Posts from — March 2007

AUSTIN, Minn. — An Austin man who admitted that he stole a statue of the Virgin Mary from a cemetery pleaded guilty to gross misdemeanor theft on Friday in Mower County District Court.

Briceson Bryan, 20, admitted that he stole the statue July 29 from Calvary Cemetery.

According to a criminal complaint, Bryan toppled the 5-foot-tall statue, stole it and painted it to look like a clown.

Authorities found the statue in November in a closet at his girlfriend’s North Mankato apartment. The girlfriend, Ashley Schwarzenbach, earlier pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact.

A break in the case came when the cemetery’s caretaker got an anonymous call from a woman who said she knew where he could find the monument. He then found a MySpace.com site showing pictures of Bryan, Schwarzenbach and the statue.

The statue is being fixed and should be returned to the cemetery around Memorial Day, cemetery officials said.

In exchange for his plea and an agreement to pay at least $1,000 in restitution, prosecutors dropped a felony theft charge. Judge Fred Wellmann said Bryan will likely receive a suspended jail sentence and be ordered to perform community service when he is sentenced May 25.

JOKESTARTERS:

• So he stole a Virgin Mary statue from a cemetery, painted it to look like a clown, then posted pics to MySpace? Damn criminals are getting smarter every day!
• Not only is this guy going to hell in a handbasket, but it will be driven by an Evil Clown.

SOURCE:

• First Coast News

Police say 24-year-old Garth M. Flaherty was arrested over the weekend after someone saw him leaving the laundry rooms of two northeast Pullman apartment complexes. He was booked for investigation of second-degree burglary and first-degree theft.

Officers are still counting, but as many as 1500 individual bras and panties were found in searches of Flaherty’s apartment and car.

A rash of thefts since last summer prompted police to ask residents to watch their laundry rooms for suspicious people.

Pullman Police Commander Chris Tennant says someone recorded Flaherty’s license plate number and he was later identified from a photo, giving police probable cause to get a warrant to search his car and apartment.

JOKESTARTERS:

• Obviously this panty-sniffin’ thief has been doing this for quite a while. No wonder Pullman has the highest per-capita ratio of women who ‘go commando.’
• I think this guy’s major at WSU is in panty raids.
• Actually, I believe he secretly works for the local Victoria’s Secret, and has been keeping them in business for years…

SOURCE:

• KXLY

NEVADA — Here in the home state of Area 51, where alleged aliens and their super high-tech advanced technology hang out, a Professor at the University of Nevada has created the world’s first human-sheep chimera, which has the body of a sheep yet internal organs that are “half human.”

That’s right…a hybrid human/sheep, created by a human “Nevada college professor.”

Is this baaa-aaad news?

University of Nevada Professor Esmail Zanjani has spent seven years and nearly $10 million dollars perfecting the technique, which involves injecting adult human cells into sheep fetuses.

This caused the animals to be born 15-percent human.

Scientists say this development will make it easier to use animal organs when people need transplants.

Professor Zanjani has already created a sheep liver that has a large proportion of human cells. He eventually hopes to precisely match a sheep to a transplant patient, using their own stem cells to create their own flock of sheep.

But the development is likely to revive criticisms about scientists playing God.

Some fear the possibility of silent viruses — harmless in animals — being introduced into the human race.

Dr. Patrick Dixon, an international lecturer on biological trends, warned, “Many silent viruses could create a biological nightmare in humans. Mutant animal viruses are a real threat, as we have seen with HIV.”

JOKESTARTERS:

• Hey, I’m not sheepish or anything, and bestiality is whatever happens between a consenting adult and victimized animal…
• “What happens in Nevada, stays in Nevada…”

SOURCE:

• CCTV

OWENSBORO, KY — A Kentucky couple is charged with trying to sell a 15-month-old baby girl for $3,000 and a SUV.

A Daviess County Sheriff’s lieutenant says 32-year-old Charles Hope, Jr. and 26-year-old Amber Revlett allegedly planned to use the money to pay off his fines for previous criminal charges.

Hope tells the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer that he wasn’t trying to sell his girlfriend’s little girl. He says the two women he’s accused of trying to sell the baby to were just trying to get the child for themselves.

Revlett’s three children have been placed in the custody of child protective services.

In Kentucky, selling a child for adoption is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

JOKESTARTERS:

• I wonder if this infant little girl was worth a Hummer…or was she more of a Grand Cherokee type?
• Apprently, the accused has a previous criminal record. Imagine that…

SOURCE:

• 6ABC.com 

MIDDLETON, WI. — A 22-year veteran fire marshall resigned after evidence was found that he was consulting an online psychic during office hours on a work computer.

Tom Weber was put on administrative leave after he was accused of asking an online psychic on a department computer whether he and others would be successful in getting rid of Middleton’s fire chief.

Fire Chief Aaron Harris discovered the query, and said Weber had exchanged e-mails with other people seeking to remove the chief.

Weber said he’s resigning effective March 31, and denied working against Harris. But he doesn’t dispute contacting psychics on department computers. A computer technician found other communications dating back three years.

“Everyone is entitled to their spiritual guidance,” Weber said.

He said he’s been interested in psychics for years.

“This has been an ongoing battle for about two years,” said Weber. “It was pretty much just time to step aside and let people go on with what they need to do.”

JOKESTARTERS:

• If the psychic was indeed truly psychic (yeah right), why didn’t he/she/it tell Weber he would have to resign soon?
• I wonder if he ever consulted this psychic about arson investigations? “Yes…the fire was set intentionally, in a dumpster in the back of the building, by a bad guy who played who didn’t get enough attention as a child…he used to play with matches…”

SOURCE:

• The Montana Standard