- 16 hours ago
This week, we’re going to hear about the adventure one of our news teams had at a haunted car wash in California and about the heist of nearly $1 million worth of Pokémon cards. Then, we’ll listen to an interview with a woman who brings her 26-pound bunny to an airport to help nervous travelers and about the woman who claims she found a cow tooth in her taco.
Special thanks to Daniella DeRobbio from KNX News in Los Angeles, A New Morning out of WBEN in Buffalo, Christine & Salt out of WTIC News and Talk in Hartford and the Dana & Parks Show out of KMBZ in Kansas City.
Special thanks to Daniella DeRobbio from KNX News in Los Angeles, A New Morning out of WBEN in Buffalo, Christine & Salt out of WTIC News and Talk in Hartford and the Dana & Parks Show out of KMBZ in Kansas City.
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NewsTranscript
00:11Welcome to a Weird News Roundup presented by Odyssey's Something Offbeat podcast.
00:17We explore strange tales reported on by Odyssey's radio newsrooms from coast to coast.
00:24I'm your Roundup host, Lauren Berry.
00:27This week, we're going to hear about an adventure one of our news teams had at a haunted car wash
00:34in California.
00:35And about the heist of nearly $1 million worth of Pokemon cards.
00:42Then, we'll listen to an interview with a woman who brings her nearly 30-pound bunny to an airport to
00:49help nervous travelers.
00:52And a story about a woman who claims that she found a cow tooth in her taco.
00:58First up, I got to talk with the wonderful Daniela DeRobio from our Odyssey station, KNX News in Los Angeles.
01:07She did some boots-on-the-ground journalism to find out what it's like to go through a haunted house
01:13that's really a car wash, all while she was actually driving the car.
01:18I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty scary to me.
01:22And we haven't even gotten to the clowns yet.
01:25Here, listen.
01:27Yeah.
01:28And how did this come about? Tell me about the car wash.
01:30Tell me about how you found out about it.
01:33Um, so, I was going through our DMs on the station Instagram page, and this haunted car wash kind of
01:41popped up.
01:42It was like, hey, we're starting.
01:43Um, we have select locations in Orange County and whatnot.
01:48And I brought it to my boss, and I said, we gotta do this.
01:53And he's like, all right, yeah, sure.
01:54Sure. So, um, initially, it was myself, my, um, news director, Jonathan, our news editor, our lead editor, Aaron Cooper,
02:06and then Becca, who was our features producer, and then sometimes part-time digital person.
02:12And then, and what was going to happen was I was going to be in the passenger seat,
02:18Becca and Aaron were going to be in the back, and Jonathan would be driving.
02:22And the week of, like, that Monday, because we were going to go on a Friday night,
02:28Jonathan said on that Monday when I walked into work,
02:31so bad news is Aaron and I can't go.
02:35Good news is you guys are going to have fun.
02:37We found, um, we have a co-worker, Denitra,
02:40he's this hilarious NPA, and he has some of the best reactions to things.
02:45And we were like, you, like, come with us.
02:47And he's, he was so down.
02:49So, the car wash itself, it's, you know, a haunted car wash.
02:53They have people coming out in, like, masks and whatnot.
02:56And so, um, when we got there, they, we got into the line,
03:02and then when we pulled up, they put us in the media thing.
03:05Um, it's $30 a car.
03:08So, if you take one car, $30.
03:10You know, it doesn't matter how many people are in it.
03:13So, we pull up, um, and when you get there,
03:17there's a sign that says, turn off your car lights
03:20and turn on this radio station.
03:22And the radio station plays, like, eerie music.
03:25And I'm a very anxious driver.
03:28I was, like, and I didn't even want to drive.
03:31I wasn't supposed to drive.
03:33And so, um, I'm worried, like, the, between the fog and whatnot.
03:38And as you're pulling into the car wash, it's a bit of, like, a drive.
03:42But as you're going up there, people in masks, like, coming up
03:45and, like, trying to hit on the car door,
03:48trying to, like, get your attention.
03:50They're trying to, I know.
03:52And all week, I was worried that, like, I'm going to hit somebody.
03:56I'm going to rear-end the car and whatnot.
