Worst of the City The best bizarre news from 2007.

Whatever Happened to Uncle Dave?
When West Van police responded to a residential ambulance call in October, they were handed a plastic shopping bag containing a human skull. While the skull had been in the possession of the family for five years, they seemed to have no idea where it had come from or—more importantly—whose head it once was.

Two Left Feet
Two right feet washed up on separate islands in the Strait of Georgia over the summer, both with flesh intact, both in men’s size 12 sneakers. “Finding one foot is like a million to one odds,” said Corporal Garry Cox, spokesman for the Oceanside RCMP, “but to find two is crazy.”

Want That Sliced?
In October a 20-year-old woman was spotted at the Save-on-Foods in Lynn Valley Mall stabbing fruit with large knives and threatening customers in the dry goods aisle. She was arrested before she could reach the freshly baked bread.

Pot to Go
In August a 35-year-old Sunshine Coast resident was pulled over by police at the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal after a fellow ferry-goer complained about the man’s erratic driving. Inside his Toyota RAV4, police found 140 marijuana plants, light fixtures, wiring, a fertilizer, and a working transformer. The presence of a watering can suggested the man had not yet figured out how to install a mobile hydroponic system.

Close Shave
Daniel Baines received $12,000 after B.C. Supreme Court judge William Ehrcke ruled that he’d been unjustifiably roughed up by Superstore guards in Delta (where he’d been caught stealing $106 worth of razor blades). Originally awarded $15,000, Baines had his award reduced after he was found 20 percent responsible for the tooth he’d lost, having pulled two guards down a flight of stairs and bitten one of them on the hand.

Flight Risk
After confessing in 2004 to a plethora of unsolved gang murders—including that of crime lord Bindy Johal—Bal Buttar, a blind quadriplegic who was shot in the head by a rival in 2001, was charged in September with conspiracy to commit murder. Buttar is under 24-hour guard at his long-term care facility—by not one armed officer, but two.

Illustration by: Steve Wacksman

Jurassic Park?
Good news: In October the Vancouver Park Board voted down a proposal to install 30 life-sized robotic dinosaurs in Stanley Park. Bad news: The board has since been looking into a broader range of tourist traps, a couple of which include the fake dinosaurs.

Paging Mr. Spock
Doctors at St. Paul’s Hospital were taken aback after a 42-year-old patient came in for emergency surgery late one night and proceeded to leave dark green blood all over the surgical table. Though the condition was likely triggered by an overdose of a drug used to treat the patient’s migraines, non-medical experts have pointed out that green blood is also the telltale signature of Vulcans on Star Trek.


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