Inconsequential Crimes That Led To Huge Breaks In Major Cases

While many serious criminals - like serial killers and terrorists - have been caught by law enforcement after years of tireless police work, others have been captured by the authorities after being arrested or stopped for relatively minor infractions, like theft and driving violations. One such criminal who was caught for a minor crime was a fugitive wanted for murder, and he was apprehended by law enforcement after he stole a chicken salad sandwich, a newspaper, and some Band-Aids from a grocery store.

A number of other serious criminals who were caught for minor crimes were captured by police when they were simply caught driving around with missing or stolen license plates, demonstrating how a huge break in a case can come from a seemingly inconsequential transgression like stealing a ceiling fan from a mosque, shoplifting a vise from a hardware store, parking in front of a fire hydrant, or making an illegal U-turn.

After killing women and girls from coast to coast and escaping from police custody on two different occasions, 31-year-old Ted Bundy was pulled over in West Pensacola, FL, at around 1:00 am on February 15, 1978, for driving a stolen vehicle. After Bundy made a failed attempt to flee the scene, officials searched the car - an orange Volkswagen Beetle - and discovered ID cards belonging to three female students at FSU, the same school where several members of a sorority had been brutally murdered a month earlier.

Eventually, the Pensacola officers learned that Bundy was one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, bringing an end to a horrifying reign of terror that had lasted from 1961 to 1978 and resulted in the deaths of at least 20 young women and girls in Washington, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Florida, and California. Following multiple trials for his crimes, Bundy was given the death penalty, and he was executed in Florida's electric chair on January 24, 1989.

In April 2010, a police officer went to the home of 76-year-old Joseph Naso to conduct a search of the elderly man's Reno, NV, home as part of the terms of his parole after the elderly man was convicted of stealing from a California grocery store. While the officer was looking for prohibited items like alcohol, drugs, and guns, he quickly became disturbed when he noticed a large amount of woman's clothing in the bachelor's home, as well mannequin legs and hundreds of photos of nude women, some of whom appeared to be unconscious.

The officer continued searching Naso's home, and he discovered a journal that contained multiple entries about various rapes the 76-year-old had committed over the course of several decades. With the help of Naso's diary, investigators were able to link the elderly man - who had worked as a freelance photographer - with the murders of four women from 1977 to 1994, although they suspect he killed at least six other victims.

Around 2:30 am on August 1, 1977, a gunman fired into a car parked near New York's Gravesend Bay, killing 20-year-old Stacy Moskowitz. Shortly after the young woman was murdered, Cacilia Davis, a middle-aged woman who lived near the crime scene, contacted law enforcement to say that around the time Moskowitz was shot, she saw a man ripping up a parking ticket not far from where the killing had occurred. Armed with this information, officials tracked every ticket issued in the area that night, and discovered that 24-year-old David Berkowitz - who lived more than 20 miles away in Yonkers - had been cited for parking his car in front of a fire hydrant.

When investigators searched Berkowitz's vehicle, they discovered a rifle, ammunition, and maps of crime scenes, and when they interrogated the 24-year-old on the morning of August 11, 1977, Berkowitz confessed to being the "Son of Sam," the person who had murdered six people, including Moskowitz, and wounded eight others, in a series of attacks in the New York City area during the summer of 1977. In June 12, 1978, Berkowitz was given 25-years-to-life for each murder he committed, with his sentences to be served consecutively. He had his last parole hearing in 2016, and his release was denied.

On April 19, 1995, a trooper from the Oklahoma Highway Patrol pulled over a 1977 Mercury Marquis that was heading north on Interstate 35 because the vehicle was missing its license plate. The driver was 26-year-old Timothy McVeigh: the U.S. Army veteran was wearing a shirt featuring a picture of Abraham Lincoln and quotes from John Wilkes Booth and Thomas Jefferson. When McVeigh reached into his pocket to retrieve his driver's license, the trooper noticed the pistol the 26-year-old had in a shoulder holster, and he arrested McVeigh for unlawfully carrying a concealed weapon and driving without license plates.

While McVeigh was being held in jail for the offenses, investigators realized he was the person who had rented a truck that was transformed into a bomb and detonated outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, OK. The blast - which occurred the morning McVeigh was stopped for driving without a license plate - killed 168 people and injured more than 600 other victims. In August 1995, McVeigh was indicted on multiple federal counts, and in June 1997 he was found guilty and sentenced to death. On June 11, 2001, 33-year-old McVeigh was executed by lethal injection in a federal prison in Indiana.

