News of the Weird

-- In Milwaukee, the family of Robert Senz demanded shortly after his burial last July that Borgwardt Funeral Home dig up the body because his wallet was missing. Sure enough, the wallet containing $64 and credit cards was still in Senz's pocket. In February 1997, Borgwardt sent the family a reburial bill for $2,149, but then decided the whole thing was the county medical examiner's fault and sent the bill there, but that office has denied responsibility.

-- In March, four strippers at the Scene Karaoke and Coconut Karaoke bars in Pattaya, Thailand, were fined a total of about $80 for indecency for an act in which live ducklings were placed inside plastic "eggs" (with air holes) and inserted into the women's bodies so that in the course of their routines, they would "lay" the eggs, which would then "hatch."

-- In February in Redwood City, Calif., Rachel Landa, 48, got out of her van to pump gas, but when she realized the hose wouldn't reach, she instructed her 14-year-old daughter to get behind the wheel and back it up. By the time the girl wrestled the van to a stop, the mother had been run over three times (broken ankle, foot and finger), and the van had crashed into a traffic signal box adjacent to the station.

-- Latest Highway Truck Spills: Several hundred thousand apples near Brighton, Mich., in November; a tractor-trailer full of Hills Bros. ground coffee in downtown Louisville in December; a truck hauling spaghetti sauce and ranch dressing (colliding with a truckful of computers) on I-35 in Austin, Texas, in January; and during a November ice storm, a tractor-trailer full of nuclear weapons near Brownlee, Neb. (an accident kept secret for a month by the federal government).

-- John O'Neill, 73, had to be rescued by firefighters in Huntington, N.Y., in February after he wandered out of a bar late at night and somehow got wedged between two buildings overnight. He was stuck so tight that he had to be pulled out from above.

-- A breathalyzer company executive testifying in a Knoxville, Tenn., DUI trial in September, disputing the defendant's contention that an untimely belch yielded a falsely positive reading: "Belching? I frankly have never seen a belch that brought alcohol up into the oral cavity."

-- Honduran Congressman Julio Villatoro, reacting in February to the bigamy charge filed by his wife: "(I) have problems with my wife, even though she knows a handsome man is not for one woman but for several. God gave me a physique attractive to women, and I take advantage of it."

-- Employees who have become ill in asbestos-laden workplaces have their own class-action lawsuit, so lawyer Michael V. Kelley filed one in January in Cleveland on behalf of employees in those workplaces who are perfectly healthy (in case they someday become ill). Said Kelley, "It's very proactive."

-- King Letsie III, 33, king of Lesotho, imploring other southern African monarchs and dignitaries in December to help him find a wife: "The pressure on me to find a wife soon is heavy, especially (from) my mother. (I) sometimes feel jealous when I see other leaders getting partners with such remarkable ease."

-- Kevin Carter, 21, and Michael Harrison, 26, were charged with murder and armed robbery in Boynton Beach, Fla., in December. Motive: to raise money to attend the police academy.

-- Darrel Voeks, 38, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Appleton, Wis., in December for stealing $100,000 worth of pigs from his farmer-employer. Motive: to pay for breast implants for a stripper at a club he patronized.

-- Michael Pollina, 26, pleaded guilty in Chicago in February to three bank robberies. Motive: to pay for a lavish reception that he and his fiancee had planned for their upcoming wedding.

-- Jack Swint, 42, pleaded guilty to passing bad checks in Roanoke, Va., in November (while he was awaiting trial on other bad-check charges). Motive: needed to pay for counseling sessions to help him kick his bad-check habit.

