Stupid Criminal Hall of Shame
Every day, we are assaulted by stories of stupid people--many of whom use their stupidity for personal gain.From time to time, though, we hear of those who strive to achieve new levels of stupidity while also breaking the law. To these brave men and women--ooops, "women and men"--we present the highest possible honor: entry into the "Stupid-Criminal Hall of Shame."The following are their accounts . . .
Kentucky (where else?): Two men tried to pull the front off a cash machine by running a chain from the machine to the bumper of their pickup truck. Instead of pulling the front panel off the machine, though, they pulled the bumper off their truck. Scared, they left the scene and drove home. With the chain still attached to the machine. With their bumper still attached to the chain. With their vehicle's license plate still attached to the bumper.
South Carolina: A man walked into a local police station, dropped a bag of cocaine on the counter, informed the desk sergeant that it was substandard cut, and asked that the person who sold it to him be arrested immediately.
Indiana: A man walked up to a cashier at a grocery store and demanded all the money in the register. When the cashier handed him the loot, he fled — leaving his wallet on the counter.
England: A German "tourist," supposedly on a golf holiday, shows up at customs with his golf bag. While making idle chatter about golf, the customs official realizes that the tourist does not know what a "handicap" is. The customs official asks the tourist to demonstrate his swing, which he does — backward! A substantial amount of narcotics was found in the golf bag.
Germany: Oil of Olay no longer turning the trick for her, a woman decided that she would bathe in the milk of a camel (a modern-day Cleopatra). So she stole a camel from the local zoo (where else can you find a camel when you need one?) and transported it back to her house — where she realized that the camel's name was "Otto."
Arizona: A company called "Guns For Hire" stages gunfights for Western movies, etc. One day, they received a call from a 47-yearold woman, who wanted to have her husband killed. She got 4-1/2 years in jail.
Texas: A man convicted of robbery worked out a deal to pay $9600 in damages rather than serve a prison sentence. For payment, he provided the court a check — a forged check. He got 10 years.
(Location Unknown): A man went into a drug store, pulled a gun, announced a robbery, and pulled a Hefty-bag face mask over his head--and realized that he'd forgotten to cut eyeholes in the mask.
(Location Unknown): A man successfully broke into a bank after hours and stole — are you ready for this? — the bank's video camera. While it was recording. Remotely. (That is, the videotape recorder was located elsewhere in the bank, so he didn't get the videotape of himself stealing the camera.)
(Location Unknown): A man successfully broke into a bank's basement through a street-level window, cutting himself up pretty badly in the process. He then realized that (1) he could not get to the money from where he was,(2) he could not climb back out the window through which he had entered, and (3) he was bleeding pretty badly. So he located a phone and dialed "911" for help ...
Virginia: Two men in a pickup truck went to a new-home site to steal a refrigerator. Banging up walls, floors, etc., they snatched a refrigerator from one of the houses, and loaded it onto the pickup. The truck promptly got stuck in the mud, so these brain surgeons decided that the refrigerator was too heavy. Banging up more walls, floors, etc., they put the refrigerator BACK into the house, and returned to the pickup truck, only to realize that they locked the keys in the truck — so they abandoned it.
(Location Unknown): A man walked into a Circle-K (a convenience store similar to a 7-11), put a $20 bill on the counter and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled-leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer? Fifteen dollars.
