[866] in Humor
HUMOR: NoTW
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Mon May 8 11:33:03 1995
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 08 May 1995 11:28:42 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 06 May 1995 21:40:28 +0000 (GMT)
From: Espacionaute Spiff domine! <MATOSSIAN@aries.colorado.edu>
From: bostic@CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: notw-request@nine.org (NotW List Admin)
WEIRDNUZ.370 (News of the Weird, March 10, 1995)
by Chuck Shepherd
LEAD STORY
* Police in East Patchogue, N. Y., filed a false-report charge against
Nicholas Lalla, 32, in January after he had sworn out a complaint that
his estranged wife slapped him. Lalla played for police an audiotape he
had made clandestinely in which slapping sounds are heard amidst his
yelling, "Don't hit me." When police informed Mrs. Lalla of the
clandestine audiotape, she played for them a clandestine videotape she
had made of him making the audiotape: He is shown yelling "Don't hit me"
outside her house after she has left to go back inside. [Marshfield (Mo.)
Mail-AP, 1-25-95]
COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE TRUE
* In December, the Internal Revenue Service demanded that John Zwynenberg
pay $6.4 million within 90 days. But Zwynenberg's only tax "liability"
is that he stands to be awarded money in the lawsuits filed in connection
with the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie,
Scotland, in which his son, John, was killed. However, no date has been
set for the distribution of that money, and the award might be much less
than IRS anticipates. Still, IRS said Zwynenberg would either have to
pay up or to hire a lawyer and sue the agency. [St. Petersburg Times-AP,
12-22-94]
* A central Florida enterprise called Pyramids Unlimited, rejected in
October in the town of Bushnell, plans to approach several other towns
with its venture of a 50-story-high, pyramid-shaped tomb to hold 300,000
crypts and house a chapel at the top. Said Pyramids spokesman Ben
Everidge, of the $200 million project, "We're not talking some tacky mall
here." [Orlando Sentinel, 10-12-94; Newsweek, 11-7-94]
* In September, a 25-year-old woman was abducted from her home in
Carrollton, Ohio, by a man police identified as Donald Eugene Bright, 37.
According to police, Bright took her to a motel near Pittsburgh, Pa.,
where he raped her. She escaped from the room and, shoeless, ran along
a road, avoiding Bright's pursuing car, periodically making collect phone
calls for help, and being unsuccessful in getting assistance from
passersby. So many motorists refused to help her that when police finally
picked her up, she had run 15 miles from the motel. [Canton Repository,
9-5-94]
* In December in Stuart, Fla., Francis Reichert, 58, inadvertently
dislodged a cherry pit, one-half inch in diameter, from his nose during
a routine visit to his doctor. Reichert said he stuffed cherry pits up
his nose to impress playmates when he was a kid, but had not done that
since he was 8. Reichert's doctor said the pit may be the
longest-standing object ever discovered in someone's nose. [St. Petersburg
Times-AP, 12-15-94]
* In October, in Jakarta, Indonesia, authorities discovered one of the
largest caches of drugs ever found in a smuggler's stomach. Basudev
Parajuli, 26, of Katmandu, was carrying at least 103 tubes, containing
2.6 pounds of heroin, valued at $460,000. [Greenville (S. C.) News,
10-15-94]
CHUTZPAH
* After David May resigned in October from the office of Registrar of
Vital Statistics in Buffalo, N. Y., he asked to be paid the $8,500 in
unused annual leave he had accrued. May resigned only because he had been
caught on videotape taking cash payments from people requesting documents
like birth certificates, and had over $200,000 in improperly-gained cash
at his house. According to the city's labor relations director, May is
legally entitled to the $8,500. [Jefferson City (Mo.) Capital News-AP,
10-28-94]
* According to a November Wall Street Journal story, a traveler telephoned
the Hyatt Hotel in Dubai to ask that it send him luggage that he had
absent-mindedly left behind. The luggage had already been searched for
identification by the hotel and was found to contain Hyatt towels, Hyatt
silverware, and the Hyatt clock and bathroom scale from the man's room.
[Wall Street Journal, 11-18-94]
* In July, James Dixon, 29, demanded that police come to his home in
Syracuse and listen to his complaint about massive drug-trafficking in
the neighborhood around his apartment house. After the visit, on a hunch,
one officer stayed behind as the police car pulled away from the building.
Almost immediately, reported the officer, a stream of customers knocked
on Dixon's door to buy drugs. A search turned up 84 bags of crack
cocaine. [Syracuse Herald-Journal, 7-5-94]
* In December, three men were arrested in Russellville, Ark., and charged
with theft. The men lived in a three-bedroom, two-bath house that,
according to the Pope County sheriff, was built and furnished in its
entirety with stolen materials--everything, according to an investigator,
from the plywood to a porch swing to the teapots. [New Haven Register,
12-25-94]
FAMILY VALUES
* In November, Donna Dunik, 63, was arrested for trying to smuggle drugs
and supplies to her incarcerated son in Warren, Ohio. In colored balloons
housed in her socks and bra were marijuana, paste cocaine, flake cocaine,
vitamin B (to cut the cocaine), and yeast (an ingredient for homemade
wine). And in Lancaster, Ohio, in October, Elsie Sheets, 54, was indicted
for helping her son and his friends dispose of the bodies of two
schoolmates they allegedly killed. According to prosecutors, after
disposal, Sheets brought the kids home and made pizza for them. [USA
Today, 10-20-94]
* According to police in Odell, Ill., in August, William Wykes, 57, burst
into the home of his bedridden father, Otis Wykes, 85, and pointed a
handgun at him, but before he could get off a shot, the father pulled his
own gun and fired four times, wounding his son. Said the prosecutor, "It
appears there was a history between the two." [Peoria Journal-Star,
8-4-94]
* At sentencing in November in Brattleboro, Vt., for killing his father
with a chain saw, Kevin Record, 28, was asked by the judge if he had any
regrets. Said Record, "One of the main regrets that I have is that I
wasn't able to take the chain saw to the rest of my family." [USA Today,
11-25-94]
Copyright 1995, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.
Released for the entertainment of readers. No commercial use may
be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird.
