Saturday, March 20, 2010

I couldn't make up this stuff!

I heard about a strange and horrible robbery here in Toronto yesterday.  A couple of jerks walked into a hospital and pretended to be visiting a sick friend.  They wandered into the room of an old and dying woman and stole her jewellery.  Yes, from her death-bed.  They will no doubt get caught (security cameras have their pictures and they've been splashed all over the local press).


So, I looked in to other jaw-dropping crimes and came across a website called Clumsy Crooks http://www.clumsycrooks.com/ .  Sure enough, it has the death-bed heist mentioned, but also some other eye-rolling and head-scratching crimes, like:

  • the dentist who used paper clips instead of stainless steel rods in dental surgery
  • a man who showed up drunk at his DUI hearing
  • a man paying his crack dealer with Monopoly money
  • a woman who called police because of suspiscious noises... that turned out to be her vibrator
  • newlyweds who spent their first night of wedded bliss in jail
If I tried to put  these kinds of stories in a novel, the publisher would probably reject the manuscript and/or readers would find the plot hard to swallow.


Yes, truth really is stranger than fiction!

4 comments:

  1. See, we couldn't write this stuff or our editors would say it wasn't realistic enough! LOL!

    Elizabeth
    Mystery Writing is Murder

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  2. For more on real life and crime and fiction, check out the latest post on deadlyletters.blogspot.com

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  3. kind-of makes you sick...

    BTW your book finally got here, i am halfway through--nice work.

    keep it up.

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  4. A couple of those could be used in a comic mystery or romantic comedy, perhaps. But, you're right, you may not get them past your editor.

    Helen
    Straight From Hel

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