thursday 13: insane crimes and/or criminals

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1. night deposit box thefts

The infamous con man Frank Abagnale, the subject of the movie Catch Me If You Can, committed many a fraud. One of his many schemes played on a person’s innate tendency to trust a uniform. He placed “out of order” signs on banks’ night depositories, then stood to the side in a security guard uniform with a large cart. As patrons came to deposit, he took their money, receipts, and envelopes, placing them in the cart. Then he left with all the cash, tossing the receipts.

It should also be noted that, while Abagnale claims this as one of his many thefts, it has been proven that much of what he’s claimed over the years is entirely fictitious or grossly exaggerated. Even if he didn’t do it, the same scheme was pulled off in Tigard, OR in August of 2008, when two men scammed a Wells Fargo in this way.

source: Snopes

2. the extortion of Betty Grable

In 1943, actress Betty Grable received an extortion letter. The sender threatened to hurt, even kill her, if she didn’t comply with their demands. They wanted $25,000 in uncut diamonds, mailed in two envelopes to the address provided. Which belonged to a Jonathan C. Wild, an attorney. The FBI became involved as the the letter had been sent through the US mail system, therefore a violation of the Federal Extortion Act. A trap was set, but the extortionist was a no-show. A month later, Grable received another letter, this one demanding she come to a specific location on March 19 with $5,000, or she’d be killed on the 20th. This time, the note was signed “Snow.” Another trap was set, and sprung. The perp was just 18 years old, Russell Alexanderson. He pled guilty and was sentenced to 5 years of probation. But he wasn’t finished. He sent Grable yet another extortion note, this one demanding $500. He was arrested again, this time going to prison.

It’s interesting to note that the lawyer in the note, who likely never existed, shares a name with another thief. The other Wild was English, a thief who ran a criminal empire in the early 1700s.

source: FBI Famous Cases

3. kidnapping Blue Eyes’ son

On December 8, 1963, Barry Keenan and Joe Amsler kidnapped Frank Sinatra, Jr. when he was just 19. They were only 23 at the time, high-school classmates who thought kidnapping Blue Eyes’ kid would be a great moneymaker. That evening, young Sinatra was in his dressing room at Harrah’s Club Lodge in Lake Tahoe when there was a knock on the door. Keenan was on the other side, pretending to be delivering a package. Once the door opened, the two men rushed in to tie up a friend of Sinatra’s and blindfold Sinatra. Sinatra’s friend freed himself fairly quickly and called the cops. In true irony, the kidnappers were stopped by one of the roadblocks hurriedly set up, but they managed to bluff their way through it, driving Sinatra to their hideout in the Los Angeles’ suburbs. On December 10, Keenan made a plea for a $24,000 ranson through a third conspirator, John Irwin. Elder Sinatra got the money together and gave it to the FBI who photographed it and made the drop. But while Keenan and Amsler picked up the money, Irwin got nervous and freed young Sinatra, who was found by a security guard not long after in Bel Air. To avoid the press, he hid in the guard’s truck and was taken to his mother’s home. Blue Eyes’ kid wasn’t much help to the cops, as he’d barely seen the two kidnappers, and only heard the voice of the third. It was Irwin who broke first, telling his brother who then called the FBI. The defense tried to claim the young singer set it all up for publicity, but that was put to rest when a confession letter by Keenan was found.

There’s a great podcast hosted by John Stamos on this, with Barry Keenan. Snatching Sinatra: The Grand Scheme. I loved it.

source: FBI Famous Cases

4. the sleepy burgler

In the UK in 2007, Mark Smith broke into the house of Heather Stephenson, creeping past her while she was ironing. In her room, he stole jewelry and a checkbook. High on a combination of valium and vodka, he began to feel sleepy. When Stephenson came upstairs, she found the burglar under her bed, feet sticking out, sound asleep. Screaming and shaking him did nothing, so she called the police, who found him in the same state. They finally dragged him out, still wearing his rucksack full of stolen goods, as well as clutching a stolen pair of earrings in his hand. And he was asleep on top of the checkbook. Kind of hard to escape punishment, so he was sentenced to 18 months in jail.

source: Northern Echo

5. the perp as a victim

In 1995, Klaus Schmidt attempted to rob a bank in Berlin. He brandished a pistol, demanding money. One of the tellers asked him if he wanted the money in a bag, to which he replied, “Damn right it’s a real gun!” This tipped off a teller that he was deaf, so they surreptitiously set off an alarm. The robber was unable to hear it, so the police easily apprehended him. In a fun twist, he later attempted to sue the bank, claiming they exploited his disability.

sources: CBS News, Fact Republic

6. break-ins are only illegal at night

This according to 22yo James Blankenship of Ohio. On June 12, 2013, Blankenship broke into his mother’s house after she’d banned him three months earlier when he’d also broken into her house. When the police came, they found him hiding beneath a crawl space around 11am. The cops informed him of his charges, which shocked Blankenship. Apparently, he thought he could only be charged with burglary if he’d broken in to her house during the night. Um, no.

