Athens gets Stranger and Stranger

This is the first time I've ever heard of this particular murder weapon:

Police arrest man in Sunday slaying
By Joe Johnson - joe.johnson@onlineathens.com
Published Tuesday, October 12, 2010

A Colbert man used a toilet seat lid to beat another man to death early Sunday in the victim's Northeast Athens home, Athens-Clarke police said.
William Thomas Valentine Jr., an ex-con with a long list of convictions in Clarke County, then kidnapped and raped a woman who witnessed the attack, Athens-Clarke police said.
Authorities arrested Valentine on Monday afternoon at his brother's home in Oglethorpe County.
Police said Valentine, 40, knew the victim, 51-year-old Alfred Lorenzo Harris, but would not say if they know why he attacked the older man in his home at Garden Apartments off North Avenue.
Investigators believe Valentine bludgeoned Harris to death between 3 and 3:30 a.m. Sunday, and a friend found his body just before noon, when he stopped by with food, according to police.
Harris' battered body was found on a living room couch, covered with a blanket, police said. Detectives quickly identified Valentine as a suspect.
"We developed enough information to put him at the scene and as the person who committed the actual murder," said Athens-Clarke police Capt. Clarence Holeman, commanding officer of the Centralized Criminal Investigations division.
Investigators also had reason to believe Valentine might have fled to a home in Hull, but he had left by the time officers arrived, police said.
Inside the home, police found a woman who said Valentine kidnapped and raped her, according to police.
The woman witnessed the attack on Harris, police said. She told investigators Valentine forced her to leave Athens with him, then raped her somewhere in Madison County, police said.
Officers next checked out a home Valentine shares with a girlfriend in Colbert and found clothes burning in the yard, police said. They managed to recover a charred boot police said belonged to Valentine.
Authorities continued to stake out the home in Colbert, while others kept an eye on Valentine's brother's home on Emerald Circle near Winterville, police said; they arrested Valentine there just before 12:30 p.m. Monday.
He was booked into the Clarke County Jail on a murder charge, but a grand jury likely will consider more charges, according to police.
Valentine, who formerly lived in Athens, has a record of convictions in Clarke County dating to at least 2000, for crimes ranging from burglary and drugs to assault.
He served five stints in state prison, once for shooting at two men in Athens, according to the Department of Corrections.
Originally published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Tuesday, October 12, 2010