Uplifting Story of A Disabled Man Overcoming His Disability
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A jury has recommended a 93-year prison term for a paraplegic who stabbed, robbed and sexually assaulted a woman he tricked into giving him a ride.
Bobby M. Patterson, 37, of Orange County got the 44-year-old woman to pick him up at the Wawa store in Central Park in Fredericksburg on Feb. 17 after telling her he was stranded there, according to court records.
He got the woman to take him to the Locust Grove area, where he pulled a gun and ordered her to pull to the side of the road.
Orange Commonwealth’s Attorney Tim Sanner said the handgun looked like a 9 mm,
but turned out to be a BB gun. He said that had the victim not fought back so fiercely, she might have been killed.
“She was just a good Samaritan who was trying to help somebody out,” Sanner said. “She then had the misfortunate of finding herself in this situation.”

Sheriff Had Man By The Balls
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Castrated Arkansas rapist Wayne DuMond has been linked to a Kansas City murder investigation, authorities say.
While awaiting trial, DuMond was castrated at his home, he said, by masked men.
No one was ever arrested in the attack, but DuMond won a $110,000 court judgment against then-Sheriff Coolidge Conlee of St. Francis County, who kept DuMond’s testicles in a jar on his office desk.

Space Man To Reach For The Stars
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He intends to become the first private astronaut to go into space with his own rocket. Within two years, he hopes to take two passengers into space with him.
Critics are already calling it the “bye, bye, Bennett mission”.
…other rocket experts are worried, not least because the Thunderbird capsule is actually a converted cement mixer, containing sheets of hardboard and a few computer joysticks…

John Bonsor, of Starr, a Scottish rocketry group is puzzled. “I don’t understand what is happening. He has been using cheap rockets, has a mixed bag of success and disaster and has achieved less than many others have working from their garage. It is ridiculous to claim that he leads the field, except in the number of crashes.”
“I’ve come from nothing to being the leading contender in the X-Prize,” counters Bennett.
“Only if he reinvents the laws of physics,” replies Bonsor. “He has absolutely no chance of the X-Prize. Please don’t launch.”

The Beer Defense Fails
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The defendant blamed his crime on his need for beer – but the judge didn’t buy it.
Superior Court Judge Thomas Wynne sentenced Steven G. Childress, 47, to one year in jail for breaking into the Seven Star Texaco store in Lynnwood in April.
Childress had claimed he broke into the convenience store only to slake his thirst for a beer.

Cloning Allergen-Free Cat
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Transgenic Pets, a tiny company in Syracuse, N.Y., says it is developing a genetically engineered cat that won’t cause allergies, a development that could allow millions of people who can’t now do so to keep the animals as pets.

The Ice Cream Man Is Dead!
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Two little boys watched in horror as their local ice cream man, the neighborhood children’s summertime friend, was shot in front of them.
“He was screaming, ‘Mom, the ice cream man is dead, the ice cream man is dead.”

Paula Poundstone update –

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/2000/20010627/lo/843838_1.html

Still no real info, but folks are rallying around her, disagreeing with the charges. I hope very much that the charges are unfounded.

Shetland Pony Gives Birth to Zebra
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The owners of Tilly the Shetland pony received a double shock when she gave birth. They didn’t know she was pregnant – and they certainly weren’t expecting a zebra.
Tilly’s owners at Eden Ostrich World, a modest visitor attraction on a farm near Penrith in northwestern England had been unaware of the pony’s exotic past life at a wildlife park, where she shared a field with a male zebra.
“She was fairly fat when we received her and we thought that she was getting fatter,” Ostrich World manager Karen Peet said Tuesday.

You Might Be A Redneck If You Are 19 and Still In High School
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Tom Sypniewski thought his “redneck” t-shirt was funny, but school officials deemed it offensive, ordered him to remove it and are now being sued for allegedly violating his free speech rights. Sypniewski, 19, wore the shirt, which listed comic Jeff Foxworthy’s “Top 10 Reasons You Might Be A Redneck Sports Fan,” to Warren Hills Regional High School on March 22 and was told to remove it.
He refused and was suspended for three days, losing an appeal to the Board of Education in April.

Nut Protests Bad Food And Service
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On 12 separate days, Jack Neu has picketed a Parma restaurant, saying the food served at his oldest son’s wedding reception was old, cold and three hours late.
And now the restaurant is serving the Cleveland man with a lawsuit.
…Neu decided to protest outside the restaurant. Neu said that some people “flip me the bird” and others point out that he misspelled “Stancato’s” on his sign.

Zoo Animals Shoot Back
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The bullet that killed a 41-year-old woman walking her child at a zoo over the weekend was fired intentionally from more than 100 yards, police said Monday.
The tragedy was compounded later Saturday when Bernita White’s mother, Barbara Sims, 67, collapsed and died of a heart attack after State Police in Detroit informed her of her daughter’s death.

Branded Woman Sobers Up
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Anybody that pays $5 and gets branded with the mark of a bald-headed man with a mustache and goatee can get 50 cents off any drink for life at a Tucson bar called the Meet Rack.
But a woman is suing the bar owners and the man who does the branding, claiming that she was branded near her navel with a red-hot stamp against her will.