I'd be going to hell for this pun...

Pretty close, but props for getting it:

'If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you....'

 

I thought it might be cruel to pick on the easy chippie with head remarks.

I did like the line about an autopsy next week to determine Theresa Time's cause of death. SHE WAS DECAPITATED!!

 

Doesn't mean she was alive when she was decapitated.

 

Yes. I know that.

 

I was really scratching my noggin' trying to figure out that lead.

 

It also doesn't mean she was decapitated in the crash.

From the police point of view, it's probably the most Timely case of road head in history.

 

Then I must be missing something.

 

I saw a report in the TV news last night.

The women's head may have been at the car crash site, but her body was back at home. He could have killed her at any time before. He was driving around town with the severed head of his ex-wife in the passengers seat. And them killed two others (accidentally or not) in the car crash.

One messed up dude.

 

The was the lede reads, it seems like the severed head killed the other passengers.

 

I hereby announce the first SportsJournalists.com 'Use Your Head and Write A Terrible Lead' contest.  Winning entry must be technically accurate but require fifteen readings and a psychiatrist to interpret actual events.

Separate category for honorable mention: Rewrite the severed head lede. I know we can do better.

Good luck.

 

You expect the AP to send its best an brightest to Boise? Heck, they probably had to write the lead off a radio broadcast or the 6 p.m. TV news.

But, yeah, that lead was poor and confusing. It needed a decoder ring.