Going Out on a High Note
Debra Johnson, 69, of Searles, Minn., suffered from heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and mental illnesses according to the Mankato Free Press and was a patient at a transitional care center before her husband took her home to have a “death party,” he later told authorities. Brown County sheriff’s officers responding to a 911 call from Duane Johnson, 58, on Jan. 24 found the words “Death Parde God Hell” spray painted on the front door. Duane came out of the house naked, yelled that his wife was dead and quickly ran back inside, where officers found him in the bathtub. Debra’s body was wrapped in a sheet nearby. Duane told police his wife asked him to take her home to die, so they had staged the party, “rocking out” to Quiet Riot’s “Metal Health” and taking methamphetamines. After her death, Duane said he washed and wrapped her “like the Bible tells me to do.”
Cold-hearted Company
Vaev, a Los Angeles-based internet startup, is offering consumers the “luxury to choose” when to become sick with a cold, gushes 34-year-old Oliver Niessen, the company’s founder. For $79.99, Vaev will send you a box containing a petri dish, which houses a facial tissue used by a sick person. Niessen explained to Time magazine that the recipient wipes their nose with the provided tissue and contracts a cold virus to get it out of the way before, say, leaving on a vacation. But Charles Gerba, professor of microbiology at the University of Arizona, debunked Niessen’s theory: “There are more than 200 types of rhinoviruses; getting inoculated from one doesn’t protect you against all the others.” He adds that Vaev’s customers will never know what exactly is on the provided tissues, which Niessen says are produced by a “stable” of 10 go-to sneezers, some recruited on the internet. Still, Niessen claims to have sold about 1,000 used tissues, although the company’s website currently shows the product as sold out. “We’ve had some supply chain issues,” Niessen said, without offering further details.
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Sweet Smell of Excess
A motorist in New Canaan, Conn., called police on Jan. 23 after spotting a woman stopped at an intersection in the driver’s seat of her car with her eyes closed. When officers arrived, they found Stefanie Warner-Grise, 50, “unable to answer basic questions,” according to the arrest report. They “detected an odor of vanilla coming from her breath, and her speech was slurred. In addition, several bottles of pure vanilla extract were located inside the vehicle.” The Hour reported Warner-Grise failed field sobriety tests, and she was charged with driving under the influence… of vanilla. The Food and Drug Administration requires that pure vanilla extract must be at least 35% alcohol, which makes it 70 proof. Just FYI.
Getting the Jump on Crime
Police in Austin, Texas, caught up with 19-year-old suspect Luca Mangiarano shortly after a bank robbery in large part because of his choice of getaway vehicles. According to police, Mangiarano stepped into the BBVA Compass Bank on Dec. 18 and handed a note to a teller, reading: “This is a robbery, please give me all your 100’s and 50’s in a (sic) envelope, and everything will be ok.” The employee did as directed, and the robber left, hopping on a Jump electric scooter he rented and took off down the sidewalk—perhaps failing to realize that the company’s scooters are linked to GPS tracking systems. Not to mention the fact that Mangiarano had to have provided Jump with his phone number, email address and credit card information in order to use the scooter. After police obtained the necessary information from Jump, Mangiarano was arrested.
Nosey Neighbors
Penny Pospisil, 47, of Sumter County, Fla., was arrested on Jan. 25 for the alleged murder of her boyfriend, 55-year-old Anthony Mitchell, according to WFTV. Investigators believe that, last August, in the Lake Pan RV Village where Pospisil and Mitchell lived, she killed Mitchell and cut his body into pieces, living with the remains in their camper. When neighbors asked about him, she explained that Mitchell had died of natural causes, and she had him cremated. But they also noticed a foul odor coming from the camper, and that Pospisil was regularly bathing herself in a local pool. When police arrived in December to investigate her overdue lot fee, she told them that she was a victim of domestic violence and had killed Mitchell in self-defense. She faces charges of second-degree murder and abuse of a dead human body.
© 2019 ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION
