Hard Boiled News

True Crime and News of the Weird from around the Globe

Cow Suit-Wearing Shoplifter Offers to Let Cop Suck Udder to Avoid Arrest

By HardBoiledNews Staff Leave a Comment

UDDER MADNESS: Ashley Curry tried to use her teats to get out of a shoplifting bust

PINE BLUFF, Arkansas — Sounds like a case of mad cow disease.

A woman dressed in a black and white cow costume was busted for shoplifting at an Arkansas Walmart and then told the arresting officer he could suck one of the pink udders hanging from the front of her suit.

Pine Bluff police say Ashley Curry, 27, tried to walk off with a pack of Flonase, but was spotted by security officers monitoring the store’s surveillance cameras, because of her not-so inconspicuous outfit, KATV-TV reported.

After being detained, Curry told a cop searching her, that he could “suck a pink cow udder,” as she thrust the nipples dangling from the front of her costume in the officer’s face.

It was unclear if the offer was meant as an insult or a bribe.

Either way, cops charged Curry with shoplifting and resisting arrest.

(Visited 14 times, 14 visits today)

Balcony Sniper Charged With Cruelly Gunning Down 8-Year-Old’s Pet Pup

By HardBoiledNews Staff Leave a Comment

Johansen Concepcion De La Ros is charged with opening fire on Princess from a balcony

DAVIE, Florida  — A heartless Florida teen has been charged with gunning down an 8-year-old girl’s pet chihuahua with a pellet gun from a balcony as her mother took the dog for a walk.

Cops say Johansen Concepcion De La Ros, 19,  took a knee on his pal’s second floor balcony in Davie, Florida on Saturday evening, and opened fire at the 6-pound pooch with a high-powered pellet rifle equipped with a scope.

The pellet passed through Princess’ chest, dealing a fatal wound. The little girl’s mother and her boyfriend heard the dog yelp and noticed blood coming out of its mouth, but didn’t immediately know Princess had been shot.

“We heard the pop, but it didn’t register that someone had shot the dog,” Roshelle Pearson, who bought the Chihuahua pup for her 8-year-old daughter in April, told the Sun-Sentinel.

The woman had just moved with her daughter to Florida from Wisconsin the day before, police said.

As chance would have it, an off-duty cop from Pembroke Pines happened to be walking nearby and saw a man armed with a rifle on the balcony and made the connection. He called 911 and was able to direct officers to the apartment from which De La Ros fired.

Offices found the gun, but De La Ros insisted he had simply been aiming at the water of a nearby lake and had accidentally shot the dog as it walked into his line of fire. His pal, Daniel Alvarez, told a different story.

He said he was on the balcony when De La Ros got down on one knee, looked through the scope and said, “I’m going to shoot the dog,” according to the police report.

Sadly, the dog died within minutes and when officers arrived, they found Pearson covered in blood and holding a small, limp body of a brown and white dog.

At first, Pearson said she didn’t have the heart to tell her daughter that her puppy was gone.

“I told her someone shot her dog and they were trying to save it,” she said. “I wanted her to sleep last night. Today I will tell her that her dog didn’t make it.”

De La Ros was charged with felony cruelty to animals.

 

(Visited 26 times, 1 visits today)

Hungry Mosquito Swarm Forces Fleeing Thief to Surrender to Cops

By HardBoiledNews Staff Leave a Comment

Hungry mosquitoes drove a thief to give up to police in Wisconsin

CAMPBELLSPORT, Wisconsin — Sometimes it’s just better to be behind bars.

A thief on the run from police gave himself up after spending an hour hiding in a Wisconsin cornfield so filled with mosquitoes that he said he would rather go to jail.

Police say John Wilson had led officers on a high-speed chase after helping to steal alcohol from a Piggly Wiggly grocery store in Campbellsport.

Surveillance video from the store showed a man loading up his cart with hundreds of dollars worth of alcohol. The suspect then got into a car and the driver, later identified as Wilson, fled the scene, WDJT-TV reported.

At some point, Wilson stopped the car and ran into a thick cornfield in Fond Du Lac County which has been beset with mosquitoes lately due to recent rains and flooding.

Even cops found the mosquitoes tough to deal with and began searching for bug spray.

“As soon as the sheriff’s department arrived, that’s the first thing I asked for, if he could give me some spray because it was crazy,” said Campbellsport Police Chief Thomas Dornbrook.

After about an hour later, Wilson surrendered because he couldn’t stand the swarming mosquitoes any longer.

“When we handcuffed him he asked us to wipe his forehead because he had 15-20 mosquitoes on his forehead at that time,” Dornbrook said.”I think if it weren’t for the mosquitoes he would have kept walking and trying to get a ride from someone.”

Wilson is now charged with fleeing officers, retail theft, and obstructing an officer. Investigators are still hunting for Wilson’s accomplice.

