Ashley Basich, 49, was arrested in Cheyenne, Wy., and charged with DUI after police found her using an industrial forklift to pick up and move a van that she said was blocking her driveway. She works for the state forestry department and had commandeered a state-owned vehicle. In addition, she had a cooler of beer in the forklift. She and was operating it while wearing flip-flops. Finally, the van “blocking” her driveway was her own.
Well, Of Course!
Motorist Luke Campbell, 28, was arrested near Minneapolis and charged with firing his gun at several passing cars, wounding one man. He explained to a bystander that shooting at other vehicles “relieves stress.”
The Ongoing Soul Snatching Problem
Two men in rural Coffee County, Ga., told sheriff’s deputies that they had planned to attack a research center in Alaska because peoples’ “souls” were “trapped there.” and needed to be released. They claimed that is what God told Michael Mancil, 30, and James Dryden, Jr., 22. They said this imperative from God caused them to amass an arsenal that was like “something out of a movie,” according to the sheriff. The High Frequency Active Aural Research Facility, run by the University of Alaska Fairbanks, has long been a target of conspiracists, who feel that “the study of the Earth’s atmosphere” facilitates “mind control” and can lead to the snatching of souls.
Police Report
— The police chief of Bath Township, Ohio, acknowledged the overnight break-in on Oct. 10 or 11 at the University Hospital’s Ghent Family Practice, but said nothing was missing. It appeared that an intruder or intruders had performed some sort of medical procedure in a clinical office — probably on an ear. Instruments were left in bowls; a surgical glove and medication wrappings were tossed into a trashcan; and a gown was left on a table.
— A 35-year-old man was detained by police in Vancouver, B.C., after a home break-in in which he took off his clothes, grabbed some eggs and began preparing a meal. The homeowner, who was elsewhere in the house, noticed the commotion, and the intruder fled — without his clothes.
— Though most Chicago Police Dept. officers get no more than five civilian complaints in their entire careers, CPD internal records released in October reveal that some had more than 100. Over 47 years, in 13,000 complaints, police wrongdoing was conceded. But in only 68 of the 13,000 cases was the officer fired. The worst police offender, Jerome Finnigan, with 157 complaints over two decades, is now in federal prison.
Merlin The Golf Cat
Aldeburgh Golf Club in England saw fit to issue a special rule allowing a no-stroke ball drop for players plagued by neighbor Peter Bryson’s cat Merlin’s habit of snatching balls from the 14th fairway.
Recent Hospital Bills
— Paula D’Amore claimed she deserved a discount from the $7,400 delivery room charge for the April birth of her daughter at Boca Raton (Fla.) Regional Hospital because the baby was born in the backseat of her car in the hospital’s parking lot. Nurses came out to assist D’Amore’s husband in the final stages of delivery.
— In October, new father Ryan Grassley balked at the $39.95 line-item charge from Utah Valley Hospital (Provo) for the mother’s holding of her new C-section son to her chest, which is considered a bonding ritual. Doctors countered that C-section mothers are usually drugged and require extra security during that ritual. However, they said Utah Valley might rethink making that charge a “line item.”
People With Issues
A 49-year-old man was exonerated by a court in southern Sweden when he convinced the judge he had a severe anxiety attack every time he received an “official” government letter in the mail. (Such letters are known as “window envelopes” in Sweden). Thus, though the man appeared to be guilty of DUI and several other traffic offenses, the judge dropped the charge of driving without a license because the man never opened the string of “frightening” letters informing him that operating a scooter requires a license.
Not Intimidated By Sticky Floors
Anthony Johnson, 49, was convicted in October, 2012, in Hartford, Conn., of stealing as much as $70,000 a weekend off and on for five years. Johnson did this by crawling on the floor of darkened theaters and lifting credit cards from purses that movie-watching women had set down. The FBI said Johnson was careful to pick films likely to engross female viewers so that he could operate freely. He was often able to take the cards, leave the theater, and make cash-advance withdrawals from ATMs before the movie had ended.
The Nanny State
New York City officially began licensing professional “fire eaters” this year. Classes in the art have sprung up so that the city’s Fire Department Explosives Unit can test for competence and issue its “E29” certificates. In the “bad old (license-less) days,” a veteran fire eater told The New York Times in October, a “bunch of us” performed regularly for $50 a throw, largely oblivious of the dangers. He admitted that almost everyone eventually gets “badly burned.” For authenticity, the Times writer, a fire eater who dubbed herself Lady Aye, completed the licensing process. She said it was “as sexy as applying for a mortgage.”
Bright Ideas
— A major streetlight in the town of Pebmarsh Close, England, went out of service when a truck hit it a year ago. Despite pleas from townspeople and Essex county councilor Dave Harris to have it fixed, no action has been taken. In October, on the first anniversary of the wreck that ruined the light, Harris staged a birthday party on the site, inviting numerous guests, and furnishing a birthday cake to “celebrate” the first “birthday” of the broken streetlight. The shamed county highway office quickly promised action.
