America's Dumbest Criminals - Season 4, Episode 22 - Clean Up Crew - Full Episode | Forensic Files

NARRATOR: Tonight on "America's Dumbest Criminals," is this what the cleaning lady means when
she says she just came in to pick up? How can running a stop sign draw your social life to a halt?
And would you want to share a ride downtown with this gal? You've come a long way, baby.
You've stooped to the ranks of "America's Dumbest Criminals" [music playing] Now welcome your hosts for ADC, Daniel Butler and Debbie Alan.
-Hello. -Did you notice anything unusual about the opening? -Oh, you mean that all the previews involved women?
-Uh huh. What is this? "America's Dumbest Criminals" or Lilith Fair? --[laughs] That's a question never ever asked before.
-Yeah, I don't know that I'm ready for ladies night, OK? Although I am in touch with my feminine side.
-And would that be your right side or you left side? -I think right. -You need moisturizer right there. [laughs]
-[inaudible]. -All right. I think that a ladies night special is a good idea. Could be like "The View."
I'll invite several of my female friends, we'll sit around and talk about how we feel about the stories.
-Oh, boy. And we can all wear our jammies and do each other's hair. [laughs] Yeah.
-It could work. -Sure. Now I can see it. Tonight a very special episode of ADC. No.
I'm not buying this. No way. -You think we should just keep things the way they are.
-Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. That's something my cat once said I believe.
-Well, what if we compromise? We'll just have a slight women's emphasis tonight.
Sort of estrogen light. [laughs] -OK. All right. All right. Fine. Deal. You wanna start with a good girl gone bad?
-Sure. Here's truly an inside job, as we find a cleaning lady in the Sheriff's office who was being far more
thorough than anyone imagined, at least until she was caught on camera. -Well, we'd received information through our fiscal department
that a number of the secretaries were experiencing thefts out of their purses. It wasn't a lot of money, but it was enough cash to where they
were concerned that maybe they had some in house stealing going on and they brought it to our attention.
Our, uh, deputies decided to call in the detectives. They hid a camera. We really had no clue who, who was doing the stealing.
Um, but in a matter of just a few days we caught a cleaning lady going through the trash
and also going through purses. -Fine, The word can mean a penalty to be paid or the state of feeling very well.
-Well, trust me. It wasn't the ladder with a guy who was ordered to pay a fine and then took actions that left him feeling terrible.
He's a fine, fine example of the mischief we collect as something to remember me by.
-Had a, uh, subject go into the bank, rob the bank. Couple of Cowley County deputies,
uh, came up on him on a bridge. He hops out, throws the bag of money off in the bushes.
And in that gym bag was cash and some photographs. And we knew the picture was a picture of this guy's son.
And myself of a FBI got in the room with him and, uh, started talking to him. And you could just tell by the look on this guy's
face of this is not working well. He had some legal problems. The judge had told him that he needed this $800 into the court
by the close of work day that day or he was going to jail. And in fact it was by the close of the work day
this particular day of the bank robbery. By golly he was gonna do it one way or the other.
[laughs] -It doesn't take a genius to know that the world is changing. And not necessarily for the better
-Well, pretty much all of it can be traced back to the introduction of Barney. -What?
-Oh, come on. Do some research, draw some timelines, Debbie. You'll see. -You can't pin everything wrong in the world
on a purple dinosaur? -No, no. You're right. You're right. No, that would be completely taking
the blame off Menudo and MSG. --[laughs] Daniel, this is supposed to be an introduction
to a story about carjacking. -Gosh, can't you see how these things are linked, Debbie?
-No. -No, I love you, you love me, it's a purple cult. See how brainwashed everyone is?
-Can we just roll this story? -You're being deceived, Deb. DEBBIE ALAN (VOICEOVER): Things look peaceful enough now
on the street in Springfield, Oregon. But late last night these young people got a start.
-These little kids starting coming towards the car and I thought maybe they knew us.
And he just started looking in the car. And then he came up to the window and he held his gun up to my brother
and he said, get out of the car. DEBBIE ALAN (VOICEOVER): The gun made a convincing argument.
-Actually, we were laughing at him, I think, at that point. We were, it was funny because we're, we're
