This week on Weird and Wacky Wednesdays: Garbage Cans, Gulf States, and the Art of the Great Escape
Justice is blind. Or so we are told. But it’s also surprisingly good at sniffing people out of trash cans. Welcome back to Weird and Wacky Wednesdays. This week’s edition is dedicated to those bold and frankly delusional souls who looked the long arm of the law in the eye and said, “No thank you, I’ll be leaving now.”
Spoiler: they mostly didn’t get far.
The Prince, the Ex-Duchess, and the Great Royal Vanishing Act
Let’s start at the top of the trash heap, and I do mean the top, with someone who was literally born into one of the most famous families on earth and still managed to reveal himself as nothing more than lowly garbage.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, Duke of York, brother of the King, and current star of every British tabloid front page, was arrested on his 66th birthday on February 19th, 2026. Happy birthday to him. Police in unmarked vehicles showed up at his home in Sandringham, on suspicion of misconduct in public office, all tied to the sprawling Jeffrey Epstein scandal. He was held, questioned, and then released under investigation, meaning he has been neither charged nor exonerated. He’s now in that wonderful legal limbo where everyone is watching his every move.
And that’s where it gets interesting.
Because Andrew hasn’t been charged, he isn’t bound by any bail conditions. He can go wherever he likes. Legally speaking, there’s nothing stopping him from packing his bags, boarding a plane, and relocating somewhere that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the United Kingdom. Royal commentators and legal observers have been openly floating this possibility, with the UAE and Abu Dhabi mentioned as obvious candidates. One royal author even compared his potential situation to that of Spain’s King Juan Carlos, who quietly relocated to Abu Dhabi in 2020 to avoid legal scrutiny at home.
Which brings us to his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, who may already be playing a very different version of this game. Last confirmed in Doha, Qatar, attending an art fair with her daughter Princess Eugenie, Ferguson has gone conspicuously quiet since Andrew’s arrest. Insiders reportedly say she’s been “lying low” in the UAE. Royal author Andrew Lownie put it bluntly: in Britain, neither Andrew nor Sarah will be socially accepted again, but in the Middle East, as he noted, wealthy and powerful circles tend not to care much about the particulars of British royal scandal. And crucially, if neither of them is ever charged, there’s no legal mechanism to compel them to return.
From a Canadian criminal defence perspective, this is a genuinely fascinating situation. In Canada, a person released under investigation has no obligation to stay in the country unless conditions are imposed, and no conditions can be imposed without a charge. The UK operates similarly. The result is a strange kind of legal twilight zone: under scrutiny, but free to move. It’s the jet-set version of house arrest, except the house is potentially an Abu Dhabi palace and the “arrest” part is entirely optional.
Whether Andrew actually flees remains to be seen. But the world is watching, and frankly, so are we. Even if Andrew and Sarah manage to hide out, their names and reputation will remain in the gutter like common trash.
Trash Talk: The Ohio Garbage Can Gambit
From royal drama to the streets of Huber Heights, Ohio, a suburb just outside of Dayton, where this week’s dashcam footage has been delighting the internet in all the right ways.
On Monday, February 24th, 2026, police officers attempted a routine traffic stop. The driver had other plans. He bolted from his car and took off on foot, sending officers scrambling to set up a perimeter. It turned out that 27-year-old Jonathan McMillan had an outstanding warrant, which, given that he didn’t stop for police, he was probably hoping no one would notice.
He chose his hiding spot with some ambition: a large residential garbage bin sitting curbside, waiting for collection. McMillan climbed in, pulled the lid over himself, and waited. So far, so creative.
Here’s where the plan went sideways: a garbage truck was actively working the route.
Officers had parked nearby when a sanitation worker hauling a can from the curb opened it up and discovered McMillan hiding inside. The look on the sanitation worker’s face, captured on dashcam, may be one of the great cinematic moments of 2026. McMillan then did what anyone hiding in a garbage can would do when suddenly discovered: he burst out and made a run for it. He was tracked down and arrested. He now faces charges for obstructing official business and resisting arrest, on top of whatever got him that original warrant
Police have reportedly nicknamed him “Oscar the Grouch.” I cannot confirm whether that nickname is official, but it absolutely should be.
The lesson here, as always, is a timeless one: if you are going to hide from police, do it somewhere that is not scheduled for pickup that morning. And you can probably assume, if the garbage cans have been put out, that it’s garbage day. Also, dashcams are everywhere. They are always rolling. They captured this entire moment in glorious detail, and now it lives on the internet forever. Jonathan McMillan, welcome to the hall of fame.
The Garbage Can Works Until It Doesn’t
Because one garbage can story wasn’t enough for this week, the universe helpfully provided a second.
Back in August 2025 in Lafayette, Louisiana, 47-year-old Shon Alick Jolivette, booked on charges including armed robbery, aggravated battery, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, escaped from deputies while being transported to a hospital for medical care. Three nearby schools went into lockdown. A search was conducted.
What followed was genuinely extraordinary. Home surveillance footage shared by Lafayette resident Spencer Simon showed Jolivette climbing over his backyard fence, then ducking into a trash can to evade capture. Police and K9 units are seen in the footage searching the yard and then leaving without finding him.
This actually worked. At least temporarily. Jolivette sat in that garbage can while officers and a police dog moved through the yard and walked away empty-handed. Social media was understandably baffled, and delighted by the footage. How does a K9 miss a person hiding in a bin? We may never know. But it is a testament to either Jolivette’s commitment to the bit, or a very distracted dog.
The victory lap was short-lived. Jolivette later moved from the garbage can to a storage container in the same yard and that’s when the homeowner called authorities again, leading officers to return and arrest him. The homeowner, Spencer Simon, had been watching the whole thing unfold on his own security cameras and decided, quite reasonably, that he didn’t want a fugitive living in his shed.
The entire saga including the fence climb, the garbage can, the police dog walkthrough, the storage container, was all caught on camera. Every single step. Which raises an important strategic point that both Jolivette and McMillan seem to have missed: we live in the golden age of surveillance. Ring cameras, dashcams, CCTV on every corner. If you are going to attempt a dramatic escape, you are almost certainly being filmed. And if you are being filmed, you are almost certainly going to end up on the internet. And if you end up on the internet, a Canadian lawyer will almost certainly write about you in her Wednesday column.
It’s the circle of life, really.
The Takeaway
What unites these three stories, disgraced royals, an Ohio man with an outstanding warrant, and a Louisiana escapee, is the fundamental human instinct to buy time. Sometimes that instinct leads you to a Gulf state with loose extradition arrangements. Sometimes it leads you to a garbage bin on collection day. Neither strategy has a particularly great track record.
The law is patient. Cameras are everywhere. And sometimes, the garbage man gets there first.
See you next Wednesday.
