Top 10 bizarre stories of 2022: Postal pilfering, restroom wrecking
Dec. 30—ASHLAND — The old newspaper mantra goes something like this: if a dog bites a man, there's no story at all, but if a man bites a dog, it goes on the front page.
And every year, there's no shortage of "man bites dog" stories in the headlines, even in this sleepy corner of Kentucky.
People be out there wilding sometimes, whether they be criminals or politicians — is there much of a difference?
Without further ado, here are the top 10 weirdest news pieces to get ink in the paper of record for Boyd, Greenup and Carter counties:
1. Stealing mail for Jesus
On March 11, 2022, 32-year-old William Crum, of Ashland, found himself on a mission from God. According to police reports, Crum tried to steal his mail from a dude's mailbox while on a search for relics commissioned by Jesus Christ.
When it was all said and done, he didn't get struck down by a lightning bolt from the heavens, but a TASER from a patrol officer — the results were shockingly similar.
A couple months later, Crum pleaded guilty to mail theft and other charges in Boyd County Circuit Court, landing a probation term.
2. Panic in the plumbing
Everyone has torn up the bathroom once or twice, especially after a meal filled with beans and chili peppers.
But one West Virginian is doing seven years in prison after literally tearing up five restrooms at five businesses in Cannonsburg.
Logan B. Marstiller, 41, aka "The Restroom Ransacker" aka "The Bathroom Bandit" aka "The Prince of Plumbing" aka "The Mario of Mayhem" aka "Mr. Flood and Flee" aka "The Mountain State Ernest T. Bass," came to Boyd County on April 6, 2022, and unleashed a wave of destruction on the corridor.
According to the Boyd County Sheriff's office, Marstiller flooded out restrooms at the Holiday Inn Express, Bob Evans, the Hampton Inn, Dairy Queen and finally, the Cannonsburg Walmart.
Martsiller is now doing seven years in prison for his deeds — no word on how the prison system is safeguarding its commodes.
3. A gruesome discovery
Over the heat of the summer, authorities discovered a man sleeping with the decomposing corpse of his girlfriend stuffed between the bed and the wall.
The suspect, a convicted drug dealer named Whitney Filion, was arrested on a charge of abuse of a corpse. Filion, 44, pleaded guilty in September to the charge and took a three-year prison term.
He is currently serving his time at the Boyd County Detention Center.
4. The Ghost of Joe Diffie
Anyone with any familiarity with Louisa knows the "Billy Bob Loves Charlene" graffiti on the side of the rotting husk of the old Foodland.
No one knows when it appeared, but when it did the marker became a part of the landscape, as if it had always been there — the police chief reckoned it was about four or five years.
But people certainly remember the second time it appeared.
That's because some new owners bought out the building, painted over it and one day it in June, it reappeared.
Louisa PD took to Facebook to find the vandals, resulting in comments about suspects living on 80 acres, raising sweet corn, kids and tomatoes and all sorts of allusions to the 1993 country music hit.
Hard to say if the whole town thought the letters ought to be red, and Chief Greg Fugitt didn't get out to measure if they were 3 feet tall.
The suspect pool is pretty large — it is just a couple miles off the country music highway, after all.
5. Bentley's Bumble
What's a legislative session without a representative opening their mouth as wide as possible and shoving their foot inside?
During an anti-abortion debate back in March, Rep. Danny Bentley (R-Russell) did just that when he went on a 10-minute tangent in which he said the man who invented Zyklon B (used to gas people during the Holocaust) also invented an abortion pill. He then went on to say the man was Jewish and had to change his name because he was a Jew. He also said Jewish women mate for life.
For starters, these ramblings inflamed the Jewish community, with leaders in Kentucky calling the comments anti-semitic. Furthermore, they were completely historically inaccurate — the man who invented the abortion pill in question was a Jewish Frenchman who changed his name because he was fighting Nazis in occupied France.
Bentley apologized for his comments, stating he just wanted to give a history on the abortion pill, which he completely botched.
6. Who's on Poage?
A simple renaming of a park turned into an Abbott and Costello routine at a July meeting of the Ashland Board of Commissioners.
