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Who_s the dumbest criminal you_ve ever seen · Martin Animations

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Speaker 1: Who's the dumbest criminal you've ever seen? My ex-husband Derek
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Speaker 1: broke into my house four times before I finally invested
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Speaker 1: in a security system, not to steal anything, just to
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Speaker 1: prove he could. The first time, he moved all my
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Speaker 1: furniture two inches to the left so I'd walk into
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Speaker 1: everything in the dark. The second time, he unplugged my
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Speaker 1: refrigerator and let everything spoil. The third time, he stood
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Speaker 1: over my bed while I slept and took photos on
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Speaker 1: his phone. I only knew because he texted them to
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Speaker 1: me the next morning with a message that said, you
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Speaker 1: look peaceful when you dream. I could have done anything.
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Speaker 1: The fourth time, he stole my daughter Mia's stuffed rabbit,
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Speaker 1: the one she'd had since birth, and sent me ransom
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Speaker 1: photos of it tied to a chair like some demented
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Speaker 1: hostage situation. The police were sympathetic, but useless. Detective Paulson
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Speaker 1: kept telling me to document everything, as if I wasn't
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Speaker 1: already living in a constant state of documentation, as if
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Speaker 1: my entire existence hadn't become a desperate attempt to prove
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Speaker 1: my own reality to people who had the luxury of doubt.
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Speaker 1: Get a security system, he suggested after the rabbit incident,
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Speaker 1: one with cameras and remote monitoring. Make it impossible for
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Speaker 1: him to claim he wasn't there. So I did. I
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Speaker 1: spent $ 3, 200 I didn't have on a Safeguard Solutions premium
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Speaker 1: package with 12 cameras, motion sensors on every door and window,
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Speaker 1: and a smart lock system that could be controlled from
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Speaker 1: my phone. The technician who installed it was a guy
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Speaker 1: named Kevin who looked at the fading bruises on my
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Speaker 1: arms and didn't ask questions he already knew the answers to.
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Speaker 1: Kevin spent three hours showing me how everything worked, but
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Speaker 1: I was too exhausted to absorb most of it. Depression
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Speaker 1: and hypervigilance don't mix well with technical instructions. He showed
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Speaker 1: me the app, the arming sequences, the notification settings. The
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Speaker 1: live feed access? I nodded like I understood while my
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Speaker 1: brain cataloged everything that could go wrong. What if I
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Speaker 1: set it off accidentally? What if the police stopped responding
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Speaker 1: because I was the woman who cried wolf? What if
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Speaker 1: Derek figured out how to disable it and I wouldn't
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Speaker 1: even know until it was too late? Kevin must have
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Speaker 1: sensed my overwhelm because he simplified everything down to the basics.
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Speaker 1: Red button arms the system when you leave. Green button
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Speaker 1: disarms it when you come home. If anything moves inside
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Speaker 1: while it's armed, the police get called automatically. Simple enough, right?
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Speaker 1: Except it wasn't simple at all. The first night, I
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Speaker 1: set off the alarm at 2.17 a.m. by walking to
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Speaker 1: the bathroom and forgetting the system was armed in stay mode,
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Speaker 1: which apparently was different from away mode, and I'd mix
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Speaker 1: them up. The siren was loud enough to wake my
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Speaker 1: seven-year-old daughter, Mia, who came running into the hallway sobbing
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Speaker 1: that Daddy had come back. I couldn't remember the disarm code.
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Speaker 1: My hands were shaking so badly I kept entering the
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Speaker 1: wrong numbers. The police called while the alarm was still
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Speaker 1: screaming and I couldn't answer because I was trying to
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Speaker 1: shut it off and comfort Mia simultaneously. Two officers showed
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Speaker 1: up eight minutes later looking annoyed to find a confused
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Speaker 1: woman in pajamas apologizing profusely for the false alarm. Officer
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Speaker 1: Denise Kim was patient about it. These systems take time
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Speaker 1: to learn. You'll get the hang of it. But her partner,
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Speaker 1: a younger guy named Officer Troy Baskin, couldn't hide his irritation.
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Speaker 1: Fourth false alarm we've responded to this week, ma'am. Maybe
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Speaker 1: read the manual next time before you waste our resources.
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Speaker 1: I wanted to explain about Derek. about why I needed
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Speaker 1: the system, about why my brain wasn't working properly, but
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Speaker 1: the words stuck in my throat. I just apologized again
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Speaker 1: and promised it wouldn't happen again. Kevin from Safeguard called
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Speaker 1: the next morning after getting an alert about the false alarm.
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Speaker 1: He offered to come back and give me another tutorial,
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Speaker 1: no charge. I told him I was fine, that I'd
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Speaker 1: figured it out, even though I absolutely hadn't. The second
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Speaker 1: false alarm happened three days later when I came home
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Speaker 1: from dropping Mia at school and forgot to disarm the
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Speaker 1: system before opening the front door. The shrieking started immediately,
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Speaker 1: and I panicked, pressing buttons randomly on my phone until
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Speaker 1: something worked. The police were already on their way by
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Speaker 1: the time I got it silenced. Officer Kim showed up
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Speaker 1: alone this time, and her patience had worn thinner. Ms. Vance,
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Speaker 1: you're going to get fined if this keeps happening. The
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Speaker 1: city charges $ 150 for repeat false alarms. I know the
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Speaker 1: system is new, but you need to take the time
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Speaker 1: to learn it properly. I nodded and apologized and felt
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Speaker 1: like the stupidest person alive. That evening, I tried to
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Speaker 1: go through the manual Kevin had left, but the technical
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Speaker 1: language made my eyes glaze over and my anxiety spike.
