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Oh well...some weirdos really so are so desperate for their fix they'd do anything to pay for their next one...no matter how stupid the antic they'd have to accomplish to get the cash to do so. :
Surprisingly, here's another story about a "citizen-burglar" who found a corpse in a house he broke into then was good enough to call the police!
And lastly, another story of a man who could have made it to this new year's list of Darwin Awards. :
MSNBC.com
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Cop thought dead man in chair was 'joke'
Two friends hauled corpse to store to cash $355 Social Security check
The Associated Press
updated 6:20 a.m. PT, Thurs., Jan. 10, 2008
NEW YORK - Detective Travis Rapp has seen his share of corpses, but this was new: two men wheeling a rigid, pale body down a Manhattan street in a red office chair, drawing a crowd of suspicious onlookers.
Looking out the window of the restaurant where he was having lunch, Rapp initially assumed "it was a mannequin or a dummy," he said. "I thought it was a joke, honestly."
A closer inspection showed that it wasn't. The man was dead, and two of his friends had hauled his corpse to a store to cash his $355 Social Security check, police said. They were arrested before they could get the money.
The bedraggled suspects, David J. Dalaia and James O'Hare, were scheduled to appear in court Wednesday night. Police said the men, both 65, were petty criminals with long histories of heroin addiction and arrests dating to the 1960s.
Friends dressed dead man
The trouble began Tuesday when Dalaia and O'Hare tried to cash Virgilio Cintron's check at a store in Hell's Kitchen on their own, police said. The man at the counter told them that Cintron had to be present to cash the check, so they went back to his apartment, which one of the suspects shared with the dead man.
Cintron was apparently undressed when he died, sometime within the previous 24 hours. Police said Dalaia and O'Hare proceeded to dress him in a faded T-shirt, pants they could only get up part way, and a pair of Velcro sneakers. They threw a coat over his waist to conceal what the pants couldn't cover, police said.
They then put him on the office chair and wheeled the corpse over to the check-cashing store.
The men left Cintron's body outside, went inside and tried to cash his check, authorities said. The store's clerk, who knew Cintron, asked the men where he was, and O'Hare told the clerk they would go and get him.
At about the same time, Rapp spotted the men and confronted them as they were trying to haul the body into the store. He said that even after he identified himself as a police officer, O'Hare told him, "I have to get my friend in here. I have to cash his check."
He ordered the men to back away from the victim. They feigned surprise when paramedics declared him dead, Rapp said.
"When they said, 'Your friend is dead,' they said, 'Oh my God, he's gone?'"
Several bystanders witnessed scene
The scene played out on a busy Manhattan street as several people watched.
"I saw this guy sitting in this chair with his head back. He looked very dead," said Victor Rodriguez, 38, who was working at a nearby restaurant when he saw the commotion outside. "He looked very sick. His eyes were closed. He wasn't moving."
Little is known about Cintron, 66, who apparently died of natural causes. An autopsy proved inconclusive, the medical examiner's office said, and his body hadn't been positively identified as of Wednesday afternoon.
Relatives told police that he had recently been hospitalized for Parkinson's disease. Police said his rap sheet was long, with arrests for burglary, assault and drugs. Locals said that Cintron and O'Hare often frequented a food pantry down the street.
A telephone number listed for Cintron at the apartment he shared with O'Hare went unanswered. Police said they didn't have an address for Dalaia or attorney information for him or O'Hare.
Regardless of what happens to the defendants, they can take solace in the fact that they fooled one onlooker with the dead man disguise.
"He went in regular clothes. I didn't even know he was dead. I thought he was alive," said Gerit Ahemed, a clerk at a nearby deli.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22590332/
Surprisingly, here's another story about a "citizen-burglar" who found a corpse in a house he broke into then was good enough to call the police!
Burglar finds corpse and calls police
Police: Flat resident dead for two weeks; no sign of thief
The Associated Press
updated 6:04 p.m. PT, Thurs., Jan. 17, 2008
BERLIN - A Berlin burglar's break-in took an unexpected turn when he stumbled upon a corpse and felt compelled to call the police.
"He called to say he'd just broken into a flat and found a dead body," said a spokeswoman for Berlin police Thursday. "He gave the address of the place and then hung up."
Officers discovered the 64-year-old resident of the flat dead in his bedroom. The man had passed away about two weeks ago, and authorities are not treating the death as suspicious.
The burglar has not been heard of since. Local media said he fled the apartment empty-handed, but police could not confirm this.
© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22711271/
And lastly, another story of a man who could have made it to this new year's list of Darwin Awards. :
MSNBC.com
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Man stabs self with knives in pants
Man accused of stealing hunting knives hidden in waistband trips, stabs self
The Associated Press
updated 3:23 p.m. PT, Tues., Jan. 8, 2008
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - A man who hid hunting knives in his pants to try to steal them from a western Michigan store tripped while fleeing and stabbed himself in the abdomen, police say.
The suspect was hospitalized after Monday night's attempted theft from a Meijer Inc. superstore in Grand Rapids and is expected to face a misdemeanor shoplifting charge, police say.
The wounds did not appear to be life-threatening, The Grand Rapids Press reported.
The man had put about $300 worth of hunting knives in his waistband, police told WZZM-TV. Police say he tried to leave the store, but Meijer employees confronted him and a scuffle followed.
The man then fell and was stabbed by the knives he had hidden in his clothing, police said. They said it happened about 5:40 p.m.
"The man was taken to the hospital," said Meijer spokesman Frank Giuliano. "We are cooperating with the investigation by police."
Police said the suspect has a record of retail fraud.
"I saw a man laying down on the mat by the carts, a knife by him with blood on the full blade of the knife," shopper Heather Dodd told WOOD-TV. "It was not a dull kitchen knife or a sharp butcher's knife, it was somewhere in between.
"Someone was holding him down so I just walked around him, grabbed my cart, made sure everything was OK and got out of the way."
© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22560281/