Another nice recovery story

From atxbs.com, which is racking up lots of nice local bike-recovery action:

Guy gets bike stolen. (Nice bike, too!)
Web gets alerted.
In a stunning turn of events, thief drunkenly crashes stolen bike in front of cops, gets arrested.

Man, this guy's problems have only begun. Jail might be the safest place for him right now.

A weekly roundup, in no particular order

Wellesley College professor finds stolen bike on Craigslist

Heather Mattila went on Craigslist hoping to replace her stolen bicycle. The Wellesley College professor ended up not only finding her bike, but also catching the man who allegedly pinched it.

Bike case takes long road

What started out as just another stolen bicycle in Concord led the police on an investigation across the state,
resulting so far in the arrest of one Franklin man.

Eric R. Sleeper, 38, was arrested after the police said he unsuccessfully tried selling a stolen Pinarello FT1, worth $4,500, at pawn shops and bike stores in Concord, Manchester, Northfield and Franklin. In his wake, the police said, Sleeper left a slew of witnesses who had their own bikes stolen in the past and were more than willing to talk to the police.

Sleeper and the other man, who has not been charged by the police, looked unkempt, not like customers interested in high-end triathlon bikes, (one witness) said.

"You don't walk in the door with a $3,000 bike and not brush your teeth," (one witness) said.

And lastly, this is the best note to a bike thief that I have ever seen in my life.

Stolen Bike recovery leads cops to guns and a bajillion other stolen things

You know, a while back I did a post that basically said "Cops need to hunt down more stolen bikes because they often lead them to a bunch of other stolen goods. Also, the thieves tend to be idiots, and the busts are easy."

So: One of the SBR users emailed me to let me know that their bike was recovered, and better yet, helped cops recover a whole house full of stolen goods.

Check this out:

My bike was recovered - discovered at a house along with a huge number of other stolen items on 9-22-09! My bike was the key "tip off" ... (the) police officer that took my theft report was with the other officers on a reported home burglary a month later when he spotted my distinctive bike from my description.

He had his partner distract the guy while he called to verify my bike's serial number on file. His partner notified me right away; I said to look for (information redacted here) and they found 40 mowers plus a large stash of other stolen property . Talk about stupid criminals - he'd called the police to report (redacted) had taken his gun collection & that's how they discovered this stuff.

But don't take my word for it - here's the local TV broadcast: