“Don’t worry,” he told Jimmy. “You’ll see.”

June 9, 2015 10:05 AM

The Life and Times of Janos Birges
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering (4 comments total)

Wow. That was pretty fascinating. Amazing how ego causes so many criminals to fail, isn't it?
posted by Samizdata at 11:16 AM on June 9, 2015

I couldn't stop reading that. But for some reason I don't remember hearing about it at the time. It happened the year before my senior year in high school, so I am sure I had a lot of other things on my mind, but still, it was surely huge news. Just goes to show how different things were before the internet, and for that matter CNN (launched June 1, 1980).
posted by TedW at 11:44 AM on June 9, 2015

The thing that was astonishing to me was that Johnny Jr. and Jimmy Birges basically got off scot-free because they were "good kids". I mean, they did seem like they were under the thumb of their abusive dad, but I imagine that anyone involved today in blowing up a casino in an extortion attempt would be looking at prison time for it even if they did turn state's evidence. Much less taking pictures horsing around with the FBI agents. Different times, I guess.
posted by The Elusive Architeuthis at 8:18 PM on June 9, 2015

It struck me too. I wonder if maybe it's not better this way, though? They had a chance to go "oh, shit" and turn their lives around, be productive to society. I do think that their skin colour played a lot in the "good kids" calculation, and would do so today too.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:42 PM on June 9, 2015