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Speaker 1: The third false alarm was the breaking point. I'd been
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Speaker 1: carrying groceries inside and set them down to disarm the system.
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Speaker 1: but apparently there was a 60-second window and I'd taken
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Speaker 1: 70 seconds and the alarm triggered anyway. This time, Officer
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Speaker 1: Baskin responded with a partner I hadn't met before, and
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Speaker 1: they were both openly hostile. This is ridiculous, ma'am. If
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Speaker 1: you can't handle a basic security system, maybe you shouldn't
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Speaker 1: have one. You're pulling us away from real emergencies. The
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Speaker 1: humiliation burned through my chest. I apologized and explained I
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Speaker 1: was still learning and promised it wouldn't happen again. After
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Speaker 1: they left, I sat on my kitchen floor and cried
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Speaker 1: while Mia ate cereal for dinner because I couldn't pull
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Speaker 1: myself together enough to cook. That night I made a
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Speaker 1: decision that would turn out to be either the luckiest
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Speaker 1: or dumbest thing I'd ever done, depending on how you
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Speaker 1: looked at it. I turned the system off. Not completely off,
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Speaker 1: because Derek still terrified me and I needed something between us.
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Speaker 1: But I disabled all the motion sensors and alerts except
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Speaker 1: for the cameras. The cameras would keep recording to the
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Speaker 1: cloud storage, Kevin had explained, even if the alarm system
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Speaker 1: was disarmed. So I'd still have footage if something happened,
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Speaker 1: but I wouldn't trigger any more false alarms and humiliate
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Speaker 1: myself in front of the police again. I didn't know
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Speaker 1: how to check the cloud footage, but that seemed less
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Speaker 1: important than avoiding another lecture from Officer Baskin about wasting
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Speaker 1: city resources. For two weeks, nothing happened. I went to
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Speaker 1: work at the medical billing office where I processed insurance claims,
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Speaker 1: came home to help Mia with homework, made dinner, enforced bedtime,
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Speaker 1: and collapsed into my own bed exhausted by the simple
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Speaker 1: act of surviving another day. Derek stayed away, or at
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Speaker 1: least I assumed he did. Without the motion alerts, I
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Speaker 1: wouldn't know if he'd been in the house unless he
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Speaker 1: left obvious evidence like he used to. I checked the
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Speaker 1: locks obsessively and installed a chair under my bedroom door
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Speaker 1: handle every night, but the security system sat dormant, its
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Speaker 1: cameras recording whatever they recorded while I went about my
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Speaker 1: life in ignorant peace. Then on a Thursday morning in October,
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Speaker 1: I got a call from my bank that my credit
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Speaker 1: card had been declined at the gas station. Impossible, I said.
5:27
Speaker 1: I'd just gotten paid, and there should have been plenty
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Speaker 1: in my account. The customer service rep explained that someone
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Speaker 1: had made a $ 3, 800 charge at an electronics store in
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Speaker 1: the city the previous afternoon. The purchase had triggered a
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Speaker 1: fraud alert but was still processing. I felt sick. I
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Speaker 1: hadn't made any purchases. I'd been at work all afternoon
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Speaker 1: and my card had been in my wallet the entire time,
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Speaker 1: except it hadn't been. When I checked, my wallet had
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Speaker 1: my license and insurance card and a grocery store rewards card,
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Speaker 1: but no credit card or debit card. I called the
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Speaker 1: police non-emergency line and explained about the fraud, and the
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Speaker 1: dispatcher said an officer would come take a report. Officer
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Speaker 1: Kim arrived an hour later while I was frantically going
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Speaker 1: through my purse and car looking for my missing cards.
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Speaker 1: When did you last use them? She asked, pen poised
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Speaker 1: over her notepad. Two days ago at the grocery store.
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Speaker 1: I know I put them back in my wallet. I
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Speaker 1: always put them back in my wallet. Officer Kim asked
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Speaker 1: if I'd had any visitors or workers in the house recently.
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Speaker 1: Just the security system technician three weeks ago. And he
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Speaker 1: was from a legitimate company. No one else. Had I
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Speaker 1: noticed anything else missing or disturbed? No, but I wouldn't
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Speaker 1: necessarily know. The house looked the same as always. Officer
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Speaker 1: Kim walked through my house with me, checking windows and
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Speaker 1: doors for signs of forced entry. Everything looked intact. The
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Speaker 1: smart lock on the front door showed no unauthorized access codes.
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Speaker 1: The windows were all locked from the inside. If someone
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Speaker 1: had broken in, they'd done it carefully enough to leave
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Speaker 1: no trace. That's when I remembered the security cameras, the
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Speaker 1: ones that had been recording everything for the past two
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Speaker 1: weeks while the motion alerts were disabled. Officer Kim's expression
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Speaker 1: shifted from patient to interested. You have footage from inside
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Speaker 1: the house? Show me. I pulled out my phone and
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Speaker 1: opened the Safeguard app, navigating through menus I barely understood
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Speaker 1: until I found the cloud storage archive. There were hundreds
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Speaker 1: of video files organized by camera location and date. I
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Speaker 1: clicked on the one labeled Living Room, October 10th. which
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Speaker 1: was the day before I'd noticed my cards missing. The
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Speaker 1: footage loaded slowly, then played in jerky fast-forward until Officer
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Speaker 1: Kim told me to slow it down. We watched me
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Speaker 1: leave for work at 7.45 a.m., the house sitting empty
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Speaker 1: and still. At 9.33 a.m., the front door opened. A
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Speaker 1: man walked in. He was white, maybe 40, wearing jeans
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Speaker 1: and a gray hoodie pulled low over his face. He
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Speaker 1: moved through my house with the casual confidence of someone
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Speaker 1: who belonged there, looking around like he was shopping. He
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Speaker 1: went through my purse on the kitchen counter. pulled out
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Speaker 1: my wallet, removed the cards, and put the wallet back.
