Sex, Murder, Booze, Embezzlement... and Snowplows -- Just Another News Day in South Dakota

Individual crimes and foibles don't usually strike me as news, but this week's news seems unusually rich with tales bad behavior by our fellow South Dakotans. Our Wednesday tabloid sampler:

1. 42-year-old Shannon Flowers has an affair with 20-year-old Brittney Chua of Woonsocket. Both are married. He already has two kids. She gets pregnant. He beats her to death with a pipe and disposes of her body in the city compost heap.
2. Fall River County deputy Buckly McColl picks up a drunk woman, has sex with her in Edgemont City Hall, then drops her off at a bar. McColl acknowledges what he did was wrong "because he was on duty and a married man." (Subtext: "Had I been off-duty and single, taking advantage of a drunk woman would have been perfectly fine.")
3. Kathy Gourley is charged with embezzling over $200K over five years from the Sioux Empire Fair. KELO runs an e-mail from an anonymous tipster saying Gourley showered her boss, newly resigned fair manager Matt Adamski, with thousands of dollars of gifts.
4. The South Dakota Department of Transportation reports 14 snowplows have been hit by motorists since the beginning of the year.

The lesson: Don't cheat on your wife, don't take thousand-dollar gifts from anyone but your wife... and don't crowd the plow!