This is one of those stories that is so awful it makes you gasp, then bounce up and down, then hit the “send” button trying to tell everybody. So I’m telling you.

The woman John Edwards had his affair with has a bizarre past, including a father who electrocuted horses for the insurance money. I am not making this up.

First, a little background. Before she took the more exotic sounding name Rielle Hunter, Edwards’ mistress was good ol’ Lisa Jo Druck from Ocala, Fla. known in this state as horse country. There are ranches outside Ocala worth more than the average Rolls Royce dealership. Lisa apparently grew up riding horses.

But wait, here’s a warning. This is really bad. If you are an animal lover like me, don’t read the last three paragraphs of the quoted material.

Hunter’s father, James D. Druck, a successful Ocala lawyer representing insurance companies during the 1980s, was implicated in a scam that involved a local man, Tommy “The Sandman” Burns, who electrocuted horses for their owners to collect the insurance money. One of Burns’ first victims was the show horse Lisa Druck rode, Henry the Hawk.

Burns said in a 1992 Sports Illustrated interview that James Druck showed him how to electrocute Lisa’s horse using a stripped extension cord and a wall socket. Burns said Druck showed him the scam so Druck could collect $150,000 in insurance. Burns’ arrest in 1991 drew national attention. Druck died of cancer in the Tampa area in 1992…

About the time Lisa Druck’s horse died, Burns had already earned the nickname “Sandman,” a term horse owners gave him because when he showed up at horse shows, invariably a horse would mysteriously die.

Burns and accomplice Harlow Arlie, both of the Chicago area, were held at the Alachua County jail after their arrest in Newberry, according to stories published by The Gainesville Sun.

Burns’ choice of execution was electrocution because many veterinarians would wrongly determine the cause of death to be colic. That became a problem for Burns in 1991 when one horse owner couldn’t get an animal insured for colic, so the owner asked Burns to break the horse’s leg instead.

So, on the night of Feb. 2, 1991, Burns held the horse while his accomplice Arlie swung a crowbar into one of the animal’s rear legs. The animal ran into the night screaming, falling onto its broken, dangling leg. The animal was euthanized when a veterinarian was called by the horse’s owner.

The two men were sentenced in Alachua County Circuit Court. Both pleaded guilty or no contest to animal cruelty and insurance fraud and received jail sentences, according to Sun file stories.

Take a deep, cleansing breath.

Lisa went on to drop out of college and end up in New York where her exploits earned her a place in modern fiction, thanks to author Jay McInerney. And then she was introduced to John Edwards…