You know how all those VH1 reality dating shows have kind of become formulaic?

Well they’re not anymore – now they involve actual murders to keep them interesting. To be clear the bonafide homicide didn’t happen on camera – but it was performed by one of their former contestants.

The show was Megan Wants A Millionaire, and the apparently fleeing contestant is Ryan Alexander Jenkins. He high stepped it to Canada, you see. And now the American authorities can basically only sit on the US side of the border playing a high stakes game of Whack-A-Mole should he show his face again.

As Megan, the reality star who once got roughed up by Sharon Osbourne, stood there looking out over her sea of millionaire bachelors – it probably didn’t occur to her that one of them was married – and possibly murderous!

His wife’s corpse was found in a suitcase, and he was seen most likely getting the crap out of the country. We don’t now how close he made it to winning Megan’s heart, but we can only assume that had he actually won it he would have cut it out and hung it around his neck.

That’s murderer love. That’s suspected murderer love.

TMZ has more details:

“Here’s what we know straight from the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Dept. in Washington State, which is just over the border from Canada:

“Yesterday evening a witness reported seeing someone matching Jenkins’ description driving a black BMW SUV (we know he owned one) with a boat in tow in a marina which is extremely close to the Canadian border. A short time later deputies found the boat and the SUV abandoned. A manhunt then began for Jenkins by land, sea, and air, conducted by federal agents, deputies, cops, and Canadian authorities. They were unable to find Jenkins and now think that he literally made a run for the border — crossing over by foot.”"

At this point it seems Jenkins is just a person of interest. Still, should he get convicted it could present VH1 with a unique opportunity – a love-search reality show based in prison. They should somehow tie the words ‘Ryan’ and ‘Kill You’ into the title, and then just sit back and watch the prison-gay drama naturally unfold. Shankings and shower rapes would certainly make for good immunity competitions.

Richard Hatch is a shoe-in to win. It’s because he’s both reality-experienced, devious, and pretty when the sun shines through the prison bars and hits him just so.

As far as VH1 is concerned – they’ve just issued this statement about the whole unfortunate incident:

“Ryan Jenkins was a contestant on Megan Wants A Millionaire, an outside production, produced and owned by 51 Minds, that is licensed to VH1. The show completed production at the end of March. Given the unfortunate circumstances, VH1 has postponed any future airings. This is a tragic situation and our thoughts go out to the victim’s family.”

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

And that’s why we should all be greeting the retrial of Phil Spector over the alleged murder of Lana Clarkson like the celebration it is. For the next few months we get to go over all of Phil Spector’s greatest hits – the funny hair, the driver who he apparently confessed the murder to, the endless scientific discussions about bullet trajectory, the funny hair. The funny hair. And that all starts right now.

Well, OK, not right now. The second crack at the Phil Spector murder trial was set to begin yesterday, but it couldn’t because a juror fell over in the car park and broke his foot, forcing a postponement. Remember that if Phil Spector is found guilty of murder he’ll be given life in jail. So probably about a fortnight at this rate.

Ever since the Phil Spector murder trial collapsed in on itself last year, we’ve felt like a part of us was missing. You know, the scary part with the terrible hair, the voice that sounds like an ancient version of Sylvester The Cat having a stroke and the unsettling tendency to point guns at women.

We’ve been engulfed in a wave of uncertainty ever since. Did Phil Spector shoot Lana Clarkson in the face because she wouldn’t sleep with him? Did Lana Clarkson kill herself because she was depressed? Could Phil Spector’s haircuts physically get any gayer? Do we really have to go through everything again?

Apparently we do. It’s been just over a year since the Phil Spector murder trial ended with a deadlocked jury, and the time inbetween has been spent regrouping for the retrial. Both the prosecution and the defence have hunkered down, reflected on their respective weaknesses and assessed where to go in for the kill next time around.

And since yesterday was the first day of the Phil Spector murder trial redux, we were eager to see what had changed. Had Phil Spector’s choice to pick a more streamlined defence been a wise one? Has he finally worked out a decent response for that time he said that all women were ‘fucking cunts’ who deserved to be shot in the head? Would his decision to grow a new haircut that makes him look like Liam Gallagher in a rainstorm win him support, or yet more mockery?

The truth is, we just don’t know – apart from the last one, obviously (the answer is ‘yet more mockery’) – because on the way into the court to start the first day of the new Phil Spector murder trial, one of the jurors tripped over and broke his foot. The Press Association reports:

Music producer Phil Spector’s murder retrial was held up on its first day after a juror fell in the court car park and broke his foot. Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler said he spoke to the juror, who wanted to get medical attention and return on Monday.

