Heard a wild story about a break in at a car dealership owned by a friend of ours.
The owner was in his house one night filling out his taxes. He needed a file he kept at the dealership so he drove over to pick it up. When he first got there, he noticed a side door was unlocked but went ahead inside. As he walked in he could smell the odor of something burning. He went looking around, turned down the heater in a secretary's office, but could still smell it. He then called his son to come up and help him check out some of the utility equipment to determine the source before they called the fire department. The son entered his office and saw a some equipment on the floor, including a blow torch, next to the owner's antique turn-of-the-century safe box. They quickly exited the building and called the police. As they were outside waiting, they noticed a car across the street at a gas station circling with no lights. Finding this suspicious, the owner drove over and jotted down the license plate to give to the cops. As it turned out, he correctly picked the car being driven by the girlfriend of the thief. I think they've got her in custody and are currently on the trail of the the boyfriend.
Here's the kicker: Remember the antique safe? The robber didn't get all the way burned through and managed to slip away unnoticed when the owner came inside. That probably saved his life...the robber's that is. A locksmith examined the 100 year old safe and found a canister of cyanide gas inside rigged to spray if the safe was broken into. This was purposefully designed long ago when such a concept was legal to kill any would-be robbers (the tumbler would have crushed the cyanide capsule had it been forcefully rolled without the correct combination). Now being illegal, the dealership owner could have very well been charged with negligent homicide had the thief been successful despite the owner having absolutely no clue about the booby trap.
So let this be a warning to anyone owning an antique safe: better have those things checked out and remove the cyanide gas capsules.
