She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not...
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Four days before her wedding, Jennifer Carol Wilbanks left her house for an early morning jog. A marathoner, this activity was not unusual. But this Tuesday morning, Wilbanks, daughter of a prominent family, did not return. Her fiancee reported her missing and soon a missing persons search was underway. But on Friday, after hundreds of police and volunteers had searched the woods near the Duluth, Georgia home, they called off the hunt. Suspicion of foul play was then directed to her betrothed, John Mason. With no signs of foul play and no leads, a $100,000 reward was offered. It appeared that on Saturday, the day of the wedding, the 600 guests would be attending a prayer service instead of a wedding. That morning family members received a phone call from her. She was okay. She was in Mexico. It seems the bride-to-be had gotten a sudden case of cold feet.
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Buried Treasure
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A trio of "intelligent excavators" got themselves literally to the root of trouble. Digging up a tree's roots from one of the men's backyard, they found a tin containing about $7000 face value of turn-of-the-century bills worth a whopping $150,000. In a whirl-wind tour, Timothy Crebase, Barry Billcliff and kevin Kozak, appeared on CNN, the Today Show and Good Morning America. They should have laid low. They might have gotten away with it had they kept their find a secret. It turns out the "treasure" was not found in the roots of a tree after all. Two of the men were roofers, and were repairing a roof on a barn. It was there, beneath a gutter in the rafters, that they found the tin. It was like a dream come true. Looking for a way to insure they kept their find, they devised a scheme to "find" elsewhere. The men didn't count on their story seeming suspicious to the law, however. There were subtle differences in each man's version of the discovery. Learning of the roofing job and the results of background checks, led to interrogations. It turns out that one of the men, Kozak had a criminal record with 2 years probation on counterfeiting charges. When one man finally confessed to the hoax, subsequent arrests of the three and a fourth man resulted. The farm owner said the money probably belong to her grand uncle or great-grandfather who sold cider during prohibition. A cousin of the home owner said, "Those guys weren't very bright."
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Armed and Dangerous
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At a Fall River, Massachusetts elementary school, police slapped handcuffs on both the wrists and ankles of a severely handi-capped 7-year-old boy. It was the boys first day at the school after being transferred from a Boston school. In an assembly he was told to sit down. He immediately went into a tantrum. In the end, the boy trashed the principals office, assaulted three teachers, and punched a policeman in the groin. Paperwork from the DSS, the Department of Social Services, was not sent to the new school. That paperwork would have detailed the boy's special needs. A spokes person for the Police Department said they would file charges of four counts of assault and disturbing the peace of the school assembly. The District Attorney said he doubted he would press the charges. The police said they did the right thing, and the cuffing was to prevent the boy from hurting himself and others. He was uncuffed when his mother arrived to pick him up.
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If I Wanted Any Crap ...
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The Dave Matthews Band has agreed to pay $200,000 to an environmental fund. The payout was the result of a lawsuit against the band. A tour bus the band was using dumped human waste while crossing a bridge. The waste poured into grates on the bridge, which in turn fell onto people in an architectural tour boat on the Chicago River. The open deck of the tour boat had as many as 100 people. The band assured the Illinois Attorney General that the incident would not happen again. For good measure, the band will keep a record of when and where they dump the buses' septic tanks. I wonder if the band had beans for lunch that day?
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~No.127
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