Laurence Mitchell, 53, gets this week's Most Helpful Dad award for graciously driving his 15-year-old son and the son's girlfriend, also 15, to a Port St. Lucie, Florida, park on Sept. 6 so they could "do their thang," as Mitchell described it. The Smoking Gun reported that when Port St. Lucie police officer Clayton Baldwin approached Mitchell's car around 11:30 p.m., after the park had closed, Mitchell told him the kids "aren't out there stealing, they are just having sex. They could be out there doing worse." When the teenagers returned from the nearby soccer field, Mitchell's son told the officer they were "just smokin' and f---in'." Mitchell was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a misdemeanor. [The Smoking Gun, 9/17/2018]

Compelling Explanations

-- While shopping at a Peoria, Illinois, Walmart on Sept. 20, an unnamed 30-year-old woman filled her cart but also added a few items to her backpack: leggings, pencils, a quart of oil and a "Jesus Calling" Bible. After she paid for only the items in her cart, a loss prevention officer stopped her before she left the store. Peoria police were summoned, reported the Peoria Journal Star, and the woman explained to them she was hoping the Bible could help her spiritually: "(She) told me that it sounds strange, but she was trying to be more Christian," an officer reported. She was charged with misdemeanor theft. [Peoria Journal Star, 9/21/2018]

-- After trying repeatedly on Sept. 12 to pull over a Toyota Prius driving with expired tags on I-5 near Marysville, Washington, a Washington State Patrol officer finally caught up to the car at an intersection and verbally instructed the unnamed 42-year-old woman driver to pull over, reported the Everett Daily Herald. "I will not. I drive a Prius," was the woman's reply. The officer then asked her to step out of the vehicle, which she also refused to do, so he forced her out. "I will own your bank account," she told him. "I will own your house." When he asked her name, she responded, "None of your business." Finally, she was arrested for failing to obey instructions, failing to identify herself and obstruction. [Herald.net, 9/16/2018]

No Good Deed

Tammie Hedges of Goldsboro, North Carolina, founded the nonprofit Crazy's Claws N Paws in 2013 to help low-income families with vet bills and pet supplies, so it was natural for her to take in 27 animals displaced by Hurricane Florence in September. Hedges treated many of the animals, found in the streets or surrendered by fleeing residents, with antibiotics and painkillers for fleas, cuts and other ailments. For that, The Washington Post reported, she was arrested on Sept. 21 for practicing veterinary medicine without a license, after an official from Wayne County Animal Services visited the warehouse where the animals were housed. Kathie Davidson, a volunteer with Claws N Paws, said: "If she hadn't done what she did, then they'll be charging her with animal neglect and cruelty. What was she supposed to do?" Hedges was released on bond, and the charges were later dropped. [The Washington Post, 9/24/2018]

Bait and Switch

Ironman triathlete Jaroslav Bobrowski, 30, of Landshut, Bavaria, was banned Sept. 14 from Running Sushi, an all-you-can-eat restaurant, for eating too much sushi. The Local Germany reported Bobrowski, a former bodybuilder, ate close to 100 plates of sushi, which sent the restaurant into a panic and caused the owner and chef to tell him he was banished "because I'm eating too much." "He eats for five people," the owner complained. "That is not normal." [The Local Germany, 9/14/2018]

Wait, What?

An unnamed 26-year-old British woman appeared at Nuestra Senora de la Candelaria Hospital emergency room in Mojon de Arona, Tenerife, in the Canary Islands on Sept. 15 with extreme pain in her groin area. El Pais reported the doctor who examined her was surprised to find a dead, immature Chinese pond turtle lodged in her vagina. The woman told police she had attended a beach party the night before but could not remember what happened. (Given that the freshwater species is sold in pet shops, it's not likely that it got there by accident.) Police suspect she may have been the victim of a sexual assault, but she chose not to file a complaint. [El Pais, 9/21/2018]

