CRIME: The Perfect Alibi

In the midst of a baffling wave of burglaries in downtown Burlington, Vt., Sheriff Dewey Perry sensed a strange new atmosphere around ” his jailhouse. “There was something wrong about the tempo,” he said. “Everything was too quiet.” Searching for the cause, the sheriff came across a shaky-looking brick wall in the jailhouse basement. With one finger, he pushed bricks out on to Main Street. Then he searched his twelve prisoners. Frederick Hamelin had $60 in his pocket, another $145 sewn neatly into his pillow. Clyde B. Hamblin had $143 hidden in his bedding. Hamblin’s and Hamelin’s cells also yielded up a hoard of caviar, shrimp and imported cheeses.

From there on the rest was easy. Sheriff Perry found that Prisoners Hamelin and Hamblin were old hands at picking the old, rotary-type locks used in Burlington’s jail. Each night after lockup, the two men would unlock their cells, drop down through an old manhole to the basement, poke through the brick wall, ransack deserted stores and return to the jailhouse. Why didn’t they just keep right on going to freedom? Reasoned Sheriff Perry for his prisoners: why break up a good thing when you have a perfect alibi?