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In June near Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Mark Papkey’s plan to propose to Holly Barnes on a hot-air balloon went awry when the balloon drifted off course into a state forest and ran out of fuel. The pilot landed safely in a clearing, but darkness fell before they could make their way back to civilization; Papkey wound up popping the question while the three of them spent the night under a tree. And in Rome, Georgia, in July, Adam Sutton’s plan involved flying with Erika Brussee in a small chartered plane over a group of their family members holding a tarp with his proposal painted on it. She had just seen the sign and he was getting out the ring when the plane crashed; Sutton had to drag the unconscious pilot from the burning wreck. (Both women said yes.)
In September Kandi Blakney, wearing her wedding dress, went with her fiance to the courthouse in Wichita, Kansas, to get a marriage license; entering Blakney’s name in the computer, the clerk found two outstanding warrants for probation violations, and she was arrested on $200,000 bond.
Least Competent Criminals
In August five villagers in the Indian state of Gujarat were killed while attempting to save an injured pigeon that had fallen into a dry well. Also in August, a father and son were digging a new overflow pit for an outdoor toilet in Uzbekistan’s Surkhondarya Province when the walls collapsed, submerging them in sewage. Five neighbors lowered themselves in to rescue them but were overcome by accumulated gases; all seven people died.
