America's Dumbest Criminals - Season 3, Episode 2 - Man vs. Machine - Full Episode | Forensic Files

NARRATOR: Tonight on America's Dumbest Criminals, a getaway that's more evil than Knievel,
the insider theft of diamonds big enough to choke on, and the relentless battle of man versus machine.
Calm down and forget about your worries. Witness the not so good behavior of America's Dumbest Criminals.
[police radio] -Duh. NARRATOR: And now, welcome your hosts for America's Dumbest
Criminals, Daniel Butler and Debbie Alan. -You know, when you think about heist, you--
-Hey, don't start with the short jokes. -No, come on now, Miss Sensitive. I said "heist," as in stick up, OK?
Not "height" as in grow up, OK? Now-- -Funny, funny. -All right, should I go on?
-Stick with the copy. -OK. When you think about heist, you tend to think about armored cars loaded with million dollar
payrolls or priceless gems kept in locked safes, right? -But what's the weirdest thing you
could ever imagine anybody stealing? -Well, just when we think we've heard it all here at America's
Dumbest Criminals, a story like this one comes along. -And you won't believe what was being pilfered.
-Gallstones. Friends, yes, you heard me right-- gallstones. -But you don't have to take our word for it.
We've got the hidden camera footage to prove it. -Uh huh. -In this business, uh, there's nothing
that surprises you anymore. But there are a few things that astound you, and this kind of astounded us.
NARRATOR: What this undercover officer discovered was a whole new kind of a rustler.
A beef inspector who, instead of checking for disease, was actually pocketing gallstones from cattle.
Why gallstones? These gems from a cow's intestine are worth more than $500 an ounce--
almost twice the value of gold. Why so expensive? -It's our understanding that they're sold, uh,
in a commodity markets, and then sold in the Asian world and used as an aphrodisiac.
NARRATOR: So in came the undercover unit to break the case wide open and catch the love bandit in the act.
-I mean, we had a bunch of different lines over it and, uh, you know, that this crime really galls me,
or the crime was a crime of passion and those kinds of things. NARRATOR: Ah, I get tingly just thinking about it.
Ooh. -They're huge. -No, looks like big McNuggets to me. -That's disgusting. -Yuck.
-Now we take you from gallstones to genuine precious stones-- diamonds, to be exact.
Of course, we've all heard the expression that diamonds are a girl's best friend.
-Yeah. Every man has, sure, yeah, yeah. -Yeah, we love them. Well, that may be true because, at least in this case,
a girlfriend is definitely not a girl's best friend. -Now this story is true, although its details
may be hard to swallow. -And, it, you know, it never ceases to amaze me of the things that, uh, happened.
Um, we had this particular call involving, uh, this young female who was visiting a friend's house.
Uh, she wanted to originally borrow some clothes. And I guess, uh, that, uh, while she had an opportunity
to enter this friend's, uh, bedroom, she observed, uh, uh, some jewelry and decided that, uh, she
wanted to make that jewelry her own. However, uh, her friend, uh, had enough smarts,
uh, to realize immediately that, uh, the jewelry was missing, and, uh, would not let this particular female out
of her sight. This victim insisted that she would not go anywhere, and contacted the police.
And she continued to deny any knowledge of the missing jewelry. Uh, the jewelry consisted of, uh,
five rings along with a diamond necklace. She was transported to our, to our police headquarters here.
And, uh, you know, the, the detective started questioning her and, uh, she continued to deny, uh, very much.
She says, uh, I know nothing of this missing jewelry. You, you, you know, you got me wrong.
I, I, I didn't take this jewelry. And I guess she realized that, uh, we, you know,
we weren't going to let her go that easy. We continued to question her for a few more moments,
and finally, eh, she blurted out, I swallowed the jewelry. So we took her down to Mountainside Hospital
and we told the, uh, the intern down there that, uh, we had a, a, a subject in custody that allegedly had
sli, uh, swallowed a large amount of jewelry. In fact, it, it was, uh, it was worth in excess of $2,500.
And we decided to, uh, x-ray her. Upon running the x-ray and developing the x-ray,
lo and behold, right there in her large intestine was this nice beautiful jewelry all bunched up in, in knots
and, uh, it, it was really visible. And, and it was quite the, quite hilarious to be quite honest with you.
We did, we were able to recover one of the rings which she passed, but I can't tell you what
happened to, uh, all the rest of the jewelry. [applause] -Now, imagine this ad in the classifieds-- "Wanted,
