The Mammoth Book of Weird News (Mammoth Books)

by Geoff Tibballs

  DRUNK STUDENT SWALLOWS HOUSE KEY TO PARTY ON

  When Chris Foster’s friends told him he had drunk too much and they were taking him home from a party in the student halls at Bournemouth University, he decided the only way to stay was to swallow his door key so that he couldn’t get into his house. Sobering up the next morning, the 18-year-old was unable to remember a thing. “I thought it was a bit of a windup when my friend said I had swallowed the key. But my throat started to feel very sore and my stomach didn’t feel right, so they took me to hospital.” There, X-rays revealed the presence of the key, and doctors simply told him to wait for nature to take its course. “Luckily I didn’t need keyhole surgery,” he added ruefully.

  DRIVER SHOOTS CAR IN TEMPER TANTRUM

  A 64-year-old man from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was so annoyed when his car wouldn’t start in 2005 that he shot it. An incensed John McGivney pulled out a gun and fired five rounds into the bonnet of his Chrysler. When startled neighbours asked what he was doing, McGivney replied: “I’m putting my car out of its misery.” Although he was arrested for discharging a firearm in public, he insisted he had no regrets, adding: “I think at one time or another every guy in the universe has wanted to do that to his car. It was worth every damn minute in that jail.”

  MAN CONFESSES TO MURDER TO GET LIFT HOME

  A Romanian man confessed to a murder he didn’t commit in 2007 simply because he wanted a lift home. Stranded in a village 100 miles from his home in Botosani and with no money, 23-year-old Marius Varzar told local police that he had killed one of his friends and was handing himself in. He was immediately arrested and driven to Botosani in a police van but it emerged that the alleged murder victim had died from natural causes, whereupon Varzar admitted that he had only been looking for a free ride home. He was duly handed a fine for wasting police time and to cover the cost of the transport.

  WOMAN POSES AS DAUGHTER TO ENROL AT SCHOOL

  A 33-year-old woman from Green Bay, Wisconsin, posed as her 15-year-old daughter to enrol at high school because she had always wanted to be a cheerleader. Wendy Brown used her daughter’s ID to become a student at Ashwaubenon High School. She attended cheerleading practices, a party at the cheerleading coach’s house and was given a cheerleader locker, apparently in a bid to fulfil a lifelong ambition, having missed out on such opportunities in her own childhood. The ruse was uncovered when Brown started skipping school. Teachers said that although the student appeared older than her classmates, she had a teenage-like demeanour. She was found not guilty of identity theft by reason of mental disease and was committed to a mental health facility for three years.

  THIRSTY BUILDERS DRIVE EARTH DIGGER TO LIQUOR STORE

  A pair of Polish builders left a $100,000 trail of destruction when they drove to a liquor store in a digger truck after running out of alcohol on their building site. Weaving the digger crazily across the street, Marek Cowalski and Tomasz Dzwonicki ploughed into parked cars, garden walls and fences and a set of traffic lights on their way to buy more drink for a birthday party on the building site in Glogow. On reaching their destination, they tried to reverse into a parking place outside the liquor store, but drove straight into the shop and got stuck. “They must have been over the moon as they had all the drink they could want,” said a local shopkeeper. Fire crews eventually managed to free the pair who were left with the sobering prospect of up to five years in jail for their escapade.

  “DRIVER CHANGED CLOTHES AT WHEEL, CAUSED PILE-UP”

  South Carolina Highway Patrol officers said that 20-year-old Marie Butler caused a five-car pile-up on State Road 90 in 2002, sending three people to hospital, when she lost control of her car while changing clothes during her drive to work.

  MAN CUTS HIS OWN CAR IN HALF TO DENY CLAMPERS

  Builder Ian Taylor returned to his home in Tredworth, Gloucestershire, to find that his Ford Fiesta had been impounded for having no road tax despite the fact that it was actually off the road. But a zealous wheel-clamper spotted that two inches of the bumper were protruding from his drive and demanded the equivalent of $560 to release the vehicle. So when the clampers arrived to tow away the car two days later, Taylor grabbed their disc cutter, sliced the vehicle in half and invited them to take the rear section as that was the only part that was breaking the law. After the police refused to take any action against Taylor, the clampers reluctantly released the car and told him he could keep both halves. He had bought it for just $100 for his stepson and kept it off the road because it needed repairs. He admitted afterwards: “It was a drastic step but I had to make a point. These people are petty and won’t listen to you.”