04:00And so, you know, there were people with, like, you know,
04:04little lights saying, like, okay, go this way, go that way.
04:07But I still was very nervous because I couldn't see anything.
04:11And they kept trying to open the door.
04:13And if you wanted to, you could open the door.
04:17Denetrius opened the door.
04:19Oh, he tried to get in the car.
04:21And he had some of the best reactions I'd ever seen.
04:25And, like, they get in your, like, they're clowns.
04:28They're ghouls.
04:29But mostly, like, clowns.
04:30But they were getting in Denetrius' face.
04:32And they were coming in.
04:33They were like, you know.
04:35Oh, nope, nope, nope.
04:36They don't like bouncing in the car lights.
04:40Just hang a little back.
04:41Oh.
04:42Oh.
04:43Damn.
04:49I can't do that.
04:49All that.
04:51And I, if you watch the video, there's me telling him, close the door, close the door,
04:57close the door, close the door.
04:58Because I was getting nervous that they were going to, like, try to come on to my side as
05:03I'm driving.
05:03And then I'm going to rear end somebody.
05:05I was not my best self.
05:07I was very stressed.
05:09It's funny because we stopped at a point getting close to the car wash itself.
05:14And Becca, who's sitting in the back, is like, Daniella, if you want to get out, you know,
05:18we can switch seats.
05:20There are two clowns walking around.
05:23I'm not getting at.
05:25As we're pulling up.
05:28Why are you offering now?
05:29She goes, I didn't think you'd be so.
05:31This is something you offer at the beginning.
05:34So, the car wash itself, like, you do have people pop out, which I was a little, like,
05:39I don't know much.
05:40I don't know what chemicals are in those car cleaners.
05:42And I'm a little worried.
05:44That, to me, is scary is that there are people in these things.
05:47The wash itself was meh.
05:49They did not dry off my car.
05:50Yeah.
05:51I mean, overall, it was a fun experience.
05:53They actually wash your car?
05:55They do.
05:55That's amazing.
05:57I thought it was just the premise.
05:59That's so funny.
06:00I know there are people who pop out, too, in the car wash.
06:04And, like I said, I was like.
06:04I think it's so sweet that the scariest thing for you is, like,
06:08are these people okay with the car wash chemicals?
06:11The whole time, the whole week leading up, I was so worried about how, like,
06:16I was like, are they going to try to, like, go to me and try to scare me as I'm
06:21driving?
06:21Because that doesn't seem safe.
06:22And I told my boss, and he goes, you're going to be fine.
06:25You're going to be fine.
06:26And so, Monday morning, I was like, hey, remember all those things I was worried about?
06:29Well, they happened, with the exception of obviously hitting somebody.
06:33But I was like, are you serious?
06:35Because they would, like, tap on my window.
06:37And I was like, no.
06:38I think it adds to that fear of you can't see anything.
06:42You can't see somebody coming.
06:43So, I would suggest if you're going to drive, you need to be an experienced driver.
06:49Have you been to other haunted houses?
06:51And how does this compare, if you have?
06:53Of course.
06:55Growing up, I was very scared of a lot of things.
06:57I'm the youngest child.
06:58When I grew up, when I became an adult, I tried to get myself into it.
07:03I tried to be like, look, you've been through scarier things, like a haunted house.
07:06So, I went to one.
07:08I went to horror nights with some friends.
07:11And we went through.
07:14I thought I would be okay.
07:16The Stranger Things house was fine.
07:18That was, like, okay.
07:20Um, the last of us house was a little much.
07:24But, um, you know, what I would do is I'd get close behind the other person.
07:28And then, like, as soon as they got scared, I just bolted so they couldn't get to me.
07:32You can learn more about the haunted car wash and see the video on KNX News' Instagram page.
07:40You can also check out videos about other spooky stuff going on in L.A. right now, like the horror
07:47show at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
07:50And other weird news out of California this week.
07:55Bandits made off with nearly a million dollars worth of Pokemon cards.
08:00Not a great way to catch them all.
08:02Come on.
08:03ABC's Jim Ryan joined Odyssey Station, WBEN, News and Talk in Buffalo with details on this collectible card caper.
08:13200 packages with trading cards valued at nearly a million dollars stolen off a FedEx truck in California.
