Every so often you hear about some kind of super genius, Lex Luthor-style criminal. But that's pretty rare. Most criminals make the news because they maybe weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer and the cops were able to track them down. And then there are some who are just hopelessly bad at what they do.
Frosted Flake
Drunkenness has lead many a person astray over the years – you really make poor decisions when you've had too much to drink, and if you're planning to rob someone, then it's probably an extra bad idea to do it drunk. But obviously if you're the kind of person who gets drunk and tries to rob a place, you're not all that on the ball to begin with, and that might explain the woman in Alpena, Michigan who tried and failed miserably to rob a house.
When the homeowner heard a commotion in her kitchen, she confronted the would-be burglar and scared her off. In her haste to escape, she crashed right into a tray of cupcakes. When the police arrived and searched the area, it was pretty easy to figure out that the very drunk woman covered in cake frosting a couple blocks away was their suspect.
Sleepy Time
You can never overstate just how important a getaway is to a good burglary. You get in, get the loot, get out and run away. You need to run away. But two 17-year-old burglars in Winton, California really messed that up.
After raiding a construction site and stealing copper wire and other loot, the two decided to celebrate their crime by smoking up a bit. The police found them there later, both passed out in their SUV, with all the stolen goods in plain view in the back.
The two also had a loaded, stolen handgun in the car, not that it would have helped them since the police literally had to wake them up when they arrived. Both teens were charged with a variety of crimes.
Foot Print Bandit
When it comes to ways you can mess up a crime, there are probably an infinite number of mistakes and unexpected twists that can occur. Life is unpredictable. That said, when the thing that ruins your would-be crime is the kind of thing you'd expect to see in a cartoon, you need to appreciate how badly you messed up.
Andrew Connor had tried breaking into a second-hand shop in County Durham in the UK, and had more or less pulled off his crime; getting what he wanted and making off with the loot. Problem was, in the way out, Connor knocked over a can of white paint and stepped in it. And he literally left a trail of white footprints to his house that the police were able to follow.
Connor lived only a few minutes away from where he committed the crime, and all the things he stole were still in the backyard, right where the footprints lead the cops. They managed to track him down within about 30 minutes of getting the call that a crime was being committed.
The Jamba Juice is Loose
If you want to be a successful burglar you basically need to do two things – steal something and not get caught. The guy who tried to burglarize a Jamba Juice in Fresno probably should have researched that before his little attempt, because he didn't quite pull it off.
While the thief did manage to break into the closed shop, his heist went a little wonky when he yanked the cash register from the counter and ran off with it. The register, of course, was completely empty because it was after hours and they had emptied it at the end of the shift. The tip jar, however, still had money in it. He left that on the counter, though.
Twitter Twit
It's hard to overstate the influence of social media these days – people seem to be slaves to it and it gets a little out of hand sometimes. Seems like everyone knows at least one person who has to always be on their phone, always checking Instagram or Facebook. And maybe that's OK within reason, but when it starts interfering with your regular life, you have a problem. Thomas Matthew Collodel of Virginia had a problem.
Collodel was arrested for burglarizing a hotel, a restaurant, the front desk of an apartment building and more businesses throughout Northern Washington. He sounds like he must have been busy, right? Not too busy to check Twitter. For some terribly silly reason, he logged onto Twitter on the computer of the luxury apartment building he was robbing.
Security camera footage showed the burglar accessing the computer, and when police checked the picture on the account matched the guy they saw on camera, so it was a pretty open and shut case for them.