  PENSIONER BURNS DOWN HOUSE WHILE EVICTING RACCOONS

  In an attempt to smoke out a nest of raccoons in his attic, Kansas City pensioner C.W. Roseburr succeeded in burning down his house instead. He went into the attic wielding a kerosene-soaked rag on a stick, but his actions led to the eaves catching fire. Afterwards a defiant Mr Roseburr exonerated himself of all blame, maintaining: “I set the raccoon on fire. He’s the one that set the house on fire.”

  PASSENGER FOUND WEARING 100 ITEMS OF CLOTHING

  A Kenyan air passenger flying home from China in 2007 was wearing more than 100 items of men’s and women’s clothing. Security staff at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport became suspicious when they noticed him wearing a really thick suit on a hot summer’s day, and when he opened it, they saw the clothing packed tight around his body. The man said he had bought the clothes in China for resale in Kenya and had decided to wear them to save the excess luggage fee.

  INQUISITIVE MAN KNOCKED OUT BY BRICK CHALLENGE

  One evening a man from Merced, California, decided to find out how high he could throw a brick. After a couple of trial runs, he threw the brick so high that he lost sight of it in the darkness and it came crashing down on the back of his head, knocking him unconscious.

  HEAD LICE REMOVAL ENDS IN BLAZE

  When Romanian Gheorghe Harlaucescu fell victim to head lice, he decided to kill them by massaging petrol into his scalp. Unfortunately he then chose to dry his head by putting it next to a wood-burning stove. The petrol ignited, leaving him with severe skin burns.

  WIRE THIEF GETS UNEXPECTED SHOCK

  A 41-year-old man ended up in hospital after his attempt to steal a roll of copper wire gave him a 27,000-volt electrical shock. The man was found wandering in a Surrey, British Columbia, railroad yard with second-degree burns but without his shoes, which had been blown off when he tried to disconnect the wire from a running generator.

  BARMAN HIDES DAY’S TAKINGS IN HOT OVEN

  When Norfolk, England, pub landlord Martin Talbot asked barman Luke Woolston to cash up and put the takings in a safe place, he expected him to choose a secure spot. So he was horrified to discover that the barman had put the £1,000 ($2,000) in a switched-on oven. Talbot said: “He’s usually a sensible lad so I trusted him to cash up and conceal the takings away from prying eyes. I thought he was joking when he said he’d stuck the money in the oven. But when I got to the kitchen and smelt the burning, I realized he was being serious. I pulled out the plastic till drawer using oven gloves and stared at £1,000 ($2,000) of badly burnt notes. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

  MAGNET MAN WAS ATTRACTED TO WOMEN

  Armed with a magnet, a San Francisco man staked out body piercing parlours waiting for women to leave in the belief that his device would sexually stimulate them.

  WIFE BREAKS INTO PRISON TO HAVE SEX WITH HUSBAND

  Apparently unable to bear the torture of being apart, a wife broke into an English prison in 2007 so that she could have sex with her husband. She sneaked into Standford Hill open prison on the Isle of Sheppey in the early hours of the morning by climbing over a fence. Her husband, who was waiting for her, then took her to his cell where they enjoyed a passionate romp before she left again a short while later. However a guard spotted her as she was making her exit, mainly because she stood out as the only woman i
n an all-male jail. In the wake of the breach, her husband was transferred to a higher security prison.

  WOMAN ORDERS EXTRA MILK TO SAVE BOYFRIEND’S JOB

  A woman from Nanjing, China, ordered 3,000 barrels of milk over a three-month period because she was worried that her boyfriend – a regional sales manager for a dairy company – would be recalled to head office due to poor milk sales.

