Issue 14 of the Odd Stew: strange news items, oddities, plus other weird and fascinating things that have happened in the news that you may have missed.
That Chicken Would Look Great in my Man Cave
In Alexander County, North Carolina a curious crime took place that shocked the community. Sometime during the weekend of February 12, 2017, a concrete statue of a white rooster was stolen from in front of a poultry farm. What makes the feat all the more impressive, and strange, was the almost four-foot tall poultry weighed about 1,000 pounds.
The Alexander County Sheriff’s Department found the base of the statue a few miles away but the rest of the bird wasn’t found. After investigating reports about a tractor being in the area, deputies found one that had white paint on its forks that matched the paint from the rooster. They later apprehended a suspect named Andrew Emilious Justice. He was charged with felony larceny, misdemeanor injury to real property, and a charge of reckless driving which was added when he met police at his home. The suspect wouldn’t divulge to authorities if he had taken the bird or what he may have done with it. The rooster is worth about $1,000 but worth even more to its owner who had given it to his wife as a birthday gift.
Making Some Money on the Side
A Buddhist monk in Myanmar was doing something that was very un-monk-like. An anti-drug task force stopped the monk in February 2017 as he was driving and found he was transporting 400,000 methamphetamine pills. When the authorities searched the monk’s monastery, they found an even bigger stash. The monk had been hiding 4.2 million additional meth pills. The street value of the pills was believed to be worth more than $4 million. Myanmar is a major meth producer as well as being the second largest opium producer in the world. Officials said the monk would have to give up his monkhood and face charges as a regular citizen. Seems like a reasonable stipulation.
And for more Drug News
A whole lot of cocaine washed ashore in an unlikely place—Eastern England. On February 9, 2017, bundles of cocaine were found on two separate English beaches near Great Yarmouth, a resort area northeast of London. Their total worth was over $60 million. The authorities don’t know how the 360 kg of white stuff got to the beach or where it might have been going. They called on people in the area to be on the lookout for more.
Were Grandma’s Birthday Checks Not Enough?
A man in Florence, Alabama tried to dupe his grandmother into giving him money by faking his own kidnapping in early February 2017.
The 23-year-old man sent a text message along with a photo to his grandmother that showed he was tied up and had been beaten in the woods in Tennessee. Florence, Alabama is near the Tennessee border. The man told his grandmother that she needed to send $1,000 or he would be killed. When the grandmother contacted authorities, they concluded the man wasn’t in Tennessee and the entire thing was a hoax. He was arrested and charged with first-degree extortion. When questioned, the man stuck to his story that he had been kidnapped, but police determined he was just trying to get money from his grandma.
A Deadly Cane
An 80-year-old woman got a surprise when she went through airport security at Myrtle Beach International Airport on February 9, 2017. Her trusty walking cane hid a secret inside—a hidden sword. The bronze handle of the cane came off and a sword that was the length of the cane was inside. She had to give up the cane and the sword to TSA agents since it was of course prohibited to be carried onto the airplane. The woman stated that she he had no idea the cane, which had been given to her as a gift by her son, had a sword inside. The TSA confiscated the item and there was no report if she would ever get the cane back or if they gave her something else to steady her walking.
Not the Most Inconspicuous Robber
A 32-year-old man in Palm Bay, Florida robbed a bank on January 26, 2017, and he sure wanted people to know he was doing so.
The man robbed the bank while dressed in a lime-green outfit and a woman’s wig along with a brightly colored scarf and sunglasses. He demanded money from the bank teller and said he had a gun. He left the bank with what was reported as a large sum of money and made his escape on a black bicycle to a nearby neighborhood. Yes, a bicycle. Palm Bay SWAT members were able to capture the man at his home within 30 minutes of the robbery. When they took him into custody he had changed into all-black clothing.
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