By Chuck Shepherd Lead Story * Desmond Morris's latest documentary, "The Human Animal: The Biology of Love," now on TV in England, will appear on U. S. cable TV in January and picture a human orgasm--from inside the vagina. A tiny camera, similar to those used for diagnosis of the colon, was placed inside Wendy Duffield, 31, and another was strapped onto her husband's penis. The couple reportedly had sex about 60 times to assure sufficient footage. [Chicago Tribune-Reuters, 8-18-94] Schemes * Texas A&M officials were considering charges in July that chemistry professor John Bockris used unorthodox scientific methods, and improperly circumvented school funding procedures, for his work in which he claims gold can be manufactured from other substances. In December, Bockris expressed surprise at the charges, reminding a campus newspaper reporter that he is a professor and saying, "What professor would be doing bogus work?" [USA Today, 7-5-94; Houston Post-AP, 12-24-93; Dallas Morning News, Dec93] * Delaware prison officials decided in July to allow condemned murderer Nelson Shelton to undergo a kidney removal at public expense so that he can donate the organ to his mother. The state initially refused to pay but relented when Shelton played his trump card: He threatened to use all of his legal rights to appeal his sentence, which would cost the state hundreds of thousands of dollars. [USA Today, 7-28-94] * In June, South Charleston, W. Va., inmate Robert Dale Shepard, in jail on robbery charges, escaped from a recreation yard by braiding dental floss into a rope that he used to scale a fence. To prevent such occurrences, the state of Maine prohibits inmates from having dental floss, but in July, Portland inmate Michael Tuck, 31, filed a lawsuit against the state, claiming that the policy hinders his ability to fight tooth decay. [New Haven Register-AP, 8-14-94; USA Today, 8-3-94] * In February a federal court in California dismissed the complaint of Jogezai Kakar Khan against the director of the FBI and about two dozen other defendants for harassing him. The other defendants included President Bush, "the Queen of England," French President Mitterrand, the San Francisco Chronicle, some college professors, several street gangs in Hong Kong, "the drug cartel," H. Ross Perot, Paul Newman, Kirk Douglas, Frank Sinatra, Dennis Hopper, Phil Donahue, "the founders of Israel," Oliver North, and a "humanoid alien extra-terrestrial leader speaking Greek." [Khan vs. Sessions, No. C93-04394, U. S. District Court, Northern District of California, 2-8-94] * In June, police in Deventer, Netherlands, arrested six women and a man they said had been robbing local supermarkets. The women would enter the market and disrobe down to their underpants to create a distraction, while the man walked into the manager's office and grabbed money. [Tampa Tribune-AP, 6-7-94] * In June, Michael Frazier, the "lifestyle" editor of the daily newspaper in Oak Ridge, Tenn., was charged with attempted murder of the husband of a woman he had written about. According to police reports, Frazier and Lisa Whedbee began an affair shortly after he interviewed her. In a plot to kill John Whedbee, Frazier was to pose as a robber-intruder and stab John while Lisa stood by with a baseball bat and pretended to defend John. According to John, Frazier seemed tentative, causing Lisa to break character and yell to Frazier, "You've got to do it, just do it now." [Knoxville News-Sentinel, 6-10-94 and subsequent days] * In July, Mollie Brusstar, 48, was convicted of two counts of embezzlement from the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, Va., where she had been employed in administration. According to the prosecutor, Brusstar put imaginary employees on the rolls and issued their paychecks to herself. She and a sister went to Utah and, posing as nuns, used the money to obtain dental work and cosmetic abdomen-reduction surgery. Brusstar's defense was that a monsignor had approved everything, but he was unavailable to testify, having committed suicide in the interim after being accused of molesting a parishioner. [Northern Va. Sun, Jul94] Feuds * In August, to climax a feud in Concordia Sagittaria, Italy, a judge ordered Maria Bruna Bortolussi to keep her talking blackbird away from neighbor Norina Miorin, after Miorin testified that Bortolussi had taught the bird to say, in Italian, "Norina, I'm going to kill you." The two were fussing over a garden. [Edmonton (Alberta) Journal, 8-21-94] * In Minot, N. D., in June, a woman ran into a police station asking for protection from her husband, who was chasing her. She was told to be seated in the waiting area, but before police could get to her case, they found the couple outside in the parking lot facing off, with each pointing a chain saw at the other. [Sioux Falls Argus Leader-AP, 6-12-94] Cries for Help * In May, a Denver, Colo., judge sentenced Oliver Thomas Oster, 77, to serve 12 months in prison for four attempted bank robberies. Oster, who was said to resemble the near-sighted cartoon character Mr. Magoo and who is unable to walk, attempted the robberies from a car at the banks' drive-in windows and used a gun so rusted that the cylinder wouldn't turn, which was irrelevant, said his lawyer, because Oster lacked the physical strength necessary to pull the trigger, anyway. [Denver Post, 5-7-94] Least Competent Criminals * Last fall, in Memphis, Tenn., a Loomis Armored truck guard was robbed by two men just as he was about to enter a supermarket to make a pickup. The gunmen fled with the large bag the guard was carrying, which, since the guard was entering the store at the time, was merely a bag containing other empty money bags. [Lebanon (Tenn.) Democrat-AP, 10-15-93] * In November, in St. Joseph, Mo., Michael Gene McCrary, 37, was charged with attempted robbery of a barber shop. He walked in, reportedly slightly inebriated, pretending to have a gun in his pocket, and said to barber Fred Robertson, "Set 'em up." When Robertson requested clarification, McCrary replied, "You know what I mean." A customer walked outside and summoned police. [St. Joseph News-Press, 11-6-93] I Don't Think So * In a St. John's, Newfoundland, courtroom in August, George Clarke denied that the bruises and cuts on his girlfriend's body were the result of domestic assault. He said the back bruises occurred one night when Clarke was suicidal. He said he tied a noose ineptly to an overhead pipe and ultimately fell on top of her when she tried to stop him. The bruises and cuts on her arm came because he is forced to hold her arms tightly during sex because, he said, "Your Honor, I only got a small penis on me." [CP wirecopy, 8-19-94] Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Released for the personal use of readers. No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird.