Our first item spotlights yet another cryptocurrency-related gaffe.
For a more eye-catching press release about seizing more than five
million euros' worth of crypto assets from tax evaders, the South
![[IMG: Anna's screenshot from the original press release]](images/krypto-mnemonic.png)
Korean police included images of the evidence. These attested that
the group had followed best practice by using an offline wallet device
and only a hand-written record of the mnemonic recovery phrase. Yes,
the images sufficed to let an observant viewer unlock the tokens
within, transfer a small amount into the wallet to cover transactions
fees, and then move the Pre-Retogeum tokens elsewhere. Korea's
National Tax Service are not optimistic about finding out where.
A charity-shop volunteer in Southland, New Zealand, noticed a pungent
aroma emanating from the donated-items area so gave priority to the
rucksack responsible. The banknotes inside, worth about 2,000 euros,
weren't especially smelly, but the plastic bags of marijuana were. The
police were summoned when two agitated 16-year-olds drove up to the
shop to explain that they'd misplaced their bag outside while waiting
for car repairs at a nearby workshop. They didn't get it back.
The cops 'de-escalate[d] the pair', arrested them, and searched the
just-repaired car. They found further dope, scales, cash of suspicious
origin, an air gun (adults-only in New Zealand), and a police scanner.
In 2024, Georgia's Colt Gray executed a firearm-assisted outburst that
executed two teachers and two schoolmates in Georgia. Before that,
Colin Gray had tried to soothe his son's mental disturbance by offering
to let him visit a school therapist... and by buying him an AR-15-style
rifle for Christmas to nurture their bond via hunting together. After
Colt bonded with the weapon itself, which he slept with, his mother
urged her (now ex-)husband to revoke Colt's access to it. She cited
the 14-year-old's shrine to school shooters as one reason for concern.
A jury in Barrow County has found Colin, 55, criminally responsible
for murder and guilty of cruelty to children and reckless behavior.
Colt's day in court meanwhile has not yet come; he has pleaded not
guilty to, in all, 55 felonies and is being tried as an adult.
Nearer the banal end of the court-of-law spectrum lies (literally) Michigan's Kimberly D. Carroll. During her virtual hearing for a civil debt claim, she turned on her video stream from what appeared to be a vehicle in motion, prompting 33rd District Court judge Michael K. McNally to exclaim 'You cannot be driving! Ma'am, what are you doing?' Her response 'I'm not driving' elicited the response 'How would you be on the [claimed] left-hand side if you’re a passenger in the front seat?', and the dialogue degenerated to Carroll arguing that she didn't have permission to show the driver on camera, offering to pull over, and insisting that 'No, I'm not [lying], sir'. The judge had the last word, with a default judgement and 'You lied to me'.
A rather more complex question came before London's Court of Appeal:
a man sought to take over paternal responsibility for the baby listed
on the child's birth certificate as the offspring of his identical
twin. After explaining that she had had sex with the two men within
four days of each other and supports the responsibility claim, the
mother was told by Judge Sir Andrew McFarlane that 'DNA testing
establishes [only] that the child's biological father is one of these
twins', though reasonably priced tests might be able to tell beyond a
50% chance which is the father before the child reaches adulthood.
Since 'failure to prove [the paternity listed on the certificate]
means that that fact is not proved [but also] does not mean that the
contrary is proved', neither twin will have parental responsibility,
pending further arguments.
Tennessee's 50-year-old Angela Lipps was babysitting four children at
her home when US marshals hauled her away at gunpoint and jailed her
to await trial for organised bank fraud committed in North Dakota.
She had never visited North Dakota or travelled by aeroplane until her
court date half a year later. That was also when the Fargo police
recognised that an AI-based face-matching system had erred in linking
her to videos of a woman using a fake military ID and in declaring her
a fugitive from justice.
After her court appearance, local defence attorneys covered her food
and a night in a hotel, and an area not-for-profit organisation helped
her return to Tennessee. Upon her return, however, she found that her
home, car, and dog had been taken away while she was in jail for six
months and unable to pay bills.
