In St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, Lucas Dawe, 20, appeared in court on April 11 to face charges of possessing stolen skeletal remains. According to court documents reported by The Chronicle Herald, Dawe is suspected of stealing a skeleton, estimated to be more than 100 years old, from the All Saints Parish cemetery. The skeleton was found along a walking trail on April 6, and police were led to Dawe after an anonymous witness reported seeing him licking the bones. He was also charged with interfering with human remains, after he was accused of boiling the bones and drinking the water. [Chronicle Herald, 4/12/2019]

What's in a Name?

Residents of a particular neighborhood in the Denver suburb of Cherry Hills Village may not have ever known the name of their subdivision: It didn't appear on signs, but could be found in the fine print of real estate documents. Nonetheless, the Cherry Hills Village City Council voted unanimously on April 16 to change the neighborhood's name from Swastika Acres to Old Cherry Hills. Councilman Dan Sheldon explained that the name came from the Denver Land Swastika Co., which divided the land into plots in the early 20th century, before the Nazis appropriated the symbol: "There was nothing wrong with (the name) at that time," Sheldon told KDVR-TV. Only one resident opposed the name change, Sheldon said. "She thought it was important to preserve that historical value of that symbol ... even though she herself lost family members in the Holocaust." [KDVR, 4/16/2019]

Florida.

Some days everything goes right. So it was for the Polk County Sheriff's officers who responded to a call on March 24 from Marta Diaz in Winter Haven, Florida. Diaz's car, a tan Jeep Patriot, had been stolen earlier in the day. As the officers took Diaz's statement, that same tan Jeep pulled up in front of the house, and Ronnie Dillon Willis, 25, emerged, telling deputies he was "looking for his cellular phone, which was pinging back to the residence," reported the Miami Herald. Diaz told the officers she didn't know Willis but had seen him earlier on her street. Willis told the officers he woke up that morning at that location, inside a vehicle, but he wasn't sure if it was the Jeep or a minivan also parked there. He knocked on the door of the house, but when no one answered, he took the Jeep to look for his phone, which was missing. The deputies arrested Willis for grand theft of a motor vehicle; Willis also had a suspended license, for which he received a traffic citation. [Miami Herald, 4/5/2019]

Latest Religious Messages

Over Easter weekend, hundreds of people visited a gum tree in a suburb of Perth, Australia, after the tree appeared to start "weeping" on Good Friday, which the faithful took to be a divine sign. For three days, the tree continued to leak water from a branch stump, provoking people to drink the "holy" water and bathe in it. "What made it exciting yesterday, a man decided to take all his clothes off and have a shower," remarked neighbor Jacqui Bacich to 9News. The excitement died down after the Water Corporation discovered the tree's roots had wrapped around a cracked iron water pipe about a foot underground, and the leaking water had slowly filled up a hollow part of the trunk. [9News, 4/23/2019]

What Goes Up ...

Two years ago, 39-year-old Dion Callaway was attempting a high-speed landing after skydiving at the Cloverdale Municipal Airport in Sonoma County, California, when he shattered his left heel and eventually having to have his leg amputated below the knee. On April 21, the Santa Rosa resident was back at it, skydiving, when he lost his leg again -- his $15,000 prosthetic leg "just flew off," Callaway told the Press Democrat. "I've jumped with the prosthetic before, but a rush of air got inside this time. I tried to watch where it was falling, but ... I could not keep track." Early the next morning, workers at Redwood Empire lumberyard spotted something they first thought was a soda can. Yard production manager Micah Smith said his first reaction was, "Oh, that's not a soda can, that's a leg ... where's the rest?" The story ended happily after Smith called the sheriff's office, where Callaway picked up his leg later that day. "Skydiving is my everything," Callaway said. "I always seem to come back to it." [Press Democrat, 4/22/2019]

