Fun_People Archive
24 Mar
Weirdness #370

Date: Fri, 24 Mar 95 14:34:59 PST
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: Weirdness #370

["(an ingredient for homemade wine)" ?!  -psl]

From: WEIRDNUZ.370 (News of the Weird, March 10, 1995)
by Chuck Shepherd

* Police in East Patchogue, N. Y., filed a false-report charge against
Nicholas Lalla, 32, in January after he had sworn out a complaint that his
estranged wife slapped him.  Lalla played for police an audiotape he had
made clandestinely in which slapping sounds are heard amidst his yelling,
"Don't hit me."  When police informed Mrs. Lalla of the clandestine
audiotape, she played for them a clandestine videotape she had made of him
making the audiotape:  He is shown yelling "Don't hit me" outside her house
after she has left to go back inside. [Marshfield (Mo.) Mail-AP, 1-25-95]

* In December, the Internal Revenue Service demanded that John Zwynenberg
pay $6.4 million within 90 days.  But Zwynenberg's only tax "liability" is
that he stands to be awarded money in the lawsuits filed in connection with
the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland,
in which his son, John, was killed.  However, no date has been set for the
distribution of that money, and the award might be much less than IRS
anticipates.  Still, IRS said Zwynenberg would either have to pay up or to
hire a lawyer and sue the agency. [St.  Petersburg Times-AP, 12-22-94]

* A central Florida enterprise called Pyramids Unlimited, rejected in
October in the town of Bushnell, plans to approach several other towns with
its venture of a 50-story-high, pyramid- shaped tomb to hold 300,000 crypts
and house a chapel at the top.  Said Pyramids spokesman Ben Everidge, of
the $200 million project, "We're not talking some tacky mall here." [Orlando
Sentinel, 10-12-94; Newsweek, 11-7-94]

* According to a November Wall Street Journal story, a traveler telephoned
the Hyatt Hotel in Dubai to ask that it send him luggage that he had
absent-mindedly left behind.  The luggage had already been searched for
identification by the hotel and was found to contain Hyatt towels, Hyatt
silverware, and the Hyatt clock and bathroom scale from the man's room.
[Wall Street Journal, 11-18-94]

* In July, James Dixon, 29, demanded that police come to his home in
Syracuse and listen to his complaint about massive drug- trafficking in the
neighborhood around his apartment house.  After the visit, on a hunch, one
officer stayed behind as the police car pulled away from the building.
Almost immediately, reported the officer, a stream of customers knocked on
Dixon's door to buy drugs.  A search turned up 84 bags of crack cocaine.
[Syracuse Herald-Journal, 7-5-94]

* In November, Donna Dunik, 63, was arrested for trying to smuggle drugs
and supplies to her incarcerated son in Warren, Ohio.  In colored balloons
housed in her socks and bra were marijuana, paste cocaine, flake cocaine,
vitamin B (to cut the cocaine), and yeast (an ingredient for homemade wine).
And in Lancaster, Ohio, in October, Elsie Sheets, 54, was indicted for
helping her son and his friends dispose of the bodies of two schoolmates
they allegedly killed.  According to prosecutors, after disposal, Sheets
brought the kids home and made pizza for them. [USA Today, 10-20-94]

* At sentencing in November in Brattleboro, Vt., for killing his father with
a chain saw, Kevin Record, 28, was asked by the judge if he had any regrets.
Said Record, "One of the main regrets that I have is that I wasn't able to
take the chain saw to the rest of my family." [USA Today, 11-25-94]

Copyright 1995, Universal Press Syndicate.  All rights reserved.
Released for the entertainment of readers.  No commercial use may
be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird.

© 1995 Peter Langston