80 San Diego Reader January 7, 2016
news of the WeiRD
LEAD STORY — Fort Bragg, North Carolina, declared an emergency on Oct. 30 when one of its soldiers had the bright idea to arrive for a Halloween party on base dressed as a suicide bomber, with realistic-looking canisters in a wired vest. Gates to the post (headquarters of Army Special Forc- es and airborne troops) immediately went into extended lockdown, and a bomb-disposal team was called. T e soldier’s name was not released.
Ewwww, Gross! — Upland, California, dermatologist Sandra Lee is a social media cult fi gure with a mas- sive audience on YouTube, where her cyst- and pimple-popping videos (charmingly, soothingly narrated) have garnered 170 million views. (T e “popping” community, on the
Reddit.com site, has more than 60,000 members.) Dr. Lee admits longing for “the perfect blackhead,” which to her apparently means one that is photogenic and slides out easily from its snug epidermal home. Several “popping” fanatics told a Washington Post reporter that watching the videos is therapy for anxiety, but one fan (a “Mr. Wilson”) appar- ently gets his “therapy” by submitting videos of his own — unsoothing — oil-laden bursts. — While hopeful Italian surgeon Sergio Ca- navero seeks funding to perform the fi rst ever head “transplant” (with a patient already lined up), Australian doctor Geoff Askin (the coun- try’s “godfather of spinal surgery”) recently suc- cessfully “reattached” the head of a 16-month- old boy who was badly injured in a traffi c accident. T e toddler’s head was described as internally “relocated” and reset onto the verte-
bra, using wire and rib tissue to graſt the head back in place. (Nonetheless, the operation was widely regarded as a “miracle.”)
Police Report — Hugo Castro, 28, wanted for questioning in October in San Jose, California, aſt er his girl- friend was stabbed to death, helpfully present- ed himself at county jail. T e sheriff ’s deputy listened — and then suggested Castro go fi nd a San Jose police offi cer. (Castro did, and the deputy was subsequently reassigned.)
Great Art! — A 33-year-old Frenchman erected a stone ta- ble with benches over his mother’s grave mark- er, so that he and friends could enjoy munchies and wine as he “talked” to her. — For the annual German Ruhrtriennale Fes- tival in September, Atelier Van Lieshout cre- ated a temporary hotel structure that appeared from the street (even to the non-aroused) to be a couple having “doggy style” sex (to make a statement, a reviewer said, about “the power of humanity over the natural world”). — A homeowners’ association in Winter Ha- ven, Florida, petitioned Steven Chayt to remove the 24-by-12-foot chair he had built in his back- yard as an art project — especially because of the hole in the seat — making it, said one neigh- bor, “essentially a toilet.”
Finer Points of the Law — Daniel Darrington was spared a murder conviction in October even aſt er admitting in- tentionally shooting Rocky Matskassy at point-
blank range to “relieve his suff ering.” T e Mel- bourne, Australia, jury decided that Matskassy, in pain from an earlier accidental shooting, was indeed already dead when Darrington shot him. However, under the law of the state of Victo- ria, it is still “attempted murder” because Dar- rington believed that Matskassy was still alive when he pulled the trigger.
Unclear on the Concept — Even though Darren Paden, 52, confessed almost immediately upon his 2013 arrest for a ten-year, 200-plus-episode pattern of sexual abuse of a girl that began when she was 4, many Dearborn, Missouri, townspeople, astonishing- ly, turned on her and not him. Paden, volunteer fi re chief in the 500-person town, is apparently a beloved neighbor with a lifetime of good deeds, leaving the victim, now 18, largely “ostracized” and called a liar, according to an October Kan- sas City Star report. Even some who accept that crimes were committed fear excessively punish- ing a “good man” (who, in one example off ered by a neighbor, saved a man from being stomped to death by a cow). Nonetheless, in October, the judge sentenced Paden to 50 years in prison.
Least Competent Criminal — In October, Rezwan Hussain, 29, was sen- tenced to 11 years in prison for the illegal drugs enterprise he ran from his mother’s basement in Rochdale, England. He had apparently avoided detection until March, when the Greater Man- chester police arrived to question his brother. Hussain said his brother wasn’t home, and they leſt , but a frightened Hussain ran upstairs and
by Chuck Shepherd © 2016
began tossing 500 pounds of drugs out the win- dow in preparation for his getaway. However, police had not yet driven away, and the fi rst bag of a nearly $5 million stash happened to land right beside their car.
Update — Members of the New Orleans Vampire Asso- ciation are not, of course, like Dracula or those Twilight characters, but rather people who are convinced that consuming other people’s blood prevents illness or provides energy — and thus seek “donors” to sit for regular or occasional slicings or pin pricks for friendship, money, or sex. T ough some members have gone full- gothic in dress and lifestyle (as described in an October Washington Post report), an academic researcher studying the community has con- cluded that the vampires generally exhibit no signs of mental illness.
Readers’ Choice — Another human was shot by his dog — this time in October in Kosciusko County, Indiana. Allie Carter’s pooch had wandered over to Cart- er’s shotgun on the ground and stepped on it, fi ring one round into Carter’s leſt foot. (Bonus: Carter’s dog’s name is Trigger.) T e next day, a Washington Post reporter, searching news ar- chives, found 12 more “dog shoots human” sto- ries reported just since 2004 (all but two from the gun-intensive United States).
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, San Diego Reader, P.O. Box 85803, San Diego, CA 92186 or to
WeirdNewsTips@Yahoo.com
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