I know a murderer-for-hire who managed to leave one of his credit card receipts at the murder scene. Not so much the dumbest crime, but in the running for the dumbest criminal.
Saskatchewan cabinet minister Colin Thatcher left a credit card receipt behind when he murdered his ex-wife.
I had someone break into my car and stole a pair of shoes, the spare change, the tape hanging out of the deck, and a box full of worthless Magic cards used to play an obscure variant that just used random cards regardless of what they were. They left unopened Magic booster boxes and another box that contained far more valuable cards. It probably cost me more to get the window replaced than the value of the items stolen, while the items not stolen from the car were probably worth more than the car.
Someone entered my front yard and cut off the first 6 inches of my garden hose. No good unless you have a coupler to attach to a garden hose, and if you need to buy one of them why not just buy the replacement end?
I was recently on a jury where two men and a woman broke into a house and stole a whole bunch of stuff, including some jewelry and clothing. Later that day, the cops caught up with them. Two of the people were wearing said jewelry and clothing. The third had most of the other stolen items in his house and car. :smack:
Back when I was a teenager a young man I knew was talked into doing an armed robbery of a video store. All he did was pull his tshirst over his head. He had been in earlier and the clerk of course recognized him. He thought it would be looked at as a big joke but he got serious time for armed robbery.
Another time I heard of someone who went into a grocery store, robbed it, went out to his car but his car wouldnt start. He then went back into the store and asked the manager help in starting his car. They were there when police arrived.
My sister used to drive a pick-up truck. She had bought a bag of fertilizer, put it in the bed and never got around to taking it out. An apple seed sprouted in the fertilizer and poked its way out of the bag. She drove around for several years with a scrawny apple tree hanging on for dear life in back. Then. one morning she went out to her truck to find the tree, complete with the bag of fertilizer gone. Nothing else was taken. I like to think that someone took pity on it and decided to give it a better home.
The same thing happened to me. You really would think they would at least try to open the door first. The only things in the car were in the glove box - the owner’s manual and a pack of tissues. Apparently they were pissed about that and tore the tissues into little pieces and threw them around the interior. Didn’t even try for the stereo, which didn’t work anyway.
Got three, though I’m not sure if an actual crime was committed in the first one.
First one, 17 years or so ago, Nashua, NH. I was delivering pies for Domino’s at the time. Arrived home after work one Saturday night, and was enjoying SNL on the tube when I hear the sound of smashing glass immediately outside my back door, which opened onto a balcony/porch shared between my apartment and the one next door. I was a bit freaked out at first, then after a suitable pause, went cautiously out back to see what was going on.
What I saw was my neighbor’s back door swinging open, with a smashed glass panel. Their apartment was dark, but I heard some muffled voices, so I went quickly back inside and called the cops. Mind you, this is a neighbor with whom I had minimal interaction other than the occasional “Hi” in the common stairway. Didn’t know her name, didn’t want to.
So the cops come out and take their statements and all that. Meanwhile, I’m back relaxing in my own apartment when, a few minutes after the cops leave, I hear a knock at the door. Peering through the eyehole, I see the angry, semi-familiar face of my neighbor’s boyfriend, who I’d seen previously several times.
“Hey Tom, what’s up?” His mustachioed reply (paraphrasing) - “Hey man! I heard you called the cops on me!” I say something to the effect of, “Huh?”. He replies, “That was me! I didn’t have my keys, so I busted the window. Why’d you do that?” He was pissed off and drunk.
I say something to the effect of, “I didn’t know it was you. I just heard the glass breaking and thought [my neighbor’s] place was being broken into. Wouldn’t you want someone to check on that?” After a brief awkward silence, his anger vanishes and he says something like, “Huh. I didn’t think of that. Thanks man!” and turns and returns next door. We got on just fine for the next 5 years or so I lived there.
Apparently, it hadn’t occurred to him that someone might actually alert the authorities for non-rat reasons… :smack:
Somebody stole a floor mop from my backyard. A frigging mop.
Several decades ago I drove a Triumph Spitfire softtop convertible. Away for several days, I left the car in the unenclosed apartment building parking lot. The car could be entered by simply unbuttoning the softtop, so I didn’t lock the doors.
When I came back, I saw the softtop had been cut to make room for an arm. The thief didn’t even think to unbutton the top, let alone test the unlocked door. He’d broken into the car to steal the radio but, although he had managed to damage it, he never got the radio out — there was a screw and nut in the back he’d neglected to loosen.
(I see I’ve been Ninja’ed by very similar stories from Hilarity N. Suze and aurora maire. 
)
I use to work on the 10th floor of a high rise across the street from the hotel where all of the VIPs would stay when in town.
Vicente Fox while he was the President of Mexico and the street was blocked off, there were dozens of police cars and black SUVs waiting for him, he must have been late because they were all standing around talking or looking bored.
I noticed half a dozen running towards the McDonalds across the street where they arrested a man for completing a drug deal in front of them.
Ha! Dude must have figured “Mexican cops – they won’t care.”
Not sure how far back the “good old days” to which you refer go, but it is my understanding that back in the '50s and '60s, car antennae could be used to make zip guns or could be used as an impromptu whip when brawling in the street.
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Possibly explaining eschereal’s statement: I remember reading something a few years ago in a magazine – Reader’s Digest, probably – that in Russia, windshield wipers were a semi-precious commodity, so drivers typically did not keep the blades on the car. Then, when it started to rain, the roads would temporarily clear while all the drivers pulled over and attached the wiper blades.
Not something that I witnessed but I heard from one of the participants. A bunch of soldiers in AIT (Advanced Individual Training) at Ft. Gordon were ripping off the Coke machines by putting a length of scotch tape on the dollar bills so they could pull them back out. The machine registers the money going in so the perps would get a free drink and 50 cents change. Now if you’re not too stupid, you might do that once or twice, get your free drink and a laugh and then smarten up and knock it off. If you’re stupid, you might keep doing it so the people who own the machine figure out they’re getting ripped off and have the Military Police investigate. If you’re really, really stupid, you would do it a lot and fill your locker with unconsumed cans of drinks and a drawer full of quarters. Guess what the MPs found in one guy’s locker.
Someone broke into our minivan once. They tried to pry open one of the side windows with a crowbar and failed. Then they smashed the passenger window. The only thing stolen was my work bag which had my Discworld paperback 
and random papers.
(Sorry, no laptop)
They ignored the two car seats which would be at least $50 each and the new clothes in the back.
Sounds like…they made a clean getaway 
Submarine … Northern run of [as I remember] 5 months <Stops in Holy Loch Scotland, Tromso Norway, wander around under the arctic ice pack, then back through Tromso and Holy Loch> So … you steal stuff that your boatmates bought and stash it in you locker … stuff like fairly unique tankards, tshirts, foreign military uniform parts [including a soviet Ushanka with insignia] all that got reported when the owners noticed the thefts. Triggered a locker and space search while between ports so there was no possibility to offload stuff to a fence… :smack:
A nice article and list of other ‘You have only yourself to blame’ criminal idiots.
Accidentally uploading to the Cloud, those are my favorite morons.
Hmm. I know a lot of submariners, and from what I’ve heard from them, stealing from your shipmates is a** very** bad idea.