xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx-15

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

Recent Street Prices of Kids”
(1) $2,000 (Virginia C. Ramsey pleaded guilty in January in Seattle of selling hers, using the money to buy two Sony PlayStations and pay a traffic ticket, among other things).
(2) $1,150 each for twins, plus a used car and other considerations (Kelly Lutz gave up the kids for adoption to a subsequently suspended Medina, Ohio, lawyer, revealed in December court papers).
(3) $500 (Kenneth Parnell, who served time for kidnapping, admitted in a January newspaper interview from his Dublin, Calif., cell that he had recently tried to buy a young boy after he got out). (Despite the interview, Parnell pleaded not guilty.)
(4) $250 (Judith Ann Garland was accused by Baltimore police in December of selling hers and using the money to pay her bail on drug charges). Top Pentagon and CIA officials met with the author of “The Bible Code,” who said Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts can be detected by connecting letters from ancient Hebrew (February).

Eight hours before the U.S.’s “Orange” alert on Feb. 7, four heavily armed Cuban military men wandered through downtown Key West, Fla., unknown to anyone in Washington. (Turned out they had arrived by boat to defect and were looking for someone to surrender to.)

Jake Greenwald announced he would offer “terror tours” in Israel for $5,000 each to visitors wanting helicopter and simulated-games tours of West Bank bomb and battle sites (but has suspended the venture because of the war in Iraq) (March).
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or [email protected]
Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd

NEWS OF THE WEIRD