People With Issues

In what the Porter County (Indiana) coroner later called "a blatant disregard for human life," two men posted a video of themselves "horseplaying" with a third man, 21-year-old Kyle Kearby, who was slumped over, suffering from an apparent drug overdose, on Sept. 9. The video shows one man tying cords to Kearby's hands and manipulating his arms like a puppet, and the other pumping Kearby's chest and moving his mouth while singing "You've Got a Friend in Me." Kearby's father told The Times his son returned home about 5:30 a.m. and went to bed, but later discovered him not breathing and covered with vomit. He died at a hospital. Porter County Sheriff Dave Reynolds said he does not suspect foul play. [nwi.com, 9/10/2018]

What Was Your First Clue?

Romance novelist Nancy Crampton Brophy, 68, was arrested on Sept. 5 on charges of murdering her husband, Daniel Brophy, 63, in Portland, Oregon, after apparently following her own advice, written in a 2011 essay titled "How to Murder Your Husband." In the essay, Crampton Brophy suggests that hiring a hit man is "never a good idea" and poison is traceable. Instead, reported The Oregonian, she allegedly shot her husband on June 2 at the Oregon Culinary Institute where Daniel was a beloved chef. Police did not release a motive, and a neighbor said Crampton Brophy "never showed any signs of being upset or sad." On Sept. 17, she pleaded not guilty in Multnomah County Circuit Court, and her trial is set for Oct. 26. [The Oregonian, 9/7/2018]

People Different From Us

The Martin County (Florida) Sheriff's Office has received repeated calls about a man in a Stuart neighborhood who conducts chores around the outside of his house in the nude. "I came out Sunday night to put the trash out, and I look over and he is bent over, winding up his hose, and I'm like that is my view of the neighborhood," huffed Melissa Ny to WPBF TV on Sept. 19. Other neighbors are taking a more measured approach. "Literally they are the nicest people you'll ever meet; they would give you their clothes if they had them on to give them to you," neighbor Aimee Canterbury told WPTV. The sheriff's department says there is nothing they can do as long as the man is on his own property and not touching himself inappropriately. The nudist declined to be interviewed, saying he and his family are private people. [WPBF, 9/19/2018; WPTV, 9/20/2018]

Weird Science

It's been a banner year for the spider population of Aitoliko, Greece, according to the Associated Press. Fueled by a huge increase in the numbers of lake flies, which the spiders eat, the spiders reproduced unusually fast and have covered coastal trees, bushes and low vegetation with blankets of thick, sticky webs. The webs run along a few hundred meters of the shoreline in the western Greek town and, according to residents, have the unexpected advantage of keeping mosquitoes away. [Associated Press, 9/21/2018]

A naked man opened the door to firefighters responding to a house fire in Niceville, Florida, on Aug. 27 and said "I'm sorry" before closing the door in their faces. James Cunningham, 53, later admitted to police he'd had two liters of vodka and had smoked marijuana before trying to bake cookies on his George Foreman grill, reported WPLG Local 10. The experiment went wrong when the grill and cookies caught fire, so he covered them with a dry towel, which also caught fire. Firefighters said if he'd been in the house any longer, he could have died from smoke inhalation. [Local10.com, 9/10/2018]

Anger Management

Djuan Lewis, 23, landed a new job at Benada Aluminum Products in Sanford, Florida, on Aug. 30, a Thursday. On Sunday morning, his boss fired him. WFTV reported that following his dismissal, Lewis waited for his boss for two hours outside the business, then chased him and his girlfriend for a mile and a half, shooting at their car and hitting the rear bumper, trunk and right rear tire. Neither the supervisor nor his girlfriend was hurt. Sanford police arrested Lewis and changed him with attempted murder. [WFTV, 9/4/2018]

