Community Corner
The Grinch Gives Speeding Drivers An Unusual Choice: Weird News & Oddities
Four years later, dog found 2,300 miles away; "Delco Pooper" tries to wipe record clean; fake heiress in $30M scam on FBI most-wanted list.
The Grinch was on patrol in the Florida Keys again this year.
As he has for 20 years, retired deputy sheriff Col. Lou Caputo put on the costume from the Dr. Seuss classic just before Christmas in an operation targeting speeding drivers in school zones.
Just as The Grinch finds his Christmas spirit, Caputo showed grace to motorists who only slightly exceeded the school zone speed limit, by 5 mph or less. They had a choice of getting a ticket or an onion.
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“He gave out quite a few onions,” the sheriff’s office said in a social media post.
Caputo began playing The Grinch 20 years ago after the release of the film starring Jim Carrey was released.
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“We educate people during the holidays to come through the school zone, but slow it down a little bit, pay attention — because in the holiday season, people are distracted,” he said.
Home For The Holidays
Choco is finally home after four Christmases away from his family in California.
The small dachshund mix disappeared from his Antelope, California, home in 2021, and turned up last month in metro Detroit, nearly 2,300 miles away, according to the Helping Paws and Claws nonprofit rescue group.
The dog was found tied to the fence of the Lincoln Park Animal Shelter on Nov. 24. Choco was microchipped, so officials with the shelter were able to track down his family.
Volunteers in Michigan got vet care for the dog. Another person anonymously donated frequent flier miles for the trip home. Choco’s owners had nearly given up hope of finding their dog.
He was an escape artist, which the family learned after adopting him in 2016.
“He would get out a lot with his previous family,” Choco’s owner, Patricia, told CBS News, adding that “after about five years of having him, he finally got out and disappeared.”
How Choco ended up in Michigan is a mystery, but it’s a reminder to microchip pets, Patricia said.
There’s ‘Waymo’ To This Birth Story
A California woman isn’t the first to give birth in a taxi. And neither is she the first to give birth in a Waymo, Google parent company Alphabet’s driverless robotaxi.
The woman was on her way to the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center when the driverless car’s rider support team detected “unusual activity,” according to a Waymo spokesperson.
The rider support team contacted 911, but the robotaxi arrived at the hospital before emergency crews could respond, Jess Berthold, a UCSF spokesperson, said.
“We’re proud to be a trusted ride for moments big and small, serving riders from just seconds old to many years young,” the company said.
‘Delco Pooper’ Seeks To Flush Charges
The notorious “Delco Pooper,” the Pennsylvania woman who doo-doo’ed on another motorist’s car in a road rage incident earlier this year, is using what might be called the “bidet of justice” to flush the charges against her.
Christina Solometo, 44, was charged with indecent exposure, disorderly conduct, depositing waste on a highway, criminal mischief, and harassment. Then, she had an open lewdness charge added to her docket.
Solometo will be on probation for two years. In addition, she will be required to log community service hours, take anger management classes and avoid posting about her case online.
Fake Heiress And A $30M Scam
A Michigan woman who posed to be a wealthy heiress to scam several banks out of $30 million is on the FBI’s most wanted list, though authorities fear she may have fled to Dubai.
Mary Carole McDonnell, 73, pretended to be an heir to the McDonnell Aircraft family and claimed to have a “secret” trust fund worth $80 million in a scam that goes back nearly a decade.
McDonnell was the CEO of Burbank-based Bellum Entertainment, which produced true-crime shows available on streaming services including “It Takes a Killer,” “Corrupt Crimes,” “I Married a Murderer,” and “Bizarre Murders,” according to court documents obtained by Patch.
Later in 2018, officials charged McDonnell with bank fraud and aggravated identity theft and issued a warrant for her arrest.
A Morbid Mixup
A California funeral director accidentally handed a grieving father a bag containing his son’s brain instead of the clothing he was wearing the day he died, a lawsuit against a Bay Area mortuary alleges.
The family of Alexander Pinon said in their lawsuit that they had purchased a $10,000 “full-service memorial tribute” from Lima Family Erickson Memorial Chapel that included dressing the body for viewing.
When Pinon’s father went to the mortuary to retrieve his son’s clothing, funeral director Annette “Anita” Singh handed him a red biohazards bag she thought contained the clothing. Upon returning home, the father made the gruesome discovery when he dumped the contents of the bag into his washing machine, according to the lawsuit.
The family did not know of the autopsy on Pinon’s brain, and the mortuary didn’t explain the morbid mixup, according to the lawsuit.
Doctor Found Dead. Naked In Store Freezer
That wasn’t the only gruesome story about death. The naked body of a 32-year-old anesthesiologist from Nicaragua was found inside a Miami Dollar Tree, and no one is quite sure what she was doing in the employees-only section of the store.
Helen Massiell Garay Sanchez, 32, was found by a Dollar Tree employee who opened the store on Dec. 14. Sanchez, a mother of two who was visiting family in Miami at the time of her death, reportedly went to the store before it closed the night before. Authorities don’t know what she was doing in the restricted area and why she went into the freezer, but foul play has been ruled out.
A GoFundMe campaign was raising money to return Sanchez’s body to Nicaragua for a funeral.
Deer Surprises Shoppers
Holiday shoppers at Marshalls in Brick Township, New Jersey, got a surprise when a white-tailed deer jointed them in the store.
A video posted on TikTok shows a woman trying to guide the deer out of the store. Commenters had a lot of fun.
“Heaven forbid a deer wants some holiday deals,” one person said. Another person suggested the deer heard a Tiffany purse was finally in, while another person theorized, “He was shopping for Santa.”
“His friends are NEVER going to believe him,” someone else said.
Best of all, the deer got in and out of the store without any broken glass. It’s unclear if he continued browsing in stores in the Brick Commons shopping center, or returned to the wooded area behind the store.
- Read more: Deer Surprises Shoppers At NJ Store: Video
Grinch, Santa Duke It Out
To no one’s surprise, The Grinch was primed for a fight. But you, Santa?
No matter, the holiday smackdown in a steel cage in Parsippany, New Jersey, was for a good cause — the Police Athletic League, or PAL, which hosts basketball, cheerleading, flag football and wrestling events across the township.
Father Christmas and Dr. Seuss’ green, Scrooge-inspired misanthrope weren’t the only celebrity pairs fighting it out in the wrestling ring surrounded by a 15-foot-high steel cage. The stacked wrestling card featured matches between several other well-known professionals.
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