America's Dumbest Criminals (5 page)
One night Martin, who lived about thirty miles on the other end of the county, was headed home down the dark, quiet country lanes. He was in a hurry to get home and had already exceeded the speed limit when he noticed headlights in the distance behind him, closing in fast. Martin didn't have radar at that time, so he tried to pace the car behind him.
“I clicked it up to about eighty in order to get an indication of how fast he was going. Sure enough, he caught up with me easily. Then he saw the bar lights on my squad car and slammed on his brakes.”
The late-night speedster climbed out of his car and read the officer's badge. “Please Officer Martin!” he begged. “You can't write me a ticket. I can't afford itâI just can't afford the ticket. Please just let me off with a warning.”
It was very late. Martin was bored and just a little punchy, so he decided to have some fun. “I'll tell you what I'll do,” he said. “If you can give me an excuse I haven't heard before, I won't write you this ticket.”
The speedster didn't hesitate. “I left home about five o'clock this afternoon, and I told my wife, âHoney, I won't be gone long.' Well, I got down to Mount Bayou, and we got to gambling, and I lost most of my money, so I had to stay until I could win some of it back.”
Martin just nodded, pen in hand.
“Then my wife called,” the speeder continued. “She said, âThere's going to be a whole lot of lovin' going on in this house in fifteen minutes, and if you want to be in on it, you had better be here.' That was fourteen minutes ago, and I'm trying my best to get there.”
“The man wasn't joking,” Martin remembers. “And I had to admit I never heard that one before. I let him go. What happened after that is anybody's guess.”
Look Out! He's Got a Turtle and He Knows How to Use It!
I
t was a classic case of love gone wrong in Indiana. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn't.
In this case, she really did try to let him down easy, but he was distraught. He was fuming as he barreled out of her kitchen door and into the night.
The brokenhearted Romeo staggered through the fields in the throes of lover's angst. Then he saw his weapon, seized it, and started back to his girlfriend's house.
In a rage, Romeo returned and chased his ex-girlfriend around the kitchen with a large snapping turtle. He was much faster than Juliet and he easily caught her in the small kitchen, but he couldn't get the turtle to bite her. Finally, Juliet managed to call the police. The officers arrived, disarmed (deturtled?) the irate lover, and arrested him for assault with a reptile.
He was much faster than Juliet and he easily caught her in the small kitchen, but he couldn't get the turtle to bite her.
The incident marked the definite end of one relationship, but the beginning of another. Juliet thought the big turtle was cute, and she was ever so grateful that he hadn't bitten her. The girl and the turtle are still together and living happily in Pennsylvania, according to the policeman who retold the story.
W
ith Oregon State Lottery ticket in hand, Alice Krumm stood staring at the winning numbers posted on the cash register. So close . . . but not quite. The ticket she had just bought was only one digit away from the twenty-dollar winning number. For once in her life, Alice wanted to be a winner instead of a near-miss.
Alice struggled with her greed for a long minute before finally giving in. Creeping around behind the baked beans and canned goods, she altered her lottery ticket with a ballpoint pen to win the twenty dollars, then returned to the counter to collect her ill-gotten prize.
But she should have worked a little harder on her forgery. The clerk spotted it immediately and called the police. The dishonest lottery player was arrested on the spot and charged with fraud.
Then the arresting officer made an interesting discovery. He found the real number under her bad forgery. His revelation made her feel even dumber.
Had she looked farther up the chart of winning numbers, she would have discovered that her original ticket number had also been a winnerâfor five thousand dollars!
I
n Peoria, Illinois, police were called to the scene of a home burglary. The perplexed homeowners reported that the house had indeed been burglarized, but that none of the normal things were missing. The television and VCR were still there, although each had been moved a little. A stereo system, jewelry, and even some cash all could be accounted for. It turned out that only one major item was missingâbut it was a significant one. An entire houseful of new wall-to-wall carpet had been taken up and stolen.
The officers on the scene were as perplexed as the burglary victims. They really had no idea how to track a hot carpet. Scratching their heads, they headed outside into the newly fallen snow to look around.
But wait! What's this? In the yard, footprints showed on either side of a long, scraped trail leading out toward a nearby field. Either the carpet had been dragged in that direction, or a brontosaurus had just strolled by.
The officers followed the trail across the yard, through the field, and into another yard, where the trail ended at a neighbor's front door.
When the police entered the small home behind a larger main house, they found not a brontosaurus, but the stolen carpet on the floorârecut and laid to fit its new home. The young man who lived there insisted that he had purchased the rug, but the police showed him his own trail from the “carpet store.” He was arrested and charged with the crime.
I
n Thibodaux, Louisiana, a blundering, wannabe robber with speech difficulties just couldn't win for losing. Sam Lincoln entered Bob's Cafe and, speaking in his thick, backwoods Cajun accent, ordered the waitress to “give me all the money.”
