Fishy Business...

Weird, Wacky Stuff.

By Chris Marvin Senior Editor

'Roid Rage: In July, police in Brooklyn, N. Y., accused Gail Murphy, 47, bedridden on her stomach while recovering from hemorrhoid surgery, of shooting her husband to death because he had gone on a six-hour fishing trip. Said a police investigator, "She felt that her husband didn't demonstrate that he cared for her on that particular day." [New York Times, 7-23-96]

Self-described "fishing fanatic" Tom Getherall of East Moriches, Long Island, telling a New York Daily News reporter the day after the crash of TWA Flight 800: "I felt bad when I heard about the wreck, real bad, but to be honest with you, the first thing I wondered was how it would affect the fishing." [New York Daily News, 7-21-96]

Football star Deion Sanders, arrested for trespassing at a fishing hole near Fort Myers, Fla., in June: "The only defense I have is that I'm sorry but they were biting." [St. Petersburg Times, 6-20-96]

Monika and Mark Skinner filed a $35 million lawsuit in July in Newport News, Va., in connection with the 1994 death of their son, age 16, who was riding in a car that drove off a road and plunged into a lake. Among the defendants: Kmart, which sold a computer cleaning product to the car's driver, which he and the Skinner boy used to get high by "huffing"; two engineering consulting firms that designed the lake that the car fell into; and the company that designed the road the car was traveling on because it should have been further away from the lake. [Newport News Daily Press, 7-31-96]

Crazy Court Happenings

Hillsborough County (Fla.) Sheriff's deputies charged Jeffrey Alan McLeod, 29, with robbing a Chevron gas station in August, then fleeing. He was caught after a brief chase when his car ran out of gas. Said a Sheriff's spokesman, "When you're going to rob a gas station . . . you're supposed to fill up the tank before you rob the clerk." [Tampa Tribune, 8-14-96]

An entire 86-member jury pool for a criminal case in Centerville, Tenn. (population 16,000), in July had to be dismissed because, according to prosecutor Ron Davis, too many members of the pool were related to each other. [Columbia, Tenn., Daily Herald, 7-17-96]

--Thanks to News Of the Weird!

. . .and a little joke, courtesy tne@pop.tiac.net

Pinocchio was receiving complaints from his girlfriend about consummating their passion.

"Every time we do it, I get splinters." she complained
So Pinocchio went back to Giupetto, and asked for advice.
Giupetto replied, "Sandpaper, my boy, that's what you need."

A couple weeks later, Giupetto sees Pinocchio again.
"So, how's it going with the girls?" asked the old man.
"Girls? Who needs girls?"