Many criminals have seemed to literally disappear off the face of the earth while sought by law enforcement agencies. Frank Morris, John Anglin, and Clarence Anglin provide a notorious example; they successfully escaped from Alcatraz on June 11, 1962. Then again, there are some criminals who leave us shaking our heads; not for the same reason, though. The following list of the 25 Dumbest Criminals and How They Got Caught will give you a taste of these notorious fails. Police caught him 15 minutes later with the knife and £410 in cash stolen from a Tesco in King’s Lynn, Norfolk. After he stole a propane cook stove and a castiron wood stove from a camp in Pierce Pond Township, Wallace posted on Snapchat that he was back in his home in Fairfield. After tipsters relayed the info to police, authorities showed up for the fugitive. He grabbed a container of orange juice he found in the refrigerator and took a gulp directly from it, leaving it in the sink. The container was sent straight to the DNA testing unit at the Oregon State Crime Lab where forensic scientists found a match and the thief got caught. William called the local police in Des Moines, Iowa, to help him get the cuffs off. As per routine, police ran Kline through their database and found two arrest warrants outstanding. Shortly after, they re-cuffed Kline … but it was for real this time. He even gave her his name and number. After that, it wasn’t difficult to trace his whereabouts. He also attacked another person who was standing there, which caused him to drop his folder on the ground. He didn’t retrieve the folder before he fled. The police officers, who arrived at the scene a few minutes later, tracked Boudin thanks to what was inside the folder: his anger-management homework. Donald “Chip” Pugh texted police a photo of himself and wrote: “Here is a better photo. That one is terrible.” He also added in a local radio station: “Man, they just did me wrong. They put a picture out that made me look like I was a Thundercat … or James Brown on the run. I can’t do that.” The bank teller obliged and handed him $400, but the thief had overlooked one simple fact: his message was scribbled on a piece of his payslip. Detectives found the other half of the payslip outside the bank, complete with the bank robber’s name and home address. You can probably imagine what happened next. All the police had to do was to follow the trail to his apartment, finding him cracking open the register. Can you guess what was inside the bag? Yep, a highly venomous snake McDonald had just captured from an underground car park in Sydney. Rumors have it that the thief surrendered with his own will to the cops in an attempt to save himself from the snake. Not being able to control his temper, he jumped up and screamed, “I should have blown your F*&^%$ head off.” After that, he tried to correct himself by saying, “Well, if I had been the one that was there.” This is how criminals defended themselves back in the 1980s? Really? To show him how the system worked, they asked him to give them his ID or driver’s license as part of the demonstration. When they placed his driver’s license in the system, they found out that the man was wanted for a robbery committed two years previously and arrested him. Peter Addison from Manchester, UK, and a friend of his smashed crockery and let off fire extinguishers. Apart from writing his own name in black marker pen everywhere on the building, he also left his gang’s name on the wall: The Adlington Massiv. The little fella must have wanted to get caught. No other logical explanation would suffice … other than him being extremely stupid. Duchene, who lived near the shop, was tackled by a customer before she and her friend departed in what might have been the slowest escape in history. While being handcuffed, after leading police on a high-speed chase, Reliford Cooper III claimed that it was his dog driving the car. What’s even worse than his excuse? There was no dog in the car!!! So, this teenager tried to steal a car from a woman in Omaha, Nebraska. Unfortunately for him, the car was a manual and the little fella couldn’t even start it. After trying desperately for seven minutes to start the car, the police showed up and arrested him. The police officers found and arrested a sleeping Renaud “Junior” Plaisir the morning after he had slit a screen to break into the home. The alarm went off anyway as Wise strolled through the exit. Why? Apparently, Wise wasn’t as wise as his name suggests; he had put the removed tags in his pocket. Initially, he stole a bike. Then, he had the not-so-bright idea of trying to sell it online (through Craigslist) to the person he had stolen it from without even knowing it. When the police officers “visited” his house, they discovered more than 10 bicycles, 57 bicycle tires, 24 bicycle wheels, 26 bicycle wheels with tires, 21 bike seats, 4 bicycle frames, a gun, and ammunition. In 2001, a dude from Boston named Zachary Tentoni did just that when he snatched $40 from a woman. In the process of fleeing the scene, he left behind a couple of bags, which contained his birth certificate and a letter from his mother. Later that night, the cops arrested a shocked McArthur Wheeler. When they showed him the surveillance tapes, Wheeler stared in disbelief. “But I wore the juice,” he mumbled. Apparently, Wheeler truly believed that rubbing lemon juice on his skin would make him invisible to video cameras!!! After doing some research, they found out that Blake hadn’t even divorced his first wife. Frank’s polygamy ended up adding some time to his sentence. He then posted the photo on Facebook. The photo went viral with thousands of views, but a couple of days later the police knocked on his door and arrested him. Pearce found this out the hard way when he tried to break into a house by climbing through the window. His foot got caught, leaving his backside dangling in view of passersby on the busy sidewalk. Eventually, the police arrived and he was arrested, but not before being ruthlessly humiliated and mocked by pedestrians who couldn’t resist laughing at and joking about his situation. (We probably would have had the same response.) Dowdy tried to break into a home by smashing a glass door with a paint can. Unfortunately for him, the can bounced off and broke open. Dowdy eventually got inside but all he collected was a can of tuna fish and a box of oatmeal. On his way out, however, the man stepped in the spilled paint. Officers followed the paint footprints to a nearby motel and arrested him while he was enjoying his lunch: tuna fish with oatmeal.
