Total Divorce Blog

Sometimes the fighting just doesn’t end, even after the divorce papers are signed and filed.

An Idaho woman is facing arson charges after allegedly setting fire to a mounted bison head at her ex-husband’s home.

Police investigators say that Ryann Jean Stafford has been charged with third degree arson, a felony, after she got into an argument with her ex-husband at his home .  After the man left the home,  she allegedly used a cigarette lighter to set fire to the bison head on the wall.

The fire was extinguished by someone else who lives at the home and police were called.  Stafford was arrested and now faces up to 10 years in jail.

In order to keep his wife from getting the marital home in their divorce, Gary Hooley came up with a plan.  He allegedly burned the house, worth almost three-quarters of a million dollars, to the ground.

Hooley’s wife, Michelle, said that he had previously told her that he would take the house apart “brick by brick” if he had to, to keep her from getting it in the divorce settlement.

In the fire, which Hooley allegedly set while he was drunk, the home was gutted and all of the belongings inside were burnt up.

Michelle Hooley owned the home before she married Gary Hooley.  The house was in her name and she paid the mortgage and the insurance.  Apparently during their brief marriage, Gary Hooley had done extensive renovations on the home.

After the fire, police found Hooley nearby and arrested him.  Although he had been drinking heavily, he denied setting the fire that destroyed the house.

Back in early October, Total Divorce detailed a seemingly-finished West Virginia divorce that had been revived by a very expensive divorce bill. More specifically, Beckley resident Georganne Landis had turned to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals to overturn a lower court ruling which found that her ex-husband, orthopedic surgeon A.E. Landis, did not have to foot her $333,442.86 divorce bill. With that in mind, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals has decided that Dr. and Ms. Landis should, out of fairness, split the divorce bill in half after both sides had argued that they shouldn’t have to pay it.

In part of its ruling, the Justices for the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals ruled that Dr. Landis continues to earn a substantial income and is in a better position to absorb some of the divorce bill as compared to his wife absorbing it all. The Landis’ amazingly began their divorce proceedings back in 1999 and obtained their divorce decree in 2002. However, the couple came to a settlement on their wealth in 2005.

Before she disappeared over two weeks ago, Stacy Peterson, 23, had told friends and family members that she wanted to divorce Drew Peterson.  She also said that if she were  to become missing to suspect foul play.

Stacy was the 4th wife of Drew Peterson and investigators say that the case is making a turn from a missing persons investigation to a homicide investigation as they uncover possible evidence of her murder.

Drew Peterson, 54, is considered a suspect in the case.  Drew has told police that he last heard from his wife on the day she disappeared and she told him that she was leaving him for another man.

Kathleen Savio, the third wife of police sergeant Drew Peterson, died  in 2004 in what Peterson called an “unusual accident”.  Her body was found  face down in a bathtub with abrasions and a gash on the back of her head.

Savio’s family has always insisted that Drew Peterson was involved in her death.  The case has been re-opened and her body will be exhumed for an investigation.

Months ago, Total Divorce detailed the criminal case of Darren Mack, a Reno businessman who was accused of murdering his wife and then shooting the judge that presided over his bitter divorce case, and here’s the latest information on this case which drew national headlines and was featured on CBS’ 48 Hours. Yesterday afternoon, Mack pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and also entered an Alford plea to an attempted murder charge. By doing so, Mack basically acknowledged that there was enough evidence for a conviction on this attempted murder charge without having to plead guilty to it.

During his 2005 divorce with his wife Charla, Darren Mack apparently felt that Chuck Weller, the divorce judge presiding over his case, was treating his wife more favorably. On June 12th of that year, Mack stabbed his wife to death and then fired shots into the judge’s chambers in which Weller was located. Weller was hit with shrapnel but survived. Mack later turned himself in to police in Mexico a week later.

In Texas a divorced couple are headed to the state’s Supreme Court to settle a fight about what happens to three frozen embryos that the couple created before the divorce.

