Thief tips off police after finding child porn during break-in

[Renew Deal]

By The Canadian Press

RED DEER, Alta. (CP) — A Red Deer man has been jailed after an outraged burglar spotted massive amounts of child pornography on his computer and called police.

William Mitchell, who pleaded guilty earlier this year in Red Deer provincial court, was charged in October 2005 after RCMP, acting on an anonymous tip, searched his home. An agreed statement says that someone had broken into Mitchell’s residence and taken a video camera. The camera, the tipster said, had images of child pornography and would be left on the steps of a church.

Police retrieved the camera and soon realized the burglar had videotaped a computer monitor displaying images of child pornography.

Following the address printed on the burglar’s note, police seized computer equipment containing 13,315 pornographic images.
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http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/543111.html

[seabeyond]

1. a thief with morals.... gotta love our uniqueness n/t

[Warpy]

12. I've known quite a few thieves with morals

My favorite was a junkie back in the 60s who'd break in, rip off stereos and cameras. If he found any sort of important paperwork, he'd tape it to the bathroom mirror so the occupants would know where it was in the mess he'd left.

This guy never would have stolen anything if he could have gotten his drugs legally and at a non black market price.

It sounds like there's another one out there in Canada.

[pooja]

2. Wow... A concerned citizen...

[ret5hd]

3. A thief with morals...

I probably still wouldn't invite him over for dinner, but i gotta respect what he did.

[Joanne98]

4. What a great story...

[etherealtruth]

5. Wow

That's it:WOW

[maine_raptor]

6. That guy should be given a light sentence if he's ever caught.

I don't know about evidence rules in Canada, but I'm willing to bet it would be strongly challenged (or even thrown out) here in the states. Or am I wrong, DU Lawyers?

[achtung_circus]

11. It's an interesting one.

Basically, the police had reasonable and probable grounds to believe that there existed evidence with the residence that would afford evidence with respect to the commission of a crime under the Criminal Code of Canada.

That the grounds were based on an illegal search matter less than that the searcher was not an agent of the police.

[Bucky]

You understand, of course, that that means the burgler not only broke into his home, but also...

...spent time surfing around on the pervert's computer hard drive. What kind of second story man takes the time to do that? I can't be the only one to smell a rat here.

[Solon]

8. Searching for a person's credit card numbers, passwords, etc.

You wouldn't believe the stuff people put on their computers. I knew someone who couldn't remember the 4 digit pin for their debit card, and saved it on the computer on a plain text file, under the file name "debit card number". STUPID. I told him to memorize it, or, change the number to something he can easily remember, then I deleted the file.

[pretzel4gore]

10. we innocents buy the off .story!

but we're eager to learn! why wouldn't a b& e man check out a computer? there's a rat here, but he sho dint smell! imho
wouldn't a perve have all his stuff password protected?

btw, a couple months ago i read about a dutch burgler who broke in a house and stumbled upon a dead woman! the poor thief was traumatised (he called 911)

[WinkyDink]

16. What if the screen were up? Nobody expects a burglar!

Or the Spanish Inquisition.

[pitohui]

29. you're not the only one to smell the rat, bucky EOM

.

[Solon]

7. See, there is honor amongst theives. n/t

[TerdlowSmedley]

9. I guess there really IS honor among thieves.

[MadHound]

13. Sorry, but this should be thrown out of court

Evidence, gathered, possibly planted by a thief, showing up anonymously on a stolen cam corder. Way too many breaks in chain of custody, way too many ways for this to be a set up. After all, if the thief is savvy enough to find the porn, he's savvy enough to plant it. Who knows, perhaps this was the thief's intention all along, smear this guy for whatever purpose.

Frankly, any lawyer who is worth his degree should be able to get this either tossed out, or an aquittal. Any anonymous evidence that is the result of an anonymous thief is highly suspect.

[LeftCoast]

14. I agree. This would never have been allowed in court in the US.

Not sure about Canadian laws, but this 'evidence' seems very questionable from a legal perspective.

[tabasco]

26. Why? This evidence doesn't fall under the exclusionary rule.

In this case, one citizen turns in another citizen when evidence is uncovered. Discovering the evidence did not involve police misconduct so why do you think this case would not go forward, or the evidence excluded, in the US?

[TheMadMonk]

17. Any thief savy enough to build an audit trail that shows the files

being downloaded/created over an extended period of time, in the time he would have had available, wouldn't be doing second story work.

This sort of thing is not as uncommon as you might think, I see at least a couple of stories a year on www.theregister.co.uk about rockspiders being dobbed in by thieves, or computer repairers finding child porn images on computers they stole or were given to repair. One recent story featured a bloke who had an image up as his desktop wallpaper.

As others have pointed out, computer ownership and abject stupidity are not mutually exclusive. I once provided system support to a management consulting company where the boss insisted on three letter user names that were their initials and identical passwords so he could check up on his employees work. I threw a wobbly that legend has my voice being heard in the street thirteen floors below.

[MadHound]

19. It isn't that hard to create, and burn a CD full of images, complete with an audit

Trail. And if that's the case, who knows why the thief did this, again, perhaps to smear this guy. Frankly, the way the original warrant was obtained, based on a cam corder record and an anoymous note is grounds enough to get the warrant challenged and quite possibly tossed.

I don't discount the stupitity of people, neither do I discount the notion that this went down exactly as is being described, including the notion of an honorable thief. But frankly, I think that this case is based on real flimsy legal standards and the guy will either have the case tossed or will be aquitted.

[TheMadMonk]

22. Including browser caches and histories consistent with both...

the perp's kiddy porn habit and his regular browsing? I don't think so, not with Windows internals and audit logs resembling the pavement outside an all night curry takeaway.

[TheMadMonk]

23. Oh, and the guy pled guilty.

For an innocent man to do so, would require incredible stupidity both on his part and on the part of his defense counsel.

[bob4460]

18. This would lead to endless police abuses

The cop would break in do the planting of evidence,go put a uniform and come back and make lots of arrest .Hell happens all the time in drug cases now( well the planting part)

[spoony]

24. Yes, otherwise

if the cops didn't have enough to get a search warrant they could just unleash a couple guys in the pen on the house and have them poke around, then take that to a judge.

It'd be a treacherous precedent, as tempting as it is to allow it in this case.

[alfredo]

27. If the images all had the date of the break in, then

I'd say it is a plant, but if the dates are scattered all over the place, then it would be hard to argue a plant. The browser history could also tell on the user.

[tanyev]

15. Maybe the thief tried to blackmail him but the perv refused to pay.

[MadHound]

20. Or maybe the thief has a personal/professional grudge against the "perv"

And this is his/her way of getting the guy out of the way. We don't know, and frankly it is questions of this sort that will poke enough holes in the prosecutions case that it simply won't hold water.

[Dorian Gray]

21. Wow!

Something to make a thief feel repulsed and outraged. Good for him!

[Leftisalwaysright]

25. Craziest story of the year

This gets my vote for craziest story of the year!

[pitohui]

28. hmmm how do we know the thief didnt't plant the stuff?

he invaded someone else's home after all