Questionable Judgment

School resource officer and part-time police officer Maryssa Boskoski, 32, was called into a classroom at Liberty Preparatory School in Smithville, Ohio, on Aug. 30 to help rouse a sleeping student who could not be awakened by the teacher or even the principal. When Boskoski arrived, The Washington Post reported, her solution was to unholster her Taser, remove the firing cartridge and pull the trigger, causing an electric buzz that woke the student and shocked the school community. Smithville Police Chief Howard Funk placed Boskoski on unpaid leave and told WEWS news station Boskoski had been disciplined a month earlier, also for a Taser-related incident. An investigation was ongoing. [The Washington Post, 9/6/2018]

Oops

New Jersey resident Gregory Lazarchick, 56, made a bad day worse on July 21 when he told greeters at Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, he'd been sent by al-Qaida to "blow the place up." According to the Orlando Sentinel, the greeters told Orange County deputies Lazarchick complained of having a bad day before issuing his threat, but deputies found no bomb-making materials in Lazarchick's hotel room. The man's sister reported he had suffered a head injury several years ago and sometimes said inappropriate things. The remorseful Lazarchick posted bond after his arrest for false report of a bombing. [Orlando Sentinel, 9/5/2018]

Ewwww!

At Kirby High School in Memphis, Tennessee, things are quiet as a mouse ... or a rat. Shelby County Schools Superintendent Dorsey Hopson told the Memphis Commercial Appeal he's looking for a temporary home for Kirby's 800 students after closing the school Sept. 5 due to a rat infestation. The problem started in mid-August, when district personnel uncovered a rat's nest during a renovation project. Eighty rats were trapped at the school and poison was set out. When students returned after Labor Day, poisoned rats began dying within the school's walls and the stench became overwhelming. Calling the situation an "unavoidable act of nature," Hopson said he expects students to return in early November. [Memphis Commercial Appeal, 9/7/2018]

Irony

Lona and Joseph Johnson of Bellingham, Washington, survived the Las Vegas mass shooting last October and decided to get a dog to help with the trauma that haunted them after the incident. "We heard that dogs are good pets to help with the healing and PTSD ... and got Jax," Joseph told the Bellingham (Washington) Herald. But on Sept. 2, neighbor Odin Maxwell, 49, shot and killed Jax, telling police the dog was chasing his chickens. An investigation showed no chickens were harmed, and Maxwell was cited for discharging a firearm. [Bellingham Herald, 9/6/2018]

Family Values

Patricia Ann Hill, 69, of White Hall, Arkansas, called 911 on July 28 to report she had shot her husband, Frank, 65. But she had a motive: Patricia told Jefferson County Sheriff's investigators she had previously disagreed with her husband's purchase of a pornography channel on Dish Network, and she canceled the channel, telling Frank that if he reordered it, he'd have to leave. That day, reported the Pine Bluff Commercial, the Dish bill arrived, revealing that the channel had been re-added, so Patricia confronted Frank in his "man cave" and told him to go. When he refused, Patricia fetched a .22-caliber pistol from the house and shot him twice, killing him. Hill was charged with capital murder and held without bond in the Jefferson County adult detention center. [Pine Bluff Commercial, 8/2/2018]

Bright Idea

It's one way to get a ride to lunch: Knox County (Kentucky) Sheriff's deputies responded on Aug. 24 to a home in Corbin, where Kenneth Ray Couch, 35, had reportedly stolen a handgun. As they searched for Couch, they learned he had been transported to the hospital in an ambulance after staging a heart attack at nearby Dixon's market. When police arrived at Baptist Health Corbin, WYMT reported, they found Couch in the cafeteria, which had apparently been his goal all along. Couch was arrested and charged with first-degree burglary and falsely reporting an incident. [WYMT, 8/27/2018]

