One of my in-laws has a classic Star Trek pinball machine. It's OG Star Trek, not Next Gen, but I'm sure you would have enjoyed playing it as much as we did at Thanksgiving 😂
Simon, Why are all of your videos recently so quiet? I can hardly hear you on max volume. it's only your videos. the rest of youtube is at regular volume.
Simon, per your confusion for the strange and wide variations in prison sentences in the U.S., I've always found it helpful to think of each state as almost like a separate country.
I work as a baker. The company I work for has silent alarm levers in multiple places in the store. I baked overnight for several years and had one night when I noticed quite a bit of movement outside. I went to the door to see what was going on. There were police officers outside with there hands ready to draw their sidearms. I had inadvertently knocked one of alarms while moving product. I had no idea that had happened until I was surrounded. I can attest to how well the alarm system works. That gave me some comfort working by myself from 9:30pm to 5:00am in a neighborhood that has seen an increase in unbalanced unhoused people. Now I bake during the day and only have the pleasure of seeing officers when they come in for their morning coffee.
At first I was like: Damn, why do bakeries have such good security? Oh he means banker. Then I was like: Damn, why do bakeries have such good security?
@@TheCasualCriminalist I work at a bakery-cafe. It does about eight to nine thousand in sales in a day. The baked goods alone account for about three thousand a day. We also do catering. We even catered for a Google event that ended up costing 30,000 dollars. The caterers spent hundreds of hours preparing for it. They got 100 in tips to split between the four of them that worked on it.
Reminds me of the ex bank robber who was rating bank heist movie scenes. He said he never wanted to hurt anyone. It doesn't matter to the employees or customers because their money is all insured. He makes a point that while he didn't hurt anyone, he scared people and that's wrong.
Oh, I understand them. Dude got a longer sentence than Jared because in our country hurting shareholders' bottom lines is a more serious crime than sexually abusing children.
I used to do prison visiting. Maximum to minimum, about 3 times a week for five years. We got familiar with one of the guys in minimum. He told us how he held Pizza Hut up one night. He'd tried to hold it up on the Friday night, but it was so busy he couldn't get their attention. Saturday, he got in before it was too busy, held a gun and demanded money. The girl behind the counter handed it over and Dean left. Later, he was jailed for that and other robberies. He went away for a while. One day they needed flu vaccinations and he chose to get one. The nurse who came to give him his was taking his details and he thought she looked familiar. She looked at him and recognised him. He realised she was the girl he'd held up at Pizza Hut. He admitted it was him and apologised to her. He said she took the apology very well, but her smile widened as she reached for the needle to shove in his arm ... 😂. Not that what he did was funny, but he said she got hers back and he winced when she vaccinated him. He felt he deserved it.
Okay, yeah, I don't usually like revenge. But a tiny bit of embarrassment and some pain during a vaccination after apologizing? Seems entirely fair to me.
I always like when Danny writes the script on here, especially when the subject matter isn’t too dark. He even slipped in a ‘corporate company corporation’.
The number of times that phrase repeated like a perpetual time loop created an actual physical reaction out of me. I was cooking dinner listening/watching this, and literally put everything down each time after the first to rewind to make sure I heard right. Bravo. Simply, Bravo.
@@Darth-Claw-Killflex He regularly talks about how hard it is to do some of these stories. I don't think it's indignation, it's empathy. I do understand that some people are unfamiliar with the concept of empathy, so it makes sense that you might not recognize it. Even as a viewer, there are only so many gruesome murders and p-file stories I can handle listening to. I love these heist stories!
If you use a gun in the crime, a whole lot of years get added. Speaking of nothing, I can imagine Simon yelling out PEDRO LOPEZ or JARED VOGLE in his deathbed someday. He is shook. I find that even more comforting than fried chicken.
Haven't even watched the video yet, but I just wanted to say: Simon, give your writers a raise. The title alone had me clicking the thumbnail and preparing my popcorn xD
I think that this is my favorite episode so far. So much more lighthearted than usual and, as Simon says, is an absolute legend. P.s. Simon please do a video on MLK on this channel. I'd love to hear that whole story. I feel like we don't hear about MLK enough anymore.
Totally agreed. Simon should specialise in crafty heists and ingenious criminals. They are entertaining and give us a much fuzzier feeling than the ones that give Simon PTSD.
@@Vee_of_the_Weald Yes! 100% agree! I love the heist episodes, they’re my favourite by far. Can’t believe people would actually prefer the raping, murdering sickos over that. Now I’m sad this crafty guy got such a harsh sentence…
Is it not a bit messed up to y'all that this guy held multiple people (and likely children given his targets and frequency) at gunpoint? People take threatening innocent lives with death way too lightly, this guy deserved at least a decade in prison for his first spree alone.
