Robbery

A man and a woman in Tennessee were arrested when they attempted to sell stolen goods at a pawn shop. 30-year-old Jeremy Watts and 24-year-old Jessica Heady tried to sell two PlayStation systems along with controllers, video games, and DVDs. The only problem with their plan was that the goods happened to be from the house of the pawnshop owner.

The owner, Edward Dial, said that he recognized the items and when he went home to check, saw that his home had indeed been burglarized. Watts and Heady were arrested and charged with aggravated burglary.

Possible Preaching Angle: Sin can be a tempting choice when the victim is faceless and nameless. But in reality, that's never the case. Sin always has a victim, as David says in Psalm 51:4 "Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight."

Twenty-four-year-old Lionardo Tapia was sentenced to three months of electronic monitoring for stealing over a dozen beef cattle. And while cattle theft is not exactly uncommon in the ranching industry, this particular crime was executed in novel fashion, even if it wasn’t exactly successful.

Presiding over the case, Yakima County Superior Court Judge Richard Bartheld expressed disbelief at Tapia’s method of transportation. “Who would believe you could put a cow in the back seat of a blue Honda Accord?”

Tapia was apprehended on March 5th after a man from Sagebrush Ranch witnessed a Honda Accord leaving the ranch around 7:30 am. He followed the car to the Outlook rodeo grounds, where deputies discovered Tapia in a cattle pen with 16 calves. The affidavit revealed that Tapia had cow manure on his boots and the Honda’s interior was also covered in manure.

The car’s owner, a friend of Tapia’s, stated that her son had lent Tapia the car to search for a job and neither she nor her son were involved in the theft. Tapia confirmed this, admitting to Judge Bartheld that the car's owner was no longer his friend due to the incident and the mess.

Tapia pleaded guilty to livestock theft, admitting to taking a calf and attempting to sell it. During the sentencing hearing, Judge Bartheld asked Tapia if he thought he would escape consequences. Tapia responded, “No.” The judge then asked, “What were you thinking?” to which Tapia replied, “I wasn’t thinking anything.”

Despite the seriousness of the crime, Prosecuting Attorney Bret Roberts recommended a three-month sentence, the minimum under state guidelines, citing Tapia’s cooperation, clean record, and desire to resolve the case. Sixteen calves valued at $500 each were recovered, and no restitution was sought.

Judge Bartheld, ordered Tapia to begin his sentence no later than December 12th. The judge reminded him of the historical severity of livestock theft, asking, “Do you understand that in our earlier history, they used to shoot people who stole livestock?”

In January 2024 a wave of violence and looting broke out in Port Moresby, the capital of the country of Papua New Guinea (north of Australia). An unconfirmed number of people were killed and dozens injured, as emergency services struggled to respond to the scale of the disturbance.

Video footage showed looters in the capital dashing into stores through smashed glass windows, stuffing stolen goods into cardboard boxes, plastic buckets, and shopping carts. One man was seen lugging an entire chest freezer away on his shoulders.

But then about five days after the looting started, a local pastor in Papua New Guinea gave the following report:

These days a curious phenomenon is taking place: the people who participated in the looting of recent days in Port Moresby are returning the looted goods. The appeals from the police and also from some [church leaders] are having a certain effect. Some parishes of Christian churches of different denominations got involved and declared: “Our doors are open for those who want to return stolen goods.” It is a kind of collective repentance, appealing to the Christian conscience of each citizen. I must say that something is moving, it is a sign of hope, a sign that the individual conscience is, in some way, illuminated by faith.

Editor’s Note: As you use this illustration keep in mind that although this story is true, there was not a massive movement to return looted items. The same is true in relationship with God, all have a conscience which at some point convicts them of sin, but only a few repent and turn to God.

An Oregon man recently threw $200,000 in cash onto a local highway until police asked him to stop due to the risk to pedestrians endangering themselves to collect his show of generosity. People magazine reports: “The Eugene [Oregon] man told responding officers that he was ‘doing well and wanted to bless others with gifts of money.’”

But there was a catch. The money he used to “bless” others came from a shared bank account with other family members. He gave away what didn’t belong solely to him. The man’s family is asking motorists to return the cash to the police and their family.

Possible Preaching Angles:

In contrast to this man, we who have experienced the riches of the grace of God, actually have an invitation to share this grace with others (Matt. 10:8; Rev. 22:17) to help and encourage them.

An article in the Wall Street Journal makes the following claim: “America’s turn toward lawlessness is nowhere more evident than at retail stores, where these days even toothpaste is often under lock and key. Now Brian Cornell, the CEO of Target Corp., has put a number on the cost of “inventory shrinkage,” which is mostly theft: $500 million in lower profits this year (2023).