  THWARTED BUYER SAWED HOUSE IN HALF

  Police said Rodney Rogers was so angry at missing out on the chance to buy a house in Hillsboro, Ohio, in 2007 that he attempted to cut it in half with a power saw. Believing that he would be sold the house, which an acquaintance had constructed, Rogers apparently reacted badly when the friend changed his mind about selling. Highland County Sheriff Ronald Ward said Rogers made a lateral cut in the walls all the way round the house and that gravity was the only thing keeping the top half in place with the bottom half.

  MAN CREATES BOMB HOAX TO SEE WOMEN NAKED

  Choosing a day when it was used by women bathers only, a man made a hoax bomb call to a public spa in the Russian town of Ulyanovsk in 2003, hoping that when police came to evacuate the building, the women would rush out naked. He was therefore disappointed when all the women took the time and trouble to put their clothes on first.

  PROTESTOR CHAINS HIMSELF TO WRONG BUILDING

  A man protesting against the war in Iraq and President Bush’s foreign policy spent hours chained to the wrong building in 2003. Jody Mason padlocked himself to the entrance of the Washington State Grange Building, thinking it was a sub-office of the US Department of Energy when in fact it was a benign, non-profit organization dedicated to helping people in rural areas. Even when Grange employees told him he was protesting outside the wrong address, Mason was unable to move as he had thrown away the key to the padlock. Police eventually had to free him with heavy-duty bolt cutters. Mason said he had looked up the address for the Department of Energy in the phone book.

  DELIVERYMAN LIGHTS MATCH TO SEE INSIDE PARAFFIN TANK

  Wanting to see how much paraffin was in a tank he was delivering in 2001, a Johannesburg trucker lit a match so that he could look inside. The answer was none – after he had struck the match. For the resulting explosion smashed the tank, spewed burning paraffin far and wide and left the inquisitive deliveryman and four others badly burned.

  PASTOR CRASHES MOTORBIKE DURING SERVICE

  A pastor in Kokomo, Indiana, brought a dirt bike onstage during a church service to demonstrate the concept of unity, but ended up in hospital with a broken wrist after losing control of the machine. Jeff Harlow, the senior pastor at Crossroads Community Church, plunged off the five-foot-high platform and into the first row of seats, which luckily were unoccupied. His wife Becky said: “He had this idea that he would bring this bike out onstage and show people how the rider would become one with the machine. He was going to just sit on it and drive it out. He was just walking the bike out onstage and somehow it got away from him. Although he broke his wrist, I think his pride was more bruised.”

  TRUCKER DRIVES 400 MILES WITH CARDBOARD WINDSHIELD

  A Chinese trucker drove 400 miles in freezing conditions with a sheet of cardboard covering his broken windshield. Mr Li said that he hadn’t had time to repair the damage because of his tight delivery schedule and so he decided to drive on by sticking his head out of the side window or, when his neck became sore and numb, by peering through small holes in the cardboard. When police eventually stopped him in Henan Province, his face was purple from the cold.

  PRISONER PULLS OUT HIS EYE AND EATS IT

  A Texas death row inmate with a history of mental problems pulled out his only good eye in 2009 and told authorities he had eaten it. Andre Thomas had plucked out his other eye in 2004 before his trial for murdering three members of his family.

  CHESTNUT SELLER MAKES BOMB HOAX TO BOOST TRADE

  An Austrian hot chestnut seller decided to drum up trade on a slow business day in 2002 by making an anonymous hoax call to say that a bomb had been planted near his outdoor cart. He hoped that people would stand around in the cold to watch the police activity and so buy chestnuts from him.

  MAN TRAPPED IN TOILET USES HANDEL TO GET OUT

  A pensioner trapped in a hospital toilet was freed after singing the opening verse of Handel’s Hallelujah chorus. Eighty-year-old George Hudson, who sings in his local choir, was at the Kent and Sussex Hospital in Tunbridge Wells for a hip operation when he became stuck in the toilet. After three tugs of the emergency chord failed to produce a response from staff, he burst into his favourite song and was rescued immediately. He said: “I like to think it was because they didn’t want to disturb the rest of the patients rather than a comment on my singing.”

