The Daily Telegraph reports that a man demanded 700,000 GBP in cash at a London Halifax bank branch. Apparently, he was flustered: instead of handing a bag to the teller, the would-be robber handed him his gun. The security shutters came down just after the criminal noticed his error and made a grab for the weapon. While he made off with no money, I can call him a thief because he stole a bank worker's bicycle for his getaway. He is still at large.
Thomas Kelley, 51, is a convicted car thief who was thrown in prison in California after violating his parole. Apparently, he didn't like it there, because on New Year's Day he took advantage of his position on the prison fire crew to escape. He put his vehicle-stealing experience to use with the prison fire engine. Sheriff's officers saw the vehicle being driven erratically about 15 km from the prison, but Kelley eluded them. He was found and arrested at a trolley stop a couple of days later.
Two brothers in South Carolina were arrested for having drugs in their car. There was further incriminating evidence, which they wanted to remain undiscovered. To that end, Deangelo Mitchell, 23, convinced 20-year-old brother Wayne to swallow the 28-gram packet of cocaine that had been stashed within Deangelo's anus. The younger man died shortly thereafter. Deangelo - who was freed on bond just before his brother died - is therefore wanted on charges of involuntary manslaughter.
Back in 2008, Hiruyuki Joho, 18, was worried that a train would leave
without him. He ceased worrying when hit by another train while
running across its track. He died. A portion of his body flew more
than 30 metres and caused an elderly woman on the platform to suffer a
broken leg, broken wrist, and injured shoulder.
An appeals judge has now ruled that the woman, Gayane Zokhrabov, may pursue a
claim against Joho's estate. The judge explained that the injury
she sustained was 'reasonably foreseeable', overturning a lower
court's ruling that Joho could not have anticipated that his actions
might lead to third-party injury.
Several thousand dollars vanished from a safe in a Salt Lake City, Utah, home. Later, a further $9,000 vanished. It was time to leave cash plainly visible and set up security cameras. The resulting footage showed a woman in a very large men's suit, wearing a beanie, and sporting a fake moustache. A woman who was rather familiar to the victims. She was a neighbour, and they had given her a spare set of keys for looking after the house while they were on holiday. A search of her home revealed, among other things, a fake moustache.
In another story of stolen money, Dan Johnson, Jr, is accused of
breaking into his father's shed, with two friends, on Christmas to
steal, among other things, the coin collection belonging to Dan
Johnson, Sr, estimated to
be worth several thousand dollars. The thieves received $450 for the
coins, from a Coinstar coin-counting machine.
The elder Johnson called the collection 'an inheritance that was
meant to go forward for my children and grandchildren' and said of the
thief 'just to get pocket change for it - just really a stupid person'.
After her parents divorced, a little over a year ago, Texas's Jakadrien Turner
ran away from home at age 14. When later arrested for theft, she gave
a false name to police - matching a 22-year-old
illegal alien with a warrant for her arrest. Sticking to this false
identity, she was deported to Colombia. Federal immigration officials
later said they had 'found nothing to indicate that Jakadrien wasn't a
Colombian woman'. The Colombian consulate issued her with citizenship
documents, and she was soon working as a housemaid in Bogotá.
After a year of trawling the Internet, the girl's grandmother, Lorene
Turner, found the girl's Facebook page under the assumed name and contacted
US authorities. An apparently pregnant Jakadrien has now been
returned to the US.
Carlos Guzman, 49, performed services such as Botox treatments and
liposuction at his clinic in San Francisco. One patient recounted
asking at the start of the procedure whether Guzman had an assistant.
She was told: 'No, you're my assistant today' and indeed ended up
holding her own IV bag. She also described him as smoking a cigar during
the procedure.
One more thing she remembered is that he arrived at
her home a few days later and apparently flushed three kilos of her
liposuction fat down her toilet. Her story came to light because she
suffered an infection and Guzman doesn't have a licence to practise
medicine. He had borrowed two medical professionals' identities in
order to run his clinic.
A US Navy SEAL accidentally shot himself while showing his guns to a woman he'd brought home from a bar. According to San Diego police officer Frank Cali, 22-year-old Gene Clayton, Jr, wanted to prove that his weapons were all safe so put a pistol to his head and fired, in the belief that it wasn't loaded. Because he was wrong and because a neighbour rang the emergency services, he was soon on life support. He later died.
New Mexico's Erin Zarko was taken into custody after refusing to leave a club where she had been denied service for not having proper ID. According to court records, the Framington High School teacher rang the emergency services from the back of the patrol car while her hands were cuffed behind her back. She kicked the officer when he tried to relieve her of the telephone.
Slightly more serious charges than 'battery on a peace officer' face Otty Sanchez, a 33-year-old Texas woman accused of decapitating her infant son with the aid of a steak knife and two swords. After the killing, Sanchez ate some of his body parts, including the brain, nose, and at least some toes. Of Sanchez, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and post-partum psychosis, the baby's father said: 'She was a sweet person and I still love her, but she needs to pay the ultimate price for what she has done.' Of his history with Sanchez, he said: 'She kept telling me she needed to see a counsellor all the time.'
Neha Narayan is a 24-year-old woman from New Zealand who wanted a
baby. For nine months, she pretended to be pregnant. She then had
her partner drop her off at a hospital, explaining that birth was
overdue and labour had to be induced.
She was seen wandering around the birthing unit and having a look at
various babies. She found one that she liked, but the mother noticed
her holding it. So Narayan tried another room. There one of the
hospital personnel handed her a newborn, believing it to be hers.
While Narayan was waiting for her partner in the car park, hospital
staff rushed into the picture, preventing her from leaving with the
child. Narayan faces charges of abduction of a young person.
According to Reuters, a 57-year-old Russian villager bought 60 or so wooden crates from a truck driver for the equivalent of about nine euros. He planned to burn them to heat his home. However, the man (from Sovkhozny, Udmurtia) had to empty the crates before breaking them down. Within were, in total, 79 fully functioning 50-year-old Kalashnikov rifles and 253 cartridges. They had been on their way from the Izhmash manufacturing plant to a recycling facility.
Indiana's William Francis Blankenship was arrested on drugs charges,
handcuffed, and placed in the back seat of a police cruiser. While
the arresting officer searched for more drugs, the 22-year-old Blankenship somehow
entered the front of the police car and drove off. The officer saw
his car heading off into the distance, and the next contact police had
with it was when Blankenship used the police radio to ask where to
find the cigarette lighter and how to unlock the handcuffs.
The car was found abandoned, and Blankenship was arrested at a
family home two days later.
Finally, Khadijah Baseer is a Los Angeles woman with aspirations. It's just that her aspirations might not be the same as yours or mine. She was arrested after opening car doors in a Burbank, California, McDonald's drive-through lane and offering each driver a blowjob in exchange for chicken McNuggets.
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© 2012 Anna Shefl