Every now and again a story comes along that reminds us not all men are created equal, some are just plain stupid.
In April, John Malcolm Ross, 44, pleaded guilty to sexual interference in Manitoba. Sentencing was set for September 8, but on August 15, police got a call that Ross was missing, presumably from the man’s wife. Although I have seen that explicitly stated anywhere, the circumstances strongly suggest it is the case. The RCMP found his car at Saskatchewan Landing Provincial Park near Kyle, a town approximately 70 kilometres north of Swift Current.
A massive manhunt ensued involving aircraft and a team of SCUBA divers. After several days, no body could be found.
That is because Ross, and his wife, who apparently helped this criminal mastermind cook up, or at least execute, the scheme to fake his own death was at home in Tomkins, MB.
That’s right, at home. How does it not occur to someone of the Homo genus and sapiens species, with a brain unparalleled in the history of evolution, that if you go missing, police are eventually going to come sniffing around your place of residence?
Ross pleaded guilty October 11 to public mischief over $5,000 in Swift Current Provincial Court and was sentenced to three months in prison. Prosecutors dropped an additional charge of obstruction. He still faces sentencing for his Manitoba crimes.
His wife is also up on mischief and obstruction charges and scheduled for court November 10.
In honour of this genius, following are a couple of other Einsteinian offenders hoisted by their own petard. Thanks to the Huff Post Canada for compiling this rogue’s gallery of clowns.
They can and they did
Remember the film Catch Me If You Can, in which Leo DiCaprio plays Frank Abagnale, the 16-year-old master cheque forger who scammed millions posing as a Pan Am pilot, medical doctor and prosecutor and eluded the FBI for years.
This next guy is not like him. Matthew Scheidt, a Frank Abagnale wannabe without the brains, was arrested in Florida hospital after posing as a physician assistant.
It is not clear what he got out of it, but it certainly was not any kind of financial gain. Then, while on bail, the criminal mastermind impersonated a police officer, again without any apparent benefit, but was caught because he pulled over a real cop.
The hospital claims no one was harmed, but Scheidt nevertheless received a real jail sentence of one year followed by one year of house arrest and eight years probation for practicing medicine without a licence and impersonating a physician assistant.
In stark contrast to Scheidt, Abagnale was so successful, the FBI hired him and he became a legendary anti-fraud agent.
In deep you know what
There has got to be a better (and cleaner and less stinky) way to get your jollies than the scheme 52-year-old Kenneth Webster Enlow came up with. While making a rest stop in a park bathroom, a mother noticed a man leering up at her daughter from underneath the toilet.
Enlow told police his girlfriend had knocked him out with a tire iron and had thrown him into the septic tank.
Officers thought that excuse was the same as the brown stuff the perv perp was covered in and hauled him off to slightly more sanitary, but equally confined quarters.
The man who yelled ‘whoah, man, is that a fire’
Finally, honourable mention to the hero who saved his neighbour’s dog from a blaze in their home only to end up charged with criminal mischief and break and enter.
Michael Orchard of upstate New York had the best intentions when he plowed through the neighbour’s fence with his car then broke into the house through the back door and snatched the pet out of the jaws of certain, well, nothing.
You see, the fire was an LSD-induced hallucination. Hey, it could happen to anyone, anyone ingesting psychotropic substances that is.
