Burglar Succumbs to Facebook Addiction

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Seriously? You couldn't wait to check Facebook until after you left the place you were burglarizing?

Rhetorical question. He couldn't.

I was just looking through previous posts that include the word "Facebook" and wow, it doesn't appear to have ever been associated with a positive outcome for the subject. I guess I've probably skewed the results there, to be honest. I guess the closest case to this one is the 2011 post noting that you shouldn't "friend" somebody you've just stolen from, thus enabling them to identify you. There was also this 2007 post involving a case in which somebody forgot to erase his search history, which was important there because he had been researching how to rob a bank. That didn't involve Facebook, though.

Neither of those miscreants were as stupid as this one. Not by a long shot.

WCCO in Minneapolis reported the other day that a 26-year-old man who broke into a home in St. Paul had checked his Facebook profile, for some inexplicable reason, using the homeowner's computer. The owner came home to find the place ransacked and his valuables gone, including his watch. "I started to panic," he said. "But then I noticed [the burglar] had pulled up his Facebook profile. And had forgotten to log out, obviously.

For some further inexplicable reason, the burglar had also left behind a pair of shoes, a pair of jeans, and a belt. (The report didn't say if he had other clothes with him, stole some from the homeowner, or departed pantless.) These items, plus the burglar's stupidity, gave the victim a chance to set a trap.

He posted about the burglary on Facebook, using the burglar's profile. He also posted his phone number, probably hoping some not-too-friendly friend of the burglar would turn him in. Amazingly, the burglar himself texted later that day. "I replied, you left a few things at my house last night [when you broke in and robbed me]. How can I get them back to you?" The burglar agreed to meet with him, apparently thinking he would get his clothes back in exchange for a stolen cellphone.

As it turned out, that meeting never happened, because while the victim was driving back to his house he saw the burglar walking down the street, and called police. He recognized the guy, of course, from the Facebook profile. (The ears are pretty distinctive.)

The burglar was wearing the victim's watch when he was arrested, just to make 100% sure he would be convicted.