08:22Jim Ryan is joining us with the latest on this story.
08:25Jim, you know, you hear about people maybe going after the Brinks truck, but the, you know, the trading card,
08:31the hockey card truck doesn't get a lot of attention usually.
08:35No, it might as well have been a Brinks truck because these were some high-end items.
08:40This truck was parked outside the Professional Sports Authenticator headquarters there in California.
08:45What that outfit does is it ranks cards.
08:49So people who collect, you know, big collectors of valuable cards, they send them off to that company, PSA, to
08:55get them ranked and certified.
08:57They're the leading authority on the value of various cards.
09:00So you send it off there.
09:01They send it back with the ranking of it and the value of it, the estimated value.
09:06And therefore, collectors can find fair market value for their cards.
09:11Well, unfortunately, this shipment was not hijacked, but the van was simply broken into.
09:16The driver had gone inside somewhere for 60 to 90 minutes, came back out, the lock had been broken on
09:22the van, and all these cards were gone.
09:25Skyler Bennett lost a lot of his cards in this heist.
09:28These were 104 cards that I've accumulated over two years.
09:32There are many irreplaceable cards in here that I will never see again.
09:35And honestly, that's what hurts the most outside of obviously being absolutely financially destroyed here.
09:41Yes, and there's a burgeoning black market for cards like that, an underground economy that's based on stolen items like
09:48collector cards.
09:49Wow.
09:49So these are extra valuable.
09:51Will they know if these cards surface somewhere someday?
09:57Yes.
09:57Yes.
09:58The certifications have been listed now, the images of these.
10:02In fact, that guy, Skyler Bennett, has a YouTube channel where he talks about collecting, and he's posted images of
10:08all his stolen cards, Susan.
10:09So the hope is that anyone who stole them, that there's no market for them because people will know that
10:15they're buying stolen goods, essentially breaking the law just like the thief did.
10:22These cards, I mean, maybe that is the saving grace right outside of PSA.
10:25So, I mean, it's been graded.
10:27They know the card.
10:29They know where it came from.
10:30They know, you know, if the card shows up somewhere, you know, likely to maybe trace it back.
10:37Well, Jim, thanks.
10:38Jim Ryan joining us there.
10:40Card thefts, millions of dollars.
10:42Might as well be the Brinks truck, as you said.
10:44When we get back from a short break, we'll hear about some online drama over an adorable therapy bunny helping
10:52nervous air travelers.
10:53And about a taco that allegedly had an unwelcome surprise inside.
10:59All on this Weird News Roundup, presented by Odyssey's Something Offbeat.
11:07Thank you for listening to this special presentation of Weird News from Odyssey's Something Offbeat.
11:14Do you ever get nervous about flying?
11:17Would snuggling a big, fluffy bunny make the thought of moving through the air at 30,000 feet?
11:24Or dealing with unruly passengers getting duct-taped into their seats easier to deal with?
11:30One woman has been offering that service to travelers at Bradley Airport in Connecticut.
11:36And somehow, she ended up in social media drama over it.
11:41Christine and Salt, out of Odyssey Station WTIC in Hartford, interviewed Nicole Geib about it this week.
11:48Let's listen.
11:49How did a volunteer therapy bunny named Bon Jovi become the center of a Connecticut taxpayer controversy?
11:56This is bonkers.
11:57The story is absolutely bonkers.
11:59It's insane.
12:00Well, this is the voice of Nicole Geib.
12:02She is the mama to one Bon Jovi, a therapy bunny that she brings to Bradley Airport.
12:10My wife and I are so mad because every time we go there, we miss Bon Jovi.
12:13We've been wanting to hang out for so long.
12:17And Bon Jovi is a giant...
12:20Gigantic.
12:21...bunny.
12:21Talk about Bon Jovi.
12:23How big is Bon Jovi?
12:24And then tell us how this got to be a big controversy.
12:28Yeah, so Bon Jovi is my 26-pound German giant rabbit.
12:34Wow.
12:35Yes.
12:36So soft.
12:37He's a big love bug.
12:39He's my sweet boy.
12:41So we got certified with Pet Partners, which is a national organization for pet therapy.
12:48We got certified about maybe it was two years ago now.
