Auntie Belle -- The Interview
Happy Hiram, Ask Auntie Belle blog reporter, submitting.
The Huffington Post reporter shouting: "Ms. Belle, do you have any comments at this time about the police digging up your patio?" was the start of one of the most remarkable interviews in media history.
Belle M., also known as Auntie Belle, Mrs. Slaughterhouse or, some say, Beulah Methuselah, is a well-known fixture around Coshocton County Ohio where she peddles her trade as a masseuse and firing instructor, and she also makes a few bucks writing an advice column for a newspaper in Lake Sprang Wyoming.
"Did you really kill Mr. Slaughterhouse, your ex-husband, and is it FIVE others?" the reporter shouted on the TMZ capture video.
"Arghh... I've been married seven times, so get your story straight. Get my name right too, it's B E L L E, like the taco place. And I write for the best newspaper in Wyoming, the 'Foetid Sprang Gazette'. What's your name young man? You remind me of my second husband. Do you have a hairy back?"
The reporter, obviously surprised at being found out - he was a lapsed member of Hirsute Anonymous, fumbled out the next question, "Are you a killer?"
"I was in my youth, darling, but that was 49 years ago. Once you get past 100 the only thing killer is your backaches. Next question?"
Before presenting the rest of this historical, and some say hysterical, interview, a bit of background on Mrs. Slaughterhouse, née Methuselah.
There are no records for births before 1890 in Buckshot county Kentucky, though we have an eyewitness that Mrs. Craven (as she was called then, during her third marriage) was a mature student at the Morehead Normal school studying Law in 1908. The eyewitness is 109 years old.
When interviewed by the BBC, her editor from the Wyoming newspaper Cletus T. Hiram said, "The only reason I let her have the column is she comes around every October to tug my jerk string and do some breasting out for me during duck season."
It took the reporter a few hours to realize there were no obscene references in his remarks, although she was sure he was leering at her when he said it. BBC reporters always thinking everything is about sex.
So further inquiry finds that Belle is a registered gun owner and a crack shot with a Mauser C96 sub-machine gun, she owns a small knitted lingerie company for big women and she is the advice columnist on a blog called Ask Auntie Belle. Rumors persist that she was born before the civil war, despite the obvious use of this idea as the tag line of her literary pursuits.
“Are you really as old as the hills, Ms. Methuselah,” one of the huddle of reporters shouted.
“I don’t know anybody by any such name, boyfriend, I am Auntie Belle. The M. stands for `My place or yours?’ And the hills around here aren’t very old, they are just some landfill shipped off from New York City’s garbage.”
Belle removed one elbow-length glove and the circle of usually jaded reporters was mesmerized. Something in the way she carried herself, the air of days gone by, was irresistible.
“Is it true you killed Warren G. Harding?”
“That Hiram is such a liar. He just made that up. Warren’s wife killed him to spite me. Next question?”
“Why did you say you buried your ex-husbands under your patio? Is it true?”
“Do any of you remember Mark Twain? Sam was such an ornery fellow. Well, I plan to use the Mark Twain defense. I’m a HUMORIST.”
Just as she was taking the next question, the police came out from her back yard with what looked like the pieces of a moon-shine still.
“Hey, you have no rights dismantling things on my property! I only use that stuff for medicinal use. I am guaranteed my rights under the Bill of Rights. Do any of you boys remember the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?The policemen and detectives walked right by her pretending she was not even addressing them, as they had been warned not to make any undirected moves on camera.
“How do you feel having the police coming in and tearing up your property?”
“Boys, it's Sherman all over again! The boys in blue always come tearing up what is rightfully your’n. Do I look like a criminal to you?”
As she posed, a tractor behind her on camera dug up what looked to be human remains under the slabs of patio it was tearing up. A detective viewed the evidence, frowned and approached Auntie Belle. She glowered like she was apt to explode at any moment.
“Mrs. Slaughterhouse, we are going to need you to come with us down to the station and answer a few questions, and possibly identify a body. Can you please step away from then reporters Ma’am?”
“Well I’ll be durned,” Belle said to herself, as caught on camera. “I guess you cain’t keep a good man down.” She then addressed the reporters.
“Boys, I’m afraid this old gal might be in a bit of trouble. Stay tuned for the next chapter of this thing.”
And with that, the police escorted Auntie Belle into a waiting squad car.
The Huffington Post has an exclusive that the remains are identifiable as those of James Alva Slaughterhouse, who went missing several years ago and had already been presumed dead. They claim that Ms. Belle M. has been charged with the murder and detained without bail, because of her long history as a flight risk.The police, at this time, have made no comment.TMZ is showing her interview on heavy rotation and Harvey Levin was quoted as saying “I don’t know, there is something I like about the old bat. I mean if she really IS 150 years old, she’d be the oldest living suspected serial killer in history. Not that they have found the other bodies… yet.”
She is however, being allowed to continue her column from jail.
