Abstract
You’ve probably never heard of the man who stole his neighbor’s window curtains only to hang them on his own windows, perfectly visible from the house he burgled. Maybe you never read about the woman who robbed a B.P. gas station by threatening to infect the clerk with her destructive bacteria. These are the stories amassed in News of the Weird’s “Least Competent Criminals.” And while the woman who robbed the gas station got away because of perhaps the world’s least competent clerk, not all the criminals were lucky enough to succeed — just ask the man who dragged a stolen half-ton safe with his car through Bridgetown, Connecticut, attempting to crack it open.