source: HuffPost

7. photogenic stolen cash

On August 24, 2015, John Mogan walked into the Savings Bank in Ashville, OH and handed the teller a note. After receiving the requested money, Mogan left the premises. After identifying Mogan as a possible suspect, the police began to deep-dive into him, finding Facebook photos of himself and his girlfriend posing with wads of cash. While they couldn’t prove the money in the photo was the same money, as he was unemployed, they believed it was likely. This wasn’t Mogan’s first dance with robbery, as he’d recently been released after serving 5 years for another bank robbery. He was later sentenced to 3 years in prison and restitution. His girlfriend, Ashley Duboe, was also convicted, for her complicity to robbery and to theft. She was sentenced to 2 years in prison and restitution.

sources: CBS News, The Columbus Dispatch

8. donkeys and dumbasses

The dumbness began with three men in Juan de Acosta, Colombia stealing a donkey named Xavi one afternoon. They wanted to use him as their getaway pack donkey for a planned grocery store robbery. Early in the next morning, they broke into a grocery store and gathered oil, rice, rum, and a variety of canned goods. They loaded their stolen cache onto the donkey and began to leave. but Xavi wasn’t having it. He began to bray loudly, drawing the attention of police. The thieves abandoned both Xavi and the stolen loot and took off. Poor Xavi was detained for another 12 hours before being released to his owner.

source: Time

9. lazy lawyering

This one isn’t settled yet, but in May of this year, Gregory Moore was indicted and charged with a variety of crimes involving the stabbing death of Aliza Sherman on 24 March 2013. The indictment claims Moore allegedly lured Sherman, who was his client in divorce proceedings, to his office, telling her he needed to meet with her. It is believed it was part of a plan that had been months in the making to kidnap her rather than have to try her divorce case in court. Moore, or a possible co-conspirator, snuck up on her and stabbed her 10 times. It is alleged that Moore disconnected his cell from its network for three hours around the time of her murder, in an attempt to avoid cell-tower location evidence. He turned it on later, making several calls to her in what is believed to be an attempt to cover his ass. Then he purchased a new phone just days after she was murdered. This is just the latest round of charges against Moore that involve Sherman. In 2017, he pled guilty to falsification, regarding statements made to police about his whereabouts at the time of her murder. He also confessed to calling in bomb threats in 2012 to delay trials. His law license was suspended in 2017, and he resigned it in 2018. For those charges, he served just 6 months in jail.

source: Court TV

10. offended fugitive

Daniel Kellaway, a British fugitive wanted for a variety of crimes, responded to a Facebook post (end of March-beginning of April, 2024) by the authorities in which his description noted a receding hairline. Kellaway, offended by that part of the description, responded with the following comment, complete with errors:

No need to mention the hairline guys, I’m heading turkey to get it sorted then we will catch up.

He then commented again the next day, requesting the appeal change his age from 28 to 29, as it was his birthday.

I could find nothing that says he’s been caught.

source: Independent

11. breaking in to jail?

On 22 January 2024, Kirk Muckenfuss of Alabama attempted to break into the Lawrence County jail. Deputies caught him in the act as he tried to get into the jail with drugs, intending on selling meth to inmates. Not a wise choice, my friend.

source: WAFF 48

12. 15 minutes of freedom

In January of last year, James Kirst was released from the Sangamon County Jail in Illinois at 7:34pm with a notice to appear in court. At 7:49pm, he was once again in the custody of the Springfield Police Department, charged with criminal trespassing after he took a metal pole to the front entrance of the Sangamon County Building. This was just the latest of 42 previous arrests and charges.

source: WCIA

13. Dan Rather and the time traveler

In 1986, newsman Dan Rather was assaulted by a man who shouted, “Kenneth, what’s the frequency?” It was a comment that made no sense to Rather, who’s assailant went unidentified for many years. Because of the name, Kenneth, it was believed for a long time to be little more than a case of mistaken identity. It was only in 1994, after the same man shot and killed an NBC technician that the two crimes were linked. The assailant was William Tager, who shot the tech as he attempted to enter NBC’s ground-floor Today-show studios, armed with an assault rifle. As it turns out, both incidents were committed because of Tager’s belief that the media was after him. The meaning behind his question to Rather all those years earlier? Tager was trying to halt the media from beaming hostile messages into his brain. Later, during a session with a psychiatrist, he told them he was a time traveler from a parallel world, from the future in 2265. He told the psychiatrist that he was a convicted felon in that world, a test-pilot volunteer in the midst of a dangerous time-travel experiment. According to Tager, he’d been told that if he were successful with his mission, his sentence would be overturned and he’d be set free. He claimed to have a chip in his brain that kept track of him. He also stated that his attack on Rather was a case of mistaken identity, in this case Kenneth Burrows, the VP of his future world.

sources: Time, Mental Floss