The famously dysfunctional Sexton family, headed by Eddie and Estella, of Canton, Ohio, and Tampa, Fla., made News of the Weird in 1994 and 1996 based on almost unimaginable charges of incest, child molestation and murder. In March 1997, son Willie, 26, was found to be "competent" after two years in the Florida state mental hospital, and now will stand trial for killing his sister's husband (as allegedly ordered by Eddie, who feared the husband would turn Eddie in for killing the man's baby, whose crying annoyed Eddie). Ostensibly, the dead baby was Eddie's own grandson, but according to trial testimony in a case against Estella, the baby was actually Eddie's own son, the result of a father-daughter coupling.

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg, Fla. 33738, or Weird@compuserve.com. Chuck Shepherd's latest paperback, "The Concrete Enema and Other News of the Weird Classics," is now available at bookstores everywhere. To order it direct, call 1-800-642-6480 and mention this newspaper. The price is $6.95 plus $2 shipping.)

-- In March, a judge in York, Pa., sentenced a woman to a first-offender rehabilitation program for assaulting her 10-year-old son by giving him what she called a "titty twister." According to a police report, she asked the boy, "What's worse than a tornado?" and then pinched and twisted his nipples, causing soreness and noticeable damage.

-- In February, the electric co-op in the Philippine province of Illocos Norte shut off power to the refrigerated crypt of former president Ferdinand Marcos because his wife, now a member of the legislature, is about $215,000 behind in the electricity bill. The government will not permit Marcos to be buried in Manila because he was suspected of having appropriated billions of dollars during his 20-year reign that ended in 1986. Shutting off power, said Mrs. Marcos, was "the ultimate harassment, the harassment of the dead."

-- Each December for four months, the Ice Hotel residential igloo opens in the Lapland region of Sweden, housing about 40 people at about $130 a night for a double room, and with a bar, restaurant, conference facilities and a bridal suite. Room temperatures range from 27 to 45 degrees Fahrenheit, and sleeping bags are used, cushioned by spruce boughs and reindeer skins.

-- According to a trade association of prostitutes in Harare, Zimbabwe, massive layoffs in the economy have led to an oversupply of women taking up prostitution and a reduction in men's spending power, causing them either to ignore prostitutes or to visit bars only to drink and flirt before going home to the wife. To save their jobs, the association recommended in January that prostitutes raise their price from about $2.80 to about $4.60, but also requested that wives loosen the pursestrings to allow husbands to spend more when they go out.

-- The Associated Press reported in February on the Time Machine lounge in Tokyo, and the "relief room" at the Yamanakako resort, in which stressed-out workers pay from about $80 to $125 for a few minutes of satisfaction by smashing fake ceramic antiques in a museumlike sitting room. Often, say the proprietors, the names of tyrannical bosses or unfaithful spouses will be yelled out as the destruction takes place.

-- A February Associated Press story described how two midcareer, Berkeley, Calif., professionals (nurse Raphaela Pope, 52, and lawyer Sam Louie, 36) became prosperous telepathic "pet psychics." Pope charges $40 per half-hour by telephone, which sometimes includes talking directly to the pet. Said one of her customers, "I learned (from Pope) that Scarlette (the cat) thought I didn't want her around. Scarlette changed immediately after talking (sic) to Raphaela, and we're happy again."

-- Locksmith Harley Hudson filed a claim for damages against the city of Wenatchee, Wash., in November, saying that he is due about $250,000 in damages for lost business because the friendly police department helps for free motorists who lock themselves out of their cars. Hudson calls this kindliness an "unconstitutional gift of public funds."

-- In February, the Palm Springs (Calif.) Regional Airport Commission issued hygiene rules for cab drivers serving the airport, including requiring drivers to shower daily with soap, brush with toothpaste and eat breath mints. After vociferous complaints, the commission softened the specifics on "fresh breath" and "pleasant body odor." Said cabbie Ken Olson to the commission, "You're not my mother."

-- Six nurses at a government health care facility for the disabled in Barrie, Ontario, were fired in December for disobeying new countywide rules that required them to provide sexual assistance to their patients (e.g., helping them masturbate, positioning couples for sex, assisting to put on a condom). In January, the agency said it would reconsider the rules, but the women remain jobless and have filed a lawsuit.

