Did Mitt Romney Murder a Couple in Graham?

No. But that doesn't make this factoid from a political campaign article in today's P-I any less disturbing:

"If it's OK to notify a political campaign about this guy, what about the neighbors he lived near for months?" said Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriff's Department, pointing out that [Mitt] Romney's aides were warned about [Daniel Thomas] Tavares's presence here during the candidate's recent campaign swing through Seattle, though Troyer's own office was not.

To back-step for readers who don't religiously check out the P-I or follow FOX News, Tavares violated parole over in Massachusetts, fleeing to the Seattle region after being released from 16 years' prison for knifing his mother to death. He was also a white supremacist. He came to Washington, according to KIRO, "to marry Jennifer Lynn Tavares, a woman who had been his prison pen pal." Ms. Tavares is apparently being held on charges of "rendering criminal assistance," for making up Tavares' alibi.

On Saturday, November 17, Tavares is accused of shooting to death Brian and Beverly Mauck, newlyweds living in the town of Graham. Apparently they owed Tavares $50.

But the big news is on the campaign trail, apparently, as Mitt Romney--the Massachusetts governor who appointed the judge who released Tavares--is trying to avoid the "Willie Horton" smear from "America's Mayor" Rudy Giuliani, whose police force was anything but too lax (remember Amadou Diallo?).

Romney's busy blaming the judge, who he accuses of having an "inexplicable lack of good judgment." Giuliani countered that Romney should stop "throwing her under the bus" and take responsibility himself.

So much rich and juicy scandal to go around! Giuliani's no doubt desperate to pawn off as much attention as possible on Mitt Romney, and thus deflect from his own scandal-ridden history as mayor of New York, which keeps coming back to bite him in the ass. Most recently, there was the Politico report that dredged up questions about potentially improper billing for Giuliani's security detail while out in the Hamptons with Judith Nathan, who was soon to be his third wife (however, at the time, Giuliani was still married to wife #2). And then there's the entire Bernard Kerik/Judith Regan scandal (too long to go into here, but the linked NY Observer piece pretty much lays it out), which is so delectable the media won't stop chewing on it.

Alas, aside from a pair of bodies in Graham delivered courtesy of shitty police-work and a nut-job from Massachusetts, there's precious little local connection. We can only hope that in the months to come, former Clinton staffers' bodies will wash up en masse on Alki, or Mike Huckabee's gay lover will turn out to be the meth-head turning tricks in the parking lot behind the Broadway Taco Bell. Candidates gotta have plenty of dirty laundry that can come to Washington and rape, pillage and murder us into the national spotlight. Seriously, you know John Edwards has something to hide...

Until then, chew on the national media's love fest with Danny Tavares (links after the jump):