Cicada Used in 'Armed' Robbery

"Hands up!"

A giant, eerie creature with wings and menacing red eyes. At any other time, such a description found here on Theresa's Haunted History would probably indicate a post about West Virginia's infamous Mothman. However, on this particular Weird Wednesday, we're talking about something quite different, yet arguably, just as strange.

On June 4, 1987 two men in their 20s were accused of robbing the Cincinnati, OH restaurant, Grand Slam. They walked into the establishment and approached Marquisa Kellogg, a 22-year-old cashier. Instead of a firearm, or even a knife...the 'deadly weapon' of choice brandished by the alleged robbers was a big, nasty cicada. Yes, a cicada. 

Despite being a harmless insect, Marquisa fled in terror at having this thing thrust at her, which left the cash register unattended for several minutes while she composed herself. Upon returning to her post, she found the men (and their bug) gone, along with $25 in cash. Unfortunately, there were no security cameras there at the time, and no one saw the men take the money. To my knowledge, they were never identified. 

That summer, the 17 year cicadas were out in full force across the Eastern United States, including in Ohio, where local police would even claim that the insects were to blame for an increase in traffic accidents. In a later article by David Sarasohn of the Flint Journal, a rather tongue-in-cheek discussion emerged as to whether or not brandishing a cicada could qualify as a deadly weapon under the law, and thus, up the charges to first degree armed (winged?) robbery. 

But, is this story too weird to be true? Unfortunately, yeah...but there is a basis in truth to the whole tale, as Marquisa told a local newspaper in 2021. Decades after her story went viral, Marquisa was interviewed about what really happened that summer at Grand Slam. According to her, she and a friend were sitting outside the restaurant. She decided to play a prank on him, and grabbed a handful of cicadas that had accumulated there in abundance, and put them on him. Of course, he screamed and flailed around a bit, while Marquisa laughed. She then went inside to wait on two male customers. She knew these guys from the neighborhood, and considered them friends. While she was with them at the register, her friend from outside took that moment to exact his revenge. He rushed up to Marquisa and tossed a handful of cicadas directly at her FACE. 

Understandably, she booked it out of the way...and out of sight of the open register. When she returned, she noticed that the bills in the till were no longer straight and organized. She counted down her drawer and found that $25 was missing. The two customers swore they didn't take the money, and Marquisa was forced to call the police and make a report of a robbery. A poorly written police report (Marquisa believes the cop sold the story to the media) was picked up and published in newspapers across the country. 

As West Virginia and surrounding areas are currently dealing with our own cycle of cicadas, I can only hope that no one reading this takes a certain inspiration from the events transpired in Cincinnati back in 1987. These poor little creepy crawlies don't have much time here above the soil, so please don't implicate them into a life a crime, nor use them to terrorize your friends while they are at work. 

Stay weird, stay spooky, and watch out for those cicadas. And a big shout-out to the Facebook page, Historian of the Strange, where I first learned about this extremely interesting and bizarre story! 

The Bay City Times (Michigan)
06 June 1987

The Flint Journal (Michigan)
07 August 1987

The Times Recorder (Ohio)
16 June 2021

Weird Wednesday: One Stubborn Elephant at Lake Shawnee

Photo by Theresa, 2024

A couple of weeks ago, I got the opportunity to tag along with WV Unseen Paranormal to a location that I had wanted to investigate for a LONG time! On May 31st, we made the trek to Mercer County for a private investigation of the former Lake Shawnee amusement park. At this time, instead of dedicating a new blog post to the experience, I'll just be giving my current Lake Shawnee post a much-needed update. However, I DID want to add a few new blog posts featuring some additional research---including today's Weird Wednesday about a rather unique traffic situation. The road running past Lake Shawnee has a long history of traffic accidents, many fatal, and while compiling some of these, I stumbled across this story in the Friday, March 25, 1949 edition of the Raleigh Register, a newspaper out of nearby Beckley, WV:

STUBBORN ELEPHANT BLOCKS TRAFFIC IN LAKE SHAWNEE AREA

By the Associated Press

BLUEFIELD-"What's the traffic jam about?" a motorist asked.

"There's an elephant blocking the road," another replied.

"I ask a civil question and what do I get? A blankety-blank silly answer," fumed the first motorist.

But it really was an elephant that had traffic blocked along U.S. Rt. 19-21 near Lake Shawnee, according to a story told here today. 

W.R. (Pete) Cooke of Bluefield, assistant to the Mercer County superintendent of schools, said he was at the scene. Cooke related that:

One day earlier this week, an elephant somehow broke out of one of the trucks of a circus that was headed North from Florida winter quarters.

The elephant took a stubborn stand in the middle of the road and refused to budge, even for his trainer.

Traffic was held up nearly an hour before a farmer broke the blockade with cornbread.

The farmer brought to the scene some cornbread left over from his noon meal and used it to lure the elephant slowly back into the truck. 

(This isn't the only Weird Animal story from Lake Shawnee I've found recently. In April, I included an article about a rain of frogs on the Lake Shawnee property in a post about Fortean Falls from around West Virginia!)

