He Smelled a Rat, Pea-Brained Harassment Campaign, Death-Faking Fraudster

(upbeat music) - Hey, Antara Sarabhan, and you're listening to World's Dumbest Criminals, an upbeat podcast about Deadbeat Criminals. If you're keen to hear about the most ridiculous, bizarre, and downright stupid criminals and crime stories in the world ever, you've come to the right place. In today's episode, I'll be talking about a restaurant customer in England who went to great lengths to avoid paying for his meal, three Welsh students who harassed a classmate in an absurdly creepy way, and a West Virginia woman who faked her own death to avoid jail time on fraud charges. Alrighty, let's get cracking. On Valentine's Day in 2015, 28-year-old Christopher Baker went to the Borneo bistro in Sunderland, England to have a romantic meal for one. The Guardian reported that Baker was already banned from the bistro at the time, so he had to sneak in and hope none of the staff recognized him. He ordered a buffet meal and a bottle of water. He paid the £7.25 bill, picked up his food and found a seat at a table on his zone at the back of the restaurant. Shortly before 4pm, he finished eating. The restaurant was busy and Baker waited for two nearby tables to leave before fumbling around in his track suit pants pocket to produce a rat. Then he suddenly jumped up and shouted, "It's a rat! I'm not eating here! I want my money back!" Baker scammed it out of the restaurant before promptly returning and telling staff that while he was eating, the rat appeared seemingly out of nowhere and bit him on the finger. Then he demanded the restaurant refund the £7.25 he'd paid for his meal. The staff was shocked as the bistro had never had any rodent issues before. They apologized profusely to Baker and gave him a refund. Then he left, probably with quite a spring in his step, since he'd just confirmed himself to be a criminal mastermind. By then, the restaurant owner, Kevin Smith, not the filmmaker, had found the black and white rat and noticed that it looked squeaky clean and was very tame, like a pet. It appeared so neat and tidy that Kevin noted, "It looked like it had just had its hair done." The daily record stated that he picked it up with a towel and placed it in a box with air holes. Smelling a rat but not the one in the box, Kevin decided to review the CCTV footage from Baker's time in the restaurant. He noticed Baker had waited until a family moved from the table next to him before he retrieved the rat from his tracksuit pants and dropped it onto the floor. Kevin said, "Oh, it's shocking, isn't it? I'm absolutely flabbergasted myself. I could have ruined my business if it wasn't so obvious, and he was sat right underneath my camera, which was absolute stupidity." Pest control recalled to the establishment. After examining the rodent, they agreed with Kevin that it looked domesticated and appeared to have recently had a haircut. I know this situation was bad for Kevin, but it must have been pretty crap for the rat as well. He was stuck inside the pocket of Baker's trackies for God knows how long. It was most likely airless and smelled of day-old ball sweat. That's no way to treat such a beautifully coiffed rodent. Christopher Baker pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation at Sunderland Magistrate's Court. In his victim-impact statement, Bistro-Owner Kevin said that Baker's actions that "fateful Valentine's Day" could of course catastrophic damage to his business' reputation. He stated that the incident could have destroyed what he had worked hard to build up over the last seven years, and all for a saving of £7.25? Baker's defence barrister Willie Johnstone seemed to acknowledge the wackadoodle nature of the trial at hand when he said, "We do deal with some unusual cases from time to time." To explain his client's actions, Johnstone told the court, Christopher on that day had been drinking heavily, and unfortunately he decided to buy a rat for his daughter by way of a present. Unfortunately, he then decided to go for a meal. He sat down and ate his meal. When he had finished the meal, he took the rat out. He was very remorseful for his behaviour. Now, I have some questions. Did his daughter actually want a rat for a present? Was she, "Daddy, I want a rat, not a mouse or a hamster, a big fuck off rat?" Or did he just say that to Garner Sympathy? And how much does it cost to impulse a rat in England? If it cost more than the meal he tried to get out of paying for, that would be super ridiculous. Baker was sentenced to a 12-month supervised community order and was told to pay a £60 victim's surcharge and £7.25 in compensation to Kevin. He was also banned from going to the restaurant for a whole year. Chairman of the bench, Derek Moss, told Baker, "This is a very stewardess matter. There's what you have done here, called in a split second to ruin this man's business, which has worked for years to build up a reputation for." Speaking after the case had been decided, Kevin said of Baker, "He is just the scum of the earth. I find it unbelievable that someone could be willing to go to those links for a free meal. As far as I'm concerned, he shouldn't be in our society. He is of no use to anybody and he's caused nothing but grief. People like him deserve the death penalty." Whoa, tell us what you really think, Kevin. So Baker was banned for a year from a restaurant whose owner thinks he deserved to die. Why just one year? Why not a lifetime? And I mean, would you eat at a place if you knew the owner wanted you dead? "Okay, I'm coming down, but be advised I'm coming from North-Based, we'll take you a few minutes." This case out of Wales is one of