Residents of a Davie trailer park think their contaminated water made them sick

Allan Payan lifts a photograph from a shelf inside his singlewide trailer home. The smiling woman in the image has full cheeks and long, thick, brown hair. Caroll Payan, who sits across the couch from him, can't bear to look at the old photo of herself. She has dropped 20 pounds in the past six months, and it shows in her tall, wiry frame. Her green eyes now bulge under heavy lids on a gaunt face, and her scalp is visible beneath sparse, short hair. Tears fill her eyes as she watches her husband tuck the picture frame away.

"It's like the devil just took her," Allan says... full story >>

Denver Snowboard Bandits lived for excitement, but the FBI got the final thrill

For photos of the Snowboard Bandits in action, go to westword.com/slideshow.

The guy in the surveillance tape looks more like he's ready to hit some epic powder than stick up a bank. The black form-fitting mask over his mouth and nose could have come off the rack at a ski and snowboard sale. His bulky high-end jacket, decorated in a camouflage motif, is straight out of Transworld Snowboarding magazine. And the big Afro wig completes the outfit, lending him the aura of a slope-side jester eager to tackle the gnarliest terrain park.

But the man who stopped into this Wachovia... full story >>

The Collector: Mack McCormick's Huge Archive of Culture and Lore

An evening at Mack McCormick's house in Spring Branch always has the same structure, if vastly different forms. First things first: drinks. At 78, the widower is not getting around like he used to, so he asks his guest to fetch them. In his freezer there are Tupperware bottles filled with precisely measured cocktails of McCormick's own mixing — margaritas, martinis, gin and tonics.

Gin in hand, he leans back in his easy chair, cane by his side, Post-it note-­festooned books in easy reach all around him, beloved spaniel Charles at his feet, and the tales start spilling... full story >>

117 Homicides and Counting

Anti-violence activists pull up to the corner of 27th Street and Benton, cars following as slowly and methodically as a funeral procession. Everyone is wearing the same black T-shirts with the name Aim4Peace printed across the chest as they unload signs from their trunks.

They're here for a march. The plan is to let the neighborhood know there's a new group in town, intent on stemming the violence that has killed, by this point in the year — it's early August — almost 70 people.

Less than 20 minutes before their arrival, a car stopped in front of the E & J... full story >>

A Stripper, a Mobster, and a Murder

Hauling a fishing rod and bait, Orlando Maytin and his 12-year-old son trudged through a vacant parking lot just past Mile Marker 31 on Alligator Alley. It was 7:45 a.m. March 21, 1999, when they came to a quaint public fishing nook on the edge of a vast, swampy stretch. As Maytin cast a line into the oily canal water, he noticed a mysterious blue-and-brown duct-taped package bumping against the shoreline. It was about three feet long and two feet tall, with makeshift handles on the sides.

It didn't look right.

Maytin, a chunky 34-year-old with short brown locks slicked... full story >>

The Green Institute faces possible foreclosure after 15 years

ANNIE YOUNG WENT to bed exhausted. For more than 12 years, the large, outspoken woman had been rallying the troops in Minneapolis's poorest neighborhood, fighting a proposed county garbage-transfer station. Residents didn't need more heavy truck traffic, toxic fumes, and pollution. Phillips was already a "dumping ground," and the neighborhood didn't want anybody else's trash.

It was environmental racism at its worst, remembers Young, now a park commissioner. The early 1990s had brought a flood of new blood to Phillips. African Americans, Hmong, Somalis, and Latinos crowded the... full story >>

Can Maynard James Keenan Put Arizona Wine on the Map?

Early-afternoon sun shines intensely on the sleepy vineyard, where row after row of grape-laden vines run down the slope of the valley, like deep emerald waves in a leafy sea.

You can't easily see the fat clusters of ripe grapes, but they're there, hanging on every rung in the shadows of a lush, green canopy. It's mid-September, and this particular patch of land — surrounded by rocky, dust-colored hills and towering, shady trees, with a meandering creek just beyond a thicket at the bottom — is ready for harvest.

After surveying the crops, the winemaker comes in... full story >>

Voodoo on the Vine

In a remote corner of the Benziger Family Winery, you can just barely hear the tour guide's voice from over the adjacent ridge. Sightseers will never be led to this spot, however, and not just for the obvious reason — a series of massive compost piles emitting a smell so powerful it brings tears to the eyes. In this part of the winery, there are things tour guides would rather not explain.

One recent Friday, Colby Eierman, the vineyard's chief gardener, slowly motored his pickup past the piles. Viscous red fluid was slathered over the truck's back flap; with every bump in... full story >>

Mistress of Horror: Nobody writes vampire novels the way St. Louis' Laurell K. Hamilton does – and yes, there's lots of sex

On the warm, moonless night before Halloween, 65 people huddle around a campfire at Eureka's Wild Canid Survival and Research Center in the middle of the woods. Deeper in the darkness, wolves prowl and a horned owl hoots overhead. It is a night for telling scary stories, and few people in America are better at it than the petite woman standing in front of the fire.

She is Laurell K. Hamilton, and for the past fifteen years she has enthralled her readers with tales of vampires, werewolves, zombies — and one very tough woman who works to keep them all in line.

"Can... full story >>