In what many are already calling both "stunning" allegations and "no surprise at all", arson investigators have turned their focus of the devastating California wild fires towards a discarded crack pipe allegedly belonging to beleaguered pop star Britney Spears.
"Earlier this morning, investigators discovered what they believe to be a glass pipe, commonly associated with the smoking of crack cocaine, near the suspected flash point of the Rice Canyon fire," California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced this morning at a press conference. Flash points in arson investigations are usually the suspected main starting or ignition point of a fire. The Rice Canyon fire was one of the largest in the southern California blazes, responsible for tens of thousands of acres of damage and the destruction of hundreds of homes.
Ms. Spears' recently resigned manager Jeff Kwatinetz, chief executive officer of management company The Firm, would only state when asked that he would be "the farthest thing from shocked one could get" if the allegations were true. "While it's clearly inappropriate for me to speculate, it's just the sort of thing that led us to our decision to no longer represent Britney [Spears] in the first place."
While the wavering pop star was either unwilling, unable, or both, to comment herself, a spokesperson did in fact confirm Ms. Spears was in the San Diego area at that time. "While Britney was in fact in the area, let's not leap to conclusions. Almost 1,000,000 people had to be evacuated alone. Lots of people were in the southern California area at that time, especially music stars -- it is southern California people," the clearly distraught family spokesperson, who refused to be identified, would only state before refusing to take any more reporters' questions.
When asked what led investigators in the direction of the music icon, one source who would only speak on the condition of anonymity, based on the ongoing nature of the investigation, said they were able to pull latent fingerprints of the glass of the alleged crack pipe. "Well, as we all know, Britney Spears' fingerprints are readily available in countless federal, state, and local databases across the country, so that part was easy," the source said. "And to be honest, once we saw it was a crack pipe, we sort of just checked her prints first, and -- et voila! Perfect match."
