xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
Urban Legend Come to Life: A San Diego Union Tribune report of a March 28 attempted robbery seems accurate, though reminiscent of reports that have been hoaxes (including one, from The Dallas Morning News, that News of the Weird fell for in 2002). A 32-year-old woman reported that a robber accosted her and her dog in an upscale San Diego neighborhood that night, demanded her money, grabbed a bag she was holding but quickly threw it down, and in frustration, tried to shoot the dog (but the gun failed to fire). He finally fled. His frustration was because she was carrying no money, and the bag contained nothing but the results of cleaning up after the dog.
According to police in Lake City, Mich., the plan of the 19-year-old man in March was to stab himself lightly in the chest, call 911, and blame the “attack” on a neighbor with whom he had been feuding, but he handled it badly and bled to death.
Police in Corpus Christi, Texas, said that the 42-year-old man who died of a brain hemorrhage in March was at the time trying to steal a concrete statue of the Virgin Mary from Turner’s Gardenland nursery.
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or [email protected] or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.) NEWS OF THE WEIRD