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Woman sat on toilet for 2 years

By ROXANA HEGEMAN, Associated Press
Wednesday, March 12, 2008

WICHITA, Kan. -- Authorities are considering charges in the bizarre case of a woman who sat on her boyfriend's toilet for two years -- so long that her body was stuck to the seat by the time the boyfriend finally called police.
     
Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said it appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman's skin had grown around the seat. She initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital.
"We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," Whipple said. "The hospital removed it."
Whipple said investigators planned to present their report Wednesday to the county attorney, who will determine whether any charges should be filed against the woman's 36-year-old boyfriend.
"She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body," Whipple said. "It is hard to imagine. ... I still have a hard time imagining it myself."
He told investigators he brought his girlfriend food and water, and asked her every day to come out of the bathroom.
"And her reply would be, `Maybe tomorrow,'" Whipple said. "According to him, she did not want to leave the bathroom."
The boyfriend called police on Feb. 27 to report that "there was something wrong with his girlfriend," Whipple said, adding that he never explained why it took him two years to call.
Police found the clothed woman sitting on the toilet, her sweat pants down to her mid-thigh. She was "somewhat disoriented," and her legs looked like they had atrophied, Whipple said.
"She said that she didn't need any help, that she was OK and did not want to leave," he said.
She was reported in fair condition at a hospital in Wichita, about 150 miles southeast of Ness City. Whipple said she has refused to cooperate with medical providers or law enforcement investigators.
Authorities said they did not know if she was mentally or physically disabled.
Police have declined to release the couple's names, but the house where authorities say the incident happened is listed in public records as the residence of Kory McFarren. No one answered his home phone number.
The case has been the buzz of Ness City, said James Ellis, a neighbor.
"I don't think anybody can make any sense out of it," he said.
Ellis said he had known the woman since she was a child but that he had not seen her for at least six years.
He said she had a tough childhood after her mother died at a young age and apparently was usually kept inside the house as she grew up. At one time the woman worked for a long-term care facility, he said, but he did not know what kind of work she did there.
"It really doesn't surprise me," Ellis said. "What surprises me is somebody wasn't called in a bit earlier."

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Man Files Suit, Claims Lap Dance Injury

NEW YORK (AP) -- A businessman claims in a lawsuit that he was injured when a stripper giving him a lap dance swiveled and smacked him in the face with the heel of her shoe.

Stephen Chang, a securities trader, said in court papers filed Friday that he was at the Hot Lap Dance Club near Madison Square Garden and was getting a paid lap dance when the accident occurred early Nov. 2, 2007.

According to the lawsuit, as the dancer swung around, the heel of her shoe hit him in the eye, causing him "serious injuries."

A man who identified himself as the manager of the Hot Lap Dance Club said he was unaware of the accident or the state Supreme Court lawsuit. The club's lawyer, Stephen Ateshoglou, did not immediately return a call.

On its Web site, the club describes itself as the "Playboy Mansion of Manhattan party lofts." The site says admission is $50 plus a one-time club membership fee of $10 for newcomers. Lap dances cost around $40, plus admission, according to the Web site.

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Pair charged with trying to cash dead man’s check are cleared
BY SAMUEL MAULL The Associated Press

    NEW YORK — Prosecutors dropped charges Tuesday against two men who caused a stir when they wheeled their dead rooommate’s corpse down a busy Manhattan street and tried to cash his Social Security check.
    James O’Hare and David J. Daloia claimed that their roommate was alive when they left their apartment for a check-cashing store on Jan. 8, and that they had standing permission to cash each other’s checks when pooling household expenses.
    The prosecutor acknowledged Tuesday that it cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt when the man actually died, making it difficult to bring a case against the men. Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Evelyn LaPorte agreed and dismissed the charges.
    The decision allowed O’Hare and Daloia to walk out of the courthouse as free men, three months after they became a media sensation for their audacious stunt.
    “I was amazed. I thought Britney Spears had taken her pants down again,” Daloia said outside court about all the attention the case had attracted.
    The episode that got O’Hare and Daloia in trouble was one of those only-in-New York moments, playing out on a bustling street in Hell’s Kitchen.
    Daloia and O’Hare tried to cash 66-year-old Virgilio Cintron’s $355 check on their own, but were told by the man at the store that Cintron had to be present to get the money, police said.
    So they went back and got their roommate, dressing him in Velcro shoes, a tattered T-shirt and pants that barely fit. They put him on an office chair and wheeled him back to the store.
    The clerk was suspicious of the whole situation, and an NYPD detective who happened to be eating lunch at a nearby restaurant watched the episode unfold.
    Paramedics were called and within a few minutes, it was determined that Cintron was dead. O’Hare and Daloia were arrested on charges of forgery, criminal possession of a forged instrument, attempted larceny and improper disposal of a body.
    Assistant District Attorney Courtney Groves told the judge that an autopsy concluded only that Cintron had been dead for less than 24 hours, and had died of natural causes related to Parkinson’s disease.
    The uncertainty about the exact time of death meant that it would have been hard for prosecutors to prove that Cintron was actually dead during the check-cashing stunt.
    “The medical examiner cannot state with scientific certainty the time of death in this case. Therefore, the people cannot prove the charges against these defendants,” Groves said.

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Woman’s corpse on toilet for 2 months

    MADISON, Wis. — Two children and their mother lived for about two months with the decaying body of a 90-year-old woman on the toilet of their home’s only bathroom, on the advice of a religious “superior” who claimed the corpse would come back to life, authorities said Friday.
    The children — a 15-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy — cried hysterically Wednesday after a deputy who came to their Necedah home looking for Magdeline Alvina Middlesworth ordered them out because of the stench from her body.
    The children were in foster care Friday. Their mother, Tammy Lewis, and self-described “bishop” Alan Bushey remained in custody on felony counts of being a party to causing mental harm to a child.

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Calvin Morett, 19, dressed in a penis constume, disrupts the Saratoga Springs High School's 135th commencement ceremony at SPAC Thursday, June 26. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)