This kind of story seems to appear quite often lately. Is it a fad fed by news coverage of it (they do it to get the story in the paper) or has it always been around? Did the ancient Romans have burglers make use of their slaves while they were away at the Colosseum? Did the pioneers have to worry about someone breaking in, eating the possum fat cookies and playing with the kids’ rag dolls while sitting in the bark-o-lounger watching the fire?
Man sought in burglaries during which man ate, used computer
WEST BEND, Wis. (AP) – Authorities were seeking Thursday a burglar who allegedly took the time to make coffee, cook and eat meals, take showers, pick out a change of clothes, watch television and check his e-mail while inside three rural Washington County homes this month.
“He took clothes and meals,” Sheriff Brian Rahn said. “Whatever he was finding in those refrigerators, he was filling up on it.”
Sheriff’s Department Capt. Dale Schmidt said investigators believe they knows who the burglar is, but he said authorities have not been able to find him since he took a car from the last of the homes that was entered. Schmitz said the man is believed to have left the area.
The burglar left behind other valuables, including jewelry, firearms and electronic equipment, Rahn said.
The burglaries occurred between Feb. 2 and Sunday at homes in the town of Kewaskum, the town of Polk and the town of Wayne, Schmidt said, with the car taken from the home in the town of Wayne in the last of the incidents.
Cash was also stolen in burglaries at two taverns in the town of Wayne and town of Addison during that period, the captain said, but it was not known whether those are related to the home burglaries.
Lori Menzel of the town of Kewaskum said the burglar left his Yahoo account open after checking his personal e-mail on the computer at her home.
“He never logged out,” she said, adding: “He made himself at home here. He spent some time in our bedroom trying on my husband’s clothes. I could tell he went through some of my clothes.”
One would think that if they knew he _checked_ his email, that there would also be some other trackable data (e.g., webmail provider account information) regarding this person’s identity left behind on the PC. Even when one considers the current sad state of privacy rights in the U.S., this would be an instance where releasing personal info to the appropriate authorities could be justified.
This guy will probably be a future Darwin award winner. Leaving his email open on the PC………………………………..
I had something similar – except for the email thing – happen to me about 15-years ago.
Someone discovered that the duplexes on my street all had the same type of [cheap]sliding window, and that everyone [except me] had a wooden dowel in the slide-track to keep the window from being opened from the outside [crappy latches would open if window was jiggled].
I came home from work to find a half-empty wine-cooler on my kitchen counter – and was confused becuase I never leave a drink un-finished. 🙂
I then started noticing my VCR was missing, along with my CD player…. They’d come in thru a jimmied window [I had been living there a few years, without any dowels in the window tracks – my bad]
My CDs were in a pile – because they had taken the time to browse my collection and only take the ones they wanted. They used my pillow-cases to haul off their loot.
They checked-out my pistol, but didn’t take it – apparently not interested in a single-shot [Thompson-Center Contender] with a scope.
It was bad enough that it was obvious they took their time checking every room in my house, but the worst part was knowing they now new exactly what I had – and could come back later for anything too big to carry the first time.
I filed a Police report, and then a few days later the neighbor across the street was robbed, with a similar pattern.
Unfortunately for my neighbors, the burglar(s) discovered they could punch-through a lower corner of the double-pane window [screwdriver??], and flip the dowel out of the track – so they were able to open a window without smashing it. [made me feel like less of an idiot for -not- having dowels in-place]
There were some old, stale cookies in a jar on their kitchen counter, and the thief had tried to eat one, and left the cookie – with teeth-marks – on the counter.
Neighbor’s Pit Bull had been left in the garage, and had almost completely torn thru the lower-half of the door into the house – trying to get to the burglar.
Neighbor was PISSED because his son had a large jar of coins in his room – and the burglar had poured all the coins out on the son’s bed, and taken all the dimes, quarters, silver dollars – but left the nickels & pennies. Bastards! 🙂
The authorities should have no problem finding this guy. He has a Yahoo account…..since they don’t mind turning in a Human Rights Activist for a prison term in China, turning in a petty(and stupid) burgler should be a breeze for Yahoo.
Joshua