— Prominent British radio host Dame Jenni Murray suggested in October that the U.K. scrap traditional sex education courses in school and instead show pornographic videos for classes to “analyze it in exactly the same way as they analyze Jane Austen.” Such video watching, said Murray, would encourage discussion of the role of sex. Dame Jenni said simply condemning pornography is naive because too much money is at stake.
— At a World Cup qualifier match in October in Quito, Ecuador, police arrived during the game to question star player Enner Valencia about an unpaid alimony complaint. He saw them waiting on the sideline. Local media reported that Valencia faked an on-field injury near the end of the match so that he would be taken away by ambulance, and thus outmaneuvered the police. He settled the complaint in time for the next match.
Wait, What?
New York’s prestigious Bronx High School of Science enrolls some of the best and brightest students in the city. For the last two years, some of them have held unauthorized, consensual fistfights in a field near the school, according to an October New York Daily News report. Students at the school — which has produced eight Nobel Prize winners and eight National Medal of Science honorees — bombarded the Daily News reporter by telephone and Facebook with acrimonious, vulgar messages for placing the school in a bad light.
Are We Safe?
— The security firm Trend Micro disclosed its surprise finding, in the course of a routine investigation, that firms in several crucial sectors — nuclear power, electric utilities, defense contractors, computer chip makers — send critical alert messages to wireless pagers that are entirely unsecured against hacking. In fact, Trend Micro said the enormously popular WhatsApp message-exchange app has better security than the alert systems of nuclear power plants. Infrastructure engineers defended the outdated technology as something that was useful where internet access was unavailable.
— The investment firm Muddy Waters is being sued for defamation by St. Jude Medical over claims that St. Jude’s cardiac implant device can be hacked. Security agents for the firm disclosed in an October court filing that they agree the devices are anonymously and maliciously hackable. They found that a popular control device (Merlin@Home) could be remotely turned off or jiggered to carry a dangerous electrical charge from up to 100 feet away.
Least Competent Criminals
— Cana Greer, 29, was arrested in Sacramento, Calif., when police responded to a phone call in which she asked officers to help her remove handcuffs she had accidentally engaged while “fooling around” with a friend. When police made a routine check of her ID, they discovered an outstanding felony burglary warrant. As per procedure, officers took her to a fire station for removal of the cuffs; those handcuffs were then immediately replaced by the police handcuffs.
— A woman whose name was not announced almost produced major havoc at the Shuttle Car Wash in Titusville, Fla., while she was cleaning her car. She tried to vacuum gas out of her trunk, eventually causing the vacuum to explode.
— Jacob Roemer, 20, was arrested in Negaunee Township, Mich., after a brief chase. When Roemer attempted a home invasion, the resident confronted him, chasing Roemer into the woods, where a State Police dog eventually found him lying on the ground unconscious and bloody after he had run into a tree and knocked himself out.
Undignified Deaths
Nigel Hobbs, 71, died in Dawlish, England in April. At an October coroner’s inquest, a witness testified that Hobbs’ body was found by a neighbor “swaddled” in bed linen. He was wearing numerous “homemade” dresses and his face was covered by stockings that had been pulled tight over his face but had eyeholes in them. Underneath all these coverings, Hobbs’ mouth, but not his nose, was wrapped in polyethylene, and cotton or wool was stuffed into his ears and mouth. The coroner assumed the cause of death was accidental asphyxiation.
Recurring Themes
— Joining some classic cases of sentencing overkill that have populated News of the Weird through the years: in October in San Marcos, Texas, jurors apparently had enough of recidivist drunk driver Jose Marin, 64, who had just racked up conviction No. 8. They sentenced him to spend the next 99 years in prison. And in Fresno, Calif., Rene Lopez, 41, who was convicted of raping his daughter over a four-year period beginning when she was 16, was sentenced by a Fresno Superior Court judge to prison until the year 3519 (1,503 years from now).
— An unlucky cannabis grower came to police attention in Adelaide, Australia, when a motorist accidentally veered off the road and crashed into a grow house, collapsing part of a wall. Arriving police peered inside and quickly began a search for the residents, who were not at home.
— The latest market price for a coveted automobile license plate is $9 million — the amount paid by Dubai developer Balwinder Sahni at a government auction for plate number 5.
The Passing Parade
— The world’s first “wine fountain” — a fountain of constantly flowing, free wine — opened in Abruzzo, Italy. The fountain is meant to draw tourists and pilgrims who make the trek south from the Vatican to view the cathedral where remains of the disciple Thomas are said to be kept. Operators said they hope the fountain will not become a home to “drunkards.”
— In September, the world’s first legal beer pipeline opened, pumping 12,000 bottles’ worth an hour from the Halve Maan brewery in Bruges, Belgium, to its bottling plant two miles away. As a result, visitors to the historic city will no longer have the sight of tanker trucks cluttering the cobblestone streets. The pipeline was partly funded by private citizens who were offered “free beer for life” for their donations.
— Asher Woodworth, 30, was charged with misdemeanor traffic obstruction in the Portland, Maine, arts district as he stood in a street after covering himself with branches of evergreen trees. A friend described Woodworth as a performance artist contrasting the “slow life” he likes with the bustle of downtown traffic.
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