Braddock's Most Wanted: Tony Fanuci

From The Braddock Times entertainment page.

He was an obese Houdini, a corpulent escape artist wearing nothing more than a bed sheet who was on the lam for a week. But now he is back in custody under the supervision of Oliver J. Blair III (who wrestles for the WNWA as The Turd) at Brown View Apartments in Braddock, Texas.

Officials still marvel at how a nearly 600-pound Tony Fanuci fitthrough a 20-inch hole to escape from the apartment last week.

"You've got to hand it to him -- he was a very determined and desperate guy," said Sheriff Fenton Washburn of the Braddock County Sheriff's Department.

Fanuci, a 35 year old native Pennsylvanian, is a wrestler with Braddock based WNWA. He was enslaved to the Liberal Librarian following his humiliating defeat in a handicapped match at WNWA's Memorial Day Massacre last May. His slavery status was subsequently declared legal by 9th Circuit Court Chief Justice William J. Jennings. Therefore, when Fanuci escaped he violated the law based on property ownership. In other words, he essentially stole himself from the Liberal Librarian.

A close associate of Fanuci and nearby neighbor, Shitifa Moore lamented that his escape has deprived her of his essential bi-weekly "handy-man serbices".

KSUX channel 9's show Braddock's Most Wanted featured Fanuci on its program following his escape and plans to make his capture its lead story this Saturday. Peter Gillespie, a Braddock County native who is producing Saturday's Fanuci segment, found it amazing that such a huge, nearly naked man could be so elusive to Sheriff's deputies and could even fit his head through the 20-inch hole at Brown View Apartments. Instead of a Public Enemy No. 1 who committed hard crimes, Gillespie said, "He's more like Public Nuisance No. 1."

Authorities believe that Fanuci opened a hatch at the apartment, rubbed butter and Crisco over his nude body, and then worked his way through a vent. Despite the super morbidly obese man's nimbleness, Gillespie said, an interesting thing happens at the end of the Braddock's Most Wanted segment. "In the end, during the grab shot, he trips and falls and you're like, 'Wow, this guy's supposed to be so agile?!?'"