Dateline: Oregon— The owner of a waste removal service settled a feud with a deadbeat customer by simply returning all the dog poop she had removed from the customer’s property—with interest. According to a report on KTVZ, Melinda Hofmann, owner of The Bomb Squad dog waste pick-up service in Bend, tried to collect a long overdue $150 payment from Deborah Dillow last Monday night. When Dillow didn’t answer the door, Hofmann got an idea. “I started to go back and write another note,” Hoffman told reporters on Wednesday. “But I just decided to give her poop back.” Hofmann backed up her work vehicle and dumped the day’s haul—30 gallons of feces—onto Dillow’s front yard. Hofmann said it wasn’t the most adult of decisions, but admitted, “As I was flinging the poo all over her yard, it felt really good, and I just kept doing it.” In fact, Hofmann didn’t stop “flinging the poo” until police arrived. “Very messy,” police Sgt. Dan Ritchie said. “I would imagine it probably took the homeowners quite some time to clean that mess up.” Hofmann was taken away in handcuffs and charged with criminal trespassing, criminal mischief and offensive littering. Dillow said she always intended to pay Hofmann, but is battling cancer and recently had to spend $700 on medication. Despite the outcome, Hofmann seemed unrepentant about her chosen course of action, telling KTVZ, “Do I have regrets for dumping poop back in her yard cause she’s a slacker client? Nope.” Dateline: Colorado— According to Boulder’s Daily Camera , a Commerce City man crashed his single-engine plane into a Boulder couple’s Toyota Prius and then fled the scene, telling the automobile owners that he had to rush back to the airport to take care of his dogs. Joe Curtis, 67, was allegedly trying to land in high winds at Boulder Municipal Airport last Wednesday. The elderly pilot told motorist Ken Marcoux that he didn’t realize his plane had gone off the runway and was sliding across Independence Road and into a field north of the airport. He also said he was unaware that his wingtip had smashed into the Prius’ rear passenger-side window, nearly striking Marcoux’s wife in the front seat. Curtis’ plane went on to hit a utility pole, shearing off most of its left wing before coming to a rest 100 or so yards into the field. After the crash, Curtis told Marcoux that he needed to leave to let his two dogs out of his car, which was parked at the airport. Curtis called Marcoux later that evening to explain that if he had waited to talk to investigators at the crash scene, several more hours would have passed before he would have been able to get his dogs back home. Witnesses reported seeing him run from his Beechcraft Bonanza toward Boulder Municipal Airport, clutching a large black satchel. “It’s bizarre,” Marcoux told the Daily Camera . “It’s not the behavior I would expect of another human being who had just been in an accident.” Curtis disappeared for several hours after the late-morning collision, promoting a multi-agency search for him. Curtis eventually turned himself in to federal aviation officials later that afternoon. Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett said he is considering whether to file criminal charges—namely leaving the scene of an accident—against Curtis. “When you have people flying their airplanes into cars and then running off, we would want to take a look at that,” Garnett told reporters. Garnett said he would wait for the FAA to complete its investigation before making any decisions on charges. No word on how Curtis’ dogs are doing. Dateline: Texas— Police in League City, near Galveston, are investigating an alleged threatening note written in Spanish on two corn tortillas. League City Police Sgt. David Hausam told UltimateClearLake.com that the threatening tortillas were found underneath a woman’s car early last Sunday morning after she moved the vehicle from her driveway. Hausam said the translated message read, “Do you like my tortillas? Death.” The writing was split between the two tortillas. The report did not say what was used to write the message. The woman is unsure who left the tortillas under her red Toyota Corolla, but suspects that it may have been her ex-husband. “People do some crazy stuff,” Hausman said. “But no one before has left tortillas with messages on them that I can think of.”
Compiled by Devin D. O'Leary. E-mail your weird news to devin@alibi.com.