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Speaker 1: Then instead of leaving immediately like a normal burglar would,
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Speaker 1: he started exploring. He opened my refrigerator and ate some
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Speaker 1: leftover pizza directly from the container. He sat on my
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Speaker 1: couch and used the remote to turn on the TV,
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Speaker 1: scrolling through channels for several minutes before getting bored. He
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Speaker 1: walked into Mia's room and looked through her toys, picking
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Speaker 1: up her stuffed animals and tossing them aside like he
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Speaker 1: was searching for something specific. He went into my bedroom
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Speaker 1: and opened my dresser drawers and running his hands through
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Speaker 1: my underwear in a way that made my skin crawl.
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Speaker 1: Officer Kim was recording everything on her phone, documenting each violation.
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Speaker 1: The burglar spent nearly 30 minutes in my house before
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Speaker 1: heading toward my bathroom. Officer Kim and I watched in
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Speaker 1: stunned silence as he pulled down his pants and sat
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Speaker 1: on my toilet. The camera angle from the hallway caught
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Speaker 1: everything in unfortunate detail. He sat there for at least
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Speaker 1: five minutes, scrolling through what was probably my stolen credit
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Speaker 1: card information on his phone. When he finished, he didn't flush.
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Speaker 1: He pulled up his pants and walked toward my bedroom again.
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Speaker 1: That's when something unexpected happened on the footage. The bedroom
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Speaker 1: door closed behind him with a soft click, and we
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Speaker 1: heard a mechanical lock engage. The smart lock system, which
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Speaker 1: I'd forgotten was installed on the bedroom door as part
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Speaker 1: of the premium package. The burglar tried the handle. It
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Speaker 1: didn't open. He tried again, pulling harder. Still locked. On
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Speaker 1: the video, we could hear him say, what the fuck,
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Speaker 1: followed by increasingly panicked attempts to open the door. He
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Speaker 1: pounded on it. He threw his shoulder against it. The
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Speaker 1: smart lock didn't care. It had detected an unauthorized person
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Speaker 1: in the bedroom, triggered by the motion sensor I'd forgotten
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Speaker 1: to disable in that room specifically, and had automatically locked
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Speaker 1: according to its programming. The burglar was trapped in my
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Speaker 1: bedroom with no way out except the second-story window. which
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Speaker 1: didn't open far enough for an adult to fit through
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Speaker 1: thanks to safety locks I'd installed after Mia almost fell
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Speaker 1: out as a toddler. Officer Kim stopped the video and
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Speaker 1: looked at me with an expression I couldn't quite read.
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Speaker 1: So your security system has been recording this entire time,
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Speaker 1: and it locked this guy in your bedroom? When did
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Speaker 1: this happen? I checked the timestamp. Yesterday afternoon, around 1pm,
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Speaker 1: which meant he'd been locked in there for almost 24 hours,
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Speaker 1: while I'd been going about my life completely unaware. Officer
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Speaker 1: Kim called for backup immediately. She pulled her weapon and
9:35
Speaker 1: told me to stay behind her as we approached my bedroom.
9:38
Speaker 1: The door was still closed. She knocked and announced herself
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Speaker 1: as police. No response. She tried the handle. Still locked.
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Speaker 1: She told me to unlock it with my app. My
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Speaker 1: hands shook as I navigated through the safeguard interface, finding
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Speaker 1: the smart lock controls and selecting my bedroom. I pressed
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Speaker 1: unlock and heard the mechanism disengage. Officer Kim pushed the
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Speaker 1: door open with her gun drawn. The smell hit us first.
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Speaker 1: A nauseating mixture of body odor- desperation and human waste
10:02
Speaker 1: the burglar was sitting on my bedroom floor in the
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Speaker 1: corner his face pale and sweaty he'd clearly tried everything
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Speaker 1: to escape my window was broken from the inside glass
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Speaker 1: on the floor where he'd smashed it trying to make
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Speaker 1: an opening big enough to climb through he'd torn apart
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Speaker 1: my closet looking for tools or something to use as
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Speaker 1: a weapon He'd urinated in my wastebasket because apparently he'd
10:20
Speaker 1: needed to go again and couldn't get back to the bathroom.
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Speaker 1: Officer Kim ordered him to show his hands and get
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Speaker 1: on his face. He complied without resistance, probably grateful to
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Speaker 1: be getting out of the room even if it meant
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Speaker 1: getting arrested. She cuffed him while calling for additional units.
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Speaker 1: The burglar started talking immediately, his voice hoarse from what
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Speaker 1: must have been hours of shouting for help that never came.
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Speaker 1: I just needed some money. I wasn't going to hurt anyone.
