Roofman

April 30, 2024 12:43 PM

The California man who hid for 6 months in a secret room inside Circuit City
posted by brundlefly (38 comments total)

That’s quite a story. I’m not sure what to make of the general courteousness and avoidance of injuries mixed with armed robbery, burning down a building, and abandoning his family (well, that last one is pretty common).
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:55 PM on April 30 [3 favorites]

I believe this story comes up in Geoff Manaugh's A Burglar's Guide to the City, which is also a fascinating read in its own right, as it kind of dissects how much the parts of building infrastructure we think of as immutable or impassible are really only by convention.
posted by Four String Riot at 1:08 PM on April 30 [27 favorites]

Great recommendation, Four String Riot. The author really drove home the point about how burglars use architecture in completely different ways than laypeople, using the example of the fortified security door buffeted by drywall that mundane tools could cut through.
posted by dr_dank at 1:26 PM on April 30 [11 favorites]

I know maintaining opsec is hard, but robbing your own ToysRUs seems like a lazy mistake.
posted by praemunire at 1:52 PM on April 30 [36 favorites]

“If you draw a doughnut around that Circuit City,” a Charlotte police captain later said, “I bet he talked to everyone within a mile.”

I'm sorry, what? A doughnut? That's what we're drawing?
posted by charismatic megafauna at 3:20 PM on April 30 [70 favorites]

I'm not sure what to make of the

"Gentleman thief" stories sell a lot better than true stories. We build up these characters by exaggerating some facts, leaving out other facts, and lying about the rest.
posted by AlSweigart at 3:35 PM on April 30 [4 favorites]

"I can't tell you what I do or where I live because it is a secret, sterile government installation" should be one of those silly "red flag" relationship memes.
posted by pthomas745 at 3:56 PM on April 30 [22 favorites]

If this guy had spent half the effort he put into robberies and living in secret rooms into working a job and renting an apartment, he could have had the regular life he seemed to crave. But maybe *pretending* to be fine church guy was part of the thrill.
posted by jabah at 3:58 PM on April 30 [3 favorites]

From a month ago: Ex-Caltrain workers allegedly built personal residences in stations with public funds
posted by neuron at 4:01 PM on April 30 [11 favorites]

If this guy had spent half the effort he put into robberies and living in secret rooms into working a job and renting an apartment, he could have had the regular life he seemed to crave.

Maybe? I myself have never had what I'd call a real job. To some people, for whatever reason, traditional employment does not come easily.
posted by JHarris at 4:05 PM on April 30 [25 favorites]

Makes me think of this story out of Providence Place mall.
posted by mkb at 4:29 PM on April 30 [7 favorites]

Ex-Caltrain workers allegedly built personal residences in stations with public funds

Was that wrong? Should they not have done that? I tell ya, they gotta plead ignorance on this thing...
posted by praemunire at 4:50 PM on April 30 [4 favorites]

Roofman, aaAAAaaaa;
Fighter of the Floorman, aaAAAaaa;
Champion of the fun!
And friendship, karate, and everyone
posted by Slackermagee at 5:01 PM on April 30 [14 favorites]

“Mom,” he said, “I kind of lost focus.”

Indeed.
posted by Ickster at 5:11 PM on April 30 [6 favorites]

The part where Toys r Us has everything an adult person needs to live, including food (baby food), exercise equipment, bedding, cameras (for monitoring store employees), etc is what's sticking out to me. I... I guess?

Also, what kind of store doesn't miss $7000 in merchandise???? Or someone changing the employee schedules to create gaps when they can freely roam the store????? Are there no cameras in Toy R Us??????
posted by subdee at 6:29 PM on April 30 [8 favorites]

In other words, he didn't wanna grow up, he's a Toys-R-Us kid.
posted by credulous at 7:18 PM on April 30 [19 favorites]

ok like we can all agree this guy is an asshole but like.. my rent is too damn high, the idea of living illegally inside a secret room in the roof of a big-box store has a certain appeal. all i have to do is NOT commit a series of daring maccas robberies and i'll be sitting pretty..
posted by _earwig_ at 7:39 PM on April 30 [25 favorites]

We have a really, really inflexible social and economic system and it’s tough for most of us to fit into, but some people can’t barely even fake it
posted by toodleydoodley at 8:01 PM on April 30 [12 favorites]

the idea of living illegally inside a secret room in the roof of a big-box store has a certain appeal

Yeah really Gibsonian but how plausible IRL?
posted by Rash at 8:27 PM on April 30 [4 favorites]

several church members who saw his mugshot called police with suspicions about the clean-cut 33-year-old who materialized out of thin air six months prior.

Well, seems like everyone in the congregation is a snitch... And people wonder why church membership is declining.
posted by kaibutsu at 8:29 PM on April 30 [21 favorites]

"materialized out of thin air" really is a weird way of saying "started going to church."
posted by brundlefly at 8:37 PM on April 30 [31 favorites]

If this guy had spent half the effort he put into robberies…

Listen, in a country with more people than jobs, some people have to do crime for their job.
posted by Jon_Evil at 9:03 PM on April 30 [16 favorites]

"materialized out of thin air" really is a weird way of saying "started going to church."