News of the Weird
LEAST COMPETENT CRIMINALS
A man, unidentified in newspaper accounts, was arrested in Memphis, Tenn., when he tried to enter an office building after robbing a nearby bank. Unknown to the man, the building housed Memphis's police department. Police had heard of the robbery on the radio and watched from an upper floor as the man fled the bank, ducked into an alley, hid the money, and innocently approached the front door of their building as a phalanx of officers gathered and waited for him. The man opened the door, froze, and asked, "This isn't the police department, is it?" [Memphis Commercial-Appeal, 6-19-95]
In May, two boys, ages 15 and 16, were arrested outside a Santa Clarita, Calif., bank and booked on suspicion of attempted robbery. The boys had stood at the bank's front door at 8:55 a.m. (five minutes before opening time), put on their ski masks, an d tried to open the door. When they couldn't get it open, they walked back to their getaway car to decide what to do next, and alert bank employees called police. [Los Angeles Times, 5-24-95]
Oliver McCall, who lost his heavyweight boxing championship in England on September 2, arrived home in St. Louis three weeks later with his payoff check for $1.4 million, which he was carrying in his sock. He was soon robbed by three men, but McCall ran into them on the street a few minutes later. The men began angrily to chase McCall (with whose boxing career they were unfamiliar), demanding an explanation why he was carrying so large a check. The chase drew the attention of police, who caught the men. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 9-22-95]
Police in Lexington, NC, arrested three men in their 20s in August and charged them with robbing a pedestrian and a clerk at a gas station. The men were caught after their getaway car swerved off the road and flipped over — caused by the driver's attempting to drive fast while simultaneously counting the robbery money. [Greensboro News & Record, Aug95]
Jerry Wilson, 19, was arrested in Charleston, W. Va., in August and charged with burglary after police found him lying, bleeding badly, on the floor of the apartment he had broken into. They had been sent by rescue personnel after Wilson called 911 because he had cut himself so badly breaking through the window. [Jefferson City Capital News-AP, 8-9-95]
In Des Moines, Iowa, in May, Ruth Bradshaw, 93, awoke to find her house being burglarized and decided to pretend that she knew the perpetrator not as a burglar but as a friend of her truck-driving grandson. She welcomed him "back" into the home, served him breakfast, and insisted that he lie down and relax a spell, at which point she called police. Bradshaw attributes her smarts to her career as a bootlegger and a pastor. [Des Moines Register, 5-6-95]
LATEST RELIGIOUS MESSAGES
In May, some teenagers discovered the body of traveling salesman DeWitt Finley, 56, in a truck on a back road in the Klamath Mountains in Oregon. He had starved to death over a nine-week period in which he was stranded in heavy snow, despite the fact that the road was clear several hundred yards beyond the truck. Diary entries indicated that Finley had failed to venture out of his truck because he was certain God would provide for his rescue. [Daily News Journal (Murfreesboro, Tenn.)-AP, 6-3-95]
In July, the pig wrestling event at the annual St. Patrick Catholic Church Roundup in Stephensville, Wis., was canceled because of complaints that the pigs squealed too much. Said a Church spokesperson, "Some city folks come out here and ... don't understand." [Independence Examiner-AP, 7-1-95]
An Associated Press story in September reported on the popularity of Jesus Malverde as the adopted patron saint of drug dealers in Culiacan, Mexico. Local farmers regularly credit him for their success at growing and smuggling drugs and worship icons of him in local buildings. [Albuquerque Journal-AP, 9-4- 95]
Nathan Frederick Klimosko, 21, was sentenced to two years' probation in Kelowna, British Columbia, for hitting and choking his girlfriend into unconsciousness. The fight started in a car when the two disagreed over his interpretation of a certain passage from the Bible, and he reached over and smacked her in the face, blackening her eye. [Barrie Examiner-CP, 5-20-95]
Stephen J. Miller, 16, was nabbed by the Virgin Mary after he trespassed at the Sacred Heart School in Groton, CT, in May. According to police, Miller tried to scale the roof of the school building, lost his footing and fell, knocked over a 400-pound statue of Mary on the way down, and hit the ground just before the statue fell on his legs, pinning him. He was trapped for two hours before help, and the authorities, arrived. [Hartford Courant, 5-16-95]
THINNING THE HERD
In Dubach, La., Mr. David Hanna, 38, fooling around with his friend Billy Barham, was accidentally killed when Barham missed while trying to shoot a can off Hanna's head. [USA Today, 8-30-95]