I like these types of stories. I do appreciate how Simon and his writers do handle the more violent ones, by focusing more CSI than Saw but these more caper focused ones are great
You’re lucky, Simon…Since the pandemic, most places aren’t open as late as the used to be. We own a small business and were open all through Covid…It was insane, by the time we closed at around 8pm, basically EVERY fast food place was closed, and supermarkets were closing around the same time. So we were stuck with only gas station food(get go or sheetz) Then after all the initial Covid craziness, places were still closing around 10…Exactly when we would close, so we were again fucked for food…A lot of places that used to be 24 hours a day are not doing that anymore… Things are getting better, but still not back to normal😕
With the staggering amount of RUclips-channels Simon has, he must feel like he's covered a lot of this stuff before. Almost like he's trapped in a perpetual time-loop...
Jeff was actually a decent guy outside his night time exploits. He was one of my sergeants in the Army. Always took care of his soldiers. We were on a training mission right before he got caught. Was supposed to meet us at the airport after getting permission to " go see buddies at Ft. Bragg". He never showed up and we all found out about it on the news a few days later. Maybe the rush to knock off two jobs before catching our flight was what got him caught.
I would love to here Simon take on Jack 'the lad' Sheppard. London's most inept chriminals but best prison escapees. The way he broke out of some of them read more like fiction than truth, all bed sheets and dressing as washer women.
You need to do the story of Ken McElroy he was shot by two different guns in front of 30 people and they all said they did not see anything. Simon will lose his mind
@@guy_autordie Not condoning vigilante behaviour, but when you've got someone like McElroy and the authorities won't even slap his wrist, well it was inevitable that matters would be handled accordingly. My only complaint is that nothing happened to said authorities who let him get away with it.
So a target and dollar tree I work at in Oxon Hill, Maryland were both broken into within the past two months. The guy is also unknown, he came in through the roof of target and through the wall of a neighboring store to the dollar tree. This is crazy watching this video and hearing that the target and a couple other stores in the shopping center get hit around the same year
Even the truth can be a perfect cover for illegal money, an old college mate had a lot of money constanly and once told perfectly nonchalant in a deadpan tone: "it's drugs". 3 years later his arrest was on the news and all I could say was "Wait he was serious about the drugs?"
There are no daily inventories at Toys R Us. This is a huge store with tens of thousands of items. It would take the entire staff days to count everything. They likely did a yearly inventory.
Yah. Even ORiellys does a yearly inventory & it takes a whole week to set up, count, then take down. As well as extra people to come in to help. That store isn't big at all (but has a lot of nuts & bolts to count) & little hand tools. Toys R Us, I couldn't even imagine. But toys are more fun to count. Imo.
I lived in Sacramento, Folsom (which is near El Dorado Hills) around the time this took place and have never heard of this mad lad. Not going to lie, it is fairly smart to keep calm and polite during such stressful events. Makes it look more like you’re in control and I’m sure people listened better and they wouldn’t freeze up with fear.
As a McDonald's employee, I think the most impressive thing is that he found stores that had walk-in fridges with working doors. Ours barely closes and absolutely doesn't lock, even if he wedged something into it it wouldn't work. Oh, and the freezer has a delivery door in it that can only be opened from the inside. It is the only door in the store that consistently works as intended. And, at least at our store, morning would be the worst time because that is the time we have to stock the front, so we're constantly running the entire length of the store trying to get products up where we need them before people start coming in. That said, our reaction to someone dropping in from the ceiling would either be "please, take the money. I haven't had a day off in four years and I need the worker's comp" or "Excuse me, I'm BUSY. Now either pick up a box and help or get our of my way. The store isn't going to stock itself" and not even notice that he's armed because we've been up since 4am and are running on pure adrenaline because we're in Survival Mode. Also, yeah, Thanksgiving is the ONLY holiday McDonald's is closed for. Maybe short hours on Christmas, but I'm pretty sure we're still open. Hard to tell, I'm off specific days of the week anyway and those have a tendency to coincide with holidays so I'm never working those days anyway.
I would just like to say I work graveyards at a mill cleaning up sawdust. I enjoy these videos. Listen to almost 8 hours of them a day as well as decoding the unknown I would like to give a shout out to the writers and also Jen for masterfully editing your videos together as well as yourself. Simon, you are one health storyteller and I do love your asides and little rants. It makes me laugh and it helps with my ADD. Well listening. Congratulations everyone! Hello David, hopefully you see this I would shout out some more names but I don't want to get them wrong. I have as good of memory as Simon when it comes to things of this nature.
