468 days

Rosa Golijan

Serial burglar finally caught ... because he forgot his cell phone

Cody Wilkins is currently sitting in a Montgomery County jail because he forgot his cellphone. Well, that's not entirely true: He's sitting in jail because he forgot his cell phone in a home he was burglarizing. Oops.

According to the Washington Post, Wilkins got caught after his final burglary was interrupted when the homeowner's son came home. Startled, Wilkins fled through a window and raced out of sight — while leaving his cell phone plugged in and charging in his victims' home. It didn't take law enforcement officers long to catch the man after discovering the gadget:

Detectives were able to use the phone to get to Wilkins in part with a ruse that involved calling a number programmed into it. They told the woman who answered that the man whose cellphone they were calling from had been involved in an incident, law enforcement officials said. They needed to know his name.

When officers arrived at Wilkins' home, they found him in the process of trying to flush the jewelry he'd managed to steal down a toilet. They arrested the man, charged him with the 10 burglaries to which they'd managed to connect him, and probably chuckled over the whole incident.

There's a lesson in this story, kids: Don't break into people's homes. But if you do: Charge your cell phone first — in your own home.

Related stories:

• Google Street View captures caravan thief
• Computer thief copies data, returns to victim
• Credit card thief 'steals' own music on iTunes

Rosa Golijan writes about tech here and there. If she wasn't obsessed with Twitter, she'd tell you to go like her on Facebook.