Apr 10, 2008

Merle Wayne Sneed

Steven Levitt, coauthor of Freakonomics, has a running theme in his blog for the NY Times, about murderers with the middle name Wayne. Lots of guys saddled with the middle name Wayne, are prone to murder it seems. In fact, I read somewhere that Wayne is the most common middle name for US inmates under conviction for homicide, although I don't remember my source and I may have made that up. The variations, Dewayne, Dwain and Dwayne are also common among those with homicidal tendencies. Chuck Sheperd, author of The News of the Weird, has weighed in with his own compilation of notorious Waynes who have been convicted of murder. Here in our neck of the woods, a guy named Clark Wayne Xxxx, was shot to death last year, after he got into a fight with his brother, Lyndall Dwain Xxxx. The rare double Wayne. Lyndall Dwain's trial began on Wednesday and he is expected to join the ranks of the incarcerated Waynes real soon. He confessed to having 'unloaded' his assault rifle on his brother, although he says his brother provoked him. The question is, why the prevalence of murderous Waynes ? Do sociopaths tend to fancy the name Wayne and seal their son's fate with it, or does the name have some mystical evil power that unleashes homicidal mania? Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

6 comments:

Bobby D. said...

You almost got me-- This smells of the same logic that goes into a conspiracy theory. Lee Wayne Oswald, Ted Wayne Bundy, O.W. Simpson...

and what about all the good Waynes, like Mahatma Wayne Ghandi and Lyndon Waines Johnson?

Kurt said...

Kenny Wayne Shepherd has yet to kill.

Bobby D. said...

perhaps these "Wayne" men had domineering bullying macho fathers who wanted to name their sons after John Wayne-- but in most families, family names come first, so Wayne had to be the middle name.

yes said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
yes said...

Mystic Evil Power? Y'all are askin for it

Steve Reed said...

For some reason, I feel like anything I say in response to this post will get me in trouble.