I clean houses and just discovered this channel. It made the day so much more enjoyable. Can't wait to binge listen while I work. @Laylend, hope you're day/evening/night is going well. Keep being kind to yourself. You're valuable and cherished. 🙏😊💕 Edit: that damn spell check 😅
This was perfect! So much 💖 Danny! Finally, a break from the horror, and a charming funny quirky story. Great reading Simon, and Jen as always brilliant editing!
Usually by the end of these I feel depressed by some horrific monstrosities committed by the episode’s antagonist. This time I started to feel saddened towards the end because I didn’t want the absolute legend to get caught.
This was really fascinating and very well written. Also a great relief as I recently watched the Jared one and Simon looked so broken at the end I was worried. It's so good to know he was able to record this lighter episode later the same day as its too much to always have dark cases in your head. Fantastic work as ever by the whole team!!
One thing I really appreciate about this community, is the amount of attention people here give to the folks behind the scenes. Of course, Simon mentions at the start of the episode, and perhaps once or twice during it, the names of the writers and editor Jen; but for a channel that has a Face and a Voice belonging to a single man, the community in general knows to give credit to the whole team, much more than you see on average. It feels nice. PS this episode was a much-needed breath of fresh air from the violence and horrors of the recent videos. I wouldn't mind seeing a couple more "Roofmen" from time to time.
This is CRAZY, I'm from North Carolina and have lived in Charlotte for YEARS and I've never heard this story! Thanks Simon and Co! Also, yeah this dude does sound like a bit of a legend 😆
This reminds me of a Canadian burglar named Gerald Blanchard. He’s got a pretty wild story of his own. Might be an interesting guy to make an episode about.
Simon, please do an episode on Valerio Viccei. He was the ringleader in one of the largest bank heists of all time, the Knightsbridge Security Deposit robbery. We love these heists episodes! 🙏 ❤️
Love this channel. Just stumbled onto it. Been a big fan of top 10s and decoding the unknown for a while. You asked in a video of a few weeks ago months ago years ago year ago. It doesn't matter. I ramble I listen to you on RUclips premium at work. It's fun you get me through my day. Um Night actually starting sound like you come to think of it. Thank you for your entertainment.
Unless you work at a bank or a some other high value financial institution, the police rarely actually respond to silent alarms.I worked at a drugstore and the pharmacy was being robbed. They pressed the silent alarm and the most we got was a phone call about 5 minutes after the guy left asking us "you guys still need help? No? Okay, let us know if something happens again."
I had the opposite experience! I worked at a bank where one of the tellers would regularly hit the silent alarm with her leg by mistake, and the cops came every single time and got increasingly annoyed each time, lol
My goodness, you make me laugh. I work in a State Prison and listen to you after work every day to lighten my mood. This one was perfect. It's not what you say it's how you say it. As I'm driving home, I'm sure people think I'm crazy as I'm laughing alone in my car. Thank you for helping my mental health 🤣
Hats off to Danny on this one, kind of feel like this is the best written episode yet! And of course, brought to life by whistleboi and Jen. Dream team on this one
My late husband, a police officer, worked security at a Mcdonald's downtown as an extra job. No roofmen in Ohio, though. Some people work way harder at crime than a regular job would require!
Fans of avantgarde jazz/noise are going to be asking why he took on the name of famous saxophonist John Zorn, who has literally released 100s of albums during his musical career. I will say it's awfully nice to finally have an episode where the criminal doesn't actually do awful, violent crimes to others.
i know this is the wrong channel but on Brain Blaze there's an account pretending to be you guys replying to comments with the typical "you won a contest" spam, just thought I'd give y'all a heads up in case it extends to the rest of the Whistleverse.
That employee with a bucket most likely lost his job for possibly getting everyone killed. Just let them take the money. Your life and others are more valuable than money that is probably insured.
You should do the disaperence of Shannon Matthews and the man who kidnapped her. It is a really odd case. I remember it on the TV in England when I grew up.
I'm a native to the Charlotte area, and I vaguely remember hearing about this as a child. It was such a wild story that I always kinda assumed it was an urban legend, to be honest 😆
Sweet! I know I recommended this a bit ago in one of the more depressing episodes. I doubt this was selected because of my comment, but I'll choose to believe otherwise!
As someone who dealt with inventory at toysrus on the store level and completed shrink reports. The fact that no one notices the massive amounts of product loss is incredible.