On November 30, 2001, police arrested 57-year-old Robert Durst for trying to steal a chicken salad sandwich, a newspaper, and Band-Aids from a grocery store in Bethlehem, PA. When officers searched his vehicle, they found nearly $40,000 in cash, marijuana, and two guns, as well as a driver's license belonging to Morris Black. The authorities quickly learned that Durst was a fugitive from the law who had been arrested the previous month and charged with Black's murder when the elderly man's dismembered corpse was found in a body of water near Galveston, TX. 

Two years after he was arrested in Pennsylvania, Durst went on trial for killing Black, his former neighbor, but he was acquitted by the jury. In addition to murdering Black, many members of law enforcement suspect Durst - who is an heir to a real estate fortune worth billions - also killed his wife, Kathleen, in 1982 and one of his closest friends, Susan Berman, in 2000. However, Durst has never been convicted of murdering anyone.

In the early hours of June 28, 1993, state troopers attempted to pull over a vehicle driven by 34-year-old Joel Rifkin because the truck he was driving didn't have a license plate. However, Rifkin refused to stop for law enforcement, leading the state troopers on a high-speed chase that lasted until he crashed his truck into a utility pole in Mineola, NY.  

When officers approached Rifkin's vehicle, they noticed the unmistakable scent of rotting human flesh coming from the bed of the truck and quickly discovered the dead body of 22-year-old Tiffany Bresciani. Shocked by their grisly find, investigators were even more surprised when Rifkin not only admitted to killing Bresciani, but later confessed to murdering several other victims and dumping their bodies all over New York state. Rifkin was convicted of killing nine women - although experts believe he murdered several others as well. The serial killer from Long Island was sentenced to more than 200 years in prison for his brutal crimes.

On January 9, 1992, an officer in Riverside County, CA, pulled over William Suff after they witnessed the 41-year-old make an illegal u-turn. The officer discovered Suff was wanted for a parole violation in relation to the killing of his infant daughter, and when law enforcement searched the man's vehicle, they found a bloody knife and a rope. Suspicious, officials impounded Suff's van and searched his home, eventually uncovering evidence to tie him to the murders of several women who had disappeared while walking the very same street where Suff was stopped for a traffic violation.

In July 1995, Suff was convicted of 12 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder - although the authorities suspect he may have killed more than 20 victims - and in October 1995 he was sentenced to death for his crimes. Suff - a serial murderer who was dubbed the "Lake Elsinore Killer" - is currently on death row at California's San Quentin State Prison.

In 1985, law enforcement discovered Charles Ng and Leonard Lake's horrifying crimes of rape, torture, and murder when Ng tried to steal a vise from a San Francisco hardware store. Ng ran from the scene, but Lake was taken into police custody. However, Lake died shortly after he arrived at the police station, having taken a cyanide tablet to kill himself. Eventually, investigators found the isolated cabin that Ng and Lake had shared in the Sierra Nevada foothills, and when officials searched the property, they found evidence that the two men had killed several people - including men, women, and babies - burying their dead bodies on the land surrounding the remote cabin.

In addition to the human remains found on the property, authorities discovered several videotapes the men had made of themselves viciously raping and torturing their female victims. Law enforcement eventually captured Ng in Canada, and he was extradited to the United States where he was convicted of murdering 11 victims. In 1999, Ng was sentenced to death, and he remains on California's death row.

On January 2, 1981, two police officers in South Yorkshire, England, stopped to investigate a vehicle parked on a private street when they noticed the car had a second set of license plates taped on top of the plates that were screwed onto the vehicle. Inside the car they found the vehicle's owner, Peter Sutcliffe, and a known sex worker.

When they brought Sutcliffe down to the police station to talk to him about his stolen plates, they noticed his resemblance to a composite sketch of the Yorkshire Ripper, an unidentified serial killer who had murdered several women - some of them sex workers. Eventually, Sutcliffe confessed to being the notorious serial killer who had eluded law enforcement for five years and taken the lives of at least 13 women and teenage girls. Sutcliffe was tried and found guilty for the killings, and he was given 20 life sentences for his crimes.

In September 2009, police in Bangladesh arrested 37-year-old Rasu Miah - a married father of four - for stealing a ceiling fan from a mosque. When law enforcement interrogated Miah about the theft, they searched his cell phone and discovered he had the phone number of a woman who had recently been murdered in Chandpur. Initially, Miah denied having anything to do the with the woman's death, but when he appeared in court in October 2009, he admitted to killing her and 10 other victims over the course of two years.

According to Miah, a woman refused to marry him when he proposed in 1994, so he decided he was going to murder 101 women in his hometown. Miah's victims ranged in age from 17 to 20, and they were poor garment workers whom he lured to the Chandpur region of Bangladesh by promising to make them his wives. Once he was alone with young women, Miah tortured and murdered the garment workers and tossed their lifeless bodies in a river. He also admitted to raping some of his victims before killed them.