NEWS OF THE WEIRD

LEAST COMPETENT CRIMINAL Matthew Davies, 47, of Dunfermline, Scotland, pleaded guilty onJan. 17 to assault and robbery in the case of a bumbling Bank ofScotland holdup in September, the Daily Recordreported. On that day, Davies charged into the bank with a meat cleaver in hand and a pillowcase over his head. Unfortunately, he had neglected to cut eyeholes in the pillowcase and therefore couldn’t see—so he had to take it off. Undeterred, Davies used the cleaver to batter a glass partition on the counter and eventually took off with almost 2,000 pounds, casually wandering toward home, even stopping to pet a dog along the way. One brave customer of the bank followed Davies to his home and alerted police; there they found cash and the pillowcase, along with a stun gun. He’ll be sentenced in February.

POLICE REPORT Antoine McDonald, 21, of Altamonte Springs, Florida, became famous last year for dressing up as the Easter Bunny in Orlando,but he found his costume unhelpful onJan. 16 after ramming his motorcycle into a carport, which collapsed on a car parked there, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. A neighbor observed the Easter Bunny limping away from the scene. When officers caughtup with McDonald, lying in the back seatof a car, he denied involvement in the crash. “I wasn’t in any crash. I’m the Orlando Easter Bunny. Google it,” he claimed. “The bunny appeared to be alive,” officers reported, according to the Orlando Sentinel, and they asked him to remove the costume before arresting him and transporting him to the hospital for rib and leg injuries sustained in the crash.

PEOPLE WITH ISSUES A mystery was solved onJan. 22 in Natick, Massachusetts, when police arrested Andrea F. Grocer, 51, ofAshland, on suspicion of defecating in front of the Natick Outdoor Store eight times ov er the last four months. Henry Kanner, the store’s owner, had reported the incidents to police in December, and officers first thought an animal might be the culprit—until they found “toilet paper and other wipes,” Natick police spokesperson Lt. Cara Rossi told The MetroWest Daily News. Some of the incidents had been recorded by surveillance video,but police hadn’t been able to identify a license plate. During extra patrols of the parking lot, they spotted Grocer at 6:51 a.m. as she prepared to leave her mark again, police said. “I have no idea who she is,”Kanner said, adding that he knows of no connection she has with the store. Grocer’s lawyer described her as a “pillar of the community.”

UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT United Press International reported that an unnamed man in Orlando, Florida, got a little mixed up as he tried to fill his boat’s gas tank before a fishing triponJan. 27. Rather than putting the gas nozzle into the fuel tank, the man inserted it into a fishing pole holder and pumped 30 gallons of gas directly into the cockpit. Orange County Fire Rescue was called to the 7-Eleven, and a hazmat team siphoned most of the errant gas from the boat before the fisherman filled up the actual tank and went on his way.

OOPS! InJune 2019, the city of Roubaix, France, proudly announced it had installed 187 solar panels to generate electricity for the city’s library, and paid a local company about $113,000 for the “green” equipment. But during the installation of a wind turbine to supplement the clean energy effort in December, workers noticed the solar panels had never been connected to the library’s electrical network. Oddity Central reported the panels were intended to supply about a quarter of the library’s needed power,but “we realized this was not the case,” admitted Alexandre Garcin, the city’s deputy mayor, who did not elaborate on why it took six months to figure out the oversight.

CREEPY Houston mother Emily Madonia’s nightmare began in 2015, when the Elsa (from Frozen) doll her daughter received for Christmas 2013 began reciting lines from the movie in both English and Spanish; originally it had only spoken English. Next, the doll began speaking and singing randomly, even when her on/off switch was in the OFF position. In December 2019, Madonia threw the doll out, Click2Houstonreported, but she and her husband later found the doll in a bench inside their home. So they double wrapped the doll in plastic bags and “putit in the bottom of our garbage can,” Madonia wrote on Facebook. Days later, her daughter found the doll again in the backyard. Finally, Madonia sent the doll to a friend who lives in Minnesota, where it remained atpress time. In the meantime, Madonia has been contacted by paranormal investigators and the Travel Channel. weirdnewstips@amuniversal.com