12:52And we started at Bradley Airport in March.
12:56And it's been wonderful.
12:58I've met wonderful people.
13:00And I had just left the airport.
13:02I was at home starting work.
13:04And I just happened to look online.
13:06And I saw a picture of them.
13:07And I assumed it was like what it usually is, where people share pictures of them.
13:13And I got all excited to look.
13:14And all of a sudden, it was POV.
13:17This is where your tax dollars are going, Connecticut.
13:21What?
13:22And verbally.
13:23I think my head exploded.
13:25We pay to be a part of Pet Partners, go through the process, hours of training.
13:31It has nothing to do with taxpayer dollars.
13:34This wasn't just a regular post, though, from just a regular person walking through the airport.
13:39This was from an influencer.
13:41Yeah.
13:42And she didn't come up to the rabbits.
13:44I talked to everybody.
13:45She didn't ask anything about the rabbits.
13:47It was just this video from like six feet away.
13:51If she had taken five seconds to come up to me and have a conversation, I would have answered any
13:57questions she had.
13:59It went viral.
14:00So I made a simple just, you know, response to it.
14:04It blew up.
14:06It got she ended up deleting the one on Instagram.
14:11And it had like half a million views.
14:15And then the one on TikTok has over a million views right now.
14:19And to be clear, the influence actually did put up an apology video.
14:23A lame one, right?
14:24Yeah, it was a very lame one.
14:25It was more of, I love bunnies.
14:27And the whole point is, you're there before you go to your job where you earn a living with a
14:33therapy bunny to help calm nervous travelers before they get on a plane.
14:39And then you go to your job.
14:41It's like a 12 to 14 hour day by the time of like, I mean, working.
14:47It's still work.
14:47I love it.
14:48And, you know, but I'm up at, you know, 4 or 4.15.
14:52Are you there every single day?
14:53No, we're there Monday and Friday mornings from 5 to 7.30.
14:58What's your social media handle so people can go follow you?
15:01It's Big Bun Little Dog because my dog is the same size as my rabbit.
15:08Nicole Geib, thank you so much for sharing your story.
15:11We're making Bon Jovi a badass bunny of the week.
15:17And don't let one dumb influencer discourage you.
15:21I think even though her video went viral, your response to it is what matters.
15:26And you kept it classy.
15:27And thank you for volunteering your time and helping nervous travelers feel safe.
15:33I appreciate it.
15:34It was actually my video that went viral compared to hers.
15:37She ended up deleting all of them today anyway, I think.
15:40What's your favorite Bon Jovi song so we can play it in honor of Bon Jovi this morning?
15:45There's been so many jokes like living on a hair.
15:49That's a great one.
15:50Well, there it is.
15:51Perfect.
15:51Living on a hair it is.
15:53All right.
15:53Thank you, Nicole.
15:54And thank you, Bon Jovi.
15:56Keep up the great work at Bradley and have a great week.
15:59You too.
16:00Thank you guys so much.
16:01Bye.
16:01Bye.
16:01Now we're headed south to hear about a woman who claims she found a bovine tooth in her
16:07taco and is now taking the matter to court.
16:11The Dana and Parks show out of Odyssey Station, KMBZ in Kansas City, discussed the story this
16:17week.
16:18And here's what they had to say.
16:21It's out of Austin, Texas, where a Texas woman is suing a taco restaurant after she said she
16:28found an animal tooth in her food.
16:31How would she know?
16:33The company confirmed that the item, yes, was a cow tooth.
16:37Gross!
16:38The woman ordered a Democrat taco for takeout from Torchy's Tacos in Austin, according to
16:45her lawyer.
16:45Her reaction was disgust.
16:47What is this?
16:48Torchy's is incredible.
16:49Looking at it, she thought it was a tooth.
16:51The attorney said his client immediately contacted him.
16:55He said when he tried to get answers about what was in the food, a manager and a lawyer
16:59at Torchy's Tacos kept passing the blame.
17:03Wait, go back.
17:04We have one here, don't we?
17:05How?
17:05A couple, yeah.
17:06Yeah.
17:11Did she take it to, like, K-State to have it looked at under a microscope?
17:17How would you even know what that was?
