Lead Stories
William R. Macera was reelected mayor of Johnston, Rhode Island, despite being found in a car that police said reeked of marijuana smoke in October; he narrowly edged out write-in candidate Louis L. Vinagro Jr., who had been arrested hours before the election for threatening the state official inspecting his waste-hauling business. Paroled felon Bobby Banks, 20, elected to the New Bern, North Carolina, soil conservation board, was later arrested for having illegally registered to vote. And tied races in Delhi, Minnesota (mayor), Fife Lake, Michigan (township supervisor), and Hickman, Kentucky (school board), were settled, respectively, by a draw of cards, a draw from a hat, and a coin toss.
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Angela L. Pearn, 30, of Akron, Ohio, won a lawsuit in December charging Daimler Chrysler and Rolling Acres Dodge with fraud for concealing that the car they sold her had a history of trouble and was officially a “lemon” under state law. An elated Pearn told reporters afterward: “Now people will know that not all car dealers are honest.”
Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, 43, was arrested in Great Falls, Montana, in December and charged with killing a ten-year-old boy in 1996; based on his notes and a psychiatric evaluation, police believe he may have used parts of the body in casseroles. In December in the Dutch town of Best, two men were sentenced to 12 months in jail for conducting a duel with pistols. And in November accountant Gnanasuravi Raveendran, 51, told a UK Regional Press reporter in Bexley, England, that his brother had suffered an attack of epilepsy shortly after trying to prune Raveendran’s allegedly “cursed” hedge, following fatal attempts to prune it by his sister in 1997 and his brother-in-law earlier last year.
Send your weird news to Chuck Shepherd, Chicago Reader, 11 E. Illinois, Chicago 60611 or to weird@compuserve.com.