Years ago, Augusta and Randy Roman consulted with fertility specialists and created three embryos, in hopes that they would become parents.  After the embryos were created, Randy had a very sudden change of heart and decided he wasn’t sure about the marriage, and was less sure that they should go forward with a potential pregnancy.

The Romans divorced and a long legal battle began about what would happen to the now frozen embryos.  Randy says that he has moral objections to them being used and wants them destroyed.  Augusta, 46, wants to become pregnant using the embryos and says they may be her last chance at having a biological child.

Augusta has previously won a ruling that would allow her to use the embryos, but Randy quickly appealed and the Texas Court of Appeals blocked her from having the embryos implanted.  Augusta has appealed and now the case is headed to the Texas Supreme Court.

There may just be a trade show for everything now.

In Vienna, Austria the world’s first “divorce fair” was held and journalists, divorce lawyers, detectives and mediators showed up.  A lab was even set up to swab cheeks for paternity tests.  But where were all of the people who want to divorce?

As it was, the unhappy couples had better things to do and the event was a flop.

Only a few dozen people turned out at the divorce fair.  Some say that there were too many cameras there, and that’s what kept people away.  True, there were more journalists than unhappy couples there.

So the lawyers had few to counsel, there were no cheeks to swab and no disputes to work through.  Even the speed dating tables set up nearby were empty, as were the makeup chairs offered to women who would want to start their new lives with a new look.

Maybe divorce is just more of a private matter than the divorce fair organizers had thought.  After all, not everyone likes to air their dirty laundry out in public.

For some people, making light of a divorce can ease the pain and start the healing process.

So should the companies that print wedding announcements branch out and also offer printing of divorce announcements?  And should newspapers add a column beside their wedding announcements to announce the bitter breakups of those who wish to go public with the news?

Sending out or publishing divorce announcements could head off those uncomfortable moments when someone who hasn’t heard the news asks, “So how is Steve doing?”  You could be saved the wrinkle causing grimaces and finally just admit that your family and friends were right all along with an announcement to put it all out there.

You could also use your divorce announcement to either ask for advice on a divorce attorney or scare the pants off your ex by including the news in the announcement that you’ve already hired the most powerful and ruthless divorce attorney that has ever set foot inside a courtroom.

In more amicable circumstances, you and your ex could release a joint announcement that puts you both “back on the market.”  These could be sent to all the people that you would have liked to have dated, had you not made the mistake of marrying the wrong person.

So, for all kinds of reasons, divorce announcements could actually be a coming trend.  If faced with a divorce, would you make an announcement about it?

In Connecticut, a woman has been charged with second-degree harassment and breach of peace after she allegedly used the internet to try to  break up the marriage of an old boyfriend and cause the couple to divorce.

Pilar Stofega is accused of creating fake profiles of her ex-boyfriend’s wife on adult web sites across the internet.  She allegedly used the wife’s high school yearbook picture and her home and work telephone numbers in the profiles.

When strange men started calling the couple’s home and saying they were responding to a profile on an adult site, the couple knew something strange was going on somewhere.  The man did his own investigation and traced the profiles back to Stofega, who he had dated in 1999.

When Stofega was caught she said she set up the profiles to be vindictive, knowing that the profiles would cause problems between the husband and wife.  She was arrested and released on $2,500 bond.

A man in Spokane, Washington wanted to avoid a divorce so he decided that murdering his wife would be a better choice.  With Halloween coming up, it was just the right time to put his cunning plan into action.

Sean Jennings reportedly set up a haunted house in his garage and invited his wife to come have a look at it.  He then allegedly had her climb a ladder to test a noose where a skeleton was supposed to hang.  Mrs. Naive put her neck in the noose and then her husband pulled the ladder out from under her, according to police reports.

The woman still has bruises and rope burns on her neck from the incident.  She says that at the last moment she was able to get out of the noose by promising her husband that she would give him a divorce and that she would not tell anyone that he tried to kill her.

She kept her promise not to tell until she called police from a Wal-Mart parking lot on October 9.