YOU STOLE WHAT?

You might be able to steal someone’s heart, or a glance, or a base—but could you steal a vineyard? Here are some odd things that people have taken without asking.

TOED AWAY

Joshua Williams, 28, of Upper Hunt, New Zealand, attended the traveling Body Worlds exhibition in Auckland in May 2018. As he was viewing the various corpses and dissected body parts (preserved through a process called plastination), a sudden urge came over him, and before he knew it, he’d stolen two toes from an unguarded foot. Not replicas—actual human toes. Later, Williams had another urge: he posted a photo of his ill-gotten gains on Instagram, along with the caption: “I stole a toe from an uncovered display lol.” The cops didn’t lol. They arrested Williams, who apologized profusely. He claimed he didn’t realize the toes were worth thousands of dollars, and he was mortified to be facing a seven-year prison term for theft and “interfering with a dead body.” But Judge Bill Hastings took pity on him. “Excuse the pun,” he said, “but you have been toe-tally overcharged.” A conviction, said Judge Hastings, would leave Williams with the reputation of a “grave-robber with a shovel” for the rest of his life. He let the toe thief go.

HAMMER TIME

Police in Healdsburg, California, are on the lookout for a big ball-peen hammer. How big? It’s 21 feet long and weighs 800 pounds. Made out of steel and redwood, the enormous tool had spent the previous year as an art installation on the lawn of a community center, until it went missing in October 2018. The artist, Doug Unkrey, offered a $1,000 reward for the hammer’s return. He figures that it took at least eight people and a flatbed truck to steal it, but he doesn’t understand the motive: “Why would you take this thing? Where are you going to put it?”

AMBULANCE CHASERS

In 2018 a 37-year-old Oregon woman named Christy Lynn Woods, who has a “lengthy and colorful rap sheet,” was walking past a Roseburg apartment building where paramedics were trying to revive an unconscious woman. But Woods was more interested in their ambulance; it was unlocked, and the keys were in the ignition. So she jumped in and sped away. Then she led cops on a 30-mile chase over city streets and the interstate highway. The joy ride nearly turned deadly when—while traveling at 85 miles per hour with sirens blaring—Woods rear-ended a police car that was trying to divert traffic. She managed to keep going (the officer maintained control of his car and was unhurt), but a few minutes later, spike strips slashed all four of the ambulance’s tires. Woods pulled into a gas station and gave up. Then she tried to play nice. “I didn’t try to hurt anyone,” she claimed from the back of a squad car. Then she blamed the paramedics: “Why did they leave it unlocked?” According to the Daily Mail, it was the 39th time Woods had been arrested since 2011, but this time she hit the jackpot, being charged with “first-degree attempted assault, second-degree assault, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, attempting to elude police in a vehicle, failure to perform the duties of a driver, two counts of first-degree criminal mischief, reckless endangering, reckless driving, interfering with a medical services provider, and driving while suspended.” It’s a good bet Woods won’t be going on any more joy rides for a long time.

First American woman to earn a degree in geology: First Lady Lou Hoover.

STOLEN COLON

Want to make a thousand bucks? That’s the reward being offered for a 10-foot-long inflatable colon that went missing from the back of a pickup truck at the University of Kansas in October 2018. The replica human colon, which weighs 150 pounds and is valued at more than $4,000, is part of the Cancer Coalition’s “Get Your Rear in Gear” campaign, and they really want it back.

THE GRAPES OF WRATH

In October 2018, a vineyard went missing from a hillside in southern Germany. Not the vines, just the grapes—but all of the grapes. The sophisticated thieves made away with more than 3,500 pounds of grapes that were going to be made into Riesling wine. According to BBC News, local vintners blame rival winemakers because the thieves “unerringly select the choicest grapes, steal them just as they ripen, and have access to specialized harvesting equipment.” The BBC also pointed out that this vineyard wasn’t on a remote hillside; it’s right next to a busy supermarket near the village of Deidesheim, and the theft occurred on a weekday afternoon.

THE GRATED CHEESE ROBBERY

A tractor-trailer carrying 41,000 pounds of parmesan cheese went missing from Marshfield, Wisconsin, in 2016. That was one of three incidents that year in which $90,000 worth of Wisconsin cheese was stolen. In another incident, a truck driver left a trailer full of cheddar in a supposedly secure lot in the Milwaukee suburb of Oak Creek (to get his truck serviced). When he returned a few hours later, the trailer and its 20,000-pound $46,000 payload were gone. Who was behind these robberies? As of last report, authorities have yet to apprehend anyone, and they weren’t even sure of the thieves’ end game. It’s not like you can just sell giant blocks of cheese door to door.

Update: Two of the cheesy trailers were recovered a few weeks later—one turned up at a grocery store, the other in a warehouse (both shipments had to be thrown out). But the location of the third truck of cheese—and the identity of the Wisconsin cheese pirates—remains a mystery. (You could call it a…cold queso.)

Tea tea? “Chai” is the Hindi word for tea.