xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx

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

Producers announced in February that they were still planning to bring the 3-year-old London stage show “Jerry Springer, The Opera” to America in early 2006, despite increasingly vituperative protests of religious groups. The show features “Jerry” mediating confessions in hell between Satan, God, Jesus, Mary, and various biblical characters, complete with a raucous audience periodically chanting “Jer-ree! Jer-ree!” Reportedly, 300 to several thousand curse words are in the script (depending on who counts), and the show’s Jesus is a pudgy, diaper-wearing gay man who is apparently coprophilic (among the many alleged points of blasphemy). When the BBC televised a showing, it reported 50,000 complaints, with some physical threats directed to the station’s staff and their families.

Circleville, Ohio, police officer Troy Brungs, 35, was still on the job in January (though a hearing on a DUI charge was pending) despite (in the last five years) three suspensions, seven written reprimands, eight written orders for counseling, and three patrol-car crashes.

In February, at Ohio’s Mansfield Correctional Institution, two death-row inmates nearly succeeded in an elaborate escape attempt that the security supervisor, Maj. John Morrison, had been warned about a month earlier but apparently had ignored (as one of the inmates had been promoted to a trusted position two days before the escape).
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Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd

NEWS OF THE WEIRD