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Speaker 1: I just needed the card numbers and I was going
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Speaker 1: to leave. I've been stuck in here since yesterday. I
10:46
Speaker 1: thought I was going to die in here. No water,
10:48
Speaker 1: no food. I had to piss in a trash can.
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Speaker 1: This is fucking insane. Your door is psychotic. Officer Kim
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Speaker 1: told him to shut up and recited his Miranda rights
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Speaker 1: while he lay on my bedroom floor crying. More officers arrived,
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Speaker 1: including Officer Baskin, who I braced myself for more judgment from.
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Speaker 1: But when Kim briefed him on the situation, his expression
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Speaker 1: shifted to something like amazement. The security system locked him
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Speaker 1: in automatically, and she had no idea? He looked at
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Speaker 1: me with new interest, like I'd suddenly become competent instead
11:14
Speaker 1: of incompetent. How did you set that up? I admitted
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Speaker 1: I hadn't set it up intentionally, that I'd been trying
11:19
Speaker 1: to disable the motion sensors but must have missed the
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Speaker 1: bedroom one, and the smart lock had done its job
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Speaker 1: without me knowing it existed. Baskin actually laughed. So you
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Speaker 1: caught this guy by accident because you didn't know how
11:28
Speaker 1: to turn your system off properly? That's the dumbest luck
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Speaker 1: I've ever seen. Or the dumbest criminal. They arrested the burglar,
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Speaker 1: whose name turned out to be Curtis Vaughn, a repeat
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Speaker 1: offender with six priors for burglary and theft. They found
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Speaker 1: my credit cards in his pocket, along with six others
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Speaker 1: from different victims. His phone had dozens of photos of
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Speaker 1: credit cards and driver's licenses, evidence of identity theft affecting
11:49
Speaker 1: potentially hundreds of people. The $ 3, 800 purchase at the electronics
11:53
Speaker 1: store had been a new laptop he'd planned to resell.
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Speaker 1: They found my missing rabbit in his car, along with
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Speaker 1: jewelry and personal items from other break-ins. Detective Paulson arrived
12:01
Speaker 1: to take my statement and couldn't stop shaking his head.
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Speaker 1: Curtis Vaughn has been breaking into houses in this neighborhood
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Speaker 1: for six months. We had no physical evidence, no witnesses,
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Speaker 1: no way to catch him. He's smart enough to avoid
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Speaker 1: leaving DNA or fingerprints. but he wasn't smart enough to
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Speaker 1: avoid shitting in a house with security cameras, and he
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Speaker 1: definitely wasn't smart enough to realize he'd locked himself in.
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Speaker 1: The full footage from my security system became crucial evidence.
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Speaker 1: The cloud storage had captured Curtis breaking into three other
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Speaker 1: houses in my neighborhood over the past two weeks, using
12:29
Speaker 1: the same method of entering through front doors with a
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Speaker 1: lock-picking tool during work hours when families were gone. He'd
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Speaker 1: been patient and methodical, taking only credit cards and small
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Speaker 1: valuables that wouldn't be immediately missed. But in my house,
12:39
Speaker 1: his confidence had betrayed him. The footage showed everything. Him
12:43
Speaker 1: eating my food, pawing through my belongings, sitting on my
12:46
Speaker 1: toilet scrolling through his phone, planning his next crime while
12:49
Speaker 1: literally caught with his pants down. Detective Paulson said it
12:52
Speaker 1: was the most comprehensive evidence package he'd ever seen for
12:54
Speaker 1: a burglary case. The part that made Curtis the dumbest
12:57
Speaker 1: criminal wasn't just getting locked in my bedroom. It was
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Speaker 1: what he did while locked in there. The bedroom camera
13:02
Speaker 1: had recorded everything, and apparently Curtis hadn't noticed it. He'd
13:05
Speaker 1: spent hours trying to escape, getting increasingly frustrated and panicked.
13:09
Speaker 1: He'd called someone on his phone. probably an accomplice, but
13:12
Speaker 1: they must not have answered because he'd left voicemails detailing
13:14
Speaker 1: his exact location and situation. He'd literally created an audio
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Speaker 1: confession describing multiple burglaries while trapped in my bedroom. When
13:21
Speaker 1: he'd realized he couldn't break the window open wider, he'd
13:23
Speaker 1: started going through my drawers again, this time stealing jewelry
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Speaker 1: and photographing himself wearing it, apparently planning to claim it
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Speaker 1: belonged to him if he was caught. The footage that
13:31
Speaker 1: sealed his fate came from the 18-hour mark of his captivity.
13:35
Speaker 1: Starving and thirsty and losing his mind from isolation, Curtis
13:38
Speaker 1: had started talking to himself. The camera picked up everything.
13:41
Speaker 1: He'd confessed to dozens of burglaries, complained about fences who'd
13:44
Speaker 1: cheated him on resale prices, named accomplices and criminal contacts,
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Speaker 1: essentially providing police with a roadmap to an entire theft ring.
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Speaker 1: Detective Paulson said Curtis had given them more information than
13:54
Speaker 1: most suspects did under interrogation, all because he'd spent nearly
13:57
Speaker 1: a full day locked in a room with a camera,
13:59
Speaker 1: thinking no one could hear him, gradually losing his sanity
14:02
Speaker 1: enough to talk himself through his own criminal history for comfort.
