Eideard

Shellie Leonard — neighborly burglar

At first, on Wednesday, she helped herself to some craft supplies. And a knife. A purse. One hundred CDs.

The window curtains.

Shellie Leonard wanted more, authorities said, and on Thursday she went back to her neighbor’s house on Dalwood Drive with plans to steal a computer and electronics. Her neighbor was incarcerated at the Pasco County jail. But Thursday happened to be the day the neighbor came home — and caught Leonard stealing, the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office said.

Leonard, 43, of 4004 Darlington Road in Holiday, was arrested and charged with two counts of burglary. Information on the victim — and what crime the victim is suspected of committing — was not available from authorities…

Leonard remained Friday at the Pasco jail in lieu of bail…

Har! More konvoluted karma.

A plumber who used the internet to highlight his wife’s affair with a director of one of the world’s largest financial companies will appear in court on harassment charges. Lawyers believe the case could help define the limits of free expression on the internet.

Ian Puddick, 41, from east London, was incensed after learning that his wife had conducted a 10-year relationship with her boss, a director of Guy Carpenter, a reinsurance company that advises clients on risk management.

Puddick set up a series of websites, a Twitter account and a blog to draw attention to the affair, alleging that the director, who he named, was pursuing an affair with his wife on the company’s time and expenses – a claim rejected by Guy Carpenter. The company maintains Puddick’s actions forced the director to leave his position due to stress.

Puddick’s legal team are expected to use the three-day hearing at Westminster magistrates court to examine the actions of the City of London police, which dispatched its serious crime unit to raid his home and office in search of evidence. Plus an anti-terrorism squad.

Puddick’s legal team is seeking to summon a number of Guy Carpenter’s executives to appear at his trial, a move that promises unwanted publicity for a company that likes to keep a relatively low profile. Internal Guy Carpenter emails obtained by Puddick’s legal team and seen by the Observer show that the firm employed a subsidiary – Kroll, a global private investigation agency used by many blue chip companies – in its quest to establish that Puddick was waging a harassment campaign…

Michael Wolkind QC, representing Puddick, said his client intended to defend his actions. “This case is about Mr Puddick’s right to express his feelings about another person’s immorality. Ian Puddick dared to speak out about his wife’s affair and it has cost the public £1m for the extraordinary investigation carried out by an unusually enthusiastic police alongside an elite security firm.”

Puddick’s legal team say his home has been burgled and files were stolen as well as some valuables. However, following a police investigation, there is nothing to suggest that Guy Carpenter or Kroll were involved in any illegal activity.

Puddick is now reconciled with his wife.

Phew! At least they got that part sorted.

A spate of hair extension thefts across the US has put the spotlight on the lucrative market for human hair. It may sound an unlikely source of income – but salons across the country are on alert after a series of raids in which hair worth tens of thousands of dollars has been stolen.

In the latest theft, thieves rammed a car through the front door of a beauty supply shop in Atlanta, Georgia, and escaped with an estimated $10,000 in hair extensions.

In Houston, one raid at My Trendy Place hair salon earned the perpetrators $120,000 of Indian “virgin hair” – unprocessed and untreated.

Owner Lisa Amosu said the burglar, filmed on closed circuit television, knew exactly what he wanted and didn’t even bother to raid the cash till, heading straight for the storeroom housing hundreds of extension bundles and wigs.

“They cleared me out,” she says. “It’s so unfortunate, because the hairpieces were made especially for cancer survivors and for ladies who could not usually afford them.

“Hair extensions are a huge part of my business. I have customers who come from Dallas, San Antonio, Fort Worth and Louisiana, because they get high quality…”

Surveillance cameras have shown burglars breaking through walls and windows, slithering along floors to avoid alarms and then grabbing expensive hair extensions from the shelves and stockrooms…

Singers like Beyonce, Gwen Stefani and Christina Aguilera have popularised a look that has been fashionable in the African American community for decades…

Salons in the Western world buy the hair from companies that import it from countries like India.

A BBC investigation in 2008 discovered that some Indian women were having their head shaved voluntarily in a religious ritual…

What’s attractive, what is “beautiful” from society to society is so fleeting, caught up in the culture wars orchestrated by profiteers that it’s hard to take seriously except as either investment – or social commentary.

Beauty is part of love; but, that’s the love of a whole person – unless you are as vacant and shallow as the ideal consumer sought by corporations selling off rendered fat, scent and color as making you more desirable.

Police in Maryland arrested a man after finding his cell phone charging at the scene of a burglary. Now Montgomery County police say 25-year-old Cody Wilkins has been charged in other burglaries.

It began when a homeowner’s son arrived as a burglar was going through rooms in the home Friday. Startled, the burglar jumped out a window and fled.

The son called police, who searched the home and found a cell phone charging in an electric socket. The phone led police to Wilkins.

Police say Wilkins’ home was among those in the area that lost power last week when a snowstorm moved through. Arrest records say he’s been linked to other break-ins.

Wilkins was brought to a Montgomery County jail on $1 million bond.

Dummy. Come to think of it. that’s why no one’s written a book on Burglary for Dummies. Anyone heading into a life of petty crime probably doesn’t read.

A Japanese thief, who describes himself as a gentleman cat burglar, has written a popular book giving tips on how to carry out burglaries.

Futabasha Publishing claims that a first print run of 10,000 copies of “Occupation, Thief; Annual income, Y30 million” has almost run out in the 10 days since publication.

Hajime Karasuyama – the pen name of the career burglar – claims to have developed the uncanny ability to guess just where the occupant of any home will have stashed the cash and valuables and provides tips on how to gain access to a locked property and then get away again without leaving any signs.

