Florida Keys Strange News Stories For 2007
Sloan Bashinksy’s 2007 mayoral candidate suggested the city dress its staff - and the homeless - as pirates to boost tourism. Arrrrrgg! He must have just seen Seinfeld’s “Puffy Shirt” show.
At the Boot Key Harbor Lighted Boat Parade in Marathon, as one boat passed the reviewing stand, spectators saw a woman who seemed to be wearing very little at all standing at the bow. She then performed what a witness described as a “pole dance.” The 24-year-old woman was wearing a body stocking, said the owner of the vessel, aptly named Neptune’s Love Palace. However, upon further review, the general consensus was that she was, in fact, buck nekked. Whichever it was, some onlookers were appalled. Others applauded.
Government officials this summer declared war on the Gambian pouch rat, trying to eradicate a colony that established itself on Grassy Key. The imported rodents, prolific breeders, can grow to weigh a fearsome 9 pounds. Gambian rats bred for captivity reportedly escaped when a storm destroyed their cages. In November a dead pouch rat was found in Islamorada.
While Gambian rats in the Keys are considered bad, the Key Largo wood rat is a native species considered good. In April, researchers tracking a wood rat fitted with an electronic device followed the signal through the North Key Largo hammocks - right to the stomach of a Burmese python sunning itself. “There’s a good chance we never would have found him” if the snake were not emitting a radio signal from the devoured wood rat, a state exotic-species expert said. The python - more than 7 feet long - reportedly was the first discovered in the Keys, although the nonnative snakes are a known nuisance in the Everglades. Since then several more large exotic snakes have been found in North Key Largo.
In June, an attempt to save a newborn dolphin calf included a bizarre incident. Marine Mammal Conservancy members reported to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office that they found a plastic bag containing a severed goat’s head in the calf’s bayside pen on Key Largo. The rescue effort drew national attention because after the mother, a rehabilitating dolphin named Castaway, was discovered to be deaf, the calf’s pen was wired with speakers to play dolphin sounds. The calf, named Wilson, died; no connection to the goat’s head was apparent.
One of the strangest vehicle accidents of the year took place not on U.S. 1 but a taxiway at Key West International Airport in August. The driver of a fuel truck dozed off - while he was driving toward a 1996 Beechcraft commuter airplane. A police report noted, “As the pilot [the only person aboard] watched, the truck slowly approached the plane, then ran into it, hitting the propeller, the engine and the plane itself.” The plane was grounded for repairs. The fuel-truck driver was given a ticket for careless driving.
A former Lower Keys resident, John Peffer, was arrested in February after authorities investigated a rash of unusual funerals. One of the services reportedly saw the body transported to the cemetery in Peffer’s personal vehicle, a white SUV, rather than a hearse. Then instead of the priest requested by the family, a woman tentatively identified as Peffer’s girlfriend delivered the eulogy. After being laid off from a local funeral home, Peffer reportedly arranged at least four burials or cremations on his own. State authorities said he was entirely unlicensed, holding only what amounts to a learner’s permit to become an embalmer. Even that permit was expired. “This whole thing is just too crazy for words,” said a family member of one of the deceased.
Other crime reports:
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