Weird News

Small gator climbs through door, bites homeowner

EUSTIS, Fla. -- Authorities say a small alligator climbed through the porch door of a house north of Orlando and then bit the homeowner's arm when it was forced out. The 2-foot-long alligator wandered onto James Gaff's canal-front property in Lake County on Sunday. Gaff tried to remove the gator, which then latched onto his right forearm.

A spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission says Gaff's wife, Elaine, pried the gator off using a broom handle and the couple threw the reptile into the water behind their home. The 52-year-old Gaff was treated at a hospital for minor cuts and scrapes.
 
Authorities in Ohio say a man has been charged with drunken driving after crashing his motorized bar stool. Police in Newark, 30 miles east of Columbus, say when they responded to a report of a crash with injuries on March 4, they found a man who had wrecked a bar stool powered by a deconstructed lawn mower.

Twenty-eight-year Kile Wygle was hospitalized for minor injuries. Police say he was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated after he told an officer at the hospital that he had consumed 15 beers. Wygle told police his motorized bar stool can go up to 38 mph.

Wygle has pleaded not guilty and has requested a jury trial.

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Va. boy drove 1,300 miles to Texas rodeo grounds

JETERSVILLE, Va. -- A 13-year-old Virginia boy apparently loaded his family's pickup truck with food, clothes and his dog, hitched up a trailer with two horses in tow and drove nearly 1,300 miles to Texas, police said. The teen's parents found him safe Friday. Police are unsure why the boy ran away Wednesday morning from his Jetersville-area home. He apparently was well-prepared, even bringing extra propane tanks along.

Wyatt E. McLaughlin was found about 2 p.m. Friday on a rodeo grounds near Weatherford, Texas, where he had performed several times before. His parents looked for him there on a hunch, said Sgt. Tom Cunningham, a Virginia State Police spokesman. "These all don't turn out well," Cunningham said Friday night. "We're pleased to report the outcome was positive." Surveillance video from a gas station in Mount Pleasant, Texas, appeared to show the boy pumping gas Thursday into his family's pickup truck. The parents flew to Texas to view the video and believed the boy on the tape was their son, Cunningham said.

"Then (they) took the initiative and went to places they thought the boy may be," Cunningham said. The rodeo grounds are at least two hours away from the gas station, but "is a place the family had been to on several occasions and Wyatt had participated in rodeos." Cunningham said he wasn't sure how the family found out about the video but said they made several phone calls to Texas rodeo connections.

The family had no listed telephone number.
 
SC man's corpse was apparently cut to fit coffin

ALLENDALE, S.C. -- James Hines was a giant - a 6-foot-7, 300-pound preacher and funk musician so big that after he died in 2004, a macabre rumor began circulating in this small town that the undertaker had to cut off his legs to fit him in the coffin. This week, after years of whispers, Hines' body was exhumed, and the gruesome story appeared to be all too true.
The coroner's office said only that it had found "undesirable evidence," and a criminal investigation has been opened. But Hines' widow said investigators told her that his legs had been cut off between the ankle and calf, and his feet had been placed inside the casket.

"It's just like pulling the scab off an old sore. I was kind of like smoothing things out. But now it's like starting all over again," Ann Hines said Thursday, two days after investigators pulled the casket from the ground, lifted the lid, photographed the contents and returned it to the earth, all without leaving the graveyard. Under South Carolina law, destroying or desecrating human remains is punishable by one to 10 years in prison. Reached this week, a man who identified himself as the owner of Cave Funeral Home, which handled the funeral, declined to comment.

The allegations were so startling that funeral directors around the country are talking about the case. "You hear old wives' tales about this around the turn of the century, but, no, this was a shock to me," said Doggett Whitaker, a past president of the National Funeral Directors Association. Ann Hines said that she and her family went to the funeral home after her husband's death to make the final arrangements, and she picked out a standard-size casket. At the funeral, only the top half of the lid was open, showing Hines from the chest up, she said. She said nobody ever suggested a bigger box.

Funeral directors sometimes pull up the knees or shift the padding in the coffin to make sure the body fits. But the best solution is usually a longer casket, Whitaker said, adding: "Just being upfront and honest with the family is the best path to take." He said bodies are usually measured and families told where a corpse's head will rest in the casket. Longer caskets are routinely manufactured, though they cost more than standard ones. Duffie Stone, the county prosecutor, would not comment on the investigation.

Around town, Hines was an unforgettable figure, and not just because of his size. An albino black man, he performed for decades as a soul and funk guitarist. His group, J. Hines and the Boys, never hit it big but filled clubs and auditoriums in the Southeast, and small radio stations played some of its recordings, including "Funky Funk" and "Can't Think of Nothing (Blank Mind)." He gave up what he called his instrument of sin when he found God in the early 1990s. But his pastor had heard Hines' recordings and, convinced that Hines should share his gift, took him to buy a new guitar.

