Drunk Woman Calls 911 To Ask How To Kill Boyfriend, Gets Arrested

A New York woman was arrested Saturday after she dialed 911 and asked the emergency dispatcher how she could kill her boyfriend.

Zelda L. Cotton, 54, from Tonawanda, was charged with endangering the welfare of an elderly person and criminal possession of a weapon. Cotton, who was intoxicated at the time when authorities responded to her home, said upon being interrogated that she had hit her 76-year-old boyfriend with a VCR tape five times prior to making the call but failed to kill him. When officers arrived at her home, they found the suspect swinging a leaf blower battery at the victim in a "threatening manner."

Tonawanda police Capt. Frederic Foels said there was something about Cotton’s call that "just didn't sound right," and hence prompted the department to send two officers to the suspect’s home for a welfare check.

"Plus the dispatcher could tell there was a little bit of intoxication there too, so all those factors told us we should go over and check out what's going on over there, which we did," Foels said, NBC-affiliated WGRZ reported.

The local police had some encounters with Cotton in the past, the details of which were not immediately clear. "In police work you can never say you've seen it all," Foels added.

Cotton was held on $5,000 bail. A restraining order was issued against her to keep her away from the victim.

A government website informing citizens of the proper usage of 911 states that it was not uncommon for people to misunderstand the appropriate times to call the emergency services.

“Generally speaking, people are aware that they should call 911 in an emergency, but they are less aware of the circumstances in which they should not call 911. The result is that many requests to 911 do not involve true emergencies, which overloads the 911 system with non-emergency calls,” the website stated.

Last week, a 5-year-old boy from Wyoming, Michigan, called a 911 dispatcher and asked, "Can you bring me McDonald's?" because he was hungry and did not want to wake his grandmother to get him some food.

To much amusement of both the dispatcher as well as the young boy, an officer ended up delivering the fast food to the caller’s home. "I was laughing to myself... 5-year-old calls dispatch and orders McDonald's," Wyoming police officer Dan Patterson said. "I figured hey I'm driving past McDonald's on my way there and I might as well get him something.”