... Must Come Down

Members of England's Colchester United Football Club were confused by the cheeseburger they found on the pitch at their training ground in March. "When we discovered the burger ... we weren't quite sure what to think," media manager Matt Hudson told Sky News. But Tom Stanniland, who was tracking the burger, knew exactly what had happened and called the club to explain. "I sent a burger into space using a weather balloon," Stanniland said. "It had gone about 24 miles up and the weather balloon popped. It's ... traveled over 100 miles and landed." The burger was attached with a zip tie to a styrofoam box fitted with a GoPro camera and a tracking device. Stanniland took a bite out of the burger after retrieving it, but wasn't impressed: "That's not nice," he said. [Sky News, 3/29/2019]

Update

The news on Easter was full of videos of the man in a bunny costume involved in a brawl in Orlando, Florida, who claimed innocence by saying he was defending a woman who had been spit on. "I am the type of person who avoids fights by any means necessary, but in that situation, I would fight any day," 20-year-old Antoine McDonald told the media. But the Tampa Bay Times reports McDonald has a rap sheet that belies this chivalrous image. The Pasco County Sheriff's Office said McDonald is wanted in New Jersey in connection with a vehicle burglary and was a person of interest in a carjacking and two armed robberies in Florida. Police in Dover, Delaware, report arresting McDonald for two armed robberies there in 2017. No arrests were made in the Orlando incident. [Tampa Bay Times, 4/23/2019]

News That Sounds Like a Joke

In College Station, Texas, the Peach Creek Vineyard is trying out a new concept for its wine-tasting events: wine with alpacas. Teaming up with the Bluebonnet Hills Alpaca Ranch, the vineyard offers customers the chance to pet and take selfies with alpacas while sipping wine and shopping for yarn, wool or clothing. "In 24 hours, we were sold out," vineyard owner Kenneth Stolpman told KTRK-TV. One event sold out so quickly Stolpman had to turn away more than 1,000 people. [KTRK, 4/22/2019]

Family Values

Police in Phoenix responding to a suspected child abuse call on April 19 arrived in time to see 27-year-old Rebecca Gonzales slap and punch her 7-year-old son in the parking lot of a Walmart store, reported ABC15-TV. The boy, according to court documents, had been at Walmart with his grandmother and was supposed to be Grandma's lookout while she shoplifted, but Gonzales wasn't happy with his performance. The boy, whose mouth was bleeding, told police his mother hit him because "he didn't watch out for his grandma good enough." Gonzales was arrested for aggravated assault. [ABC15, 4/22/2019]

Police Report

At a Rotterdam, New York, Walmart, two men pulled off a well-choreographed scam on April 13 that cost the store $2,000. The men purchased three laptops, for which they paid cash, according to The Daily Gazette. But after the cashier counted the money, one man asked for it back, saying he wanted to make sure he hadn't paid too much. The other man then started dancing around the checkout area as a distraction. The thief with the money gave some of it back to the cashier, but pocketed the rest, and the clerk did not recount the cash. Police are still looking for the suspects, who were captured on surveillance video. [Daily Gazette, 4/22/2019]

Scientists are aghast at an eBay listing offering a rare baby T-rex fossil for a $2.95 million buy-it-now price. Fossil hunter Alan Detrich, who discovered the fossil in 2013, is believed to have created the listing in February for the 68 million-year-old artifact, which until recently had been on loan to the Natural History Museum at the University of Kansas. CNBC reported the specimen has a 15-foot-long body, 21-inch skull and serrated teeth, and Detrich estimates its age at death to be about 4 years. The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology issued a statement expressing concerns that "the fossil, which represents a unique part of life's past, may be lost from the public trust. ... Only casts and other replicas of vertebrate fossils should be traded, not the fossils themselves." [CNBC, 4/17/2019]

Another Day at Walmart

-- At around 8:30 p.m. on April 10, things got interesting at an Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Walmart store. Lisa Smith, 46, entered the store with her unleashed dog, Bo, according to police, and as Bo distracted shoppers and store staff, Smith pulled apart store displays, putting them in her cart. After being asked by workers to leave the store, Smith went out to the parking lot and started practicing karate moves. Bo grabbed a box of Jiffy Cornbread Muffin Mix and also attempted to leave the store. Meanwhile, Smith's son, Benny Vann, 25, had made his way to the back of the store, where he completely undressed, exposing himself to other shoppers, and grabbed new clothes from store racks before attempting to run over police officers with his scooter. WHO TV reported Smith was charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and misdemeanor bail jumping. Vann racked up charges of lewd and lascivious behavior, disorderly conduct and retail theft. Bo, police said, received only a warning for his theft of the muffin mix. [WHO TV, 4/13/2019]

