Criminals Some people just waste all their God given talents by applying them to crimes they commit. Others have great ideas and never pursue them. Still others were very immature and submitted stories and ideas for gadgets to companies without the proper protection for their rights and their ideas were used without remuneration or even credit. As far as the criminals go, some of them commit crimes it is hard to believe they could get away with, while others become monsters. There are and were many clever criminals but one of the smartest has to be the man who was the subject of the movie, “Catch Me If You Can.” It was about the deeds of Frank Abagnale Jr. He impersonated many different professionals and was so proficient at imitating a doctor he was able to perform successful operations, which is just amazing. Some of the professionals he claimed to be were, an attorney, pilot, police officer, a U.S. customs official, and various others. He was able to fly anywhere by wearing a commercial pilot’s uniform from Pan Am airlines and claiming to have to be taken back because he flew a deadhead flight to move an empty plane. Today he has become a security expert for real. When we look for some of the biggest crimes in the 20th and 21st century one which has to be rated as the biggest theft has to be the day when the Mona Lisa, probably the most famous painting in the world was stolen in 1911. The painting was hanging in the Louvre Museum in France. An Italian handyman decided he could figure out how to steal it and then return it to Italy. The thief was said to be Vincenzo Peruggia and he had been helped by two others. The irony is he had been hired by the museum to make protective cases for the art in the museum. One night he just hid in a closet until the museum closed then he stole the unprotected painting. He made it to Florence, Italy before being captured. He only served 7 months in jail. Someone once said if we made a list of the smartest criminals, he or she would not be on the list because they were too smart to be identified. Sometimes, a very smart criminal can be mentally unbalanced and that is how I feel about the next one I want to mention. His name is Ted Kaczynski. You might know him better as the Unibomber. He had a high I.Q. which was said to be 152. He began to build bombs and mail them in 1978 and was not caught until 1995. His bombs were expertly built and the parts they were made from seemed to be untraceable. He was the subject of the longest FBI search in history. He had either mailed or delivered 16 from 1978 to 1995. A thief of note was Gerald Blanchard. One of his incredible thefts took place when he went out and purchased a copy of a famous piece of jewelry known as the Star of Empress Sisi. He somehow was able to substitute the fake and get away with the theft. When he was arrested, he was facing 164 years in prison if convicted. He was able to make a deal based on the fact he was able to give the real Star of Empress Sisi back when the authorities verified the supposedly real one was just a copy. That cut his sentence down to 8 years, of which he served 6 in Canada. Sometimes criminals get away with murder. Such was the case of Charlene Williams and her husband. They got away with murders in California for several years. Again, she was another person who had a genius I.Q. The murder spree started when she brought two young girls back to her van where her husband waited and raped them both then shot them dead. That was in 1978. The pair continued to do the same with other girls, killing them afterwards. They were caught after abducting a couple, but not before they were also executed. In total, 10 people had died at their hands that we know of. Charlene Williams was not only a genius but a talented violinist. It makes you wonder what drove her to perform such horrific acts. It is also amazing how they were able to get away with this for about 3 years. Any list of the most notorious crooks and murderers without the following name would be incomplete. I am talking about Bernard Madoff. He is the man who fooled even the experts with his Ponzi scheme. People were begging him to let them invest. He had promised incredible returns on their investments and even gave these to a couple of people to make things look like they were working. He was so successful it is estimated his Ponzi scheme gathered 65 billion dollars. He had even been the chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange, so he was the last person one might suspect of being a criminal. While Madoff said he started the scheme in the 1990s, others who were involved said it was started in the 1970s. Eventually, he was convicted and sentenced to 150 years in prison. It is hard to figure out what drives some people to be monsters. John Wayne Gacy was one such person. I don’t think we will ever know how many people he killed. The unofficial count is at least 33 men. When we talk about monsters his name has to be one of the ones on top of the list. He became known as the killer clown, because he often played a clown. It is said he tortured and raped all of the men he killed. It is believed his first murder took place in 1972. Prior to that murder he was convicted of being a sex offender. It is said he would lure young men to his home and claim he could do a trick with hand cuffs and the victims would put them on. He was arrested in 1978. He was executed on March 13, 1980. The most famous bank robber of his time was Willie Sutton. He was famous for the answer he gave about why he robbed banks. He said that was where the money was. I guess we can’t argue about that. He lived from 1901 to 1980 and over his lifetime he stole about $2,000,000. This was at a time when the dollar was worth far more than today, so I believe today this amount would be worth at least ten times that. Most of his crimes took place in the 1920s and 1930s.
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