Least Competent Criminal

Taiheem M. McKay, 23, of Riverhead, New York, made it easy for Suffolk County officials to track him down after suspecting him of breaking into 10 different homes over the course of seven months, stealing cash, jewelry and designer accessories. According to Newsday, the Suffolk County Department of Probation traced McKay to the burglary locations through his GPS ankle monitor, which he was wearing as a result of a February 2017 second-degree reckless endangerment conviction. McKay has additional pending indictments in other burglaries. [Newsday, 9/7/2018]

The Passing Parade

Known for his blond mullet and numerous social media rants, zoo owner Joe Exotic (real name: Joseph Maldonado-Passage) of Wynnewood, Oklahoma, has been cooling his heels in a Florida jail since his arrest Sept. 7 for allegedly attempting to hire two people in late 2017 to kill an unnamed woman. According to the Orlando Sentinel, one of those "killers" was an undercover FBI agent, and Exotic was indicted on federal murder-for-hire charges. It all started "many, many years" ago, said Carole Baskin of Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, who claims to be the "unnamed woman" Exotic was hoping to off. She said Exotic has threatened her repeatedly and posted online a video of himself shooting an effigy of Baskin in the head. Tangentially, Exotic was also a candidate in a three-way Libertarian primary run for governor in Oklahoma this summer. He finished third. [Orlando Sentinel, 9/10/2018]

Kimberel Eventide, 36, believes her purpose here on Earth is to help other humans become elves, just like herself. A resident of Illinois, Eventide identifies as a Pleiadian Starseed, an Otherkin who first realized she was an elf after reading and watching the "Lord of the Rings" series by J.R.R. Tolkien. She spends her time dressing as an elf in silk, velvet or nature-inspired clothing and pointed elf ears -- but she doesn't wear them all the time because "my own ears have a slight point to them." Eventide's husband supports her elfdom but "he does not understand it and does not watch many of my videos," she said. "I am an Elven spiritual teacher who offers personal Skype online sessions to help individual souls," she explained to the Daily Mail. Her mission, called "Projectelvenstar," is specifically to help humans transform themselves into High Elves -- "ears are optional but can become a byproduct of becoming extrasensory and hearing better over time." [Daily Mail, 8/29/2018]

Easy Marks

Three men in Westborough, Massachusetts, are out $306,000 after falling victim to a scam, MassLive.com reported on Aug. 29. Joseph Boakye, 31, of Worcester is one of two suspects wanted by Westborough police for allegedly selling 15 kilograms of counterfeit gold dust. In July, the victims met Boakye and his accomplice at an Extended Stay America hotel and tested the gold dust for authenticity. Apparently satisfied, they paid $26,000 in cash and transferred $280,000 into a Bank of America account, after which they received a locked Sentry safe that supposedly held the gold dust. Boakye told them they would get the combination to the safe after the transfer cleared. But two days later, when they were unable to open the safe, the victims called a locksmith. Inside -- shocking! -- was counterfeit gold. [MassLive.com, 8/29/2018]

Least Competent Criminals

-- Thieves in Roanoke County, Virginia, hit the same shoe store twice in July and August, according to the Roanoke Times, stealing shirts, hoodies, jackets -- and right shoes. Thirteen shoes meant for a right foot were taken from Clean Soles, where store operator Rob Wickham said he typically displays right shoes and keeps the mates behind the counter. They're "not much good unless you have two right feet," said Wickham. A 17-year-old suspect has been charged with the July break-in. [Roanoke Times, 8/30/2018]

-- A homeowner in Toluca Lake, California, looked at video from his surveillance camera late on Aug. 29 and saw a person on the property, but it wasn't until the next day, when he looked around for any damage, that a man was discovered stuck between a wall and a garage. KCAL TV reported that it took firefighters more than an hour to free the unnamed man, a suspect wanted in connection with a burglary the night before. Los Angeles police arrested him for trespassing as he was transported to the hospital with minor injuries. [KCAL, 8/30/2018]