It’s frustrating, we know, but both sides of this case now have a perfect opportunity to take this weekend to really intensify their courtroom tactics. The prosecution will no doubt be redoubling its efforts to claim that women don’t just shoot themselves in the face in the doorway of a sexually-aggressive midget’s house without taking their handbags off first.

And as for Phil Spector’s defence? Well, it won’t exactly hurt to make his hair a little bit more lesbiany again. It’s what the people want.

But that’s probably as far as Muppet murder has ever got. But that can all change now, because The Jim Henson Co has decided to make a movie about – and this isn’t a joke – an alcoholic, murder-solving puppet detective on the hunt for a killer in a world where puppets and humans coexist.

The movie – The Happytime Murders – is said to have dark adult themes and won’t be suitable for children. What’s more, it’s apparently based on the time that Big Bird got wrecked on crack and went mental with a hedge-trimmer up Mr Snuffleupagus‘ rectum. Ah, the 1980s.

There’s been a bit of a worrying trend happening lately, and we’re starting to get sick of it. Rule one of, well, of life states that puppets are for children. That’s why children learn their alphabet faster watching Sesame Street than they do with, say, season two of The Wire. It’s also why Punch & Judy is a funny show for kids. Cast it with human beings and you’ve essentially got the Jennifer Lopez movie Enough.

But lately certain people have decided to buck this trend. First came the pitch for Kanye West’s hip-hop puppet show – which we’re only going to acknowledge when it’s made into a full series – and now The Jim Henson Co has decided to get in on this ‘puppets for grown-ups’ scheme as well, with what might just be one of the weirdest movies ever – The Happytime Murders. Reuters reports:

“The Happytime Murders” is a film noir murder mystery… The story takes place in a world where humans and puppets co-exist, with the puppets viewed as second-class citizens. When the puppet cast of an ’80s children’s TV show called “The Happytime Gang” begins to get murdered one by one, a disgraced puppet LAPD detective turned private eye — with a drinking problem, no less — takes on the case.

You’re probably having trouble working out what The Happytime Murders will actually be like – either because you’ve never come across such an intriguing premise for a movie or because you’re stupid and haven’t realised that the ‘different species as second-class citizen’ allegory for racism thing has already been done to death in X-Men, Alien Nation, Star Trek, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Fraggle Rock – so here’s a list of easy one-line ways to describe The Happytime Murders to you

* CSI: Miami with a slightly more humanlike lead character.

Actually, come to think of it, that’s the only way we need to describe The Happytime Murders to you, because it’s so perfect. But if you still need a hand, The Henson Co has also said that the movie will have an absurdist comedy edge, along the lines of the musical Avenue Q.

Oh, so it’ll be shit. Why didn’t they just say that?

Just ask Ashanti, whose marketing team decided it would be a good idea to encourage ultraviolence, if not murder, with fans of the R&B ’star’.

It’s a bold move, that’s for sure, but we can’t help but think it’s one that should have had a little more thought put into it before being unleashed on the world.

See, spreading people around a major city and making them stand as human statues to advertise a product – that’s a PR stunt.

A tame one, but it does a job. Flashmobbing and viral marketing – they’re both efforts that appeared in recent times, used for the evil marketing team. They’re not particularly spectacular, generally speaking, but they do what they have to: something a bit different that advertises a product.

While it can’t be argued that Ashanti’s recent stunt wasn’t a ‘bit different’, it certainly can be argued that encouraging violence and murder probably isn’t the best of ideas.

Different? Yes. Ill-advised? Most definitely. Did we mention that Ashanti’s recent marketing ploy for her new single encouraged violence and murder? No? Well it did. Just to be clear on that one.

It all started with the video for the single in question, ‘The Way That I Love You‘. In the video, a clearly quite-pissed-off Ashanti deals with a cheating boyfriend by, well, killing him. Quite a lot. In the face. It’s an interesting take on the situation, and one hecklerspray doesn’t find too far-fetched when it comes to the world of relationships.

But then the problems started – the PR types decided it would be a good idea to incorporate this murderous tendency into the website for Ashanti’s track. By incorporating fake news reports of a spate of murders, allowing potential killers that visited the site to choose their murder weapon and – probably most frightening of all – allowing visitors to send e-cards to people they suspected were cheating on them. As Ashanti herself told Newsday:

“If you have someone you think is cheating on you, you can send them an e-mail blast and customize it and accuse them of maybe not being emotionally available, or you found them cheating on you, or sneaking around with one of your friends.”

It’s clearly a good thing that a musician in the public eye is encouraging such mistrust, and showing people the correct way to respond to any fears or concerns they may have about a relationship. No more should we talk about things, come to sensible conclusions or possibly involve professional help: no, we should threaten, accuse and murder.