14:05
Speaker 1: The electronic store footage corroborated the credit card theft. Cameras
14:08
Speaker 1: there showed Curtis purchasing the laptop with my card just
14:10
Speaker 1: hours before getting locked in my bedroom. He'd signed my
14:13
Speaker 1: name on the receipt, not bothering to disguise his handwriting
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Speaker 1: or face. He'd parked directly in front of the store entrance,
14:19
Speaker 1: his license plate visible in perfect clarity. He'd left a
14:22
Speaker 1: trail so obvious that investigators wondered how he'd avoided capture
14:25
Speaker 1: for months. The answer, apparently, was that he'd been careful
14:28
Speaker 1: and paranoid during the actual burglaries, but arrogant and sloppy afterward,
14:32
Speaker 1: confident that without being caught in the act, he was untouchable.
14:35
Speaker 1: My accidental security system had caught him in the act,
14:38
Speaker 1: and his own hubris had kept him there long enough
14:40
Speaker 1: for the evidence to become overwhelming. The prosecutor, a sharp
14:43
Speaker 1: woman named Diana Flores, called me to discuss the case.
14:46
Speaker 1: She said Curtis was being charged with 17 counts of burglary,
14:49
Speaker 1: 23 counts of identity theft, and various other crimes. The
14:53
Speaker 1: evidence from my security footage alone was enough to convict
14:55
Speaker 1: him several times over. She asked if I'd be willing
14:57
Speaker 1: to testify, and I said yes without hesitation. Diana explained
15:01
Speaker 1: that Curtis's public defender was trying to negotiate a plea deal,
15:04
Speaker 1: arguing that trapping someone in a room for nearly 24
15:06
Speaker 1: hours constituted unlawful imprisonment. She laughed while telling me this.
15:10
Speaker 1: He broke into your house, stole your property, and got
15:13
Speaker 1: caught by your security system that was functioning exactly as designed.
15:16
Speaker 1: The fact that he was too stupid to realize he
15:18
Speaker 1: was locked in until it was too late isn't your problem.
15:20
Speaker 1: The preliminary hearing was scheduled for six weeks after his arrest.
15:23
Speaker 1: I took the morning off work and wore my most
15:25
Speaker 1: professional outfit, wanting to look like someone who'd intentionally set
15:28
Speaker 1: a trap for criminals rather than someone who'd accidentally caught
15:31
Speaker 1: one through technological incompetence. The courtroom was smaller than I'd expected,
15:35
Speaker 1: and Curtis looked smaller too, diminished by an orange jumpsuit
15:38
Speaker 1: and the weight of overwhelming evidence. His public defender, a
15:41
Speaker 1: tired-looking man named Neil Thornton, argued that the security system
15:44
Speaker 1: footage should be suppressed because I hadn't properly understood how
15:47
Speaker 1: to operate it, therefore any recording it made was inadmissible.
15:50
Speaker 1: The judge, a woman in her 60s with zero patience
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Speaker 1: for nonsense, shut that down immediately. Judge Patricia Langford asked
15:57
Speaker 1: Neil to explain exactly how not understanding security system settings
16:00
Speaker 1: made the footage inadmissible. Neal stammered something about expectations of
16:03
Speaker 1: privacy and unlawful surveillance. Judge Langford pointed out that Curtis
16:07
Speaker 1: had broken into private property and had no reasonable expectation
16:10
Speaker 1: of privacy while committing a crime. She'd reviewed the footage
16:13
Speaker 1: personally and found it both relevant and admissible. Moreover, she
16:16
Speaker 1: noted with barely concealed amusement, Curtis had provided a running
16:20
Speaker 1: commentary of his criminal activities while trapped, essentially testifying against himself.
16:24
Speaker 1: Neal argued that his client had been under duress from
16:26
Speaker 1: being locked in the room and his statements couldn't be
16:28
Speaker 1: considered voluntary. Judge Langford asked if breaking into someone's house,
16:32
Speaker 1: eating their food, stealing their credit cards, and defecating in
16:35
Speaker 1: their toilet seemed voluntary enough for him. The hearing lasted
16:38
Speaker 1: 90 minutes. Diana presented the footage, highlighting the most damning moments.
16:42
Speaker 1: Curtis entering my house, going through my purse, sitting on
16:45
Speaker 1: my toilet, getting locked in the bedroom, confessing to multiple
16:48
Speaker 1: crimes while trapped. The judge watched with an expression that
16:51
Speaker 1: shifted from professional neutrality to visible disgust to something approaching
16:55
Speaker 1: dark humor. When the footage showed Curtis wearing my stolen
16:57
Speaker 1: jewelry and photographing himself, Judge Langford actually put her head
17:01
Speaker 1: in her hands. The preliminary hearing was a formality, she
17:04
Speaker 1: said afterward. There's sufficient evidence to proceed to trial, though
17:07
Speaker 1: I suspect Mr. Vaughn's attorney will be advising him to
17:09
Speaker 1: take whatever plea deal is offered. This is the most
17:12
Speaker 1: open and shut case I've seen in 20 years on
17:13
Speaker 1: the bench. Curtis took the plea deal two weeks later.
17:16
Speaker 1: 15 years in state prison with possibility of parole after 10.
17:20
Speaker 1: He'd face additional charges in other jurisdictions for the burglaries
17:23
Speaker 1: my security footage had captured him planning. His accomplices, identified
17:26
Speaker 1: from the voicemails and his rambling confessions, were arrested and
17:29
Speaker 1: charged separately. The theft ring Detective Paulson mentioned was dismantled,
17:33
Speaker 1: leading to the recovery of stolen property worth over $ 200, 000
17:37
Speaker 1: from multiple victims. My credit cards were canceled and my
17:39
Speaker 1: accounts were protected, so I lost nothing except the sense
17:42
Speaker 1: of security that had already been destroyed by Derek months earlier.
