The Mammoth Book of Weird News (Mammoth Books)

by Geoff Tibballs

  LOVESICK ARSONIST STARTS FIRE TO APPEAR BEFORE JUDGE

  A lonely Austrian photographer became so infatuated with a female judge that he continued committing crimes just so that he could appear before her again. He had first met the judge in court after being charged with setting fire to his Vienna apartment following a drunken binge. She ordered him to be released on bail but he then began bombarding her with requests for dinner. When these failed, the frustrated Romeo started another blaze and ended up being jailed for two years. He explained: “She showed no interest and would not even speak to me, so I started the fire so I could see her again, even though it would be in court rather than during a candlelit dinner.”

  FLORIDA COPS CAUGHT PLAYING WII DURING DRUG RAID

  While raiding the Florida home of a convicted drug dealer who was already in custody, police officers were caught on camera playing a Nintendo Wii bowling game. One was seen jumping up and down excitedly in celebration while another detective was filmed taking several breaks from cataloguing evidence so that she could bowl frames. The officers were unaware that a surveillance camera had been set up in the house before the raid.

  BURGLARS FIND THEY ARE MARKED MEN

  Before trying to break into an apartment in Carroll, Iowa, in 2009, a pair of burglars decided to disguise themselves by drawing masks on their faces with a black marker pen. Unfortunately for them, they chose a permanent marker, which meant that police, alerted by a witness to the attempted break-in, had little trouble identifying them a few blocks away. The local police chief said: “Guilt was written all over their faces.”

  VANDAL IN HOLE LOT OF TROUBLE

  A Sunderland man had to be rescued by fire crews in 1994 after using a manhole cover to smash a shop window, then stepping back and falling down the hole.

  SUSPECT DONS WOMEN’S CLOTHES AND GIVES POLICE THE SLIP

  Stopped by police on suspicion of drink-driving in Knoxville, Tennessee, a 19-year-old man ran to a nearby house and changed into women’s clothing. He was arrested two hours later while walking down the street wearing women’s shoes, pants and jacket.

  CREATURE OF HABIT PROVES EASY TO CATCH

  On four consecutive days, a man robbed the same Mexico City pastry shop at 8 a.m., each day holding up an employee at knifepoint before escaping with a chocolate cake. After successful raids on the Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, the robber with the sweet tooth was apparently surprised to find police officers waiting for him when he burst into the shop at 8 a.m. on the Tuesday.

  MAN IN PYJAMAS ROBS OHIO BANK

  A man who robbed a bank in Bexley, Ohio, in 1999 chose an unusual disguise: he wore pyjamas. The thief walked into the National City Bank just before noon dressed in a blue and white zipper jacket, a black cap, blue and white checked pyjamas and bedroom slippers that were open at the heels. A detective on the case speculated: “Maybe he overslept.”

  DIRTY PHONE CALLER DIALS POLICE CHIEF BY MISTAKE

  John Mullen Jr, of Lakewood, Ohio, decided to phone a sex chat line in 2003, but misdialled and unfortunately selected the number of Capt. Guy Turner of the Westlake, Ohio, Police Department. To make matters worse, after talking dirty for 20 minutes, Mullen fell fast asleep while still holding the phone, giving the police plenty of time to trace the call.

  ROBBER HIDES LOOT UP BUTT

  A New Zealand bank robber who stashed the proceeds of a heist up his back passage was caught out by “rustling sounds from his bottom area”. The 36-year-old man was arrested soon after the raid but told police that he had handed the cash to an accomplice. However he was given away by the rustling noises and on closer inspection officers noted that “a roll of cash was found protruding from his anus”. The recovered bills were destroyed.

  MAN SUES BOOK OVER “MOST LAWSUITS” CLAIM

  An American named in The Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s most litigious man announced in 2009 that he was suing them over the claim. Jonathan Lee Riches is believed to have filed over 4,000 lawsuits against various people, entities, objects and concepts, including Britney Spears, the Eiffel Tower, Google, the Roman Empire, Che Guevara, the Magna Carta, Emilio Estevez and Plato.

