Conventional academic wisdom is that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent to homicide, but according to accused murderer Dmitry Smirnov, it deterred him from killing Ms. Jitka Vesel in Oak Brook, Ill. — until, that is, Illinois’ death penalty was repealed.
Prosecutors said Smirnov, from Surrey, British Columbia, told them he decided to come to Illinois and kill Vesel (in cold blood, over an online relationship gone bad) only after learning through Internet research that the state no longer had capital punishment.
Don’t mess
with freedom
of the press   
Shelly Waddell, 36, was cited by police in Waterville, Maine, after “a couple of” drivers reported seeing two children riding on the roof of the van she was driving early one morning.
Waddell told police she was in fact delivering newspapers to customers, but denied that the kids were on the roof.
And a great idea for
a theme park ride
In Pierce County, Wash., a sewer worker, 37, came loose from a safety line and slid about 3,000 feet through a 6-foot-diameter sewer pipe at the Chambers Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant.
He “could have drowned,” according to one rescuer, but he was taken to a hospital with “minor injuries.”
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa Fla. 33679 or go to www.newsoftheweird.com.)