A suggestion for a non-murder case would potentially be covering McKaney Manor in The Casual Criminalist format. I think it's Liam who's the resident law-expert and it'd be really interesting to see him dissect the legality of it from the original wavers to the payment being in dog food rather than money to skirt certain laws to whatever Russ did related to tax evasion in California. It would especially be interesting to see him dissect the legality of the infamous 40-page waver that was leaked, and if it would stand up in court because if it wouldn't, would that make McKaney Manor illegal? Plus, it'd be fun to see Simon react to some of the batshit crazy things included in that waver like the barrel roll down a mountain into a pond or shooting you up with hallucinogens or using "MK Ultra Mind Control".
Pistol whip used to mean to whip with the barrel of the gun, what is generally called pistol whipping today, using the heft of the whole gun to club someone was called "buffaloing". Common usage pretty much means using any part of a gun to hit someone is now refered to as the umbrella term pistol whip now.
Yes Simon America used to close on holidays, we even used to close on Sundays in some areas and it used to be illegal to force an employee to work on Sundays if they attended church😊
Simon! Popped in here with two suggestions: 1) Isabella Gardner Museum Heist (a good unsolved heist story with NO murder! Yay!) 2) The Story of The Boys on the Tracks (this is a story where it's a death investigation that goes down a rabbit hole of craziness - you'll need ALL the "allegedly"s for this one but it's a worthwhile read I think you and the team will excel with)
I'm sure the US ran things differently, but in the UK we didn't do thorough stock checks very often at Toys R Us. We'd have to do weekly checks for ticket items, but that was to ensure the correct number of tickers were on display. Otherwise, stock taking was only done annually, over a day and a half, around mid January. The whole store was done in one go, it took hours of counting and recording. One guy got away with theft by leaving empty games boxes in the bottom of a display cabinet, which were found, but as our manager said "well I know it isn't you and he hasn't got a bad bone in his body". Their security was awful.
I miss when cas crim was my sleep podcast/RUclips show. But now, the volume levels are all over the place and the memes are loud enough to jar you out of half-sleep.
The writing, editing, and narration in this episode were amazing for a light-hearted cas crim. It pleases me to know that Danny still writes for Simon, trapped in the blazement 'mindlessly following a entirely predictable cycle of monotonous events, doomed to repeat the same actions over and over again. Almost as if he was trapped in a perpetual time loop.' 😋
Most businesses are either closed or close early on Thanksgiving in the US. Most grocery stores here will advertisr as being open until noon only for those last minute dinner emergencies. The thing to remember however, is that the following day is back Friday. Nowadays that doesn't mean as much thanks to internet ordering but it held a lot of significant up until recent years. Most people not in retail will get the day off but thsoe who do are going ro be working extra as that is the day all the big sales occur. We would have masses of people lining up outside stores for even days on end and yes, there were some serious injuries. The shopping frenzy for artificially limited supplied discount items was so large you would get stampeding, fights and even armed assaults as a result. It was serious business with the emphasis on buisness. Anyone and everyone from the 90s would have HATED working retail on Black Friday but the companies loved it. That McDonald's may have been closed that day but you can bet the following one would have been packed with hungry shoppers trying to get a quick egg sandwhich before rushing off to the next store. As bad as it is to attempt a ribbery on a closed day, I think doing so on a Black Friday packed with crazed shoppers looking to eat and move on, would be worse.
About the "robbing the store after closing time": I work at a supermarket chain in Europe, so idk if it is any different at a fast food chain (especially some place different), but here we store the whole earnings, change and cash registers in a big safe. Once per week a company that transports the money to the main office (or wherever it's stored) comes and picks up the earnings and brings us fresh change. So it really depends on which day you choose to rob a chain store afaik. However, we also have a silent alarm system running at night until opening the store (in case of a robbery in daytime, we have strict protocols on what to do) and believe me, the cops WILL show up (yes, of course I accidentally triggered it once in the morning when I had to unlock the store the first time alone... and then I panicked 😐)
On the question of "how did Toys'R'Us not realize someone was stealing thousands of dollars in merchandise from the store?", a lot of American 'big box' retailers allow for a certain amount of "shrinkage" - basically, a monetary amount of stuff that people are inevitably going to shoplift, before the store managers will start getting suspicious or corporate will start scrutinizing the store more closely. This ties directly into the point about people acting in set patterns: as long as the inventory totals are only short by the shrinkage allowance or under, the expected reaction is just "well, we can't catch every kid who stuffs a toy under their shirt and walks out with it". Also, this was the 90s - computerized inventory tracking and accounting systems weren't *nearly* as good back then, so it might have been very difficult for anyone to fully put together how much merchandise was actually missing without doing quite a comprehensive review.
