This last week I had the opportunity to visit the Utah State Prison for business reasons. I and several co-workers were taken on a tour through a couple of the cell-blocks, shop areas, etc. Near the end of the tour we had the opportunity to sit down and talk with one of the convicts, a serial burglar/rapist. He had successfully burglarized over 1,500 homes and businesses during his "career." We learned some things from him I thought I'd share (note that this particular burglar, when not looking to sexually assault or rape, was a “cat burglar,” and naturally other types of burglars would do things differently). Much of what he said was things I knew, like not having windows/glass near door handles, etc., and other common sense things, but I found a lot of it quite informative:
*When you wake up to a bump in the night, scan DOWN as well as at eye-level and above.
*If a professional burglar wants to get in your home badly enough, he WILL get into your home.
*Don't do anything to make a burglar want to get into your home.
*Dogs are no cure-all.
*If you're a heavy sleeper, make a way for you to wake up if there's an intrusion.
*Don’t leave out tools to help the burglar.
*”Decoys” can sometimes work.
*Safes delay, not stop. The difference between safes is the amount of delay.
Well, I hope some of this is useful to you. Obviously this is one burglar, and others do things different ways. This is a very intelligent man (as evidenced by the means he used to avoided capture on several occasions), and the average burglar is likely not to be. I didn’t share much about what he said about the rapes and such he did because it’s really not that helpful. He was what would be categorized as an “acceptance rapist.” He raped for a sick, twisted feeling of acceptance. Despite his verbal threats, if the woman so much as screamed he would leave. Obviously this would be VERY different with an “anger rapist,” and also is why certain things would turn him away when they would not do so to a more violent rapist. Since there’s not one kind of rapist, and what would turn away one would only enrage another, obviously the best anti-rapist tool is a good firearm to administer hot-lead injections.
*When you wake up to a bump in the night, scan DOWN as well as at eye-level and above.
This convict stated that he learned over time, that when someone is startled out of sleep at night and look around from their bed, they almost never look down. They scan at eye level and up. After learning this common behavior, whenever he entered an occupied area he would crawl on the ground so that if someone did wake up and look around, they wouldn't see him.
*If a professional burglar wants to get in your home badly enough, he WILL get into your home.
He told a story of a time when he was in Chicago and he had run out of drugs. He knew of a dealer in Washington state that had what he wanted. He got a plane ticket to Washington, waited for dark, then began his work. He knew from previous contact with this person that his doors and windows were all alarmed so he went to the man's garage, got some tools, went to the back of the house, and started tearing a hole in the brick wall by chipping out the mortar, and went through into the house. Other incidents involved cutting phone lines and turning off the power to disable alarms (this all took place in the 80's).
*Don't do anything to make a burglar want to get into your home.
While as noted above, a burglar will do whatever is necessary to get in if they want to badly enough, there's usually a reason they want in that bad. This happens when they already know what you've got, and what you've got is something they want. For quick smash and grab, this man would always skip over "hardened" houses and go for easy targets. But if he heard through the grapevine that this guy has a big gun collection, or that house has a ton of jewelry, or (later in his ‘career’), that house has a single woman, the difficulty of getting into that house became much less of an issue. So don’t go blabbering about your awesome gun collection, your priceless antique paintings, or that you buy gold and silver because you don’t trust the banks or some-such, because eventually word is going to reach the wrong ears. Make sure your children understand this as well.
*Dogs are no cure-all.
Due to working with horses prior to his drug addiction and subsequent burglary career, the man was familiar with veterinary drugs. He would break into vet offices to both obtain drugs for himself, and for use in his break-ins. If he knew his target location had a dog, he would inject horse tranquilizers into something the dog would be sure to eat, like a hot dog. Throw this over the fence or otherwise get it to where the dog would find it. Wait 15 minutes for the dog to either go to sleep or die, then proceed. Obviously he only went to this trouble when the house/business had something known and specific he was after.
*If you're a heavy sleeper, make a way for you to wake up if there's an intrusion.
Obviously alarms are one of the best ways, but ensure there are sensors other than door and window sensors, like internal motion detectors, as the doors and windows can be completely bypassed, as noted. Make sure your choice of alarm will make some notification upon power loss. To continue the story of him burglarizing the drug dealer: After getting in through the small hole he put in the wall, he proceeded into the dealer's bedroom where he and his girlfriend were asleep. He saw a briefcase (he found later contained $17,000 and several bags of drugs) bicycle-lock-chained to the bedpost, and a gun on a nightstand. He unloaded the gun and pushed it under the bed. Again he returned to the man’s garage, got a wrench and returned.
He unbolted the bedpost from the headboard on one side, just enough, and slipped the chain up and over and left with the briefcase. He did all this without them waking up. Obviously they were either heavy sleepers or “on something.” A member of my group inquired what he would have done if they woke up. He responded that he always took that kind of thing as a “bridge to be crossed if I get there.”
He unbolted the bedpost from the headboard on one side, just enough, and slipped the chain up and over and left with the briefcase. He did all this without them waking up. Obviously they were either heavy sleepers or “on something.” A member of my group inquired what he would have done if they woke up. He responded that he always took that kind of thing as a “bridge to be crossed if I get there.”
*Don’t leave out tools to help the burglar.
I think the example of the drug dealer’s house covered this well. He used the man’s own tools to get through his external wall, and to remove the briefcase. Lucky for the dealer he didn’t make use of his gun as well.
*”Decoys” can sometimes work.
He indicated some situations in which certain objects turned him the other way, and mentioned some he thought a good idea. He thought it would be a good idea for a single lady living alone to go out, buy some size 14 “combat boots,” get them all muddy, and keep them on the porch. When looking for “prey,” he specifically avoided homes where he thought there was even a small chance a man might be present. While he generally ignored “Beware of Dog” signs when on smash-and-grabs as he found many to be untrue, he would turn the other way if he saw actual signs of a dog, such as a big dog-food bowl that actually had some food in it. He noted one time he had broken into a house and found some Karate magazines on the coffee table. He left immediately. “I didn’t want to deal with that s***!”
*Safes delay, not stop. The difference between safes is the amount of delay.
He found floor safes to be his favorite. When he knew his target had a floor safe he would steal some liquid nitrogen from a business, then proceed to the location. He’d pour the nitrogen about 3/4 of an inch deep over the safe (using something to dam it around the edges) wait 15 minutes or so, then smack it with a medium sized sledgehammer. This usually shattered the lock mechanism, and allowed him access. He said the longest time it took him to get into a safe was 10-hours, at a business on a Saturday night. Often he used tools found on the premises to get into safes in homes and businesses.
Well, I hope some of this is useful to you. Obviously this is one burglar, and others do things different ways. This is a very intelligent man (as evidenced by the means he used to avoided capture on several occasions), and the average burglar is likely not to be. I didn’t share much about what he said about the rapes and such he did because it’s really not that helpful. He was what would be categorized as an “acceptance rapist.” He raped for a sick, twisted feeling of acceptance. Despite his verbal threats, if the woman so much as screamed he would leave. Obviously this would be VERY different with an “anger rapist,” and also is why certain things would turn him away when they would not do so to a more violent rapist. Since there’s not one kind of rapist, and what would turn away one would only enrage another, obviously the best anti-rapist tool is a good firearm to administer hot-lead injections.
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That takes big brass ones. I bet the cop feels stupid that "helped" him search his backyard.
