Cops: Burglar Logs In to Facebook Mid-Burglary

(Newser) – It's generally not OK to log into Facebook during work. It's definitely not OK if you work as a burglar, and you're a little absent-minded about logging out. Police say Nicholas Wig, 26, broke into a home near Minneapolis and stole money, credit cards, and other valuables, reports ABC News. When homeowner James Wood surveyed the damage later that night, he noticed that his burglar had left behind some wet jeans and shoes (it was raining) and that his computer had been used. It was still displaying the Facebook profile of a "Nick Dub."

Wood says he posted something to the page about its user being a thief and left his phone number. To his surprise, he got a text, reports CBS Minnesota. “I replied, 'You left a few things at my house last night, how can I get them back to you?" They arranged an exchange, and Wood called police as soon as he saw Wig, whose photo he recognized from Facebook, on his street. Cops charged him with second-degree burglary. “I’ve never seen this before,” says a Dakota County attorney. "Might even make the late-night television shows in terms of not being too bright.”

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Woman Tries to Kill Spider, Ends Up With Arson Charge

(Newser) – Listen up, arachnophobes: You do not fight spiders with fire. Or so goes the cautionary tale of 34-year-old Kansas woman Ginny Griffith, who has been charged with aggravated arson after she apparently tried to kill a spider—by using a cigarette lighter to set fire to some towels, reports the Hutchinson News. The fire department responded to the small fire at her duplex early Friday, and put it out within minutes. No one was injured and the building suffered only light smoke damage, notes the Hays Post, but officials were apparently unamused. Griffith was taken into custody and was being held in lieu of $7,500 bond.

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NYPD Chopper Nearly Downed —by 2 Guys With Drones

(Newser) – An NYPD helicopter nearly collided with two drones over the George Washington Bridge yesterday, resulting in a matching pair of felony reckless-endangerment charges for two men. The chopper pilots said in a police report that they were patrolling just after midnight when they "observed flying object[s] at 2,000 feet in vicinity of the bridge," reports the New York Post. After swerving to avoid a collision, the pilots trailed the drones north and alerted NYPD officers, who found Remy Castro, 23, and Wilkins Mendoza, 34, near Fort Tyrone Park.

Castro and Mendoza, who paid between $500 and $700 each for their drones, dismissed the seriousness of their offense. "It's just a toy," Castro said in Manhattan Criminal Court yesterday afternoon. "The copter came to us." Mendoza, meanwhile, called the incident "crazy," and the men’s lawyer said that their drones can’t even go above 300 feet, adding, "They did nothing more than fly a kite." But a friend of the pair says they've bragged about flying at least at 5,000 feet and have been posting Instagram photos of their nightly flights.

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Phone Thieves Send Selfie, Get Busted

(Newser) – A pair of thieves managed to steal a teen's phone during a party—and they promptly incriminated themselves by sending a selfie to the kid's friends. One of the thieves has now turned himself in, and he's been charged with petit larceny, police say. Khayyam Alexander, 16, and his partner in crime took 14-year-old James Pugliatti's phone during a party for under-18s in New York, officials say, per the New York Daily News.

On the subway afterward, the thieves took a picture of themselves, the New York Post reports. They cleverly sent it to all Pugliatti's friends via the photo-messaging app Snapchat, the Post notes. One friend got a screenshot and forwarded it to Pugliatti's mom. Annette Pugliatti also reportedly received a vulgar message from the thieves: "Mom I'm so horny." She relayed the information to police. James Pugliatti's view of the thieves: "They're pretty stupid."

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Cops: Cuffed Woman Steals Her Pot Back, Eats It, Forgets Crumbs

(Newser) – Tavish Smith was having quite the night by the time she landed in the back of the cop car: Florida police say she was driving her truck the wrong way down a highway, crashed it, continued on, then crashed again—all while allegedly more than a little tipsy. But as Gawker notes, what happened next was truly inspired: Sitting in the back of the car, Smith slipped out of her handcuffs, and swiped a sandwich bag full of pot that police had confiscated from her vehicle. She then proceeds to eat its contents, thus destroying the evidence, right?

She forgot about the backseat camera filming her little snack, and something even more basic: Wiping her mouth. Cops finally noticed the missing weed when they saw "pot on her hands and face" and "crumbs everywhere," reports WPLG. Unfortunately for Tavish, the charge of destroying evidence means that she's now facing a felony. Turns out, she also works for a Brevard County judge; she's currently been suspended from those duties.

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Cops: Laptop Thief Busted After Customer Service Call

(Newser) – Calling customer service for help with your laptop is generally a fine idea, but maybe not if you stole the thing in a home burglary. Police in New Hampshire say they made an arrest on Monday and recovered a computer stolen in February 2013 thanks to that very scenario, reports WMUR. The break came when Apple emailed the original owner and thanked him for calling customer service. Except he hadn't.

Someone else had done so, using the long-gone laptop's serial number as a reference. "It then took us a while to track down the individual who made the phone call, but we were able to put that together and ultimately come up with enough evidence to charge him with the original burglary and recover the computer," says a detective. It might be "the only example of when a broken computer is a good thing," observes the Consumerist.

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Cops: Man Freed After 15 Years Robs Same Store

(Newser) – Christopher Miller robbed the Stride Rite shoe store in Toms River, NJ, in 1999, got caught, and served 15 years in state prison. Police say he became a free man on Friday and celebrated by catching a bus to Toms River and, yes, robbing the same Stride Rite shoe store, reports the Star-Ledger. Though he had 15 years to stew over what went wrong the first time, authorities say this robbery didn't go so well, either. Two employees were so slow in handing over cash that the "agitated" robber grabbed the register drawer himself and fled on foot, reports the Ocean County Signal. (The employees refused to hand over their keys, scotching any hopes for a getaway vehicle.)

They called the cops—the apparent plan was to tie them up in a storage room, as happened in the 1999 robbery, but the employees refused to go—and within minutes, a police K-9 unit tracked down Williams and recovered the stolen $389, reports the Daily Record. Miller is charged with robbery and is being held on $100,000 bond. The 40-year-old is from Tulsa, Okla., and police aren't sure what his connection is to Toms River, besides maybe nostalgia.

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