![Kodak Black - Catch Fire [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/A4ch-olIuZo/mqdefault.jpg)
![YoungBoy Never Broke Again - Sneaking [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1ILUps2zDFU/mqdefault.jpg)
Get a 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D3K2 & 5 travel packs FREE with your first purchase! - athleticgreens.com/tcc
ATHLETIC GREENS IS (allegedly) PEOPLE!
ITS PEOPLE! ATHLETIC GREENS IS PEOPLE!
One of my in-laws has a classic Star Trek pinball machine. It's OG Star Trek, not Next Gen, but I'm sure you would have enjoyed playing it as much as we did at Thanksgiving 😂
Simon, Why are all of your videos recently so quiet? I can hardly hear you on max volume. it's only your videos. the rest of youtube is at regular volume.
Simon, per your confusion for the strange and wide variations in prison sentences in the U.S., I've always found it helpful to think of each state as almost like a separate country.
We all appreciate the change of pace in this episode. And Danny’s humour with Jens edits are perfect
Don't speak for everyone.
@@bth120chill
Agreed
Also agreed
Same!
I work as a baker. The company I work for has silent alarm levers in multiple places in the store. I baked overnight for several years and had one night when I noticed quite a bit of movement outside. I went to the door to see what was going on. There were police officers outside with there hands ready to draw their sidearms. I had inadvertently knocked one of alarms while moving product. I had no idea that had happened until I was surrounded. I can attest to how well the alarm system works. That gave me some comfort working by myself from 9:30pm to 5:00am in a neighborhood that has seen an increase in unbalanced unhoused people. Now I bake during the day and only have the pleasure of seeing officers when they come in for their morning coffee.
Cmon. We all know they're co.img to the bakery for coffee because they need their doughnut fix. 😆
I did that once at the local Pub trying to see who's car this keypad button thing unlocked. Last time I was asked to do the door.
At first I was like: Damn, why do bakeries have such good security? Oh he means banker.
Then I was like: Damn, why do bakeries have such good security?
@@TheCasualCriminalist I work at a bakery-cafe. It does about eight to nine thousand in sales in a day. The baked goods alone account for about three thousand a day. We also do catering. We even catered for a Google event that ended up costing 30,000 dollars. The caterers spent hundreds of hours preparing for it. They got 100 in tips to split between the four of them that worked on it.
@@TheCasualCriminalist I think he does mean baker. Cops don't go to the bank for coffee, do they?
I always like these ones. Heists and clever criminals who try not to hurt anyone. It's hard not to root for them a little bit
Especially when you know they're going to a US prison. Few people deserve that.
Reminds me of the ex bank robber who was rating bank heist movie scenes. He said he never wanted to hurt anyone. It doesn't matter to the employees or customers because their money is all insured. He makes a point that while he didn't hurt anyone, he scared people and that's wrong.
Yeah these are my favourites
Simon: "I don't understand American prison sentences"
American People: "Neither do we"
My exact thought!
Ditto!
Oh, I understand them. Dude got a longer sentence than Jared because in our country hurting shareholders' bottom lines is a more serious crime than sexually abusing children.
It doesn't help that each state has it's own rules for sentencing.
It's easy. America cares more about money (and property) than people.
At last, an episode that hasn't left Simon traumatized.
I used to do prison visiting. Maximum to minimum, about 3 times a week for five years. We got familiar with one of the guys in minimum. He told us how he held Pizza Hut up one night. He'd tried to hold it up on the Friday night, but it was so busy he couldn't get their attention. Saturday, he got in before it was too busy, held a gun and demanded money. The girl behind the counter handed it over and Dean left. Later, he was jailed for that and other robberies. He went away for a while. One day they needed flu vaccinations and he chose to get one. The nurse who came to give him his was taking his details and he thought she looked familiar. She looked at him and recognised him. He realised she was the girl he'd held up at Pizza Hut. He admitted it was him and apologised to her. He said she took the apology very well, but her smile widened as she reached for the needle to shove in his arm ... 😂. Not that what he did was funny, but he said she got hers back and he winced when she vaccinated him. He felt he deserved it.
Okay, yeah, I don't usually like revenge. But a tiny bit of embarrassment and some pain during a vaccination after apologizing? Seems entirely fair to me.
The guy should have been hired as a security expert. He would be a legend at that.
I always like when Danny writes the script on here, especially when the subject matter isn’t too dark. He even slipped in a ‘corporate company corporation’.
I came to the comments looking for someone who mentioned corporate company corporation! I laughed so hard I had to rewind the video lol
Also the star trek pinball machine is an OGBB throwback bc simon mentioned that WAYYY back in early business blazes
Danny is straight up just a genuinely funny writer.
