xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
In August, police in London, Ontario, informed the mother of a college student murdered in 1990 that they had recently solved the case and were certain that the perp was a man on parole at the time and who died in 1994. However, said police, they cannot reveal his name because of “privacy laws.”
Rumors of dead people registered to vote in Venezuela are plentiful, but according to a Financial Times dispatch from Caracas, among the names (with ID numbers) appearing on the rolls in July was that of Henri Charriere, the reputedly awesome escapee-criminal known as Papillon, who died in 1973.
A truck hauling 8,000 live chickens overturned after being forced off the road near St. John’s, Newfoundland, in July when, on a two-lane highway, a car veered into the wrong lane and headed for the truck. (Thus, the car driver might be said to have won the inadvertent game of “chicken” with the chicken-truck driver.)
From a Legal Notice of a Name Change in the Honolulu Advertiser, Aug. 24: from “Waiaulia Alohi anail ke alaamek kawaipi olanihenoheno Kam Paghmani” to “Waiaulia Alohi anail ke alaamek kawaipi olanihenoheno Kam.”
(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