News of the Weird

Prosecutors in Portland, Ore., took the death penalty off the table for Tremayne Durham in July, accepting a minimum 30-year prison term for an "aggravated murder" over a business deal. Durham agreed to plead guilty when prosecutors relented to his additional demand of two pig-out meals (featuring KFC, Popeye's and Häagen-Dazs right away, and pizza and lasagna on the day the judge accepts the plea). Prosecutors said they hated appearing to cater to the whims of a murderer, but eyeing the expense of a long trial and lengthy appeals, as well as the turmoil for the victim's family, they agreed. In August, the judge accepted the deal.

• Although it has been on national cable TV since mid-July, ratings have not been spectacular for the G4 channel's game show, "Hurl!" -- leaving many Americans unaware of precisely how far standards of taste have fallen. Contestants are forced to gorge themselves, then are purposely, rapidly twirled and shaken on carnival-type rides, with the last player to retain his stomach contents declared the winner. Wrote a Washington Post reviewer, it's "for people who found 'Fear Factor' much too nuanced."

• A Dallas entrepreneur recently created a programmable device for those busy parents who actually need to be reminded that they brought their tots with them in the car (lest their child become one of the several hot-car deaths a year in America). Provided that they're not too busy to set the system up, an alarm alerts them if they exit the car without the baby. Said one Texas woman interviewed by NBC News, "As a mom, you can get really distracted."

In June, federal judge Ronald Leighton summarily tossed out the initial pleading of Washington state attorney Dean Browning Webb, whose client is suing GMAC Mortgage, because Webb had submitted 465 pages, with meticulous detail, including 37 pages quoting e-mails, and 341 pages asserting claims that freely repeated each other on points they had in common.

• Victor Rodriguez, 21, about to be arrested on a domestic assault charge in Bridgeport, Conn., in June, turned to his 9-foot-long pet python and, as police approached, shouted to the snake, "Get them!" It remained motionless.

• In July, Josef Fritzl, the man who imprisoned his daughter and her children for 24 years in a dungeon in their home in Amstetten, Austria, told his jail's officials that he needs daily exercise outside because he hates being cooped up in his cell.

• Lamont Cooke was arrested by a SWAT team in Vernon, Conn., in July after spending the last year on the run from Philadelphia and Maryland authorities, who wanted him on charges of kidnapping and murder. According to the arresting U.S. marshal, Cooke surrendered quietly, except that he wet his pants.

• A police task force in Orem, Utah, arrested a 21-year-old gang member in June, catching him riding a tricycle that he had just stolen from a little girl.

A man (dressed as a woman) got away after the attempt at Joe's Cafe in Metairie, La., in July, but he lost money in the deal. As a ruse to get a clerk to open the cash register, he handed over a $5 bill to pay for two doughnuts, and, with the register then open for change, pulled a gun and demanded the contents. The clerk immediately became hysterical and started screaming, and the frightened robber fled the restaurant without his $5, his doughnuts or the loot.

Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679, or weirdnews@earthlink.net, or go to www.newsoftheweird.com.