Woman's Prank Causes Riot At Clothing Store

A woman who was being driven around in a rented limousine pulled up at a coat store and announced she had won the lottery and would pay for everyone's purchases that were in the store, police officials said, but the woman ended up causing a riot when customers realized it was all a hoax.

Linda Brown was arrested Tuesday after an hours long shopping spree that began when she hired a stretch Hummer limousine to drop her off at a Burlington Coat Factory store, police Sgt. Lt. Michael Deakins said. Brown walked to a cash register and loudly announced she had won the lottery and would pay for each person's merchandise up to five hundred dollars.

Apparently people who were in line were calling relatives who were not at the store and telling them to come down in a hurry.

People flooded the cash registers as cashiers began ringing up purchase after purchase, but Brown had not yet paid the bill, Deakins said. At least 500 people filled the aisles and another 1,000 were outside the store trying to get in.

"She was telling people she won $1.5 million, but it ends up she didn't win anything. She had no money to pay for anything."

By the time employees realized Linda Brown didn't have any money to pay she already had taken off in the limousine, police said.

That is when angry customers realized that they weren't getting free coats and began throwing merchandise on the floor and grabbing clothes without paying for them.

The angry customers started throwing merchandise all over the store and began looting, leaving the store looking as though a hurricane had passed through it, police officials said.

"Everybody was saying, 'I still want my free stuff,' and that started the riot," police said. "It looks like Hurricane Katrina crashed through the clothing store."

Police said they have no way of tracking down the customers who stole items and fled, but they are reviewing surveillance videos in hopes of catching at least some of them.

Finally the limousine driver realized he wasn't going to get paid the nine hundred dollars Linda Brown owed him for the day's rental, that's when he turned her in to the police.

Linda Brown, 44, was arrested on three outstanding warrants for aggravated menacing, misuse of a 911 system and causing false alarms. She was jailed late Wednesday, but no charges had been filed against her related to the coat store chaos pending a mental health evaluation.

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Treasure Hunt Turns Out To Be A 40 Year Old Prank

A woman from Illinois who set out on a treasure hunt for buried gold coins after finding a cryptic note in an antique rocking chair may have been the victim of a prankster who died more than thirty years ago.
With the help of a donated backhoe, Patty Henken recently ripped up a vacant lot in Springfield, Illinois, where a note written on a typewriter signed by Chauncey Wolcott, found in an antique chair she bought at an auction last November suggested she would find a treasure chest containing more than $250 in United States gold coins.

Patty Henken's life got interesting in May when, while prying off the seat of a antique rocking chair she bought at an auction five months earlier, she discovered a small envelope with "Finders Keepers" typewritten on it. Inside, a key was taped to a typed note.

"This dexter key will unlock a lead treasure chest," the note began, before spelling out a location in Springfield, 1028 N. Fifth Street, where a chest containing more than $250 in United States gold coins supposedly was buried twelve feet underground.

The treasure, the note claimed, included eight $20 gold pieces, six $10 gold pieces, five $5 gold pieces, three $2 1/2 dollar gold pieces and two $1 gold pieces.

The undated note, signed by a Chauncey Wolcott included a request to contact the Springfield newspaper if the chest was ever found.

The dig turned up nothing but bricks and old bottles. Henken planned to return Tuesday with the donated services of a man with ground penetrating radar meant to detect any buried items, but the treasure note's promise may already be debunked.

An Iowa woman who read newspaper accounts of the treasure hunt said she knows Wolcott's true identity, John "Jay" Slaven, a notorious practical joker and coin collector who often used a typewriter in his pranks.

John Slaven had used the pen name Chauncey Wolcott and lived for decades at the location where the dig took place, until his death in 1976 , according to Betty Atkinson Ryan of Mason City, Iowa. She e-mailed a columnist for the State Journal Register of Springfield to set the record straight.

Atkinson Ryan told the newspaper that Slaven was her boss in the Journal Register's classified advertising department decades ago. She said Slaven often used a typewriter to write some of his practical jokes and signed them Chauncey Wolcott. The newspaper said archived news articles described Slaven as an actor with a booming voice that he used in television appearances, and on about 50 radio shows.

Henken, of Mount Sterling, Illinois, said on Sunday that she was disappointed there's no closure but still was hopeful Slaven may have left some treasure to unearth.

"My friends feel like I was cheated out of finalizing this," said the 48 year old Henken, a window clerk at the post office in Mount Sterling. "There's something down there. He wouldn't play a practical joke without leaving me something."

That property's current owners gave Henken permission to tear up the site in search of the supposed treasure if they got an equal share of any find. But they stopped the digging now that Slaven may have pulled one over on everyone.

"It's done, other than me fixing up their dug up yard," Henken said. "It's been fun, though. I'd do it again tomorrow. I just hope my life isn't so boring from now on."

"I fully expect to do something like this before I die," she said. "But I would leave them something to find, a clue to who I was and not leave them wondering what kind of sick person would create a prank like this."

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