17:45
Speaker 1: the $ 3, 800 fraudulent charge was reversed. The bank even waived
17:49
Speaker 1: the replacement card fee after hearing about the case. The
17:52
Speaker 1: media picked up the story because of course they did.
17:54
Speaker 1: Dumbest criminal caught by security system he didn't know was recording,
17:58
Speaker 1: made local news first, then regional, then somehow went viral
18:01
Speaker 1: on social media. A reporter from Channel 7 interviewed me
18:04
Speaker 1: in my living room, carefully framing shots to avoid showing
18:07
Speaker 1: my bedroom where Curtis had been trapped. I explained about Derek,
18:10
Speaker 1: about why I needed the security system, about my struggles
18:13
Speaker 1: to learn the technology, about accidentally catching a serial burglar.
18:16
Speaker 1: The reporter asked if I felt vindicated. I said I
18:18
Speaker 1: mostly felt tired. The attention was exhausting. People I hadn't
18:21
Speaker 1: spoken to in years messaged me with variations of, I
18:24
Speaker 1: always knew you were smart, even though the entire situation
18:27
Speaker 1: had been caused by my technical incompetence. Kevin from Safeguard
18:30
Speaker 1: Solutions called to thank me for the publicity. Apparently their
18:33
Speaker 1: sales had increased 40% after the story broke, with customers
18:37
Speaker 1: specifically requesting the exact setup I had. He offered to
18:40
Speaker 1: come give me a proper tutorial on the system. explaining
18:43
Speaker 1: all the features I'd been too overwhelmed to learn initially.
18:45
Speaker 1: I said yes because I genuinely wanted to understand the
18:48
Speaker 1: technology that had saved me. He spent three hours walking
18:51
Speaker 1: me through every setting, every alert option, every feature. This
18:54
Speaker 1: time I took notes and asked questions and actually absorbed
18:57
Speaker 1: the information. Kevin showed me how to check the cloud
18:59
Speaker 1: footage regularly, how to customize motion sensitivity, how to set
19:03
Speaker 1: the smart locks to work with my schedule instead of
19:05
Speaker 1: against it. The most useful feature, he explained, was one
19:08
Speaker 1: I'd never activated. the system could send me daily digest
19:11
Speaker 1: videos showing any motion detected while I was away. Just
19:13
Speaker 1: 30 second clips so I could quickly verify whether it
19:16
Speaker 1: was just the cat or actually a person. If I'd
19:18
Speaker 1: enabled that feature, I would have known Curtis was in
19:20
Speaker 1: my house the same day he broke in. But I
19:23
Speaker 1: also wouldn't have had 18 hours of footage showing him
19:25
Speaker 1: confessing to dozens of crimes. Sometimes incompetence has unexpected benefits,
19:29
Speaker 1: Kevin said with a slight smile, though I wouldn't recommend
19:32
Speaker 1: it as a long-term strategy. I agreed and promised to
19:34
Speaker 1: actually read the manual this time. Derek violated the restraining
19:38
Speaker 1: order again three weeks after Curtis's conviction. He showed up
19:41
Speaker 1: at Mia's school during pickup time, trying to talk to
19:43
Speaker 1: her before I arrived. The school called the police and
19:45
Speaker 1: me simultaneously. I got there to find Officer Kim putting
19:48
Speaker 1: Derek in handcuffs while Mia cried in the principal's arms.
19:51
Speaker 1: This time Derek was charged with criminal violation of protective order,
19:55
Speaker 1: a felony because it was his fifth offense. The prosecutor
19:57
Speaker 1: used my security footage from the earlier break-ins, the ones
20:00
Speaker 1: Derek had committed before I'd installed the system, as evidence
20:03
Speaker 1: of a pattern of stalking. Curtis's case had established the
20:06
Speaker 1: footage as reliable evidence, making it easier to use in
20:09
Speaker 1: Derek's prosecution. He took a plea deal for three years
20:11
Speaker 1: in prison, mandatory counseling, and a permanent restraining order. It
20:15
Speaker 1: wasn't enough, but it was something. The civil lawsuit came next.
20:18
Speaker 1: Diana Flores recommended a personal injury attorney named Rachel Kim,
20:22
Speaker 1: who specialized in domestic violence cases. Rachel filed suit against
20:26
Speaker 1: Derek for emotional distress, invasion of privacy, and damages related
20:29
Speaker 1: to his pattern of harassment. She used the same security
20:32
Speaker 1: footage that had convicted Curtis, showing Derek's break-ins and his
20:35
Speaker 1: threatening behavior. The footage of him standing over my bed
20:38
Speaker 1: while I slept was particularly compelling evidence. The jury awarded
20:41
Speaker 1: me $ 150, 000 in damages, which Derek obviously couldn't pay. But
20:46
Speaker 1: Rachel explained that the judgment would follow him forever, garnishing
20:49
Speaker 1: any wages or assets he acquired after prison. It was
20:51
Speaker 1: a symbolic victory, but symbols mattered when you'd been made
20:54
Speaker 1: to feel powerless for years. Mia started therapy to process everything.
