xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx

Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.

It was one of the classics, but it happened anew, in Bloomington, Ill., in October. Donald R. Hilger was arrested and charged with robbing 11 local businesses over the previous two weeks. He was picked up shortly after a robbery of a Jewel/Osco store, and police brought two of that robbery’s witnesses by the arrest scene to see if they could identify him. According to police, however, as soon as the employees spotted Hilger, Hilger pointed at one of them and blurted out, “That’s the one I robbed.”

A 47-year-old tribesman from Vietnam, who had relocated to a U.S. government-sponsored Montagnard community in North Carolina to escape persecution, got homesick and headed back to Vietnam in September. However, he lost his papers and is now stranded at Los Angeles International Airport because no country will issue him a visa, in a dilemma reminiscent of that of Merhan “Alfred” Nasseri, who has been chronicled several times in News of the Weird since 1988 (and in the recent movie “The Terminal”) and who remains at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. The tribesman is convinced that his only chance of repatriation will be lost if he leaves the airport, but at press time, he was continuing to examine options while making his home in an airport chair.

Robbers stole $70,000 from the Lucky Dollar Casino in Greensburg, La., in November, and, acting on a deal-seeking tip from one of the robbers, police checked a creek near Baton Rouge, where two of the three moneybags were recovered. A search downstream turned up the third, which had been carried away by beavers and used in the construction of their dam, with apparently all of the money still inside. Jacqueline Wall, 25, was charged, and at least one other arrest was expected.
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or [email protected]
Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd

NEWS OF THE WEIRD