accomplish for convenience store stick up. Must be mature, responsible, able to think on your feet.
Excellent health required for fast getaways. Willing to relocate, of course. Excellent profit potential.
Salary negotiable." Well, apparently it's hard to find good help these days. And as this desperate desperado was soon to find out,
he didn't make a very wise choice. -I guess the, the craziest arrest I ever had was in August of 1982.
We received a robbery call at a local convenience store. Upon rival when we got there, the clerk
was able to give us a description of the two suspects and the car. And they were last seen going south on the major highway
going through our city. I came upon another convenience store which would have been on my left.
And as a general habit, I just happened to look over there. And I saw a car matching the description,
and two subjects putting gas in their getaway car. When I exited and pulled my weapon and told them to freeze,
well, both subjects then began to argue, became highly agitated. Then I noticed one of them starting
to reach for his right rear pants pocket and drew my attention on him and, and told
him, keep your hand up on the car. Keep your hand away from your pocket. And as I got up there, I reached in
and pulled out a 25 automatic. And generally if you can, when you confiscate a weapon,
the first thing you do is clear it. Well, the first thing I did was drop the magazine out of the,
out of the, uh, 25 automatic, and I realized then there was no bullets in it. Then I pulled the slide back.
There was no bullets in, chambered into the weapon. Stunned and kind of dumbfounded, I, I told the guy,
I said, there's, the gun is unloaded. You robbed the store with an unloaded gun.
He turned around and looked at me and said, what do you mean empty? I said, the gun is empty.
You robbed a store with an unloaded gun. And when he, I said that, he looked at me
and then he turned around and looked at his partner and he said, fool, you gave me an unloaded gun
to rob the place with? And then he started attacking him. Then we wound up having to break them apart.
When we were having the hearing in the court, I got to testify in front of the judge
that these guys had, uh, said that they didn't have any gas. They had to stop and put gas in their car.
They robbed it with an unloaded gun. And we also had to break up a fight between them
at the, uh, after we, uh, apprehended them. And, uh, it's been a long time ago, but I can still distinctly remember that judge
nearly falling off his bench laughing. They both got 10 years. -All of us at one time or another
have done battle with an electronic device. Maybe you wanted to take a hammer to your computer
or throw your answering machine out the window. Well, perhaps you thought of putting
your foot through your TV. Well, you really shouldn't do that right now, or you'll miss a pair of surveillance tapes
that show robbers in a knock down, drag out fight with cash registers. James MacDonald wasn't expecting trouble when a gunman entered
the convenience store where he worked. -I just stood there and looked at him like he was stupid.
I thought it was a gag. -Then suddenly it looked like a day at the ballpark. There was one run, one hit, and plenty of errors
by this bush league. Actually make that two hits, because the clerk caught up with the getaway car and knocked a grand slam
through the rear window. And what did the women think about her heroic act? -You see a friend getting hurt, you want to protect them,
you know? -But wasn't she afraid of being shot? -I didn't see the gun. -The villain in the making enters
the store, trying to act nonchalant. He's probably saying to himself-- -Oh yeah.
I, I'm looking inconspicuous. No need to pay any attention to me. Hm, let's see, what should I buy?
What should I buy? Ah, oh, hello, uh, Mr. Clerk, sir. Just, just need to buy these, uh, cigarettes.
Yeah, cigarettes-- that's what I came in here for. Enough of my clever deceptions.
You took me for a lowly customer, but behold, I am a master criminal. Watch my agile ways and prepare to be amazed!
You are mine, cash register, all mine! -But this terminal was one powerful computer.
A battle ensued and sparks flew. But he managed to crash the system, grab some cash
and make his exit, although he was later apprehended. -And now with news that will make us all
feel a little smarter, here's Daniel with ADC headlines. [applause] -What do you do when the property you stole breaks down?
Well, you do what any upstanding consumer would do-- you call for service, right?
Well, that's what a New Orleans woman did when the refrigerator she stole from the school where she worked conked out.
In an act of extreme arrogance and supreme stupidity, she called the school maintenance man
