76-Year Old Grandmother Arrested For Phone Hacking
Â Imagine Mavis ThompsonâsÂ surprise when on Christmas Eve, two uniformed police officers showed up on the mild-mannered grandmotherâs doorstepÂ with a warrant for her arrest.âI thought the policemen had the wrong address,â said Thompson, âbut there was my name right there and in big letters, and the paper said ARREST WARRANT.ââWe had to take her in,â said Officer Mark Macon. âWe got several sworn complaints that she was making aggravated, inappropriate, and indecent phone calls which were recorded by other parties.âThompsonÂ suffers from chronic post nasal drip, accompanied by a persistent, hacking cough. âItâs bad,â she said. âIâve had it for years and I call the drugstore for my new prescription. The police said thatâs how it started. It was that neighbor ladyâs daughter who was the ringleader. Sheâs into theÂ gothic faithÂ that kids are following now â devil worship it looks like to me, with all the black eye makeup.âIndeed, upon further investigation, it was âthat neighbor ladyâs daughter,â âRiver O. Darkniss,â nÃ©e Louise Hicks, who had concocted a scheme where she and her gothÂ friends filed several complaints, alleging ThompsonÂ had made repeated threatening and inappropriate phone calls to different local businesses.âThese kids were cruel,â said Officer Macon. They called up Mrs. Thompson and recorded her voice, andÂ made a prank sound board. They addedÂ in her coughing sounds so weâd know it was her. Everybody knows sheâs a hacker â I mean a cougher â but thisÂ was just plain mean.âThe re-editedÂ sound mash-ups were convincing enough for authorities to seek Thompsonâs arrest. The computer whiz kids managed to turn innocent conversationÂ into highly inappropriate language by editing recorded conversations with Thompson.âI really want something for my throat, *cough* and I donât know when Iâll be able to get back down that way in town there to pick it up; can you do that for me please and get back to me?âÂ was a mild enough question that the teens turned into dirty remarks.âI really want something to get down in my throat, *cough* I want to get it down there, wayÂ back down in my throat, please *cough* really get it in way down in there, *cough cough* I want a pick up, can you do me please, do me, really do me back there, please do me way down back there *cough* in my *cough cough* throat.ââThings like that were just very inappropriate from an older person,â said Macon, so we started to suspect foul play. âOnce we found out what was going on, we released her and arrested the kids.ââIt was terrible, andÂ Iâm glad itâs over,â said Thompson. âI donât use that drug store anymore even though they apologized, but I canât show my face there. Forgive and forget, and Iâm trying, but now I always watch what I say on the phone. I certainly donât want to pull anymore boners like that.â