xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
New York City mayoral candidate C. Virginia Fields apologized in July for telling a reporter that, when she was arrested in a civil rights protest in the South in 1963, police took her away in a “paddy wagon.” She said the term could be offensive to some Irish-Americans.
Arlyne Reiter, of Pompano Beach, Fla., describing the experience of having just arisen in the morning to encounter an iguana in her bathroom: “It was like Jurassic Park in my toilet.”
Connecticut saddle-maker Mike Derrick, commented on why he set up a booth in Boston at the August Fetish Fair Fleamarket: He could spend six hours creating a bridle for a horse and earn $40, he said, but “make one for a human, $120.”
Least Competent Criminals In Clovis, N.M., in July, Danny J. Jimenez, 51, was sentenced to six years in prison for a pair of 2003 burglaries. Police had captured Jimenez by following the blood trail that stemmed from his encounter with a pawn shop’s glass jewelry case. Later, investigators learned that an injury to Jimenez’s head did not come from the jewelry case but occurred when Jimenez accidentally hit himself with a hammer while burglarizing a church later that night. Said a detective, “(Jimenez) had a big, round (indentation) in his forehead that was consistent with the hammer that I found.” (And, as if he needed more misery, Jimenez’s loot bag broke during his getaway, causing him to lose most of the jewelry, anyway.)
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or [email protected] or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.) NEWS OF THE WEIRD
