A Brooklyn bank robber let his fashion sense get in the way of his common sense, reports the New York Daily News.
The man walked into the HSBC branch on the Fulton Mall (search) in downtown Brooklyn at lunchtime Wednesday, handed a teller a note demanding an unspecified amount of money, and promptly got the cash.
He then walked out the door — and right into the Porta Bella men's clothing shop next door.
"I want to buy a suit," the sartorially-inspired thief told the store's employees.
To prove he could pay for the fancy duds, he whipped the cash he'd just stolen out of his pocket — just in time for the dye packet hidden among the bills to go off.
"As he pulled money out of his jacket," store manager Ehab Seif told the newspaper, "it started to explode."
A huge cloud of thick red smoke began billowing through the shop. The robber took that as his cue to leave.
"Later!" he shouted as he ran out the door, peeling off his red-stained clothing.
Once-green, now-red bills were scattered across the store, matching the suddenly-red carpet. The robber's knit hat, down jacket and leather gloves were just inside the door.
Police were searching for a short, heavy-set, slightly red-tinged man.
— Thanks to Out There reader Dawn A.
Hope You Don't Mind — Here's Twenty Bucks
An Arkansas Peeping Tom (search) seems to have a guilty conscience.
On Monday evening, a note of apology — and a $20 bill — were found on the doorstep of a residence at the Keystone Apartments in the town of Mountain Home.
The computer-printed note, addressed to the unit's residents, "apologized for looking in their window, and asked that they not be mad and continue to let him look in," according to the police report.
Police wouldn't reveal the exact language of the note, citing a pending investigation.
"This is the first time I've ever seen one leave a note with payment in cash," police criminal investigator Sgt. Nevin Barnes told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Previous occupants of the apartment, as well as of the one next door, had complained about strangers looking in their windows, reported KARK-TV.
— Thanks to Out There readers Trish G. and Chris S.
Two fixed-income Idaho women weren't happy with a proposed rise in power rates — so they paid their bills in pennies.
Retta Green and an unnamed friend rolled a wheelbarrow containing more than 12,000 pennies into the lobby of Idaho Power's offices in Boise last Thursday, reports KBCI-TV.
"I'm going to have to shut my power off," Green told the TV station about the suggested 20-percent rate hike, "because right now I'm collecting pennies to pay my bill."
An Idaho Power (search) spokesman met the women in the lobby, told them the company was thinking about them — and asked them to go to a local bank to have the pennies turned into folding cash.
SHEFFIELD, England (AP) — Colin Sadd might be the man you'd prefer to steal your car, but he's going to jail again.
Sadd, 41, who has 155 previous convictions, was sentenced Wednesday to six years in jail after pleading guilty to stealing five cars and admitting responsibility for 31 other thefts.
Sadd's modus operandi is to dress up in a suit, go to an auto dealer and ask for a test drive. The car never returns, but is abandoned after being spotlessly cleaned.
"He looked after the cars he stole better than me," said his wife, Mary, who added that Sadd has never owned a car.
"He only takes brand new vehicles, drives them around for a couple of hours, then he cleans them inside and out," she explained. "He will even buy a tin of polish to give them an extra sparkle and sometimes takes them to a car wash to get them extra clean."
Psychiatrists have said that Sadd has a compulsive disorder, and a judge in a previous case described him as "the man you would most want to steal your car."
"He has never hurt anyone and he desperately needs help with his obsession," his wife said. "If he was a pedophile or a mugger they would be falling over backwards to help him, but because he is fascinated with taking cars and cleaning them nobody wants to know."
CHIPPEWA FALLS, Wis. (AP) — Todd Zukowski heard a crash while talking on the phone at his home, then entered the living room and was shocked to find a double-paned window had been shattered by a wild turkey.
"I came out into the living room and saw something flying," he said.
"At first I thought the cat had knocked over a curio. I could have never imagined a wild turkey crashing through my window."
Zukowski quickly ended a phone conversation with his boss Tuesday, and dialed 911.
When Chippewa Falls (search) Police Officer Ryan Douglas arrived, the bird headed into the kitchen and then down the stairs to a basement laundry room.
"I tried to corral him from behind a dryer, but he flew out," Douglas said.
The turkey eventually went behind a cinder-block chimney where it couldn't escape the long arm of the law.
"I grabbed him by the legs and escorted him outside," Douglas said. "He didn't seem to mind, either. I think he was tired and happy to get out."
The bird appeared to be in relatively good shape and flew away.
WELLINGTON, Ohio (AP) — State health officials expressed outrage last week over a fake suicide scene displayed in a shop window to sell printing services.
The display at Special Effects, a video and printing store in this northeast Ohio village, showed empty beer cans on the floor near an overturned table below dangling legs meant to look like a person who had hanged himself.
On a nearby table was a short, scrawled suicide letter on a piece of notebook paper — and another note that was lengthy and professionally printed.
A sign read, "Contemplating suicide? Let Special Effects give your suicide note that professional look."
The head of the state agency in charge of suicide prevention said the display went too far.
"We have to hope it reflects ignorance," said Michael F. Hogan. "When suicide takes almost 1,000 lives every year in Ohio — more than murder or HIV-AIDS — and when 20 percent of high school students think about suicide every year, we need messages encouraging life, not death."
Storeowner Chris Goran said that almost all her customers thought the display she put up last week was amusing, and that she never intended to offend anyone.
"It certainly wasn't meant to elicit all of this emotion," Goran said. "I have to stand by the opinion that it's generating people talking about suicide, and if people talked about it more maybe there would be less."
Goran said she would keep the display up but might add a sign with a suicide-prevention hotline number.
Compiled by Foxnews.com's Paul Wagenseil.
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