5 Weird Stories I Covered Last Week: Ferak Column

Joliet Patch Editor John Ferak highlights some odd crime stories, including Justin Colnar, who had two recent run-ins with Joliet cops.

John Ferak, Patch Staff

Posted Sat, Aug 26, 2017 at 8:12 pm CT|Updated Sat, Aug 26, 2017 at 11:51 pm CT

JOLIET, IL - In this city of almost 150,000, home of The Blues Brothers, you're bound to see bizarre things any given week. When I was leaving the Will County Courthouse late Friday afternoon, my jaw about fell to my knees. I saw a man off in the distance crossing North Ottawa Street against a green light as a fast-approaching semitrailer was rumbling down Route 30. And yet the able-bodied pedestrian seemed ambivalent. He continued to walk on Jefferson Street at the speed of a turtle. I thought I was going to be an eyewitness to a disaster, which I'd also have to write about. But I wasn't.

Somehow, the semitrailer missed hitting the guy by a fraction of a second. It was close. In fact, I'm still stunned the guy wasn't hit. And yet he appeared totally unfazed by the incident. He just kept walking along Jefferson, across from the courthouse, like nothing had even happened. Strange, I thought, very strange.

I don't know if Monday's Solar Eclipse is to blame, but it seemed like I covered a lot of weird and unusual crime stories this past week. Some of them you probably read. Some of them you might have missed. That's why I republished them below. When you tally them up as a whole, I think you'll start to wonder, too, what's the deal with all the weird crime news going on around Joliet? At least, that was my takeaway from last week. (For more information on this and other neighborhood stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)