4

Multiple Criminals Have Been Brought Down By Glitter

Solving crimes with glitter sounds like something a coked-up TBS executive might come up with during a midseason replacement pitch meeting (something involving strippers who fight crime by ... day, we guess?), but it's a real thing. For decades, the sparkly stuff has been used to bring down everything from rapists to murderers. You're probably picturing tactical teams armed with glitter-shooting cannons to confound criminals, but it's a lot more sophisticated than that.

Glitter might look all the same to you while you're trying to get that shit off your sweater, but there's reportedly "tremendous variation" in the stuff. Bulk glitter conglomerates can boast of having tens of thousands of different types to decorate your belongings, nether regions, and disgruntled pets as you see fit. Knowing this, one can see how leaving even one fleck behind after committing a foul deed can lead investigators right back to the exact Frederick's of Hollywood where you bought your sparkly apple-flavored nipple balm.

FBI

The first recorded instance of glitter being used as trace evidence happened at the end of the Cold War in Germany, when the U.S. Army's crime lab used it to solve a sexual assault case during a local celebration. Specific glitter from the victims' Mardi-Gras-like costumes was found on the clothing of the suspects. Another time, a killer in Alaska was nabbed in part because his estranged wife had dropped glitter in his car at some point, and some of it stuck to his victim. More recently, this method was used to bust a deadly hit and run driver who denied being at the wheel, but had a hard time explaining how the exact same cosmetic glitter she wore on her face wound up plastered to the airbag.

It's yet one more example of how, unless you wrap yourself in cellophane / coat yourself in lacquer in preparation for your malfeasance, there's always going to be something left behind that detectives will capitalize on to send your silly novelty-toenail-polish-loving ass up the river.

3

A Killer Was Tracked Down Thanks To A Tiny Piece Of Glass

It's the little things that often wind up causing even the cleverest crooks to face the cold light of justice. Case in point: In a scenario straight out of the files of Sesame Street: Special Victims Unit, we bring you a heinous crime that was solved by the letter "H."

2

A Finnish Car Thief Gets Convicted By A Mosquito

For most people, mosquitoes are proof that Mother Nature hates us. Why else would she produce a creature that seems specifically designed to get on our nerves? For police in Finland, however, one such annoying pest became an unlikely hero when it helped them crack a case and bring a joyrider to justice.

1

Interpol Unscrambled A Photoshopped Pedophile

Many child predators feel a pressing need to share images of their horrible "work" far and wide, which clashes with their also-pressing need to not be in jail for the rest of their lives. Thanks to technology, they now have the tools to do both those things. All they have to do is open their favorite image editing software, cover their own face in the photos, and share away. Fortunately, law enforcement is evolving right along with them, even when they pull such ingenious stunts as, um ... performing the digital equivalent of spinning your finger around in some finger paint.

Interpol

As simple as altering a picture with Photoshop tools is, it's not such an easy task to get it back to its original state. This was presumably what the man in the above image, who could be seen abusing young Asian boys in about 200 internet photos, was counting on. What he didn't foresee was the ingenuity of intrepid Interpol agents, who, with the assistance of German police computer experts, managed to unscramble the smeared, shirtless selfie to reveal a somewhat human face underneath. Within days, the man was identified as Christopher Neil, a Canadian schoolteacher living in Thailand. It turned out he'd also worked as a chaplain and youth counselor in Canada before deciding to go on the sadly common Gary Glitter pilgrimage.

Interpol didn't reveal precisely how they were able to unscramble Mr. Whirlyjerk's face, but they were pleased that it sent "a quite clear message" to internet child molesters worldwide. A spokesman for the agency also reminded any deviant malefactors who might be paying attention that "Techniques are always developing. What is impossible today is possible tomorrow." It's a lesson that we're sure Neil will take to heart, now that he's chilling back in Canada after having served only five years for multiple instances of "sexual offending behavior against both pre and early pubescent boys." Which seems to demonstrate that un-whirling photographs isn't the only "technique" that needs developing.

Vancouver Police Department

E. Reid Ross is the author of "Nature Is The Worst: 500 Reasons You'll Never Want To Go Outside Again," which is in stores now and available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

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