There have been many strange stories about poop over the years, some of them even about human waste. But the sheer scale of the effort one woman in Texas went to this week stands out. 46-year-old Mindy Janette Stephens left three buckets filled with “approximately 50 pounds, or 15 gallons” of what she said was human poop outside the Electra Police Department Thursday.
For her efforts, Stephens (seen above in booking photos from the Texas Dept. of Corrections] has been charged with one count of illegal dumping of more than five pounds but less than 500 pounds (a Class B misdemeanor). She is the wife of an assistant fire chief in Electra (near Wichita Falls, with a population of fewer than 3,000 people). And this reportedly came out of a conversation she had with a police lieutenant about “buckets of ‘human sh*t.'” A sworn probable cause affidavit from the Electra Police, obtained by Jerry Lambe of Law&Crime, has more on what happened here:
“At approximately 4:30pm Officer McCarty observed on the Police Department‘s security camera someone putting something outside the front of the Police Department. He went outside to see what was going on and discovered 3, 5- gallon buckets of what appeared to be human waste. He saw a person in an all-white haz-mat suit with a yellow mask walking back to a tan SUV with a trailer. He attempted to ask what they were doing and a female stated that the buckets were human sh*t and she was dropping them off. She then got in the vehicle and drove off. Officer McCarty came back inside the Police Departmentand informed Lt. Kelmer. Lt. Kelmer reviewed the security camera and recognized thevoice as being Mindy Stephens’ voice due to him speaking with her earlier in the day and speaking in reference to the buckets of “Human Sh*t.'”
“Chief of Police Terry Wooten contacted City Administrator Steve Bowlin and explained what had just happened due to Mindy being the Assistant Fire Chief‘s wife and Steve being a Fireman also. He stated he would call and request she come pick up the buckets or that she could face charges. At approximately 5:23 pm Steve Bowlin called Lt. Kelmer and stated he was sending a wastewater employee to pick up the buckets up due to the fact Mindy called him and refused to retrieve the buckets, stating it was not her problem.”
Stephens was processed in the Wichita County Jail Thursday and released Friday after posting a $2,000 bond. It is unclear how she obtained 50 pounds of human poop, and why she left it for the police. But it certainly makes for a strange story and an addition to our files of weird poop stories.
