Hard Boiled News

True Crime and News of the Weird from around the Globe

Cops Apprehend Two Drunk and Disorderly Raccoons in West Virginia

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Turns out the rambunctious raccoons had been hitting the fermented crabapples a bit too hard

MILTON, West Virginia — These critters got drunk as a skunk … well almost.

Police in West Virginia made their strangest drunk and disorderly arrests yet when they picked up two suspected rabid raccoons who turned out just to be drunk.

“Turns out they appear to be drunk on crabapples,” the Milton police department said in a post on its Facebook page.

The masked bandits were apprehended a day apart and in both cases, were later released into the woods unharmed after they’d slept it off. Officers named the second raccoon Dallas.

Cops said residents should exercise caution if their spot wobbly wildlife.

“If you see a staggering and disoriented raccoon please do not approach it. It could be sick so call us and we’ll take care of it,” the department said. “Welcome to Milton Dallas.”

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Sweet-Toothed Thief Steals $1,600 Worth of Cookies From Girl Scouts

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Noel Hines refused to pay for all the cookies she took

NORTH COLLEGE HILL, Ohio — What a cookie monster!

A heartless Ohio woman with a sweet tooth is behind bars for stealing $1,600 worth of cookies from a Girl Scout troop, police say.

Noel Hines has been charged with taking a large delivery of Girl Scout cookies to sell for a local troop back in March, but then never handed over any of the cash from selling them, the North College Hill police said.

For six months, the organization tried to get hold of Hines to pay up, but she never responded. Even when cops got involved, Hines refused to discuss paying for the sweets or giving them back.

So cops charged her with theft and arrested her last week while she was in court on unrelated charges.

“That’s the way the cookie crumbles,” the department said in a Facebook post.

 

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Doc Diagnoses Patient With Dementia to Avoid Paying Back $300K Loan

By HardBoiledNews Staff

The doc took $300,000 from a patient to save her practice, then declared that the lender had lost her marbles

COLUMBIA, Tennessee — A crooked doctor borrowed $300,000 from an elderly patient and then declared that she had dementia when she tried to recoup the cash, authorities said.

Suellen Lee, 79, has given up her medical license after officials discovered that she took the sizable loan from a longtime patient and then diagnosed her with the dementia when she asked for the money back, state health records show.

Lee, an internal medicine specialist, insisted she had been “set up” by her patient and only retired because she thought she couldn’t win her case.

“It was all lies and I was told that if I fought it would be extremely costly to me,” Lee told the Tennessean newspaper. “And there would still be no benefit. There was no chance of reversal.”

Officials said Lee borrowed the money after her medical clinic fell into financial straits.

The patient had been treated by Lee for 25 years and had once been a personal friend and a co-worker. State records say Lee sent a letter about the woman’s diagnosis to her daughter, who in turn forwarded the letter to the patient’s bank, which then blocked her access to her accounts..

When questioned by investigators, Lee admitted that she had made the diagnosis based off of “observation” alone, and did not use any testing method or seek a second opinion from a mental health professional.

A psychologist who later assessed the patient, found “no indication of dementia,” the records say.

Lee  said the case wasn’t as it appeared, and that she had borrowed the money 20 years ago and had regularly paid it back in installments. She also stood by her diagnosis, which occurred about two years ago, saying the patient’s behavior had grown erratic behavior and she showed signs of memory loss. Lee insisted her former patient later misled the psychologist.

“She wanted to hurt me because she was so angry with me, because I had said that she was demented,” Lee said.

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Woman Gets 20 Years for Feeding Hubby’s Slain Gal Pal to Gators in Texas

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Amanda Hayes was convicted of dumping the victim’s remains into a creek for alligators to eat them

RICHMOND, Texas  — A cold-blooded killer was sentenced to 20 years in a Texas prison for chopping up  her husband’s ex-girlfriend’s body and trying to feed it to alligators.

The sentence comes on top of the 13-to-16-years Amanda Hayes is already serving in North Carolina for the grisly 2011 slaying.

Prosecutors say cops in Fort Bend County discovered the dismembered remains of Laura Ackerson, a 27-year-old mother of two from North Carolina in Oyster Creek in Richmond, Texas, on July 24, 2011.

Ackerson had disappeared a week earlier when she headed over to Grant and Amanda Hayes’ home to pick up the children she shared with Grant Hayes.

