Scare Tactics

Saying he was only interested in "scaring" his ex-wife's fiancee, 55-year-old David Connolly killed 36-year-old David Pike with his van. Linda Potter, in the middle, is 47.

Pike and Potter's nine-year-old twins were in the van when it struck. This was following a pre-father's day argument on a Rome, N.Y., baseball field between Connolly and Pike over who gets to be called "father" by the boys. Or at least that is what everyone is saying as Potter says there was never any trouble before between the two, even though Connolly and Potter were engaged last Christmas, presumably ending the decade long (presumably at least occasionally rocky) relationship between Potter and Pike.

Alas for art's sake, none of them were rich (or ancient Greeks) as chronicling the boy's development could be a Sophoclean tragedy rather than a Jerry Springerian farce.

** Ah, a post-modern argument over the nature vs. nurture question of dadness? **