20:58
Speaker 1: Derek's abuse, the restraining order violations, Curtis's break-in that she'd
21:02
Speaker 1: slept through, the media attention that had made her feel exposed.
21:05
Speaker 1: Her therapist, Dr. Yolanda Banks, said Mia was resilient, but
21:09
Speaker 1: needed tools to manage anxiety that was developmentally appropriate. The
21:12
Speaker 1: security system actually helped, ironically. Knowing the house was monitored
21:16
Speaker 1: made Mia feel safer, and I finally understood the technology
21:19
Speaker 1: well enough to show her how it worked, demystifying it
21:21
Speaker 1: into something protective rather than scary. We made a ritual
21:24
Speaker 1: of checking the cameras together every evening before bed, verifying
21:28
Speaker 1: that all the doors and windows were secured, that we
21:30
Speaker 1: were safe in our home. The neighborhood changed after Curtis's arrest.
21:33
Speaker 1: The story had revealed how vulnerable we all were, how
21:36
Speaker 1: a patient burglar could exploit our daily routines. Six other
21:39
Speaker 1: families installed security systems within the month. The neighborhood association
21:43
Speaker 1: started a group chat for reporting suspicious activity. Someone organized
21:47
Speaker 1: a self-defense class at the community center. We became more vigilant,
21:50
Speaker 1: more connected, more aware of the illusion of safety we'd
21:53
Speaker 1: been living under. Curtis had broken into 17 houses over
21:56
Speaker 1: six months without anyone noticing, until my malfunctioning security system
22:00
Speaker 1: accidentally caught him. How many other criminals were operating in
22:03
Speaker 1: our midst? Smart enough to avoid the traps we didn't
22:05
Speaker 1: know we needed to set? Officer Baskin stopped by my
22:08
Speaker 1: house three months after the arrest. Not for official business,
22:11
Speaker 1: but to apologize. He'd been one of the officers who'd
22:13
Speaker 1: responded to my false alarms with obvious irritation, who'd made
22:16
Speaker 1: me feel stupid for not understanding the technology. I see
22:19
Speaker 1: now why you needed the system. I'm sorry for being
22:22
Speaker 1: dismissive about the false alarms. You were dealing with a
22:24
Speaker 1: lot and I should have been more patient. I appreciated
22:26
Speaker 1: the apology even though it didn't change what had happened.
22:29
Speaker 1: He told me they were using my case in police
22:31
Speaker 1: training now. teaching officers to take domestic violence victims seriously,
22:35
Speaker 1: even when they seemed confused or incompetent, because trauma affects
22:38
Speaker 1: cognitive function, and people in crisis don't always present as competent.
22:41
Speaker 1: It was a small systemic change, but it mattered. The
22:44
Speaker 1: Safeguard Solutions Company featured my story in their marketing materials
22:47
Speaker 1: after getting my permission. They were careful to focus on
22:50
Speaker 1: the technology rather than my personal trauma, emphasizing how their
22:53
Speaker 1: system worked even when users didn't fully understand it, how
22:56
Speaker 1: the cloud storage preserved evidence that led to convictions. how
22:59
Speaker 1: the smart locks could trap intruders through automatic protocols. They
23:02
Speaker 1: sent me a check for $ 5, 000 as a thank you
23:04
Speaker 1: for the publicity. I used it to pay down credit
23:06
Speaker 1: card debt Curtis's fraud had created and to put some
23:09
Speaker 1: in savings for Mia's future. Money couldn't fix what had
23:12
Speaker 1: been broken, but it helped address the practical problems that
23:14
Speaker 1: trauma always brought along as unwelcome companions. A year after
23:18
Speaker 1: Curtis's arrest, I got a message from the parole board.
23:20
Speaker 1: Curtis was applying for early release after serving just three
23:23
Speaker 1: years of his 15-year sentence. Budget cuts and prison overcrowding
23:26
Speaker 1: meant nonviolent offenders were being released early to make room
23:29
Speaker 1: for violent ones. His attorney argued that he'd been a
23:31
Speaker 1: model prisoner, attending classes, expressing remorse, becoming a changed man.
23:36
Speaker 1: Diana Flores called to tell me I had the right
23:38
Speaker 1: to submit a victim impact statement opposing his release. I
23:41
Speaker 1: spent a week writing it, detailing not just what Curtis
23:44
Speaker 1: had done to me but what he'd done to the
23:46
Speaker 1: 17 other families he'd burglarized, the hundreds of identity theft
23:49
Speaker 1: victims his phone records had revealed— the sense of violation
23:51
Speaker 1: that persisted long after physical evidence was cleaned up. The
23:54
Speaker 1: parole hearing was perfunctory. Curtis sat in prison videoconference wearing
23:58
Speaker 1: a button-up shirt and an expression of practiced remorse. He
24:01
Speaker 1: apologized to me directly, saying he'd been in a dark place,
24:05
Speaker 1: addicted to drugs, making terrible choices. He'd found God in prison,
24:09
Speaker 1: completed his GED, started taking college courses online. He wanted
24:12
Speaker 1: to give back to the community he'd harmed. The parole
24:15
Speaker 1: board asked me to respond. I said Curtis was very
24:17
Speaker 1: good at performing contrition. but his crime hadn't been a
24:20
Speaker 1: momentary lapse in judgment. It had been a calculated pattern
24:22
Speaker 1: of violation over months. He'd stolen from 17 families, sat
24:26
Speaker 1: on my toilet scrolling through stolen credit card numbers, confessed
24:29
Speaker 1: to dozens of other crimes while locked in my bedroom.
