Karma, or, Why Its Not Good To Steal From the Big Guy

[gofaster]

Kettle Thief Might Be Dead
By STEPHEN THOMPSON and VALERIE KALFRIN The Tampa Tribune
Published: Dec 6, 2005


 
 
TAMPA - The man accused of stealing Salvation Army kettles, most recently on Saturday, might have died in about 4 feet of brackish water in a West Tampa canal, police said Monday.

The Hillsborough County medical examiner will determine whether the body of a man in his 40s, found in a stolen car overturned in the canal, is that of Lee J. George, 41, officials said.

Earlier Monday, St. Petersburg police said George, whom they described as a crack-addicted ex-convict, was a suspect in the kettle robberies.

On Monday evening, detectives from the Tampa, St. Petersburg and Pinellas Park police departments were "comparing notes and looking at the possibility that it is the kettle bandit," Tampa police spokesman Joe Durkin said.

The car found in the canal was a Buick Century, which is what the robber was driving.

Investigators identified George as the robbery suspect after receiving a tip from someone who wants to remain anonymous, St. Petersburg police said.

George has been in prison repeatedly since 1984 on charges including burglary, drugs and dealing in stolen property, according to Florida Department of Corrections records.

He faces an attempted strong-arm robbery charge for trying to take a kettle from Carliemar White outside a Publix Super Market on Nov. 28, police said. White, 69, held on to the donations pot.

Three hours earlier, a man swiped a kettle outside a Winn-Dixie, police said. In all, a thief has taken or tried to take kettles five times - twice at a Wal-Mart on U.S. 19 in Pinellas Park and three times at Publix or Winn-Dixie supermarkets in St. Petersburg. The robberies occurred from Nov. 28 to Saturday.

Bell-ringer Sarah Clausen, 78, told News Channel 8 that she secured her kettle to its tripod with tape, but that only forced the culprit on Saturday to haul the whole setup to his getaway car, a green Buick Century.

About 1:15 p.m. Monday, a woman living in the 2100 block of Riverside Drive in Tampa, called police after a city wastewater employee spotted the overturned car in the canal at North Glenwood Drive and West Ross Avenue.

The woman told police she and her husband had not seen the vehicle during a walk about 5 p.m. Sunday along the canal, which feeds into the Hillsborough River, Durkin said. They also did not hear any commotion, he said.

Police divers found the man's body inside the 2002 Buick. Police learned the vehicle had been reported stolen from a Clearwater restaurant on Thanksgiving Day.

The owner, who was not identified, had left the keys inside for a valet.

The man in the car had no identification and no obvious signs of injury, Durkin said.

Police divers also recovered a half-empty bottle of alcohol and two prescription pill bottles from the car. Durkin said the pill bottles contained a small amount of marijuana.

[gofaster]

Today's follow-up story confirms it.

Demons Catch Up With Kettle Suspect
By BEN MONTGOMERY bmontgomery@tampatrib.com
Published: Dec 7, 2005


 
 
TAMPA - Lee George died despised. He was broke, addicted to cocaine and accused, in his final week of life, of stealing four charity kettles from elderly and disabled Salvation Army bell-ringers in Pinellas Park and St. Petersburg.

Police pulled his body on Monday afternoon from a stolen 2002 Buick Century resting bottom-up in a shallow canal in West Tampa. The 41-year-old had been there for some time. Drugs and alcohol were found in the car.

The final minutes of George's life are unknown. Police are waiting for toxicology test results and have not concluded whether he ended up in the canal by accident or otherwise.

His criminal record and interviews with his family and associates reveal a man who struggled for two decades with the demons of drug addiction.

"Cocaine," his brother Dale George said. "In one form or another. That paints his picture."

Dale George said his brother's problems began when he was at Pinellas Park High School, with fast cars, wild friends and drag races at the Sunshine Speedway. His first driving under the influence conviction came in 1984; he was 19. The following year brought convictions for grand larceny and drug possession. He served time in the late 1980s for child abuse. He was sentenced in 1994 to 12 years in prison for dealing in stolen property.

