News of the Weird: Least Competent Criminals

By Chuck Shepherd

 

You’ve probably never heard of the man who stole his neighbor’s window curtains only to hang them on his own windows, perfectly visible from the house he burgled. Maybe you never read about the woman who robbed a BP gas station by threatening to infect the clerk with her destructive bacteria. These are the stories amassed in News of the Weird’s “Least Competent Criminals.” And while the woman who robbed the gas station got away because of perhaps the world’s least competent clerk, not all the criminals were lucky enough to succeed––just ask the man who dragged a stolen half-ton safe with his car through Bridgetown, Connecticut, attempting to crack it open.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
• Release date: Dec 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449437770

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News of the Weird: Least Competent Criminals

Chuck Shepherd

Michael Jones, 50, told a magistrate in Westminster, England, in May that he did not assault a police officer when he urinated on him at a railway station a month earlier. Jones claimed, instead, that he was urinating in self-defense in that the water supply had been poisoned by the mafia. The magistrate explained that Jones’ argument is not realistically going to be a viable defense. [CourtNews.uk, 5-31-2011]

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Police in Gumperda, Germany, arrested a 64-year-old retired do-it-yourselfer in November after he drilled through a neighbor’s wall in their duplex home. The man had spent two days trapped in his own basement, where he had laid bricks and mortar for a room but apparently forgot to leave himself an exit. [BBC News, 11-25-10]

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A female motorist in Kitsap County, Wash., reported in January being motioned by another driver to pull over, but she ignored him. The man then tried to ratchet up his credibility, motioning her over again but this time holding a hand-scrawled sign reading sheriff. (She remained unimpressed.) Seattle Weekly reported that a similar incident had occurred several months earlier. [Seattle Weekly, 1-4-2011]

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In March, jurors in New Orleans convicted Isaiah Doyle of a 2005 murder and were listening to evidence in the penalty phase of the trial when Doyle decided to take the witness stand (as defendants sometimes do in a desperate attempt to avoid the death penalty). However, Doyle said to the jurors, If I had an AK-47, I’d kill every last one of y’all with no remorse. (The jury recommended the needle.) [WWL-TV (New Orleans), 3-25-2011]

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Harold Luken, 45, was arrested on April 8 in New York City near a Bank of America after his attempt to rob it failed badly. According to police, Luken walked in at 1:50 p.m. and announced that he had a gun and intended to rob the place—but then merely got in a line and said he would wait for a teller. When he finally got to the window (with police apparently on their way), Luken restated his intention and, as if narrating, announced the handing over of the robbery note. When the teller refused to respond, Luken asked to check the balance in his own account,