-- Crossville, Tennessee, police officers pulled over Sally Selby, 45, at 5 a.m. on April 5 as she motored down Highway 127 -- in the slow lane -- driving a Walmart mobility scooter. She was on her way to the Waffle House, she said, to buy a cup of coffee. WTVF reported that Selby initially told officers she had built the scooter, but Walmart confirmed it was one of theirs and had surveillance video of Selby driving the scooter out of the store to back up their story. She was arrested for theft. [WTVF, 4/9/2019]

The Continuing Crisis

-- In Cary, North Carolina, Wake County Deputy J. Rattelade, responding to a report of a car crash on the evening of April 5, found one of the drivers, Derwood Johnson, 36, of Fort Worth, Texas, had gotten out of his car and removed all his clothes before starting to walk across the street. As Deputy Rattelade tried to arrest him, Johnson hit her on the head, reported WTVD. With the help of other first responders and some pepper spray, Rattelade was able to subdue Johnson, who was charged with assault on a government official. Rattelade was unhurt; Johnson was taken to an area hospital for further evaluation. [WTVD, 4/6/2019]

-- On April 13, a family in Newtown, Connecticut, returned home from a morning shopping trip to find Joseph Achenbach, 35, wandering around inside their home naked. The Watertown man had crashed his SUV in the homeowners' backyard and moseyed inside through an unlocked glass door. Achenbach's clothes could not be found at the scene, leading police to believe he had been naked when he crashed. FOX61 reported that he was charged with second-degree criminal trespassing and driving while intoxicated. [FOX61, 4/15/2019]

Stay in School

When the Wilkinson School in El Granada, California, received a bomb threat on the morning of April 11, it didn't take long for administrators to empty the building of staff and students. But law officers searching the grounds found nothing -- because the threatening phone call actually came from 2,100 miles away, in Woodville, Mississippi. That's where a 15-year-old student intended to threaten her own Wilkinson County High School, reported The San Jose Mercury News, but apparently didn't check her Google search thoroughly enough before dialing. [San Jose Mercury News, 4/13/2019]

Ewwwww!

We've all swatted at pesky sweat bees buzzing around our heads, but a Taiwanese woman suffered a more invasive form of irritation after participating in the Qingming Festival, or Tomb Sweeping Day, when Taiwanese people visit their families' graves to spruce them up. The 29-year-old woman, identified by her surname, He, thought she had gotten dirt in her eye, but when the eye later swelled shut, she went to Fooyin University Hospital for help, The Washington Post reported. Hung Chi-ting, the hospital's head of ophthalmology, looked in her eye through a microscope and was startled to see insect legs wiggling in her eye socket. The doctor eventually extracted four sweat bees from her eyelid. The bees, which crave salt, were feeding off of He's tears, he explained. He is expected to fully recover, and the bees, still alive, were kept for further study. [The Washington Post, 4/10/2019]

Suspicions Confirmed

A concerned animal lover in Devon, England, contacted authorities on April 8 to report that a fox she had been watching hadn't moved for several days, reported Fox News. In response, Ellie Burt, an officer with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals, suggested trying the "broom test," which didn't make the fox stir, but Burt was told it "tracked them with its eyes and seemed to be breathing well." When Burt arrived on the scene, she quickly diagnosed the problem: The fox was a fake, "stuffed by a taxidermist. He'd clearly been placed under a bush outside of the houses as a prank," Burt said. "Someone had been moving it around the neighborhood." Burt discarded the fox "to avoid any further calls." [Fox News, 4/12/2019]