the most absurd crimes I have ever heard of. In November 2016, Bengal University students, 18-year-old Steven Barker, and 19-year-olds Hannah Lee and Tom Prophet embarked on a harassment campaign against fellow student Megan Carey. Over a three-week period, the trio put their pea brains together to come up with the most alarming and distasteful ways to make Megan's life a living hell. They posted racially aggravating material through the door of her house, including a picture of a baby with a swastika on its forehead, and pamphlets with slogans including daddy Hitler, white power, and ethnic cleansing written on them. It's important to point out that Megan and everyone else living in the house were white, so at least these turds weren't targeting a person of colour to be racially revolting to. The Daily Post reported that they didn't limit their horrific little shit-show to racism either. They also poured a bunch of spaghetti mixed with human hair through the male slot in the door. And left 20 sanitary pads in a tampon covered in red liquid outside the house. One sanitary pad had the words "maddie" in the Pacific written on it. The press reported that this was an obscure and pointless reference to Madeline McCann, who went missing in Portugal in 2007. Portugal is 13,000 kilometres away from the Pacific Ocean, so what these dickheads meant by that is anyone's guess. Oh, and they also posted Megan a bloody lamb's heart. In a statement later read out in court, Megan said that when the stranger currency's began, she thought it was just a prank. But as they kept happening, she became increasingly terrified and distressed by the incidents. "Carewell, gear would." She also said that as each incident was getting progressively worse, she became scared to go out at night, and it all made it hard for her to concentrate on her schoolwork. In court, Stephen Barker and Hannah Lee's defence, John Hale were dodged stated. "I understand that it is a very bizarre situation and it is difficult to comprehend why three intelligent young people would do something like this. I understand it is alarming. I was alarmed when I first read the papers, but they just didn't think it through. I think they should be given a second chance." Of course he'd say that. It's his job. Also, I think he might have committed perjury by referring to them as intelligent. Carla Forfarm, representing Tom Profert, stated that the intention of this harassment campaign was to cause a storm on social media. She told the court, "They wanted the students who were living in the house to mention the incidents on social media. They wanted to provoke a reaction on Facebook, and when it didn't come, they carried on." What in the actual fuck, lady? They did it so they racist and gross antics would be mentioned on social media, but when they weren't mentioned on Facebook they decided to just keep doing it anyway. That makes less than no sense. Magistrates Chairman Keith Lyset said it was very unpleasant for the victim, and told the defendant, "I hope it has been a severe lesson to all of you." They were each sentenced to pay Megan £500 and do 150 hours of community service. The three nasty pasties claimed they were remorseful, and that they just hadn't appreciated the seriousness of their actions. But yeah, I think I might have to call Bullshit on that. In February 2020, 43-year-old Julie Wheeler pleaded guilty to health care fraud. According to the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, she was charged with submitting fraudulent applications to the Veterans Administration while serving as a caretaker for someone with spiner bifida. She'd claimed to have worked a lot more hours than she actually had, and so she was paid much more than she'd rightfully earned. Julie was due to be sentenced on June 17th that year. She was facing up to 10 years in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. Julie and her husband, 48-year-old Rodney thought, "Fuck that!" and came up with a very cunning plan for her to escape justice. They decided they'd fake Julie's death and later go into hiding with their two children. I mean, how hard could it be? People probably do this all the time, but we just don't hear about it because they get away with it, right? Wrong. On May 31st, 2020, Julie, Rodney and their 17-year-old son put their full-proof plan into action. They went hiking in the new river gorge in West Virginia. They placed Julie's phone in one of her shoes at the bottom of the gorge under the grand view overlook, which is a steep cliff with a series of ledges leading down to the new river. Then Rodney and the son called 911 and claimed that Julie had fallen off the cliff while searching for a lost earring. Sure. This 911 call prompted a massive search and rescue operation with hundreds of volunteers, law enforcement and professional search and rescue personnel looking for Julie at the base of the overlook and the surrounding area. Early copters and repelling experts also scoured the area looking for her. Police dogs were brought in, but they couldn't pick up Julie's scent anywhere below the overlook. They were probably looking at each other like, bitch did not fall off this cliff. Rescue personnel found Julie's shoe and her mobile phone at the base of the overlook, but there was no sign of Julie at all. During the search, Rodney repeatedly gave false statements to state and federal investigators to mislead them about his wife's whereabouts. On June 1st, he kept up the charade by making a Facebook post about his family's tragic ordeal. It read, "I've been getting a lot of private messages, so I feel it best that I address this. The accident at Grandview yesterday