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NARRATOR: Tonight on
America's Dumbest Criminals, a getaway that's more
evil than Knievel,
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the insider theft of diamonds
big enough to choke on, and the relentless battle
of man versus machine.
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Calm down and forget
about your worries. Witness the not so good behavior
of America's Dumbest Criminals.
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[police radio] -Duh. NARRATOR: And now, welcome your
hosts for America's Dumbest
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Criminals, Daniel
Butler and Debbie Alan. -You know, when you
think about heist, you--
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-Hey, don't start
with the short jokes. -No, come on now,
Miss Sensitive. I said "heist," as
in stick up, OK?
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Not "height" as in grow up, OK? Now-- -Funny, funny. -All right, should I go on?
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-Stick with the copy. -OK. When you think about
heist, you tend to think about armored cars
loaded with million dollar
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payrolls or priceless gems
kept in locked safes, right? -But what's the
weirdest thing you
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could ever imagine
anybody stealing? -Well, just when we think we've
heard it all here at America's
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Dumbest Criminals, a story
like this one comes along. -And you won't believe
what was being pilfered.
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-Gallstones. Friends, yes, you heard
me right-- gallstones. -But you don't have to
take our word for it.
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We've got the hidden
camera footage to prove it. -Uh huh. -In this business,
uh, there's nothing
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that surprises you anymore. But there are a few
things that astound you, and this kind of astounded us.
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NARRATOR: What this
undercover officer discovered was a whole new
kind of a rustler.
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A beef inspector who, instead
of checking for disease, was actually pocketing
gallstones from cattle.
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Why gallstones? These gems from
a cow's intestine are worth more than
$500 an ounce--
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almost twice the value of gold. Why so expensive? -It's our understanding
that they're sold, uh,
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in a commodity markets, and
then sold in the Asian world and used as an aphrodisiac.
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NARRATOR: So in came
the undercover unit to break the case
wide open and catch the love bandit in the act.
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-I mean, we had a bunch
of different lines over it and, uh, you know, that
this crime really galls me,
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or the crime was
a crime of passion and those kinds of things. NARRATOR: Ah, I get tingly
just thinking about it.
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Ooh. -They're huge. -No, looks like big
McNuggets to me. -That's disgusting. -Yuck.
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-Now we take you from gallstones
to genuine precious stones-- diamonds, to be exact.
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Of course, we've all
heard the expression that diamonds are a
girl's best friend.
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-Yeah. Every man has, sure, yeah, yeah. -Yeah, we love them. Well, that may be true
because, at least in this case,
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a girlfriend is definitely
not a girl's best friend. -Now this story is true,
although its details
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may be hard to swallow. -And, it, you know,
it never ceases to amaze me of the things
that, uh, happened.
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Um, we had this particular
call involving, uh, this young female who was
visiting a friend's house.
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Uh, she wanted to originally
borrow some clothes. And I guess, uh, that, uh,
while she had an opportunity
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to enter this friend's,
uh, bedroom, she observed, uh, uh, some jewelry and
decided that, uh, she
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wanted to make that
jewelry her own. However, uh, her friend,
uh, had enough smarts,
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uh, to realize immediately that,
uh, the jewelry was missing, and, uh, would not let
this particular female out
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of her sight. This victim insisted that
she would not go anywhere, and contacted the police.
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And she continued to
deny any knowledge of the missing jewelry. Uh, the jewelry
consisted of, uh,
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five rings along with
a diamond necklace. She was transported to our, to
our police headquarters here.
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And, uh, you know, the, the
detective started questioning her and, uh, she continued
to deny, uh, very much.
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She says, uh, I know nothing
of this missing jewelry. You, you, you know,
you got me wrong.
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I, I, I didn't
take this jewelry. And I guess she realized
that, uh, we, you know,
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we weren't going to
let her go that easy. We continued to question
her for a few more moments,
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and finally, eh, she blurted
out, I swallowed the jewelry. So we took her down to
Mountainside Hospital
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and we told the, uh,
the intern down there that, uh, we had a, a, a subject
in custody that allegedly had
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sli, uh, swallowed a
large amount of jewelry. In fact, it, it was, uh, it
was worth in excess of $2,500.