Perfect reference
The number of times that phrase repeated like a perpetual time loop created an actual physical reaction out of me. I was cooking dinner listening/watching this, and literally put everything down each time after the first to rewind to make sure I heard right.
Bravo. Simply, Bravo.
I love how Simon has seamlessly transitioned from "Don't document your crimes." to "Here's how to commit better crimes." 🤣🤣
Advice to criminals-- by Simon Whistler
It's nice to see Simon getting a break from the usual more gruesome scripts
No!
Why, no one MAKES him do ANY of these topics? Spare me the third person indignation.
@@Darth-Claw-Killflex He regularly talks about how hard it is to do some of these stories. I don't think it's indignation, it's empathy. I do understand that some people are unfamiliar with the concept of empathy, so it makes sense that you might not recognize it.
Even as a viewer, there are only so many gruesome murders and p-file stories I can handle listening to. I love these heist stories!
I think they are all "cold reads". That's what he say. I don't think he always knows what he's getting into.
The last 10 been like that 😒
I really want the Roofman to have a sidekick named Shingle Boy
😅
😂
If you use a gun in the crime, a whole lot of years get added.
Speaking of nothing, I can imagine Simon yelling out PEDRO LOPEZ or JARED VOGLE in his deathbed someday. He is shook. I find that even more comforting than fried chicken.
Haven't even watched the video yet, but I just wanted to say: Simon, give your writers a raise. The title alone had me clicking the thumbnail and preparing my popcorn xD
Danny, I love all your scripts but this one is truly a masterpiece, hats off, it's so witty.
He remembered Jen this week! Thank you Danny and Jen for your work and continued support. #spartanstrong #msu
I think that this is my favorite episode so far. So much more lighthearted than usual and, as Simon says, is an absolute legend.
P.s. Simon please do a video on MLK on this channel. I'd love to hear that whole story. I feel like we don't hear about MLK enough anymore.
Totally agreed.
Simon should specialise in crafty heists and ingenious criminals. They are entertaining and give us a much fuzzier feeling than the ones that give Simon PTSD.
@@Vee_of_the_Weald Yes! 100% agree! I love the heist episodes, they’re my favourite by far. Can’t believe people would actually prefer the raping, murdering sickos over that. Now I’m sad this crafty guy got such a harsh sentence…
Is it not a bit messed up to y'all that this guy held multiple people (and likely children given his targets and frequency) at gunpoint? People take threatening innocent lives with death way too lightly, this guy deserved at least a decade in prison for his first spree alone.
I like these types of stories. I do appreciate how Simon and his writers do handle the more violent ones, by focusing more CSI than Saw but these more caper focused ones are great
You’re lucky, Simon…Since the pandemic, most places aren’t open as late as the used to be. We own a small business and were open all through Covid…It was insane, by the time we closed at around 8pm, basically EVERY fast food place was closed, and supermarkets were closing around the same time. So we were stuck with only gas station food(get go or sheetz) Then after all the initial Covid craziness, places were still closing around 10…Exactly when we would close, so we were again fucked for food…A lot of places that used to be 24 hours a day are not doing that anymore…
Things are getting better, but still not back to normal😕
With the staggering amount of RUclips-channels Simon has, he must feel like he's covered a lot of this stuff before. Almost like he's trapped in a perpetual time-loop...
Okay, campers, rise and shine, and don't forget your booties cause it's cooold out there today.
@@TheCasualCriminalist there’s no hot water!
“Well there wouldn’t be today…”
I think the McDonald’s thing was in a Today I Found Out or Xplored video
Honestly, Simon is probably the most prolific RUclipsr I watch. The amount of content he makes is astounding.
Brilliant
Jeff was actually a decent guy outside his night time exploits. He was one of my sergeants in the Army. Always took care of his soldiers. We were on a training mission right before he got caught. Was supposed to meet us at the airport after getting permission to " go see buddies at Ft. Bragg". He never showed up and we all found out about it on the news a few days later. Maybe the rush to knock off two jobs before catching our flight was what got him caught.
I would love to here Simon take on Jack 'the lad' Sheppard. London's most inept chriminals but best prison escapees. The way he broke out of some of them read more like fiction than truth, all bed sheets and dressing as washer women.
You need to do the story of Ken McElroy he was shot by two different guns in front of 30 people and they all said they did not see anything. Simon will lose his mind
He was the one going around terrorising his neighbours and the police wouldn't do anything about him, wasn't he?
oh! that guy! Yes
@@guy_autordie Not condoning vigilante behaviour, but when you've got someone like McElroy and the authorities won't even slap his wrist, well it was inevitable that matters would be handled accordingly. My only complaint is that nothing happened to said authorities who let him get away with it.
