Mark Seamands, 39, went to trial in May in Port Angeles, Wash., accused of second-degree assault and two lesser charges for the hot-iron “branding” of his three children, aged 13, 15 and 18.
Each of the kids bore the mark “SK,” for “Seamands’ Kids.”
At trial, however, the kids testified that they not only consented to the branding but thought it was cool (despite the second-degree burns), and as a result, the jury dismissed the assault charge and deadlocked on the two lesser ones.
Here’s what
science has
done for us   
Mike Morateck, 46, a self-described “man of science,” won the Jefferson, Wis. County Fair’s annual cricket-spitting contest with a hock of 21 feet, 2 inches.
His two main “scientific” secrets, he told Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel: “pick a big cricket” and “feet first on its back with the head pointing out because you don’t want the legs dragging on the way out.”
These geniuses
sure do
get around
Allen Dawes, 28, and Jimmy Lee, 43, were charged as burglars in, respectively, York, Pa. (in June), and Blackburn, England (in July), after having inexplicably left clues behind.
For reasons unreported, Dawes had left his birth certificate at the scene and Lee his DNA-laden false teeth.
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa Fla. 33679 or go to www.newsoftheweird.com.)