A thief stole a university professor's laptop, and then returned the
contents on a USB memory stick. The professor, who teaches at Umeå
University in northern Sweden, was devastated when his laptop,
containing ten years of work, was stolen.
The professor had left
his bag containing the laptop hidden behind a door in his apartment
stairwell while he went into the building's laundry room. When he
emerged a short time later, the bag had gone. It was returned shortly
after, without the laptop. However, a week after the theft, the
professor received a USB stick containing all the documents - which
would have taken several hours to download again.
The robber who beat retreat after children offered savings
An armed robber who held up a babysitter at gunpoint in Lower Saxony was
shamed into leaving empty-handed by the two young children of the
house, who offered him their pocket money. The man had rung the doorbell
of the house in the northern town of Schwanewede near Bremen, Germany,
and forced his way in. Wearing a balaclava and a long black coat, the
man was holding the terrified babysitter at gunpoint, when the children
she was looking after came downstairs. When they offered him their
savings, he was obviously overcome with shame and left the house without
a word – or a cent.
Police did not release the ages of the
children in order to protect them from being identified, but did say
they were both younger than seven.
The thief who turned in cell after finding child porn
Back in October 2011, a crook saw that a car window wasn't rolled all
the way up in a supermarket parking lot. The thief did what thieves do,
stole two mobile phones and a wallet out of the vehicle. When he
powered one of the phones on, he found child pornography images on it.
The images disgusted him so much that he turned himself in to assist
authorities with investigating the individual that he stole the items
from. The investigation led to the arrest of a 46-year-old man.
Ballarat,
Australia, magistrate Michelle Hodgson was blown away by the thief's
willingness to face charges, so that he could help bring down the man
who had child pornography on his phone. She wanted the Good Samaritan
thief to be publicly recognized for his deed.
The man was given
one month in jail and a fine for his crimes, but his assistance led to
bringing down a man who had committed a much greater crime.
The robber who returned stolen car to chastise parent after finding baby inside
A man who stole a car left idling on the seawall, returned and chastised the owners after realizing a child was inside.
A
Houston woman, 22, and her boyfriend took the child fishing with them
where a rock pier juts into the Gulf of Mexico. After taking all their
equipment to the fishing spot, the woman decided the weather was too
cold for her 2-year-old boy. She went back to the car, seated the child
inside and left the heater going, and then went to help her boyfriend
with the fishing equipment. The woman planned to leave the child in the
car only long enough to retrieve the fishing equipment.
Police
suspect a homeless man was watching the couple and saw an opportunity to
take the car. The man got in the car and drove off. After a few blocks,
he turned around and came back. When the man got out of the gray
Mitsubishi Eclipse, the woman asked, “What the hell are you doing?”
That's when the burglar decided to reprimand her for leaving her kid
unattended in the car. The woman called the police but the suspect had
fled, escaping capture.
The thief who returned terminally ill woman's camera
Jami McElrath got her camera stolen when a thief broke into her car.
When the thief found out that Jami was terminally ill, he had a change
of heart and returned the camera. McElrath, who has inoperable cancer,
was collecting photos to place in a scrapbook for her children so they
could remember her after she was gone. The camera had belonged to her
father, who had died of a heart attack two years before. The woman told
her heart-wrenching story to Dallas-area news station WFAA TV, appealing
to the burglar to return the camera.
Then something remarkable
happened. A few days after the story aired, WFAA reporter Jim Douglas
got a call from a man who told him to look behind a red car in the
station's parking lot. The caller didn't leave his name; he said only
that he felt bad about the incident and wanted to return the camera.
The Santa-stealing thief who returned decoration with apology note
An Indiana thief must have been worried he'd end up on the naughty list.
He had stolen an inflatable Santa Claus and two inflatable penguins
from James McClaren's yard in Unionville, IN. With no way to track him
or her, McClaren was out a Santa. But a couple of days later, the
16-foot-tall St. Nick was returned with a written apology. The note
read, "Returning your property is the right thing to do." The thief also
left $100 for more decorations.
The thief who returned stolen jewelry after 10 years
An unknown thief returned jewelry to its owner nearly 10 years after
stealing the items from a house in Saudi Arabia, saying in a letter he
feels sorry for the theft and asking the owner to forgive him. The owner
said he found the returned jewelry in a bag placed near the door which
he opened in response to urgent knocking late night. He informed the
police about the unknown bag, adding that when police opened the bag, he
quickly recognized the jewelry as his.
“The thief left a letter
in the bag saying he was sorry and asking the man to forgive him,” Sabq
News said in a report from the western town of Taif. “He also said that
he was in need when he stole the jewelry but decided to return them
because he no longer needs money after his financial position
improved…he said he considered the gold as a trust returning to its
owner.” The paper said the thief returned all the jewelry and “this
means the man will make a big profit since gold prices have largely
risen in 10 years.”
The compassionate thief who returned stolen car after receiving a call from owner
A thief in Brazil who stole a car, returned it after the owner rang him
up in the car and told the thief he was going through some financial
difficulties.
The butcher from Mauá in São Paulo called his own cell
phone number after his car was stolen with his cell phone still inside.
The thief answered and listened to the emotional man on the other side
of the line. The butcher pleaded with him to return the $2250 car.
Not
only did he pick up the phone, but he heard the owner's emotional plea.
The owner explained he was having financial problems and that the car
was the only thing he had. The soft-hearted robber got emotional too and
told him to go to a parking lot to get his car back.
The thieves who hand back a £2.75 million painting after failing to sell it on black market
A valuable painting that was stolen at gunpoint from a Brussels museum
in 2009, was handed back after the thieves failed to sell it on the
black market. A daring daylight raid on Belgian surrealist René
Magritte's former terraced house saw armed robbers put a gun to the
concierge's head. They threatened staff and visitors, before making off
with the £2.75 million nude portrait of Olympia.
But two years
later, they contacted art expert, Janpiet Callens, to hand back the
piece that depicts the artist's wife Georgette, which no one would buy.
You might remember 
The thief who returned stolen laptop contents on USB stick
Moebius Syndrome