Aaaand, we let out a collective sigh.

Fortunately for the world, the insane people who tend to complain about everything, as well as some of those religious types have combined their efforts and got the bloody stupid campaign pulled. Normally hecklerspray would do its best to avoid these types, but sometimes you just have to side with the enemy to face a greater threat – namely, Universal Motown, who released this statement:

“Ashanti and her music have always been about self-empowerment and addressing the issues that are most meaningful to her. We stand by our artist and her creative choices.”

Which could be read as ‘we like the idea of, and actively encourage murder’, if you looked at it in that way. It’s probably not the best marketing strategy really, is it? But hey, at least it’s managed to get her some more coverage, which means it’s worked, which means we’ve fallen for it… bugger.

So says Dr Jack Hattem, who, backed up by secret FBI files, says the Hollywood bombshell was somehow fooled into believing she would be revived in time as part of a plot involving Senator Robert Kennedy, the brother of JFK, who was gunned down 40 years ago this week.

Instead, Monroe, who staged many fake suicide attempts throughout her life to gain sympathy, was left to die by staff and friends. It’s all in Hattem’s new book Marilyn Monroe: Murder By Consent.

Certainly, Marilyn Monroe may have been dead for 46 years, but that doesn’t mean that people have stopped speculating about the circumstances of her death. We spoke to Dr Hattem and listened to some of his more compelling claims, including where Kennedy was on the night of Marilyn Monroe’s death and why the recently unearthed Marilyn Monroe sex tape might not be the only one knocking about.

This is turning out to be quite a big year for Marilyn Monroe. Not only has Lindsay Lohan aped her by getting naked and covering herself with a net curtain, but a Marilyn Monroe sex tape has also apparently been uncovered in recent months. So with sex dealt with, what about death?

While it was ruled to be suicide, theorists have long had their doubts about the way that Marilyn Monroe died – and thanks to a set of FBI records released 20 years ago that have been inexplicably ignored until recently, those doubts seem to have some substance.

According to Dr Jack Hattem’s book Marilyn Monroe: Murder By Consent, Monroe died because Robert Kennedy, along with Monroe’s close ‘friend’ and Hollywood actor Peter Lawford, convinced her to make another fake suicide attempt.

Caught between his family, who wanted to play down its relationship with Marilyn Monroe and the fact Monroe was threatening to shop a red diary containing ‘pillow talk’ between the pair and confidential secrets about the Cuban Missile Crisis if he ever left her, Robert Kennedy and Rat Pack member Lawford hatched a plan to visit Monroe on the day of her death. Hattem said:

“It is my guess that they had discussed with her, in no uncertain terms, that they needed for her to fake a suicide attempt. They guarantee she would be woken up, and that the fake suicide attempt would gain her so much sympathy from 20th Century Fox – who had fired her – that she would get her job back. But they threatened her somehow. She could be talked into things, because she wanted desperately to be cared about.”

At the time, Kennedy denied the visit, claiming he was in San Francisco. Which he might have got away with, except for the fact the FBI just happened to be busy tracking both Robert Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe at the same time. Hattem explained:

“The CIA had long considered Marilyn Monroe a threat to national security from the time she had married Arthur Miller, because they thought of him as a leftist. Then the FBI started listening in on her phone calls and tracking her – even to Mexico, where Bobby Kennedy had a fling with her. A private detective took an audio tape of Bobby Kennedy and Marilyn in an ‘affair’. The FBI was tracking Kennedy, their boss, all over the place and listening in on his conversations, possibly because Hoover wanted something on Kennedy – and he certainly got it, because as she was dying, they were listening in.”

Adding to the muddle is Marilyn Monroe’s housekeeper Eunice Murray, who found her face down on her bed, and her psychiatrist Ralph Greenson.

Apparently, Monroe fired Murray on the day of her death – which Hattem suggests is why she didn’t rush to try and revive Monroe; and was sleeping with Greenson – who allegedly gave Monroe an extra-large dose of barbiturates on top of what she already had been given.

What’s most interesting, though, is Dr Hattem’s story of the conversation between Bobby Kennedy and Peter Lawford at around 4am the following morning:

“In the FBI files, the FBI is recording Kennedy saying to Peter Lawford ‘Is she dead yet?’”

Throw in the fact that all of Marilyn Monroe’s phone message disappeared, to later be discovered in the chief of police’s private files, and that her red diary could not be found – Hattem’s guess is that Kennedy had a large hand in it. He said:

“I’m certain Robert Kennedy stole it when he came by her house after she was dead.”

