Cops Called to Stop Domestic Violence— Against Spider

Witnesses heard man screaming 'die, die!'
By Luke Roney,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 30, 2015 10:26 AM CST
Cops Called to Stop Domestic Violence— Against Spider
Ugh.   (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

"At this point, the male became very sheepish." So goes a recent Facebook post from the Harbourside Local Area Command of the New South Wales Police in Australia. Officers had gone to the Wollstonecraft apartment after receiving calls from neighbors concerned about an apparent domestic violence incident occurring in the unit, CNN reports. When police asked the "out-of-breath ... flushed" 32-year-old man who answered the door where the victim was, he said, "I live alone." Then, "It was spider." Unconvinced, police searched the scene. Sure enough, they ultimately discovered, it was a spider. Police spokesman Dean Lindley tells ABC News: "After a can of Mortein [insecticide], I'm not so sad to report the spider did not make it." The species of spider was not disclosed.

Still, there were some questions that needed to be answered. After all, according to reports, the apartment was trashed and the man was heard yelling, "I'm going to kill you … die, die!" And a woman was reportedly heard screaming. Per the police's Facebook post:

  • Police: "What about the woman screaming?"
  • Male: "Yeah, sorry, that was me; I really, really hate spiders."
The man's aversion to arachnids may be understandable: Some 10,000 species of venomous spiders, including the infamous funnel-web spider, creep around Australia. However, there were no recorded deaths from spider bites between the early 1980s and 2012, according to Australian Geographic. At the same time, though, there are still plenty of animals—and that doesn't even include Paul Hogan—Down Under waiting to kill you. (More Australia stories.)

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