involved my wife. They haven't found her yet, but I am holding out hope that she will be found and she is okay. I am heartbroken and lost right now, but I have to have faith." Please give us time to work through this and keep us in your thoughts and prayers. There must have taken a lot of misplaced balls on Rodney's part to maintain this masquerade with literally hundreds of people concerned and searching for his wife. On June 2nd, two days after Julie's disappearance, the West Virginia state police searched the wheelers house to seize their electronic devices. By now, they were probably assuming that Rodney had killed her since that's usually the outcome of cases like this. As the cops carried out their warrant searching the property, they discovered Julie hiding in a downstairs closet. There's no information about what she said to the cops when they found her hiding there, but I hope it was something like, "Oh no, I fell off the cliff and landed in this closet." Julie and Rodney were arrested and charged with numerous offenses, including conspiracy and giving false information to the authorities. United States Attorney Mike Stewart stated, "Due the wheel of fake detraultmatic death to avoid her judgement day with the courts. While she was found hiding in a closet, she was also hiding from justice." The scheme put many lives at risk and wasted valuable resources, by conspiring to avoid her federal sentence for healthcare fraud, "She, with the aid of her husband, only made matters worse." Julie received a sentence of one year for the super genius faking of her own death. It was ordered to be served consecutively to her three and a half year sentence imposed for her federal healthcare fraud conviction. She was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $290,000. Rodney wheeler pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to obstruct justice. He was sentenced to two months in federal prison. In addition to serving time, he'll be on home confinement for six months, followed by three years of supervised release. He is so grounded. To quote Charles Bukowski, "The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence." To finish up, I have a few punchline crimes for you. These are cases with hardly any information available, and they sound more like jokes than something that actually happened. In 2014, a car thief broke into a woman's BMW parked outside the high court in Pretoria, South Africa. Once he got inside the vehicle, the doors locked automatically, trapping him in there. Realising he'd been outsmarted by the fancy car security system and couldn't get out, he started to panic. His shouting and banging attracted a crowd of onlookers. They pointed and laughed at him as he stayed locked in the vehicle for an hour and a half. The police eventually arrived and got in touch with the BMW's owner. They asked her to come and unlock the car. As soon as she unlocked the doors, the man was arrested by waiting police. In 1999, 16-year-old Mary Ann Vatstra was murdered in Friesland in the Netherlands. Despite the best efforts of detectives and the presence of an unidentified man's DNA on her body, the case went cold. In 2012, in an effort to track down Mary Ann's killer, investigators organised mass DNA testing of the men living close to the field where her body was found. This process is mostly used to rule suspects out, as what killer would be dumb enough to submit their DNA for testing in an investigation of a murder they'd committed. Nearly 6,600 men voluntarily donated a DNA sample. One of them was 44-year-old married father of two Jasper Steringer. His DNA matched the sample found on Mary Ann's body. Steringer ended up confessing to the murder and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. In March 2012, Clumsy in competent robber James Allen tried to rob Martin's news agency in Oxfordshire, England. He tried to rob it 10 days earlier too, but failed. Perhaps his horoscope had told him much second was going to be his lucky day. If it did, it lied. CCTV cameras captured 29-year-old James storming into the news agency with a balaclava on, wielding a toy gun. He threatened staff and shoppers and demanded they give him all their cash and valuables. When the tough guy got what he wanted for some inexplicable reason, he took off his balaclava. Then he tried to leave the shop, but found that he couldn't. The CCTV footage shows Allen struggling to open the door, but it was a pool door and the knucklehead was pushing against it with all of his might. Unable to get the door open, he tried kicking his way out, but he ended up losing his balance and falling to the floor backwards while pulling a display full of drinks down on top of him. Eventually a female customer, who Allen had just robbed, came to put him out of his misery by simply pulling the door open for him. With such clear video of his face, it wasn't hard for the cops to track hapless Allen down. He was sentenced to three years in prison for his "soul-apps-diction" anagons. This brings me to the end of the episode. Thanks so much for listening. Make sure you subscribe if you want to stay up to date with all future episodes. If you enjoyed what you heard, please leave a review. All levels get access to monthly bonus episodes, at free episodes, and higher levels also receive a variety of merchandise. If you want more dumb criminals in your life, you could join our World's Dumbest Criminals Podcast Facebook group, or follow us on Twitter at WD CriminalsPod and Instagram at World's Dumbest Criminals Podcast. Till next time, look after yourself, stay out of trouble, and whatever you do, don't commit a crime that makes you end up on this podcast.