Worst mileage ever
CONIFER — Peter O’Leum parked his fully-fueled 4×4 in the driveway. Not long after, he found the Jeep’s gas cap swinging free and the fuel gauge hovering at three quarters. A couple days later, he again found the tank uncapped and the needle standing at one quarter. All told, Peter postulates that a pernicious petro-pirate pinched perhaps 15 gallons of liquid loot right out from under his nose, and he didn’t have the first clue whodunit. Officers didn’t either but said they’d be on the lookout and suggested ways O’Leum might better barricade his combustible booty.
Abductive reasoning
EVERGREEN — The 911 call was alarming in the extreme — a woman had just been kidnapped from the Big Box parking lot. Deputies racing to the scene on the morning of Dec. 17 encountered Saylor, who said the arch-fiend Bluto had just snatched his sweetheart, Olive, and was on the run in a white van. Pressing for more information, officers learned that Bluto had loaned Saylor and Olive the white van to serve the couple as both transportation and habitation. On that morning, Saylor said, Bluto had shown up out of the blue demanding “gas money” and when no money was forthcoming, demanded the keys to the mobile manor. Saylor further testified that Bluto “punched me in the face” and started throwing all their stuff out onto the pavement. When Saylor tried to interrupt the abrupt unloading, Bluto had leapt behind the wheel and roared away with Olive still in the passenger seat yelling “Let me out!” Even as other JCSO units fanned out to find the fugitive and his frantic fare, an unhappy Olive appeared back at the Big Box, on foot and with a harrowing tale to tell. Bluto had whisked her away to a nearby RTD lot, she said, where he kicked both her and the rest of their stuff to the curb before escaping onto the highway. The picture was looking pretty bad for Bluto, that is until a Big Box employee showed deputies a few minutes of surveillance tape. The way the story unfolded on-screen, Bluto appeared to play a non-violent role until Saylor cold-cocked him in the kisser. It looked to officers a lot like Bluto bolted mostly to get away from Saylor and had Shanghaied the inconvenient Olive more or less by accident. As it happened, Bluto’s subsequent script neatly synced with the film version, and no charges were filed.
Au contraire
EVERGREEN — Claudette and Francois once shared a blinding passion that burned like a thousand suns. When the romance went nova earlier this year, Claudette sought solace in the company of her tres bon ami, Gigi. When Claudette and Gigi took the Citroen to the carwash on the afternoon of Dec. 19, they were accosted by a furious Francois who “pounded on the hood” shouting “I’ll kill you!” Claudette called the gendarmerie, of course, assuring deputies that Francois must be mad at Gigi for some reason because she and her former amoureux have “no issues” between them. In light of the love they’d once shared, Claudette told officers that if Francois would agree to cover repairs to her hood, she wouldn’t press charges. Not keen to see the inside of the county Bastille, the penitent Francois promised to pay.