xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx

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

Police in Overland Park, Kan., arrested a 29-year-old man from Virginia on New Year’s Eve (but his partner escaped) and charged him with defrauding the Embassy Suites Hotel by using two stolen $500 money orders to obtain cash. By the time the hotel discovered that the money orders were bogus, the two men had checked out of their rooms, but fortunately, the 29-year-old man had just returned to the hotel because he had forgotten to get his $20 room deposit back. He was arrested without incident.

In Northampton, Mass., in December, and several months earlier in Spokane, Wash., marijuana traffickers’ operations came to an end when they made routine business deposits of cash but failed to notice that their money reeked of the scent of marijuana. Arlene and Martin Santor of Wallingford, Vt., handed $50,000 in $20 bills to a smell-sensitive jailor in Northampton to bail their daughter out on drug charges, and Kathleen Jenny and Virginia Erickson made cash bank deposits to a smell-sensitive teller in Spokane (which led to their trafficking conviction in January 2003).

In January, Devon Harris, 19, and Shemone Gordon, 23, were charged with kidnapping millionaire investment manager Edward Lampert outside his office in Greenwich, Conn., and attempting to ransom him, but Harris’ mother and Gordon’s aunt both told reporters later that their boys are just not smart enough to pull off a kidnapping like that. The kidnappers abandoned their plan after three hours and released Lampert, but were arrested a short time later when police traced their whereabouts after the men used Lampert’s credit card to order a pizza delivery.

Rick Kowalewski, 41, and Matthew Bracelin, 20, were charged with fraud in November for selling bogus designer clothes from a booth in Osage, Iowa. Police seized $25,000 worth of shirts with Tommy Hilfiger, Nike and Ralph Lauren logos but whose neck tags said Fruit of the Loom.
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