Rough crowd, these golfers. Striding around, hitting things with clubs. It was just a matter of time before someone wound up dead. Nobody would have expected it to be 79-year-old Donald B. King, though, nor guessed the motive for his slaying. Witnesses say King was a gentle man who picked litter off the Quincy, Massachusetts, golf course, and sometimes gathered stray balls for the neighbourhood kids. Fifty-four-year-old Robert Carnathan, tells another story.

“That guy tried to steal my golf balls,” Carnathan allegedly boasted to witnesses. “I whacked him over the head with my cane.” The onlookers had seen the whole thing—Carnathan allegedly wielding a wooden cane in one hand, a walking stick in the other, while King tried unsuccessfully to parry the blows with a tree branch. He was declared DOA at nearby hospital. Carnathan, known to scavenge and resell golf balls, was arrested on charges of manslaughter. :

» Scott Saxon