Karasuyama says he earns around £270,000 a year from burglary…

Karasuyama provides details on how he is able to pick any lock at will and the way to silently use a glass cutter on a window. He also reveals that placing a jeweller’s magnifying eye-piece against a door peep-hole reverses the view and enables him to look inside the house, while he recommends investing in a new hybrid car for going on “jobs” because they have engines that are very quiet and do not attract attention.

Karasuyama also reminisces about some of the best heists of his career, including the time he hired a chauffeur to drive to one address and boldly walking up to the front door dressed in a business suit and brazenly picked the lock.

“I didn’t want to get arrested by the police, so I thought of a way that would make me appear less conspicuous,” he told the magazine.

The editor of the book says, “This book is not targeted at people who might want to become a burglar but more at home-owners who want to know how a thief thinks and how they can better protect their home.”

I guess there should be a follow-on publication on how the Japanese parliament does business on a daily basis. So the Japanese might be better prepared to fire many of the crooks running their government. Probably as true in Japan as it is in the United States.

A 30-year-old woman who pleaded no contest with her boyfriend to burglarizing the home of a Sonoma Valley family killed in a car crash was sentenced…to a year in the county jail.

Amber True of Redwood City also received five years’ probation for the Nov. 30 break-in at the home of John and Susan Maloney, who died along with their children, Aiden, 8, and Grace, 5, when they were struck by a teen motorist on Highway 37 three days earlier.

Judge Arthur Wick rejected a plea from prosecutors for a six-year state prison term, saying there was no evidence True and boyfriend Michael Gutierrez, 27, knew why the house was empty before they crept in through a doggy door…

Earlier this month, Wicked handed down an eight-year prison sentence for Guitierrez, a longtime drug user with a criminal record that dates back more than half his lifetime. Gutierrez was charged with committing the burglary while on probation for another felony…

Prosecutor Mike Li argued her recent sobriety should not be a factor in determining a sentence for the crime, which he said caused a great hardship for surviving family members.

Also, he questioned how True and Gutierrez could not have seen memorial bouquets and cards scattered around the house. Li said “it was highly improbable that they did not know something was amiss.”

Throw away the key.

Photo from the article about the “reopening”

A homeless man allegedly broke into a California bar and served drinks to unsuspecting patrons all weekend — before police came calling.

The bar, called the Valencia Club, had gone out of business for some time and its liquor license had expired, police said this week.

But the suspect, Travis Lloyd Kevie, 29, somehow got into the California establishment in the Penryn area of Sacramento Valley last week. He reopened the bar using beer he bought from a nearby store.

Kevie allegedly started with a six-pack of beer and used money he received to buy more alcohol. He kept the bar open for a weekend serving about 30 customers a day, authorities said.

He was so successful that a local newspaper did a story about the bar reopening.

This was the follow-up story:

“As Detective Jim Hudson read the morning newspaper he recognized an individual pictured on the front page as a local transient who has had numerous contact with the Placer County Sheriff’s Office.”

He went to the bar to determine if Kevie had obtained a liquor license.

“When Detective Hudson arrived at the Valencia Club it was open for business with customers bellied up to the bar. Upon questioning Kevie Detective Hudson determined that he had no connection to the property and he did not have a liquor license,” the department said.

Kevie was arrested Tuesday and charged with burglary and selling liquor without a license…

The true American spirit of entrepreneurship. Or something like that.

As we have previously noted.

COWETA COUNTY, Ga. — Coweta County officials confirmed to Channel 2 Action News that they arrested a man who they believe forced his own 11-year-old child to help him steal items from people’s homes.

Police arrested James “Jamie” Frank Jordan III, 38, of Moreland and charged him with 15 counts of burglary, four felony thefts, four counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, 15 counts of cruelty to children and one count of cruelty to animals.

Coweta County sheriff’s investigators said Jordan had forced his now-11-year-old child to participate in burglaries for the past four years. Officials said the child was not receiving any formal education.

Authorities said some of the stolen items they recovered included firearms, jewelry, tools, boots, knives, decorative items for the house and live animals – such as peacocks, chickens and dogs.

Peacocks?

And while you’re away…

A former Royal Caribbean Cruise Line employee has been arrested and charged with burglarizing the homes of 24 vacationers who were spending time at sea.

Police in Palm Beach County say the employee accessed personal information about reservations to find out when the vacationers would be away.

Bethsaida Sandoval, 38, a Royal Caribbean vacation planner, has been charged with 24 counts of burglary across Palm Beach County, including Boca Raton, Jupiter and Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Sandoval’s husband, John Lopez, acted as her accomplice, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office…

“People were on vacation, and when they returned home, they found they were burglarized,” said Teri Barbera, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office. “One common factor was that they were all on vacation with Royal Caribbean.”

Investigators believe that the burglaries took place on the first night of the cruises, while the homeowners were at sea.

Shouldn’t surprise anyone.

Just one more thing to worry about.

A naked man found wedged in the chimney of a Lancashire supermarket has been arrested for burglary.

Police officers discovered him trapped in a chimney breast of a Tesco Express store in Pemberton, Wigan, reports the BBC…

Police said that because the man was naked he was taken to hospital as a precaution but was treated and discharged before being arrested.

A GMP spokeswoman said: “It is believed some his clothes came off as a result of him struggling to get out of the chimney.”

A 22-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of burglary and remains in police custody.

Sounds about right to me. He’d qualify for dumb crook of the day – except his plight is pretty common.

No one ever said crooks were especially bright.