#67: SIX-SEVEN 🤷‍♂️

🐺 WILDLIFE - Toronto woman finds coyote in her bed

🇺🇸🇨🇦 FOREIGN AFFAIRS - Belleville woman, 25, arrested at US-Canada border with $43K of allegedly stolen gold and silver

💸 FINANCE - Toronto boy, 11, spends $2K of his parent’s money on Roblox gift cards at Walmart

Good morning.

And welcome to our 67th edition ⁶🤷‍♂️⁷

Last week, a subscriber from Oshawa submitted some excellent graffiti photos that are featured in today’s issue.

When I asked how she discovered us, she said a man in a restaurant suggested she look up “smalltown graffiti" after he overhead her discussing a lack of local news sources.

I was thrilled to hear this, but now I’m wondering:

Who’s this mysterious Oshawa man recommending us to strangers?

Sir, if you are reading this please reveal yourself so I can send you some free merch.

Enjoy today’s stories.

-Peter

⌛️ Today’s read is 3 minutes long.

A Toronto woman is reeling after finding a coyote in her bed last Tuesday.

Around 11 AM on Aug. 4, Alice Kent (who lives on Pendrith Street, near Bloor West and Christie Street) left the door open for her cleaning lady.

“She came in,” Kent told CTV News. “We were chatting, catching up, and then my cleaner went upstairs to start on the job, and she pretty nonchalantly called down to me that there was a fox in my bedroom.”

“And that wasn’t something that I was expecting, and I thought maybe she was referring to a stuffed animal or something, so I went up to check it out, and no, it was a coyote. There was a coyote on my bed!”

“Quite shocked and surprised to see a coyote in the house,” Kent shut the bedroom door, trapping the coyote inside.

“We were thinking, you know, if it feels trapped, it might feel it might get aggressive or anxious and we decided to call the police. It just so happened Toronto Wildlife was up the street trying to catch the other pups because they all have mange,” she said.

Members of the Toronto Wildlife Centre rescue team arrived a short time later and carried the sick coyote out of Kent’s room in a plastic crate.

“I saw all of them shuffle into the room and they shut the door behind them,” said Kent’s son, Rex Nelson. “And I just heard a bunch of, like, rummaging around. They were like making a plan to get it out, and then like two minutes later, they opened the door, coyote in the kennel.”

Kent said the coyote left behind a “very stinky” mess.

“I think that no one expects to have a coyote in their bedroom at any point in their life,” she said.

A Belleville woman was arrested in the U.S. last month after allegedly stealing over $43,000 worth of gold and silver and trying to reenter Canada with it.

25-year-old Kaileigh Hogan allegedly stole the gold and silver during a FedEx delivery in Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania, on May 11.

The victim of the alleged robbery said that, while they were awaiting their valuable package, Hogan approached the FedEx delivery driver, claimed to be the owner, signed for the package, and drove away.

Police used Flock cameras to identify Hogan’s car as a Nissan sedan that she had rented from Enterprise Rent-A-Car at Philadelphia International Airport a day earlier.

The same day of her alleged theft, Hogan returned the car and flew to Arizona.

Bensalem police issued a warrant for her arrest. Since she was in the U.S. on a visa, they also notified ICE.

Over a month later, on July 5, police in New York state arrested Hogan near the Canada-US border at Niagara Falls.

She is currently being held at Bucks County Correctional Facility. Her bail was set at $100,000.

The charges against her have not been tested in court.

A Toronto boy is in less trouble than you should think after spending over $2,000 of his parent’s money on Roblox gift cards at Walmart.

Hong Jin and Jason Kim told CTV News that their 11-year-old son recently took an envelope full of cash with him to his grandma’s house without their knowledge.

“He took the whole envelope, which has $2,000 to $3,000 in cash,” Jin said.

The parents said the money was their emergency fund.

The boy’s grandma took him to Walmart to look at toys. He slipped away while she wasn’t looking, went to a cashier, and made two $1,000 purchases of Roblox gaming cards.

As covered in Issue #55, Roblox is an online platform that allows users to program and play games created by themselves or others. It’s free to play, but players can opt to buy premium avatar items.

Jin and Kim were shocked when they learned the money was missing.

“I’m still shocked,” Kim said. “I can’t believe a small kid could spend $2,000 at Walmart.”

When Jin and Kim returned to Walmart with the receipts, they were told it was a final sale and there were no refunds.

“How can a little kid purchase $2,000 in cash and no one is suspicious about it?” Jin said.

In response to their complaints, Walmart said “there are no age restrictions for purchasing gift cards.”

“We reviewed this transaction and determined our associates appropriately applied our $1,000 transaction limit for gift cards,” Walmart Canada said in a statement.

Smalltown Graffiti reported a similar story back in May when a Wasaga Beach boy racked up $2,000 in debt on his grandma’s credit card playing Roblox.