The Riverfront Park was split into two parks — one would be called "Port of Ashland" while the side with the statues called "Poage Landing Park." But when the Ashland City Commission asked City Attorney Jim Moore to come up with the name, he wound up putting up an ordinance renaming the whole kit-n-caboodle "Port of Ashland Poage Landing."
That opened up a whole other line of questions — where do you draw the line? What's Poage Landing Park and what's Port of Ashland? Can you be in two parks at the same time? Do large-scale events transcend the park barriers or do event planners just pick a park to host their event in?
Then there's the rub Chief Todd Kelley had — the Port of Ashland is an actual port and on nautical maps, it's called "The Port of Ashland." and that's a federal designation, so no matter Ashland calls it, the U.S. Government calls it "The Port of Ashland."
After hashing it out and bringing back the ordinance, the commission wound up with the park with three names.
Of course, like anything in Appalachia, about three generations will have to pass before anyone stops call it "Riverfront Park."
7. Schrodinger's merit board
If a merit board is created but it never meets and the members appointed to it are dead, is it still a merit board?
That's the question out-going Greenup Jailer Mike Worthington kept posing in his campaign to discredit the man who beat him in the Republican primary, Larry Pancake.
Worthington contended to The Daily Independent that Pancake, who was working as a Greenup deputy sheriff, should've resigned his post before running. He said it violated the merit board system of the county, which was defunct for nearly 30 years.
Voters didn't seem to care — they handed Worthington's hind end to him in a paper bag and Pancake cruised through the general election with nary a hiccup.
That wasn't the only weirdness to come out of Greenup County politics during the mid-term elections — in sheriff's primary race, Worthington's son, Shannon, tried to challenge Democrat-turned-Republican Matt Smith.
It turns out, Shannon Worthington had an active personal protection order against him at the time and couldn't legally carry a firearm. Like his father, Shannon was wiped out in the polls, cracking around 10% of the vote.
And that merit board fiasco? After the election, the county attorney said it still existed on paper after all.
8. Lightning strikes twice
In 2018, then 34-year-old Christopher Childers was accused of setting his house on fire on Gallaher Street and burning up his mother who was inside. He went to jail.
Three years later, a jury of his peers found him not guilty following a trial in Boyd County Circuit Court.
On Sept. 22, 2022, Childers was once again accused of setting fire to his home on Gallaher Street, a little over a year after being acquitted of the prior fire.
Police said Childers borrowed a lighter and was seen running from his home moments before the house — where he was trading his labor for rent — went up in smoke.
Thankfully, no one was hurt.
Childers is currently awaiting trial.
9. Molotov madness
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro," the famed Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson once wrote.
Mitch Pritchard, a construction worker and biker, turned pro after his friend allegedly chucked a Molotov cocktail onto his parked motorcycle early in the morning.
Pritchard moved heaven and earth looking for the suspect, 34-year-old John Tidd, bringing evidence to the Ashland Police Department that eventually resulted in a criminal indictment.
Then Pritchard tracked Tidd down to a homeless encampment outside of Russell, where he followed him and called law enforcement. Tidd was taken into custody.
Don't mess with another man's bike.
10. Commissioner brings brick to meeting
Commissioner Marty Gute of the Ashland City Commission is a dandy when it comes to off-the-wall, zany quotes.
A whole list could be written of Gute-isms — here's just a sample of what we heard this year at the Ashland City Commission ...
On visiting local businesses:
"It's amazing what you can do with a cup of Tim Horton's coffee and a shot of espresso."
On squirrels interfering Easter Eggs in Central Park:
"You ever seen a purple egg run up the side of a tree?"
On the creation of an asset manager position:
"I'm sure that the asset manager won't be sitting on his ass-et."
But the coupe de-grace of Guteisms came at the August 2022 meeting of the Ashland Board of Commissioners.
During commissioner's comments, Gute reflected on the tear down of the old Ashland Oil Building, stating "you eat an elephant one bite at a time and you tear down the Ashland Oil Building one brick at a time."
Then Gute held up a brick from the building.
That's right — Marty Gute brought a brick to the city commission.
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