24:32
Speaker 1: Three years wasn't sufficient justice for that level of predatory behavior.
24:35
Speaker 1: The parole board denied his early release. Derek got out
24:38
Speaker 1: of prison after serving 22 months of his three-year sentence,
24:41
Speaker 1: time reduced for good behavior. The permanent restraining order meant
24:44
Speaker 1: he legally couldn't come within 500 feet of Mia or me,
24:47
Speaker 1: but I knew from experience that paper barriers meant nothing
24:50
Speaker 1: to men who viewed women and children as property. I
24:52
Speaker 1: upgraded my security system again, adding more cameras, installing panic
24:56
Speaker 1: buttons in every room, connecting everything to a monitoring service
24:59
Speaker 1: that would dispatch police if I pressed the alarm. Kevin
25:02
Speaker 1: installed it all personally, refusing to charge me for labor.
25:05
Speaker 1: You've given my company enough free advertising. The least I
25:07
Speaker 1: can do is make sure you're actually safe this time.
25:10
Speaker 1: I learned every feature, tested every function, and taught Mia
25:13
Speaker 1: how to use the panic buttons if Daddy ever came back.
25:15
Speaker 1: He did come back, on a Saturday morning four months
25:17
Speaker 1: after his release. The doorbell camera caught him approaching the
25:20
Speaker 1: front door, looking thinner and older but with the same
25:23
Speaker 1: entitled anger in his expression. I pressed the panic button
25:26
Speaker 1: before he could knock. The alarm sent silent alerts to
25:28
Speaker 1: the police and the monitoring service. Derek stood on my
25:31
Speaker 1: porch ringing the doorbell. probably expecting me to answer so
25:33
Speaker 1: he could deliver whatever justification he'd prepared for violating the
25:36
Speaker 1: restraining order. Instead, two patrol cars arrived within six minutes.
25:40
Speaker 1: Officers found him still standing there, apparently confident that his
25:43
Speaker 1: presence was reasonable, that the restraining order was just another
25:46
Speaker 1: obstacle he had the right to ignore. They arrested him
25:49
Speaker 1: without incident. This time, the charge came with a mandatory
25:52
Speaker 1: five-year sentence, no early release, but repeat violation of protective
25:55
Speaker 1: order with proven pattern of stalking. The security footage showed
25:58
Speaker 1: Derek had been watching my house from his car for
26:01
Speaker 1: 30 minutes before approaching the door, documenting his premeditation. His
26:04
Speaker 1: phone had searches for how to disable home security systems
26:08
Speaker 1: and restraining order enforcement in his browser history, proving he'd
26:11
Speaker 1: known he was violating the order and had researched ways
26:14
Speaker 1: to avoid consequences. The prosecutor used all of it to
26:16
Speaker 1: argue Derek represented a continuing threat that required maximum sentencing.
26:20
Speaker 1: The judge agreed. Five years, every day of it, in
26:22
Speaker 1: a facility four hours away with minimal visitation rights, Mia
26:26
Speaker 1: wouldn't have to see him again until she was 14,
26:28
Speaker 1: old enough to tell the court she didn't want contact
26:30
Speaker 1: with the father who'd terrorized her mother and stolen her
26:32
Speaker 1: childhood sense of safety. People ask me now if I'm
26:35
Speaker 1: grateful for the security system, and the answer is complicated.
26:38
Speaker 1: I'm grateful Curtis got caught. I'm grateful Derek is in
26:41
Speaker 1: prison where he can't hurt us. I'm grateful for the
26:43
Speaker 1: evidence that made both convictions possible. But I'm also angry
26:46
Speaker 1: that I needed a $ 3, 200 security system to be safe
26:49
Speaker 1: in my own home, that police couldn't protect me until
26:52
Speaker 1: I could prove the threats were real. that my initial
26:54
Speaker 1: incompetence with the technology was what saved me because intentional
26:57
Speaker 1: competence hadn't been enough. The dumbest criminal I ever saw
27:00
Speaker 1: wasn't Curtis getting locked in my bedroom while taking a shit.
27:03
Speaker 1: It was the justice system that required women to become
27:05
Speaker 1: surveillance experts in their own homes before it would take
27:07
Speaker 1: their fear seriously. Curtis got out after serving 11 years,
27:11
Speaker 1: his full sentence minus time off for good behavior. He
27:13
Speaker 1: was 51 by then, worn down by prison and whatever
27:16
Speaker 1: demons had driven him to burglary in the first place.
27:19
Speaker 1: A friend who worked in the prosecutor's office told me
27:21
Speaker 1: he moved to another state, started working construction, stayed out
27:24
Speaker 1: of trouble as far as anyone knew. I hoped he'd
27:26
Speaker 1: actually changed, that 11 years had been enough time to
27:29
Speaker 1: become someone different. But I also knew that people rarely
27:31
Speaker 1: transformed in prison, that the system mostly just delayed harm
27:35
Speaker 1: rather than preventing it. Derek would get out eventually too,
27:38
Speaker 1: and I'd have to decide whether to believe whatever change
27:40
Speaker 1: he claimed to have undergone or whether to trust the
27:42
Speaker 1: patterns I'd already seen. Thanks for watching till the end.
27:45
Speaker 1: Make sure to subscribe and like to not miss the
27:47
Speaker 1: next story.