Far-From-Perfect Crimes

A 26 yr old man was charged with
robbing a tavern in New Athens,
Illinois, at gunpoint.  According
to Sheriff's lieutenant Otto, Jakob,
after the robbery the man apparently
lost his car keys, so he stripped to
his underware and went back inside to
say he, too, had been robbed.  He was
nabbed because he couldn't  disguise
his voice enough to fool the people he
had just held up.

William Saunders took 14 hostages at
AT&S's New York City offices because
he was distraught over a child custody
fight with his wife, an AT&T employee.
13 of them escaped when Saunders gave
them -- one at a time -- permission to
leave the room to get a drink of water
and never returned.

A man in Long Beach, California was
arrested after attempting to hold up a
drive up teller at a local bank.  It
seems that he had planned the event
well in advance, but on the day he had
set aside for the hold up, his car
broke down.  So he called the bank to
say he was comming -- on foot -- to
hold up the drive through, and to
please have the money ready.  Police
were waiting for him.

Two employees of a Southern California
Aerospace company (McDonell Douglas,
Long Beach, CA.) decided to rob a
local bank on their lunch break.
Everything went off without a hitch.
They pulled up in the bank parking
lot.  Put on masks, pulled out their
guns, went in and held up the bank,
then drove back to work, leaving the
money, guns, and masks in the trunk of
the car.  Within the hour, police
showed up at the company and asked for
the men by name.  They had made one
fatal error.  They forgot to take off
their company photo ID badge that
plainly displayed their names,
pictures, and company employee
numbers.

Five men who tried to steal nickel
from an electroplating company in
Vancouver, British Columbia, were
interrupted by the police.  Three
escaped, one was  captured on the
roof, and the fifth hid, ignoring five
open tanks of water and climbing into
a sixth tank that was closed because
it was filled with a solution of
cyanide, and sodium hydroxide.  As
soon as he crouched down, the sodium
hydroxide severely burned his scrotum,
causing him to swallow some of the 
solution before jumping out of the
tank in front of police.  The police
took him to the hospital, where he was
treated for massive cyanide poisoning
with stomach washouts and oxygen.