Eventually, Hines became a minister in Allendale, about 75 miles southwest of the capital, Columbia. He played his guitar during services at the church he built and on a nearby Christian radio station until his death from skin cancer at 60. At his funeral, several people, including one of Hines' five children, said the casket looked too small. Hines was about 79 inches tall in his bare feet, according to his family. The interior length of a standard coffin is about 80 inches but can vary by a few inches, depending on the padding, the thickness of the walls and other features, said Scott Jones, chief executive of Service Casket Co., a casket distributor in Columbus, Ga.

After the funeral, the rumors began - started, some say, by a former funeral home worker - and it seemed as if all 3,700 people in town were talking about the burial. Ann Hines said she threatened to sue Cave Funeral Home and the business agreed to settle out of court as long as she did not tell anyone how much she received. She said workers at the funeral home never told her exactly what happened. She said she accepted the deal and tried to forget about the whole thing and stop wondering why nobody even apologized.

Eventually, someone called the South Carolina Board of Funeral Service, and the coroner and an investigator with the agency received the widow's permission to dig up the grave.
 
Man drops, saves ring in Brooklyn Bridge proposal

NEW YORK -- He's lucky she said yes - and he's also lucky the diamond engagement ring he dropped on the Brooklyn Bridge didn't end up in the river. Don Walling fumbled the ring as he proposed to his girlfriend on the pedestrian walkway of the New York City bridge. But he valiantly shimmied down to the lower span - where car traffic travels - and found the bauble. It was slightly bent, but the diamonds were still in place.

A police van that patrols the bridge stopped traffic to let him retrieve it. The Coram resident and girlfriend Gina Pellicani plan to get married on April 24, 2010, the anniversary of the day they started dating four years ago.
 
Neb. man sentenced for firing crossbow at neighbor

LINCOLN, Neb. -- A 49-year-old man was sentenced to two -to four years in prison for firing a crossbow after a dispute about the breed of a neighbor's dog last June. The neighbor said it was a pit bull; Carlos Lupercio said a labrador. Lupercio went home, returned with a crossbow pistol and fired at his neighbor, just missing.

Police said alcohol fueled the incident.(DuH! really?)

Lupercio had pleaded no contest to terroristic threats and animal neglect. The judge credited him for 282 days of jail time.
 
Iowa man claims he was robbed twice in 30 minutes

IOWA CITY, Iowa -- A 22-year-old man claims he was robbed twice in a 30-minute span in Iowa City on Thursday morning. Police said the man said he was approached by a group of about six men asking for cigarettes early Thursday morning. The victim said he was attacked by the group and had his cigarettes stolen.

Police said the man then walked past a group of four or five men in a "back alley" when he was attacked from behind. The victim said he was knocked down and his watch was taken. Police said the victim was not visibly injured, but he had a dirty appearance consistent with having been on damp ground.
 
Man pleads guilty to serial shrimp shoplifting

SALEM, N.H. -- A Massachusetts man has pleaded guilty to being a serial shrimp shoplifter at a New Hampshire supermarket, but hasn't explained why he couldn't stay away from the frozen fish. John Silvera, 46, pleaded guilty to charges of shoplifting and simple assault in connection with his arrest last month. Police said he stole about $500 worth of shrimp in four separate trips to the Salem Market Basket.

The Eagle-Tribune reported his plea deal required him to waive extradition so he can answer to another shoplifting charge from Methuen, where he is accused of making off with a jacket full of frozen shrimp at a Market Basket there. Silvera was expected to spend several months in jail before being sent to Oklahoma to face drug trafficking charges there.
 
Ind. police say meth makers wrote recipe in Bible

ELKHART, Ind. -- Police investigators say they found the recipe for making methamphetamine in an odd place: in a Bible on the last page of the Book of Revelation. Officers made discovery as they searched an apartment after arresting two people on methamphetamine possession and manufacturing charges Tuesday night. Police Lt. Ed Windbigler said the recipe was handwritten on the bottom of the page.

Because there was an active meth lab in the apartment, officers evacuated the building's other 18 residents. It was the second time in the past six months a meth lab was discovered in the building. A meth lab exploded there in October, sending two to the hospital.
 
Cereal box typo sends callers to phone sex line

HALFWAY, Md. -- An Oregon company has ordered new packaging for its Peace Cereal after a typo on the box sent callers to a phone sex line instead of the cereal maker's 800 number. Instead of reaching Golden Temple of Oregon, callers were greeted by a recorded voice asking, "Do you love sex? ... Isn't that why you called?" Spokeswoman Elissa Brown said Eugene, Ore.-based Golden Temple ordered new packaging when the mistake was discovered in December and new boxes have been shipping out for weeks.

However, 13 varieties of the cereal were on shelves Wednesday at one Halfway, Md., grocery store, including seven varieties in boxes bearing the incorrect telephone number.
 
