truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

In Monticello, N.Y., Steven King, 40, was indicted in October as a result of a traffic stop, for allegedly doing nearly every single thing wrong: intoxicated, driving in oncoming-traffic lanes, with an open beer container, not wearing a seat belt, driving an uninsured car, with expired safety inspection sticker, with license plates belonging to another car, and with his 2-year-old daughter-passenger neither in a car seat nor belted in.

Small-Town News: (1) Nicholas Palmer, 22, briefly took to the woods near Swanville, Maine, in October after an altercation with his sister. He had tried to snip the cord of the clipper she was using to shave the family cat to rid it of fleas and ticks. (2) Robin Handel, 44, was arrested in Rowlett, Tex., in December and charged with conspiracy after allegedly convincing her mother to kill Robin's husband to protect a romance she was having via the Internet. (The small-caliber handgun that the mother used failed to inflict life- threatening wounds, either to the husband or when she shot herself as police closed in.)

David Thomson, 49, was convicted in Edinburgh, Scotland, of smothering his mom to death after she had taunted him for his inept suicide attempt several weeks before (October).

Jayantibhai Patel, 57, was arrested in Foster City, Calif., in October after admitting that he smacked his father in the head with a hammer, requiring his hospitalization. Patel told police that he wanted the father to be put in a nursing home but was under the impression that only a hospital could assign him to one, and thus, he needed to get him into a hospital.

People Who Have a Way with Words: Russia's checkerboard serial killer (who said he aimed to commit 64 murders even though only charged with 49), explained in court in October how he got started, at age 18, by killing a classmate: "A first killing is like your first love. You never forget it."

Vincent Scheffner, 63, a municipal parking-meter worker in St. Paul, Minn., was under investigation at press time on suspicion of theft after a local credit union reported that he had been regularly depositing, for the last year, enormous amounts of coins into his account.