  FLEA OUTBREAK HALTS FRAUD TRIAL

  Judge Graham Hume Jones discharged the jury and ordered the retrial of a 1994 fraud case at Exeter Crown Court, Devon, after two jurors complained that one of their colleagues was infested with fleas.

  MEN ARE ROBBED AFTER LICKING WOMEN’S BREASTS

  Three young Colombian women encouraged men to lick their drug-coated breasts and then made off with their valuables. The trio dissolved powerful narcotic pills in water and rubbed it into their breasts before striking seductive roadside poses near bars and restaurants in wealthy districts of Bogota. When motorists were persuaded to stop and lick the women’s breasts, they quickly lost consciousness, coming round hours later to find they had lost their wallets and sometimes their cars but with no recollection of what had happened.

  GUNMAN ALARMED BY MICROWAVE OVENS

  A gunman raiding a Portland, Oregon, branch of Burger King in 1998 panicked when he heard the timers on the microwave ovens. Thinking they were security alarms going off, he fled from the store empty-handed.

  THIEF ROBS WOMAN OF DEAD DOG

  A distraction thief who targeted a female passenger at a London Tube station ran off with her suitcase . . . unaware that it contained nothing but a dead dog. The woman was taking a friend’s recently deceased dog to a vet for disposal, but when her car broke down, she was forced to catch the Tube. She was struggling with the heavy hound at Victoria Station until a polite well-dressed man offered to help her carry the case up an escalator. At the top, he gave her a bag weighted with stones as a distraction and then fled with her case. One witness said: “The guy was a pro. But I would have liked to have been there when he opened the suitcase.”

  BY HOOK OR BY CROOK

  A 36-year-old man who robbed an Ontario discount store in 1996 was swiftly apprehended, principally because he had made no attempt to conceal the metal hook which he used in place of a hand.

  JUDGE DISMISSES SENATOR’S LAWSUIT AGAINST GOD

  In 2007, Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers filed a lawsuit seeking a permanent injunction against God. He said God had inspired fear and caused “widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants”. However Douglas County District Court Judge Marlon Polk threw out the lawsuit on the grounds that the Almighty could not be properly served the writ because he had an unlisted home address. Unbowed, Chambers said: “The court itself acknowledges the existence of God. A consequence of that acknowledgement is a recognition of God’s omniscience. Since God knows everything, God has notice of this lawsuit.”

  WOMAN MAKES 7,177 EMERGENCY PHONE CALLS

  Japanese police arrested a 38-year-old woman on charges of making 7,177 emergency phone calls over a one-month period between September and October 2008. The woman bombarded the police with calls because an officer had not taken her earlier assault complaint seriously. A police spokesman revealed that she would often shout “drop dead” – or words to that effect – down the line and added: “She apparently had a grudge against police officials.”

  BANK ROBBER LEAVES TELLTALE NOTE

  A bank robber in Jacksonville, Florida, made the mistake of writing the demand note on the back of a police report of his previous arrest.

  ROBBER DISGUISES HIMSELF AS CARPET

  A Polish crook thought he had found a novel way of evading capture – by disguising himself as a carpet. After robbing a cosmetics store in 2009, the man rolled himself up in a giant rug and propped himself against a balcony while police officers searched his aunt’s apartment in Warsaw. He was only found after a two-hour search when a frustrated detective went out onto the balcony for a cigarette and noticed that the carpet was trembling.

  COPS LOSE GUNS ON WAY TO SAFETY CLASS

  Two Raleigh, North Carolina, police officers lost an MP-5 machine gun and
a handgun in 2002 while they were on their way to teach a gun safety class. They apparently put the guns, which were stored inside a bag, in the bed of their pickup truck but lost them when they fell out as they were driving along the highway.

  PHARMACY THIEF FALLS ASLEEP ON THE JOB

  Before robbing a pharmacy in Amman, Jordan, in 2001, a thief took three sleeping tablets to steady his nerves. Unfortunately the dosage was so strong that he fell asleep inside the pharmacy and was apprehended there by employees the following morning.

