- Here’s a bunch that are far from being criminal masterminds.
In the vast majority of cases, nothing good comes out of a burglary. But sometimes, the burglars are so inept, stupid, or just plain weird that you get at least a good story.
Case in point, we covered five bizarre burglaries about two years ago. But these aren’t the only strange break-ins by any means.
We thought that maybe it’s time to revisit the world of mindboggling crimes and see what other stories are out there. Without further ado, here are five more stories of bizarre burglaries.
The Remorseful Burglar
On January 30, homeowners in Santa Fe, New Mexico, made a distressing discovery. When they arrived home, they found a man in their home, armed with a scoped AR-15 rifle.
At this point, the couple probably expected things to take a nasty turn. But imagine their surprise when the intruder started apologizing profusely for breaking into their home.
The man explained that his family had been killed in eastern Texas and he was on the run from an unidentified assailant, reported Albuquerque Journal. His car had broken down some 100 miles outside Santa Fe and he’d walked all the way to town.
Desperate for shelter, he’d broken a window to enter the couple’s home. He’d slept for a while, taken a shower, and helped himself to some food and beer from the fridge.
As the couple arrived home, the man promptly packed up his things, grabbed his rifle, and left. On his way out the door, he also handed the couple $200 in compensation for the window he’d broken.
The Penguin-napping
In 2012, three men in Queensland on Australia’s Gold Coast decided to get drunk. We’re not sure how much they’d had, but it was enough to make breaking into the local Sea World a good idea.
The men climbed over Sea World’s fence and proceeded to take swim in a pool of dolphins. Before they left, they also helped themselves to a trophy — a fairy penguin called Dirk.
They grabbed the sleeping penguin and left the aquarium. The reality of the situation dawned on them the next morning when they woke up groggy and hungover.
In the men’s credit, they never intended to hurt Dirk. They tried feeding him and giving him a shower before releasing him into a canal.
Locals spotted the penguin and returned him to Sea World, luckily unharmed. The police later arrested the trio, who expressed their remorse in a written letter of apology to the aquarium.
Making Themselves at Home
When an Oklahoma City woman arrived to her house in 2013, she found someone had forced her front door open. As she was calling the cops, a man appeared at the doorway.
He then invited her in as if he owned the place.
As it turns out, the man — together with his two daughters — had broken into the house and decided to settle. They’d popped a frozen pizza in the oven, put on some clothes from the house, and in general acted like it was their home.
When the cops showed up, the man again asked them to come in. He claimed he lived in the house, but as the cops pressed him for proof, the man became “combative.”
The police later reported that the man was clearly under the influence of some kind of a substance. He reportedly progressed from being calm and drowsy to “hallucinating and delusional.”
Stolen Sand
We’re not exactly sure if this case counts as a burglary. Still, it’s bizarre enough that we’re including it on this list.
Law enforcement official in Jamaica are currently puzzling over an unusual theft. Someone has stolen tons of white sand from Winnifred Beach in eastern Jamaica.
Local residents have seen multiple trucks parked on the beach and being filled with sand on several nights, reported Jamaica Gleaner. Tire tracks on the beach confirm that someone’s been there to pilfer the sand.
Unfortunately, the police can’t do much about the sand theft. They say that they’ll have to catch the criminals in the act.
That doesn’t sound all that hard. Couldn’t they just park a cop car to keep an eye on the beach at night?
Weirdly enough, sand theft is nothing new in Jamaica. In 2008, criminals illegally mined 500 truckloads of sand from a Coral Spring resort on Jamaica’s northern coast.
What they do with the sand is anyone’s guess.
The Facebook Burglary
In 2014, a someone broke into a home in Minnesota. The homeowner, James Wood, returned home in the morning and discovered that his front door was unlocked.
Going through his belongings, he realized that he was missing cash, a checkbook, credit cards, keys, and a watch. His computer was luckily still there, because it turned out to be indispensable in catching the burglar.
Wood noticed that criminal had used his computer to check his Facebook. And he’d forgotten to log out.
After reporting the crime, Wood was driving in his neighborhood when he noticed a man who looked a lot like the profile picture he’d seen on the burglar’s Facebook profile. He called the cops, and when they stopped the man, they noticed that he was wearing Wood’s watch.
Upon arrest, they also found Wood’s other stolen items in the man’s pockets. The man unsurprisingly admitted to the crime.