The Register reports a mother spotted her own stolen ipod on an auction site weeks after it was stolen …
US mum tracked down a thief who burgled her home after the ill-gotten gains were offered for sale on eBay. Karen Todd, a US Census Bureau computer programmer, spotted a personally-inscribed iPod on the auction site weeks after it was robbed from her Washington DC area home.
Todd’s home was burgled on 7 April. Thieves made off with an Apple iBook laptop, a digital camera, an amethyst dinner ring inherited from Todd’s grandmother and the iPod. The latter, a Christmas gift from Todd to her husband Dan, was inscribed with lyrics from the song Have a Little Faith in Me, by John Hiatt.
Apple had stopped making that model, so Todd was advised by work colleagues to look on eBay for a similar model. Her search was initially fruitless but it didn’t take long for the stolen iPod with the distinctive inscription “When your back is against the wall, turn around and see” to appear on the site.
“I was shocked and almost in tears,” Todd told the Washington Post. “I was like, ‘That’s mine! That’s mine!’ I was just floored. When I found it, I clicked on ’see seller’s other items,’ and when I scrolled through, lo and behold, there was my [laptop].”
Todd reported the find to police who traced the stolen items back through a Maryland sports memorabilia dealer - who unwittingly offered several sets of stolen goods for sale - to Ibrahima Kalil Toure, 21, the suspected burglar. Toure was subsequently charged with 12 counts of burglary realating to breaks-ins at various homes in the DC area. He is in jail on remand awaiting trial.
As reward for her community-spirited efforts, Todd will receive a $100 Best Buy gift from police as well as the return of the stolen items and a special commendation from Bowie City Council. “She pretty much cracked the case,” Prince George’s County police Detective Ray Gignac told the Washington Post.
CNN reports on the following:
NORFOLK, Nebraska (AP) — “Welcome to Wal-Mart” is not exactly the greeting a recent visitor got at a Nebraska store.
In fact, a deer initially escaped the Wal-Mart greeter’s attention last week when it entered through the exit of the supermarket part of the store.
Then the greeter heard a noise, looked up and saw the fawn run past her.
The animal had hit the slick floor and fallen, only to recover quickly and scurry down the aisles.
After doing a little looking around, the deer was tackled by a customer. Others then tied its legs so it couldn’t kick, placed it in a shopping cart and pushed it outside.
“It’s not everyday that happens,” Wal-Mart Co-Manager Cameron Stowe told the Norfolk Daily News.
The deer caused no damage and no one, including the animal, was hurt, Stowe said.
Officials took the deer to nearby TaHaZouka Park and released it.
The Age Reports Don’t put your iPod through the washing machine. And if for some reason you do, don’t try to fix it with a screwdriver.
That’s the advice of fire investigators probing a small explosion that burned a hole in the bed of a Melbourne teenager who tried to perform emergency surgery on his ailing mp3 player.
The boy was treated by paramedics at his Bayswater home for breathing difficulties after ingesting fumes emitted by the device as he pulled it apart in his suburban bedroom about 7.30pm on Wednesday.
Country Fire Authority spokesman Peter Philp said the leaky iPod had been taken away for testing by CFA investigators.
“His mother did the washing and the iPod was in the clothing so it went through the washing machine,” Mr Philp said.
“It wasn’t working, the young fella tried to undo it or fix it with a screwdriver and at that stage there was an explosion, or more of a pop.
“It was more smoke than fire but it did leave a burn mark on the cover.”
Metropolitan Ambulance spokeswoman Lirije Memishi said it was unclear what the teenager had ingested.
“We treated him on the scene for minor breathing difficulties but he was fine and then we scooted out and helped save the rest of Melbourne,” she said.
The Australian is reporting pizza was used to disarm prisoners holding a hostage inside a maximum security prison in Australia.
” SIXTEEN takeaway pizzas costing $188 were the final key to securing the freedom of a hostage held by a hard core of violent criminals at Hobart’s Risdon prison yesterday.
