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Post subject: Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird
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WEEK OF APRIL 9, 2006
LEAD STORY
Are We Safe? In a two-day period in March, alarming reports revealed that "dirty (radiation) bombs" easily entered the country in car trunks in tests, that one-third of U.S. civilian nuclear research reactors were insufficiently secure, and that concerns were heightened about the 2,000 shoulder-fired missiles said to be unaccounted for in the world's arsenals. On the other hand, the Los Angeles Times reported that the fishing village of Dillingham, Alaska, at least, is secure, now that a $200,000 Homeland Security anti-terrorism grant has paid for 60 "downtown" surveillance cameras (with 20 more to come). Dillingham (pop. 2,400) is about 300 miles from Anchorage, with no roads linking it to anywhere. [USA Today, 3-27-06] [USA Today, 3-26-06] [ABC News, 3-27-06] [Los Angeles Times, 3-28-06]
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Compelling Explanations
In earnest testimony in March, Douglas Dyer explained how it was just bad luck that his married girlfriend got shot twice, fatally, in the middle of her back by the rifle he was holding. Dyer said he had originally intended to kill himself, but when she grabbed at the gun to stop him, it fired into her hand. Then, as she ran out a door, he followed and bumped the door open with the gun, causing it to fire and accidentally hit her flush in the back. As his body flinched from the shot, banging into a wall, the rifle again accidentally fired, putting another bullet in the center of her back. (The Rockland, Maine, jury apparently didn't believe a word of it and convicted him of murder.) [Bangor Daily News, 3-3-06, 3-4-06]
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Unclear on the Concept
Ms. Zulima Farber became the New Jersey attorney general in January even though her public record shows 13 speeding tickets, three license suspensions, and two bench warrants (for failure to appear in court regarding the tickets). Farber acknowledged "embarrassment" at the record and joked that it might take "psychoanalysis" to learn why she did those things. (However, a psychoanalyst interviewed by the New York Daily News rejected the suggestion. Farber, said the doctor, just "needs a spanking.") [New York Daily News, 1-29-06]
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Ironies
The Christian Diocese of Mizoram in northeast India, which was established by Welsh Presbyterian missionaries who worked the area from 1840 to around 1960, announced in March that it would send a missionary back to Wales because it was clear that the Welsh are in serious spiritual decline. "The Mizos," said Rev. Zosang Colney, "have a burden to do something for their Mother Church in Wales," since fewer than 1 in 10 Welsh regularly attend services. [Daily Telegraph (London), 3-6-06]
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Driving While Nude
Recent drivers who decided, for reasons known only to them, to get naked before taking the wheel: (1) A woman, her toddler and her mother (all naked), Norwood, N.Y., sitting in a parked car (February). (2) John Persico, Providence, R.I., smashed into several cars naked (February). (3) Natalie Peterson, 23, Roy, Utah, shucked her clothes after an argument with her aunt (March). (4) Eric Wayne, 57, Pocono Township, Pa. (An officer who knew him said Wayne "tends to get a little weird" when he's been without sex) (arraigned in March). (5) A man and woman, ages 59 and 70, Cologno al Serio, Italy (joyriding nude) (March). [New York Daily News, 2-13-06] [WKMG-TV (Orlando)-AP, 2-23-06] [KTVX-TV (Salt Lake City), 3-26-06] [Pocono Record (Stroudsburg), 3-16-06] [Reuters, 3-16-06]
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Least Competent Criminals
Outstanding Police Work: (1) A 40-year-old man in Cedarburg, Wis., was arrested on suspicion of DUI when police noticed the severed hose of a gas station pump sticking out of his car's fuel door. (It belonged to a Kwik Trip station.) (2) Daniel Nordell, 52, with a history of DUI, was arrested in March when police saw him driving through downtown Waupaca, Wis., in reverse (because he said the other gears wouldn't work). (3) A 44-year-old man was arrested for DUI in Australia's Northern Territory in March after he asked a police officer how to get to the hard-to-miss Uluru (Ayers Rock, the huge, 1,000-foot-high rock formation that appears red in sunlight), which was about 300 feet in front of him, illuminated in his headlights. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 2-26-06] [Post-Crescent (Appleton, Wis.), 3-3-06] [Reuters, 3-29-06]
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Updates
Crime Really Doesn't Pay: In July 2005, News of the Weird reported Jared Gipson's extremely bad idea of trying to rob Blalock's Beauty College in Shreveport, La. The 20 students and teachers inside (almost all women) beat him to a pulp with curling irons, hair dryers, chairs, a table leg, and their fists (leaving him with 21 cuts that had to be stitched). In March 2006, Gipson, 24, was sentenced for that attempted robbery, and as a recidivist, got 25 years in prison (and might have received more except that several of the women asked the judge for leniency). [Shreveport Times, 3-4-06]
Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird
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