Darwin Awards - Supplimental Nominees

When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked 
on a Seattle street, he got much more than he bargained for.  Police 
arrived at the scene to find an ill man curled up next to a motor 
home near spilled sewage.  A police spokesman said that the man 
admitted to trying to steal gasoline and plugged his hose into the 
motor home's sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle 
declined to press charges, saying that it was the best laugh he'd 
ever had. 

*** 
A woman was reporting her car as stolen, and mentioned that there was 
a car phone in it. The policeman taking the report called the phone 
and told the guy that answered that he had read the ad in the 
newspaper and wanted to buy the car. They arranged to meet, and the 
thief was arrested. 

*** 
David Posman, 33, was arrested recently in Providence, R.I, after 
allegedly knocking out an armored car driver and stealing the closest 
four bags of money. It turned out they contained $800 in PENNIES, 
weighed 30 pounds each, and slowed him to a stagger during his 
getaway so that police officers easily jumped him from behind. 

*** 
Drug-possession defendant Christopher Johns, on trial in March in 
Pontiac, Michigan, said he had been searched without a warrant. The 
prosecutor said the officer didn't need a warrant because a "bulge" 
in Christopher's jacket could have been a gun. Nonsense, said 
Christopher, who happened to be wearing the same jacket that day in 
court.  He handed it over so the judge could see it. The judge 
discovered a packet of cocaine in the pocket and laughed so hard he 
required a five-minute recess to compose himself. 

*** 
Clever drug traffickers used a propane tanker truck entering El Paso 
from Mexico. They rigged it so propane gas would be released from all 
of its valves while the truck concealed 6,240 pounds of marijuana. 
They were clever, but not bright.  They misspelled the name of the 
gas company on the side of the truck.

*** 
Oklahoma City -Dennis Newton was on trial for the armed robbery 
of a convenience store in a district court this week when he fired 
his lawyer. Assistant district attorney Larry Jones said Newton, 47, 
was doing a fair job of defending himself until the store manager 
testified that Newton was the robber. Newton jumped up, accused the 
woman of lying and then said, "I should of blown your [expletive] 
head off."  The defendant paused, then quickly added, "-if I'd been 
the one that was there." The jury took 20 minutes to convict Newton 
and recommend a 30-year sentence. 

*** 
R.C. Gaitlin, 21, walked up to two patrol officers who were showing 
their squad car computer equipment to children in a Detroit 
neighborhood. When he asked how the system worked, the officers 
asked  him for a piece of identification. Gaitlin gave them his 
driver's license, they entered it into the computer, and moments 
later they arrested Gaitlin because information on the screen showed 
that Gaitlin was wanted for a two-year-old armed robbery in St. 
Louis, Missouri.