“What is up with Maryland?” our host asked me as we sipped cold beers in his lovely backyard — in Maryland.
I scanned my brain for what could be going on in Maryland that would so exercise this man, who deals with very serious national issues in Washington:
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Was it the housing crisis being debated in the upcoming gubernatorial primaries?
Nah, that’s a nationwide thing.
Or Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s failed attempt to put an end to enhanced federal unemployment benefits?
Nah, that’s not a beer-on-the-deck conversation.
Maybe Baltimore’s new plastic bag ban?
Ha! We were in Montgomery County, where this happened almost a decade ago and the reusable grocery bags are from Tory Burch.
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I was stumped.
“The twins! That judge!” he exclaimed. Ah, I see where this is going.
“The zebras!” we both said in unison.
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“It’s like Maryland is the new Florida,” he said. “Is there something in the water?”
Sure, just about every state has a hardscrabble city with stories worthy of an award-winning cable series.
But it’s uncommon for that state’s in-between territories — the flyover swaths of corporate strip malls and bedroom communities; the places where Olive Garden wait times are as long as HOA confabs over lawn decor — to generate a steady stream of disturbing, tawdry, possibly titillating and totally tragic kind of news.
Florida excels at it, with face-eating zombies, gators in swimming pools, a meth lab that accidentally butt-dialed 911. You know the stuff. We call these newsmakers Florida Man — we can’t get enough of him.
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And it’s a sociologist’s sandbox to try to explain the Sunshine State’s abundance of weird. There’s an ethnically, racially and economically diverse population in the land of sprawling trailer parks and megayachts with helipads. There are everglades, beaches, sunshine. And sunshine laws, which make public records — and therefore the details of many ill-fated capers — accessible to the public.
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Maryland can claim some similarities, with Ocean City giving it the kind of beach-party vibe that’s fertile for octa-bong incidents, rural farmland, a haunted and sordid past, megamansions, vast economic disparities, and wetlands.
It’s impossible to characterize a whole state, but for the most part, contemporary Marylanders have presented themselves as a pragmatic, genuine, “get-’er-done” breed of folk not generally known for high drama: Think Michael Phelps, not Ryan Lochte. Or Larry Hogan, not Ron DeSantis.
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Until recently.
The case of the judge my host was rattled by — in which Caroline County Judge Jonathan Newell, 50, died by suicide as police arrived to arrest him — was unusual for that part of Maryland’s Eastern Shore, the land of watermen and hunting cabins.
The judge was accused of videotaping the boys he had brought with him on hunting and fishing trips. Investigators had to CT scan his body after he crunched and swallowed data cards. But they found other videos, enough for an arrest. It never happened, because he shot himself before they even entered his home.
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That was a shocking case. And unusual for Maryland, which had the nation’s lowest per capita number of registered sex offenders in 2019, according to an analysis done by Statista.
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Then there was the case of the twins, which sounded more like the plot for a police drama than a straightforward homicide in a Maryland suburb. The twins, according to court documents, plotted to have their little brother killed in 2017. The man who strangled the 17-year-old was convicted, but it wasn’t until this year that investigators arrested both women — now 23 — and charged them with setting it up.
But it’s not a few peculiar tragedies that elevate a state to truly weird.
The news mix must include animals. And Maryland is starting to shine in this department.
Not only did a Maryland man kayaking with his son kill and eat a nearly eight-foot-long alligator found near the Chesapeake Bay this summer — shooting it with a crossbow after luring it with chicken parts — but there are now zebras running around that have been on the lam for more than a week in suburban Maryland.
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Unless they’re hanging out at Foot Lockers, how are they managing to evade capture with only a few sightings in suburban neighborhoods?
Not to be outdone by wild beasts, Maryland men have been doing their best to make news over the years.
“Hold my Natty Boh,” says Maryland Man.
One crashed his golf cart into a tree while at a nudist camp in Davidsonville. Another one held up a convenience store while wearing a unicorn suit. The Maryland state trooper version was suspended after drinking naked at a bar in a barbecue joint. A Maryland prosecutor was arrested after fellow hotel guests saw him hanging out — along with some other activities — naked on the balcony of the resort.
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And there was the guy in Ocean City who authorities say was drunk and wearing a diaper when he was arrested for shouting obscenities at passersby. Oh, wait. Never mind — that one actually was from Florida.
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Twitter: @petulad
To read previous columns, go to washingtonpost.com/Dvorak.
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