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Five Puppies and a Sex Slave

Meghan, I'm curious about that T-shirt sniffing, too, and am trying to get hold of the actual paper. In the meantime, I confess, I've been riveted by another tale that features some modicum of science but also five puppies, a Mormon sex slave, and (possibly) a three-legged horse. So, turning for a moment from birth control to copious reproduction ...

Last week, a woman named Bernann McKinney received five puppies that had been cloned from her dear, departed pit bull, Booger. This was apparently the first time a canine had been cloned for commercial purposes, and McKinney was photographed frolicking on the floor, hugging and squeezing one of the pups (whom she called "mini-Boogers"), and telling them, "Yes, I know you! You know me, too!"

Unfortunately for her, someone watching the spectacle also recognized her as a fugitive whose real name was Joyce. According to the Associated Press, in 1977, Joyce McKinney "became a British tabloid sensation over a kidnapping case. She faced charges of unlawful imprisonment after she was accused of abducting a Mormon missionary in England, handcuffing him to a bed and making him her sex slave. She jumped bail and was never brought to justice." Another account, which likens McKinney (weirdly) to John Edwards, features velvet handcuffs and has her posing "as a deaf-mute actor to escape to Canada."

McKinney is also wanted in Tennessee, it turns out, for "criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary" in 2004. "Authorities there said she instructed a 15-year-old boy to break into a house," the AP reports. Her attorney explains she "needed the money to help her three-legged horse." She wished to buy the horse (seriously) a fake leg.

So where is McKinney now?  Is she on the lam with five puppies and a four-legged horse? Will she ever explain what insatiable drive led her to buy five clones of a beloved pet (let alone one)?

The South Korean company that did the cloning, meanwhile, is not backing down and seems, in fact, to sense opportunity. The head of the company says "criminal records will not disqualify future customers." Indeed, "cloned animals could even help them find stability and thus prevent crimes." I'll gladly stay tuned.