At ![[IMG: Lynch shows a camera an azure hand]](images/got_the_blues.png)
a friend's urging, Derbyshire's Tommy Lynch headed straight to
hospital because his skin had turned blue overnight. Concerned medics
at Queen's Hospital in Burton, Staffordshire, whisked the 42-year-old
Lynch through the reception area, 'put me straight on oxygen, asking
me all these questions - I had about 10 doctors all around me at one
point'. Then a pre-blood-draw swab came away blue, revealing the
source of his new hue: dye from bed sheets he'd just received as a
gift. After a week of bath after bath at home, Lynch recounted: 'I
was mortified, but they said I'd given them a good laugh. They don't
usually have funny stories in A&E.'
Contamination of a different sort occurred in Fontana, California, where a syrup lorry overturned in the westbound lanes of a roadway. State transport-department crews armed with an absorbent material battled the substance in vain - it was simply too sticky. In the end, good old-fashioned water came to the rescue. After a nine-hour pause in traffic, the highway was finally reopened.
A clean-up-related caper on the other end of the country experienced complications, due to what the Marion County, Florida, sheriff's office called a 'crappy plan'. Surveillance footage shows a man attempting to drag a septic tank away from a construction site with his 2013 Toyota Corolla. Unable to cajole the tank into position atop his car, the man gave up and fled when another vehicle arrived. However, he came back the next day, this time succeeding, with the aid of a ramp and a U-Haul truck whose license plates and ID number he'd obscured with tape. A detective was able to identify him as Alfio Nocifora nonetheless, and he was taken into custody.
Kouri Richins is a Utah-based mother of three who published a
children's book about grief in the wake of her husband's sudden death
in 2022. She could write about her experience of several other topics
also, such as how to forge documents for multiple life-insurance
policies not long before the insured dies from a fentanyl-laced drink.
A recently-concluded court case, in which the jury took three hours
to find her guilty of murder, revealed also that she'd used trial and
error to learn the correct dose for poisoning one's cuckolded spouse:
Among the 40 witnesses was her housekeeper, who testified that Richins
had asked her for 'something stronger' than the usual pain pills to
help 'an investor Richins knew'. A bite from the Valentine's Day
sandwich Richins handed her husband a few days later left him breaking
out in hives and reaching for his son's EpiPen. He died in March.
I'll go ahead and include this one, which I mislaid in October: The California Highway Patrol states that shrapnel from munitions that 'detonated overhead prematurely' during celebrations to mark 250 years of the US Marine Corps struck and damaged vehicles on Interstate 5. After this, two of these vehicles, which were part of Vice President JD Vance's protection force for the event, were sent to keep the road closed (Vance's communications director had initially argued that closing the relevant portion of the interstate highway for the duration of live fire over it would be merely an effort 'to oppose the training exercises that ensure our Armed Forces are the deadliest and most lethal fighting force in the world'). Meanwhile, debris falling 'like pebbles from the sky' over a wider area prompted the Marines to cancel further artillery demonstrations over the highway.
Where else can we look for heroes? How about Maryland, the home of Dayton Webber, a quadruple amputee who gained fame for competing in the nationally televised professional American Cornhole League. Perhaps not. While driving several work colleagues through the suburbs of Washington, DC, Webber got into an argument with front-seat passenger Badrick Wells. Harsh words between the two 27-year-olds apparently escalated to Webber shooting Wells twice in the head and asking the others for help in ditching the body. Refusing, they exited the vehicle, then helped set in motion a search for Webber. The body was found dumped in a garden, and Webber was found at a nearby hospital, where he'd sought treatment for an unspecified injury.
For other cheerful news, we'll be going to Brazil, where a group of eight people had nothing better to do in Rio de Janeiro than set upon a hapless capybara and begin beating the animal with sticks and iron bars. Footage from CCTV cameras shows the group, at least two of whom were minors, inflicting severe head trauma, back injuries, and other serious wounds on the 65 kg male Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris. All eight Homo sapiens have been taken into custody. The capybara's confinement, at the Wildlife Care Center of private Estacio University, is bound to be longer.
This crime too is noteworthy for its scale: a shipment of Nestle KitKat bars has been hijacked as Easter nears. A lorry bound for Poland from a production facility in central Italy has gone missing. That includes the vehicle itself and '413,793 units of [the brand's] new chocolate range', which comes to 'more than 12 tons of our chocolate'. The relevant batch codes are known, and local law-enforcement authorities are on the lookout for attempted resale.
