Paul Berkley was a Navy reservist stationed in Bahrain. On Sunday, while briefly home on leave, he was murdered by his wife Monique Berkley, her paramour Andrew Canty, and his daughter’s lover Latwon Johnson. Monique confessed to the crime, saying that she wanted Berkley’s life insurance money. Berkley’s son Zeke and daughter Becky have not been implicated.

What makes this murder so intriguing is that so many of the characters involved were bloggers. See Paul’s blog, Monique’s blog, Monique’s other blog, Zeke’s blog, Zeke’s other blog, Becky’s blog, and Becky’s other blog. And then the blogs of the people who knew the Berkleys, like this one and this one and this one.

Time was, you’d read a few sentences about something like this in the paper, and that was that. But now we can look into these people’s personal lives just by clicking around. I’ve been clicking around, and I must say, except for Berkley himself, who seemed like a decent fellow, I have found everyone thoroughly trashy and unlikeable. But I kept clicking anyway. As Greyhawk noted, “It’s a Jerry Springer train wreck - hard not to look.”

But I reckon I’m done looking. Smash has been following the whole sordid business, and will most likely keep following it.