Leelanau Crime Blotter

The Best of Spring 2025

I collected the following ‘incidents’ throughout the spring. There were many more that we looked into, but these proved to be the best. So without further ado, and for your edification, the best crimes of spring 2025. If you enjoy, please

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Incident: Man with $20 Bill drinks two cocktails. Police were called to a watering hole in Northport where a scuffle took place over a bar bill. Our investigation determined that tourist Sal Salaud saw his celebratory evening crash into the abyss of local law enforcement when he attempted to pay for two cocktails with a mere $20 bill! Laughed at by the bartender and even fellow patrons, Sal became hostile when he was told that the drinks were $35.90 before tip and tax. A boisterous verbal argument turned physical when Salaud threw another $20 into the bartender’s face and county law enforcement was flagged down as they passed by. Police broke up the scuffle and since no one needed stitches they let the two parties withdraw without further incident. With any luck Salaud will take his drinking across the bridge in the future to find cheaper booze. “Fingers crossed,” as they say.

Incident: Woman Living in Chicken Shack. Police were called to a residence on CR 641 when neighbors became convinced that a woman had taken residence in an un-remodeled chicken shack. Our investigation concluded that while the shack was in fact basically the same as it ever was, the inside had been scrubbed down and floor covered with a new thick layer of straw. And the two little windows were covered with some homemade dressings fabricated from used local newsprint. A bed fashioned from hay bales had been positioned at one end of the shack, and officer’s found the entire layout quite satisfactory. Local officials also took time to visit the new lodgings of Elsie Pitts and proclaimed the accommodations “up to par!” A few bylaws, rules and regulations were hurriedly withdrawn from local zoning ordinances in order to make this new creation perfectly legal. Local official J. Peterman III spoke to reporters about the surprising new lodgings: “This is just the innovative solution the council, and I as President, have been looking for as a means of housing our working class types without conceding on acreage rules that might bring an unwanted middle class element. I can certainly see maids, painters, plumbers, odd jobbers and the like comfortably living in former animal shelters here on the peninsula.”

When asked about winter heat and sanitary issues the council President became hostile and added he’d be taking a personal interest in where this writer lives “to make sure every nook and cranny was was up to code.” I’ll say no more.

Incident: Goats in the Road. Police were called to Cedar Township where it was reported that a herd of goats were in the road and refused to move for traffic to pass. When officers arrived they found local inebriate Carl Souse sleeping in his car 50 yards off the road in an old cow pasture. He had dragged several lines of barbed wire and four wood posts into the pasture and was, strangely, surrounded by a herd of deer, stubborn to concede the good eating they’d found in the field. After attempting to continue on with his late model car, wrapped as it was with barbed wire, Souse had ground all four wheels into the wet dirt. He was revived by officers when they arrived on the scene, swearing a litany of profanity at the "damn goats" that had earlier skedaddled at the officers’ urging. Souse spent the rest of the night in county lockup, and without hesitation or remorse the next morning paid the landowner for the broken fence posts, citing his own bravery in assailing the “goat invaders.”

Incident: Manure Causes Car Wreck. At the other end of the peninsula, Police were called to a “car in the ditch” incident. A local woman traveling on a paved road, came across a section covered with cow dung and attempted to swerve out of the way. But the dung proved very slippery on the wet road and the car ended up in the ditch, covered with the fragrant soil and in need of a new front bumper at some point.

Police decided not to cite the driver or the farmer, who with a short hand wave dismissed the incident as nonsense: “We’ve fertilized these fields for three generations with the natural excrement of bovines mixed with neutral sawdust, and the locals should be proud to take a little home on their tires and wheel wells,” the farmer stated. The woman driver, who admitted to living a “natural, organic” lifestyle was less than enthusiastic about the farmer’s opinion. “But why can’t he keep the crap off the road?” she wondered. Fortunately, the car was easily pulled from the ditch with a tractor and chain, and the unhappy driver was on her way, well perfumed for her trip to the city.

Incident: Lights, Camera, Action! at County Clink. In an unreported incident that your intrepid reporter only came to know about when he used the men’s room at the county jail lockup and inadvertently overheard a conversation between two county officers, a porno was videotaped at the county jail last week, when the lone inmate, a well known online ‘influencer’ and ‘performer’ suggested she could make the night pass quicker and with less boredom if the two officers doing rounds wanted to ‘get busy’ as they say. The scene was filmed by a third officer who demurred from participating due to his upcoming marriage.

When asked about the incident the sheriff was “shocked and appalled” at the allegation and suggested that my presence in the stall was known to the officers and they were “pranking” me. This seemed like a probable explanation until later that day when I ran into the inmate on her way out of court, charges dropped, and to my questioning she gave only a wink and a smile.