But if Robert Kennedy’s involvement in Marilyn Monroe’s death is rooted in fact so firmly that there’s even an FBI file on it, why hasn’t more been made of it?

“I think the reason is that everybody already believes the Kennedys killed her.”

Just what is the man thinking? How does he grow such testicles?
    
According to The Royalist, ex-pop-singing-sensation Lily Allen’s father (let us call him EPSSLAF) has gone on record to say:

"To this day I absolutely believe that it wasn’t an accident. I just know."

And if he doesn’t believe it was an accident, it remains only that he believes it was murder. He doesn’t appear to have elaborated on what ground he has to stand on as of yet, merely that he ‘just knows’.

A friend of Diana’s has retorted. To the Daily Mail, she said:

"It has been over 10 years and surely even he must acknowledge that we have had the most thorough of investigations. We believe nothing further can be achieved by going over ground that has now been thoroughly discredited."

Princess Diana’s case, and indeed Dodi Al Fayed’s and Henri Paul’s case, lest we forget, has been thoroughly investigated by some of Britain’s most senior judges, ergo some of the wisest, most trustworthy people in the world – ask yourself why else they would be there? Do you doubt your country?

Why would a country that bestows such delicacies as a roast dinner, The Antiques Roadshow and Alan Titchmarsh into your homes ever allow injustice to operate at such a high level? It wouldn’t. Trust, relax, forget and move on.

EPSSLAF’s comments come as news that friends of the late Princess Diana’s are, via letter, urging Mohamed Al Fayed to ‘stop saying there was a murder plot carried out by British Intelligence on the orders of Prince Philip’ – an opinion EPSSLAF has heard off Mr. Al-Fayed first hand. Interviewed for 2005 Channel Four documentary You're Fayed, Mohammed told EPSSLAF:

"All that happened to me was after the murder of my son and Diana. I challenge the bastards who done this to me, MI6, and all the time say this is by order of the Royal Family."

Lord Justice Scott Baker, coroner of the relentless case, has condemned and dismissed Mr. Al-Fayed’s theories. Even Mr Al-Fayed’s legal team have taken a step back.

And now it’s time EPSSLAF did so too.  No one cares anymore, Keith. Vindaloo was 12 years ago. Instead of spreading mad conspiracies, why not prepare your daughter for the same. (That is prepare her for 12 years of vacuousness – not a murder plot).

EPSSLAF has been making a feature-length documentary about Al-Fayed and the inquest, which he plans to premier at the Cannes Film Festival on May 14.

Story by Rupert Prickhard-Pamplin

Read More – Actor Declares: 'I Think Diana Was Murdered' – The Royalist

Read More – Allen's father to make documentary about Al-Fayed – Yahoo! Music News

OK, OK, yeahyeahyeah, it’s only going to happen in a movie, but sometimes life imitates art, right? Right? Right. We can but hope. Our fingers remain firmly crossed.

Borrell is to star in the new film by Antonia Bird and Irvine Welsh, named The Meat Trade, and will be killed by two grave robbers, played by Robert Carlyle and Colin Firth. Jonathan Edward told the Daily Star:

"It's going to be so much fun. I love horror and I'm a really big fan of Irvine Welsh's work. I loved Trainspotting."

Oh, it’s horror! There should be lots of blood then. Let’s hope Antonia and Irvine get twat number one, Bono, involved. And Keane. And The Feeling. Oh, please The Feeling. And why not stab Luke Pritchard of The Kooks in the mouth with a rusty screwdriver while you’re at it? Why not?

The film is about two body snatchers snatching bodies in Edinburgh and should be released sometime next year. Hecklerspray waits with baited breath. But how will Borrell die, Irvine?

Hecklerspray likes to think Carlyle and Firth will recruit sometime actor Bob Dylan to do this excellent deed. On the release of his band’s debut, Up All Night, Borrell spouted some awful shit out of his mouth-arsehole which decided it was better than Dylan’s first album proper. Get your own back, Bob. But do it for real like Brandon Lee. Come on. Be a sport.

Or, if Bob can’t be reached for some reason, why not contact Morrissey? Borrell did “feel sorry” for Moz when he somehow didn’t manage to draw as big a crowd at V Festival a few years back. People really are stupid.

You are now officially 87% stupider if you voluntarily listen to Johnny Borrell’s arsehole gibberings with feelings of enjoyment. Really. They’ve done tests and everything. We don’t know who “they” are but we’re sure these tests have been done. Kind of.

Too harsh? Not harsh enough we say.

Release Mark Chapman already.

Read more:

Johnny Borrell To Be Murdered In New Movie – AngryApe