 

(Visited 24 times, 1 visits today)

Oklahoma Zookeeper and Gov. Candidate, ‘Joe Exotic,’ Busted in Murder-For-Hire Plot

By HardBoiledNews Staff Leave a Comment

Joe Exotic kept more than 200 big cats at his roadside zoo in Oklahoma

OKLAHOMA CITY — The operator of a roadside zoo who ran for governor in Oklahoma earlier this year, has been charged in a murder-for-hire plot for allegedly trying to hire people to bump off the owner of a big cat rescue group in Florida, federal prosecutors say.

Joseph Maldonado-Passage, 55, who is known as “Joe Exotic” runs the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park and has been accused by animal rights groups of mistreating the big cats he keeps there.

Prosecutors say he allegedly tried to hire two separate people to kill Carole Baskin,, CEO of BIg Cat Rescue in Tampa with whom he had been engaged in a dispute with for years. She wasn’t harmed.

Maldonado had threatened Baskin online in recent  years including a video of him shooting in the head a blow up doll dressed to look like her.

“Maldonado ran, in our view, one of the most notorious cub petting roadside zoos in the country,” Baskin said.  “Years ago he also operated a traveling exhibit that would bring cubs to malls throughout the Midwest and Southwest. When Big Cat Rescue educated the malls about the miserable life this created for the cubs and the malls started cancelling Maldonado’s traveling exhibit, Maldonado retaliated by renaming his traveling show “Big Cat Rescue Entertainment” in order to confuse the public into thinking the show was operated by Big Cat Rescue.”

“In 2011, Big Cat Rescue sued for violations of its intellectual property rights and in 2013 was granted a consent judgment for over $1 million. Litigation to collect on the judgment has been ongoing since then in Oklahoma,” she said.

According to the indictment, Maldonado-Passage gave an unnamed person $3,000 to travel from Oklahoma to Florida to kill Basin. He allegedly agreed to pay thousands more after the deed, officials say.

Maldonado-Passage also repeatedly asked a second person to kill Baskin in exchange for money. But that person ultimately put him in contact connected him with an undercover FBI agent, who met with Maldonado-Passage in December 2017.

Known for his blonde mullet and expletive-laden rants on YouTube, Maldonado-Passage finished third in a three-way Libertarian primary for Oklahoma governor in June.

In October 2017, Maldonado-Passage was investigated by police when his then-husband, 23-year-old Travis Maldonado, shot himself in the head in the zoo gift shop. Garvin County Sheriff Larry Rhodes said at the time that witnesses reported Travis Maldonado put a loaded firearm to his head and pulled the trigger to prove the weapon would not fire with the magazine removed.

Maldonado married another man, Dillon Jacob Passage, in December.

 

(Visited 92 times, 1 visits today)

Hero Dog With Sharp Teeth Prevents Kidnapping of 11-Year-Old Girl in Texas

By HardBoiledNews Staff Leave a Comment

Ray played a game of hero dog by biting the creep who tried to kidnap a little girl

PASADENA, Texas — Don’t mess with this dog in Texas.

A hero pooch stopped a kidnapper in his tracks by taking a chunk out of his leg as he tried to snatch the dog’s 11-year-old owner off the street, police said.

Police in Pasadena, Texas say the dog sprang into action when the man grabbed the girl by the arm and tried to drag her into his SUV on Sunday morning.

The beagle terrier mix, named Ray, then bit the suspect on the leg, which allowed the child to run away, the Houston Chronicle reported. The man then hopped back into his car and sped off.

Police said the girl was visiting family in the area when the attack occurred.

Police say they are continuing to search for the alleged kidnapper.

(Visited 32 times, 1 visits today)

Beloved Alpaca Dies After Florida Man Feeds it Bags of Junk Food

By HardBoiledNews Staff Leave a Comment

An alpaca met a tragic end after being fed a huge amount of Doritos, Cheese Nips and peanuts

FLEMING ISLAND, Florida — What an animal!

Cops in Florida are hunting for a man who dumped bags of junk food on a field where a young alpaca gorged on it and died from overeating.

The Creekside Animal Hospital in Fleming Island says a man driving a blue car had been leaving food for the animals for weeks and that they had asked him to stop.

But late last week, he left two boxes of animal crackers, a large bag of Doritos, two boxes of Cheese Nips and two bags of whole peanuts.

Hospital officials say the young alpaca gorged himself on the peanuts and developed endotoxemia, or bacterial toxins in its bloodstream. “The little guy just didn’t know any better,” the hospital said.

“We worked on him for 36 hours and just couldn’t bring him back,” the center said.

Officials say they will likely move the remaining animals to a different location because they worry the man in the blue car might return.

 

(Visited 23 times, 1 visits today)

88-Year-Old Florida Man Arrested for Setting Racoon on Fire for Eating His Mangoes

By HardBoiledNews Staff Leave a Comment

Ezra James had had enough of a racoon eating his mangoes

PALM BAY, Florida — An 88-year-old Florida man was arrested for allegedly setting a live racoon on fire for eating his mangoes.

Ezra James told cops  in Palm Bay, Florida that he initially trapped the animal as a nuisance. But then he sprayed it with gasoline and set it on fire.

“I throw some gasoline on him and light a match,” James told WKMG-TV. “Eighty-eight-years-old, first time I ever have to go to jail. I never thought about killing nobody in my lifetime. No man, no woman, no kid.”