Dale George said his brother's relationship with his parents, who died recently, was not bad. His folks ushered him into rehabilitation centers and boot camps. His mother "got on his case when he was getting into trouble, but it was what a parent would do," Dale George said.

George stole change from his grandmother and checks from his sickly mother's caretaker, said Susan George, his former sister-in-law. He had a legitimate job at Montgomery Ward, but was fired for taking $10 from the store, she said.

"He never cared about anybody except himself," she said.

In 2002, George and an associate leased a shop in a Clearwater warehouse called Auto America Inc., where he started a Corvette-repair business called LeeVettes. If there were good years, Dale George said, it was then. He was clean. He was earning money.

Lorraine Dahl, an office manager at Auto America, called him a dreamer who was always trying to make a deal. "I honestly didn't know he was on drugs," she said.

"He wasn't a bad guy," Auto America owner John Gianfilippo said. "I don't think he had bad intentions. We never had any bad dealings with him. He just had bad habits."

Those bad habits came back when his 17-year-old son, Lee George Jr., died a year ago in a car accident, his family said.

Bill Bangs, 29, who operates a business in the space that used to belong to LeeVettes, said Lee George's customers have complained to him about being sold a bad car or a car with a bad title.

"Personally, I didn't like the guy at all," Bangs said. "I had customers [of his] come in flipping out on me."

Dale George said he knew his brother was using again because he would go for long periods without eating or sleeping. Dale George was watching the news Saturday when he saw his brother in a video surveillance tape from a Pinellas Wal-Mart. He had seen his brother only once in the past six weeks but knew Lee was the person the media dubbed the "Kettle Thief." Dale George called the police.

"I wanted them to catch him to prevent something like this," he said. "We make no excuses for what he has done. But he's still a person."

A wastewater worker saw the Buick in the canal off Riverside Drive about 1:15 p.m. Monday. Divers pulled the fully clothed body from the back seat. Tampa police spokesman Joe Durkin could not explain that; he said there was no indication anyone else was in the car.

The Buick was stolen Thanksgiving day from Frank Blitzer, 76, who had left it in front of the Beachcomber at about 5 p.m. for the valet to park, Clearwater police spokesman Wayne Shelor said.

The Hillsborough County Medical Examiner identified George through fingerprints and determined he drowned. The medical examiner's office has not pinpointed the time of death and is waiting for results of toxicology tests, Durkin said, adding there is a strong possibility he was intoxicated.

"It's a sad end to something like that," said Lisa Paulson, a development director with the Salvation Army. "He had this community ... mad."

Paulson said there was sympathy at the Salvation Army. "Look at how some of these lives turn out," she said. "We have some of these same people in our shelters, in our drug program. It is the Salvation Army that could have saved him, but there are always those who can't be reached."

[eagl]

There was a thread in here a while ago about how drug use was ok and drug users were just as reliable as anyone else...

*points finger at dead drug addict and charity donation thief in canal*  Really?

[Curval]

Has he got a "thing" for kettles?  I don't get it.  Are kettles used for smoking crack?  Was he a big tea drinker...what?

[lasersailor184]

Kettles are just a nickname.

What the set up is, is the following.

Tripod.
A bucket with lid hanging from the apex of the tripod.  The lid is concave with a hole in the bottom.

Salvation army can build up some good amounts of money in those kettles.  And since they are outside and more often then not manned by elderly people, it could be seen as an easy target as opposed to entering a store and robbing the cashier.

[Curval]

Ahhhh...okay, so he stole the cash they had collected which was inside these "kettles".  That makes more sense than a fantical tea brewer running amok.

Thanks.

[Eagler]

sad life

what's just as sad are the ppl on the tele stating now how they are happy he is dead ... must be thier Xmas spirit showing...

[lazs2]

eagl... are you saying that because coke is illegal that this guy didn't really exist or...

That if coke were legal and cheap this guy would still steal and rob to pay for it but that more like him would exist?

