News Of The Weird - 16

Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.

British store owners seeking to drive away obnoxious, congregating teenagers have turned to security consultant Howard Stapleton’s recent invention, similar to a dog whistle, that emits a high-frequency sound audible to most teens but few older people. “The Mosquito” (it’s “small and annoying,” Stapleton told a New York Times reporter, who vouched that she couldn’t hear it, either) emits what one merchant called a pulsating chirp, not painful but surely irritating. A professor of neurophysiology verified that the ability to hear high frequency dissipates with age but that some people in their 20s and 30s could probably still hear it.

Barnard Lorence filed a $2 million lawsuit in Stuart, Fla., in November against the First National Bank and Trust, accusing it of falsely advertising that it cares about its customers. He said he had been charged a $32 fee for overdrawing his checking account by $5, was unsuccessful in asking for a waiver, and said the stress from the incident exacerbated a 2001 brain injury.

The Boston Globe reported in September that the elite Palmer & Dodge law firm in Boston had been awarded almost $100,000 in fee reimbursement after putting a partner and three other lawyers to work representing a prison inmate upset mainly at being restricted in his use of the prison law library and being prevented from receiving “sexually explicit” photos in the mail. The complainant, Daniel LaPlante, murdered a pregnant woman and her two children, reportedly smirked at the jury, and was described by his trial judge as so detestable that the judge would have “no problem” personally executing him.
(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