Fun_People Archive
27 Aug
More stupid criminal tricks

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 12:59:09 PDT
To: Fun_People
Subject: More stupid criminal tricks

 From: vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU!bostic (Keith Bostic)
 From: WEIRDNUZ.288 (News of the Weird, August 13, 1993)
 From: Chuck Shepherd

* Northwest Missouri Community College basketball coach
Ed Corporal resigned in June after the St. Joseph News-
Press reported that almost all of the breathtaking
athletic credentials on his resume were false, most of
them almost effortlessly disproved by checking easily-
accessible sports record books.  Among the honors
Corporal claimed were an NBA career with the New Jersey
Nets, three straight years on the Southeastern
Conference all-star basketball team (with Charles
Barkley), and the University of Florida's "all-decade"
team for the 1980s.  When informed that none of the
institutions had ever heard of him, Corporal was at
first defiant:  "Why they wouldn't have records of it,
I don't know.  I don't have any reason to make things
up." [St. Joseph News-Press, 6-26-93] 

* Four people were arrested in Sacramento, Calif., in
January after they kidnaped a woman and threatened to
kill her unless she entered her bank and withdrew money
for them while they waited outside in a truck.  Once
inside the bank, the woman merely notified the security
guard, who called police, who came and arrested the
men. [Sacramento Union, 1-23-93] 

* In June, a sheriff's bomb squad in Madison, Wis.,
alerted by a Valley Bank branch burglar alarm, found a
bottle containing nitroglycerin set to explode when
connected to an electric detonator.  Deputies concluded
that the burglar had fled because the extension cord he
had brought for the detonator had come up about three
feet short of the nearest electrical outlet. [Milwaukee
Journal, Jun93] 

* Christopher White, 22, was arrested in Boothwyn, Pa.,
in July and charged with burglary after police were
summoned to the offices of a housing development in the
middle of the night by a 911 operator.  Police said
White had attempted to dial a 900-sex service from the
office but had inadvertently dialed 911, whose
equipment automatically records the number from the
calling telephone. [[Warren Tribune-Chronicle, Jul93]] 

* Ray Douglas Thomas, Jr., 37, was arrested in July in
San Antonio and charged with the theft of 13 bags of
potting soil from a builder's supply store.  While
being chased by police, Thomas tried to leap from the
driver's seat of his moving car, got his sleeve caught
in the door, was dragged 60 feet, fell free, and was
run over by the car's rear wheel, at which point police
easily nabbed him. [San Antonio Express-News, 7-18-93] 

* Toronto police in June were trying to trace a
thumbprint they thought would identify the person who
burglarized the offices of Hayden Communications.  The
burglar made off with $75, but while in the office
apparently took time out to play with Leslie Hayden's
container of Silly Putty, in which the thumbprint was
left. [Globe and Mail, 6-24-93] 

* Boynton Beach, Fla., police believe that it was a
drug-addicted burglar who broke into Nathan Radlich's
house in May and stole a tackle box that contained the
ashes of Radlich's late sister, Gertrude.  Because more
valuable items were not taken, police believe the
burglar thought he had stumbled upon a cache of
cocaine. [Houston Chronicle-Ft. Lauderdale Sun-
Sentinel, 5-4-93] 

© 1993 Peter Langston