Cattle Rustling Makes a Texas- Size Comeback

79-year-old reported it missing two days before death

(NEWSER) - Somebody took a lot more than just an air conditioner from an elderly Texas woman. Two days after the 79-year-old reported her $2,500 unit stolen from the back of her home, she died of heat exhaustion, reports the Christian Post . It was the fourth time she had had her A/C unit stolen. More»

Customer's trust betrayed, guy probably in Asia

(NEWSER) - A former Texas convenience store clerk is on the lam and living large, police say, after making off with an unwitting customer’s million dollar lotto ticket. Willis Willis of Grand Prairie, Texas bought tickets at the Lucky Food Store every week, trusting the clerks to check if he’d won. When he brought the million dollar ticket in, clerk Pankaj Joshi dutifully handed him $2—then handed his boss his two-week notice. More»

(NEWSER) - With Texas caught in the midst of a brutal drought, a new crime is on the rise: hay rustling. Hay has been disappearing from farms, depriving cattle of much-needed nourishment, the Wall Street Journal reports. Stolen hay reports remain sporadic—the Journal catches up with one farmer who lost 1,700 bales inside a week—but there have been enough to prompt police in several counties to step up their hayfield protection efforts. More»

Sheriff's lieutenant shut down car wash over wife's missing $16

(NEWSER) - A Texas sheriff’s lieutenant has been fired for using police resources to investigate the alleged theft of $16 from his wife at a local car wash, the Houston Chronicle reports. Louis Guthrie and a group of deputies taped off the establishment for an hour to question employees. “This incident was clearly a violation of sheriff’s policies,” a spokesman said. “He was fired for official oppression.” More»

Who's stealing horses' fly swatters—and why?

(NEWSER) - Angry horse owners are bridling at bizarre new attacks on their four-hoofed friends, reports the Los Angeles Times: tail theft. One Colorado rancher woke up recently to find someone had chopped off the long flaxen tails of all of his Belgian draft horses. "It makes me so mad," he complained. "If they were mean horses, they would have never gotten away with it." More»