xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx

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

Gary Lee McMurray, 30, was arrested in February for grand larceny in Jonesville, Tenn. Police said McMurray telephoned Debra Letourneau of Long Hollow while she was at the home of another man, told her he had her upper plate of false teeth, and told her that if she did not pay him a ransom (amount not reported), he would stomp on them.

Ms. Selimy Mensah, 39, was hospitalized in Leonia, N.J., in February with second- and third-degree burns. According to police, Mensah started a fire in her second-floor apartment when she, for some reason, tried to open a canister of spray paint with an electric can opener.

Update Last year, after a KORB personality in the Davenport, Iowa, radio market offered listeners $30,000 a year for up to five years to tattoo “93 Rock” (the station’s ID) on their forehead, Richard Goddard Jr. took him up on it, and Goddard’s grumbling about the station’s subsequent, alleged reneging on the deal got wide newspaper coverage. In January 2003, according to police, John and Mary Rushman of Colona, Ill. (with whom Goddard had been temporarily staying), were charged with beating Goddard in the face with a ball peen hammer because he was severely getting on their nerves with all of his complaints and suicide threats.

South Dakota Highway Patrolmen made a guns-drawn stop of a motorist in February, as suspicious because he was driving his van on Interstate 90 while wearing a gas mask (but he said he was just making a restaurant delivery of food that had an unpleasant smell).
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