bay yesterday afternoon. Horrified witnesses reported seeing Harris strip the three boys naked and drop them one by one off the pier. As Harris wandered up and down the pier with her stroller, the police and fire departments (and Gavin Newsom) raced to the scene and began a frantic search. At 10:30 p.m., they located the body of 2 (or 3-, reports vary)-year-old Tavante Harris, which had drifted around the city to Fort Mason, but the bodies of 6-year-old Tayshaun and 1-year-old Joshua are still missing. Harris had apparently stopped taking her psychiatric medication, and told the authorities that voices in her head told her to do it. And in Lafayette, the Contra Costa police have arrested a suspect in the murder of attorney Daniel Horowitz's wife, Pamela Vitale. Police say that 16-year-old Scott Dyleski, for whose family Horowitz had provided pro bono legal services, had broken into the trailer in which Vitale was staying as part of his fundraising efforts for a pot-growing business. They believe Dyleski was surprised by Vitale, struck her 39 times with a piece of crown molding, and then carved a gothic symbol in her back. Dyleski, who had gotten his GED and was studying art at Diablo Valley College, is expected to be tried as an adult. Picture of Harris's stroller on Pier 7 from KGO more ›

Well, the top blotter news this week has been, of course, the murder of Pamela Vitale, the wife of Susan Polk's attorney, Daniel Horowitz. Polk, the Orinda woman who's accused of murdering her psychiatrist husband, is back in custody after the judge declared a mistrial in her case because of all the publicity about her attorney's wife. No shortage of conspiracy theories going around -- was it him? A disgruntled client? The weird neighbor? Despite what Phil Bronstein said yesterday, no arrests have been made as of yet. Cybersquatters, you just missed your chance -- in all the hoopla of opening the new San Jose city hall, the SJ IT department accidentally forgot to renew their registration on the sanjoseca.gov website. They hastily paid the $125 and the site's back in business. They're looking into whether they can just pay for a multi-year registration so it doesn't happen again -- "we are, after all, the capital of Silicon Valley." And the Oakland Tribune profiles wacky Ecstasy users at the San Francisco club Mighty. One guy has been obsessively logging every single hit of E he takes (he's up to 38.5 rolls, starting from Aug. 13, 2004 -- DEA, take note). Another raver, who's a banker in her day job (and came to Mighty dressed up as an anime character), is described as a "long-time user" and says "most folks grow out of it." We hope she didn't give the reporter her actual name. more ›