By Checuk Shephard Lead Story * Two Serbian designers announced in Belgrade in May that they would soon begin manufacturing cologne called "Serb," in a canister that resembles a hand grenade. In a press release, the two said, "We don't have to be ashamed, because everything vile has already been blamed on the Serbs." [[Bangkok Post-Reuters, May94; St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 5-9-94]] Police Blotter * In April, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation used laser light technology to identify the prime suspect in a hit-and-run injury in rural Johnson County. Although witnesses said only that the hit-and-run vehicle was a black hatchback, Bureau investigators found that the collision was so hard that the first two numbers of the license plate and the month of expiration were imprinted on the victim's pants, and the only black hatchback with those numbers belonged to a 51-year-old man, who was arrested. [AP wirecopy, 4-27-94] * In February, William James Silva, 44, was arrested in San Jose, Calif., when he allegedly robbed a police decoy posing as a street-corner drunk. It was the 550th time Silva had been arrested, and his record reaches 127 feet of computer paper. (According to police, before robbing the decoy, Silva had argued with a friend about whether the man was a police officer, with Silva insisting he wasn't.) [Santa Clarita Signal, Feb94] * Assault and indecent exposure charges were filed against Shakespearean actress Barbara Kinghorn in St. Joseph, Mo., in April after she, naked, allegedly attacked a 52-year-old woman on the indoor track at Northwest Missouri State University. Kinghorn allegedly had first thrown herself at the woman's husband, asking him, "Can I give it to you?" and when the woman objected, Kinghorn attacked her. Kinghorn was in town to play Lady Macbeth in a local production. [St. Joseph News-Press, 4-28-94] * In February, customs officials in Taiwan seized 11 tons of chicken testicles, which they said had been smuggled in from Hong Kong. The Chinese delicacy, said to be an aphrodisiac, was disguised as frozen shrimp. [Japan Times-Reuter, 2-23-94] * According to a police affidavit (uncovered by The Oregonian) in support of two prostitution arrests in Portland, Ore., last summer, a confidential informant was given enough police department money that he was able to procure masturbation services six times from the A-1 Massage Studio, which was operated by two sisters, ages 73 and 70. [Oregonian, 8-25-93] * In Enumclaw, Wash., in November, a woman summoned police to her home when she thought she had found a mysterious supply of drugs, but police determined the substance to be caulking material. And in Oakland, Calif., Louis C. Clark filed a lawsuit against the city in December for their roughhouse behavior in arresting Clark for possessing cocaine, which turned out to be only his denture adhesive. [Enumclaw Courier-Herald, 11-10-93; San Francisco Chronicle, 12-30-93] Schemes * Last July, Hidekazu Watanabe, 36, was arrested in Kawasaki, Japan, by a store security guard as he was attempting to shoplift a handbag and 16 other items. A search of his home turned up about 1,700 more stolen items, and according to a police officer, Watanabe said he had hoped to steal enough goods to open a discount shop. [Japan Times, 7-12-93] * In October in Orlando, Fla., James Zimmerman, 39, was charged with grand theft of gasoline. According to police, Zimmerman used a specially-equipped van with a hose that could suck up gasoline from service-station storage tanks into containers in his van. He would then empty the gasoline into a 600-gallon drum in his back yard, then sell it from his front yard at about 80 cents a gallon. [Orlando Sentinel, 10-17-93] * Malaysia's New Straits Times reported in February that a man in Perak, Malaysia, was arrested after several incidents in which he climbed on roofs at night and, using a fishing line and hook, lifted the sarongs of sleeping women to look at their bodies. [Boston Sunday Herald, Feb94] * At least a dozen Hungarians have committed suicide since 1989 as a result of a widespread pyramid scheme in earthworms that spread with the country's diminishing economic fortunes. Typically, a family would purchase several hundred thousand earthworms with proceeds from their life's savings or borrowing heavily at 30% interest. Earthworms eat manure and excrete their own nutrient-rich dung, and promoters, with the help of government agencies and banks, fraudulently convinced the investors that such rich soil could easily be sold abroad. [San Jose Mercury News-Knight Ridder, 3-21-93] Most Dysfunctional Family * In January, Colin Wood, who has spent 17 of his 35 years behind bars, escaped from prison in Guelph, Ontario. Colin, his twin brother Douglas, brothers David, 40, and Philip, 37, and the wife of another brother have between them more than 140 criminal convictions. Yet another brother had a lengthy criminal record, but has recently gone straight. When Douglas was deported to England in 1985, he had to be flown on a military airplane because commercial airlines would not take anyone so violent. The other brothers will be deported, also, at the end of their prison sentences. At Douglas's deportation hearing, their mother, Patricia Wood, described her sons as "a family of young gentlemen." [Edmonton Journal-Toronto Star, 3-20-94] Cries for Help * Roberto Carlos da Silva, 21, confessed to police in Sorocaba, Brazil, in February that he was so consumed with grief over the death of his fiancee that, three months after her burial, he dug up her body, which still had her wedding dress on, and had sex with it. He told the Estado news agency, "I was desperate and needed her." [Edmonton Journal-Reuter, 2-10-94] Least Competent Person * Fort Worth, Tex., police arrested Philip G. Rojo, 24, in April after they had stopped his car at a roadblock because he was not wearing a seat belt. The police said they began backing away from the car when they spied three silver pipe-like packages on the floor, telling Rojo they feared the packages were a pipe bomb. Reportedly, Rojo tried to reassure the police and blurted out, "Man, that ain't no pipe bomb. That's cocaine." [Dallas Morning News, 5-2-94] Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. 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