I'm going to assume you're not a Catholic.
posted by credulous at 9:36 PM on April 30 [9 favorites]

My brothers and I built a secret blanket fort in a corner of the basement that my mom did not discover until a week later when we refused to come to dinner because it was meatloaf night.

Maybe Floorman escaped from prison because of the nasty meatloaf they served.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 12:16 AM on May 1 [1 favorite]

I know maintaining opsec is hard, but robbing your own ToysRUs seems like a lazy mistake.

I have met a few people who seemed to have this particular flavor of personality, and getting something over on someone else seems to be their whole raison d'etre. I suspect he decided to rob the Toys R Us he was living in not out of desperation or laziness, but for the thrill of "besting" the employees he'd been watching on camera and manipulating for months.

Also, what kind of store doesn't miss $7000 in merchandise???? Or someone changing the employee schedules to create gaps when they can freely roam the store????? Are there no cameras in Toy R Us??????

$7000 would be a rounding error for a megastore like Toys R Us, they probably had a grand of two of merchandise just misplaced on the wrong shelf by shoppers every day.
posted by nanny's striped stocking at 1:21 AM on May 1 [10 favorites]

the idea of living illegally inside a secret room in the roof of a big-box store has a certain appeal

Yeah really Gibsonian but how plausible IRL?

Apparently pretty plausible for about 6 months. Probably longer if you don’t try to rob the big box store next to you. And yes the guy is an asshole, but at least he was using some valuable abandoned real estate that was otherwise going to waste.
posted by TedW at 2:05 AM on May 1 [4 favorites]

I wonder what the Venn diagram of people who do this and people who grew up reading The Boxcar Children looks like.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:43 AM on May 1 [15 favorites]

I had a coworker years ago who had lived amongst the pipes between floors in a campus building for like a year when they were in college. No theft, etc, just trying to save money. They said it was warm, quiet, and all the necessary facilities were there in the building.
posted by njohnson23 at 6:26 AM on May 1 [19 favorites]

Personally I’d choose an Ikea
posted by gottabefunky at 9:13 AM on May 1 [10 favorites]

njohnson23, that scratches the same itch as the scene in Real Genius in which Mitch finds Lazlo Hollyfeld's secret hideout (after having previously seen Lazlo walk into his closet and disappearing). I'm reading Geoff Manaugh's book right now, and it's likewise compelling; there was a case in Memphis some time ago where there was some kind of cash storage facility (not a bank per se, maybe some place where armored car companies stored it?) that shared a wall with a place that was empty, and the thieves only had to take out a couple layers of ordinary brick.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:14 AM on May 1 [4 favorites]

I wonder if we need a Loopnet for un-utilized commercial space. Forget square footage, that's two-dimensional thinking -- m^3 FTW.
posted by credulous at 11:02 AM on May 1 [4 favorites]

While it's usually The Simpsons foreshadowing things, King of the Hill had Chuck Mangione living in the Arlen Mega Lo Mart in 2003.
posted by tommasz at 11:05 AM on May 1 [5 favorites]

I'm quite surprised at the lack of internal motion detectors at a big box store like that. Given how easy it would be for a person to hide in a stack of boxes while the staff closes up, I don't see how it is not mandatory.
posted by slogger at 11:59 AM on May 1

Personally I’d choose an Ikea

I wouldn't choose it. I'd just get trapped in it. Endlessly following their route through all the room displays until I collapse on a just ever so slightly uncomfortable bed or couch and fall asleep only to start over again when I wake up disoriented possibly heading the wrong way.
posted by srboisvert at 3:17 PM on May 1 [7 favorites]

MÄLARÖ by night, feels quite right
Got my KALLAX, living to the max
SÖDERHAMN dreams, I'm living obscene
FÖRHÖJA cart, I'm gettin' smart
posted by credulous at 5:16 PM on May 1 [2 favorites]

I wouldn't choose it. I'd just get trapped in it. Endlessly following their route through all the room displays until I collapse on a just ever so slightly uncomfortable bed or couch and fall asleep only to start over again when I wake up disoriented possibly heading the wrong way.

Obligatory SCP entry.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 6:04 PM on May 1 [3 favorites]

Also, what kind of store doesn't miss $7000 in merchandise?

I mean, they might only do inventory every year? I don't think they have an RFID thing in every piece of merchandise to know where every single thing is all the time.
posted by Snowishberlin at 5:58 AM on May 2

Based on the recommendations above I got A Burglar’s Guide to the City and it is definitely worth a read. Then last night we watched the 1981 James Caan film Thief, and it lines up very nicely with the ideas discussed in the book. I love it when everything comes together like that!
posted by TedW at 4:39 AM on May 3