He's covered him briefly on another channel but he probably won't remember lol
Simon would need to be separated from the basement writers when he loses his mind!
Holy sh*t a friend and I knew this guy!
Thanks Simon and Co. I'm glad this isn't a murderous one for it to be so close to home!
Tell us more pls!!😮
was he really that chill of a dude?
@@2yoyoyo1Unplugged yeah, met him at a Christmas parade, just bummed a cig from my friend and just stood there watching the floats go by
So a target and dollar tree I work at in Oxon Hill, Maryland were both broken into within the past two months. The guy is also unknown, he came in through the roof of target and through the wall of a neighboring store to the dollar tree. This is crazy watching this video and hearing that the target and a couple other stores in the shopping center get hit around the same year
Even the truth can be a perfect cover for illegal money, an old college mate had a lot of money constanly and once told perfectly nonchalant in a deadpan tone: "it's drugs". 3 years later his arrest was on the news and all I could say was "Wait he was serious about the drugs?"
Walt and Hank in a nutshell
This is great 😂
There are no daily inventories at Toys R Us. This is a huge store with tens of thousands of items. It would take the entire staff days to count everything. They likely did a yearly inventory.
Yah. Even ORiellys does a yearly inventory & it takes a whole week to set up, count, then take down. As well as extra people to come in to help.
That store isn't big at all (but has a lot of nuts & bolts to count) & little hand tools.
Toys R Us, I couldn't even imagine. But toys are more fun to count. Imo.
You mean _were_ right? Pretty sure Toys R Us is a dead company.
Danny’s always been one of your best writers, but this might have been his best work 👏🏻
I lived in Sacramento, Folsom (which is near El Dorado Hills) around the time this took place and have never heard of this mad lad. Not going to lie, it is fairly smart to keep calm and polite during such stressful events. Makes it look more like you’re in control and I’m sure people listened better and they wouldn’t freeze up with fear.
1:05 - Chapter 1 - The charming bandit who lived in a toy store
2:55 - Mid roll ads
4:45 - Back to the video
Normally you do better than this
As a McDonald's employee, I think the most impressive thing is that he found stores that had walk-in fridges with working doors. Ours barely closes and absolutely doesn't lock, even if he wedged something into it it wouldn't work. Oh, and the freezer has a delivery door in it that can only be opened from the inside. It is the only door in the store that consistently works as intended. And, at least at our store, morning would be the worst time because that is the time we have to stock the front, so we're constantly running the entire length of the store trying to get products up where we need them before people start coming in. That said, our reaction to someone dropping in from the ceiling would either be "please, take the money. I haven't had a day off in four years and I need the worker's comp" or "Excuse me, I'm BUSY. Now either pick up a box and help or get our of my way. The store isn't going to stock itself" and not even notice that he's armed because we've been up since 4am and are running on pure adrenaline because we're in Survival Mode. Also, yeah, Thanksgiving is the ONLY holiday McDonald's is closed for. Maybe short hours on Christmas, but I'm pretty sure we're still open. Hard to tell, I'm off specific days of the week anyway and those have a tendency to coincide with holidays so I'm never working those days anyway.
I would just like to say I work graveyards at a mill cleaning up sawdust. I enjoy these videos. Listen to almost 8 hours of them a day as well as decoding the unknown I would like to give a shout out to the writers and also Jen for masterfully editing your videos together as well as yourself. Simon, you are one health storyteller and I do love your asides and little rants. It makes me laugh and it helps with my ADD. Well listening. Congratulations everyone! Hello David, hopefully you see this I would shout out some more names but I don't want to get them wrong. I have as good of memory as Simon when it comes to things of this nature.
I clean houses and just discovered this channel. It made the day so much more enjoyable. Can't wait to binge listen while I work.
@Laylend, hope you're day/evening/night is going well.
Keep being kind to yourself. You're valuable and cherished. 🙏😊💕
Edit: that damn spell check 😅
This was a delightfoul episode. Really enjoyed a non violent one after all the horrific ones.
Glad that you could escape the darkness for a bit with this one! Good work Danny!
This was perfect! So much 💖 Danny! Finally, a break from the horror, and a charming funny quirky story. Great reading Simon, and Jen as always brilliant editing!
This was a nice break from the murderers. Please do more like this!
Usually by the end of these I feel depressed by some horrific monstrosities committed by the episode’s antagonist. This time I started to feel saddened towards the end because I didn’t want the absolute legend to get caught.
Watching all of the Whistlers channels is almost like being caught in a perpetual time loop... Of Simon.
How appropriate that a guy named Jeffrey lived in Toys R Us, where the mascot's name was Geoffrey.
