Margaret Riley, 80, of Burlington, N.C., got in her car last Tuesday to drive to a doctor’s appointment. Then, more than 70 people called 911 to report Riley’s car driving on the wrong side of Interstates 85 and 40.

She made it 14 miles before police finally managed to get her to stop.

During the entire trip, other drivers weaved and honked, but managed to steer clear.

She pulled over when she saw all the police lights. . . .

Police did not ticket Riley, but her driver’s license is being re-evaluated. — WTSP

Watch the video from the police dashboard cam, too. No word on whether today’s Stupid Person of the Day ever made it to the doctor, or whether she has an eye exam scheduled now.

We’re back.

Grace Sium, 20, a student at North Dakota State University, called a West Fargo, N.D., police station, asking the police dispatcher where she could buy some drugs. The dispatcher told her that not only was it illegal, the police weren’t going to sell her any drugs. After she persisted, the dispatcher told her to come down to the police station and someone would hook her up. You can imagine what happened next.

Officer Ken Zeeb — who arrived for work at 3.45am — recalled: “The dispatcher got on the intercom and said, ‘You know what? She’s here. She just handed me $3 for marijuana.’” Zeeb quickly moved to cuff the master criminal, and later explained: “She didn’t seem like she was really under the influence of drugs or alcohol. She understood what was going on and articulated herself well.”

Zeeb, who has worked narcotics for over seven years and “and has arrested people for trying to buy drugs at a house as it was being searched by police,” admitted the bust was “about the craziest thing I’ve ever come across.” He rightly concluded: “This is something that you couldn’t even make up.” — The Register

Today’s Stupid Person of the Day was, perhaps, not quite in her right mind. Grace Sium didn’t get any dope, but she did get a trip to the Cass County Jail.

Wendy and Byron Ruff, of Warner, N.H., were convicted Monday of 10 counts of child endangerment, for keeping their five children in a home filled with animal feces, rotting garbage, loose insulation, and pornography on the walls.

“It is not a difficult matter to keep a home free of non-domesticated and non-house-trained animals,” [Henniker District Court Judge Brackett] Scheffy wrote in his ruling Monday. “It does not require even an ordinary level of intelligence to know that the waste products of a variety of animals, many of which were in poor and diseased condition, are dangerous to the well-being of children and adults.

“The display of pornography on the walls of a home in which young children, one of them a pre-teen girl, reside, shows a callousness to their welfare that fails to meet any rational standard of behavior,” Scheffy added.

The Ruffs are scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday. They face up to a year in jail or a $2,000 fine for each count.

The couple plan to appeal. They were charged in August after the town’s health inspector condemned their home, finding it full of garbage and animal waste, with no food for the children. The state veterinarian seized 37 animals, including pigs, chickens, goats, geese, rabbits, dogs and cats from the property. — WMUR

When the judge calls you stupid, then there’s a good chance you, like Byron and Wendy Ruff, will become the Stupid People of the Day.

Sharife Doorah, 23, of Indianapolis, Ind., allegedly robbed a bar late Friday night, and put the money in a bag. He ran off, and police took off after him. So far, about normal. But Doorah couldn’t possibly have gotten away that night.

“Upon arrival, they were told the suspect just went out the backdoor. In fact, he was getting into a vehicle carrying a bag of money with him,” said Indianapolis police Sgt. Don Weilhammer.

Police chased Doorah around the neighborhood before he bailed out of his vehicle and took off on foot.

A police canine chased Doorah and that’s when police said the chase took a peculiar turn.

“As he was running, the bag had a hole in it. So there was money going everywhere in the neighborhood as he was running,” Weilhammer said. — WMAQ

That’s right, he stuffed the money into a bag with a hole in it. Police eventually recovered nearly all of it, maybe missing some loose change. And Sharife Doorah becomes today’s Stupid Person of the Day.

It turns out you can’t always flush the evidence down the toilet.

Selina Jean Valdez, 28, and Daniel Marquez, 41, of Pueblo, Colo., are suspected of being responsible for almost all of the city’s counterfeit money cases. Police started looking for them on December 26, and that’s when they think the couple flushed “wads of counterfeit $50 and $100 bills” down the toilet.

A week and a half later, on Thursday, when police came back with warrants, they found raw sewage all over the duplex.

By the time police arrived at the duplex Thursday, standing water and sewage covered its floors and the toilets weren’t functional. Detectives said Marquez and Valdez had been relieving themselves in plastic shopping bags for at least a week because of the inoperable plumbing.

Police said Marquez and Valdez refused to allow their landlord inside the duplex since Dec. 26. Damage to the unit caused by cramming the plumbing will cost thousands of dollars to remedy, police said.

