Rodney Knight Jr. is clearly no criminal mastermind. In fact, some news outlets are giving him their “Most stupid criminal ever” award, although we think we have a few candidates for that as well. He’s right up there, though. Knight broke into a house. The house of a major journalist for a major paper. And stole the journalist’s son’s laptop. Then he used the stolen laptop’s browser to post a picture of himself to the son’s Facebook account!
It all started when Knight broke into the house of Marc Fisher, who is a journlist for the Washington Post. Knight stole several items, including some cash, and Fisher’s son’s laptop. As Fisher himself explains what happened next, Knight “felt compelled to showboat about his big achievement: He opened my son’s computer, took a photo of himself sneering as he pointed to the cash lifted from my son’s desk, and then went on my son’s Facebook account and posted the picture for 400 teenagers to see. In the picture, the man is wearing my new winter coat, the one that was stolen right out of the Macy’s box it had just arrived in.”
Said the investigating officer, “I’ve seen a lot, but this is the most stupid criminal I’ve ever seen.”
That said, and knowing just how clueless people can be, we bet that Knight thought he was posting that picture to his own Facebook account. In fact, what he did was change the profile picture to the picture of him gloating, holding the cash and wearing the coat. That seems a much more likely profile picture for his own account than for his victim’s account, which is why we suspect that he was attempting to update his own profile.
The Internet Patrol is completely free, and reader-supported. Your tips via CashApp, Venmo, or Paypal are appreciated! Receipts will come from ISIPP.
Either way, he posted his own picture to his victim’s account, making his subsequent apprehension considerably easier than it might otherwise have been.
Knight is due for sentencing in May.
Here are some other candidates for stupid criminals:
The guy who used a stolen cell phone to take a picture of himself holding his weapon
The guy who carried incriminating pictures of himself with children on his cell phone
The Internet Patrol is completely free, and reader-supported. Your tips via CashApp, Venmo, or Paypal are appreciated! Receipts will come from ISIPP.