Criminal caught after police use trail of beer to track him down

Here’s one definite way to get caught by the cops after you’ve committed a crime – simply leave them a handy trail of beer cans so they can track your whereabouts. Smart.

The Irish Sun reports that a man who robbed a shop was eventually caught by police after he left a trail of beer cans in his wake. Seriously. Is this a new contender for the stupidest-criminal-of-all-time award? We think so!

Idiotic criminal Peter Mackey had tried to buy a 30 pack case of booze at an off-licence in New Hampshire, USA. According to reports, the polite cashier informed him that it was too late for him to buy alcohol. Clearly Mr Mackey was having none of this. He wanted his booze and he wanted it now! So he pulled a knife on the poor shopkeeper. As you do.

Seeing as how he already had the knife out, he decided to go one step further and steal some money from the till too, for good measure like.

He made a swift exit from the shop in question, carrying his case of 30 beers and a big wad of cash.

However, there’s one thing Mackey didn’t realise. As he ran, he accidentally dropped a few cans of his beer, thus creating a sort of mini-trail which police used to track him down.

The beer led directly to a raving Mackey who had to be subdued with pepper spray repeatedly before officers were able to arrest him and charge him.

We’re not sure what we’re more surprised about. The fact that he thought he’d be able to drink an entire case of beer by himself, or the fact that he didn’t realise half of his beer was missing as he ran along.

Surely he would’ve noticed the case getting lighter and lighter?

Stupidity really does have no limits…