MAGPIE:IN A case of life imitating Hitchcock, a New York man has been charged with impersonating his dead mother for six years so he could steal $117,000 in government benefits.
The man, Thomas Prusik-Parkin (49), donned a wig, make-up and old dresses whenever he went to claim social security benefits and rent subsidies assigned to his dead mother. He also used other props including a cane and fake ID.
Prosecutors, who described the fraud as “unparalleled in its scope and brazenness”, say it started as soon as Prusik-Parkin’s mother, Irene Prusik, died in 2003 aged 73. Thomas, who had lived with her, allegedly gave his mother’s funeral director a false social security number and date of birth so her death did not show up on government records.
Dressed as Mrs Prusik, he would then collect benefit cheques, visit banks and even go to renew her driving licence. On each occasion, he would be accompanied by Mhilton Rimolo who, posing as her nephew, would help the frail old lady to walk and communicate with officials. When eventually arrested, Prusik-Parkin had this to say: “I held my mother when she was dying and breathed in her last breath, so I am my mother.”
Spooky, huh?
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THE TRUTH will out – we now know what Barack Obama is really like. He’s just another evil US presidential killer, it seems.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) is upset with him... for murdering a fly during a televised interview. And they’re sending him a parcel to encourage him to reform his ways – a Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher, which allows users to trap a house fly and then release it unharmed outside.
During an interview for CNBC at the White House on Tuesday, a fly intruded on Obama’s conversation with correspondent John Harwood. “Get out of here,” the president told the fly before swotting it dead with his hand. You may watch the entire grizzly episode on YouTube – search ‘Obama swats fly’.
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DOG OWNERS who believe their pets have a guilty look after doing something bold are imagining things, according to a new study.
Researchers at a New York college tricked owners into thinking innocent pets had misbehaved – and the owners still claimed to see the guilty look.
Alexandra Horowitz, assistant professor at Barnard College in New York, said that owners were projecting human values on to their pets. The research looked at how dog owners interpreted their pets’ expressions, when they believed that the dog had stolen and eaten a forbidden treat.
In tests, owners were sometimes given accurate and sometimes false information about whether their dog had stolen the treat. But the research, published in Behavioural Processes, found that owners' interpretations of whether their dog looked guilty bore no reliable link with whether the dog had really stolen the treat.
When the owners had been told their dog had misbehaved, they saw this guilty expression, even when the dog had not really done anything wrong. If an owner thought the dog had misbehaved and then told the dog off, some dogs showed an “admonished” look, which humans then misunderstood as an admission of guilt. The dogs which were most likely to “look guilty”, according to their owners, were those who were entirely innocent and had then been told off by owners.
Researchers concluded that any such “guilty look” is a response to human behaviour and has no relation with the dog’s sense of having broken any rules.
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THE BLARNEY Stone has just been named the world’s most unhygienic tourist attraction by holiday website TripAdvisor. Over 4,600 travellers surveyed reckoned the Blarney Stone was way filthier than a theatre wall in Seattle where people leave used chewing gum, and have done so in numbers for over 10 years.
Ireland also scored via Oscar Wilde’s tomb in Paris which was declared the third dirtiest attraction having been covered with lipstick prints.
TripAdvisor admits it has no scientific evidence to support its claim that the Blarney Stone is actually a danger to health.