"Do it for the children"

I admit that I knew nothing about Casey Anthony until the verdict came down, at which point I had to have a friend explain the case to me. Tragic story, but I didn't give it much more thought until this little bit of weirdness came out of Oklahoma. I'm not totally certain why bizarre stories like this fascinate me, but they do.

Meet Shireen Nalley (above). Shireen lives in Chouteau, Oklahoma, and the other night she stopped at a local convenience store to buy some gas.

Inside the store she encountered a young clerk named Sammay Blackwell (right, in pink shirt.) Sammy appears to have at least a slight resemblance - and similar hairstyle - to Casey Anthony (right, in blue shirt.)

Shireen apparently thought so as well, and in fact, she managed to convince herself that Sammay WAS Casey. (Which seems odd, considering that Casey is still incarcerated in Florida, more than a thousand miles away.)

When Sammay got off work a little later, she got in her car, looked in the mirror and saw Shireen watching her. Sammay backed out, and headed down the road for home. Then things got really strange.

Shireen, in a a minivan, drove up and rammed Sammay's pickup truck. Panicked, Sammay pulled off into a parking lot to try to get away, only to have Shireen ram her with the minivan, rolling it over twice and leaving it on its side. (That's the truck, pictured below.) Shireen then high-tailed it out of there but was captured by police and is now in jail, charged with assault with a deadly weapon and various other offenses.

Shireen's explanation for the attempted murder was that she was "trying to save the children."

The kicker to the story: Sammay does have a daughter, and her name is Caylee, just like Casey Anthony's daughter.

I'm not sure what the moral of the story is, but news accounts say that Sammay is trying to get a restraining order against Shireen. I'm not sure that will be necessary, since I suspect Shireen will be a guest of the Oklahoma correctional system for a good long time.