  SMOKING LECTURE BURNS DOWN HOUSE

  Angry that her new husband had fallen asleep the previous night while smoking a cigarette, in the process burning a small hole in the bed, a woman decided to show him the possible consequences of his reckless behaviour. So she put a lighted cigarette on the bed of their house in Columbia, Tennessee, and walked out. The house was destroyed by the resulting fire and she was charged with arson.

  SPEEDING MOTORIST MOVES ROAD SIGNS TO PROVE INNOCENCE

  Caught speeding twice in two days, John Hopwood, from Stockport, England, tried to deceive investigators by dismantling a road sign and erecting it at a different location. A day after a speed camera clocked him doing 48 miles per hour in a 40 miles per hour zone in Manchester, another camera spotted him travelling at 41 miles per hour in a 30 miles per hour area in nearby Rochdale. In an attempt to dodge a speeding ticket, Hopwood removed the 40 miles per hour sign in Manchester and drove it ten miles to Rochdale where he attached it to a lamppost and took a photo. He then sent two letters to the Central Ticketing Office, including pictures of the same sign in its two locations, to try to claim that he was barely over the speed limit both times. For good measure, he added how “angry, upset and shocked” he was at being branded a law-breaker. However his elaborate plan began to unravel when other motorists began querying the speed limit sign which had mysteriously appeared in Rochdale. By drafting in a facial mapping expert to study marks on the two signs, prosecuting lawyers were able to prove that they were one and the same. Sentencing Hopwood for attempting to pervert the course of justice, the judge told him: “This was a stupid act bound to fail.”

  THIEF WEARS WOMEN’S UNDERWEAR TO AVOID DETECTION

  A man caught stealing from a store in Kiuzhou, China, was found to be wearing women’s underwear. He told police that he was very superstitious and believed that if he wore lingerie, his crimes would go undetected.

  DRUNK SHOOTS HIMSELF WHILE TRYING TO CURE ITCH

  Drinking beer and playing poker until 3 a.m. in his home at Fort Worth, Texas, Jorge Espinal suddenly experienced an itch on his back. Since it was in a hard-to-reach location, he picked up the first thing that came to hand to use as a backscratcher – a loaded revolver. The gun went off and Espinal returned to the game with blood pouring from a wound to his back. But at least his itch was cured.

  FAMILY SPRAY URINE ON LAMPPOSTS TO FIND LOST DOG

  A family from Bristol tried to lure home their missing dog by spraying their own urine on lampposts and trees. The Baltesz family bottled their urine to scent-mark the streets where they lived in the hope that Simon the black labrador would recognize the familiar smell of his owners and return home.

  MAN ASKS FOUR-YEAR-OLD TO DRIVE HIM TO POLICE STATION

  After his driving licence had been confiscated by deputies, a man in Moulton, Alabama, needed to go to the sheriff’s office to collect it. Not wanting to get into trouble for driving to the police station without a licence, he hit on the bright idea of getting his four-year-old nephew to drive him instead. This landed him with three new charges when deputies saw the boy drive into the parking lot.

  FARMER BUILDS AMY WINEHOUSE SCARECROW

  Desperate to find something scary enough to keep the pigeons off his sugar beet, Norfolk fa
rmer Marlon Brooks decided to model his scarecrow on controversial singer Amy Winehouse. So he planted the lookalike – complete with her trademark beehive and tattoos and clutching a cigarette and a bottle of liquor – in the middle of his field . . . and waited for the reaction. He was soon able to report: “The pigeons are terrified. They’re sitting up on the telephone wires too scared to come into the field. She’s the best scarecrow we’ve ever had. In fact, I’d be happy to offer her a full-time job if she needs one when the singing is over.”

  ROMEO SERENADES GIRLFRIEND WITH AMBULANCE SIREN

  A lovesick Italian man stole an ambulance so that he could serenade his girlfriend with its siren. Spotting the keys in the ignition, he drove the ambulance to her apartment near Ancona, switched on the siren and began singing romantic love songs. “I can’t play an instrument,” he told police officers, “and I wanted a memorable way to romance my girl.”

  CAR CRASH IS CAUSED BY DRIVER SHAVING BIKINI LINE