Lead Story
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In November in Orlando, Florida, a surveillance camera photographed a man robbing a bank. According to police interviewed by the Orlando Sentinel, he appeared to be wearing a fake-glasses-and-nose disguise. But when witnesses said the large nose was the man’s own, the Sentinel published his photo. Many people called the crime tips hot line and identified him as Chuck Newman. Police went to his home on December 8 and, after a brief chase, arrested him.
Dominic McDonnell and Cathy Snelson were married in London in July, just weeks after they had met while being detained during a raid on a local bar. They had chatted for two hours while sitting on the floor with their hands tied behind their backs. After police let them go, they began dating.
Thieves with unusual needs: two men in Loveland, Colorado, were accused of stealing five hedgehogs from a pet store in January; two men in Yuba City, California, tried to steal a hot barbecue grill from a county probation office picnic last April; a 43-year-old man in Wilmington, North Carolina, was charged in September with digging up and taking 1,500 Venus’s-flytraps; a 42-year-old man was charged in October with stealing six slabs of the sidewalk at Forest Avenue and Shehy Street in Youngstown, Ohio; and a serial doorbell thief hit houses in Long Hill Township, New Jersey, in May.
According to police, Cliff Brown shot his estranged wife in the head three times and then took his own life in a quiet neighborhood in Georgetown, Texas, in December. In 1989 the couple that previously owned the Browns’ house apparently suffered a similar tragedy: the wife was shot to death and the husband–the only suspect–killed himself days later.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Shawn Belschwender.