Cornell says, “The unfortunate fact is violent incidents are increasing at our stores and across the entire retail industry. And when products are stolen, simply put, they are no longer available for guests who depend on them.”

The National Retail Federation calls it ORC or organized retail crime. In a recent report they warned of the increasing endorsement and even celebration of theft. The report stated, “Videos tagged with terms related to shoplifting have accumulated millions of views on social media platforms such as TikTok, and broader social acceptance of retail theft or indifference about purchasing stolen goods suggests ORC perpetrators could face relatively less public shame than other criminals if ORC practices gain greater cultural resonance.” In other words, stealing is now cool.

For most people, a drive home from a day out is rather uneventful, but most people are not Christopher Young. Young was spotted by Portland police officers driving a gray Audi without a license plate, and one of them thought the Oregon DMV Trip Permit in the window looked a little fishy. After running the number and determining it was fake, officers followed Young in traffic, and eventually decided to pull him over. This prompted Young to flee. Police then began a high-speed pursuit in which Young “drove into oncoming traffic, ran multiple red lights, nearly collided with multiple motorists and at one point drove onto a sidewalk,” according to court documents.

Police eventually apprehended Young at his home. Upon securing a warrant for the property, they discovered the VIN on the Audi had been painted over, there were several other stolen cars on the property, and that Young was in possession of firearms, at least one fake ID, and tools associated with car theft.

Young currently faces 51 counts of criminal charges, including identity theft, forgery, possession of a stolen vehicle, and reckless driving.

Possible Preaching Angle:

There's no way to outrun justice or the truth; God's desire for righteousness in the earth is so unrelenting there's no point for anyone trying to lie, cheat, or steal their way to prosperity. It won't work ultimately.

When a local man was carjacked at a Sunoco gas station recently, he probably had no idea the perpetrators would be caught and his car recovered so quickly.

The man had just finished pumping his gas and was entering his car when the two teens approached and demanded his keys. After the man yielded, the two teenagers were baffled by the car’s manual transmission. Unable to put the car in gear, they instead exited the vehicle and ran.

The two teenagers were arrested for the attempted car theft after police chased them on foot. They were charged with carjacking and conspiracy to carjack.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Those who disregard God’s standards for honesty and truth and try to lie, cheat, or steal their way to riches, will ultimately end in judgment, whether immediately or ultimately.

Does church attendance accomplish anything good for society? A recent Duke University study shows that it does. Here’s the gist of the study: When it rains on Sunday morning, fewer people go to church. When fewer people go to church, more people commit at least three crimes—buying drugs, committing forgery, and embezzling money. That’s based on the correlation between church attendance and crime data collected from over 1,300 US counties.

The research found that an hour of Sunday morning rain reduces church attendance in America by about 17 percent. Laying historical records of precipitation on Sundays between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. next to year-over-year crime reports, the study found that more rainy Sundays regularly resulted in more drug-related and white-collar crimes. According to his paper, “Sinning in the Rain,” the relationship is consistent across decades.

Editor’s Note: The main researcher also noted that “more research is needed to disentangle the mechanisms driving these results.”

In the town of Merced, which is named after the Spanish word for “mercy,” a bumbling robbery attempt was quickly brought to a merciful end. According to authorities, Stephan Stanley began breaking the glass in the jewelry department of a JC Penney store in Merced Mall. He was grabbed by two nearby men in the store, who attempted to hold him down to prevent him from getting away with any merchandise. Angered at their intervention, Stanley tried to use pepper spray against his sudden captors, but instead he sprayed himself.

Temporarily incapacitated by his own pepper spray, Stanley was easily subdued, and was eventually arrested on suspicion of robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, and drug charges. He was subsequently booked into Merced County Jail, where he is unlikely to receive much in the way of mercy.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Justice will come to those who break God’s law, some sooner than is expected. “He that digs a hole will fall into it” (Ecc. 10:8).

Akron police officers, acting on a tip, responded to a location and made an arrest related to a previous theft that took place in a public park. By itself, the occasion was not particularly noteworthy, except for the item targeted in the theft--a 58-foot-long bridge.

Police arrested David Bramley at his property and recovered the composite-material span, which had been partially disassembled. Authorities say it was stolen from a field in Akron, where it had been in use until the early 2000s when it was removed for a wetlands project. Local officials had planned to reuse the bridge for another different project, but were shocked when they went to retrieve it. Initially, the treated deck boards had been removed; the following week, the entire span was gone.

Detectives allege that Bramley paid a local trucking company to crane-lift the bridge on and off a vehicle, which was subsequently driven to his property. Bramley’s arrest for felony theft was accompanied by the following statement:

Members of the Akron Police Department work tirelessly every day, to foster and strengthen relationships, while enhancing public trust throughout the community. Utilizing the spirit of those partnerships, detectives were able to help locate the stolen bridge and bring this investigation to a close.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Thieves harm not only the target of the theft, but society at large. Everyone in the community loses trust when a robbery occurs. But in the end, law enforcement ensures that justice prevails.