Are you saying that being illegal stops a lot of coke addicts from stealing for the coke or dissuades them from buying it?

lazs

[eagl]

I'm saying that if the dude wasn't a coke addict, he probably wouldn't have spent the last few months of his life stealing charity donations, with the end of his life coming when he flipped a stolen car into a canal.

Not many people who aren't drug addicts live and die that way.  It has nothing to do with the legality of drug use, rather it has everything to do with the effects drug addiction has on otherwise healthy "normal" people.  Addicts are less reliable than non-addicts, whether it's coke, pot, alcohol, or nicotine.

That's what I'm saying.  And this guy is a classic example of why I'm right, because it's very unlikely he would have lived and died this way if he wasn't an addict.

Edit - Yea, I included nicotine.  Today, a guy who works for me stepped out for a smoke break.  While he was gone, I fielded 2 phone calls on issues he is responsible for, resulting in me spending 20 minutes of my day doing his job.  That makes him a less reliable co-worker than a non-addict would be.  His addiction directly resulted in me doing his job for him while he got his fix.

[majic]

Originally posted by eagl
There was a thread in here a while ago about how drug use was ok and drug users were just as reliable as anyone else...

*points finger at dead drug addict and charity donation thief in canal*  Really?

The conversation was about tobacco IIRC.

[eagl]

Read above...  I included nicotine. Today, a guy who works for me stepped out for a smoke break. While he was gone, I fielded 2 phone calls on issues he is responsible for, resulting in me spending 20 minutes of my day doing his job. That makes him a less reliable co-worker than a non-addict would be. His addiction directly resulted in me doing his job for him while he got his fix.  This happens weekly, sometimes daily.

[Seagoon]

You'd be surprised... People like the late Lee J. George are far more common than you'd think.

We get several calls each day from people "seeking financial assistance" from out church. I always explain to them that we are a relatively poor congregation and that whether we are in the red or the black at the end of the month is in God's hands. I also explain that we are already assisting members of the church, from month to month. Unfortunately, roughly 99% of the people who contact us are scammers, and they will usually still press on in asking for money. I have one lady who calls every month, and gives the same convoluted lie to explain why she needs us to pay her rent lest she be evicted and help pay her electricity bill. She doesn't even have the sense to get her kids to stop playing X-box in the background. She is just one of many who open the yellow pages every month and literally work their way through the churches listed there.

We've given literally thousands in assistance, and I can honestly say in hindsight, that aside from people in the church, only two people whom we have helped turned out to be completely on the level.

There really are people out there who will do and say anything, just to con someone - no matter how needy that person or institution might be - out of their last dollar. They are gods in their own universe and really do think it is everyone elses duty to make it possible for them to sit around all day watching TV and frying their brains. Their kids are usually essentially ferral and will either follow them in grifting or move on to more serious crimes.

This kind of evil is nothing new, it doesn't even require drugs to get it started.  Usually the person involved will fall into a drug or alcohol abuse, but that is more of a symptom of the real problem. The root problem of people like Lee George is a hard and stony heart and there is an abundant supply of those out there. As his Granny rightly assessed it: "He never cared about anybody except himself"

- SEAGOON

[Pooh21]

Originally posted by Eagler
sad life

what's just as sad are the ppl on the tele stating now how they are happy he is dead ... must be thier Xmas spirit showing...

I am not happy he is dead. Just the thought that he spent the last 5 minutes of his wretched life upside down in the backseat of his car in cold wastewater trying to breath water, is kinda amusing.

[lazs2]

eagl...again... are you saying that... saying what?  coke is illegal and he got it anyway...  millions of addicts do.  

I have never met anyone who could not get drugs in America if they wanted to.

So how would legal and cheap drugs have made this guy any worse?

lazs

[eagl]

Lazs, you're not listening (reading).

It wouldn't matter if drugs were handed out on the corner by social workers.  Drug addicts still end up upside down in the ditch.

I honestly couldn't care less about the legality of drugs, although I would hope that the govt would have the common sense to continue to allow employers to discriminate on the basis of drug use as they do now.