2016: A fowl, explosive year in weird news – Tallahassee Democrat
Blame it on the humidity. Or maybe the zeal for celebration. Or maybe it’s just 2016 rubbing off on everyone.
Whatever it is, Tallahassee saw its fair share of ’bizarre this year.
Here are 10 of the weirdest and wildest stories from our pages in 2016:
Pizza. Party of one.
The usual question is dine in or carry out?
But in mid-February, the Mellow Mushroom on Pensacola Street got an unexpected patron.
John Penrod crashed his Nissan X-Terra into the extra room of the popular college pizza joint.
It was 1:30 a.m., after hours, and police believed Penrod had been drinking before he sideswiped a car then careened into the business.
He was transported to the hospital after completing field sobriety tests. A breath sample did not detect any alcohol, court records say, but a urine test revealed marijuana and benzodiazepine, a central nervous system depressant.
Penrod has not been to trial yet.
Hit me baby one more time
Returning to the scene of the crime can be risky, but coming back to rob the same liquor store within a month of the last heist can land you in jail.
Isaac Jackson found that out the hard way when Leon County Sheriff’s investigators say he robbed at gunpoint the Talquin Liquor Lounge twice in the same month.
The 27-year-old eluded LCSO investigators after a December 2015 robbery at the store, but following one in January, they were able to catch up to him at his home, within sight of the liquor store.
Namaste in my yard
When Yoga Man went missing in August, Amy Reiter didn’t report a missing person.
That’s likely because he’s a 5-foot, heavy sculpture that vanished while she and her family were on vacation.
Placed horizontally across a wooden stump, the sculpture was too heavy for just one man to lift, but his disappearance left her with a heavy heart.
He’s all she has to remember her mother, who had the sculpture placed in front of her East Georgia Street home where she taught yoga.
Reiter said Yoga Man has not yet been returned but the sculptor, John Birch, is crafting another using the original head from an earlier incarnation of the statue. It will be a wedding present. Reiter just got married.
Relax. It’s FedEx
Alvinecia D. Dyson took a wrong turn in a FedEx truck LCSO says she boosted just minutes before, bringing to an end her rush to get people their packages as soon as possible.
Dyson just minutes earlier had stolen a Volkswagen Jetta that was being detailed at a nearby gas station on Thomasville Road in August.
When she fled that theft, the owner gave chase ending up behind the Bradfordville Road Target. While a responding deputy spoke with the victim in the parking lot, a panicked FedEx driver came from behind the store saying his truck had been stolen.
The truck was spotted on Maclay Commerce Drive where Dyson turned down a dead-end street before she was apprehended.
She was sentenced to serve a minimal stay in county jail.
R.I.P. Perky
It’s rare that a duck, a ring-neck duck to be exact, rises to international stardom.
It’s also rare that a duck survives being shot three times, retrieved by a dog and stored in a refrigerator for two days.
But that’s what happened in 2007 bringing Perky a permanent home at the Tallahassee Museum and turning her story of survival into a worldwide sensation.
The Sydney Morning Herald, Field & Stream magazine, FOX News, several outlets across Asia, they all took their shots at telling Perky’s story. Even the BBC called daily for updates. She also appeared in the pages of National Enquirer, Orlando Sentinel, Current Science, Outdoor Life, and National Geographic Kids.
But Perky’s lifelong migration came to an end in May as a result of old age.
She died peacefully without showing any symptoms of pain or illness and is survived and remembered by a loving staff of experts and volunteers.
While we’re talking about waterfowl…
Whatever you do, don’t make eye contact with the geese.
That was the advice this spring from the Department of Health to its employees as nesting, resident Canada geese caused a stir at the dozens of state buildings in Southwood.
For months the thousands of employees who come to Southwood to toil away for the residents of the Sunshine State clashed with their winged attackers, whose honks and bluster sent people scattering on their way into the buildings.
A woman was injured in late April when a charging goose sent her to the pavement where she hit her head.
But there is little state officials can do. The geese are state and federally protected.
Two things are for sure, though, the geese will remain as will the state workers.
Hopefully, the snarling coyote decoys, big eyeball-like balloons, yellow cones and orange fencing that go up annually outside agency entrances can make a difference.
Family recognizes one-armed burglary suspect
Paging Dr. Richard Kimble. Paging Dr. Richard Kimble.
OK, so there won’t be a Hollywood movie made about the arrest of Dwayne Lasalle Walker, but his family members were quick to point out to police that they recognized him as the man who robbed a First Commerce Credit Union in February.
What gave Walker away?
Family members who contacted police after seeing surveillance photos of the heist said they recognized his missing right arm, which he lost in a previous injury.
Investigators reviewed surveillance video and noticed the suspect’s right sleeve was tucked into his right jacket pocket. They also noticed that the right arm sleeve stayed limp throughout the robbery and never moved.
Walker and another man, Reginald Fryson, were arrested in connection with the robbery.
Da bomb
Putting FSU’s post-game fireworks to shame, a WW II-era bomb discovered at a Madison Street construction site thundered through College Town when it was detonated in November.
The Tyndall Air Force Base ordnance detonating team came from Panama City to assist the Tallahassee Police Department in detonating the bomb in place, sending shock waves through the fall night.
Theories of the bomb’s origin stem from Mabry Field.
Opened as Tallahassee’s first airport in 1929 on what is now the area of Tallahassee Community College on Appleyard Drive, Dale Mabry Field was designated as a military base in 1941 during the build-up to America’s entry into World War II.
Couple-a-massages
LCSO took a hard line against massage parlors in 2016, where they say the masseuses were offering more than a therapeutic rubdown.
After reports about the services being offered at a handful of massage parlors, undercover detectives decided to see for themselves what was going on.
One employee of the Health Center in Killearn, Gendi Li, was arrested on charges of prostitution twice in the same week after detectives say she offered to perform sex acts. No court date has been set.
In March, an employee of the Jade Massage Parlor in Midtown was arrested after undercover officers conducted a similar sting. Wan Min Pang entered into a diversion program with prosecutors, who dropped her case in July.
And again in September, a masseuse, Jing Zhong, at the Jade Massage Parlor was arrested and charged with prostitution during a similar undercover sting.
The Hardhat Bandit
Back in the day newspapers, in an effort to sell more copies, gave criminals nicknames.
The roaring ’20s are long gone, but Philip Belancsik’s getup during a string of credit union heists — a construction outfit complete with a tool belt, dust mask, gloves and protective helmet — earned him the moniker of “The Hardhat Bandit.”
Belancsik is a suspect in at least six robberies in Tallahassee since October 2015.
The 34-year-old was arrested in May after eyewitnesses were able to identify his getaway vehicle.
He was apprehended after police arrived at his IndianHead Acres home during a high-speed chase through the residential neighborhood.
A few moments earlier, police rammed Belancsik’s Saturn Ion into the ditch near Magnolia Drive and Apalachee Parkway. A trial date has not been set.
As they searched the carport of his home, police found a white hardhat.
Contact Karl Etters at ketters@tallahassee.com or @KarlEtters on Twitter.
