xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
Last Words:
(1) Jackson Thomas was stabbed to death in May in Brooklyn, N.Y.; he had made comments about his wife’s putting on weight, leading to an argument, provoking her to grab a knife, but Mr. Thomas advanced on her, saying, “What are you going to do, stab me?”
(2) A week before that, in West Hempstead, N.Y., taxicab passenger Kenneth Hill, 39, died after the driver hit him with a tire iron; he had been chased by the driver after he tried to skip out on a $5 fare and continued to taunt the driver, saying, “I’m not going to pay you, and there is nothing you can do about it.”
A deputy governor in Japan resigned after criticism that he had continued to play a pachinko pinball gambling machine for a half-hour after a chaotic, magnitude-7 earthquake hit a few days earlier (on a day in which he was actually the acting governor) (Akita prefecture).
Cockfight breeders filed a lawsuit against the federal government claiming that new restrictions on transporting fighting chickens constitute illegal ethnic discrimination against Cajuns and Hispanics (New Orleans).
A gas station booth was rammed by a car with a dead man at the wheel; the man had shot himself to death hours before with the engine idling, and rigor motris caused his foot finally to either fall off the brake or hit the accelerator (Boston).
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