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Investigative reporter, author and former federal agent Chuck Hustmyre has seen the ugly side of life, from A to Z. Here he gets the last word on politics, crime, local government and pop culture.

You know what hacked me off recently? A twisted little weasel who, on his MySpace page, calls himself King Dallas I (as in the first).

We have cops in this city working 16 to 20 hours a day trying to solve the Dec. 13 assassination-style killings of Chandrasekhar Reddy Komma, 31, and Kiran Kumar Allam, 33, two LSU graduate students from India. This case is a real whodunit. It's also what cops call a "heater," meaning the press, the public and some high muckitymucks, including officials of a foreign government, are watching their every move.

As if that's not enough pressure, along comes (King) Dallas Joseph Staden, a 22-year-old self-described businessman. Maybe he was looking for a book and movie deal, I don't know, but for some reason he decided to start feeding the investigators false information about the case.

Four days after the double murder, Staden phoned in tips about the case to LSU campus police and Crime Stoppers. He claimed he and several other people were involved in the murders. According to Baton Rouge Police spokesman Sgt. Don Kelly, investigators from the Baton Rouge Police Department, the LSU Police Department, the Sheriff's Office, State Police and the U.S. Marshals Service wasted thousands of hours chasing down Staden's nonsense.

Of the six search warrants investigators have executed in the case, five were based on Staden's false leads.

Finally, on Jan. 3, Staden was arrested for criminal mischief, a misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty of a $500 fine and six months in jail. It was the most serious charge the police could put on him. Kelly told 225 the District Attorney's Office is doing some legal research to find out if they can come up with a more serious charge, but it doesn't look promising.

Kind Staden's recent arrest may not have been his first brush with the law. On his MySpace profile, Staden boasts, "I was looking at 70+ years in the feds, but I'm the king. I'm as real as they come."

As any detective will tell you, the most crucial time of any investigation is the days immediately following the crime. What Staden's idiotic actions may have done is let the killers of these two LSU students get away.

If state law doesn't allow any more serious charge than criminal mischief, a catchall statute that includes heinous offenses such as driving nails into someone else's tree and pruning shrubs along state highways without permission, then I say we bring back stocks in the town square and public flogging.

What do you say?

Chuck out.

Share your tips and opinions with Chuck at chuck@chuckhustmyre.com.