America's Least Subtle Criminal Wears Winter Coat in 97 Degree Heat, Takes 20 'Smoke Breaks' a Day, Exudes Confidence
America's least subtle criminal has been arrested in Maryland, after stealing as much as $60,000 in merchandise from a Nordstrom warehouse.
What Donnell Norman did right was play things extremely cool. He would go to work at the loading dock, slyly conceal a number of stolen goods on his person, pop out to deposit the merchandise into his car, and then return to his post chill as gazpacho, like nothing at all had happened.
What Donnell Norman did wrong was pretty much everything else. He wore a long winter coat to work on a 97 degree day, for instance, and blatantly stuffed the sleeves full of loot. He took 15-20 smoking breaks a day, although he did not smoke. He literally opened boxes and placed stolen merchandise inside his car while loss prevention officers—bored employees whose single task is to prevent the loss of merchandise—watched.
CBS reports that, when he wasn't slinking around corners in an exaggerated tip-toe while sneaky music played, Norman was operating his own mom-and-pop Nordstrom shop right there in his dining room on the ironically-named Keepsake Pl. in Waldorf, Maryland.
"[He] would sell it from his house like it was a Nordstrom Counter," said Sgt. Aubrey Thompson of the Special Enforcement Division."
Some of the items Norman pilfered he sold to his friends at unbeatable prices (a 70 percent discount). The rest he returned to Nordstrom for a refund ("I've decided these Juicy Couture pocketbooks are no longer to my liking").
The only flaw in his business plan (to own and operate a Nordstrom store) was that Nordstrom did it first.
Norman is now in police custody, and faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
