xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
As the Romanian government hurries to improve law-enforcement sophistication in its campaign for European Union membership, villagers in the Transylvania region are resisting police crackdowns on their traditional practice of vampire killings, according to a March Knight Ridder News Service report. Vampires (unlike Hollywood conventions using crosses and garlic) are just people who go bad upon death and cause continuing grief to family members unless they are re-killed. The body is dug up; the heart is removed with a curved sickle and burned (but it will likely squeak like a mouse and try to escape unless held down); and the ashes are mixed with water and drunk. Villagers are outraged that some may face criminal charges for disturbing the dead, which carries a three-year prison sentence.
Send in the Snakes :
–Former judge Bob Sam Castleman and his son pleaded guilty to mailing a poisonous copperhead snake to a neighbor with whom they were feuding (Pocahontas, Ark., January).
–An Absa Bank Ltd. customer, upset about a car loan, was charged with setting five poisonous puff adder snakes free in the bank’s lobby (resulting in one worker being bitten) (Johannesburg, South Africa, January).
–In October, a small, nonpoisonous snake was found slithering around a courtroom, in Danbury, Conn.; it was believed unrelated to the dispute being heard, even though that was a divorce case.
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