There hasn't been a teacher-sex Clippings item for a while. Perhaps
Washington high-school teacher and youth-group leader Madeline Gregory
was trying to rectify this when engaging in trysts with a 16-year-old
student in such locations as a classroom closet, a storage locker in
the gym, and the bushes outside Sprague High School. The case came to
police attention for the first time just after Valentine's Day, thanks
to the boy's mother investigating her son's newfound habit of frantic
typing on his phone into the wee hours.
There were text-message notes such as 'I don't want to lose you'
from the 29-year-old woman, who seems to have been desperate for her
student of two years not to break off the relationship. She'd told
him of her marital issues, threatened to kill herself if abandoned,
and ordered the youth not to date anyone else in the community - which
has a population below 600 (excluding sex-crime reporters).
For roughly three years, a suburban Johannesburg road has been showing
the effects of multiple botched or half-hearted attempts to repair a
burst water pipe. Mayoral candidate Helen Zille has now stepped in,
![[IMG: Zille in the water]](images/snorkel.png)
or dog-paddled in, to draw attention to what she portrays as
mismanagement by city authorities. Wearing a wetsuit, snorkeling
mask, and pink-and-white swimming cap, the 75-year-old Zille paid a
visit to the murky mid-road trench, where television news channels
recorded her tips for 'a free and wonderful Saturday-afternoon
snorkel'.
Finally, the staff of an animal shelter in Sebastian, Florida, heard about Midnite, a cat that had been handed over to be put down because of severe intestinal issues. Stepping in to take charge of the six-year-old feline, which had stopped eating, they opted for surgery in case it might help. After the operation proved to be a success, the HALO No-Kill Rescue Shelter asked online 'Ever wondered where all your hair ties disappear to?' and gave the answer that veterinarians had removed a 26-hair-tie blockage from the cat's guts.
Upon finding an abandoned bag outside Mayor of London Sadiq Khan's home, a passer-by did the responsible thing and contacted the police. Within it were items for which the Metropolitan police had been (ir)responsible: an official-issue pistol and sub-machine gun, suitable ammunition, and a taser. Five officers involved in providing security for Khan have been put on desk duties for the duration of a review by the Met's Directorate of Professional Standards.
A couple in Pennsylvania rang the Uber driver who had just dropped them off, asking him to return so that they could search for jewellery that had fallen from their bag. He replied that he had to keep moving. It was not until the next morning that he found their 'bag contents' in the boot of his car - and rang the Exeter Township Police. Officer Karen Grycon secured them and reported: 'Turns out the passengers had left behind a ball python in the Uber' after attending a reptile show.
A rather different menagerie was on show at a UK home whose residents
recognised that their dog situation had, in the RSPCA's words, 'rapidly
grown out of control amid extenuating family circumstances'. ![[IMG: Dozens of non-AI-generated doggies in one room]](images/not_AI.png)
Online reactions to the charity's rescue of more than 250 poodle-cross dogs
from the premises led the RSPCA to stress that its photo of dozens of
dogs in the living room had not been AI-generated or otherwise faked.
While not deeming legal charges warranted, they could not say the
same about most of the 4,200 cases of 'overwhelmed' homes (with 10 or
more animals at the same address) they have handled in the last year.
In other news about briefly full households, we have Louisiana's
Shamar Elkins. Upset that his wife had filed for divorce, he
confronted her outside, leaving her with serious gunshot wounds, then
opened fire on those in the family home, proceeding to kill seven of
his children (aged 1-14) plus an unrelated child. A ninth child, age
13, sustained injuries from leaping from the roof, while a wounded
adult female ran to a nearby home for help. Elkins then added
car-jacking to the list of charges he'd have faced if the police
hadn't killed him in the ensuing chase.
Of the incident, officially termed a 'domestic disturbance' and a
'family annihilation', Shreveport city-council member Grayson Boucher
lamented that 'we've more than doubled our homicide' figure 'because
of one act of domestic violence'.
Our next story involves more than 30 bodies, but the miscreant on
whose premises they were found didn't kill anyone. Yorkshire funeral
director Robert Bush has pleaded guilty to hoarding bodies over a span
of 12+ years whilst presenting the families with purposefully
mislabelled ashes of unknown origin, some of which ended up in
tattoos. Bush, 48, has also admitted to keeping donations that had
been earmarked for 12 charities, and his company Legacy sold upward of
170 bogus funeral plans. Also, more than 1,000 belongings intended
for burial alongside the deceased - from love letters to medals - were
found piled in corners or bagged with rubbish.
