Dateline: EnglandA homeowner is offering a £100 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person who stole the speed bump from in front of his house. As reported in the Torquay Herald Express, Trevor Barfoot had the bolt-on, rubberized hump installed over the summer following a series of accidents on the private road which runs past his home in the seaside town of Paignton, located on the southern English coast of Devon. “We only put the ramps down in July this year to slow down the traffic using the private road as persons and animals have been injured by motorists speeding into and out of the site,” Trevor told the Herald Express. Somehow, the speed hump went missing on the evening of Sept. 9. Despite CCTV capturing an image of the alleged suspect—a white male in an sport utility vehicle—police have yet to make an arrest. “In the scheme of things, this crime might not be important, but if someone is injured as a result of this selfish and gratuitous act of one individual, the consequences to them and their families could be tragic,” warned Trevor.Dateline: EnglandTwo women were jailed after a bizarre kidnapping that included Pokémon, twerking and a videocamera. Ana Khan, 28, and Tanieka Higgins, 25, were accused of humiliating 26-year-old Christopher Pugh and ordering him to dance while a third person filmed. “He was, in effect, falsely imprisoned and this was really cruel, bullying behavior,” Judge Jeremy Lea said in Nottingham Crown Court. According to court testimony, Khan lived in the same three-story house as Mr. Pugh in Radford, Nottingham, when he was attacked on March 14 of this year. Khan reportedly knocked on his door at 11am and asked to borrow his cell phone because she had no credit left on hers. Khan took the phone into her room and Pugh followed. There, he ran into Higgins, who lives in Cotgrave, Nottinghamshire. At that point, “both defendants told him they did not have his phone.” said Prosecutor James Armstrong-Holmes. “They denied having it for 15 minutes. They both became aggressive and said they needed money and that he had to buy his phone back.” The women then pulled out knives and said they were going to stab him. According to Armstrong-Holmes, the women then “grabbed his wallet from his jacket, took £40, his house keys, headphones, pouch of tobacco and lighter.” After that, the women “went with him to his room and stole a Pokémon toy and a duck-shaped soap-on-a-rope.” Pugh, who was apparently dressed in a “Pokémon onesie” the entire time, was then taken back to Khan’s room where the two women “ordered him to twerk” to “gangster music” or he would be stabbed. Gregor Purcell, defending Khan, admitted she had “behaved utterly reprehensibly.” Pugh’s ordeal came to an end after about 90 minutes when he managed to escape through a bedroom window and alert police. Judge Lea sentenced the perpetrators to three years nine months in prison and imposed a five-year restraining order on the women to stay away from their victim.Dateline: New YorkA heroic citizen rescued his neighbor’s dog from a blazing house fire, but was shocked when other people on the block refused to help him and didn’t even thank him afterward. Turns out the man was just high on LSD and imagined the whole inferno. Neighbors told NewsChannel 13 that 43-year-old Michael Orchard of Inglewood Drive started banging on doors on the afternoon of Thursday, Oct. 13, screaming about a fire. Unable to get any assistance—mostly because there was no fire—Orchard allegedly drove his black BMW through his neighbor’s fence before knocking down the back door and “saving” the family’s large white dog. Police found him shortly after that, standing outside the home heroically cradling the animal. “He believed that the residence was on fire and he was rescuing the dog,” Trooper Mark Cepiel told reporters. Unfortunately, state troopers say Orchard had mixed cough syrup with LSD and was hallucinating. The dog was fine. The house was not engulfed in flames. Orchard was charged with second degree burglary and third degree criminal mischief and booked into the county jail on $15,000 bail.
Compiled by Devin D. O'Leary. Email your weird news to devin@alibi.com.