-- In November, the European Commission on Human Rights rejected the appeal of Manuel Wackenheim, aka "The Flying Dwarf," whose stage show was banned in France because it consisted of allowing customers to pay to toss him around. Wackenheim said his show "is part of a French dwarf tradition," but authorities said it "damages human dignity."

-- According to an October Chicago Tribune report, Illinois and most other states interpret the federal "motor voter" law to require mental health agencies to help all clients register and vote in national elections, even those with mental ages down to 5 or 6. The only ones who cannot vote are clients formally declared by a court to be mentally incompetent (about half of Illinois agencies' clients). One woman in the Tribune story, now qualified to vote, took 20 minutes to write her first name at the registration desk; another was registered despite the fact that his only communication ability seemed to be to repeat the last words he hears. Relatives fear the clients will be ridiculed at the polls and that agencies' personnel, while "assisting" them to vote, will simply complete the ballots as they wish.

-- In February, the staff of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission found that The Cafe, a gay and lesbian bar, had illegally discriminated in an August incident in which a straight man and woman were ushered out the door for smooching too heavily. According to a witness, the bartender told the couple, "What you're doing is very offensive to people here," even though gays and lesbians freely make out on the premises. (The Cafe says it has since adopted a policy barring heavy kissing by anyone.)

In November, attempting to influence an Arlington, Va., jury to give him a light sentence for 20 counts of credit card fraud, Oludare Ogunde, 28, at first asked for mercy but then said the jury should keep him out of prison because if he were locked up, he would just teach other inmates -- the "hardened criminals" -- how to commit credit card fraud. "And," he reminded the jury, "we're trying to prevent crime in America."

In February, Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, Calif., as he fell face-first through the ceiling of a bicycle shop he was burglarizing. Death was caused when the large flashlight he had placed in his mouth (to keep his hands free) crammed against the base of his skull as he hit the floor.

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg, Fla. 33738, or Weird@compuserve.com. Chuck Shepherd's latest paperback, "The Concrete Enema and Other News of the Weird Classics," is now available at bookstores everywhere. To order it direct, call 1-800-642-6480 and mention this newspaper. The price is $6.95 plus $2 shipping.)

-- In February, Schenectady, N.Y., patrolman Robert J. O'Neill reportedly retired. He had been on sick leave since 1982, at full salary that now has reached $508,000, because of psychological problems related to his Vietnam Marine experience that allegedly made him a danger to the public.

-- Modern-day Stagecoach Robberies: Reuters news service reported in January that the 400-mile route from Moscow to St. Petersburg, Russia, is being worked by gangs of armed thieves who rob and hijack cargo trucks. And in August on the runway at the airport in Perpignan, France, gunmen halted a taxiing Air France airliner that had just landed with 167 passengers and stole moneybags containing about $800,000.

-- In a November Associated Press dispatch from Payiir, Sudan, a reporter described the local competition among unmarried Dinka men to gorge themselves (and refrain from exercise) to become fat, which is regarded as a way to win females because it demonstrates that the man's cattle herd is large enough for him to consume extra milk and meat. The typical Dinka is tall and reed-thin -- former basketball player Manute Bol is a Dinka -- and some men gain so much unfamiliar weight so quickly that they have been known to topple over.

-- The hottest selling computer software in Japan in November was a "love simulation" game in which boys try to get a virtual 17-year-old girl, Shiori, to fall in love with them. There is even a magazine, Virtual Idol, devoted to supplying fictional biographical tales of Shiori and other virtual girls. Wrote one young man, Virtual Idol "is just the right kind of magazine for a person like me who's not interested in real girls." By January, several news services had reported on an equally popular Japanese computer craze, the Virtual Pet, a $16 electronic "bird" the size of an egg that responds to nurturing instincts in many teen-age girls. By pushing buttons, the owner can feed it, play with it, clean up after it and discipline it.

