A kangaroo, a machete and a deadly tire. Here are the weirdest Coast news stories of 2019.
Mixed with good headlines and sad ones of 2019 came news of the weird in South Mississippi.
Here are 10 of the most unusual, funny and downright bizarre stories told by the Sun Herald this year:
BOLO for Jojo
The Coast was warned to “be on the look out” for a runaway kangaroo named Jojo in June.
The marsupial belongs to Wild Acres mobile zoo and party service in McHenry, and escaped his handlers during day camp at Pass Road Elementary School in Gulfport.
Jojo was photographed hopping down a street during his great escape and was found and captured in the Bayou View neighborhood two days after his getaway.
The house always wins
We met Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale on Oct. 1 as he first strode into Scarlet Pearl Casino to place a $3.5 million bet on his beloved Houston Astros to win the World Series. He was accompanied by a security team toting a briefcase full of cash.
McIngvale, who owns a chain of Gallery Furniture stores in the Houston area, returned to DraftKings at Scarlet Pearl Sportsbook on Oct. 23 to lay down another $1 million wager. He was back the afternoon of Game 7 and in total bet $6.25 million at the Scarlet Pearl, plus $600,000 at the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino and millions more at New Jersey casinos.
The Astros lost to the Washington Nationals 6-2.
McIngvale lost a lot of money, but gained an incredible amount of national attention.
RIP Lil’ Barry
Sun Herald videographer Alyssa Newton braved Tropical Storm Barry to get the story of a 5-foot alligator swimming through the storm surge down Beach Boulevard in Hancock County.
People driving on the flooded street stopped to take pictures of the alligator sliding along the highway as waves crashed over the seawall.
But unfortunately, a reader later reported the gator, which the Sun Herald newsroom nicknamed Lil’ Barry, was hit and did not survive his watery trip down the highway.
Pool party gone wrong
A July 4 pool party at Manor House Apartments off Demontluzin Avenue in Bay St. Louis had a tragic ending.
Hancock County Coroner Jim Faulk said people were partying at one end of the pool “under canopies, eating shrimp and celebrating the Fourth.”
The partiers didn’t realize a man who was sitting by himself at the other end of the pool had gone into the water.
“They thought he just went to his apartment for awhile, then later found him at the bottom of the pool.”
Real-life ‘Final Destination’
Tulane University senior Margaret “Meg” Maurer stopped with her friends at the rest area on I-10 near Gautier on their spring break in March.
While walking back to their car, two conjoined tires came off a passing tractor trailer, bounced across the road, and struck and killed Maurer.
Police said a $3 locking ring designed to keep the wheels tightly secured was missing from the truck.
The wrath of Twitter
A Kiln man was the center of a Twitterstorm thanks to ESPN “SportsCenter” anchor Keith Olbermann.
The anchor tweeted “. . . we should do our best to make sure the rest of his life is a living hell,” after Hunter Waltman shot a rare white turkey.
He also called the Mississippian a “pea-brained scumbag” and said longtime Clarion Ledger outdoors reporter Brian Broom should be fired for writing about it.
Twitter feuds ensued, with those sympathetic to animal rights clashing with hunters and others.
ESPN issued a statement, saying the network spoke to Olbermann about not making personal attacks and he tweeted an apology.
Machete-wielding truck driver
In January, I-10 in Jackson County was shut down for 5 hours while sheriff deputies tried to get a machete-wielding truck driver to drop the weapon and give up.
Before that, a shocking video shows the man was involved in a road-rage incident with an ambulance near Mobile.
Authorities shot out two of his tires to get the 18-wheeler to stop, and had to use tear gas and smoke bombs before the Baton Rouge man surrendered.
A giggling, burping accused killer
Darian Atkinson, 19, continued to startle and and anger people in South Mississippi in the days after he shot and killed Biloxi police officer Robert McKeithen in an ambush outside the Biloxi police headquarters on May 5.
After being captured, Atkinson was brought handcuffed back to the scene of the killing, and was grinning as he was led past rows of officers and others standing outside.
He was still smiling when he was led into the Harrison County Courthouse for his preliminary hearing, and giggled and burped loudly during the hearing. Atkinson is being held on a charge of capital murder, which carries a possible death sentence.
History of violence?
Another bizarre tale emerged about the Wiggins man accused of decapitating his mother with a butter knife, his teeth and hands in 2018.
A lawsuit was filed this year by a man who was being held at the Stone County Correctional Facility in the same unit as Terelle Johnson.
This happened before Johnson is accused of killing his mother. In this case Johnson allegedly bit off the inmate’s nose and lips. The injured man said he’s undergone multiple rounds of plastic surgery to repair his mutilated face.
Desperate measures with a tiger
One of the year’s most head-shaking stories came from Louisiana.
At the Tiger Truck Stop on I-10 at Grosse Tete, a Florida couple’s dog entered a camel’s pen and they crawled inside the fence to retrieve the pet.
Casper the camel sat on the woman and she bit the camel’s testicles to get free.
The woman was taken to the hospital for observation and Casper was given precautionary antibiotics.
This story was originally published December 30, 2019 at 5:00 AM.
