:(

Damn...

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/pbcsouth/content/local_news/epaper/2006/02/08/s1b_BBMURDER_0208.html

Police are treating it as a "possible" homocide. As opposed to, what... suicide?

There are some sick SoBs out there...

So long guy, thanks for whatever part you had in Curious George.

Wow...

How messed-up is this, considering the Curious George movie is just now coming out. It sucks that something like this could've happened, but how warped is the timing?

Very creepy that a body could lay in a bag in the open, in front of a house and people walked by and no one realized that it was him. So sad.

There have been a lot of home invasion robberies around here lately of the elderly for drugs & stuff, I hope this was not one of them.

.

Wow, that's just a shame. Seems like he was a really good guy. It's like murdering Mr. Rodgers, orRonald McDonald! Who would do such a thing? Must have been someone who didn't realize who he was, or just didn't care.

Do a lot of the elderly use drugs in Florida?

Actually yes - a lot of elderly people are on some real heavy duty pain killers and sadly, some are in hospice and are on morphine or something similar. A few have gotten themselves in trouble and in the news recently because they have been caught selling some of their pain killers to supplement their social security.

Unfortunately, this also leaves them vulnerable to people who decide to kill them and take what they have, drugs and belongings.

There are a lot of old people down here, many of them are sick, alone and lonely and that opens them up to a lot of exploitation.

Not me though - as far as I'm concerned you can keep the oxycontin, I'm into toad licking. So far as I know, no one's going to break into my house to steal a toad when you can just walk out into the everglades and pick one up.

But there's gators in them swamps!

2 arrested in Boynton murder of Curious George collaborator

sun-sentinel.com
Posted February 9 2006, 12:30 PM EST

BOYNTON BEACH – Police on Thursday said two men have been arrested for the murder of Curious George collaborator Alan J. Shalleck, 76, earlier this week.

The suspects were identified as Rex Spears Ditto, 29, and Vincent J. Puglisi, 54. Both were charged with first-degree murder, armed home invasion, aggravated battery of a person 65 or older, and dealing in stolen property. They are being held in the county jail without bond.

The body of Shalleck, a former producer and co-writer of the popular Curious George books and cartoons, was found under garbage bags near the driveway of his home at 4295 King Theodore Drive on Tuesday morning. Police said it had been there for more than 24 hours.

Police on Thursday said Shalleck, a divorcee and father of two, had been stabbed to death. An autopsy has been ordered to verify the time and cause of death.

Investigators said when they entered the home on Tuesday, they found several pools of blood near the master bedroom, which was also covered with blood. Several knives and broken glass were found inside the home.

Detectives said both suspects confessed to the murder and robbery of jewelry and cash from Shalleck.

A Syracuse University drama major, Shalleck got his start in 1950 in the CBS mailroom, working his way up to associate producer for Winky Dink and You, a children's television show in which kids drew on a plastic film placed on the TV screen. He later produced children's films and formed his own company.

Shalleck later wrote and directed 104 five-minute episodes of Curious George, which aired on the Disney Channel. The episodes were adapted into 28 books. Shalleck co-wrote a series of books with Margret Rey, who created Curious George along with her husband more than 60 years ago. The Curious George movie opens on Friday locally.

Shalleck worked at Borders Books & Music on Congress Avenue and Old Boynton West Road, but had not shown up for work in two days.

His body was found in his driveway in Royal Manor Estates, a senior citizen retirement village just east of Military Trail and north of Gateway Boulevard.

Neighbors said they had first seen the garbage bag in the driveway Monday morning, but thought it was trash. Police responded to an 8:30 a.m. call of maintenance supervisor Burt Venturelli, 62, who was going about his normal routine of taking out bags of trash from residents' front lawns.

"I went to drag it (Tuesday) morning and said `this is a body, this isn't garbage,'" Venturelli said. He said the body was naked from the waist up. "I could see blood all over the place."

There was a black plastic garbage bag covering his lower half and another his top, Venturelli said. The body was on a rug, he said.

Neighbors described Shalleck, a Westchester County, N.Y., native, as a quiet, friendly man who had a lot of company who would come and go. Shalleck gained local recognition as Gramps, the name he used while reading books to children in schools.

"That was very important to him," said Shalleck's ex-wife, Joan Shalleck, 75, of Sun City Center. "Educators in the local schools encouraged that whole effort because they thought he was doing a very good thing, and he was."

In 2001, Shalleck recalled, "Gramps is a persona that transcends everything else ... I'm a communicator, not an educator. My main goal is to get them to love to read."

Guess no one was "curious" about the bag in the driveway