Catch Me if You Can

We don’t always advocate vigilante justice here at Tonic, but we gotta admit that sometimes it just plain works.

Take this story out of Minnesota. A 73-year-old man was more than a bit miffed when he discovered someone repeatedly broke into his home and stole his stuff. Determined to find the culprit, he set up a motion-sensor camera in the tree near his front door ... and quickly found the thief.

According to the Austin (Minn.) Daily Herald, his camera zeroed in on a woman wearing a white DirecTV shirt, and filmed her twice last month leaving the house with various items that most definitely did not belong to her. At this point in the story, vigilante justice got a little boost from old-fashioned law enforcement.

The man brought his tape to police, which in turn brought it to the local Direct Communications office (in charge of DirecTV) and an employee fingered the burglar as co-worker Susan Lynn Johnston, 41.

Police tracked down Johnston, who confessed to the crime and said what she did was “wrong” and “stupid.” She said she canoed near the house several times and thought the property was abandoned. She first entered the house by breaking a front window, and returned on subsequent visits by removing the plywood that covered the window she first broke. (The fact that someone bothered to cover the broken window with plywood should have been her first clue that the place wasn’t exactly unoccupied. The stuff she stole, including a vacuum, wrench set and paint sprayer, probably should have been clues number 2–4.)

In any case, Johnston returned most of the items she stole, and has probably learned a valuable lesson ... not the least of which, is don’t wear your company's T-shirt while trying to covertly take someone else’s stuff.

Photo courtesy of CraigPJ via stock.xchang