A front-door camera in McDowell County, N.C., twice captured a bold loiterer on the home's porch: a naked man. Sheriff's officers arrested Denny Lynn Dover, 45, in early October after identifying him by his distinctive tattoos, the McDowell News reported. Dover had visited the home in April and again on Oct. 3, when he attempted to break in. He was charged with first-degree burglary and held on $50,000 bond. Dover isn't new to a life of crime: He also has convictions for arson, drug possession, larceny, peeping and breaking in.
Unintended consequences
An unidentified 89-year-old woman who has had previous trouble with trespassers on her remote property outside Piru, Calif., was hospitalized on Oct. 5 after her attempt to shoo away a group of nine people went wrong. After spotting the interlopers, she warned them away and fired two rounds from her rifle into a hillside to "emphasize her point," Ventura County Sheriff's Office Capt. Eric Buschow told the Los Angeles Times.
As the group retreated, the woman pursued them in her pickup truck to be sure they were leaving and pointed her gun at them. One man tried to talk with her, but she couldn't hear him, so he opened the door of her truck and grabbed the gun barrel. "In the process," Buschow said, "she fell out of the truck (and) unbeknownst to (the man), the truck was still in gear, so the rear wheel drove over her leg, continued to roll and went off a cliff." She was airlifted to a hospital with injuries to her ankle. Neither party wanted to press charges so no arrests were made.
Whoops!
Homeowner Linda Taylor-Whitt of Lynwood, Ill., and her family returned home from a birthday dinner on Oct. 5 to find "a wheel coming through my washroom ceiling" in an upstairs bathroom. Taylor-Whitt, who lives about a mile from Lansing Municipal Airport, told the Chicago Tribune she "didn't know what kind of wheel it was at first. I guessed it was an airplane wheel," she said.
But it was from a helicopter, according to Amy Summers of SummerSkyz Inc., a helicopter flight school in Lansing. When Summers heard about the incident, she knew she'd found the ground-handling wheel she'd been missing, and called Taylor-Whitt to apologize. The wheel had apparently been left on one of the company's helicopters during flight and fell off. Taylor-Whitt was relieved the damage wasn't worse: "I am glad — thank you, Lord — that it was a wheel instead of a plane because it could've been so bad."
Bright idea
Springfield, Mo., authorities have come up with a clever campaign to curb pet waste in the downtown area, the Associated Press reported. Piles of dog poop are being tagged with recycled paper flags sporting messages such as: "Is this your turd? 'Cuz that's absurd," and "This is a nudge to pick up the fudge." The city noted it spends $7,500 a year to pick up 25 pounds of waste per week from downtown parks and parking lots.
Least competent driver
In downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, on Oct. 8, an unnamed elderly driver managed to flip her Honda Accord and injure herself, her passenger and several pedestrians while trying to ... parallel park. According to CTV News, as she tried to back into a parking spot, the driver accelerated, jumping the curb and slamming into an immigration office before coming to rest on the sidewalk. Vancouver Police Sgt. Aaron Roed called the incident "a strange accident" and wished all the injured "a speedy recovery."
News of the Weird is compiled by the editors at Andrews McMeel Syndication. Send your weird news items to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com.