Video of the duplex’s plumbing shot by plumbers using a “snake camera” on Thursday showed hunks of suspected counterfeit bills packed into the pipes. The clogs span from just a few feet beyond the toilet to almost 100 feet along the lines. The volume of bills flushed down the toilet was so great that the money was visible when police and sheriff’s deputies lifted a manhole cover on the street outside the duplex.

Detectives characterized the suspected counterfeit operation run by Marquez and Valdez as “low-tech.” Using a combination printer-scanner-copier run through a personal computer, the bills were printed on heavy-bond paper. — Pueblo Chieftain

Doesn’t everybody know that you’re supposed to use a cross-cut shredder on the evidence before you flush it down the toilet? For not paying sufficient attention to the Enron scandal, Selina Valdez and Daniel Marquez become the Stupid People of the Day.

Jacob Calero and Michelle De La Vega, of San Ramon, Calif., on Friday left Calero’s two children, Joshua, 9, and Jason, 5, alone at home unsupervised so they could take a New Year’s Eve trip to Las Vegas.

San Ramon Police Sgt. Brian Kalinowski said that the parents could be facing child endangerment charges once information about the incident is presented to the district attorney.

During the day the boys were alone, they ate cold cereal for breakfast and heated up microwave meals for dinner. The boys’ grandmother called police New Year’s Eve when she realized they might have been left home unsupervised. . . .

When police found the boys, they were physically unharmed. The boys were placed in Child Protective Services and later turned over to their grandmother, who they are currently staying with. — KRXI

This wasn’t the first time they had left the kids alone, either. For that, Jacob Calero and Michelle de la Vega become today’s Stupid People of the Day. As of Wednesday morning, they had not yet arrived back from their trip and were expected to be arrested upon arrival.

A burglar in Overtornea, Sweden, broke into a home and stole a mobile phone and other items, and then called a taxi to take him to Kalix, 37 miles (60km) away. While he was waiting for the taxi, the phone rang.

It was the police. The thief apparently thought it was the taxi service, because they heard the thief swearing about the taxi being late.

“The thief answered the phone but then just put it away without turning it off,” said Overtornea policeman Kurt Paavola.

The police tracked down the taxi and arrested the man late Monday. — Reuters

The man, who was not named in news reports, is today’s Stupid Person of the Day.

Juan Reyes, 37, of Patchogue, N.Y., was arrested and charged with child endangerment Tuesday after Suffolk County sheriff’s deputies investigating a family court case went to his home and found him passed out on the floor and a two year old boy stumbling around drunk.

A three year old also in the house at the time was apparently sober.

They managed to rouse Reyes, who was the only adult at home with the two toddlers, ages 2 and 3, according to the sheriff’s office. The deputies said Reyes appeared extremely intoxicated.

The deputies also noticed the 2-year-old was having difficulty standing, had bloodshot eyes, smelled of alcohol and was lethargic.

The toddler was taken to the hospital, where tests revealed he was legally intoxicated, with a blood-alcohol content of 0.094 percent, the sheriff’s office said. In New York, a driver is considered drunk with an alcohol content of 0.08 percent or greater.

The second child was taken into the custody of Child Protective Services.

At the time, the children’s parents were at a hospital, where the mother was giving birth. — Associated Press

This is not the man you want babysitting your children, even if as in this case he lives with you. Juan Reyes, who is being held on $5,000 bond, becomes today’s Stupid Person of the Day. He will appear in court January 3.

Today’s Stupid Person of the Day is Satan.

That is, Roy Lee Henson, whom police found walking around naked and screaming in Eustis, Fla., on Monday night.

When deputies arrived, they found Roy Lee Henson walking with his boxer shorts around his ankles and screaming wildly, according to the report.

Henson then lunged at a sheriff’s deputy, the report said.

Backup officers arrived and took Henson into custody as the man screamed he was Satan. . . .

He faces charges of aggravated assault on a officer, resisting arrest with violence, exposure of sexual organs and disorderly conduct. — Local 6 News

There’s a difference between thinking you’re Satan and really being Satan. Kids, don’t impersonate Satan. Either one of them. Trust me on this.

Police charged a man in Germany who had child pornography on his computer after he turned himself in. The man had just received an e-mail apparently from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) which said he was “under investigation.”

The e-mail was fake.

“It just goes to show that computer worms aren’t always destructive,” said a spokesman for police in the western city of Paderborn. “Here it helped us to uncover a crime which would otherwise probably have gone undetected.”

The 20-year-old was caught out by a version of the “Sober” worm, a prolific Internet virus which can invade computers and then send out messages from a host of fabricated addresses. — Reuters

This particular e-mail worm presents a customized message for several different countries, including the U.S. The FBI issued a warning regarding the e-mail, for instance. Ironically, so did the BKA. “These E-mails are not from the BKA,” the notice reads. It directs visitors to more information from the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI).

