Fun_People Archive
12 Aug
Weirdness [441] - 19Jul96

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 96 22:09:52 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: Weirdness [441] - 19Jul96

Excerpted-from: WEIRDNUZ.441 (News of the Weird, July 19, 1996)
		by Chuck Shepherd

* Anal-Compulsive Criminals:  Two men who broke out of a jail in Rutland,
Vt., in May were captured a week later, done in when police recovered a
"things to do" list they had made to guide them in a post-escape robbery.
In Dallas, Tex., in May, Travis Crabtree, 15, was indicted for murder, done
in by a list of instructions he had written to himself for a robbery,
including a reminder to kill the victim, which he allegedly did.  In January
in San Antonio, Tex., Jonathan Blaine Downey, 26, was sentenced to 10 years
in prison for assembling fertilizer bombs to kill his enemies, done in when
police found his list of 17 targets. [San Jose Mercury News-AP, 6-5-96] [USA
Today, 5-17-96] [San Antonio Express-News, 1-11-96]

* Two girls at the Mount St. Mary Academy in Little Rock, Ark., were not
permitted at their graduation ceremony in May because of a school ruling
barring pregnant students.  Girls who have had abortions are not barred from
the ceremony. [USA Today, 5-29-96]

* In January, Jacquelynne Stafford filed a $300,000 lawsuit against the
White Marsh (Md.) YMCA because a runner crashed into her at 2nd base during
a league softball game, breaking her collarbone, when league rules require
the runner to slide.  In response to Stafford's lawsuit, the YMCA then sued
the runner, his manager, the umpire, and the company that paid for the
team's T-shirts for not assuring that the sliding rule was adhered to.
[Washington Times, 1-30-96]

* In June, Bob Ringewold, 43, was driving with a friend in Holland, Mich.,
when the roof of his car was dented by a 5-lb.  sucker fish that fell from
the sky.  (It had fallen from the talons of an eagle that couldn't hold it,
and Ringewold took it home.) [Detroit Free Press, 6-15-96]

* In April, convicted murderer Gene Travis escaped from the maximum security
prison in Cranston, R. I., by hiding in a garbage truck, but he failed to
escape from the truck soon enough and was compacted with the driver's first
load.  (He survived and was captured, but the garbage-hauling company had
previously said no one could survive a compacting.) [Providence Journal-
Bulletin, 5-21-96]

Copyright 1996, Universal Press Syndicate.  All rights reserved.
No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name
News of the Weird.

© 1996 Peter Langston