From Carrot Cakes to the Finest's Bedbugs

Two awesomely odd but true stories:

First, a 58 year old woman conned two old ladies out of $245,000 in order to start a carrot cake baking business. Patricia Murtaugh of Queens stole $160,000 from a 90 year old after "offering to help her catalog her deceased brother's possessions." Now Murtaugh, who had put a down payment on a place in Rhode Island to start her carrot cakery, will have to do one to three years in jail.

And in a story that half-read like an Onion feature, the Daily News reports bedbugs have infested the 60th Precinct in Coney Island. Not only did prisoners complain, but officers started to notice bites on their bodies. Here's an excerpt:

Asked if any of the bugs are armed, a sergeant noted, "That's probably an exaggeration, yet possible at this point."

Sources said there doesn't appear to be a rank structure within the bug organization. But the vermin recently made their way from the arrest-processing area to where the desk sergeants and lieutenants sit. Even the suits in the detective squad on the second floor have complained.

"It's a given that the bugs have the captain in their sights," joked an officer who refused to give his name for fear of retribution - not from the job, but from the bugs.