Lead Stories
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The Things People Believe
In February in Bridgeview, Illinois, Brian J. Samdahl allegedly used a can opener to stab a stranger 15 times at a Wal-Mart, then explained to police that his government-implanted computer chip was malfunctioning. In February in Athens, Alabama, Jesus Santana (charged with marijuana possession) told arresting officers that “God got y’all to get me”–Santana had been using pages torn from a Bible as rolling papers for joints. And in March in Provo, Utah, William Veach (charged with securities fraud) insisted that when he scammed friends and family with a phony investment opportunity, he truly believed–due to his bipolar disorder–that he’d sold an experimental keyboard design to Microsoft for $17 million.
In February in Green Township, Ohio, a house cat named Princess survived a stab wound from an eight-inch knife, which pierced the top of her skull and reached her frontal sinus. But two guard dogs at a prison in Sombor, Serbia, were not so lucky: the BBC reported in February that jail officials shot the animals to death because they’d failed to bark when five inmates tunneled out under a wall.
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Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Shawn Belschwender.
