oddly enough

oddly enough

Meeting fails to end church-strip club feud

WARSAW, Ohio

The leader of an Ohio church feuding with a nearby strip club says a summit meeting failed to bring a truce.

Pastor Bill Dunfee of New Beginnings Ministries says he and Fox Hole club owner Tommy George found no common ground during their roughly two-hour sit-down at a diner Wednesday night.

Dunfee says he would have accepted nothing less from George than an offer to shut down his business.

The pastor says church members will continue to gather outside the club on weekend nights, as they’ve done for years. He says he expects George and women from the club will keep up Sunday protests they began several weeks ago at the church in Warsaw, 60 miles northeast of Columbus.

George did not immediately return a message to comment Thursday.

NYC suspect: Flowers deflected suspicion in bank robberies

NEW YORK

The city’s so-called “bouquet bandit” told police he used plants as props to deflect suspicion in a series of bank robberies spurred by drinking and drug use, newly released documents show.

Edward Pemberton said his technique was self-taught and his targets were self-explanatory: “It’s where the money is. That’s all,” he said in a handwritten statement to police released Wednesday.

Pemberton, 44, was arrested after a security-camera photo of a flower-toting suspect at a Manhattan bank counter July 15 generated front-page headlines in the city’s tabloids. He since has been charged with a total of three bank robberies and an attempted bank robbery; he has pleaded not guilty to all.

The bouquet, neatly bundled in pink tissue paper and plastic, concealed a note that demanded $50 and $100 bills, authorities said.

Police call ‘Ma’ on man’s dropped cell phone, ID suspect

ATHENS, Ga.

Thanks a lot, Mom.

Police seeking a man accused of breaking into an elementary school say they identified the suspect by calling “Ma” from the contact list of a cell phone he dropped as he fled.

A police report says officers responding to an alarm at an elementary school in Athens in northeast Georgia arrived in time Monday to see a man running through the cafeteria and out the back door.

Police failed to catch the man but say he dropped his cell phone as he ran.

According to the report, officers picked up the phone, searched the contact list and called a number marked “Ma.” They say a woman who answered gave them her son’s name.

The suspect wasn’t immediately identified.

Associated Press