Pantsless LA man terrorized people with whisky bottle

Los Angeles Police responded to a report that a man without pants, and a bottle of whisky in one hand, was chasing people around.

The incident happened around the celeb hotspots of The Ivy restaurant, Kitson and Newsroom Cafe.

From the LAPD dispatch audio, it sounds like the incident was centred around the Intermix store.

His pants had been up and down, and at one point he was chasing a terrified woman with a stroller. He later threw the whisky bottle at someone, and when it broke, started threatening people. LAPD upgraded the call to an assault with deadly weapon as a result.

One witness told LAPD that he or someone else was attempting to tackle the man.

Another said he was trying to break in to the Intermix store, which had locked the front door and startled shoppers watched from inside. LAPD officers just took the man into custody at about 5:15pm.

Horned man arrested for attempting to run over his landlord

A Tulsa man has bonded out of jail after he was arrested early on Wednesday morning on a complaint of assault with a dangerous weapon. Tulsa Police say 28-year-old Jesse Thornhill tried to run down his landlord in his '96 Ford Windstar van on Tuesday evening in the 1200 block of South Delaware Place.

Thornhill's mother told police she and her neighbor, who is Jesse Thornhill's landlord, "had been having problems with her son."

She told police there was an altercation on Tuesday evening and that Jesse left the residence, but then came back and tried to hit his landlord with his van. The landlord jumped out of the way and was not injured. Tulsa Police located Thornhill and took him to the Tulsa County jail on a complaint of assault with a deadly weapon, in this case his van.

Under 'personal oddities', the arresting officer listed, "horns, neck tattoos, implant earings [sic] on head." Thornhill also appears to have earlobe implants and a large design branded onto the side of his head.

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Cuban Picked Up in Styrofoam Raft Off the Florda Keys

Cuban refugee set sail from the island on June 20

A Cuban man's journey to freedom took quite a bit of ingenuity and nearly ended his life.

On Tuesday, U.S. Coast Guard officers rescued a severely dehydrated man from a homemade boat made mostly of Styrofoam near the Florida Keys.

The unidentified man told authorities he had cast off from Havana on June 20. A picture of the white boat shows a few pieces of metal helped outfit the vessel and a plastic gallon jug was still inside.

The amazing voyage comes just days after the Cuban government began releasing political prisoners in a move that was viewed internationally as a sign things were getting better on the island.

The fact that someone was willing to risk their life on a raft made of Styrofoam might prove otherwise.

Florida man shot fiancee one day before wedding

John Tabbutt shot and killed his fiancee, Nancy Dinsmore, in the Winter Springs home they shared on Oct. 9, just one day before they were to be married.

It was the middle of the night, and he thought she was an intruder, he told police.

On Tuesday, a Seminole County grand jury will hear testimony and decide whether Tabbutt should be charged with manslaughter.

Some of Dinsmore's family members say they're suspicious, especially about how her life savings disappeared in the months before her death.

Authorities, who initially described the shooting as an accident, have spent months tracking down bank, insurance and brokerage transactions.

Grand jurors must sort it all out.

Tabbutt, 63, who still lives in the gray and white stucco house where the shooting took place, did not return phone calls to the Orlando Sentinel.

Prosecutors have not accused Tabbutt of plotting to kill Dinsmore. Instead, they question whether he used the "ordinary caution" that a reasonable person would when he hears an intruder.

Tabbutt owned a .38-caliber handgun and told police he picked it up when he heard a suspicious noise about 2:30 a.m.

But he grabbed the gun while getting out of the bed he shared with Dinsmore, said Assistant State Attorney Chris White. Tabbutt did not confirm whether she was still in it beside him, something a reasonable person might be expected to do, White said.

Then this 6-foot-2 man shot and killed a short figure in the hallway. Dinsmore was 5 feet tall.

For a time, Tabbutt cooperated with authorities, said Assistant State Attorney James Carter, but then he stopped answering questions. It's not clear whether he'll testify before the grand jury.

The night of the shooting, he called 911, crying and sobbing into the phone.

"I thought I had an intruder in the house," he told a dispatcher.

He fired once, and the bullet hit Dinsmore, 62, in the chest. She was pronounced dead shortly after emergency personnel arrived.

Difficult case

The case has been a tough one for authorities. Police took six months to conclude their investigation, said Winter Springs police Chief Kevin Brunelle. They turned over their findings in early May to the State Attorney's Office in Sanford, but Brunelle would not say what his agency recommended.

He did say this: Officers found no evidence of premeditation.

The State Attorney's Office also would not say what police recommended nor would it confirm that it would present evidence to a grand jury Tuesday.

Much of the investigation's delay was caused by a check into the couple's financial records. "We had to subpoena them all," Brunelle said.

Dinsmore was a Maine widow who had retired from a telephone company and operated an adoption agency when she met Tabbutt in 2007 on match.com, said her sister and then-business partner, Mary Guiseley of Raymond, Maine.

The couple fell in love; Dinsmore retired, moved into Tabbutt's Winter Springs home, and they traveled a great deal, according to her family.

A year before she died, Dinsmore changed her will, giving Tabbutt money and legal power, according to her probate file. She named him beneficiary of a $50,000 life insurance policy and named him personal representative of her estate.

Two months after her death, though, he signed away control of the estate to Dinsmore's brother, Garry Zeegers, of Naples, Maine, and the life insurance company paid the death benefits to Dinsmore's two adult daughters, family members say.