looking at the car, right? And my cousin's on the cellphone. We're looking at the car and all of a sudden, it stops.
And he gets out of the car starts running and we're thinking, what? -Gears ground, but there was no get away, at least
not with the car because the car jacker couldn't drive a stick shift. Stripped of his bravado the big bad hombre got out and ran.
-He was little. He was like 14 years old. So I couldn't even believe we were getting car jacked by a 14-year-old.
DEBBIE ALAN (VOICEOVER): A mechanical miracle saved by a manual transmission that
really came through in the clutch. NARRATOR: In Borger, Texas it's illegal to throw confetti,
rubber balls, feather dusters, whips, riding crops, or firecrackers of any kind.
-Kind of makes you wonder what parades used to be like in Borger, doesn't it? Well, getting a ticket is no cause for celebration,
but our next law breaker had extra reason to be nervous when the sirens sounded.
It's our latest addition to America's dumbest excuses. -I was working patrol on a Saturday afternoon
and this jeep just rolled right through the stop sign. So I conducted a traffic stop on the vehicle
and made contact with a young lady who was the driver. It's always very common for us to ask,
you know, do you know why I pulled you over. Most of the time they know why. They made a mistake and they'll tell you.
Well, I was waiting for the excuse period to come where she was to tell me something like,
well, I'm late for work and that's why I went through the stop sign or I didn't see the stop sign,
but instead she says, -Because these plates don't belong on this vehicle. -Well, actually, no.
It's for the stop sign violation. But we'll talk about the other thing later. So that was kind of a shock to me,
not quite the answer I expected. So we went and did some, uh, further investigation on that.
And turns out that the vehicle that she was driving was a stolen vehicle. It's not exactly the way expected
that traffic stop to turn out. -You know those old TV shows, the police officers
reminded those they arrested to come along peaceably. When they don't offer a reminder, things turn ugly.
In fact, they bear a striking resemblance to our blue light special. -Stopped this speeder.
Determined that looked like she had been drinking alcohol. So we put her through the field sobriety test.
And, uh, made the determination that she was in fact driving while intoxicated. So we locked her up four DWI.
At the time we didn't have a jail cell. We just had a, uh, what we called the holding
chair with handcuffs attached to it. So we placed her in the chair and my partner was, uh,
coming over to start the process for the breathalyzer machine. And she actually attempted to trip him
and I guess you she had no idea that she was being taped at the time. She actually lunged out of the chair and tried to get at us.
The handcuffs were bolted to the floor from underneath. And, uh, then it comes up through the chair,
so there was no way of her, of her getting loose. We gave her all her paperwork.
She crumbled them up and threw them at as and continued to, you know, end that for us.
And, you know, try to get at us across, across the desk. She, it was just like a caged animal.
-What's bigger than a bread box, smaller than a closet, and a pretty lousy place for a fugitive to hide?
Here comes the answer. -Got a call of a burglary in progress. I roll up on the house.
I'm searching the exterior of the house. And I hear the sliding door that I just pass open.
I run over to the other side. And the male jumps the fence, starts running. I go out after him and we chase him down.
He runs into his house. So we're sitting at his house, you know, trying to get him to come out.
We can hear him making all sorts of noises in there. His mother finally arrives.
We ask his mother if we can go in. So we go in the house and we're searching the house.
-Not the answer I expected. So we went and did some, uh, further investigation on that.
And it turns out that the vehicle that she was driving was a stolen vehicle. Not exactly the way I expected that traffic stop to turn out.
-You know those old TV shows, the police officers reminded those they arrested to come along peaceably.
When they don't offer a reminder, things turn ugly. In fact, they bear a striking resemblance
to our blue light special. -Stopped this speeder. Determined that it looked like she had been drinking alcohol.
So we put her through the field sobriety test. And, uh, made a determination that she
was in fact driving while intoxicated. So we locked her up four DWI. At the time we didn't have a jail cell.
We just had, uh, what we called the holding chair with handcuffs attached to it.