  PHARMACY THIEF FALLS ASLEEP ON THE JOB

  In 2008, the Italian Supreme Court clamped down on men touching their genitals in public. An ancient Italian superstition that is believed to ward off evil, crotch-grabbing is traditionally practised by men if passed by a hearse or when discussing illness. However the court ruled that a 42-year-old man from Como had flouted the law by “ostentatiously touching his genitals through his clothing”. His lawyers claimed he had a “compulsive, involuntary movement” because of uncomfortable overalls but the judges ruled that he had offended public decency and advised that if men felt they needed to fondle their genitals, they should wait until they were in the privacy of their own home.

  BASKETBALL TICKETS PROVE BURGLARS’ DOWNFALL

  Breaking into a North Carolina house in 2002, two burglars stole, amongst other things, tickets for a forthcoming basketball game. Police had the simple task of arresting the pair when they sat in the corresponding seats at the game.

  ROBBER TRIPS UP ON ITALIAN JOB

  No sooner had he burst into a Milan bank than an Italian robber tripped over a doormat and went flying. As he did so, his mask slipped and his gun went off. Quickly regaining his composure, he rushed towards the cashier, only to lose his footing again on the slippery floor, causing him to drop his gun. Deciding to abandon the heist, he ran out of the bank and straight into the arms of a police officer who had just written him a ticket for parking his getaway car in a prohibited place.

  ONE-LEGGED DRIVER OUTRUNS POLICE

  Police officers in Pasco County, Florida, were embarrassed in 2007 when a driver with no arms and just one leg lost them in a high-speed car chase – for the second time. Michael Wiley, who has overcome three amputations and taught himself to drive with stumps, led the police on an eight-minute chase before shaking off his pursuers. In 1998, he had led deputies on a 120-miles-per-hour chase down Interstate 125. His attorney explained that Wiley starts the car with his toes, shifts gear with his knee and steers with the stump of his left arm. He turns on the lights with his teeth. According to state records, Wiley’s other crimes include stealing a car, attacking his wife (headfirst) and kicking a state trooper – with his only leg.

  FAMILY FORGOT TO FREE PRISONER FOR 9 YEARS

  An innocent man spent 14 years in prison in India because nobody, not even his family, bothered to tell him or the jail authorities that he was free to go. Pratap Nayak, from New Delhi, was just 13 when he was found guilty of murder in 1989 and sentenced to life imprisonment, but five years later the Orissa High Court quashed the conviction and ordered his release. However neither the court nor Nayak’s own family thought to inform the prison, as a result of which he was left languishing in jail for another nine years until a local lawyer stumbled upon his case and secured his eventual release in 2003. Nayak was subsequently awarded $20,000 compensation.

  SUSPECT USES CLONING AS A CREATIVE DEFENCE

  An Ottawa, Ohio, man accused of killing a 15-year-old boy said that it was his clone who was the murderer. The suspect claimed the US Army had cloned him three times.

  JUROR’S COUGH SENDS DEFENDANT TO JAIL

  Defendant Alan Rashid almost ended up serving a prison sentence after a juror chose the wrong moment to cough. The cough came just as the jury foreman announced a verdict of not guilty in Rashid’s 1999 trial at Cardiff Crown Court, but Judge Michael Gibbon only heard the word “guilty” and promptly sentenced Rashid to two years in jail. It was only when one inquisitive juror asked an usher why Rashid was going to jail after being found innocent that the mistake was uncovered and the jury was herded back into court to repeat its verdict.

  HOUSEOWNER FINDS BURGLAR COVERED IN BARBECUE SAUCE

  Hearing strange whistling sounds in the middle of the night, an Appleton, Wisconsin, man grabbed his shotgun and went down to the basement of his house to investigate. There he found an intruder covered head to toe in barbecue sauce. When police arrived, the burglar told them the barbecue sauce was urban camouflage because he wanted to hide from the government.

  THIEVES STEAL BRIDGE

  Scrap metal thieves in Russia managed to steal a 200-tonne steel bridge in 2008 without anyone noticing. The 38-foot-long structure vanished overnight from its site in Khabarovsk.

  HEAVY HAUL GOES UP IN FLAMES

  A gang of determined thieves in Australia pulled an ATM from a store, only to find that it was too heavy to lift onto their pickup truck. So they attached a chain to the machine and towed it behind the truck through four suburbs. Unfortunately for them, the friction caused by dragging it along the streets caused it to overheat dramatically and before they had a chance to open it, the machine went up in flames, along with the cash inside it.

