Free Dessert

Ok, This isn't as much strange but a bad thing I did as a kid.

The Schools in the East Coast have coat rooms for the cold rainy days that inhabit Erie more than 50% of the year. So in First grade I remember everyone in class doing their schoolwork and being that I was in the back row I could sneak in the coat room unnoticed and hide in the coats for whatever reason.

One day I saw someone's lunch and opened it up and saw that they had some Little Debbie chocolate cakes. Unable to pass them up I took them, went back to my seat and asked the teacher if I could use the bathroom. She let me and I gorged myself with all the chocolate goodness I could grasp, by the toilet.

Satisfied with my crime I walked back to my classroom and not too much later, noon hit. LUNCHTIME!!!

Sitting at the table with my friends I heard a loud whimpering voice just under the point of sheer crying "I thought my mom gave me some chocolate cakes!!!". Boy was his mom in for it when he got home! I felt soo bad I never did it again.

The End!

By the way, 20 years later I became a victim of a similar crime. As many of my East Coast friends know, it pretty much was party time every weekend at my place. Making crazy movies, watching them, Walks around South Shore, etc... Fun! So one day (I wont say his name, but it rhymes with Jeremly Raice) 2 of my friends made the pizza run to Lil'Caesars for the group and with the special came a side of Spaghetti. They returned with only pizza. "Where's the Spaghetti?", "oh... they must have forgot to give it too us." So I called LC to chew them out and they said they thought they gave it to us and apologized. So we ate the pizza and were satisfied. Years later my friend confessed to eating the spaghetti. That probably explains why he didn't stay while we ate the pizza. He must have had a lot weighing on his mind... or possibly stomach.

That's what I get.

Ok, i'll tell one Murder Story to start off

This story is Completely True. I changed nothing from the facts you are about to read.

It was one of those Hot summer days in June 24 1988 when I was in my backyard watering the lawn. As I was watering I heard my neighbor from the upstairs apartment yell "I can't believe you killed her!" I looked up and then hurried into the house.

Concerned, I called one of my friends John Horvath and told him what I heard. He thought I was joking but said not to worry about it. I then called a brother, Juan Silva who was a special pioneer staying with us along with his wife and told him to come over. When he did, we decided to investigate further. (Now I used a cordless phone to make these phone calls and from time to time I could hear my neighbors too because there was no signal encoding to keep calls private on cordless phones back then. I could only assume he may have caught part of my conversation too)

So we walked over to his building and the screen was missing from the door and we rang his bell and thought of an excuse for our visit, like my cat had got loose and we wondered it she crawled up his stairs. When he came downstairs he was livid! "What do you want?" he demanded, holding his cordless phone. "We were looking for my cat and wondered if she crawled up your stairway." "There is NO cat here!" and he walked back up the stairs. At this point, Juan and I didn't give it a second thought, and shrugged it of and pretty much dropped the issue.

Later that night, around Midnight... I was getting ready for bed and I could hear what sounded like 3 people walking along the sidewalk of my house. Perched in my bedroom window I saw 2 men and a woman walk in the backyard and then stand in the exact spot where I was when I heard "I can't believe you killed her!!!" They looked up and saw me in the window and ran away. I wasn't going to be sleeping that night. (by the way my parents didn't make much out of my initial story of what I heard. I don't blame them. The whole thing seemed like it would have been making something out of nothing. But not any more)

I got out my dads video camera and started taping. It was an 8mm high 8 sony camcorder that could record everything as if it were daylight if it was pointed directly in the sun. In other words, it didn't record well in low light and now I was recording in the middle of the night. In fact, nothing I taped showed up. But what did I see? I could hear a lot of commotion coming from next door like a bunch of people running down the stairs, they had flashlights and were doing something in the trunk of their car. This part is hazy for me. I don't remember if they drove off or stayed but something serious went down in the trunk of that car.

Fast forward 2 days. In the Erie Daily Times Sunday edition was an article. 'Naked womans body buried halfway in the sand at the beach'. Her name was Janine Kirk. My parents told me it was time to call the police. The police came by, took my statement and had me go to the Courthouse to file another statement on Monday. A few days later my mother is doing yardwork and while sweeping along the curb in front of the house, she comes across sand. The same type of sand found on the beach at Lake Erie. She reported that to the police.

Nothing else came out of it for 14 years and I was now living in Studio City California. This is where it gets very strange.

My parents sold the house you see here and bought a smaller one because it was easier to care for. Unbeknownst to them they moved next door to Jim Leech. Mr. Leech was a detective who was fishing through some unsolved cases and prior to meeting my parents decided on the Janine Kirk case. Wow! My parents tell him the story and I get a phonecall from him to recount the whole story. When I was finished he said that my current statement was identical to the one I gave at the courthouse 14 years earlier. I thought I would have to fly home testify once it goes to trial. You can read what happened at the trial here: http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030723/FRONTPAGE/107230353

I was never called. In fact I got a hold of Jeff Kirk (Janine's Brother) over the phone and told him the whole thing and he said my testimony never showed up in the trial. James Fleming my old neighbor, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter so i assume my statement could neither help or hurt the case. It couldn't prove any intention.

Now it is about 2 years later I decide to go back home for a vacation. I'm working in service with Louie DeFonsey and he wanted to go see an old friend who lives about 20 miles away in Girard and give him a witness. We show up, knock on this guys door, he opens it... "Hey Louie hows it going? ", "Good, this is a friend of mine, Tom Petroff he lives in Sunny California", ""Hi... nice to meet you. I didn't get your name.", "Jeff... Jeff Kirk"

Doo dee doo doo Doo dee doo doooo

You have just taken your first ride in.... The Tom Zone.

The Magical Mystery Tour of My Strange Life

It was a Fall evening when I was at a party and asked to tell my Murder story. I asked which one do you want to hear? "How many do you have???" was shouted out by almost everyone at once. Faining interest ( I have told this story a million times) I said "two" and I told the story. Both of them. During my last trip to Erie (that's Erie, not Eerie) my home town in Pennsylvania I took a picture of the home where I possibly could have existed no more and sent it from my phone to those who were at that gathering and it immediately sparked the same interest that was at the party months earlier. That house IS pretty creepy. By the way, that is where I am now. Not the home of Murder, but visiting my parents in Erie, which by the way I'm surprised they never killed me with the things I did growing up. Anyhow, i'm getting off track.



I began to think of all the funny things and strange that I've gone through in life and thought I would create a blog so i can log these stories as they come to mind. So sit back, Enjoy and if you want to... subscribe. I do not think of myself as interesting, but my life has been a rollercoaster, a fun house, a buggy ride and a rocketship. So take a ride with me as we ride through memory lane or as some have come to call it... The Tom Zone. (do doo do doo)



*****note***** I am going to try to write in chronological order so if you come in the middle of a story, I recommend that you start from the beginning of my posts since it may explain a lot about me and why I ended up in such a predicament. Oh, by the way I just remembered. I have 3 Murder stories.