According to paperwork filed in her probate case in January, her family is considering a wrongful-death suit.

The family's probate attorney, David Yergey Jr., did not return phone calls.

Some family members are suspicious of Tabbutt. When Dinsmore began seeing Tabbutt, she was worth about $240,000, Guiseley said. When she died, she had $1,100 in the bank, Guiseley said.

Nursing home resident, 101, dies when teen's prank goes awry

A car crash resulting from a teen's driving stunt was the primary cause of death for 101-year-old Mildred Ellefson at a Garretson, South Dakota nursing home, but the victim's age also was a factor, an autopsy showed.

"It's a very difficult call to make," Dr. Brad Randall, Minnehaha County coroner, said Monday. "Would she have died had she not been involved in the crash? It's my opinion that she died prematurely because of the crash."

The autopsy could help decide charges that Clarissa Jean Kutil, 18, of Garretson will face as driver of the 1994 Oldsmobile Cutlass that smashed through the nursing home wall and into Ellefson's room.

Randall's report brings sad irony as Ellefson's family sorts out her death. She had survived a train crash as a child and grew up to be a rural schoolteacher, beekeeper, church organist and one of the few hundred South Dakotans to reach age 100.

"She was in a train wreck when she was 9 years old when a train hit the family car ... and at 101 she dies in another accident," said her nephew, LeRoy Ellefson, of Jasper, Minn.

Ellefson was taken to Sanford Hospital after the June 20 accident, then released and returned to the nursing home, where she died June 22.

"That was a horrible accident. That's exactly what it was. There's nothing else we need to say," said Charlie Ward, a managing partner in Ward Enterprises, which oversees Palisade Manor.

His report said a "car crashed through the wall and pinned her between her bed and the wall." It lists "complications of blunt head and leg trauma" and "motor vehicle crash" as part one of cause of death. It lists "severe coronary artery disease" and "generalized senescence," or aging, as part two.

Kutil and two male friends were waiting outside the nursing home for another friend to get off work the night of June 20, the sheriff's office said.

The two men were sitting on the trunk of the car, when Kutil tried to startle them by revving the engine. She accidentally put the car into reverse instead of neutral and hit the accelerator instead of the brake. The car broke through a brick wall into Ellefson's room. One man suffered a minor injury.

"My guess is that as soon as the car moved they were jumping off and that's how one of them was hurt," sheriff's Capt. Paul Niedringhaus said.

Officers cited Kutil with careless driving and driving without a license, said Jim Iosty, deputy state's attorney. He said that office will review Randall's report before deciding on other possible charges. Ellefson's age will be part of that discussion.

"Certainly, it is one of the facts of the case to be considered," Iosty said.

SUV crashes during sex

Police say a 23-year-old city woman reported she was carjacked at gunpoint in Camden County, breaking her arm after she was thrown from her vehicle.

But Sara C. Blasse's story was as fake as it was harrowing, authorities said. Blasse made it up after the SUV crashed while Blasse was performing a sex act on the man who was driving it, police said.

Officers later found the vehicle abandoned in Chesilhurst, smoldering and crashed into a tree,

Blasse, of the 1800 block of Galli Drive, was arrested Saturday and charged with filing false reports to law enforcement, according to a police report released Wednesday.

Vineland police initially responded to South Jersey Healthcare Regional Medical Center, where Blasse was being treated for a broken arm -- an injury she said she received during an armed carjacking.

During an interview at the hospital, Blasse told investigating officer Jeffrey Travaline she was driving home from a friend's house and got lost in Chesilhurst around 6 a.m. that day. She reported she asked a man for directions, but he pulled out a gun, threw her out of the vehicle and drove away, police said.

Blasse said she broke her arm and hurt her head in the fall, according to police.

During the interview at the hospital, police received a report that a 2003 Kia Sorento registered to Blasse's father had been involved in a crash and was found abandoned and smoldering in Chesilhurst. The vehicle had been set on fire intentionally, police said.

Travaline then asked Blasse to come to police headquarters because of inconsistencies in her story.

In his report, he noted it was odd that Blasse said she walked aimlessly around after the carjacking, rather than banging on someone's door for help. He also noted it was strange she first called a friend, who lived 30 to 40 minutes away, before notifying police.

After further questioning, Blasse admitted she was a passenger in the vehicle at the time of the crash and that no carjacking had occurred, police said. Blasse said she had picked up an unknown man for sex and was performing oral sex when the crash happened, according to police.

She refused to identify the driver, police said.

Blasse was processed on a summons for filing false reports and released to the Chesilhurst Police Department for additional charges.

The Vineland police report noted another vehicle was stolen Saturday in the area where Blasse's SUV crashed. The stolen vehicle was later found on fire in Buena Vista. Police said they believe Blasse also might have been involved in that incident.

Blasse, who broke her arm in the incident, was arrested Saturday and charged with filing false reports to law enforcement, officials said. She was released to Chesilhurt police for additional charges.

Vineland police initially responded to South Jersey Healthcare Regional Medical Center, where Blasse was being treated for a broken arm.

JOKE: Tired Blood

The manufacturer of a well-known tonic for people with "tired" blood received this inadvertently racy testimonial from a little old lady who lived on a farm in Tennessee: "Before taking your tonic," the woman wrote, "I was too tired to hoe the fields or pick the cotton. But after only two bottles of your delicious mixture, I've become the best cotton-picking hoer in the county!"