So we placed her in the chair. And my partner was coming over to start the process for the breathalyzer machine.
And she actually attempted to trip him. And I guess she had no idea that, that was being taped at the
-There's a man who does for journalism what the iceberg did for the Titanic. Here's Daniel with ADC headlines.
-A thief in Anchorage learned the hard way that it pays to do your paperwork. He grabbed the cash register from an adult bookstore
and ran, but the register tape began unfurling as he fled. Police simply followed the paper trail until they
found their man three blocks away. See now this is why you should always keep your receipts, OK?
He didn't have a green thumb, but he had sticky fingers. I'm talking about a newspaper delivery man in Tennessee who
had more than his eye on some potted plants adorning the front of several businesses and homes.
He snapped them up as he made his rounds, unaware that security cameras we're snapping his picture.
The evidence took him out of circulation until we posted a $4,000 bond. OK. A couple of Florida bandits made the wrong thing go boom
in an explosive attempt at robbing what they believed to be a bank's night depository.
Instead, they deposited dynamite in the drop vault of the neighboring car wash. One kaboom later the boys realized
they felt the impact of their mistake. Right there not only was the paper money blown to bits,
they were seriously wounded by coins that came at them with the force of buck shot.
Ow! Quarter! And that closes the file on ADC headlines, news ripped from somewhere near the back
of your local newspaper. Jedmeister. -Chivalry isn't dead, but there's a guy in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina who
wishes he hadn't minded his manners. He politely provides us with our special delivery.
-Uh, we have a gentleman that, uh, is from here. All the officers here know the guy.
We've all had circumstances and incidents with him. About the entire time we've known him
he's had very long hair that's ran down to the lower part of his back. Short time later, you know, we we
him again in his, his hair is, is short. He walks up and says, hey, buddy, what'd you do?
You cut your hair. Where'd it all go? And he says, yeah, I cut it. And he goes to pull his hat off and a bag of dope
falls out of his hat and lands at the [inaudible] feet. His statement was, you're not gonna charge me with that,
are you? And that's the long and short of it. -OK. Legend has it that Jesse James ducked into a cave in Kentucky
whenever the law came looking for him. That grand tradition is being carried on with none
of his grandeur as we'll see when we catch up with a batty renegade in Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico.
Spelunking, anyone? -We had someone that came in and, uh, thought he'd have a grand old time exploring the cave drunk.
So he came on down in the cave with his buddies. -And he decided he wanted to get ahead of his buddies
and get off trail and jump out and scare them. -What he didn't know is that we only
have one way in one and one way out of this place. And the way he went was not the way out.
-He go a little further off trail than he should have and wound up down the dark area of the cave
so he, uh, used his Bic lighter to go a little further. -Into the dark, through some ponds
with his bottle and cigarettes. -When the lighter got too hot for him to hold he just decided to sit down and drink his booze
and smoke a few cigarettes. And he wound up passed out on the trail. -Drunk. His pants were wet from trying to swim out of here.
As the guided tour approached that area they turned the lights on and there he was just
passed out in the middle of the trail. -Yeah, I asked him if he'd been drinking.
And he says, oh, I'm always drinking. NARRATOR: Now let's look back at one ADC's greatest hits.
-And, you know, it never ceases to amaze me of the things that, uh, that happen.
We had this particular call involving this young female who's was visiting a friend's house.
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 some jewelry and decided that, uh, she
wanted to make that jewelry her own. However, her friend, uh, had enough smarts 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.
The jewelry consisted of, uh, five rings along with a diamond necklace. She was transported to, to our police headquarters here.
And, uh, you know the detectives started questioning her. And, uh, she continued to deny.
She says, I know nothing of this missing jewelry. You, you know, you got me wrong.
I, I didn't take this jewelry. And I guess she realized that, uh, we, you know, we weren't gonna let her go that easy.
We continued to question her for a few more moments and finally 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 subject in custody that allegedly had swallowed a large amount of jewelry.
