Dateline: Nigeria— A housewife has filed for divorce from her husband because he will not stop defecating in the family’s cooking pots. According to the Online Nigeria website, Oluwakemi Ogundele told the Igando Customary Court in Lagos earlier this month that her husband, Oluwafemi, is a violent drunkard. To add insult to injury, Oluwafemi has an unfortunate habit of pooping in cooking pots and on dinner plates when intoxicated. Mrs. Ogundele asked the court to dissolve the marriage because Oluwafemi no longer provides for her or her children and because she does not love him. Oluwafemi denied charges of spousal abuse and crockery defecation, but admitted there is no love left between the couple. The court adjourned the matter until later this month and warned the couple to remain civil with one another in the meantime. Dateline: Austria— A devout Catholic who prayed to be saved while stuck in a malfunctioning elevator rushed to a church to thank God after his rescue—and was promptly crushed to death under a stone altar. According to the U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper, Gunther Link, 45, died instantly as he was crushed under the ancient 860-pound monument in Weinhaus Church in Vienna. Roman Haslinger, a police spokesperson, told the newspaper, “He was a very religious man and had been scared when trapped in the lift and had prayed for release. A short while later, he was pulled out of the elevator, and he went straight to the church to thank God. He seemed to have embraced a stone pillar on which the stone altar was perched and it fell on him, killing him instantly.” Link’s body was found by parishioners attending Mass the next day after he had been reported missing by his cousin. Dateline: Turkey— Turkish military announced on Sept. 10 that it had stormed a house on the outskirts of Istanbul and freed nine captive women who believed they were competing on a reality show. The women were rescued earlier in the week from a villa in the suburb of Riva. A spokesperson for the military police said the women had been held captive for around two months but refused to provide further details. Several local news agencies said the women were made to believe they were participating in a “Big Brother”-type reality show for television. Instead, it appears, naked pictures of the women were sold on the Internet. The women, who responded to a newspaper ad asking for contestants to appear on a reality show for Turkish television, eventually figured out they were being tricked. Dogan News Agency reported that the women who asked to leave the villa were threatened. The HaberTürk newspaper said one of the women managed to contact a family member and asked for help. HaberTürk identified the girls as models from the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya and the Aegean port city of Izmir. “We were not after the money, but we thought our daughter could have the chance of becoming famous if she took part in the contest,” the newspaper quoted one of the women’s mothers as saying. “But they have duped us all.” Dateline: Florida— On Wednesday, Sept. 9, at 10:20 a.m., police in Bayou George arrested George R. Linthicum II, 47, for shoplifting a 12-ounce beer from a convenience store. Linthicum was waiting quietly outside the M&M Mart on County Road 2301 when a Bay County Sheriff’s deputy arrived. Linthicum allegedly admitted to stealing the beer but became combative when the deputy told him he could not finish drinking the stolen beer before going to jail. When the deputy told him to come along, the report said Linthicum raised his voice and “with an aggressive tone stated that he was going to finish the beer.” According to the Panama City News Herald, Linthicum told deputies he had recently lost his job of 13 years and just wanted to drink a beer. Linthicum was eventually charged with shoplifting, battery, possession of marijuana and smuggling contraband into a detention facility. Dateline: Alabama— In an obviously failed attempt to avoid trouble, an 11-year-old Huntsville boy faked a kidnapping so he wouldn’t have to bring home his bad report card. The unnamed student at Ed White Middle School claimed a man in a red, beat-up car grabbed him after school and forced him into the vehicle. “I’m going to take you somewhere and kill you,” the boy claimed the man said. The boy also said the man had a pistol. The 11-year-old said he managed to jump from the moving vehicle but was forced to leave his book bag—which contained his report card—behind. Police became suspicious of the boy’s story because he did manage to “escape” his captor with his band instrument intact. The boy soon admitted the ruse and apologized to police. The whereabouts of the book bag and report card are unknown.
Compiled by Devin D. O'Leary. E-mail your weird news to devin@alibi.com.