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And we decided
to, uh, x-ray her. Upon running the x-ray
and developing the x-ray,
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lo and behold, right there
in her large intestine was this nice beautiful jewelry
all bunched up in, in knots
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and, uh, it, it
was really visible. And, and it was quite
the, quite hilarious to be quite honest with you.
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We did, we were able to recover
one of the rings which she passed, but I
can't tell you what
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happened to, uh, all
the rest of the jewelry. [applause] -Now, imagine this ad in
the classifieds-- "Wanted,
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accomplish for convenience
store stick up. Must be mature, responsible,
able to think on your feet.
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Excellent health required
for fast getaways. Willing to relocate, of course. Excellent profit potential.
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Salary negotiable." Well, apparently it's hard
to find good help these days. And as this desperate
desperado was soon to find out,
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he didn't make a
very wise choice. -I guess the, the
craziest arrest I ever had was in
August of 1982.
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We received a robbery call
at a local convenience store. Upon rival when we
got there, the clerk
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was able to give
us a description of the two suspects and the car. And they were last seen going
south on the major highway
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going through our city. I came upon another
convenience store which would have
been on my left.
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And as a general habit, I just
happened to look over there. And I saw a car matching
the description,
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and two subjects putting
gas in their getaway car. When I exited and pulled my
weapon and told them to freeze,
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well, both subjects
then began to argue, became highly agitated. Then I noticed one
of them starting
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to reach for his right
rear pants pocket and drew my attention
on him and, and told
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him, keep your
hand up on the car. Keep your hand away
from your pocket. And as I got up
there, I reached in
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and pulled out a 25 automatic. And generally if you can,
when you confiscate a weapon,
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the first thing
you do is clear it. Well, the first thing I did was
drop the magazine out of the,
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out of the, uh, 25
automatic, and I realized then there was no bullets in it. Then I pulled the slide back.
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There was no bullets in,
chambered into the weapon. Stunned and kind of
dumbfounded, I, I told the guy,
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I said, there's,
the gun is unloaded. You robbed the store
with an unloaded gun.
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He turned around
and looked at me and said, what do
you mean empty? I said, the gun is empty.
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You robbed a store
with an unloaded gun. And when he, I said
that, he looked at me
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and then he turned around
and looked at his partner and he said, fool, you
gave me an unloaded gun
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to rob the place with? And then he started
attacking him. Then we wound up having
to break them apart.
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When we were having the
hearing in the court, I got to testify in
front of the judge
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that these guys had, uh, said
that they didn't have any gas. They had to stop and
put gas in their car.
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They robbed it with
an unloaded gun. And we also had to break
up a fight between them
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at the, uh, after we,
uh, apprehended them. And, uh, it's been
a long time ago, but I can still distinctly
remember that judge
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nearly falling off
his bench laughing. They both got 10 years. -All of us at one
time or another
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have done battle with
an electronic device. Maybe you wanted to take
a hammer to your computer
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or throw your answering
machine out the window. Well, perhaps you
thought of putting
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your foot through your TV. Well, you really shouldn't
do that right now, or you'll miss a pair
of surveillance tapes
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that show robbers
in a knock down, drag out fight with
cash registers. James MacDonald wasn't expecting
trouble when a gunman entered
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the convenience store
where he worked. -I just stood there and looked
at him like he was stupid.
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I thought it was a gag. -Then suddenly it looked
like a day at the ballpark. There was one run, one
hit, and plenty of errors
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by this bush league. Actually make that two hits,
because the clerk caught up with the getaway car
and knocked a grand slam
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through the rear window. And what did the women
think about her heroic act? -You see a friend getting
hurt, you want to protect them,
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you know? -But wasn't she
afraid of being shot? -I didn't see the gun. -The villain in
the making enters
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the store, trying
to act nonchalant. He's probably
saying to himself-- -Oh yeah.
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I, I'm looking inconspicuous. No need to pay any
attention to me. Hm, let's see,
what should I buy?
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What should I buy? Ah, oh, hello, uh,
Mr. Clerk, sir. Just, just need to buy
these, uh, cigarettes.
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Yeah, cigarettes-- that's
what I came in here for. Enough of my clever deceptions.
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You took me for a lowly
customer, but behold, I am a master criminal. Watch my agile ways and
prepare to be amazed!
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You are mine, cash
register, all mine! -But this terminal was
one powerful computer.