  SUSPECT PAYS PRICE FOR PLAYING WITH HANDCUFFS

  Sean Barry, a 23-year-old waiter from Phoenix, Arizona, learned two important lessons about handcuffs in 1999. First, don’t play with handcuffs unless you have the key. Second, if you don’t have the key, call a locksmith rather than the local police – especially if you are a wanted man. Officers had gone to Barry’s home in response to his distress call about not being able to free himself from the handcuffs, but on making a routine computer check into his background, they found an outstanding arrest warrant for failing to appear in court on a charge of driving on a suspended licence. Consequently he was taken into custody – still wearing the handcuffs. A police spokesman said: “We did eventually take them off like he asked, but by then he was in jail.”

  CANADIAN ASKS FOR DISCOUNT ON JAIL SENTENCE

  A Canadian man, facing seven years in jail for robbing a Champlain, New York, bank in 2002, argued that he should receive a discount on his jail sentence to allow for his country’s weaker exchange rate against the US dollar. Robert Moisescu insisted that because, at prevailing exchange rates, the Canadian dollar was worth only 62 per cent of its American counterpart, the conversion should also apply to prison time, meaning that he ought to serve just four years. “Seven years Canadian is worth four years American,” he told the court optimistically.

  DUCT TAPE BANDIT KEPT UNDER WRAPS

  A 25-year-old man was sentenced to ten years in prison for robbing a liquor store with his head swathed in duct tape. Kasey Kazee entered the Ashland, Kentucky, store in 2007 with his entire head, except for openings at his eyes and mouth, wrapped in duct tape. After threatening a female clerk and snatching money from the cash register, he was tackled in the parking lot by another employee and held until police arrived. “The duct tape proved easy to remove,” said the Ashland Police Department. “He had perspired so much it nearly fell off.”

  WOULD-BE BURGLAR HIDES HIMSELF IN PARCEL

  A young Colombian thief hatched an ingenious way of breaking into a wealthy Medellin home in 2004 – by hiding himself in a large parcel delivered to that address. However the planned burglary went wrong when suspicious guards at the condominium called in bomb disposal experts. Unable to breathe inside the package and fearing that he was about to be detonated, the occupant began screaming for help and tried to punch his way out. Police unpacked the parcel to find a gasping 24-year-old man, along with a knife, a gun, ropes and a ski mask.

  NEIGHBOUR KILLED FOR WATERING LAWN

  A man in Sydney, Australia, was charged with beating a neighbour to death in 2007 because the neighbour was watering his lawn, thereby violating the city’s water restrictions.

  PRISONER DEMANDS RIGHT TO WORSHIP NORDIC GODS

  A prisoner has filed a lawsuit against the Utah Dep
artment of Corrections, accusing it of denying him his right to practise an ancient Nordic religion that worships gods such as Odin and Thor. Michael Polk, who is serving time for aggravated assault and robbery, claims to have been a member of the Asatru faith since 2005, and in order to practise it he says he needs numerous items including a Thor’s Hammer, a prayer cloth, a mead horn for drinking wassail, a drum made of wood and boar skin, a rune staff and a sword. In his lawsuit, Polk said he had asked the prison chaplain for the items but had been denied them.

  SMUGGLER LEAVES HEROIN TRAIL AT AIRPORT

  A Colombian smuggler, who tried to hide heroin from customs officers in 2002 by starching it into his clothes, used so much – over two pounds of the drug – that his clothes appeared unnaturally stiff, smelled of vinegar, and he left a trail of white powder behind him as he walked through the airport.

  IRATE DEFENDANT SMEARS HIS LAWYER IN FAECES

  The defendant in a 2009 San Diego robbery trial was so unhappy with the performance of his lawyer that he produced a plastic bag with faecal matter and smeared it on Deputy Alternate Public Defender Jeffrey Martin’s hair and face. Weusi McGowan then hurled the bag at the jury. The prosecutor revealed that McGowan had wiped human faeces on himself in the past.