xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
Inmate Robert Murray refused to appear at a court hearing in September in New York City because he “found it humiliating” to have to wear Hannibal Lecter-type restraints. (The HIV-positive Murray had admitted to at least four attempts to infect police officers by spitting blood at them.)
Biswanth Halder, facing 338 felony counts, including aggravated murder, in a shooting spree in Cleveland, declined to come to court in November until the judge let his lawyers go buy him a hairpiece. (The judge acquiesced.)
A judge in Santa Maria, Calif., ordered Nobel-prize-winning physicist John Robert Schrieffer, 74, to prison for two years in November after he acknowledged that he killed a man and injured seven others when he fell asleep at the wheel of his car, at more than 100 mph. Schrieffer had nine previous speeding tickets and was driving at the time on a suspended Florida license. He also admitted that he lied to police about the cause of the collision. (Schrieffer and two others shared the 1972 Nobel for their theory of electrical superconductivity.)
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