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A battle ensued and sparks flew. But he managed to crash
the system, grab some cash
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and make his exit, although
he was later apprehended. -And now with news
that will make us all
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feel a little smarter, here's
Daniel with ADC headlines. [applause] -What do you do when the
property you stole breaks down?
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Well, you do what any
upstanding consumer would do-- you call for
service, right?
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Well, that's what a New Orleans
woman did when the refrigerator she stole from the school
where she worked conked out.
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In an act of extreme arrogance
and supreme stupidity, she called the school
maintenance man
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to put the chill back
in her hot refrigerator. The repairman did the
work, but he got steamed
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when she refused to compensate
him for his services. So instead of getting paid,
he got even by turning her in.
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At least this way she got to
spend some time in the cooler. Speaking of stealing large
boxes, crooks in Newark
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came up empty-handed
when they tried to steal a vending machine. They wrapped a chain
around its base
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and hooked the ends to
the bumper of their truck, now unaware that the vending
machine was anchored in cement.
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When a tug of war ensued,
the truck lost its bumper while the vending
machine stood its ground.
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Nervous about the ruckus
they had, cor, created, the crooks high tailed
it out of there,
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leaving behind the
bumper with the truck's license plate attached. It wasn't long.
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All of us though, at
one time or another, have made the mistake of not
following recommended washing
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instructions and paid the price. For a drug dealer in
Vero Beach, Florida, the stakes were much higher
than a shrunken shirt,
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and his mistake far dumber
than mixing colors and whites. Instead of dropping off
his bag of dirty clothes
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at his laundromat, he delivered
a dirty little secret-- a bag containing three
pounds of marijuana.
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He should also have known
that there's a big difference between folding sheets and
rolling papers, you know?
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Well, that closes the file
on ADC headlines ripped from somewhere near the
back of your local paper.
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Debbie? -Thank you, Dan. But watching this
next chase scene, I think you'll agree
that this motorcycle
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bandit had nerves of steel. But there was something that
he didn't have-- a tank of gas.
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Watch as this terrifying
high speed chase turns to slow motion. Like Peter Fonda
in "Easy Rider,"
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or Arnold Schwarzenegger
in "The Terminator," or Steve McQueen in
"The Great Escape,"
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but he's about to
become more like Pee-wee Herman in "Pee-wee's
Big Adventure." That's right, just
like mom told you,
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look both ways before crossing. Because it is true that
motorcycles get great mileage,
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but they can't go on forever. And as our not all
that Evel Knievel watches his superpowered cycle
reduced to a top-heavy scooter,
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he knows that his days of
riding with the wind in his face have come to an end. [applause]
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-They call them "the gang
that couldn't spin straight," giving new meaning to the term
"conspicuous consumption."
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This bunch of backwoods bad guys
from Cramerton, North Carolina, commandeered an armored
car loaded with $17 million
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and drove it deep into the woods
where, in a modified Robin Hood style, they robbed from the rich
and gave to, well, themselves.
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OK, with that much money burning
a hole in their very deep pockets, they went
on a shopping spree
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that would make Ivana Trump
look like Mother Teresa. They waved farewell
to welfare, and traded
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in their double-wide trailers
for double-digits diamonds. For a blow-by-blow of
their buy, buy, buy, let's
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explore lifestyles of
the rich and infamous, Appalachian style. -Somewhere around
the 4th of October,
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an employee of the Loomis Fargo
Company heisted $17 million. Within three weeks after they
stole this money, some of them
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decided to move from a
double-wide mobile home in Lincoln County to
a $635,000 mansion
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in Cramerton, North Carolina. I think they put $435,000
down on the house. I don't know that it
was all in $20 bills,
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but a lot of $20 bills. After the heist, who would have
thought that someone would've
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stayed in the county right next
door to where the $17 million was stolen and
spend all this money
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in all these different ways? -Big screen TVs, stereos. -$43,000 diamond rings. -Pool tables.
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-New BMWs. -Velvet Elvis, uh, cigars. Many of their friends
and, and relatives didn't understand how they
came upon all this money,
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so we started
getting phone calls. -I'm Cathy Biles. I'm the mayor here in Cramerton.
