Criminal Masterminds

One of the prime sources of "filler" for newspapers and Internet news sites is the "stupid criminal" story. It seems there's never a shortage of people who are not only dumb enough to break the law, but dumb enough to make you shake your head at their methodology.

And so it was that I found this article interesting last week: Burglar Plays Dead in Funeral Parlor.

Yes, in Burjassot, Spain, a small town near Valencia, an aspiring criminal mastermind broke into a funeral parlor in search of ... well ... let's not go there. Anyhow, in the process of breaking and entering, he made enough noise to alert the neighbors, who called the police, who responded and searched the building ... whereupon they eventually found the would-be burglar lying on a viewing table, playing dead. What gave him away?

1. The police noticed that, unlike the other patrons of the establishment who were dressed in their nice, presentable, ready-for-The-Big-Sleep suits and dresses, this particular corpse was dressed in dirty and wrinkled duds.

2. He was breathing.

This would have been a great story for the Darwin Awards, except that the guy wasn't actually dead.

The story ranks up there with the brilliant criminal who, a few years ago, held up the bank at which Agnes works ... and then, a few days later, came back and waited patiently in line to deposit the money he stole (still in its original wrappings) into his account. The story gets better, though: the fellow was, in fact, a military policeman.

Brains. Don't leave home without them.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo