Around 3 a.m. on January 10th, two Florida roommates drove to the site of what would soon become a uniquely chaotic scene, according to police reports from the incident.
Police say that Sarah Franks, 29, and Kaitlin O’Donovan, 27, parked outside the home of Jacob Colon and shouted at him to come outside. Eventually, Colon opened the sliding glass door of his ground-floor apartment and stepped out onto his fenced patio. That’s when he spotted the two women lying in wait for him. An argument erupted. But police say that when their words failed to convey their message, the women allegedly pelted Colon with fistfuls of funfetti and shiny pixels of glitter. He was struck, per police, “in the upper torso and head.”
But the two didn’t stop there. According to her arrest record, O’Donovan, who is 5-feet tall, scrambled up and over the fence while Colon retreated to the safety of his apartment. O’Donovan, however, followed him into his place, continuing to pelt him with glitter bombs, police say.
As O’Donovan pushed her way into Colon’s apartment, Franks ran around to the front door, per the police report. O’Donovan unlocked it from the inside and let Franks in. There, the glitzy sparks really flew, the two women unleashing a nightmare volley of glitter. Beyond leaving behind a lot of vacuuming to do, Franks went a step further and also kicked out a window, police say.
Satisfied that they’d wrecked shop on Colon and his apartment, the two mad glitter bombers tore out of the apartment and fled into the night. There was a big problem with their escape plan, though: Apparently, Colon knew where they lived. When he called the police he provided them with his assailants names and address. Once found, the local cops reported that the getaway “vehicle was still warm to the touch and glitter was observed on the inside.” (If anything is going to leave a trail from the crime scene — it’s glitter.) It didn’t help matters when officers spotted O’Donovan walking around in clothes that matched a description given to the police by Colon.
Both O’Donovan and Franks were arrested. After they were read their Miranda rights, they opted not to speak with the arresting officers. Instead, they let their mugshots do all their talking:
Franks and O’Donovan now face felony charges for their glitter bombing. If accounts are correct, they were unaware of how serious such an attack is in the eyes of the law. They must have missed the news in 2019 when three members of an organization responsible for a Straight Pride Parade in Boston received glitter bombs in the mail and proceeded to call the FBI. The bomb squad was subsequently called. Apparently, the FBI takes these funfetti attacks seriously. That said, the case wasn’t too unusual — for many years, anti-LGBTQ legislators have been sitting ducks for mail “bombs” filled with tiny, shiny particles destined to get stuck in their clothes and hair for eternity.
Still, for Colon, it could’ve been worse, he could have been left covered in penis tattoos, like this guy:
With every glitter bombing, there’s always a very shiny silver lining.
Zaron Burnett III
Zaron Burnett is an investigative journalist and longform features writer based in Los Angeles. He covers culture, politics, race, and other perplexing mysteries for MEL.