to put the chill back in her hot refrigerator. The repairman did the work, but he got steamed
when she refused to compensate him for his services. So instead of getting paid, he got even by turning her in.
At least this way she got to spend some time in the cooler. Speaking of stealing large boxes, crooks in Newark
came up empty-handed when they tried to steal a vending machine. They wrapped a chain around its base
and hooked the ends to the bumper of their truck, now unaware that the vending machine was anchored in cement.
When a tug of war ensued, the truck lost its bumper while the vending machine stood its ground.
Nervous about the ruckus they had, cor, created, the crooks high tailed it out of there,
leaving behind the bumper with the truck's license plate attached. It wasn't long.
All of us though, at one time or another, have made the mistake of not following recommended washing
instructions and paid the price. For a drug dealer in Vero Beach, Florida, the stakes were much higher than a shrunken shirt,
and his mistake far dumber than mixing colors and whites. Instead of dropping off his bag of dirty clothes
at his laundromat, he delivered a dirty little secret-- a bag containing three pounds of marijuana.
He should also have known that there's a big difference between folding sheets and rolling papers, you know?
Well, that closes the file on ADC headlines ripped from somewhere near the back of your local paper.
Debbie? -Thank you, Dan. But watching this next chase scene, I think you'll agree that this motorcycle
bandit had nerves of steel. But there was something that he didn't have-- a tank of gas.
Watch as this terrifying high speed chase turns to slow motion. Like Peter Fonda in "Easy Rider,"
or Arnold Schwarzenegger in "The Terminator," or Steve McQueen in "The Great Escape,"
but he's about to become more like Pee-wee Herman in "Pee-wee's Big Adventure." That's right, just like mom told you,
look both ways before crossing. Because it is true that motorcycles get great mileage,
but they can't go on forever. And as our not all that Evel Knievel watches his superpowered cycle reduced to a top-heavy scooter,
he knows that his days of riding with the wind in his face have come to an end. [applause]
-They call them "the gang that couldn't spin straight," giving new meaning to the term "conspicuous consumption."
This bunch of backwoods bad guys from Cramerton, North Carolina, commandeered an armored car loaded with $17 million
and drove it deep into the woods where, in a modified Robin Hood style, they robbed from the rich and gave to, well, themselves.
OK, with that much money burning a hole in their very deep pockets, they went on a shopping spree
that would make Ivana Trump look like Mother Teresa. They waved farewell to welfare, and traded
in their double-wide trailers for double-digits diamonds. For a blow-by-blow of their buy, buy, buy, let's
explore lifestyles of the rich and infamous, Appalachian style. -Somewhere around the 4th of October,
an employee of the Loomis Fargo Company heisted $17 million. Within three weeks after they stole this money, some of them
decided to move from a double-wide mobile home in Lincoln County to a $635,000 mansion
in Cramerton, North Carolina. I think they put $435,000 down on the house. I don't know that it was all in $20 bills,
but a lot of $20 bills. After the heist, who would have thought that someone would've
stayed in the county right next door to where the $17 million was stolen and spend all this money
in all these different ways? -Big screen TVs, stereos. -$43,000 diamond rings. -Pool tables.
-New BMWs. -Velvet Elvis, uh, cigars. Many of their friends and, and relatives didn't understand how they came upon all this money,
so we started getting phone calls. -I'm Cathy Biles. I'm the mayor here in Cramerton.
And, um, the folks that purchased the home live just down the street from me. They came in driving a, a Mercedes and a BMW,
and she had a huge diamond on her finger. And they seemed to fit right in right away,
but they did keep to themselves. -Once we got the phone calls, we contacted the FBI.
Over the course of the next three or four months, the FBI began conducting surveillance
on the family that moved into Cramerton. Once they had enough evidence, somewhere around the 1st
of March, the FBI arrested these people. -It was the typical rags to riches. It was interesting to see what folks thought
they should spend their money on. -I think if you get that much money you're kind of like a drunken sailor, just out spending money any way
you can. One of the women involved getting a breast, I guess, augmentation. Steal $17 million, what's the first thing you'd want?
Bigger breasts. [laughter] [applause] -These days, law enforcement officers have a full battery of crime fighting tools on their side.
