How to Kiss Your Gadgets Goodbye and Make Burglars Smile
I got in my car to grab my Sunday coffee and paper yesterday morning, buckled up and noticed someone's forehead print on the outside of my driver's side window. Someone was peering into my car last night and left their greasy head print and smudge of a nose behind. I am so very pleased the thief found nothing interesting inside my car and moved three cars over to bust my neighbor's window.
As soon as I saw the prints, I shut her down and hopped out to look for the auto burglary victim. Sure enough, my neighbor's brand new Audi sported a fractured passenger window. The crack pattern of the glass shows a spark plug was probably used to fracture it. The window cracks quietly and crumbles inward with a light push, giving the thief full access without any jagged glass to get cut on.
I went back upstairs to tell my neighbor he'd been fleeced. He ran down ahead of me in his boxers and spewed a stream of F bombs. He'd left his brand new Garmin GPS portable unit affixed to his windshield. Gone. His iPod left in his car kit, gone. His gym bag in the trunk, gone. He also never locks his glove box. His insurance paperwork and registration, gone. So now not only does he have to replace all his gadgets and window, but he has to monitor for identity theft, too. What a pain in the ass. Always lock your glove compartments.
My neighbor was so angry he wouldn't listen to me telling him not to touch anything. He opened the trunk, the glove box, climbed all around the seats and slapped the dashboard where his GPS used to be. I can totally relate, but as I told him the police would not respond to print his car since he'd disturbed everything. Instead, they take a telephonic report.
You might think it a total long shot for an auto burglar to be made on prints, but you'd be surprised. If latent prints are found, they're lifted and scanned into IAFIS. There may already be a match for your particular crook and then fun's over for them. If not, trust me when I say auto burglars are like the toddlers of crime. They crawl before they walk, and when they start walking they move on to residential burglary or violent crimes. Sooner or later their prints will be taken when they're arrested and then your auto burglary will come back to haunt them. So, don't touch your burglarized vehicle. Call police as soon as you notice forced entry. Make sure to tell them you have not touched anything and want a unit to respond for printing.
Thieves are not going to bust your window unless they see a little treat inside your car. I am so happy the wanker saw nothing in my car worth his trouble and so pissed that he screwed with a very nice neighbor. Remember, keep your belongings out of sight unless you like playing with fire. It takes about 30 seconds for experienced thieves to break in and steal everything worth anything. Even if you hear the window smash, they'll be long gone by the time you call police and a unit arrives. Why not spend the same 30 seconds bringing your hard-earned stuff inside with you?
Mad Scientist Bruce Ivins the Anthrax Killer Worked Alone
Today the FBI released affidavits reading like a Dean Koontz thriller plot in the seven-year investigation of the 2001 anthrax serial murders of five people. Army scientist Bruce Ivins worked alone, investigators said. The case ties Ivins to the specific spores of anthrax used in the killings, the equipment needed to dry the poison and the particular pre-printed envelops used to mail it. The envelops were breadcrumbs of sorts. They had certain printing defects and were sold in Frederick, Maryland, the same city Ivins kept his post office box.
Motive, on the other hand, will remain speculative because Ivins took the deal with the devil and killed himself on July 29, 2008, by overdosing. Shucks. I hate when that happens. I would much rather he suffer a lifetime of humiliation and intimidation in prison. Ivins whacked himself after being notified he faced arrest charges for the killings under mounting evidence.
Among the dirty deeds he couldn't bullshit investigators about were unusually long hours working alone at night and on weekends in the days leading up to each of the mailings, discarding a book on DNA coding at his home while under surveillance and submitting fake anthrax samples to the FBI.
Two theories attempting to explain his his crazed behavior include Ivin's anthrax vaccination which was failing at the time of the murders and a history of marauding congress and the media with hundreds of complaint letters over the years.
It's amazing what investigators can do with the slightest of leads. Take the envelops, for example. It's likely Ivins never noticed the printing imperfection on the batch, else he'd have stopped using them. Who would think those envelops could be traced to one point of sale and further linked to the area of his post office box? Apparently he didn't.
I think it's dumb to use something so closely tied to oneself as a murder weapon. He was a scientist studying pathogens and specializing in anthrax, for crying out loud. Now Dr. Arthur Warren Waite, on the other hand, put a slippery spin on his murders. Way back in 1916, he used bacteria from genuine diseases to kill his in-laws. The natural reaction when someone dies from a common disease is not to suspect someone injected them with it.
Sneaky enough, but it didn't work. Waite fed his father-in-law diphtheria germs and got no results. He prepared a nasal spray for him full of tuberculosis germs and nothing happened. He gave him calomel to weaken his immune system, still nothing. He secretly blasted him with colonies of typhoid and influenza and finally in frustration turned to arsenic, after which he bribed the embalmer with $8,000 to keep his mouth shut.
The only reason Waite was discovered was because a woman in the know sent the victim's son a telegram about it. Check out the link, it's a kick from the 1916 New York times involving blackmailers, a violinist and the word 'scoundrel'.
I digress. In any case, it's always a pleasure to read about a murderer who's crossed off easy street, whether law enforcement gets them or they're betrayed from within, it's victory just the same.
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