NewsQuirks 689

To the Rescue

Twice in June, firefighters in Washington, D.C., had to resort to borrowing ordinary garden hoses to battle house fires because their official equipment was inoperative. In the first incident, a valve on the first pumper truck to arrive on the scene did not work. In the second incident, a fire broke out in a house directly behind a firehouse, and firefighters responded on foot because their regular pumper truck was being serviced and their reserve truck was unusable because two of its valves were severely leaking. The blaze caused $50,000 worth of damage when firefighters were unable to control it because, according to Lt. Patrick Kelly, who was in command at the scene, it "had gotten so big that the garden hose was doing very little."

Slightest Provocations

Police investigating the shooting deaths of Pearle Cogswell, 66, and Eugene Cogswell, 75, in Milo, Maine, concluded that the incident was a murder-suicide resulting from an argument that began over a blueberry pie. Pearle Cogswell called a relative to report that her husband objected to her plans to give the freshly baked pie away. Later, she called police to report that she was a victim of domestic assault after her husband threw a glass of wine in her face. Stephen McCausland of the Maine Department of Public Safety said the dispute over the pie apparently escalated to the wine incident and then to the shootings. Investigators found a handgun beside Eugene Cogswell and the uneaten pie on the kitchen counter.

Denver authorities charged Michael Nunez, 30, with stabbing Corina Martinez 40 times, then stuffing her body in a trash bin because she discovered that he liked to wear women's lingerie. Martinez, 59, a security guard at the shopping mall food court where Nunez worked, found Nunez in a back room removing women's panties, pantyhose, a burgundy camisole and slip and a white nightgown with spaghetti straps that he wore to work under his regular clothing. He attacked her to make sure she wouldn't tell anyone "the secret he kept for 10 years," prosecutor Katie O'Brien said, then went back to work "making sandwiches and waiting on the public."

Authorities in Johnson County, Texas, charged Clayton Frank Stoker, 21, with fatally shooting Johnny Joslin, 20, while the two men argued over who would go to heaven and who was going to hell. Sheriff Bob Alford said that, according to a witness, the men began arguing while sitting at a table outside a trailer park after a night on the town. Stoker declared he would settle the argument. He went into a house and returned with a shotgun, loaded it and placed the barrel in his mouth. "The victim Joslin then took the gun out of Stoker's mouth, saying, 'If you have to shoot somebody, shoot me,'" Alford said, adding that the shotgun went off, hitting Joslin in the chest.

A judge in Bucks County, Pa., ruled that Daniel Strouss, 19, will stand trial for trying to kill a friend because the friend had given him a wedgie. Prosecutors said Strouss was attending a Phish concert when his friend Eric Kassoway, 19, sneaked up behind him and yanked up his underwear. Strouss, who doesn't dispute the prosecution's version of events, held a grudge for nearly a year before shooting Kassoway in the arm and leg with a 9mm gun.

Sex Is Its Own Punishment

Sex may shorten your life, according to researchers at England's University of Sheffield. "Those organisms that mate the most, and are therefore more successful in evolutionary terms, reduce their own life expectancy in the process," Dr. Michael Siva-Jothy said, explaining that mating releases a hormone that damages the immune system. Although the scientists drew their conclusions from studying mealworm beetles, they said the findings could hold true for humans.