The couple was later charged and convicted for Ackerson’s murder, with evidence showing that had killed Ackerson in their Raleigh, North Carolina apartment, cut up her body, and then transported it in coolers to the home of the 46-year-old Amanda Hayes’ sister in Richmond, Texas.

Laura Ackerson

Once in Richmond, the couple first tried to dissolved Ackerson’s body using muriatic acid, but it didn’t work. So they then took a boat onto Oyster Creek and dumped Laura’s body parts into the water with the hope that alligators would eat her remains.

At trial, Hayes testified that she didn’t kill Ackerson and only helped get rid of her body in Texas because her husband threatened her if she didn’t help.  She was convicted in just an hour and a half.

Grant Hayes is already serving a life sentence in North Carolina for Ackerman’s murder of Ackerman. Amanda Hayes will now serve a combined 36 years for Ackerman’s slaying.

“The jury verdict was swift and the Court’s sentence was appropriately harsh,” said lead prosecutor Amanda Bolin.  “Laura Ackerson’s family can be assured that Amanda Hayes will be punished for all of her barbaric behavior – whether it was in North Carolina or the great state of Texas.”

 

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Headless Body Found in Fish Tank in San Francisco Home

By HardBoiledNews Staff

 

Brian Egg had been missing for weeks before cops found the headless torso in a fish tank in his home

SAN FRANCISCO — Cops made a grisly discovery when they found a headless torso stuffed into a fish tank in the home of a man whose relatives had reported him missing.

Brian Egg, 65, was reported missing by friends and neighbors in late July and again in early August, but officers left without going into his home after finding no immediate sign of anything suspicious.

But on August 14, frantic neighbors called cops once again to report a suspicious man outside Egg’s home with a crime scene cleaning truck parked outside, the San Francisco police department said.

Officers arriving at the scene, detained the man and then called in homicide detectives after detecting a suspicious smell inside Egg’s house and spotting an excessive amount of powerful cleaning products in the home.

The next day, investigators found a headless torso inside a fish tank. The medical examiner’s office is working to determine the identity of the body and the cause of death.

Following an investigations, cops arrested two men, identified as Lance Silva, 39, and Robert McCaffrey, 52, both of San Francisco. They were charged with homicide, fraud, theft, identity theft and elder abus

Police say Silva had used Egg’s debit card to purchase a used BMW and hire the hazmat crew to clean his home.

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Handcuff Key in Cop’s Pocket Saves His Life in Police Shooting

By HardBoiledNews Staff

The bullet struck an officer’s handcuff keys, redirecting them into his bulletproof vest

VAN BUREN, Arkansas — It was the key to life.

An Arkansas police officer narrowly escaped death when a bullet fired at him struck his handcuff keys in his shirt pocket, deflecting the slug into his bulletproof vest, authorities said.

The chilling episode unfolded during a domestic dispute call in Van Buren between a husband and wife.

Two Van Buren Police officers arrived at the house and began speaking to the husband,  Johnny Fisher, 68, and asked him to step outside, but he refused, the Arkansas State Police said.

Fisher, who was standing with one of the officers, then pulled out two guns. When the second officer entered the room. Fisher pointed the guns at him and fired, prompting both cops to return fire, killing Fisher.

One of the bullets Fisher fired struck one of the officers in the chest, but the handcuff key in his pocket miraculously save his life, according to KHBS-TV.

The officer was taken to a local hospital and was later released with bruising to his chest. The second officer was unhurt.

Both officers have been put on administrative leave as the state police investigates the fatal shooting.

 

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Teen Psycho Tears Out Relative’s Eyes, Teeth in Disturbing Attack

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Police thought the elderly victim wouldn’t pull through without his eyes

ROCHESTER, Minnesota — A deranged teenager flew into a fit of rage, tearing an elderly relative’s eyes out before knocking out many of his teeth, police said.

Police arrived at the man’s home after receiving reports from neighbors of loud fighting coming from inside the apartment.

Once inside, they found 18-year-old Mahad Aziz on top of a 74-year-old man who had been beaten to a bloody pulp and whose eyes were missing. He also had lost many of his teeth, the Rochester Post Bulletin reported.

