xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
Four former patients of clinical psychologist Letitia Libman sued Delnor-Community Hospital in Geneva, Ill., in March and April for malpractice, including claims that Libman’s hospital treatments for neurological disorders included tarot cards, love potions, DNA-based hexes, and patient nudity and self-mutilation. Libman also allegedly bragged of her travels among space aliens. In May, the lawsuits were amended to include Libman herself as a defendant, a move that the plaintiffs initially resisted because they feared Libman’s witchy retribution.
Former caddie Gary Robinson recently filed a lawsuit against pro golfer Ms. Jackie Gallagher-Smith, claiming he was made an “unwitting sperm donor” in their brief romance since he believes it was he who fathered her child born in March. His lawsuit is for intentional infliction of emotional distress, which is the same claim that has been successful in the early stages of another lawsuit, reported in News of the Weird in March, in which a male doctor in Chicago sued a female doctor who had his child during their affair. (Gallagher-Smith maintained that her husband is the father, and DNA tests cannot be forced on a married woman in Gallagher-Smith’s home state of Florida.)
Most of the seemingly inexhaustible telephone harassers reported in News of the Weird through the years have been Japanese men and woman, scorned in love or business, but American Timothy John Campbell, 45, was arrested in Atlantic, Iowa, in May and charged with stalking a woman by, among other tactics, telephoning her as many as 3,000 times a month. The victim was a waitress at a bar patronized by Campbell but said she ignored his overtures.
In Danbury, N.H., in March, Steven Metallic, 39, was arrested after a two-hour standoff in which he filled his mother’s home with propane gas and threatened to blow it up. Metallic finally fell for a police ruse when they pretended to leave; officers who remained behind captured Metallic tiptoeing out of the house.
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or [email protected] or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.) NEWS OF THE WEIRD