THE BLOTTER: Skin games

In an obvious lie, police claim, “This case is no laughing matter.”

A naked thief keeps eluding capture in the small Southeastern Georgia town of Metter (population less than 4,000 people). For two consecutive weekends, the naked man has broken into homes around town with only a cloth covering his face — and nothing else. Metter Police Chief Robert Shore said the home break-ins involved very little actual breaking.

“He’s found things that allowed him access to the house. He’s looking for windows, looking for keys, looking for open doors,” Chief Shore told WTOC-TV.

Also, the police chief said the streaking thief is actually stealing very little from the homes, if anything at all. The naked suspect is described as “tall and skinny.”

“It’s hard to know if you’re dealing with mental illness, are you dealing with some kind of substance abuse,” Police Chief Shore said. He urged the people of Metter to lock their doors at night and to remove any spare keys kept hidden outside.

The police chief said the naked thief has walked in on homeowners twice — and taken off running when confronted.

Several Metter neighbors recorded the naked thief on their home security cameras and shared the video with local TV stations.

Ruffled feathers

A trio of exotic birds is now back where they belong in Buckhead — after being stolen from a popular restaurant known for its tropical décor.

The birds are named Ruby, Peaches and Cream — and they’ve lived at R. Thomas Deluxe Grill restaurant on Peachtree Street for more than a decade.

Police said the crook stole the birds (two cockatoos and a macaw) around 6 a.m. on a Friday in a premeditated act — after he spray-painted the restaurant’s surveillance cameras to cover his tracks. He allegedly used a pair of bolt-cutters to remove the exotic birds from their cages.

R. Thomas manager Brittany Curren told WSB-TV: “They’ve been here for so long, they’re part of our family. “Everybody in the neighborhood knows that they’re here. And they can bring their kids here and see the birds. It’s just something everybody enjoys.”

The alleged bird thief — a 48-year-old man from DeKalb County — is in jail, facing charges of theft and criminal property damage

Pencil dix fix?

Around 11:30 p.m. one night recently, a tall, chubby man walked into one of Atlanta’s most infamous adult sex-toy/fantasy shops on Northside Drive. The chubby man — dressed casually in a white T-shirt, black pants and a black baseball cap — headed straight for the dick extenders. The chubby man “selected a sex toy (Xtension) valued at $58 and placed the item in his crotch,” cops noted. “The suspect bypassed the point of sale and left in a white Cadillac with dark, tinted windows.”

For the uninitiated, an xtension fits snuggly over a man’s penis shaft, so the man “instantly gains inches and thickness,” or so its website boasts. Apparently, the Adult Sex Shop’s security cameras missed this dick-extender stuffed into his crotch. All that is known is, “The suspect bypassed the point of sale and left in a white Cadillac with dark, tinted windows,” police said.

Stupid drug run of the month

If you’re thinking about transporting large quantities of drugs across Atlanta’s clogged highways, here’s exactly what NOT to do:

• Don’t drive a Chevy pickup truck without a license plate
• Don’t use that pickup truck to haul a trailer containing a flashy black Lamborghini that was recently stolen in California
• And finally, don’t put mounds of illegal drugs inside that flashy stolen Lamborghini

The deets: Around 4:50 p.m., cops spotted a blue Chevy Silverado pickup truck with no license plate traveling on I-75 toward I-85 North. Attached to the pickup truck: a trailer carrying a black 2019 Lamborghini Uras bearing a California license plate. Cops ran a computer check on the Lamborghini’s license plate — turns out the Lamborghini had been stolen two days earlier in Garden Grove, CA.

A cop pulled over the pickup truck, and spoke to the driver, a 21-year-old man who did NOT have a driver’s license (yet another faux pas). “The smell of raw marijuana was observed exuding from the interior of the pickup,” the cop noted.

Cops found a bag of marijuana in the center console and a blunt in the passenger seat. “Approximately 27 grams of marijuana was recovered in the vehicle total,” cops reported, along with 12 suspected Oxycodone pills.

And inside the stolen Lamborghini? Cops found 901 grams — that’s just short of two pounds — of suspected marijuana.

The 21-year-old driver and all three passengers went to jail on a variety of drug charges.

Elon Musk made him do it

Who knew “super-speeding” was even a real thing? In Gwinnett County, a former Atlanta Hawks basketball player got a “super-speeding” ticket for allegedly driving 113 mph on one of the busiest roads in Duluth. In the middle of a sunshiny spring afternoon.

Cops said 27-year-old Brandon Goodwin was going nearly 70 miles over the 45 mph speed limit on Pleasant Hill Road. Goodwin got busted while in his brand-new white Tesla, which he just purchased the previous day.

Goodwin, who lives in Norcross, was booked into Gwinnett County Jail and released after posting nearly $1,500 bond. He’s now facing charges of super-speeding (more than 34-99 mph over the speed limit) and reckless conduct. Goodwin, a 6-foot point guard, played for the Atlanta Hawks from 2019-2021.

Kitchen not so confidential

In Midtown, tensions erupted inside a high-end Caribbean restaurant on North Avenue. The restaurant’s female assistant manager clashed with the male chef. The assistant manager said trouble began “because of food not being prepared fast enough” by the 27-year-old chef.

The junior manager’s story: As the dispute escalated, she said the chef started calling her names. So she told the chef it was time for him to go home. “I’m not going nowhere,” the chef replied. As the argument escalated, other kitchen workers tried to intervene by separating the squabbling junior manager and chef.

Then, the chef allegedly grabbed a frying pan and made threats. “Nobody was taking him serious,” the junior manager said, until the chef reportedly grabbed a knife and yelled to her: “Fuck out of here, I’ll fucking kill you!” Then, the chef allegedly held up a knife and stepped toward the junior manager, who was still being restrained by several kitchen workers.

However, the junior manager’s story didn’t quite hold up — at least the part about how the smackdown started.

An Atlanta cop arrived and spoke with the restaurant’s senior manager, who witnessed the whole dispute — and confirmed the squabble started over food not coming out fast enough. But the senior manager pointed out a significant flaw in his junior manager’s story. He said the female junior manager started the name-calling and was trash-talking the chef. Also, the senior manager said the junior manager “may have gestured as if she was going to punch (the chef) — and that’s when the chef grabbed the knife.”

Two hostesses told cops: There was lots yelling and use of the word “bitch” during the argument.

Ultimately, the chef was charged with aggravated assault. Which means the restaurant’s food will likely be coming out much slower while he’s in jail. —CL—

The Blotter Diva compiles reports from the Atlanta Police Department and local news reports — and puts them into her own words.