News of the Weird: Dead cat turned out to be alive

Nicci Knight of England was enjoying a vacation in Turkey when her neighbors alerted her that they had found her cat, Ted, drowned in their pond. “I had to break the news to my husband and our four children, and we were all absolutely devastated,” Knight said. The BBC reported on Sept. 6 that Knight arranged for her pet to be cremated and went on with the trip. But four days later, her cat sitter, who had been looking after the family’s other cat, called her and said Ted had just walked through the cat flap on the door. Knight realized she had paid 130 pounds (about $170) “to cremate someone else’s cat.” After returning home, she collected the cremains, which had been labeled “Not Dead Ted.” The family has not been able to trace the owner of the drowned cat; they believe it was a stray.

When Las Vegas police responded to a call in the wee hours of Aug. 27 about someone lying face-down on the ground outside a funeral home, they found a corpse, with a casket nearby on a rolling cart. KTLA-TV reported that a door to the funeral home was open, and flower petals were scattered on the floor leading out of the door. Investigators learned that the body was that of a person who had been the subject of a viewing the previous day, and surveillance video showed a woman breaking in and moving the casket outside. Police arrested Patricia Sierra, 47, the next day and charged her with grand larceny, burglary and disturbing human remains. She couldn’t explain her actions, she said, because she had blacked out from drinking beer. Sierra was jailed in lieu of $11,000 bail.

How else do you celebrate Labor Day in Michigan than by participating in a ranch dressing chugging contest? Fox17-TV reported that Zach Orvis of Belding, Mich., won the first-ever competition at the Harmful Roester restaurant by downing 24 ounces of the creamy delight in 10 seconds, beating 11 other contestants. “I’ve seen people pour about that much on their salads, so what’s the difference?” Orvis said. He won a $100 gift card and a free order of all-you-can-eat wings every week until spring.

A man suffered two brain bleeds, skull fractures and facial bone fractures, Las Vegas police said, after a convenience store clerk beat him with a bat for putting too much cheese sauce on his nachos. On Sept. 3, KSNV-TV reported, officers were called to the store where the man was lying on the ground, bleeding. The person who called 911 asked the clerk, Myron Bullie, to call for help, but he responded, “I’m not going to call 911. He’d better have learned a lesson.” Bullie told police he had warned the victim about taking too much cheese. Bullie is being held in lieu of $10,000 bail.

While Britain’s policing minister, Dame Diana Johnson, was addressing senior police officers on Sept. 10 about an “epidemic of antisocial behavior, theft and shoplifting,” someone lifted her purse, the BBC reported. Police said they had arrested a 56-year-old man; he was released on bail.

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