News of the Weird
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
For two years now, Estrella Benevides, 46, has been painting messages on her house in San Mateo, Calif., and her prolificness has escalated to the point where all outside surfaces (including the roof) are covered with cryptic references to the Bible, conspiracy theories and episodes from her own life. A local community board gave her a February deadline to remove the writing or pay a fine of $50 a day. Benevides has said she can’t remove the messages because they come from God and expose a worldwide mind-control cabal that uses witchcraft and technology, and that this is the only way she knows to warn people. According to court documents cited by InsideBayArea.com, her life has spiraled downward since she lost custody of a young son.
Police in Lilburn, Ga., were called to the cemetery adjacent to Luxomni Baptist Church at 2:40 a.m. one morning to investigate reports of a man screaming for about two hours. They found Ezekiel Dejesus-Rodriguez, 24, pinned under a gravestone (with a bloody, broken leg) and said he had apparently been knocking over headstones for fun until one fell on him.
(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