Month: February 2008

Today, Dr. Burt Fullmer was savagely attacked, after being lured to a cabin in the Princess Auto Camp near Van Nuys. When Fullmer entered the cabin, he was bludgeoned in the head by Dr. J.H. Balzer, while Mary Wade stuck him in the arm with a hypodermic needle full of morphine. Fullmer fought them off, and the three rolled out the cabin door where they attracted the notice of neighboring campers.

Responding officers discovered a shovel, rope, and canvas in the cabin, and charged Balzer and Wade with suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and assault to commit murder.

And you’ll never guess the motive for the attack. No, seriously. You will never guess it.

The attack on Fullmer was the latest in a series of power plays between warring factions of a splinter sect of the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

Fullmer had recently been excommunicated from the Seventh Day Adventist Church, along with many others, for following the teachings of Mrs. Margaret Rowan, a self-proclaimed prophet who, the Times says, “rather startled the world by predicting its sudden finish two years ago.”

The excommunicated started the Seventh Day Adventist Reformed Church. However, the fledgling church ran into trouble in a hurry.

As President and Treasurer of the church, Fullmer found himself at odds with Rowan. He said, “I began to suspect that maybe things weren’t just right after her prediction failed to come true… I began investigating Mrs. Rowan’s activities and the things that developed caused a split in our ranks.” Fullmer claimed he had dirt on Rowan, and her followers intended for it never to come out. “They were planning to kill me. Why do you suppose they had that pick, shovel, and canvas for if it wasn’t to bury me?”

In turn, Balzer claimed that Fullmer had been trying to wrest control of the group and had embezzled the church’s funds. Balzer said, “We were driven to the limits of desperation by this man. His persecution has been terrible.”

Blessed with foresight, Mrs. Rowan skipped town right around this time, prompting a statewide search as police sought her in connection with the beating. A week later, she surrendered to police, and stood trial with Wade and Balzer. The three were found guilty, and sentenced to 1 to 10 at San Quentin.

“The entire affair is shrouded in mystery,” said D’Arnot. “I have it on the best of authority that neither the police nor the special agents of the general staff have the faintest conception of how it was accomplished. All they know, all that anyone knows, is that Nikolas Rokoff has escaped.” — from The Beasts of Tarzan

Lord Greystoke bellowed with rage to discover that, while his humble creator, Burroughs, was quite suddenly called away to Ogden, Utah, his offices had been burgled. It seemed that nothing had been taken, all the papers and the small bit of cash that Burroughs kept onhand remained undisturbed.

However, the office’s lovely French doors had been jimmied open, and the hinges on the safe battered, as if by a hammer. Surely this had the stink about it of Nikolas Rokoff, recently escaped from a French prison, and bent on avenging the man whose testimony had locked him away!

And then, Lord Greystoke dropped his jaw in horror. He should have realized! Of course, the bungled burglary was no more than a diversion, meant no doubt, to distract him from Rokoff’s more sinister designs. Greystoke burst through the ruined French doors of Burroughs’s office, and raced home to determine whether his archenemy had kidnapped his wife and son. Again.