Sad scoop from the snoop

I AM the neighborhood watch in our neck of the woods. I am miss Nosey-Posey. Not much happens without my notice. I am watching you.
I mean, seriously, I scrutinize people's trash on pick-up day. I know who's getting new flooring. I know who drinks too much. I know that every weekend approximately 1.5 garbage disposals break and are replaced in my neighborhood. I even deduced that one couple adopted a little girl from Colombia--simply from their trash!!!
My blinds are closed only enough so that you can't see in but I can see you.
Seriously, I am a total snoop. (That's the nice way to say I'm a gossip, and I like to know other people's business.) And I love it.
Except for when things get really dicey.
You see. . .
I'm also on this message board for this part of our town. Oh, the posts the flotsam from that message board alone could generate. . .but that's for some other time.
We all got a message about a local police officer who was arrested for alleged indecency with his step-daughter last week.
Didn't really catch my eye.
Then on Wednesday I noticed that "Mudweiser"--the other Jeep owner six doors down--hadn't been around for a few days. (We usually see him two or three times a day working on his Jeep, getting the mail or talking with his. . . cop buddies.)
As this realization that our Jeep friend has gone MIA hit me, I was walking the kid down to the mailbox, and I just glanced at one of the city papers that had been thrown that afternoon and was sitting in everyone's driveway.
Mudweiser's mug shot was on the FRONT PAGE.
Why?
Arrested for alleged indecency with his step-daughter.
Ugh.
Now, some of you might think I would eat up this juicy morsel of gossip (and I guess since I am posting about it, that I am) but really my heart goes out to this family.
I mean, we saw the step-daughter on Sunday at Target (after the arrest; before the paper). She's just a normal kid getting ready to go back to school.
And her step-dad's mug shot is in everyone's driveway on the block.
How tough must it be for that family right now?
Not that probably anyone else noticed. . .I mean, we have two city papers for a town of less than 100,000. And no one reads them. Except for me every once in a while because there might be something terribly, terribly interesting.
But this week, just something terrible.
So I feel so sad for this family being torn apart.
Obviously, Mudweiser is no longer living there. The mom looks rough. She has apparently taken up smoking and just looks like one of those nonsmokers smoking in her garage, door halfway raised, looking out into the rain. So sad.
And of course, "innocent until proven guilty" and all that but what if this guy really is a perv and was living just six doors down from us??? And how sad if it's the other way around--that this accusation is not true?
You want to trust your neighbors, but how well do you ever know them? Even when you know their trash?
Ugh.
It's just awful.
Sometimes being the snoop is not all that rewarding.
But don't think your trash is off limits or anything.
I'm still watching.