Unfortunately, she couldn't understand a word he said. To her it sounded like he was ordering “a sieve with all the honey.”
In desperation, Sam turned to a patron and told him to hand over all
his
money. The diner could have sworn that Sam said to “live a big pile of bunny.”
When the patron couldn't understand him either, Sam got so frustrated that he pulled out his gun. Now they would hear the unmistakable voice of his thirty-eight.
Sam pulled the trigger.
Click.
The gun wouldn't fire.
Now Sam grabbed the cash register and began to run. But he didn't get farâonly about three feet. The register was still firmly plugged into the wall, and he quickly ran out of cord.
The register was jerked out of Sam's hands, and he fell. Humiliated and frustrated, he ran out of Bob's Cafe empty-handed. Waitresses and patrons breathed a sigh of relief. Someone hefted the register back up to its place on the counter.
But five minutes later, Sam was back. This time, he made sure he unplugged the register before making off with it. Sam was ecstaticâfor about three feet. A bystander who had witnessed the whole comedy of errors knocked Sam down and made a citizen's arrest.
O
ne bright spring morning in Lafayette, Louisiana, Louis Albright had the bright idea of robbing a branch of a local bank. Louis had an even more brilliant idea for a low-cost, low-fat, completely disposable disguise. He would cover his entire head with whipped cream.
A few trial runs indicated his idea would work beautifully. The foamy “mask” sprayed on quickly and was easily wiped off. It completely covered any distinguishing marks, even his hair color. And it tasted wonderful, to boot.
Congratulating himself on his innovative idea, the human hot-fudge sundae walked into the bank and approached the teller. Unfortunately, the employees' response to his delicious disguise was just the opposite of what he wanted. The giggles were discreet at first, but when he said, “Put all your money in the sack,” the giggles dissolved into open laughter.
By this time the whipped cream was getting warm and beginning to slide. And the teller had long ago punched the silent alarm. Before you could say “banana split,” the police arrived. The rapidly melting bank robber was quickly arrested and refrigerated downtown.
By this time the whipped cream was getting warm and beginning to slide. And the teller had long ago punched the silent alarm.
R
hode Island police were sure they had the right man when the suspect charged with a string of vending-machine robberies paid his four-hundred-dollar bail entirely in quarters.
A
t first, the customs officer thought the drug-sniffing dog was barking up the wrong tree. Or, rather, sniffing up the wrong tourist.
As the 475-pound man waddled through customs, the dog began to pay him close attention, sniffing suspiciously at the man's huge stomach. Annoyed, the man told the dog to “shoo.” No luck.
The customs officer was a bit reluctant to approach the man, since he really didn't fit the profile of a smuggler, and his personal effects had already been examined. But the dog was relentless. Over and over it pointed its nose toward the tourist and kept sniffing and whining and sniffing. It was almost as though the dog itself was puzzled.
The officer finally conceded that something was awry.
“I'm sorry, sir,” he told the rotund tourist. “I'm afraid you're going to have to accompany me to a dressing room for a strip search.”
It was a task that neither man was looking forward to. But it had to be done.
Once inside the room, the tourist was ordered to disrobe, and a complete body search was initiated. It was then that a plastic bag containing eleven ounces of a white powdery substance was discoveredâdiscreetly hidden amid the many folds of the man's tremendous stomach!
The substance proved to be cocaine.
The drug dog was vindicated.
I
n a small town in Texas late on a Saturday afternoon, a small mom-and-pop store was robbed by a lone gunman. The prime suspect was quickly spotted. In fact, everybody in town spotted him. They didn't even need a detailed description. The fleeing felon was running down the street completely naked.
But Ted Jowers had a great alibi ready for the police officers who stopped him. “I like to get in touch with nature when I jog,” he told them.
Somehow, though, Ted didn't seem like the nature typeâor the jogging type, for that matter. The officers brought him in.
Ted finally broke down and confessed to the robbery. Then he explained to the police that he had stripped down to streak away after the robbery because he thought his clothes would make him more identifiable.
Ah, the ironic naked truth of the dumb criminal plan.
T
he weary, disheveled woman tossed and turned in her bed. It was two in the morning, and the trucks at the nearby warehouse were grinding their gears, braking loudly, and making that maddening “Beep! Beep! Beep!” sound that a postal truck makes when in reverse gear.
What is so important that you have to truck it in the middle of the night?
she wondered.
Finally, the unwilling insomniac could stand no more. She called the police and complained about the noise.
A quick check downtown revealed that the warehouse was leased to a toy import company. That set the officers to wondering. Christmas was still many months away. Why would a toy company be working round the clock to ship Chinese dolls and robots that spew smoke?
Ten minutes later, the two officers who had been sent to follow up on the disturbing-the-peace complaint pulled their cruiser up behind the working docks. When they stepped out of their vehicle, the men on the loading dock scattered and disappeared into the night.