According to cops, Aziz was combative and non-verbal and fought with officers trying to handcuff him. Police said at first they believed the victim had suffered life-threatening injuries and was rushed to the famed Mayo Clinic, but he managed to pull through and was able to give cops a basic statement

Investigators say they do not believe Aziz used a weapon in the assault, but tore the relative’s eyes out with his own hands. The eyes were not recovered.

Aziz was initially booked on felony first-degree assault charges, but prosecutors later signalled they may not charge him by seeking to have him committed to a mental hospital.

“It was pretty clear that based on the nature of the assault and based on information from family members and our own officers’ observations that there was a significant mental health aspect,” prosecutor Geoff Hjerleid said.

Police said they had had no prior contact with Aziz.

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Polish Charity Gets Giant Phone Bill Due to Migrating Stork

By HardBoiledNews Staff

A SIM card taken from the GPS tracker on the stork was used to make thousands of dollars in calls

WARSAW, Poland — No good deed goes unpunished.

A Polish ecological charity got hit with a gigantic phone bill when a GPS tracker it had placed on a migrating stork was stolen and the SIM card used to make thousands of dollars in calls.

The environmental organization, EcoLogic Group, had tracked the white stork some 3,700 miles from Poland to the Sudan last year, when it lost the signal somewhere in the Blue Nile Valley.

The group assumed that the GPS device had fallen off the bird, but it appears someone found the device and pulled the SIM card out of it, placing it into a phone and then running up 20 hours worth of long distance calls, the BBC reported.

Next thing the charity knew, it had received a bill for 10,000 Polish zloty (approximately $2,700).

Tagging migrating birds has played a big role in scientists’ understanding of how better to protect endangered animals.

While the white stork is not currently at risk, it had been pushed to near-extinction in Europe in the middle of last century due to industrialization and habitat loss.

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Air Force Captain Who Disappeared With Top Secrets Found After 35 Years

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Air Force Capt. William Hughes deserted in 1983 and had been feared to have defected to Russia

FAIRFIELD, California — An Air Force captain with top secret clearance whose disappearance 35 years ago raised the specter he had given sensitive missile secrets to the Russians, has been found, authorities said.

Capt. William Howard Hughes, 66, was declared missing in 1983 after failing to return to Kirtland Air Force base in Albuquerque, New Mexico following  a temporary assignment at NATO headquarters in the Netherlands.

A probe revealed that Hughes had withdrawn $28,500 from his accounts at 19 different bank locations in Albuquerque before he disappeared. His car was found at the Albuquerque airport.

He was finally located on June 5, when investigators conducting a passport fraud probe in California interviewed a man who claimed to be Barry O’Beirne. But after questioning him about inconsistencies in his story, he admitted he was Hughes.

He told investigators that at the time of his disappearance, he had been depressed about being in the Air Force and decided to leave. He said he moved to California and had lived there since as Barry O’Beirne.

 

At the time of his disappearance, Hughes had top secret security about matters relating to NATO. His family told reporters at the time that they thought he had been abducted.

In 1984, a report in the Los Angeles Times speculated that Hughes had possibly defected to the Soviet Union and given them sensitive information about NATO defense systems.

Authorities say they have no reason to believe at this point that Hughes had given information to the Russians but were continuing to investigate.

He is being held at Travis Air Force Base in California.

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Teen Loses Hand in Sword Fight, Is Then Slapped With Severed Limb

By HardBoiledNews Staff

What started as a road rage incident quickly escalated into a full-on sword fight

SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates — Well, that certainly got out of hand.

A teenage motorist lost his hand after a road rage incident in the United Arab Emirates sparked an out-of-control sword fight, authorities said.

To add insult to injury, the man who chopped the teen’s hand off, picked up the severed extremity and used it to slap the victim across the face, Gulf News reported.

A criminal court heard this week how the road rage incident in January led to the sprawling, bloody sword fight in a park in the UAE’s third largest city of Sharjah.

The rumble involved two groups of teens, a dozen in all and all of them under the age of 16, prosecutors said.

The victim who had his hand chopped off had been trying to protect himself from a sword blow and had put his hands up in front of his face, his lawyer, Abdullah Salman, told the court.

After his hand hit the group, his attacker allegedly picked it up and began beating him with it, the court heard.

The victim’s pals were able to rush him and his severed hand to a local hospital where doctors were able to reattach it.

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