[The Hague, October 26. Image via Getty]

Bosnian mothers and relatives of war victims protest October 26, 2009 in The Hague outside the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at the start of the planned tial of Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, who boycotted the start of his UN genocide trial. Neither Karadzic nor any of his legal advisors were present at the ICTYwhen judge O-Gon Kwon started the hearing, which lasted less than 15 minutes. AFP PHOTO / RICK NEDERSTIGT - netherlands out - belgium out - (Photo credit should read RICK NEDERSTIGT/AFP/Getty Images)

[Modiin, Israel; August 2. Image via Getty]

Relatives of Israeli Nir Katz, who was killed in an attack on a gay club, grieve during his funeral in the Israeli city of Modiin near Tel Aviv on August 2, 2009. Katz was killed on August 1 when a man opened fire in a gay youth club in Tel Aviv, killing him and a teenage girl, in an attack that struck fear among the liberal city's homosexual community. Israeli police have launched a manhunt for the assailant. AFP PHOTO/DAVID FURST (Photo credit should read DAVID FURST/AFP/Getty Images)

"On the morning of August 1 she was having coffee in the local café and the waitress mentioned that a body had been found in the school playing fields nearby. It was a discovery that would change her life irrevocably." The case was an unusually horrible one: a young woman had been picked up on her way home by a group of men and women, who abducted, raped and strangled her, before further raping the body, driving it to a field a few days later and setting it on fire.

40-year-old Susan Galbraith of Mayfield, KY, wanted to check the body out for herself, and what she saw appalled her. When the murder of the black teenager was handled with inept indifference, and then virtually dropped, Galbraith sprang into action. She'd seen the investigative reports of British journalist Tom Mangold (who penned the account) and wrote him the challenging note, "You think you're a hotshot reporter. Come to Mayfield and work with me on a murder case that's baffled the locals." He did. They began a cinematic odd-couple partnership that, in the movie version, will obviously blossom into a (signifcantly more youthful) romance.

I taught her basic journalism and how to research; I expanded her vocabulary (at her insistence), showed her how to employ logic, how to kill conspiracy theories even before their fragile shells cracked open; I nagged her on how to check, check and check again every single fact that seemed important and how to ignore barmy blogs and how to be very patient....She in turn taught me attitudes that occasionally transcended normal grubby journalistic ambition.

Folk wisdom is implied. He teaches her about wine and cognac and is comically appalled by the "beyond-parody" trailer-park folk he encounters.

The two "hit the streets" and started talking to underworld figures. The Brit went home, Susan started working unpaid with the detective force and volunteered to wear a wire. When they'd zeroed in the killer, Susan decided it was a good idea to go undercover and stalk him, "Columbo-style." After years of no results, Susan took it upon herself to create a website in which she listed pictures of people whom she considered "people of interest." She tracked down a girl whom she found suspicious and was able to exact what amounted to a partial confession. When cops arrested the girl in California, she confessed all and five people were put in jail, the killer for life.

As a result, Susan was formally presented with the first KBI's Outstanding Citizen Award for her services to justice, is considering becoming a P.I. and, as the author puts it, "found herself." It's a story with the best conclusion such a horrible scenario can have, but in many ways worrisome, too. After all, for every Erin Brockovitch or Susan Galbraith there are ten more people who, in such dangerous situations, could get in serious trouble. Susan Galbraith's tenacity and commitment are praiseworthy, the police's negligence appalling and surely all too common. It's going to make a very good Lifetime movie (the only question being: which 90210 alumna has the chops?) but when it's made, please, please run a disclaimer: despite the wisdom of a hundred years' worth of multimedia mysteries and thrillers, amateur sleuthing can be highly hazardous to one's health, and frequently ineffective.

How One Ordinary Woman Solved A Murder [TimesUK]

• A poll of British mothers reveals that 16 percent of respondents have a favorite child and 50 percent love both "equally but in different ways." • A claim that steroids may prevent a third of miscarriages raises questions about how normal early miscarriages are for women who are trying to conceive and if they need to be "cured." • A study of young girls and boys reports that boys with conduct and oppositional defiance disorders had lower heart rates and sweated less than boys without those conditions while playing a money-making computer game but girls showed no physiological differences while playing. • Concita de Gregorio appointment as editor-in-chief of one of Italy's most prestigious newspapers, L'Unita, signals the rise of women in the workplace in Italy. • The soccer players of FC de Rakt, an amateur Dutch women's soccer team, all play in short skirts (over hot-pants) because they feel that the look is both more "elegant" and comfortable. • Residents of San Francisco are split over a new proposition that would make prostitution legal in the city: The city's health department backs the proposal but the Mayor and DA say that it will ruin neighborhoods. • An internet advice site about divorces in the UK says that 10% of divorces happen during the second year of marriage and "online divorces" are contributing to a "throwaway" culture. • The "upscale bums" of Beverly Hills benefit from the neighborhood's rich residents but must "act respectful" and not be turned off by the wealthy in order to not get attention from cops. • A judge in Texas has ordered a woman to stop bearing children as part of her 10-year-probation after the woman admitted to not providing care for her 19-month-old daughter after the child was severely beaten by her father. • Computer models that are commonly used by doctors to determine if a woman would benefit from genetic testing for ovarian and breast cancer have underestimated the probability ofAsian women having a genetic mutation that could lead to cancer. • The various relationships between a Saudi woman and her driver all reveal a deep frustration with the inconvenience of not being able to drive themselves. • Why have Crayola crayons removed their old smell from their products? • A trading website for mothers in Australia called Mum Swap encourages free trading (instead of spending) of goods and services from clothes, babysitting, tips, and vacation homes. • High-class escorts in India are sharing in the country's booming economy but they are also evidence of the rising focus on materialism for women in the globalized economy. •

Note to Kristina Caban: A Crap Email From a Dude sent to Jezebel would have been similarly humiliating to your one-night stand and would have kept you out of the slammer!

NYC Woman Gets 5 Years For Branding Ex-lover [AP]