Overreactions

-- Bryan Tucker of Sandston, Virginia, was FED UP TO HERE! with kids littering his lawn as they waited at the Henrico County school bus stop adjacent to his property. So on Sept. 4, he installed a battery-powered electric fence. "They don't respect other people's land," Tucker told WTVR TV. "I pick up trash every day." Officials informed him later that day that the fence was placed on county property, not his own, so Tucker took it down. But he still thinks the point was made: "The message has gotten across," Tucker said. "Parents are posting and talking about it." [WTVR, 9/4/2018]

-- Pavel Matveev, 15, of Mogochino village in the Tomsk region of Russia, apparently despairing of having lost a video game, was found in his yard Sept. 4 after committing suicide by decapitating himself with a chain saw. According to the Daily Mail, Russian media reported the teen's single mother had bought him a computer, at which he "spent hours," said one unnamed source. "This is what killed him." [Daily Mail, 9/4/2018]

-- Monica Walley of Holden Heights, Florida, wrote a negative online review Aug. 20 about the Daybreak Diner in Orlando, accusing the restaurant of refusing service to her disabled mother. The negative review didn't sit well with the diner owner's son, Michael Johnson, or his housemates, Jesse Martin and Norman Auvil, reported WFTV. That evening, as the three sat drinking beer, Martin looked up Walley's address, then they drove to her home, where Auvil, 42, shot three rounds into the house. "I actually could feel the air from the bullet as it passed by me," said Ken Walley, Monica's father. "I didn't think anybody was crazy enough to do something like this over something so small," Monica Walley said. Auvil was arrested Aug. 30 and charged with shooting into a dwelling, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Office. [WFTV, 8/31/2018]

Oops!

An Orlando, Florida, home will need more than roof repairs after a crane parked outside tipped over on Sept. 4, splitting the house in half so cleanly daylight could be seen through it. United Press International reported the roof was under construction when the machinery fell over, likely because the ground underneath it was wet, said Ivan Fogarty, corporate safety director for crane operator Beyel Brothers Crane & Rigging. No one was inside the home at the time, and no one on the roofing crew was injured, but the house has been declared unlivable. [UPI, 9/5/2018]

Fooled Ya!

University of Houston student Jehv M. looked at a blank wall in his local McDonald's and saw opportunity. Hoping to boost Asian representation in the burger chain's advertising, Jehv created a poster featuring himself and a friend touting McDonald's french fries. They bought used McDonald's uniforms at a thrift store as disguises, then boldly hung the poster in a Pearland, Texas, location as customers ordered and ate around them. United Press International reported that 51 days later, the poster still hung on the wall unnoticed, as shown in a photo on Jehv's Twitter feed. As of Sept. 4, it was not clear whether management at McDonald's knew of the poster's origins. [UPI, 9/4/2018]

Inexplicable

On Sept. 3, as an unnamed woman drove through Columbia Park, Washington, she witnessed a beaver being struck by a car. She stopped and tried to help the animal, wrapping it in a towel before going home to find a container to put it in. When she returned to the scene about 30 minutes later, YakTriNews reported, she found 35-year-old Richard Delp sexually assaulting the dying beaver. Unsurprisingly, Delp was also found to be in possession of methamphetamine; police charged him with possession and animal cruelty. The beaver didn't survive. [YakTriNews, 9/4/2018]

Questionable Judgment

Billy Warren Pierce Jr., 44, an inmate of the Pasco County (Florida) Jail, already awaiting trial on charges of capital sexual battery of a child, compounded his problems by trying to hire a fellow inmate to kill his victim and her family. WFTS reported the unnamed inmate told detectives Aug. 22 that Pierce offered him $9,000 and instructed him about how to get into the house, even suggesting using a gas line fed through a window as the murder method. Jail staff also obtained a contract signed by Pierce, detailing the targets of the killing and the agreed-upon price. When told on Sept. 4 he would be charged with solicitation of murder, Pierce objected, "But I haven't paid him any money yet." [WFTS, 9/4/2018]