The Top Ten Oddest Things Ever Stolen

There’s a pack of gum from the grocery store and then there’s a handful of grapes popped into your mouth under the guise of testing them. You might breeze through a toll every now and then because you forget your change, or not let cashier know when she gave you too much of it. It seems we all are guilty of stealing. But some people take stealing to the extreme. We’re not talking about kleptomaniacs here. We are talking about truly bizarre, out there things that people have actually stolen.

10. Marla Maples’ Shoes:

In 1992 the then-girlfriend of Donald Trump noticed a little something strange about her closet. Over 40 pairs of her shoes were missing. Not thinking it was likely that they just walked away on their own, Maples installed a hidden surveillance camera. After watching the footage she discovered that it was her own publicist, Chuck Jones, who had liberated the footwear. All of the shoes were discovered in his closet along with an impressive collection of shoe fetishist literature.

 9. Church Pulpit:

You already know something’s wrong when the congregation decides it’s time to fire their pastor. When that pastor shows up with a truck in a U-Haul, however, things have seriously taken a turn for the worse. But this is exactly what happened when Rev. Robert L White was told, also in 1992, by his congregation that it was time to move on. He responded to the request by stealing the charges furniture, curtains, and the pulpit he preached behind. He also took the organ with him, but left the piano because the church was still making payments on it.

8. Home Away from Home:

 
 
Can you imagine showing up for vacation, all excited to kick back for a couple of weeks, only to find that your vacation home has disappeared? A New Hampshire couple experience just that when they showed up to their favorite home away from home only to discover that their 10 by 20 foot prefabricated vacation home weighing in at a mere 15 times had gone missing since the last time they had visited.

7. An Entire Front Lawn

 
Denise Thompson was minding her own business one day when she suddenly discovered something quite shocking—she’d been robbed. After bringing her children out to visit her husband at work that morning Denise returned home and gazed out her window to catch a glimpse of her lush front lawn. Only, it wasn’t there anymore. All of the grass and plants that had made up her lawn were missing. She was staring at an empty patch of dirt. Later neighbors told her that they had seen a truck and a trailer parked out in front of the house and figured they had been hired. Worst landscapers ever.

6. A Bridge in the Czech Republic:

Nobody thought anything of it when a group of men showed up at a Czech Republic railroad office and announced that they had been hired to tear down a bridge located over an abandoned railroad track so that a bike route could be built. It wasn’t until the entire 10-ton footbridge and 650 feet of railroad track disappeared along with the men that the authorities decided to check up on the paperwork they had been given. They found out that the gang of thieves had fabricated the paperwork and made off with the metal, presumably to sell it for scrap.

5. A WWII Mustang Fighter Plane:

It seems that 1992 was a really good year for weird things being stolen. This was year Major Ishmael Yitzhaki of the Israeli Air Force Reserve told a museum that their WWII Mustang fighter plane needed a new coat of paint. He rolled it out of the museum then promptly flew it to Sweden where he sold it for $331,000.

4. George Washington’s Wallet:

It took a few hundred years, but George Washington became a personal crime statistic. In 1990 his wallet was snatched from the Old Barracks Museum in Trenton, New Jersey. The case the wallet was in had been left unlocked because, obviously, a wallet has never been stolen in New Jersey.

3. Unborn Baby Cows:

The California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, California is an amazing example of babysitting gone wrong. In October of 1989 the university’s dairy building was robbed of several thousands of dollars’ worth of cow embryos.

2. Baby John:

 
In 2006 a mummified baby was discovered in the home of a Concord man who told authorities that the baby was the stillborn son of his several-greats uncle. Apparently Baby John had been passed down as a family heirloom for about 90 years and treated as a member of the family. He was even given birthday and Christmas cards, as well as a dried fish as a pet. After he was confiscated he was buried in an unmarked grave. Four years later he was stolen from the New Hampshire cemetery and never seen again.
 

1. The Crown Jewels:

 
In 1671 Colonel Thomas Blood came up with a brilliant idea. Posing as a parson he banded together with a band of thieves who posed as his wife and children. They then made friends with the 77-year-old guard of the Crown Jewels. Over the course of several weeks they visited and spent time with him. Finally they convinced the guard to show them the jewels. Of course, the second he showed the jewels he was tied up and stabbed a couple of times. After breaking the Royal Sceptre in two and flattening St. Edward’s crown with a mallet to make it easier to fit the treasures in their bags, the gang fled. They were almost immediately caught. Brought before the King for the crimes Blood was commended for his creativity and courage. Not only did he not get executed, but the King gave him land in Ireland to live out the rest of his life on—which was about 8 years. None of the people involved were punished for the crime.