19-year-old Robert W. VanSumeren stood nervously in a Michigan courtroom as Judge Michael Smith sentenced him to six years in prison for a string of local robberies. Robert said, “I was terrified. I thought my life was finished. I felt really lost and wondered how I’d ever get through it.”

Then almost two decades to the day, Robert, now 40, returned to that same courtroom and stood again in front of Smith. This time, Robert was asking the judge who had sentenced him as a teenager to swear him in as a new attorney. After finishing his prison sentence, he had attended college, then law school, hoping to give back to the community he had once stolen from. After passing the bar exam in July 2018, Robert underwent a lengthy investigation by the Michigan bar’s character and fitness committee and he got approval to be sworn in.

Robert said, “I didn’t know if the judge would go for it, but I thought it was worth asking.” Judge Smith said he was astonished by the request. But he was also delighted. “I have to take my hat off to him — he has changed his life. It’s really quite remarkable and rare. Very seldom do you see such a successful turnaround.”

When he had finished, Judge Smith shook Robert’s hand, posed with him for pictures and tossed out the usual decorum he requires in his courtroom. He said, “I’d like everyone here to feel free to applaud this man. He should be commended for changing his life.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Judge; Justice; Mercy; Grace – God can be a terrifying judge who condemns the guilty. But he is also gracious and forgiving to those who repent from their sins and are given a new nature by his Spirit.

When 82-year-old Willie Murphy heard the sound of an intruder breaking into her home, she felt bad. Bad for the intruder, that is. Murphy said to reporters, “He picked the wrong house to break into.”

That’s because Murphy was already a critically acclaimed bodybuilder, having won the World Natural Powerlifting Upstate New York Championship in 2018. After calling police, Murphy used the darkness to lie in wait for the assailant. Then when the moment was right, she struck with all the strength and agility she could muster. Murphy said, “I picked up the table and I went to work on him.” After breaking the table, Murphy briefly poured a bottle of shampoo on his face before continuing to whale on him with a broom handle.

The police who responded were so impressed, said Murphy, that they “wanted to go on my front porch and take selfies with me … I really did a number on that man.”

Potential Preaching Angles: 1) God can sustain us in tough times if we endure and do not lose heart. We don’t have to live in fear, but in distress we can turn to the gifts that God has given us. 2) We have the power to defeat Satan’s attacks through the strength of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Stephane Breitwieser is “perhaps the most prolific art thief in history,” said Michael Finkel in GQ. The Frenchman has robbed more than $1.4 billion worth of art from nearly 200 museums and steals like he is performing a magic trick, without violence or a frantic getaway.

When 47-year-old Breitwieser sees a piece he likes, he says, “I get smitten. Looking at something beautiful, I can’t help but weep.” He never sells anything he steals, but simply brings the piece home to adore. “The pleasure of having,” he says, “is stronger than the fear of stealing.”

He became hooked after lifting an antique pistol from a French museum at age 22, and by the early 2000s he averaged a theft every two weeks. His trick is acting as casually as possible and waiting for a distraction, sometimes slipping paintings under his oversize coat while on guided museum tours. He did many heists with his longtime girlfriend, who’d cough softly when someone approached as he unscrewed display cases with a small Swiss Army knife. At an art fair in Holland, Breitwieser heard someone shout “Thief!” and turned to see security guards tackle another burglar. He nabbed a painting amid the commotion.

Arrested and imprisoned several times, Breitwieser was caught yet again last month after French police discovered Roman coins and other objects in his home, allegedly taken from museums in France and Germany. “Art has punished me,” he says.

Possible Preaching Angle: Greed; Temptation; Original Sin – This guilty person says, “Art has punished me.” But really it is the power of sin and yielding to temptation that truly punished this man.

Police cited an obvious, telltale clue in the arrest of a Pennsylvania man for theft-red sauce, smeared all over his face and clothing.

Law enforcement officers in Luzerne County arrested Leahman Glenn Robert Potter with burglary, criminal trespass, and theft after he was alleged to have stolen a pot of meatballs from his neighbor's garage. Authorities said the neighbor reported the meatballs missing after he saw Potter standing in front of his house with sauce on his face. After police arrived, they later recovered the missing pot in the street.

Police officials were unable to confirm any further details, but without a copy of the meatball recipe or a sauce sample to test for DNA evidence, unofficial sources claim to have verified a motive in the theft-the meatballs must've been delicious.

Potter was arrested and held on $25,000 bail.

Potential Preaching Angles: You might hide the sin, but sin always leaves evidence. People resist light when they don't want their darkness exposed.