Inmate ringleaders finally agreed to release a prison officer held hostage along with about 15 inmates early yesterday morning, after negotiators agreed to provide the 16 pizzas and six 1.25-litre bottles of Coke.
The inmates’ “last supper” was the final barrier to the release of the guard and all other hostages, freed in stages between midnight and 8am yesterday.
“At about midnight, the final sticking point with the inmates was that they were requiring pizzas to be delivered,” Tasmanian prison director Graeme Barber said.
“We had held off on that. We obviously wanted the release of our staff member. Our staff member was negotiated out with the delivery of about 15 pizzas.”
One morning around 5a.m., 22-year-old Susan DaLucci of Kittery
Maine, woke up with a painful need to urinate. At first she thought
she had diarrhoea, but when she stood up out of bed, she realised
that it was urinary pain. It was very similar to the feeling of
having diarrhoea, just out of the wrong hole. She wobbled to the
toilet and upon sitting on it; her vagina erupted into the most
horrific messy farting noise anyone has ever heard. In paralysing
pain, Ms. DeLucci for the next few minutes continued to push and
squirt out of her vagina a burning tide of wretch and filth while
she gripped the sides of the toilet, white-knuckled. She was screaming
wildly, and neighbours called the police. When medics arrived they
found Ms.
DeLucci unconscious lying on the floor of the bathroom wearing
nothing but her bathrobe. Running down her leg, was a stream of
brown and green syrup. The medic had to transfer her to a
stretcher, so he grabbed her left leg, which was bent crossing her
other leg, to straighten her out. She was lying there all twisted
up. When he lifted her leg to straighten her left leg to straighten
her body out, he exposed her vagina, at which point a creature, no
larger than the tip of a finger wormed its way out of her genitals
and landed on the floor with a wet popping sound. Shocked, the
medic stared at the creature that was lying on the tile bathroom
floor in a casing of mucous. It was a tiny mud shrimp and it sat
there on the cold floor gasping for water while flipping back and
forth. The horrified medic turned to the toilet as he felt nausea
setting in. when he put his face down the toilet to puke what he
saw was so horrific that to this day he cannot look into a toilet
without convulsing. The entire toilet bowl was boiling with baby
mud shrimps flipping and splashing at a furious pace. If you think
that is bad - wait until you hear how it happened:
Ms. DeLucci’s official death was the result of a combination of
shock and severe head trauma. She stood up over the toilet in pain
and when she saw what she had done, she went into shock and fell,
smashing her head on the toilet and then on the floor. It is
believed by medical police that on two nights before the accident, she
had purchased a live lobster at a fish market. While lying in a tub,
she gently inserted the creature’s tail into her vagina to derive
pleasure. At that point, she held a lighter under the creature’s
face causing it to flip its tail in a violent snapping motion. The
medics
found a lesbian video in the VCR and the TV was positioned on a table
in front of the tub. The lobster was found in the kitchen garbage can
wrapped in a paper bag. Traces of Ms. DeLucci’s DNA were found on
the lobster along with pubic hairs that had wedged themselves
between the lobster tail joints. The lobsters face was lightly
burned with the same fuel used in lighters. The lobster’s digestive
track and colon were found to be full of mud shrimp egg casings.
Doctors believe that the lobster had eaten them (they are common in
the water at fish markets and are usually harmlessly boiled to
death) and the lobster had crapped them out into Ms. DeLucci’s
vagina when she was torturing it. Maine mud shrimp only take two
days gestate and Ms. DeLucci was only four days away from getting
her period, doctors believe that at that point of her menstrual
cycle, her womb was the perfect PH balance to grow these mud shrimp
which are a much larger version of the popular “Sea Monkey” pets
sold throughout the US. Over night the eggs hatched and the mud
shrimp began doubling in size every ten minutes. You can imagine
the pain she was in when she woke up that morning and gave birth to
well over 1,000 mud shrimp in her toilet