xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
In May, the Columbus (Ohio) City Council approved a building permit for the Faith Christian Center (“On Fire for God”) to construct a 52,000-square-foot commercial complex centered on an indoor skateboard park, and including a restaurant, arcade and pro shop, named Godz Xtreme Power Park.
The mother of accused serial killer Maury Travis filed a lawsuit against the prison in May for her son’s alleged suicide, claiming among other things that the architects who designed the cellblock made it unusually difficult for guards to peek in on inmates on a “suicide watch,” such as her son. However, Travis’ “suicide” actually revealed a remarkably focused man: According to news reports, Travis is said to have hanged himself with a bedsheet, but with a pillowcase over his head, toilet paper in his nostrils, a washcloth in his mouth, and his hands tied behind him.
Officials investigating an explosion inside Villa Hermosa prison in Cali, Colombia, in May (which killed three inmates and wounded 15) concluded, using the process of elimination, that the only way the grenade could have gotten into the facility was to have been smuggled in by a certain, unnamed female visitor earlier that day. According to a Reuters News Service dispatch, authorities concluded that she must have hidden the grenade in a body cavity because that’s the only place guards are not allowed to search.
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