In Giving It All Away David Green relates that Bob Hoskins, a missionary pioneer who along with his son Rob founded the outstanding ministry called OneHope, tells a story about his early days of living in Beirut, Lebanon. In 1975, the Lebanese Civil War broke out and conditions deteriorated rapidly. The downtown area, previously an oasis for business and culture, became a no-man's land called the Green Line. Bob remembers the night the US embassy called to say they were evacuating all nonessential Americans as soon as possible.

Bob says, "My family and I threw things into suitcases and headed out. I stood there at the apartment door with the key in my hand, taking one last look at all our furniture, our personal treasures, the special carvings I had received as gifts when I'd been preaching in various countries of Africa and Asia. I thought to myself, I wonder if I'll ever see any of this again."

The Hoskinses returned to America for a number of months, and then eventually returned to their home in Lebanon. Bob says, "We came back with our hearts in our throats that day, headed up the stairs, turned the key in the lock, opened the door … and sighed with relief. Everything was exactly as we had left it! Our prayers had been answered. We were home again."

A few years later, they had to evacuate the Beirut a second time. Once again the family packed up quickly and left their apartment behind. When the smoke of battle cleared, they returned as they had before, climbing the stairs, turning the key in the lock. This time, though, their home had been destroyed. Couches and beds lay broken, dishes were smashed, and irreplaceable souvenirs were demolished or missing. Their belongings were no more.

Bob concluded his story with a challenge: "Hold the things of this world very lightly. They may be there for you to enjoy tomorrow or they may not. The Bible says, 'We brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.' Live with an open hand before God; it's the only way in a dangerous, unpredictable world."

The Bible clearly states, "You have sinned against the LORD, and be sure your sin will find you out" (Numbers 32:23). Well, in the case of this news story, we could revise this verse to read, "Be sure your Cheetos will find you out."

A 19-year-old South Carolina man broke into the Cassatt Country Store and stole some beer, cigarettes, snack foods, and energy drinks. But he made a big mistake when he opened his bag of stolen Cheetos and started munching on them on his way home. The police followed the trail of cheesy dust right to the man's front porch. The man was taken into custody and charged with 2nd degree burglary.

A South African man surprised nine men robbing his home. Eight of the robbers ran away, but the homeowner managed to shove one into his backyard pool. After realizing the robber couldn't swim, the homeowner jumped in to save him. The Cape Times reports that once out of the pool, the wet thief called to his friends to come back. Then he pulled a knife and threatened the man who had just rescued him.

The homeowner said "We were still standing near the pool and when I saw the knife I just threw him back in. But he was gasping for air and was drowning. So I rescued him again. I thought he had a cheek trying to stab me after I had just saved his life."

Rafiq Abdul Mortland clearly needed to choose another career. The 38-year-old found that what he was doing put him under pressure, not to mention that the work was illegal. Mortland committed a string of robberies in Hennepin County, Minnesota. After capture, he received a sentence of eight to ten years in prison for holding up eight local businesses.

During his crime spree, Mortland received the nickname "The Rolaids Robber." This came about after Mortland repeatedly asked store clerks for antacid tablets while the felony was in progress. His explanation? Mortland said he needed the antacid because of the stress that came from committing crimes.

"Daddy, come quick," shouted my four-year-old daughter. "Someone stole the presents from under the Christmas tree."

At first I thought that the children were playing on me. But I could see quickly that they were visibly upset. Apparently someone had come into our house while we slept, picked out some choice presents, removed the blanket that covers my favorite chair, and used it to haul away about a dozen or so gifts that were to be given to the children and to friends and family on Christmas morning.

To say that the children were angry would be an understatement. After my 11-year-old son, Johnathan, realized that among the gifts stolen were his brand new Nike sneakers, he stormed out of the house in tears.

I sat silent on my coverless chair, stunned and fuming. I had seen the children's Christmas special, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" dozens of times since childhood. But I never believed such a tale could come true. How do you forgive a person like this? How do I teach my children to practice forgiveness?

Because it is unnatural, we have to practice forgiveness, like any other discipline. According to Dr. King, "Forgiveness is not just an occasional act: it is a permanent attitude."

Later that day I put the question to my son. "How should we as Christians respond to the person who tried to steal our Christmas?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, Dad," he said. "Even though he doesn't deserve it, we're supposed to give him grace."

Sure, I knew that the words that came out of his mouth were almost the complete opposite of what he was feeling in his heart (I knew because I felt the same way). But I also knew we had to start somewhere. And if, one step at a time, our discipleship as Christians could include giving each other grace, if our children could learn and practice forgiveness as well as they practice praise and worship, if we could literally create a counter-culture of grace, then just maybe, as we all mature in our faith, our hearts could finally line up with our words.

And the world would have to take notice.