Forgetting to log out of Facebook is one thing. Forgetting to log out of Facebook while burglarizing a person’s home is something else altogether, although that’s exactly what one Minnesota man did, and, hardly surprisingly, the daft mistake led to his arrest.
The cops surely couldn’t have asked for an easier crime to solve. When homeowner James Wood returned to his house in Dakota County, he quickly realized all was not well. The places was a total mess, and his credit cards, cash and keys were all missing.
Then he noticed that his PC was on – and showing someone’s Facebook page. There were photos on the screen, too.
Later, as Wood was driving close to his home, he spotted a man that strongly resembled the person in the photos, and called the cops. They arrested the guy, 26-year-old Nick Wigg, and found he was wearing a watch that Wood claimed had been taken from his home. A subsequent search of his pockets turned up Wood’s iPod Shuffle and keys.
According to official court records, Wigg admitted to taking Wood’s property and also to logging into Facebook on Wood’s computer. If convicted, he could end up doing 10 years jail time.
“I’ve never seen this before,” Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom told CBS Minnesota this week. “It’s a pretty unusual case, might even make the late night television shows in terms of not being too bright.”
Bizarrely, this is at least the third time a crime has been solved in this way. Last year, an 18-year-old intruder in Athens, Georgia was caught after leaving the premises while still logged into Facebook, while in Colombia in 2012 two armed criminals who robbed an Internet cafe were later picked up after it was found one of them had forgotten to log out of the social networking site.
