Costs an arma nd a leg... well just a leg

[Nutty_ZA]

North Carolina - A man who bought a smoker on Tuesday at an auction of abandoned items might have thought twice had he looked inside first.

Maiden police said the man opened up the smoker and saw what he thought was a piece of driftwood wrapped in paper. When he unwrapped it, he found a human leg, cut off five to eight centimetres above the knee.

The smoker had been sold at an auction of items left behind at a storage facility, so investigators contacted the mother and son who had rented the space where the smoker was found.

The mother explained her son had his leg amputated after a plane crash and kept the leg following the surgery.
The mother said her son plans to drive to Maiden, about 56km northwest of Charlotte, to reclaim his amputated leg, police said.

-----------------------------------------------------------
I wonder if he has a peg leg now? would have been fun to have around on International Talk Like A Pirate day Arrrr....

[Mike]

Strange, very strange

I like the pirate reference

[Nutty_ZA]

Follow Up story


Miami - Two US men are locked in a war of words over custody of an amputated leg, which one of them says he lost in a plane crash and another insists he owns since it was inside a barbecue smoker he bought at an auction.

John Wood of South Carolina says he had left the limb inside the barbecue smoker at a storage facility, because he wanted to be buried with it.

But the storage business auctioned off the barbecue and other items after Wood fell behind with payments.

Wood is now up in arms over the leg the buyer of the smoker wants to keep.

Shannon Whisnant, who was at first shocked by what he found inside the smoker, now believes it could bring him fame and fortune.

For now, he has put up a sign on the smoker charging adults three dollars and children one dollar for a peek inside, even though the leg is no longer inside but at a funeral home.

He believes a lot more money could be made by going on television shows.

Whisnant even suggested joint custody of the leg, much to Wood's outrage.

"He's making a freak show out of it," said Wood. "He wants to go on The Tonight Show and he wants to sell it to the National Enquirer and call Ripley's Believe It or Not.

"He wants to put money in his pocket with this thing."
"I just think it's despicable," he said.

Wood lost the leg in a 2004 plane crash that killed his father. He kept the limb in a freezer, then dried it out in his front yard, and eventually stored it away.

Whisnant said that when he found the leg he thought "it might have been part of a missing person or someone's ex-wife" and called police, which gave the limb to a funeral home.
To date, Wood has not taken legal action to force the return of his leg.

[TheGuru]

Only in America