Man Allegedly Leaves Dead Fish On Porch Of "The Goonies" House, Steals $160K Boat, Then Gets Rescued By Coast Guard In Wild Video
Heyyyyy you guyyyyyssss!
I've got a bizarre Sunday morning story for ya that starts with The Goonies, climaxes with an extremely dangerous Coast Guard rescue & ends in the clink, but before you read any further you have to do the Truffle Shuffle. I'm sorry, house rules.
Last Wednesday a security camera at The Goonies house in Astoria, Oregon captured a strange sight. A man walked up to the home, reached into the garbage bag he was carrying, pulled out a single dead fish, and placed it on the porch. Then he flipped off the camera backwards (fancy!) as he got his phone out to record what'd he'd done, danced around the property a bit and then dipped out.
The Astoria Police Department was alerted to this activity and confirmed it was 35-year-old Jericho Labonte of Victoria, B.C.
On Thursday, Victoria B.C. police was like, "Oh yeah, we know that guy. He's wanted for a whole buttload of charges up here so keep your eyes peeled. Strange dude." (I might be paraphrasing a little but close enough.)
On Friday it appears that Mr. Labonte decided simply visiting The Goonies house was not enough and he needed to embark on his own adventure. Thus, he allegedly steals a 35-foot, $160K yacht named Sandpiper from a nearby marina and proceeds to enter the mouth of the Columbia River. This section where the river meets the ocean is notoriously rough and is even known as "The Graveyard of the Pacific"; over 2,000 ships have sunk there.
This is where it goes from your classic weirdo-criminal activities to, "Oh shit, someone could die". As luck would have it, the Coast Guard was already out training in these conditions and didn't hesitate to jump into action. When it was too dangerous to save Labonte by boat their helicopters swooped in:
Huge shoutout to Petty Officer 1st Class Branch Walton who was able to get through those massive waves & locate a man thrown off a barrel-rolling yacht. It's even more impressive when you learn that Walton had only recently graduated from the Coast Guard’s rescue swimmer program and is still a student at the Advanced Helicopter Rescue School. Safe to say he's in the right career, because if you watch that video homie truly did swim fast as fuck despite the wild surf.
By this point on Friday afternoon Labonte is safely back on land, gets treated for mild hypothermia and is released, because none of the first responders realize this is a Goonies-House-trespassing-fish-tossing-boat-stealing-on-the-lam-from-Canada type guy. (I'm guessing he gave a fake name.)
The Astoria police put out a BOLO:
And then shortly thereafter they find him at a seaside warming center. He's facing charges of first-degree theft, endangering another person, unauthorized use of a vehicle, and second-degree criminal mischief.
After the incident, Astoria Police Chief Stacy Kelly was noted in papers saying, "It’s been a really odd 48 hours."
Indeed.
Here's a quick summary of the whole thing on ZeroBlog30:
We've interviewed Coast Guard members on the pod before and I truly don't think people realize how much they do around the country (and world for that matter). Thousands of folks alive today because of of the USCG, regardless of what those folks may or may not do with dead fish at The Goonies house in their free time.
Oh and no one asked but here's my ranking of famous movie/TV houses that people still love to drive by & get selfies in front of:
Home Alone house
Full House house
The Goonies house
Father of the Bride house
A Christmas Story house
Breaking Bad pizza roof house
RIP Animal House Delta house, torn down in '86
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