Dateline: India— The corpse of a missing dead man was located more than two years after it disappeared—on the roof of a police station in Northern India. The body of Chukkan Nishad, a 22-year-old who died in 2007, was meant to be sent for DNA testing, but was instead put in a body bag and placed on the roof. “I admit it is a horrible case, possibly the first of its kind,” Ram Sabad Ram, the new station master in Azamgarh in northern Uttar Pradesh state, told the Mail Today newspaper. “I joined here only recently and didn’t know that the corpse was kept on the roof.” The Mail said the body was placed there after local authorities refused to release the funds for a DNA test on Nishad. His death remains a mystery. Mr. Ram said police were completing formalities to return Mishad’s remains—which are little more than bones at this point—to his family. Dateline: New Jersey— An Illinois man will be sentenced to six years in prison after he pleaded guilty to accepting $470,995.53 in paychecks from a New Jersey company he never actually worked for. Anthony Armatys, 35, filled out the necessary paperwork to become a senior systems analyst for Avaya, a telecommunications firm located in Bernards Township back in 2002. He ended up not taking the job and was removed from the company’s human resource database. Thanks to a computer glitch, however, Armatys remained on the company’s payroll system. Armatys received direct deposit paychecks from the company until February of 2007, when an audit turned up the payroll error. As part of his plea deal, Armatys agreed to make restitution. Dateline: Maryland— An off-duty Baltimore police officer turned the tables on an employee at a haunted house attraction, pulling a gun on the man and scaring him half to death. Sgt. Eric Janik, 37, was charged with assault and reckless endangerment for pointing his service handgun at the House of Screams worker. Mike Morrison, 32, was dressed as Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre at the time of the incident, which took place at the Eastpoint Mall in Essex. Morrison’s job was to chase customers out of the haunted house’s final room with a chainsaw. The sharp chain on the saw had been removed. After Morrison chased Janik and his party up some stairs leading to the parking lot, a Baltimore County police report says Janik turned and pointed a black handgun at the costumed actor’s chest. “I’ve never had anything like this happen to me,” Morrison told the Baltimore Sun . When police spoke to Janik, they noticed slurred speech and “a strong odor of alcohol.” Initially, Janik denied pulling his gun out and was quoted in the police report as saying his 9-year-old daughter “may have pulled on his shirt and accidentally showed it.” Several witnesses at the scene, including a tour guide, said they saw Janik point the weapon. Police questioned Janik again, who changed his story, saying he did pull the weapon but only pointed it at the ground. Janik has since been suspended by the Baltimore Police Department. Dateline: Iowa— Police in the tiny town of Carroll had no trouble identifying two men accused of breaking into and burglarizing an apartment. Turns out guilt was written all over their faces. According to a report in the Daily Times Herald , police responded to a call about an attempted burglary at an apartment complex on Friday, Oct. 23. Despite the proximity of Halloween and what would seem like the ready availability of actual masks, a witness described seeing two men who had used black markers to obscure their faces. Police responding to the call pulled over a car matching a description of the alleged suspects’ vehicle. Matthew McNelly, 23, and Joey Miller, 20, were both arrested and charged with attempted second degree burglary. Turns out both men had used permanent marker to draw their masks on. The ink stains were still evident when police pulled them over. Both men were released after posting bond. Dateline: Utah— Four Lone Peak High School teens were cited for disorderly conduct for rapping their order at a McDonald’s drive-through in American Fork. A worker told the teens they were backing up the line and either needed to order or leave. Spencer Dauwalder, one of the alleged fast-food rappers, told KLS Newsradio in Salt Lake there was nobody in line at the time. The boys left without placing an order. Nonetheless, police tracked the teens to a volleyball game at Lone Peak High and issued citations. “We thought, you know, just teenagers out having fun,” Dauwalder told KSL. “We didn’t think it would escalate to that.” Spencer’s mother, Sharon Dauwalder, says the parents plan to fight the charges. “It was basically harmless,” she said. “It wasn’t interfering with anything, and it’s just hard to believe a ticket would be issued for that.”
Compiled by Devin D. O'Leary. E-mail your weird news to devin@alibi.com.
