There aren’t many young men who are unfamiliar with the atomic wedgie, whether because they gave them or received them, or both.  It’s a staple of childish pranks, of school yard bullies, or fraternity initiations.  And it can kill.

Atomic wedgie is the slang name for the most extreme version of the common underwear-yanking prank bullies pull in high schools across America. There are both how-to and how-to-survive videos online related to atomic wedgies that have been watched thousands of times.

Yeah, you remember it. Don’t lie. Don’t deny it.  Ripping the elastic waistband as it was pulled up your back was the least of your concerns.  You know exactly what I’m talking about.

But let’s be a bit more serious, as rarely did it make it over the top, to the victim’s head. They just didn’t go that far, at least not when you’re a stupid kid thinking how funny it is to give the kid weaker than you an atomic wedgie. Oh, you were so cool, so tough, hiding your own little penis by making some other kid miserable.

Brad Lee Davis, 34, admitted he killed his stepfather on Dec. 21, 2013, “in the heat of passion while defending myself in a fight that got out of hand and went too far.”

The victim, Denver Lee St. Clair, 58, died when the elastic band of his torn, blue underwear was pulled over his head and ended up tightly against the front of his neck, cutting off his air, the doctor who did the autopsy reported.

So, it’s not just sick fun for kid bullies, but when an adult does it, apparently getting the waistband over the head can be accomplished with deadly results.  Lest you think Davis was just pulling a prank on his father in law,

St. Clair also had been beaten around the head, the doctor reported.

Or to put this a bit differently, this was a vicious attack that, inexplicably, included an atomic wedgie.  What kind of weird, sick guy Davis might be remains unclear, but that his head would go to an atomic wedgie while beating his stepfather is truly perverse.

There was apparently some question about whether Davis gave St. Clair the wedgie in the midst of the fight, or after he knocked St. Clair unconscious.  Either way, it’s utterly bizarre, but if Davis did this after his father in law was knocked out, it reaches a point of oddness that strains credulity.  Was he ten years old?

He told investigators the two fought because St. Clair was calling him and his mother worthless. St. Clair had filed for divorce in September.

While there is nothing here to suggest anything negative about the mother, and indeed, as St. Clair married her, this characterization doesn’t speak well of him either.  But when it comes to Davis, worthless seems to be a fair characterization.

Davis was charged in January 2014 with first-degree murder. His jury trial had been set to begin Monday. His defense attorneys had planned to ask jurors to find he had acted in self-defense and acquit him.

First-degree murder seems to be a stretch, unless Oklahoma has a murder mens rea for people too stupid and weird to have the capacity to form a mens rea.

In a compromise, prosecutors agreed to reduce the charge to first-degree manslaughter and he agreed to plead guilty. There is no agreement on punishment so Pottawatomie County District Judge John G. Canavan Jr. will decide how long he will serve in prison.

The punishment for first-degree manslaughter is at least four years in prison. Prosecutors will ask for 35 years in prison.

Whether it requires 35 years to deter Davis from engaging in atomic wedgies is unclear,  though this isn’t going to be an easy sentence to fix as Davis appears to defy Darwin’s theory, making him an anomaly of science.

But aside from the utter bizarreness of this crime, it offers another thought worthy of consideration.  There is truly no limit to the absurd things people do, and no matter how many laws are crafted to address people’s conduct, they will still come up with ways to hurt others that no one foresaw.

What are the chances that some mommy group will seize upon this case to argue that wedgies kill, and so schools must enact zero tolerance policies toward wedgies, requiring any kid who gives one to go to juve jail?

Wedgies are mean and shouldn’t be tolerated.  Any kid who gives another kid a wedgie deserves some stern talk and a whole lot of detention.  Unlike saying a kid’s mother wears army boots, an atomic wedgie is a physical act that is both painful and deeply humiliating.  It warrants punishment.

But the fact that some quasi-adult idiot like Davis did it, and it killed his father in law, isn’t a reason to fear every schoolyard bully will become a mass murderer. There is no end to the bizarre things people do. And manslaughter is a sufficient crime to handle such inexplicable conduct when it results in death.

H/T Trader for Profit