One of the 240 people whose victim-impact statements may feature at
the trial is Tristan Essex, who recalled warning signs: 'Grandma was
changed into different coffins every time we viewed her', though the
initial switch from the coffin requested may have been in response to
the family's complaint about a blood-spattered frill and 'black, thick
mould around the inside'. Also, 'there was an awful smell in the
funeral director's'. Now he knows why.
Those who found the previous item disturbing might want to skip this
one. A man followed a fellow bus passenger into her home in Walsall,
broke through her bathroom door, and announced 'I just want fun with
you'. The soundtrack for the ensuing beating and rape was a diatribe
against Muslims, her screams, and the objection 'I am not a Muslim; I
am a Sikh'. He took away the 20-something victim's jewellery, mobile
phone, and comfort in venturing outside without her partner.
Apprehended in Birmingham two days later, 32-year-old John Ashby
initially pleaded innocent, then cited cocaine use and mental issues
as excuses. Responding that these 'did not even start to explain'
the offences, by a 'deeply unpleasant racist and Islamaphobe', Judge
Edward Pepperall issued a life sentence (i.e., at least 14 years in
prison). Calling him an extreme danger to the public, the judge also
mentioned Ashby having once grabbed a woman in public because he
felt 'sexually frustrated'.
A children's egg hunt on Easter Sunday turned up a bonus: one family at the privately arranged event, held at Los Angeles County's De Forest Park, discovered what seemed to be leftover Halloween decorations. When the police, summoned to verify this, eventually reached the correct location, they announced that the items were a genuine human skull and jawbone, which they took into custody for county medical examiners to investigate.
I have featured items about wrong-sperm lawsuits against fertility
clinics before. Our next story ramps this up a notch, with a white
Florida couple's implanted embryo emerging into the world as a girl of
South Asian heritage. After genetic tests confirmed that Steven Mills
and Tiffany Score's daughter, Shea, was not genetically related to
either of them, IVF Life, Inc., identified the South Asian couple
whose egg retrieval and embryo transfer occurred in the relevant span
of time.
Stressing their 'intensely strong' bond with Shea, the couple are
focused more on the fate of their unaccounted-for embryos. They want
IVF Life to pay for genetic tests of all children born in the five-year
window since their three embryos entered storage. The clinic, in turn,
have announced plans to cease operation in May.
Maryland's Karen Jeanette Trevino might have received a brand-new roof
at zero cost. A week after she appeared in large-claims court at the
behest of a debt-collection firm, six Guatemalan construction workers
she'd hired from a nearby town were putting the final touches on their
roughly $10,000 roofing job at her Cambridge home when federal
immigration agents swooped in.
Permanent US resident Bryan Polanco, who livestreamed the half
hour of proceedings from the rooftop, told several people that Trevino
had explicitly threatened to sicc immigration authorities on anyone
returning to finish the job or collect payment. She might not have
known that it is a state felony to obtain services or shirk payment
for them through leverage of anyone's immigration status.
At last report, however, prosecutors had not made a decision and the
open vanful of tools, shingles, and equipment was still sitting in
Trevino's driveway.
The Facebook-hosted video stream of a 2023 baptism in the garden pool of Birmingham's Life Changing Ministries was cut off abruptly. This was because 61-year-old Robert Smith's life had changed in an unexpected manner: it too cut off abruptly. The institution's pastor, Cheryl Bartley, 48, is due to appear in court in two weeks' time to face a charge of gross-negligence manslaughter by drowning.
Finally, 13 April saw cadets with the Finnish Air Force's
![[IMG: Cocks aloft, flightradar trace from Tikkakoski]](images/cockpit1.png)
reserve-officer piloting course go on training exercises. Members
of the public saw the results in the form of several phallic flight
![[IMG: Another problematic flightradar trace from Tikkakoski]](images/cockpit2.png)
patterns. Flight data and radar-tracking sites show that at least
four of the routes traced from student flights from Jyväskylä
resembled a penis. Though the aerial penes varied in execution, they
were convincing enough for an Air Force spokesperson to assure the
newspaper Iltalehti that the pilots involved will be subject to
'disciplinary consequences'.