The Litigious Society

An unnamed 40-year-old man in Muncie, Indiana, is suing his parents for trashing his collection of porn videos and magazines, which he estimates was worth $29,000. According to the Associated Press, the man had been living with his parents for 10 months following a divorce, and after he bought a new house, his parents delivered his possessions -- minus the 12 boxes of porn. His parents admitted dumping the collection; in an email quoted by the lawsuit, the father told his son, "I did you a big favor by getting rid of all this stuff." The son is seeking $87,000 in financial damages. [Associated Press, 4/14/2019]

Cautionary Tale

Paramedic Natalie Kuniciki, 23, was lying in bed watching a movie in her London flat when she stretched her neck and heard a loud crack. Thinking nothing of it, she went to sleep, but soon reawakened to realize she couldn't move her left leg. "I got up and tried to walk to the bathroom and I was swaying everywhere. I looked down and realized I wasn't moving my left leg at all, then I fell to the floor," Kuniciki told The Sun. She called an ambulance, and a CT scan confirmed that she'd had a stroke. When her neck cracked, it had caused her vertebral artery to burst, sending a clot to her brain and triggering the stroke. Kuniciki spent a month in the hospital while she regained mobility on her left side. Doctors hope she can return to work in six to 12 months. [The Sun, 4/15/2019]

Least Competent Criminal

Brandon Cory Lecroy, 26, of Greenwood, South Carolina, really wanted to get rid of his neighbor. In March 2018, The New York Times reported, the FBI was tipped off that Lecroy had contacted an unidentified white supremacist group and asked them to kill his African American neighbor, hang him from a tree and leave a cross burning in his yard. An FBI agent posing as a hit man got in touch with Lecroy, who offered $500 for the killing and told the agent he was planning to take over the neighbor's property. As soon as Lecroy made a $100 down payment, he was taken into custody. On April 12, Lecroy pleaded guilty to a murder-for-hire charge and was sentenced to 10 years in prison and three years of supervision. [New York Times, 4/15/2019]

In Raleigh, North Carolina, residents of The Dakota apartment complex are stepping out a little more confidently after management engaged the services of a company called PawzLife. The Raleigh News and Observer reported on March 22 that residents were growing disgusted with the amount of dog feces on the sidewalks and green spaces around the complex. So management turned to a high-tech solution: Residents who own dogs are required to bring them to a "pup party," where PawzLife collects their DNA with a simple saliva swipe and creates a "unique DNA profile" for each dog. The company then visits the neighborhood to pick up any stray poop, and owners whose dogs are a match with the poop DNA are fined $100 per offense. PawzLife owner Matthew Malec said, "We are just trying to make the Earth a little bit better to live on." [Raleigh News and Observer, 3/22/2019]

Nothing Better to Do ...

Traffic on a street in the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles came to a virtual stop as two cars engaged in a legendary standoff over a parking space on April 1. Fox News reported that Mariah Flores, who was positioned across the street, documented the entire two-hour dispute on Twitter, as the "black car" and the "silver car" jockeyed to parallel park in one open spot along the sidewalk. As horns honked and tensions mounted, a "plot twist" changed the whole dynamic: The owner of a third vehicle, parked in front of the empty space, left, leaving room for both black and silver to park. The drivers quickly settled their vehicles in the spaces but then sat in their cars for some time. "Like are they afraid of each other or is it just awkward now?" Flores wondered. Finally, the driver of the silver car emerged, prompting Flores' comment, "SILVER takes the gold." [Fox News, 4/4/2019]

... and Too Much Money to Do It With

A wealthy San Francisco philanthropist, Florence Fang, 84, is being sued by the city of Hillsborough over the "Flintstones" home and grounds she has created in the suburb. The oddly shaped house was built in 1976, and Fang bought it in 2017. Today it's painted purple and red, features a large "Yabba Dabba Do" sign near the driveway, and Fang has added dinosaur and mushroom figurines, along with Fred Flintstone himself, to the yard. "We don't like it when people build things first, then come in and demand or ask for permission later," huffed Assistant City Attorney Mark Hudak, who told KTVU Fang built without the proper permits and the property is subject to code violations along with offending the neighbors' aesthetic sensibilities. But Angela Alioto, Fang's attorney, said the home is Fang's "happy place." Fang doesn't live in the home but uses it for entertainment and charitable events. "She's had an incredible life, and I think it's wonderful that, at 84 years old, she has found something that makes her so happy," Alioto told the San Mateo Daily Journal. [KTVU, 3/18/2019] [San Mateo Daily Journal, 4/2/2019]