A neighbor who saw what was going on, called cops and James was charged with animal cruelty and later released on $2,000 bond.

“She’s a wicked woman,” James said.

When the officers arrived, they put the animal out of its misery by shooting it.

James said that he is originally from Jamaica and did not know authorities would have humanely euthanized the raccoon, so thought he had to take matters into his own hands.

“I’m not going to catch no more because I learned my lesson,” James said. “No, I’m done with that.”

(Visited 33 times, 1 visits today)

Arrest Made in Baby Stroller Shark Theft at Texas Aquarium, Shark Recovered

By HardBoiledNews Staff Leave a Comment

These three folks allegedly stole a shark and wheeled it out of a Texas aquarium in a stroller (bottom left)

SAN ANTONIO — That’s one way to take a bite out of crime.

A Texas man was arrested after he helped steal a shark right out of a tank at an aquarium and then wheel it out in a baby stroller, cops said.

The brazen burglary occurred Saturday afternoon at the San Antonio Aquarium when two men and a woman walked up to an open-topped tank amidst a crowd of people and lifted a one-and-a-half foot long gray horn shark out of the water with a towel, Leon Valley police said.

Surveillance video showed the three suspects then take the animal into a back room, where they placed it in a bucket and then put the bucket into a baby stroller which they wheeled out the front gate unnoticed, the cops said.

The heist was so bizarre that cops initially thought it was a hoax when aquarium staff called to report it.

“When we first got the call, we thought it was kind of a hoax being that it was Shark Week last week,” Leon Valley police Chief Joseph Salvaggio told KSAT-TV.

Late Monday, cops said they had picked up one of the suspects and had recovered the shark and were zeroing in on the other two culprits. Staff at the aquarium said the shark appeared unhurt.

According to the San Antonio Express, the 38-year-old man in custody — whose name had not been released — faced a charge of theft between $750 and $2,500.

 

(Visited 40 times, 1 visits today)

Middle School Teacher Dubbed ‘Kim Kardashian’ Busted for Student Sex

By HardBoiledNews Staff Leave a Comment

Teacher Shannon Moser is charged with having sexual contact with two students

WEST FARGO, North Dakota — A former middle school teacher who encouraged her students to call her Kim Kardashian, has been charged with trading sexually explicit photos with two pupils and having sex with one.

Shannon Moser, 37, had been a teacher at Liberty Middle School in West Fargo from fall 2016 until June of this year.

Police received an anonymous tip in June that Moser was having sex with a male student in a park and giving him cigarettes, the Duluth News Tribune reported. They also received tips that she was shared nude Snapchat photos with a 16-year-old student.

When cops interviewed one of the victims denied having had inappropriate relationship with Koser, but his friends said he had publicly bragged about the relation afterwards. When confronted, the boy admitted to the explicit photo exchange.

On July 11, Moser agreed to speak with investigators after officers picked her up from her home.

According to cops,, early on in the interview, Moser was reluctant to answer any questions, and kept asking what would happen to her husband and four children, saying it will ruin their lives.

She denied the student’s allegations, but said “we always preach, ‘tell the truth,’ and I have not been,” according to the report.

Moser eventually asked to speak to an attorney, but police seized her cellphone during the interview and later found URLs for porn sites that included younger boys engaging in sex with older women.

She has been charged with two counts of using a minor in a sexual performance and one count of sexual assault.

(Visited 66 times, 1 visits today)

Angry Monkey Owner Charged After Exotic Pet Attacks Home Depot Workers

By HardBoiledNews Staff Leave a Comment

OKEECHOBEE, Florida — Don’t mess with the monkey.

A Florida woman has been arrested for negligence after her pet spider monkey attacked employees at a Home Depot on more than one occasion.

Police from Okeechobee County had to track Tina Ballard down to North Carolina where she fled with the monkey, named Spanky,  in an effort to ensure it was not taken by animal protection agents. The monkey was with her in her car when she arrested, cops said.

The first monkey attack occurred while Ballard was shopping at Home Depot on May 27 and her monkey bit an employee. The incident was not immediately reported but came to light following a second incident on June 4, when the animal escaped from a truck in the parking lot and bit a woman on her back.

Ballard told store employees after the first incident that Spanky “just wanted a hug and to play.”

Investigators initially cited Ballard for failing to constrain the animal properly, resulting in an injury. She now  faces seven charges, including two for negligence for putting the public at risk.

But after fleeing to North Carolina with Spanky, Ballard faces  a felony charge of tampering with evidence. Assistant State Attorney Ashley Albright said Ballard fled to North Carolina to avoid a court hearing.

“She had sent an email to the investigating officer stating that she was aware of the hearing and she was fleeing to North Carolina in order to hide the monkey so that state officials could not take that monkey from her,” Albright said, according to WPBF-TV.

After Ballard’s arrest, police said her daughter’s boyfriend came to temporarily retrieve the monkey. The monkey will be sent to live at a primate sanctuary.

(Visited 27 times, 1 visits today)