In fact, it was, it was worth in excess of $2,500. And we decided to, uh, x-ray her.
Upon running the x-ray and then developing the x-ray low and behold right there in her large intestine
was this nice beautiful jewelry all bunched up in, in knots. And, uh, it was really visible.
And it was quite, uh, quite hilarious. To be quite honest with you, we did, we were able to recover one of the rings which she passed,
uh, but I can't tell you what happened to, uh, all the rest of the jewelry. In Nicholas County, Virginia it's
illegal for members of the clergy to tell jokes or humorous stories from the pulpit
during a church service. -One of the problems that we have in Redondo Beach is for the last 10 years is a day laborer problem where
people congregate on corners, uh, they drink beer, they stand and loiter, and people
get very upset about having people just standing around their neighborhood. So what we decided to do was a sting.
We went out to a local, um, rental place, and, and rented some trucks. And we had people dress up as contractors,
put tools in the back of, of the trucks, and went out to do our own hiring. To try to give people a chance what we did
is we went to the newspaper and had them publish an article several weeks before warning everyone
that we were going to be doing an enforcement effort in this area. So we arrested this one contractor
who picked up several day laborers. He told us that his wife had read the article
in the newspaper and had told him, don't go out there again and hire any laborers, that you shouldn't do that anymore.
He said, well, what's gonna happen from here? So we told him we're gonna book you here,
we're gonna send you down to the jail. We asked him who he wanted to call. And his answer was, not my wife.
His wife was very adamant that he was not to go back and hire any of these day laborers.
-Law enforcement officers along the Mexican border face the extra challenge of keeping both illegal aliens
and illegal drugs from making their way north. -And just when they think they've seen
it all along comes a new one for the record books. -Watch as bad luck strikes a blow
for justice in Yuma, Arizona. -Here's we're not making this up. -Our officers assist the US Customs on,
uh, port details down in, uh, San Luis, where, uh, they inspect the vehicles that are coming
back and forth across the border. Two weeks ago we had a car go through the, uh,
the port on the northbound lanes. And while they're standing there talking to this guy,
he starts to get a flat tire and the air starts coming out. Got to looking at it and see if they could help him out
and they notice it's got a weird smell coming from it and it ends, it's marijuana.
This poor guy had come through the port of entry into the US from Mexico, gets a flat tire, air's coming out,
and wind up finding marijuana in each one of the tires that he had. He was probably on the verge of getting
let go until that tire went flat. [laughs] -That's clever. -You know, that puts a new spin on pot holes.
-Oh, let's just say goodbye. -Yeah, no matter where you are, you're driving on the grass.
-Let it go, Daniel. -OK, but before we go, we'd like to say thanks to the officers who helped us tonight.
Theirs is a tough and sometimes dangerous profession and they seldom get the credit they deserve.
-If you've got a lead on a story or you just want to drop us a note, visit our website.
The address is www.dumbcrimes.com. -As always, we hope that we've all learned from others mistakes.
-But if you haven't, we just might see you next week on "America's Dumbest Criminals."
-Bye bye. [applause] [music playing]

In this episode of “America’s Dumbest Criminals,” we’ll witness a cleaning lady who picks up too much, how the running of a stop sign can rob you of a social life and the gal with whom you don’t want to share a ride.

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

Cleaning lady steals from Sheriff's office, 14-year-old fails carjacking, woman caught with stolen vehicle plates.

Key points

Cleaning Lady Caught Stealing. A cleaning lady in the Sheriff's office was caught on camera stealing from purses.
14-Year-Old Carjacker. A 14-year-old attempted to carjack a vehicle but couldn't drive a stick shift.
Jewelry Swallowed. A woman swallowed stolen jewelry and had to be x-rayed to recover it.
Marijuana in Tires. A man got a flat tire, revealing marijuana hidden in his tires at the border.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You've come a long way, baby.

0:19WatchMar 10, 2022

Tension

30/ 100Low tension

More from True Crime Files

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.