People Different From Us

Kaz James, 37, from Salford, Greater Manchester, England, has known since he was a child that he was different from other people. "I didn't ever feel like a human. I always felt like a dog that was really out of place," James told Metro News. He first started to understand his peculiarity when he gained access to the internet at 17 years old. "I was known by my friends for ... grabbing hold of the collar of their shirt in my teeth and biting or licking them, very canine-type behaviors," James said. Today he eats out of a dog bowl and owns three custom-made dog suits -- one a $2,600 fur suit shipped from Canada. "(M)y behaviors were quite dog-like in childhood, probably from the age of 6," he said. "No one ever talked about it. It was never mentioned." [Metro News, 4/3/2019]

Family Values

The Carter County (Tennessee) Sheriff's Department had some strong leads in the death of Edith Betty Ralph, 75, on April 6, but none stronger than the behavior of John Christopher Ralph, 51, Edith's son, who had been living with her and had repeatedly complained to friends and family that she was "driving him crazy." "The night of Mrs. Ralph's murder, John asked co-workers to take pictures of him at work saying that if anything happened to his mother he would need an alibi," according to the sheriff's department. ABC News reported that Edith was found deceased due to severe head trauma and several gunshot wounds. John was stopped at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, ready to board a flight for Amsterdam. He was held on a $1 million bond. [ABC News, 4/7/2019]

The Aristocrats!

-- When you purchase a new home, you need new stuff to put in it. So it was for Andrew Francis Lippi, 59, of Key Haven, Florida. Lippi purchased an $8 million private island, Thompson Island, off Key West in early April, which includes a large estate previously owned by philanthropist Edward B. Knight. But on April 6, Lippi was charged with felony grand theft for stealing $300 worth of home goods from Kmart, including two coffeemakers, eight lightbulbs and a bed skirt. His method was clever: He bought the items, then returned their boxes with other things packed inside, according to the Miami Herald. (For example, a basketball was in the Keurig box.) Lippi, speaking to the Herald, denied the charges and said, "Basically it has to do with a commercial dispute. ... It's very complicated and I'd rather not get into it." He's scheduled to appear in court on April 18. [Miami Herald, 4/8/2019]

-- Lauren Jenai, 47, co-founder (with her ex-husband) of CrossFit, has struck up a new romance with an old flame: Franklin Tyrone Tucker, also 47, who resides at the Stock Island Detention Center in Florida, where he awaits trial for first-degree murder and armed robbery. Jenai sold her CrossFit shares for $20 million after her divorce and now lives in Portland, Oregon. She and Tucker, childhood friends, reconnected on Facebook before Tucker's arrest, and she has risen to his defense, offering to put up his $1 million bond (which was denied in January) and hiring private investigators for his case. She has not been able to see Tucker in person, but they were enjoying video visitation -- until, by Jenai's admission, she "got a little risque ... I was touching my boobs." Her account was suspended, so she began using her mother's account, but it happened again: "My boobs popped out at some point, it happens." Tucker and Jenai are scheduled to wed in prison, and she told the Daily Mail she won't ask him to sign a prenup: It feels "a little inappropriate. ... I trust him. I love him. My house is his house." [Daily Mail, 4/9/2019]

What's in a Name?

The Smuggler's Inn on Canada View Drive in Blaine, Washington, sits just a stone's throw from the Canadian border. Fittingly, on April 4, a Canadian court charged its owner, Robert Joseph Boule, 69, with 21 counts of "inducing, aiding or abetting" seven people who tried to illegally enter Canada between May 2018 and March 2019. Boule had remarked to CBC News in the past that it wasn't unusual to see people with night-vision goggles sneaking across the border at night. He remains in custody in Canada. [CBC News, 4/9/2019]