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Naked burglar found hanging from rafters



Staff Special to The News

GARLAND – A burglar apparently has discovered that taking drugs can land one in jail – especially if the drugs are “taken” before one is finished with the burglary, Garland police said Tuesday.

Shortly before dawn, officers said they answered an alarm at the Orchard Hills Drug Store, in the Orchard Hills Shopping Center, and found a suspect still inside.

The 18-year-old man was hanging from the rafters – literally – and was nude, officers said.

Police said the man, while robbing the pharmacy, apparently began swallowing some of the drugs he had been in the process of stealing. They said the man then removed his clothing, borrowed some of the store’s toiletries to shave the hair from his body, and climbing into the rafters 10 feet above the floor of the pharmacy store.

After the man was arrested and booked into city jail, one Garland officer quipped, “I guess he just got too involved in his work.” Dallas Morning News 8/9/78



Writer claims beer pickled his brain

OKLAHOMA CITY (UPI) – A writer, claiming hit brain had been pickled by beer containing 3.2 per cent akohol, has filed a $2 million lawsuit against Coors beer and the tavern owner who sold it to him.

Woodrow W. Bussey filed the suit Monday against the Adolph Coors Co. and tavern owner Adrian Lovett. Bussey claimed he has been a regular customer of the tavern since May 1978 and “consumed much Coors beer, which was supposedly non-intoxicating.”

“This ingesting of Coors beer has pickled the brain of the plaintiff, rendering him incapable of writing up to his potential or even writing in a pro-fessional manner,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit seeks $1.5 million for “irreparable brain damage, damage to his reputation, damage to his sexual prowess and damage to his literary career,” and $500,000 for past and future medical expenses.

DTH 2/7/79

Inmate treated after swallowing eyeglasses

GOLDEN, Colo. (UPI) – A county jail inmate who made a second attempt to commit suicide by swallowing eyeglasses was reported in stable condition Wednesday at Colorado General Hospital in Denver.

Jefferson County Undersheriff Denny Boeka said Paul Neve, 32, apparently borrowed another prisoner’s glasses Tuesday and “the next thing he knew Neve had gobbled them up.”

Lt. Earl Spenard, acting jail supervisor, said Neve ate “everything but the nosepiece and half of a lens.”

Neve, who is expected to remain at Colorado General two or three days, was treated at the same facility last week after grinding up his glasses.

Dallas Times Herald 8/24/78

Bathroom proves of little comfort



Theodore Erath, a 63-year-old clerk at a convenience store at 5037 2nd Ave., had an accident in the restroom Tuesday night.

As bad as that sounds, police said, the facts were worse.

Officers said Erath told them the store had been robbed in the past. For that reason, he said, he had started carrying a 22-caliber pistol in the waistband of his trousers.

About 7 p.m. Tuesday, police said, Erath went to the restroom and unzipped his trousers. Unfortunately, he forgot about the pistol, authorities said.

Police said Erath told them the pistol tumbled from his trousers, struck a toilet and fired, with the bullet wounding him in the right leg.

Officers said he was treatedat Parkland Memorial Hospital. DMN 1/3/78

Cold chicken causes a fight



Agence France-Presse



VIENNA – Six people needed hospital treatment after a s.word fight with 5-foot meat spits in a res-tauraunt here recently.

At issue was a cold chicken, which four West German tourists intended seizing from the kitchens after being told they were too late for a meal.

When three cooks tried to stop them, the tourists grabbed the spits’ and attacked. Police were called to break up the fight.

DTH8/10/78

A foul-up messes up this ’holdup’

(c) 1978. N.Y. Times

NEW YORK – The would-be robber had what looked like a gun, and there was menace in his tone as he announced a holdup. But the 25 patrons and employees of the Howard Johnson’s restaurant in East Norwich, on Long Island, took one look at his disguise – an undershirt pulled up over his head – and couldn’t restrain themselves.

They began “laughing hysterically,” according to the Nassau County Police. For, Worth

Star-Telegram I2/6/78