Pants on fire: Teen charged over burnt groin

FERNDALE, Mich. - A teenager has been charged with lighting an unconscious man's pants on fire and causing a third-degree burn to the man's groin, police said Monday. Tyler Quick, 18, was arraigned Friday on a charge of assault, according to police in the Detroit suburb of Ferndale, Michigan. Lt. William Wilson told The Daily Tribune of Royal Oak that Quick was attending a party at the home of a 51-year-old man when the host passed out.
 
IRS agent admits cheating on his own taxes

SANTA ANA, Calif. - An Internal Revenue Service agent who audits taxpayers in California has agreed to plead guilty to cheating on his own taxes. In a plea agreement filed Monday in Orange County, 43-year-old Jim H. Liu of Diamond Bar admitted that he filed a tax return claiming a loss on a real estate transaction when he in fact saw a large profit.

He pleaded guilty to one federal count of subscribing to a false tax return, a charge that carries a penalty of up to three years in prison. According to the plea agreement, Liu sold a property in Pomona in 2002 for a profit of more than $48,000, but reported a loss of $4,200 on his taxes. The tax loss to the government was more than $14,000.
 
ShamWow Guy Arrested For Beating Up Prostitute

Slap chop to the face! Vince Shlomi, aka the ShamWow Guy, aka You're Gonna Love My Nuts, was "arrested last month on a felony battery charge following a violent confrontation with a prostitute in his South Beach hotel room," reports the Smoking Gun.

Shlomi says the prostitute bit his tongue while kissing him, so he had to punch her to get her to let go. We guess that's one of those things you learn in the real world, like how to survive a bear attack or how to fend off a shark. The police, however, say both of them were drunk, which sounds even more believable. The website reports that prosecutors decided not to file formal charges against either party this month.
 
LOL! ShamWow getting arrested.. CLASSIC!!! :D.
 
Featherweights: Detroit police halt pillow fight

DETROIT -- Police in Detroit have ruffled some feathers after they cracked down on an organized pillow fight at a downtown park. The Detroit News reports that police at Campus Martius Park prevented the feathery fight Saturday by disarming pillow-toting participants. The bout was part of a worldwide event organized on social networking Web sites.

Michael Davis of Hamtramck says police confiscated the 32-year-old man's pillows but returned their cases. He says he was told that he needed a permit. Scott Harris of Ferndale told the News that it's "not illegal to own a pillow." Detroit police spokesman James Tate says cleanup was the issue.
 
Customs says art was framed with marijuana

DOUGLAS, Ariz. -- It wasn't the beauty of the paintings that caught of the eye of Customs agents. It was their drug-sniffing dog turning up his nose at the art that stopped the show. Federal officials in Arizona say a man was taken into custody after Customs and Border Protection officers found 90 pounds of marijuana hidden in the frames of six large paintings in his vehicle.

Officers selected the man's vehicle for a routine inspection Friday at the border crossing in Douglas, Ariz., and their dog showed an interest in the paintings. An X-ray revealed the marijuana in the frames. The agency says the paintings were professionally done and the frames were nicely constructed. The man was turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He had not been charged.
 
Helicopter pilot taped in sex act denied license

GARDENA, Calif. - A judge says a commercial helicopter pilot videotaped in a sex act while flying over San Diego committed gross negligence and cannot have his license back. National Transportation Safety Board administrative law Judge William R. Mullins upheld a Federal Aviation Administration order revoking the license of David Martz after a hearing Tuesday.

Martz had no comment after the ruling.

(Trying to first in the quarter mile high club.)
 
Ex-pastor charged with filching funds for Botox

NEW YORK - A former pastor in New York City is accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from his parish to pay for plastic surgery, Botox injections and prescription drugs. The Rev. William Blasingame cited medical reasons when he resigned in January from St. Paul's Memorial Episcopal Church on Staten Island. He is accused of stealing $84,537 over three years. The money was earmarked for parishioners in need and the upkeep of church grounds.

Blasingame could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted of second-degree grand larceny and possession of stolen property. Attorney James Hasson calls the allegations a "bad mistake" and says there's "some kind of a vendetta" against his client. He's due back in court May 12.
 
Oops! Employee flips boss' borrowed Ferrari

BOULDER CREEK, Calif. - The California Highway Patrol said a 23-year-old woman driving an expensive Ferrari owned by her boss flipped it after taking a curve too fast, causing an estimated $125,000 in damage. CHiPs Officer Elizabeth Addy said the woman escaped the crash Saturday without injury, but her boss was irate. The unidentified woman apparently lost control after taking a curve at too high a speed, hit an embankment and flipped.

Addy said the woman was driving the car with the owner's consent. The CHiPs said alcohol was not a factor.

( She learned the lesson why there is no female drivers in NASCAR.)
 
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