Merlympics – Memphis Flyer

Compelling Explanation

Dontcha hate it when you throw your husband a party and he’s just not grateful enough? Kinda makes you want to poison him — or at least that’s how 47-year-old Michelle Peters of Lebanon, Missouri, reacted, according to The Kansas City Star. On June 24, Peters was held for questioning by the Laclede County Sheriff’s Office after her husband notified police that he became “afraid for his life” after noticing that the Mountain Dew in the garage fridge “tasted weird” and he started experiencing sore throat, vomiting, and “coughing up brown/yellow thick mucus,” authorities said. He looked at video footage from his garage and saw his wife take the soda bottle and a Roundup bottle into the house. Peters initially told officers that she mixed the liquids “to use as a weed killer that she saw on Pinterest,” but eventually confessed, saying she “was mad … because she had thrown him a 50th birthday and he was not appreciative,” police said. She was charged with first-degree assault and armed criminal action. [KC Star, 6/26/2024]

But Was It Unhappy?

In the apparent first case of robotic suicide, an administrative officer robot at Gumi City Council in South Korea threw itself down a 6-and-a-half-foot-long flight of steps, France24 reported on June 26. Witnesses saw the robot, which could travel between floors on the elevator and had its own civil servant officer badge, “circling in one spot as if something was there” before the fall, but it wasn’t clear what caused the mishap. “It was … one of us,” an official said. “It worked diligently.” [France24, 6/26/2024]

Low Expectations

On July 29, Michael Patrick Fleming, 41, entered the Chase bank branch in Lady Lake, Florida, and handed the teller a withdrawal slip, The Smoking Gun reported. Fleming did not have an account at the bank and requested just 1 cent; he later told officers his plan was to get the penny, then “sit in the chair and wait for law enforcement.” His goal was to be arrested — and it worked. Fleming was charged with felony robbery and held on $5,000 bond. [The Smoking Gun, 7/3/2024]

Awesome!

Betcha didn’t know about the Merlympics in Geneva, Switzerland. The event, in existence since 2015, is designed to “prove athleticism” among mermaid competitors, KSL-TV reported. At the May games, Mia Sim, 22, of Provo, Utah, secured her title as the fastest mermaid in the world. Sim has been mermaiding for 10 years; at the Merlympics, athletes must compete in five categories, including ecology (diving to the bottom and picking up trash); underwater posing for photographs; and rescue (swimming to “save” a submerged dummy) — all while wearing full mermaid or merman gear. “It’s not a skill that’s easily learned,” Sim said of mermaiding. “This type of restriction on your body is very difficult for people to understand.” She has now been inducted into Team USA and hopes other Utah mermaids will aspire to such heights. [KSL-TV, 7/7/2024]

Keep Digging

During a court hearing on July 2 in Crown Point, Indiana, defendant Devontae Harris, 26, just couldn’t keep his shovel quiet, the Chicago Tribune reported. Lake Superior Court Judge Gina Jones was hearing Harris’ argument for a plea deal in a stalking and battery case from November 2022, but when she denied the deal, Harris called her names and said, “… you think you know about stuff. I done killed [people]. I got bodies under my belt. Go solve them.” He also threatened to throw his chair at the judge and asked her to perform a sex act on him. Jones added 210 days to Harris’ jail term, increasing it to 13 months. [Chicago Tribune, 7/5/2024]

Weird in the Wild

Bigfoot walks among us — or at least among campers in Louisiana, MSN reported. On June 28, the Natchitoches Parish Sheriff’s Office responded to a call for help from a group of campers, high school graduates from Houma, Louisiana, who were celebrating their matriculation. The kids were camping in Kisatchie National Forest and told officers they heard growling and saw a 5-foot-tall animal with glowing eyes. Officers were unable to locate the creature, but they escorted the campers back to their vehicle. [MSN, 7/2/2024]