Weird News Wednesday

Ice cream vendor punches complaining boy
Associated Press

PITTSBURGH - Throwing a punch at a boy complaining about the cost of his cold treat has landed an ice cream vendor in hot water.

Nazzareno Didiano, 44, was placed on probation and ordered to attend anger management classes after a trial Tuesday over the May 2004 incident.

The boy, now 14, told the judge that Didiano attacked him as he sat on his bike just blocks from an initial confrontation. The boy testified that Didiano pulled him off the bike, punched him in the face and slammed him into a wall.

Didiano acknowledged confronting the boy, but denied punching him. He said the boy had used various obscenities.

"He instigated the whole thing," Didiano said. "I wanted to tell him I didn't appreciate being talked to like that."

Didiano, who was found guilty of simple assault, lost his job with Paul's Ice Cream Co.

sam: it's a small price to pay for rocky road and pistachio!
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Son Finds Exposed Coffins At Chicago Cemetery

CHICAGO -- A man visiting his mother's grave at a Chicago cemetery said he found deplorable conditions.

"I run up on stuff like these here -- coffins pushed up to the side, all open, foul odors coming out," said Sidney Clark. "I'm seeing coffins open, I'm seeing a lot of dirt that has been moved -- the coffins are not even 3 feet in the ground."

Staff from WMAQ-TV in Chicago saw at least three wooden coffins sticking out of the dirt at Homewood Memorial Gardens, with the plastic-shrouded bodies visible inside. They reported that concrete burial vaults were clearly exposed as well.

On the ground on a hilltop, there were dozens of grave markers askew and stacked in rows. Clark said for three years, he's been trying to find his mother's grave, to no avail.

"If she was living, if she could talk to me now, she'd be glad I'm doing this right here," he said.

A representative of the cemetery tried to show Clark the approximate spot where his mother is buried, Rogers reported, but the grave was not marked.

As for the exposed coffins, maintenance man Rudy Casillas said he's in the process of layering the area where Cook County morgue bodies are buried in pauper's graves. He said after that, the grave markers will be restored to the ground above. Casillas also maintained that the coffins have only been exposed during that process.

"See, this is just erosion," Casillas said. "We have coyotes that come and just dig -- animals and stuff like that."

When Rogers asked if the three coffins he saw sticking out of the ground were buried, Casillas answered that they were.

Cook County Medical Examiner Edmund Donoghue, whose office buries about 30 people a month at Homewood Gardens, said he will send a representative to inspect what Rogers found. Clark's sister said she has retained a lawyer and wants her mother's body exhumed to determine exactly where it is.

The cemetery assured Clark that his mother is not in the area where the graves were found exposed, but Clark said he is not convinced.

"I think they are wrong -- totally wrong," Clark said, adding that he thinks his mother is buried in the area where the coffins were exposed.

*Distributed by Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.*

sam: the son said he is sueing to find out exactly where his mother is... but that she'd be proud of him. anyone in chicago getting visits from some bizarro woman ghost??

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Man's best friend beheads bestowed
Wife killed in chainsaw accident
By Chris Millar, Evening Standard
5 May 2005

LONDON: A woman was killed and virtually beheaded in a horrific chainsaw accident when her husband was knocked off a ladder by the family dog.

Roland Pudney, 56, had been using the chainsaw to prune bushes in his garden when the puppy ran into the stepladder while retrieving a golf ball, causing Mr Pudney to topple over.

His wife, Pauline, who had been holding the ladder steady, was killed instantly when the blade sliced into her neck.

Mrs Pudney, a health and safety officer for Lewisham council, had been holding the base of the step ladder because she was concerned about the possible dangers involved.

It had been thought Mr Pudney had simply slipped, but today he told the inquest at Southwark Coroner's Court that he had been knocked from the ladder by the couple's puppy.

The dog had been fetching a golf ball thrown for it by Mrs Pudney in the garden of their £300,000 home in Eltham.

Sobbing, Mr Pudney told the court: "I started cutting then I just heard a bang and the next thing I remember I was lying on the ground."

At first he had no idea what had happened, but then he saw blood pouring from his wife's neck wound.

Pausing frequently, he said: "I could see blood. She was lying there. She was not moving. I could see that she was hurt, I knew I had to go to the phone." Paramedics arrived but were unable to revive the 57-year-old mother of two.

The tragedy came as Mrs Pudney was considering retiring to spend more time with her husband, who had recently left his job as a company director.

He said: "When they let me back to the garden the next day I saw a golf ball under the branches and I just knew what had happened."

Coroner John Sampson recorded a verdict of accidental death.

sam: accidental, shmax-idental. i smell foul play... beastiality, i tell you!

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Chlamydia Strikes Penguin Colony
Sat May 7, 2005 11:11 PM BST

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A mysterious outbreak of chlamydia, a bacterial infection which humans pass to each other through sex, has killed a dozen penguins at the San Francisco Zoo, a zoo spokeswoman said on Friday.

The illness turned the zoo's Magellanic penguin colony into a disease hot spot, sparking fatal respiratory distress and kidney failure that struck down 12 of the birds.

The illness that befell the zoo's "Penguin Island" was not sexually transmitted, officials said.

"We suspect it could have something to do with the gulls and their droppings but it could have been something else," zoo spokeswoman Nancy Chan said.

Fifty-five other penguins survived the outbreak, which zoo officials believe started in late February.

The outbreak was the second Penguin Island mystery to stump zoo officials in recent years.

The zoo's penguins in December 2003 began swimming nonstop in circles after six new penguins were introduced to the colony. Normally the birds occasionally splash about in their pool. They went around and around until mid-February 2004.

"Even when the pool was drained they would walk around in circles," Chan said.

sam: just because a guy wears a suit, doesn't mean he's free and clear. WEAR A CONDOM!

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Teenager trapped in avalanche of peas
10 May 2005


A bored teenager was trapped in an avalanche of peas when he and two friends forced the door of a shipping container at an Ashburton seed company yard.

Ashburton District Court was told yesterday that Benjamin Jordan Hylands, 17, used a cigarette lighter to burn the plastic ties securing the closed shipping container.

As he opened the door, peas flooded out onto the ground, trapping his associate up to his chest.

Police, fire and ambulance staff had to use a forklift truck to rescue the boy, who had minor injuries.

Hylands appeared yesterday before Judge John Bisphan and admitted a charge of recklessly damaging the peas belonging to South Island Seeds.

He was sentenced to 200 hours community work and ordered to pay reparation of $200, half the value of the damaged peas.

Police prosecutor Graham Hall said Hylands, a 14-year-old youth and a 16-year-old associate were in the Ashburton industrial area on the morning of April 10.

Hylands told police he was bored and had nothing to do.

sam: who knew eating your vegetables would land you in an orange jumpsuit?