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And, um, the folks
that purchased the home live just down the
street from me. They came in driving a,
a Mercedes and a BMW,
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and she had a huge
diamond on her finger. And they seemed to fit
right in right away,
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but they did keep to themselves. -Once we got the phone
calls, we contacted the FBI.
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Over the course of the
next three or four months, the FBI began
conducting surveillance
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on the family that
moved into Cramerton. Once they had enough evidence,
somewhere around the 1st
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of March, the FBI
arrested these people. -It was the typical
rags to riches. It was interesting to
see what folks thought
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they should spend
their money on. -I think if you get
that much money you're kind of like a drunken sailor,
just out spending money any way
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you can. One of the women involved
getting a breast, I guess, augmentation. Steal $17 million, what's
the first thing you'd want?
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Bigger breasts. [laughter] [applause] -These days, law
enforcement officers have a full battery of crime
fighting tools on their side.
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They use radar, wiretaps,
internet information sharing and DNA testing,
just to name a few.
00:16:20
But none of these innovations
eclipse the interrogation power of the polygraph,
or lie detector.
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-Or, as they refer to it
a Chesapeake, Virginia, the copy machine. Witness how this technologically
challenged criminal is duped
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into confessing by
police officers. -Well, I was, uh,
working property crimes a few years back before
my current assignment.
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And, um, we had
taken into custody a burglary suspect of a church. Uh, there were probably
several thousand dollars
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worth of silver and,
and an organ was taken, and a, a lot of damage,
and silver was taken.
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He came in. We interviewed him for
probably 20 to 30 minutes. Uh, he continually denied the
fact that he had, uh, broken
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into the church. And I asked him if
he'd submit to a, a lie detector
test, a polygraph.
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And, uh, he kind of hesitated,
and then he stated that, well yeah, I'll take a
lie detector test.
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We took him over
to a Xerox machine. Prior to this we had
set it up to where about the fourth
question in line
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we would ask him if he had
broken into the, to the church and stolen the items and done
the damage in the church.
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And we wrote the word "lie"
right in the middle of a piece of paper and loaded it into
the tray on the Xerox machine.
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Uh, we brought him over. We put his hand flat
out, right on the glass of the Xerox machine.
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We asked him what his name was. He responded. We hit the start button,
hit xerox, and came out
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with a perfectly clear
picture of his hand. The second question was, uh,
where he lived, or something
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of that nature-- uh,
basically something that we knew he would
tell the truth on.
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We pushed the
start button again. When we got down to
the fourth question, uh, we asked him if he'd
broke into the church
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and had done the damage. He again said no, and we
pushed the start button and it xeroxed.
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And when it came out,
it had the word "lie" written right in the
middle of his palm.
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Uh, we then looked
at him and said, the machine knows when
you're telling a lie.
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And he very
heartedly said, well, let me tell you what
really happened. And then he proceeded
to go on to tell us
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about how he and a friend
had broke into the church. He tried to put it off on
the friend-- didn't think
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that they were going
to steal anything. They were just going to
vandalize the church.
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Uh, and then he admitted
to taking the silver. We were able to recover most of
the stuff that they had taken.
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Sometimes it just
takes a dumb polygraph to catch a dumb criminal. [laughter] -It's a Xerox lie detector.
00:18:40
It's high tech. You know, I figured it
was only a matter of time before the police
countered copycat crimes
00:18:46
with copycat crime
solving, right? Come on. Well, that's all for this week. Join us next time as
we'll be hot on the trail
00:18:52
of new stories, including
the case of a small town terrorized by a
big pig wallowing
00:18:58
in the wake of a crime wave. -Did the pig end up
on in the slammer, or on your breakfast table?
00:19:02
-Well, you'll have
to tune in, Deb. -OK. If you've got a lead
on a story, or you just
00:19:06
can't wait 'til next week
for more state of the art stupidity, visit our website
at www.dumbcrimes.com.
00:19:14
-We want to thank
you for joining us and extend our gratitude
to the law enforcement
00:19:17
officers who make
this show possible. Every day they lay
their lives on the line
00:19:21
to keep us safe
from the stupidity of would-be criminals. -As always, we hope we've
learned from others' mistakes.
00:19:28
-But if you haven't, we
just might see you next week on America's Dumbest Criminals.
00:19:33
-Bu-bye, y'all. [applause] NARRATOR: Closed
captioning provided by--