When Ms. Nomatter Tagarira was sentenced to 39 months in jail for fraud, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and several officials were hoping to close the book on an embarrassing episode.
Tagarira had convinced them in 2007 that she had the ability, by chanting into a rock, to find diesel fuel in the ground and make it shoot to the surface.
Of course, this could only be accomplished by Tagarira’s having henchmen behind bushes using a pump, but apparently it worked, as she was rewarded with a $2.7 million fee and given use of a 50-vehicle convoy for her dowsing missions.
Her ruse was not discovered until a year later.
How did
they know
it was him?
No Time for Disguises — Larry Shawn Taylor, 18, was arrested in Seattle this fall, having been rather easily identifiable when police stopped him. Two victims had reported being robbed by a man with “GET MONEY” shaved into his haircut on one side and “GET” tattooed on his right hand and “MONEY” tattooed on the left.
At least Taylor did not claim that someone else must have had the same configuration.
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa Fla. 33679 or go to www.newsoftheweird.com.)