In Florida, the “Sunshine Law” makes it possible for public records in the government to be accessible to anyone. This means that journalists can get access every single time someone has been arrested in the state. Because of that, we get to hear all of the most ridiculous stories that may never make it into the news in any other state.
Here at TopTenz, we have already done a list on Florida Man, who is basically the world’s worst superhero. With all things being equal, there are also plenty of stories starring Florida Woman, proving that there are plenty of ladies going on misadventures in the Sunshine State.
10. Florida Woman Smears Bananas Over Patron’s Cars at Trump’s Country Club
When Donald Trump became President of the United States in November 2016, conservatives across the country rejoiced, while the reaction from the left was… less enthusiastic. There were plenty of people who couldn’t believe that it was actually happening, and it caused a pretty major rift among Americans almost overnight. Some people reacted in sadness, listening to “Sounds of Silence” on repeat. Others were angry, and ready to start a revolution right then and there.
This seems to be the case for 48-year-old Florida resident Kelly Weidman. Well, we’re not sure you can really call it a “revolution” but it was… well, it was… something. In January 2017, her rage had already been bubbling up for a few months, and she was ready to take her fight to the streets. Weidman showed up at Trump’s private country club and resort, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach. She walked through the front door, and opened every computer in the lobby to word documents just so she could type out profanity about Donald Trump. Then, she took bunches of bananas from the breakfast bar and smeared them all over the luxury cars in the parking lot. It didn’t take long for her to be detained by security.
9. Florida Woman Holds Up A Postal Truck and Rides Off On a Tricycle
On December 28, 2018, a 52-year-old woman named Leida Crisostom was done with her Christmas break, and she was ready for some action. But instead of try trying to relax and prepare for New Years Eve, Crisostom rode around Collier County on a tricycle, ready to cause some trouble. She was yelling and pointing a gun at unsuspecting victims. Instead of trying to commit grand theft auto to upgrade her ride, she pointed a gun at a postal worker, and demanded to take one of the packages from the truck. The victim gave her the box, which is all she could fit in the basket, and she slowly pedaled away.
Witnesses called the police (and presumably described the situation as hilarious), and she was caught soon after. Not only was her transportation the same as a 2-year-old’s, but turns out her gun was a toy, too. She was arrested and charged with armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. Crisostom told the police that she was the one true God, and that she could hear holy voices in her head telling her to do these things.
8. Florida Woman Shoplifts Seven Lobsters Down Her Pants
A woman named Nicole Reed was grocery shopping at a Publix in DeLand. She went to the seafood counter and ordered seven lobster tails. After the clerk handed her the seafood, she snuck down the baby aisle and started stuffing the crustaceans down her pants. (Funny, we would have guessed they were crabs…)
Every move she made was caught on the security cameras, and Publix employees immediately called the police. She took plenty of time adjusting the lobsters inside her pants to make sure they would all fit before she casually walked out of the store. Reed was caught by the police, who were already waiting for her by the time she got outside. Those seven lobster tails retailed for $12 each, so she got away with $84 worth of food. She planned to trade it on the black market for a prescription painkiller called Dilaudid. This was Reed’s sixth time getting arrested for similar crimes, so she was sent to Volusia County Jail.
7. Florida Woman Doesn’t Get Her McFlurry… So She Set a Car On Fire.
Sometimes, a sweet tooth can really get the best of us, and no amount of willpower can stop us from eating dessert. At 12:30 a.m. on March 19, 2014, a couple was going through the drive-thru of a 24-hour McDonald’s in Jacksonville. The woman wanted to order a McFlurry, but her boyfriend cut her off, refusing to purchase it for her, presumably because he didn’t want her to get fat. They both got into an argument over the ice cream while the McDonald’s employees awkwardly listened to their disagreement. It was soon after this moment when the drive-thru employee heard the woman say, “I’m going to blow it up.”
This mystery woman stepped out of the car, grabbed a gas tank from the trunk, and pulled matches out of her pocket. She doused the car in gasoline and set the 1994 El Dorado on fire. Security camera footage shows that the flames were huge, and employees scrambled to call 9-1-1 and gather buckets of water in an attempt to save the couple from being burned to a crisp. The woman walked away from the scene, while her boyfriend presumably began driving the car out of the McDonald’s parking lot while it was still on fire. By the time the employees were outside with their buckets of water, the car was already gone. Neither of them were ever caught by the police, so no one knows their true identities. The real moral to this story? Never keep a woman from her sweets.
6. Florida Woman Marries a Ferris Wheel
Most of us have fond childhood memories of summer vacation at the amusement park. But for one Florida woman named Linda Ducharme, her love went beyond what most people could ever feel for a ride. When she was a teenager, Ducharme had a part-time job operating a ferris wheel that she lovingly nicknamed “Bruce.” As an adult, she traveled back to her hometown, and wanted to see what had happened to her favorite ride. She was shocked to discover that Bruce had been torn down, and its metal pieces had rusted over the years.
“I carry pizza to him. Bruce smells pizza, and there is the love of his life returning for him… I ate the pizza with him, was able to have some intimate moments with him, and it felt like I had never left him.” Indeed, she wanted to buy Bruce the Ferris Wheel and restore him to his former glory. But she went one step further and legally married the amusement park ride. During a televised interview on TLC, she claims that even though Bruce is an inanimate object, their relationship is very similar to what any other man and woman experience. We’re not sure we want to hear any details about the honeymoon.