-- According to an October Associated Press story, young mothers in large Japanese cities have adopted the city park as a forum for vying for status. Some young mothers interviewed claimed they were "scared" to take their toddlers to the parks (to make their "park debut") because of the established cliques of mothers who dominate the facilities. Guidebooks teach the proper "park behavior"; department stores feature the proper "park clothing"; and a recent satiric movie depicted a park ruled by 50 authoritarian mothers.

-- In Singapore, which is so pristine that even public gum-chewing is illegal, police expressed concern in February about the recent crisis of apartment dwellers in high-rise buildings who casually toss their belongings out the window. Fifty-one people were arrested last year for throwing objects ranging from TV sets to tricycles to flower pots.

-- The Times of London reported in December that Bombay (whose name was recently changed to Mumbai) became the first city in India to ban public spitting, which the reporter described as "one of the two most ubiquitous of male habits" in India (the other being public urination). According to the Times, "Boys barely old enough to walk can be heard practicing guttural sounds, which is regarded as macho."

-- A September Los Angeles Times story described what Argentine writer Tomas Eloy Martinez called the country's obsession with "emotional" necrophilia toward its prominent citizens. Frequently, corpses of luminaries such as Juan Peron are dug up and either celebrated or desecrated, to excite national pride. (The hands of Peron's corpse were sawed off by a zealous grave robber in 1987 and have not been recovered; last fall, a judge ordered Peron's body to be disinterred yet again so that a DNA sample could be taken as evidence in a woman's claim that she is Peron's illegitimate daughter.)

-- According to a June China Daily story, 40 million Chinese live in caves, but many are leaving for regular houses, putting a strain on the available arable land in some areas. Thus, architects working for the government are designing futuristic cave homes in Gansu, Henan and Shanxi provinces to encourage the cave dwellers to stay put.

-- A team of Chinese surgeons from Zhengzhou, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen reported in January that, in a 17-hour operation three months earlier, they had reattached an elephant's trunk that had been severed in an accident and that the elephant was now feeding itself again, though the trunk was 16 inches shorter.

-- In October, Annie Wald and a partner opened Total Dog, Los Angeles' first canine fitness center. For a fee of up to $800 a year from owners too busy to walk their dogs, the pooches work out on treadmills, in swimming pools and on an obstacle course, and massages are available.

-- In August firefighters in Kelso, Wash., listed the official cause of the fire at Matthew Gould's home as Sadie's playing with matches. Sadie, a 5-month-old German shepherd mix, had probably gnawed into a box of matches but failed to drool enough to douse the sparks. And in Spencer, Ind., in December, James E. Baker was shot in the heel by his Akita, Boo Boo, which had jumped on the trigger of a 20-gauge shotgun on the floor of Baker's pickup truck as he sat in the driver's seat.

In December 1996, News of the Weird reported that Los Angeles County authorities had decided not to charge Texan Robert Salazar in the death of his employee Sandra Orellana, who fell from an eighth-floor hotel balcony railing on which the two were, according to Salazar, having sex. In January, after dropping mannequins from the railing to see how they fell and examining the wounds on Ms. Orellana's body, the county coroner called the death a homicide, and police sought Salazar for more questioning.

In an eight-day period in January in towns less than 100 miles apart (Bakersfield and Fresno, Calif.), police found the corpses of elderly mothers that continued to be treated as integral parts of the family by their adult sons. The Bakersfield woman, who died at age 77 around September, was thought by her son to be merely "demonically depressed" and therefore liable to wake up at any minute and thus had been propped up on the sofa.

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg, Fla. 33738, or 74777.3206@compuserve.com. Chuck Shepherd's latest paperback, "The Concrete Enema and Other News of the Weird Classics," is now available at bookstores everywhere. To order it direct, call 1-800-642-6480 and mention this newspaper. The price is $6.95 plus $2 shipping.)