Curses, Foiled Again

When Jarrell Paul Arnold, 34, walked into a credit union in Anchorage, Alaska, and inquired about his account balance, the teller asked for his name, account number and photo identification. After complying, he showed the teller a note that read, “I have a gun. Give me all the money in your drawer.” The Anchorage Daily News reported the robber stuffed the cash in his jacket and took off, only to be promptly arrested.

Robbery suspect Thomas James, 24, died after he spray-painted his face to conceal his identity, according to sheriff’s deputies in Richland County, S.C.

Curses, Foiled Again

Max D. Hinton, 21, was interviewing for a job with the Montgomery, Ala., police when he volunteered that he possessed child pornography and had sex with an underage girl. An investigation led to a trial, a conviction and a 30-year prison sentence but no explanation why Hinton mentioned the pornography.

Curses, Foiled Again

Police arrested Christopher Lee Anson, 23, for robbing a bank in Cannon Falls, Minn., after an officer stopped him for speeding during his getaway. According to the Rochester Post-Bulletin, the officer started writing a ticket but heard the call about the robbery and asked Anson for his address to mail him the ticket, then sped off to the crime scene. When the officer saw the bank’s surveillance video, he recognized the robber as the man he’d stopped for speeding. Police found Anson at the address he provided.

Tumbling Tubbies

Bigger butts reduce hip fractures, according to Canadian researchers, who found added weight provides more cushioning when overeaters fall. Since 1985, hip fractures among women have declined 32 percent, 25 percent for men, Bill Leslie, a professor of medicine at the University of Manitoba, told The Toronto Star. The researchers stressed that obesity should not be regarded as a hip-protection strategy.

A Berlin brothel began offering discounts to customers who arrive on bicycles. “The recession has hit our industry hard,” Thomas Goetz, owner of La Maison d’Envie, told Reuters. “Obviously we hope that the discount will attract more people. It’s good for business, it’s good for the environment, and it’s good for the girls.”

Curses, Foiled Again

Liquor store clerk Joseph Wescott, 59, told police in Roswell, Ga., that a man entered the store and tried to stab him in the chest. The knife hit the cell phone in Wescott’s shirt pocket but did not injure Wescott, who pulled a gun and shot the would-be robber in the abdomen. He then used the cell phone to call police, who reported finding suspect Carlos Jean Pierre, 34, at a nearby hospital. Both the gun and the phone were gifts from Wescott’s son, a police officer.

Billy Floyd Norris, 33, called 911 to report his roommates had robbed him, but when police arrived at his house in Hanceville, Ala., they found a working methamphetamine lab and arrested Norris.

When a woman called 911 to report a man who tried to rob her at gunpoint was in hot pursuit outside Edwardsville, Ill., the dispatcher gave her directions to a nearby sheriff’s department. The suspect followed. The Belleville News-Democrat reported that Carleous Clay Jr. 26, realized too late where he was headed and was arrested.

Curses, Foiled Again

FBI investigators identified Terrol Alan Casborn, 32, as the suspect who robbed two banks in Concord, Calif., because of his distinctive tattoo. The surveillance video at one of the banks showed the robber’s hand had a “blotch or spot close to the wrist, with what appears to be cursive writing below the blotch, closer to the knuckles,” Special Agent Todd Dorman reported. DNA from ski masks found near the scene of both robberies matched that of Casborn. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, when the FBI interviewed Jolene Allen, the mother of Casborn’s four children, she told them that Casborn had her name tattooed on the back of his left hand until another woman made him cover it with a dark tattoo like the one on the video.

Curses, Foiled Again

Authorities responding to a bank robbery in Daytona Beach, Fla., arrested suspects Randall Fredric Walker, 38, and Jason Warren Dietrich, 35, after their getaway vehicle ran out of gas while leaving the scene.

Philadelphia police chased two drug suspects, who ran inside a building and up the stairs into a second-floor room and then slammed the door. Police who entered the room right behind the suspects found it empty. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported the puzzled officers were leaving when they heard noises below the floor, looked behind a couch and discovered a trapdoor, which led them to suspects Diego Rivera, 20, and Mario Torres, 23.

A man who snatched a wallet from a woman shopping with three friends at a market in Santa Rosa, Calif., tried to make his getaway on a bicycle, but the victim heaved a 12-pack of Miller Lite beer bottles at him when he was maybe 12 feet away. She hit him, knocking him to the ground, where all four women “were on him like kids on a burst pinata,” according to The Press Democrat. After the victim got back her wallet, the women let the man go but kept his bicycle.