Today's stupid criminal story!

[Texasgal]

Follow the footprints
Trail: Tracks in the snow lead police to stolen goods.

By SERGIO CHAPA
The Brownsville Herald

December 28, 2004 - Police didn't need DNA evidence, Nancy Drew or
Scooby
Doo to solve this case.

A Christmas morning burglar was caught after he left a trail of
footprints
through the first snow to hit Brownsville in 109 years.

According to a Brownsville police report, Jose Guadalupe Facundo, 28,
broke
into the Treviño Funeral Home at 1355 Old Port Isabel Road early
Christmas
morning.

After searching the building and documenting several stolen items with
employees, police followed a series of footprints left in the snow from
the
funeral home to a nearby trailer park.
Inside a mobile home, police say they found Facundo intoxicated on gold
spray paint with the funeral home's stolen electronic and stereo
equipment
in plain sight.

Police arrested him after they matched the prints of his muddy shoes to
the
footprints left in the snow and a funeral home employee identified the
equipment.

"If it wasn't for the snow, he wouldn't have gotten caught," said
funeral
director Oscar Perez.

Perez said a neighbor told employees shortly after 8 a.m. on Christmas
Day
that the funeral home had been broken in to.

"When I got there, I saw the door open and you could see the tracks (in
the
snow)," he said.

According to National Weather Service records, Brownsville received 1.5
inches of snow early Christmas morning.

Meteorologists called it the first White Christmas for the Rio Grande
Valley.

Perez said the funeral home only had one scheduled service at 10 a.m.
Christmas morning.

Employees, he said, were able to reinstall and use the recovered
equipment
before the service began.

Facundo remained in county custody Monday night at the
Carrizalez-Rucker
Detention Center in Olmito under a $7,500 bond.