Pranks Gone Wrong: 5 Craziest Crimes of Week

The theft of an item we didn't know was in demand and two head-smacking senior pranks are among the weirdest crime stories of the week:

• Senior Prank Involving 72K Ladybugs Ends Poorly: It's high school graduation time, meaning we're going to see a bunch of stories like this one. A number of Maryland high school students found themselves on the wrong side of the law after allegedly breaking into their high school at 3:40am last week and dispersing 72,000 ladybugs. Police explained where the males got all the insects—and the charges the suspects face.
• And Another Senior Prank Ends in Arrests: Time wasn't on their side. Two teens in North Carolina were arrested after a stunt involving alarm clocks. Police in Troutman say Shannon Marie Farrell and Lekia Hall, both 18, put the clocks in unused lockers at South Iredell High School, then replaced the school's zip ties on the lockers with locks of their own. Next: The school resource officer heard ticking from inside a supposedly vacant locker.

• Elderly Woman Hears Noise Upstairs, Makes Startling Discovery: Not a mouse, not a gust of wind—but a 49-year-old man who had reportedly been living in her house for a few weeks. The Pennsylvania woman, in her 80s and living alone (so she thought), was hanging out downstairs with her daughter when they heard the sound; Mark Allen Potts was found in an upstairs closet. How he ended up there may make her rethink her caretaker situation.
• Cow Gallstones Are a Thing That People Apparently Steal: Do a quick scan for "cow gallstones" on the Alibaba website and you'll see that they're quite in demand, whether you want to buy them by the gram, kilogram, or ton. So a 38-year-old Australian man accused of stealing a whole bunch of them may have thought he hit the jackpot at the Oakey slaughterhouse.
• Man Named Bacon Gets in Trouble Over Sausage: We've saved the meatiest story for last: Pity poor Thomas Bacon, who is grabbing headlines for what might be a mundane arrest—were it not for the New Jersey man's last name and the role sausage allegedly plays in the story.

Click to read about more crazy crimes. (More weird crimes stories.)