5. Florida Woman Pulled a Knife on the Man Who Complained About Her Farts
Everybody farts. Women are usually raised to try their best to conceal their flatulence, because women passing gas in public is seen as unladylike, even though they get gassy just as often as men. But for one woman in Dania Beach, she wasn’t going to let the patriarchy get her down. She was going to fart as loud as she wanted, and not care what anyone had to say about it.
Shanetta Yvette Wilson was standing in line at a dollar store when she ripped a very loud and smelly fart. Instead of laughing, or politely ignoring that it ever happened, the man standing behind her started to complain, telling Wilson that she was disgusting. She pulled a knife out of her pocket and lunged at the man, saying that she was going to gut him like a fish. Wilson was detained, and arrested for aggravated assault. Presumably the assault was the knife thing, and not the fart thing.
4. Florida Woman Arrested For Riding A Manatee Like a Horse
One of the popular activities that people enjoy doing on a visit to Florida is to swim with dolphins. During these visits, people are encouraged to hold on to a dolphin’s fin and take a ride with them through the water. Tourists are practically trained to feel as if it’s perfectly acceptable for them to play with the sea life. For a woman named Ana Gutierrez, she would get the shock of her life when police arrested her for riding on the back of a wild manatee.
It turns out that even touching a manatee is illegal under the Florida Manatee Sanctuary Act, and it is punishable by a $500 fine or 60 days in jail. There are usually signs posted around the beaches warning not to touch the animals. But according to the St. Petersburg police, there are plenty of tourists witnessed feeding, touching, and riding manatees every single day.
So… why did witnesses call the police on Gutierrez? It’s because she’s a Cuban immigrant. On the day that she was riding a manatee, someone on the beach took photos of Gutierrez, and immediately called the police. When the sheriff approached Gutierrez and her family, she was taken in for questioning. Gutierrez could only speak Spanish, so she may not have understood that she was supposed to appear for a later court date. When she missed her trial, there was now a warrant out for her arrest.
The police showed up to Gutierrez’s job at a Sears department store, where she worked as a cleaning lady. They asked her to step outside, and arrested her in front of the building while her co-workers watched. This was so humiliating, she felt as though she could never go back to work again. According to Fox News, she is the one and only person who has ever served time for violating the Florida Manatee Sanctuary Act.
3. Florida Woman Arrested in Her Booby-Trapped Home
Living alone can be frightening for a woman. If you watch the news, or listen to literally any episode of the My Favorite Murder podcast, you’ll know that single ladies have a real reason to fear for their safety. While it’s understandable for someone to want to get a dog, or maybe put up a security camera, Florida woman Nickcole Dykema took it to the next level. She would not settle for less than 3,714 swords, knives, and daggers set up around her mobile home like booby traps.
Dykema got in trouble for carrying around a concealed firearm with the proper permit, and in 2015, she had violated her parole. Police officers were knocking on her door in attempt to take her into custody. When she opened the front door, she lunged at the officers with a katana. She was arrested for assaulting a police officer, and more investigators were called in to remove the weapons from her property.
There were knives covering the home from floor to ceiling, with axes and knives even hanging from the roof, ready to be tripped off by wires. Dykema decorated the house with Halloween props of fake severed heads, limbs, and blood. Even though they came prepared for the booby traps, several officers were still injured as they tried to maneuver through the home.
2. Florida Woman Calls 9-11 To Tattle On Her Drug Dealer For Not Delivering Weed
When you’re high, you don’t always do or say the smartest things. And unfortunately for 19-year-old Fort Lauderdale resident Daneshia Heller, no one was around to take her cell phone away before she made a really bad decision. Her drug dealer never showed up to deliver her weed. If she paid them ahead of time, they had technically stolen money from her, so she thought it was a good idea to call 9-1-1 and report them. While there are plenty of debates over the legalization of marijuana in the United States, it was still very much illegal in 2015, when this story took place. This phone call gave the police probable cause to search her home.
Heller was high on flakka, which is also known as “bath salts.” It became famous as “the zombie drug” because of wild rumors it had caused users to go so crazy they began eating people’s faces, like a scene out of The Walking Dead. When the police found a bag of the drugs in her pocket, it was enough to arrest her for possession of narcotics.
1. Florida Woman Caught Stealing In A “Won’t Be Caught” T-Shirt
Some people are incredibly confident in themselves for absolutely no reason, and there is probably no better example of this than an incident that took place in Tampa. Two women stole $1,500 in perfume and cologne from a beauty supply store called Ulta. The security camera snapped a photo of the suspects, and one of the women was wearing a t-shirt that said “Won’t Be Caught.”
Detective Larry McKinnon was outraged at the audacity of her t-shirt, and told the local news, “We’d like to prove with the community’s help that she is not untouchable, that she will be caught, and she will be placed where she deserves to be and that’s behind bars.”
Funny enough, though, she was right. Even though their faces were clearly visible in the security footage, and they even knew what kind of car she drove, the two suspects were never turned in to the police. Since this happened in March 2015, it’s not very likely that we will ever see these Florida women behind bars.
1 Comment
“she was ready for some action. But instead of try trying to relax…”: good written.