The Raleigh Register
25 March 1949

Wayne County's Mystery Animal

Wayne County News
2 January 1936
Source: Wayne County News Archives FB

MYSTERY ANIMAL KILLED AFTER ALL-DAY CHASE

Wayne County's mystery animal is dead!

The animal which has harassed residents of Grant district for more than six years was killed December 24 after an all-day chase by Will Spry of Milum Creek. Mr. Spry shot the animal in the shoulder after it had fallen into the creek when the ice broke in crossing.

More than a dozen men and several dogs chased the animal. It was discovered by Milton Nelson, who chased it with his dog all day. Other men and dogs joined in the chase but the dogs would quit when they got near the animal, except Rouster, Mr. Nelson's dog, which stayed in the chase the entire day.

Early in the chase the animal ran the ridges but in the evening, when the animal became tired, it dropped down to the creek level. 

Other men in the chase where Sammie Nelson, Norman and Boyd Finley, Fletcher Spry, Keither Caldwell, Charley Maynard, Ballard Finley, Max Lester, Noah Nelson, Carlos Nelson and Lindsey H. Perry, Jr.

It was not learned what kind of animal it is, but it was described by those in the chase as being about five feet in length, with the height of a sheep and feet and legs larger than those of a fox hound. Its weight was estimated at 75 pounds. It has a nose sharp and and long like a fox and its tusks are 1 1-2 inch in length. The animal is heavily furred, and tinted brown and gray. 

The animal was fond of pigs and sheep and several farmers have reported loss of their domestic animals during the past year or more. 

Several people saw the animal during recent years and it became almost a legend in that section of the county.

The animal, it was reported, is being mounted and will be on display in Wayne in the near future. 

Theresa's Note: I found this story in the January 2, 1936 edition of the Wayne County News, which was posted to the awesome Facebook page, Wayne County News Archives at the Wayne Public Library. The headline caught my attention immediately, because ya'll know I love me a good mysterious animal story! 

I was further intrigued when I tried to find out some additional information on the story and found the legend of the Booger Cat, posted to Wayne County History Portal website. The article states that during the early 1930's, the residents of southern Wayne County, especially around the area where Cabwaylingo State Park was currently being built, were being harassed by some weird animal that was eating up their livestock. A group of about 20 men finally hunted the creature down and shot it, but still could not figure out exactly what it was---it was black, had a bushy tail, and sported a snout like a dog's, only shorter. They sent the creature off to Charleston to be identified, where experts came to the conclusion that it was a...grey wolf.  The only problem was that grey wolves were allegedly extinct in that area. Could a small population still have been living deep in the dense forests of Wayne County for over a hundred years, mostly undetected? It is said that even after this creature was shot, other sightings of a similar animal continued. Perhaps the Mystery Animal shot on Christmas Eve was one of the last remaining relatives in a small family of wolves living in the area. 

The Bewitched Hen of Roney's Point

 

A Leghorn hen like this one laid a really weird egg
in West Virginia! 

It's Weird Wednesday! It's also Witchy Wednesday! Today's blog is a 2 for 1 in witchy weirdness, with the tale of a Leghorn hen that laid a rather interesting egg, near Roney's Point, West Virginia in 1886! The following story can be found on page 4 in the Daily Register, a newspaper from Wheeling, West Virginia, in the March 31, 1886 edition. 

MYSTERIOUS WORK OF A HEN

She Lays An Egg That Contains Cabalistic Inscriptions

Col. Jacob Nunge has a very peculiar Hen's egg on exhibition at his place in upper Market Square. This piece of hen fruit is about an inch and three quarters in diameter one way, and a fraction over that the other, it being almost perfectly round. On the outer edge of the shell the surface is corrugated all the way around, while inside of this is another circle in which the letters T A M N I O I U in Roman letters are plainly visible. At one of the ends of the egg a figure "6" is also to be seen.

A white Leghorn, owned by Jacob Fisher, of Roney's Point, gave up this mystery on the 25th inst, but whether the hen was bewitched or whether she performed this little feat just to have some fun, cannot be told. Nevertheless the curiosity is there and anyone can go and see it. 

I'm honestly not sure what to make of this strange incident, but I can't help to think that this is the sort of thing that the famed Charles Fort, collector of bizarre and unexplained occurrences in the natural world, would have been proud to have in his collection. And, it happened right here in wild and weird (and of course, wonderful) West Virginia!

Want MORE weird animal stories? Check out my blog post, Weird Wednesday: Weird Animals Around Charleston!

Weird Wednesday: Animals Around Charleston

Back in the early days of the 20th century, Charleston, WV was kind of a weird place. I mean, it still is...but back then, it was much more common to see such interesting sights as a horse in pants or a trained bear, escaped from a local theater, wandering around the federal building. Luckily, these delightful tales were odd enough to warrant the attention of local newspapers, and are preserved for us to enjoy today. I found both of them while researching other spooky stories in the area, and while there's nothing really PARANORMAL about these tales, they're definitely strange, and deserve a Weird Wednesday mention!

From The West Virginian
30 August 1916

From The Charleston Daily Mail
24 August 1914