17:19Now that there's a bovine tooth.
17:21How would you know?
17:22Well, you know what a tooth looks like.
17:24It's obviously too big to be a human tooth.
17:26You know what a cow tooth looks like.
17:27Well, I know what a tooth looks like.
17:29You know what a cow tooth looks like.
17:30No, but I know what a shark's tooth looks like.
17:32That's completely different.
17:34I probably would have felt-
17:35You can buy that and put it on a necklace.
17:36We've all seen a shark tooth.
17:38Walking around with a cow tooth on a necklace, you're going to be checked into minigres.
17:42Okay.
17:42I probably would have felt the hard item as I was trying to chew and just spit it out
17:48onto my plate as if it were a piece of bone and been none the wiser.
17:52Hmm.
17:53I-
17:54See, and I'm not saying that she's lying, but my BS meter is starting to go off a little
18:00bit, and I think it's so easy to pull these stunts.
18:03I'm not saying this is a stunt.
18:05You could just walk in with a cow tooth in your pocket and start eating your delicious
18:11Torchy's taco, the Democrat, and throw the tooth on your plate and say, huh, found this
18:19tooth in my taco.
18:22I'll tell you this.
18:23Okay.
18:24Many, many years ago, like a hundred years ago.
18:28I don't even remember.
18:28It was down when I was down the street working as a reporter.
18:32We got a call from a woman who said she went to throw something away at a gas station outside,
18:39and when she put her trash in the trash can, she touched what looked like some sort of bag
18:49bag of blood from a local hospital, okay?
18:52Okay.
18:53And she wanted to do the big news conference with her attorney claiming, you know, now I
18:59have to be tested for hepatitis and HIV because the hospital threw away bio waste in a gas station
19:08trash can.
19:09Sure they did.
19:09And the hospital, before you could even say the word lawyer, said, we don't know where
19:18that came from.
19:19We don't know how it got there.
19:21We don't know if she actually touched it.
19:23It's certainly, we certainly didn't put it there because our bio waste goes over here.
19:28And I'll never forget, the hospital says, this sounds an awful lot like a finger in the
19:33chili to us.
19:35Remember the finger in the Wendy's chili?
19:38I do.
19:39And the woman said, I bit down.
19:41It was a finger.
19:43And she said, I want $10 million.
19:46And it turns out, was it her husband that had lost a finger in like an industrial accident?
19:53And they came up with this cockamamie scheme to take the finger and order some chili from
19:59Wendy's and then put the finger in the chili and then go, oh my gosh, there's a finger in
20:04the chili, which if memory serves, Wendy's knew immediately could not have been in their
20:13chili because the temperature with which they cook that in the cauldron, not to be grotesque,
20:19but this was their defense and it worked, would have pulverized the finger had it been
20:28in the chili.
20:29Okay.
20:29So her name was Anna Ayala.
20:32Ayala, Arroya or something.
20:34Ayala, A-Y-A-L-A.
20:35Yes.
20:36It was March 22nd of 2005.
20:39And she said she found a severed human finger in a bowl of chili at a Wendy's restaurant in
20:43San Jose, California.
20:45The finger was 1.5 inches long.
20:48Gross.
20:48Okay.
20:50She took it home and cooked it.
20:52No, they had it and then she slipped it in the chili, Sam.
20:57No, it says here she took it home and cooked it before planting it in the food.
21:00Oh, look, it's a finger.
21:02Police and medical examiners quickly realized the story was fake.
21:06The finger lacked saliva and showed no signs of having been simmered for hours in hot chili.
21:12Investigators traced the finger to a co-worker of Ayala's husband, Jamie.
21:17Yes.
21:18Thank you so much for listening to this Weird News Roundup presented by Odyssey's Something
21:24Offbeat podcast.
21:25This episode was written and produced by me, Lauren Berry.
21:30Special thanks to Daniela DeRobio from KNX News in Los Angeles, A New Morning out of WBEN in Buffalo,
21:39Christine and Salt out of WTIC News and Talk in Hartford, and the Dana and Parks Show out of KMBZ
21:46in Kansas City.
21:47You can find all of these programs, including the Something Offbeat podcast, on the Odyssey app, or wherever you get
21:56your podcasts.