The Odd Truth, July 15, 2003
The Odd Truth is a collection of strange but factual news stories from around the world compiled by CBSNews.com's Brian Bernbaum. A new collection of stories is published each weekday. On weekends, you can read a week's worth of The Odd Truth.
1 Dead In Human Catapult Caper
LONDON - Police said Monday they have charged two men with manslaughter in connection with the death of a Bulgarian student who died in a human catapult stunt.
Kostadin Yankov, 19, a first-year student at Oxford University, died after missing the net when he was catapulted through the air at Middlemoor Water Park in Woolavington, western England, on Nov. 24.
Avon and Somerset Police did not identify the two men, aged 44 and 32. They are due to appear in court on July 23.
Human Cannonball Fares Better
MILWAUKEE - The crowd counts down three-two-one and the cannon fires with a boom, launching a man high over the flapping flags of the circus big top.
A blink of the eye later, David Smith Sr. — the Human Cannonball — plummets back to Earth, bouncing on his back into a mesh netting.
Smith, 61, has been wowing crowds for more than 30 years. Dozens ignore the lions and tigers for a minute to cheer this 175-foot shot.
It's the fans that keep Smith flying high.
"When I go to work, 99 percent of the time they go bananas," said Smith, whose silver performance suit matches his thinning hair. "Everyone is friendly. You see the good side of people all the time."
Smith — who said he broke his own world record with a 201-foot cannonball shot last August — performed with his son, David Jr., over the weekend as part of the Great Circus Parade through downtown Milwaukee. Five of Smith's eight children also are human cannonballs.
According to Smith, one cannon shot is more or less like any other.
"You're in there, and then you're out," said Smith. "There's no 'Here we go."'
Phony Policeman Orders Illegal Strip Search
PANAMA CITY, Florida - Strip or go to jail. A Winn-Dixie supermarket employee says that's the order she got from her boss. Police in Panama City, Florida, have arrested assistant store manager James Marvin Pate on charges of false imprisonment and lewd and lascivious behavior. The woman told investigators Pate called her into his office for a strip-search last Friday. The woman says Pate claimed to be acting on the orders of a man who was impersonating a police officer on the phone. Police say he handed the phone over to the woman, who then undressed. According to investigators, the woman said she was also forced to pose in various positions. Authorities say they've been getting complaints about similar phony cop calls for five years.
The Customer Is Always Right
KANSAS CITY, Missouri - A motel guest who complained for three days about the foul odor in his room apparently had a lot more to complain about.
Turns out he was sleeping over a dead body. Workers found the remains of a man hidden under a mattress at the Capri Motel in Kansas City.
When the guest first complained about the odor on Thursday, motel management told him nothing could be done. He finally checked out Sunday, saying he couldn't take it anymore.
A cleaning crew then found the body — which police think had been there for several days. No word yet on who the man was or how he died. Police are investigating, but have made no arrests.
Lacrosse Coach Guilty In Teenage Seduction
WEST CHESTER, Pennsylvania - A 39-year-old Pennsylvania woman has pleaded guilty to having sex with teenage boys she coached in a lacrosse league.
Her lawyer says Elisa Fritter admitted to having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old and admitted providing alcohol to about 15 minors at a party.
Fritter pleaded guilty to more than 60 counts and faces a maximum sentence of hundreds of years in prison. Her lawyer says he will seek probation. No word on what sentence prosecutors will ask for.
Online Kidney Sale Thwarted
KASSEL, Germany - A German court on Monday sentenced an Austrian-born mechanic to four months probation for attempting to sell one of his kidneys over the Internet.
Michael Brand, 48, was also fined $2,260 by an administrative court in the central city of Kassel for violating laws on transplantation by offering the kidney in January 2001 on a German-based online auction site. Brand sought a minimum price of 130,000 marks ($75,000).
Brand told the court his intention was only to help his girlfriend pay off debts.
"I didn't want to make myself rich," he said.
The defendant's plan was thwarted by a journalist from RTL television, who arranged to meet Brand and then secretly filmed their negotiations. On Monday, Brand said he now has problems with one of his kidneys and was relieved the transaction didn't happen.
Illegal trade in organs carries a prison sentence of up to five years in Germany. Prosecutors had sought nine months probation for Brand.
Mama Mia! Brits Uncover First Lasagna Recipe
LONDON - After a hard day's jousting, what a medieval English knight needed was ... a plate of lasagna.
And he apparently could have it, according to British researchers who claim to have found a British recipe for lasagna dating from the 14th century — long before Italian chefs came up with the delicious concoction of layers of pasta topped with cheese.
"This is the first recorded recipe for a lasagna-based dish," David Crompton, one of the researchers, said Tuesday. "The Italian dish has tomatoes, which were only discovered two centuries later in the New World."
Crompton didn't claim that the English invented lasagna, and other food historians have suggested the dish has a very ancient history.
Crompton and others who are organizing a medieval festival to be held at Berkeley Castle in southern England later this month found the recipe in "The Forme of Cury" at the British Museum, commissioned by King Richard II in 1390 and regarded as one of the world's oldest recipe books.
"We prepared the medieval lasagna yesterday at the castle and it was delicious, although strangely sweet and spicy," Crompton said. Among its ingredients are cinnamon and saffron, not usually found in the Italian version.
To create loseyns (pronounced lasan), "The Forme of Cury" advises the cook to make a paste from flour of "panedemayn," a substance which hasn't been identified; roll it thin and cook it with grated cheese and sweet powder.
Predictably, the Italians are having none of it. "Whatever this old dish was called, it was not lasagna as we make it," The Daily Telegraph quoted an Italian Embassy spokesman as saying.
Man Burns Savings In Interest Rate Protest
HONG KONG - A man decided he literally had money to burn and angrily set fire to thousands of dollars in cash because his savings had earned virtually no bank interest.
Newspapers and officials said Tuesday that Chan Pak-yu, 63, burned 22,000 Hong Kong dollars (U.S.$2,800) to protest interest rates that have fallen to near zero.
He was outraged when he realized his nest egg of $346,580.05 ($44,400) had generated only $17.50 ($2.24) at the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp. over the past six months, the South China Morning Post reported.
On Monday Chan withdrew all but 5 Hong Kong cents and started burning the cash, according to the Oriental Daily News.
News accounts described Chan as a homeless scavenger who lives on next to nothing despite his savings.
Police were called to the scene and found Chan with seven bank notes ablaze.
Chan later calmed down and stopped burning money, said police spokeswoman Carrie So. She said she could not confirm other details from the news reports.
The Oriental Daily News said Chan later put his money back in the bank, minus $22,000 ($2,800) he had destroyed.
Hong Kong links its dollar at a steady exchange rate to the U.S. dollar, and interest rates in the territory have plunged along with a series of cuts by the U.S. Federal Reserve.
The rate on savings deposits at HSBC now stands at 0.01 percent.
Chan reportedly spends about $10 ($1.28) a day and profits from selling items collected from trash cans and dumps. Newspapers said Chan sleeps in the open and has a makeshift shack made of plastic sheets and wooden planks.