The man, who was unnamed in news reports due to legal considerations, has become today’s Stupid Person of the Day. (Thanks)

Two car thieves in Redlands, Calif., stole a 2001 Mustang and took pictures of each other with a disposable camera they found inside. When they abandoned the car, they left the camera, along with fingerprints and other evidence, for the police to find.

And Redlands police were ever-so-grateful to 28-year-old Albert Engelsman of Redlands and 22-year-old Matthew Montanez of Rialto, who pretty much did all the legwork for investigators who recovered the 2001 Ford Mustang the men are suspected of stealing. . . .

“These are not the brightest people,” said Carl Baker, public-information officer with the Police Department. “I think, in general, what I find is that crooks, as a class of people, are not the brightest. But every once in a while you run into some that make others look like Einstein.”

The Mustang’s owner had reported the car stolen on Oct. 30. It was found on Kenwood Drive in Redlands on Nov. 2. As detectives searched through the car, they came upon the camera and took it out to be developed, Baker said.

And there, along with a few photos obviously taken by the car’s owner, they found the clear mugs of their suspects, Baker said. Pictures and fingerprints led them right to Engelsman’s doorstep. — San Bernardino Sun

These two definitely qualify for, and share, today’s Stupid Person of the Day award.

Wayne Francis Green, 46, of Albany, Ohio, filed a lawsuit in Athens County Court of Common Pleas against Andi, a dog used by the county sheriff’s department.

The suit stems from a 2003 search of Green’s business which turned up 50 pounds of marijuana, and for which Green was convicted last month. He is to be sentenced in January.

County Prosecutor C. David Warren said to his knowledge, it’s the first time the county’s dog has ever been singled out as a defendant. Warren has volunteered to handle Andi’s defense personally. . . .

Green, who is representing himself, alleges that a search of his furniture business in 2003 was illegal. He claims officers also went into an adjoining building that he owned without a warrant, but police deny it.

Green said Wednesday evening that he felt endangered by Andi’s presence.

“They’ve got a mean ol’ dog, you know what I’m saying? I take that pretty serious,” Green said, adding, “I’m a dog lover, but that’s the limit.” — Associated Press

Police say they found the marijuana in the furniture business, not the other building. And Green, for clogging up the courts with a completely frivolous lawsuit, is most certainly today’s Stupid Person of the Day.

A 40 year old schoolteacher in South Africa, accused of sodomizing a 15 year old boy and bribing him by providing the answers to exams, lost his bail on Monday, apparently having tried to bribe the victim — this time with money — into dropping the charges.

The teacher, who can’t be named because he hasn’t been asked to plead yet, teaches at a high school near Malamulele.

His bail was revoked in Malamulele magistrate’s court when the teenager’s mother complained to the police about the second alleged bribe. . . .

The alleged sodomy was uncovered only when fellow teachers became suspicious of the boy’s almost-perfect exam marks.

The school suspected cheating, and launched an internal inquiry. When they confronted the boy, he told them he’d been sodomised and given the answers in return. . . .

Limpopo’s education spokesperson Ndou Mangala has previously warned that teachers who get sexually involved with pupils face dismissal and blacklisting. — African Eye News Service

The man, who as yet is unnamed, is today’s Stupid Person of the Day.

Terry Kaupilla, 45, of Jacksonville, Fla., was arrested after students in the 7th grade class he was substitute teaching at Lake Shore Middle School saw him snorting cocaine.

According to Principal Iranetta Wright, students became so alarmed, they notified school administrators immediately.

“Allegations were made by the students that a substitute teacher was in class doing drugs. They said he was sniffing something.”

The Principal talked to students, then the substitute teacher, and contacted police. . . .

According to the police report, a bag of cocaine was spotted near Kaupilla while he was being questioned by police; and he later admitted, “he had been doing this for about seven months and realizes he had a problem.” — First Coast News

Terry Kaupilla faces charges of possession of a controlled substance, and for doing it around teenagers, becomes today’s Stupid Person of the Day.

A man in Wellington, New Zealand, who previously robbed a bank in person, tried to rob the same bank by telephone on Friday.

“He’s rung (the bank) and said ‘I’m the guy who robbed you the other day and I want the manager to put some money in a bag and go and stand in the street,” said Detective Sergeant Chris Winder of the Auckland Police.

“(He said) ‘I’ll drive by slowly and take the bag from you and drive off.’”

A plain clothes police officer stood outside the bank in the northern city of Auckland on Friday carrying a bag but the man did not appear. Instead, he called again. . . .

Police traced the calls and arrested a man Saturday, charging him with aggravated robbery and demanding money with menaces. — Associated Press

The man, unnamed in news reports, is today’s Stupid Person of the Day.