They use radar, wiretaps, internet information sharing and DNA testing, just to name a few.
But none of these innovations eclipse the interrogation power of the polygraph, or lie detector.
-Or, as they refer to it a Chesapeake, Virginia, the copy machine. Witness how this technologically challenged criminal is duped
into confessing by police officers. -Well, I was, uh, working property crimes a few years back before my current assignment.
And, um, we had taken into custody a burglary suspect of a church. Uh, there were probably several thousand dollars
worth of silver and, and an organ was taken, and a, a lot of damage, and silver was taken.
He came in. We interviewed him for probably 20 to 30 minutes. Uh, he continually denied the fact that he had, uh, broken
into the church. And I asked him if he'd submit to a, a lie detector test, a polygraph.
And, uh, he kind of hesitated, and then he stated that, well yeah, I'll take a lie detector test.
We took him over to a Xerox machine. Prior to this we had set it up to where about the fourth question in line
we would ask him if he had broken into the, to the church and stolen the items and done the damage in the church.
And we wrote the word "lie" right in the middle of a piece of paper and loaded it into the tray on the Xerox machine.
Uh, we brought him over. We put his hand flat out, right on the glass of the Xerox machine.
We asked him what his name was. He responded. We hit the start button, hit xerox, and came out
with a perfectly clear picture of his hand. The second question was, uh, where he lived, or something
of that nature-- uh, basically something that we knew he would tell the truth on.
We pushed the start button again. When we got down to the fourth question, uh, we asked him if he'd broke into the church
and had done the damage. He again said no, and we pushed the start button and it xeroxed.
And when it came out, it had the word "lie" written right in the middle of his palm.
Uh, we then looked at him and said, the machine knows when you're telling a lie.
And he very heartedly said, well, let me tell you what really happened. And then he proceeded to go on to tell us
about how he and a friend had broke into the church. He tried to put it off on the friend-- didn't think
that they were going to steal anything. They were just going to vandalize the church.
Uh, and then he admitted to taking the silver. We were able to recover most of the stuff that they had taken.
Sometimes it just takes a dumb polygraph to catch a dumb criminal. [laughter] -It's a Xerox lie detector.
It's high tech. You know, I figured it was only a matter of time before the police countered copycat crimes
with copycat crime solving, right? Come on. Well, that's all for this week. Join us next time as we'll be hot on the trail
of new stories, including the case of a small town terrorized by a big pig wallowing
in the wake of a crime wave. -Did the pig end up on in the slammer, or on your breakfast table?
-Well, you'll have to tune in, Deb. -OK. If you've got a lead on a story, or you just
can't wait 'til next week for more state of the art stupidity, visit our website at www.dumbcrimes.com.
-We want to thank you for joining us and extend our gratitude to the law enforcement
officers who make this show possible. Every day they lay their lives on the line
to keep us safe from the stupidity of would-be criminals. -As always, we hope we've learned from others' mistakes.
-But if you haven't, we just might see you next week on America's Dumbest Criminals.
-Bu-bye, y'all. [applause] NARRATOR: Closed captioning provided by--

In this episode of “America’s Dumbest Criminals,” we’ll witness a criminal getting away more evil than Knievel, an insider theft of diamonds big enough to choke on and a relentless battle of man vs. machine.

Crime is no laughing matter, except when the criminals are bumbling fools. Hosted by Debbie Alan and Daniel Butler, this show looks at lawbreakers through a humorous lens.

Brief Summary

This episode covers bizarre thefts including gallstones, swallowed jewelry, and a robbery with an unloaded gun.

Key points

Gallstones Heist. A beef inspector steals gallstones worth more than gold, leading to a bizarre undercover sting.
Jewelry Swallowing Thief. A woman swallows stolen jewelry, leading to a hilarious x-ray reveal.
Unloaded Gun Robbery. A robber discovers he used an unloaded gun during a convenience store heist.
Xerox Lie Detector. Police use a Xerox machine to catch a burglar in a clever interrogation.
Next Week's Tease. A pig causes chaos in a small town, leaving viewers curious for more.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You won't believe what was being pilfered.

NARRATOR introduces a surprising theft story.

1:48WatchMar 3, 2022

Tension

35/ 100Low tension

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