This was really fascinating and very well written. Also a great relief as I recently watched the Jared one and Simon looked so broken at the end I was worried. It's so good to know he was able to record this lighter episode later the same day as its too much to always have dark cases in your head. Fantastic work as ever by the whole team!!
I know someone that is currently in the same pod as him and this guy is as good as it gets he’s very intelligent
Spiff has now even exploited The Casual Criminalist... What a perfectly balanced episode
Oh fuck yeah, it's not a serial killer! THANK YOU!
One thing I really appreciate about this community, is the amount of attention people here give to the folks behind the scenes. Of course, Simon mentions at the start of the episode, and perhaps once or twice during it, the names of the writers and editor Jen; but for a channel that has a Face and a Voice belonging to a single man, the community in general knows to give credit to the whole team, much more than you see on average. It feels nice.
PS this episode was a much-needed breath of fresh air from the violence and horrors of the recent videos. I wouldn't mind seeing a couple more "Roofmen" from time to time.
Thank you for all your channels and hard work Simon ditto for the writers and editors
This is CRAZY, I'm from North Carolina and have lived in Charlotte for YEARS and I've never heard this story! Thanks Simon and Co!
Also, yeah this dude does sound like a bit of a legend 😆
I am from Belmont and I have never heard of it either
I LOVE this dude! I hope it doesn’t end horribly.
How has this guy’s story not been turned into a movie?
Tom Hardy would be a good choice to play him
@@JKribbitfilming starts end of October in Charlotte, starring Channing Tatum.
Easily my favorite episode yet! I was rooting for this guy the whole time.
This reminds me of a Canadian burglar named Gerald Blanchard. He’s got a pretty wild story of his own. Might be an interesting guy to make an episode about.
Simon, please do an episode on Valerio Viccei. He was the ringleader in one of the largest bank heists of all time, the Knightsbridge Security Deposit robbery. We love these heists episodes! 🙏 ❤️
I wish more of your stories came from a broader selection of countries around the world.
Love this channel. Just stumbled onto it. Been a big fan of top 10s and decoding the unknown for a while. You asked in a video of a few weeks ago months ago years ago year ago. It doesn't matter. I ramble I listen to you on RUclips premium at work. It's fun you get me through my day. Um Night actually starting sound like you come to think of it. Thank you for your entertainment.
Unless you work at a bank or a some other high value financial institution, the police rarely actually respond to silent alarms.I worked at a drugstore and the pharmacy was being robbed. They pressed the silent alarm and the most we got was a phone call about 5 minutes after the guy left asking us "you guys still need help? No? Okay, let us know if something happens again."
I had the opposite experience! I worked at a bank where one of the tellers would regularly hit the silent alarm with her leg by mistake, and the cops came every single time and got increasingly annoyed each time, lol
@@kristinasnowflake they literally said “unless you work at a bank...”
@Jen DuBay Yes I'm aware...?
@@kristinasnowflake Lucky! Lol I think they only respond to banks quickly because it's THEIR money being stolen! Lawl
Roofman is an absolute legend.
This genuinely makes me glad I live now and not then.
If you're sane and thoughtful, there is literally no time in which you want to go BACK to.
What a sweetheart. I hope he does get a chance to help society some way.
Always love hearing from Danny outside the Blazement
This channel is massively underrated, brother and brothers team stay awesome and keep them videos coming. Much respect
My goodness, you make me laugh. I work in a State Prison and listen to you after work every day to lighten my mood. This one was perfect. It's not what you say it's how you say it. As I'm driving home, I'm sure people think I'm crazy as I'm laughing alone in my car. Thank you for helping my mental health 🤣
I grew up in Belmont North Carolina and Still Eat at the McDonald's he got caught at all the time. I love that you made a video on this!
I am from Belmont as well, the crazy thing is i don't remember this happening
Hats off to Danny on this one, kind of feel like this is the best written episode yet! And of course, brought to life by whistleboi and Jen. Dream team on this one
A story I've never heard, AWESOME!
My late husband, a police officer, worked security at a Mcdonald's downtown as an extra job. No roofmen in Ohio, though. Some people work way harder at crime than a regular job would require!
I much prefer these types of episodes, thanks!
Fans of avantgarde jazz/noise are going to be asking why he took on the name of famous saxophonist John Zorn, who has literally released 100s of albums during his musical career.
I will say it's awfully nice to finally have an episode where the criminal doesn't actually do awful, violent crimes to others.
This was my favorite episode of The Casual Criminalist by far!!
i know this is the wrong channel but on Brain Blaze there's an account pretending to be you guys replying to comments with the typical "you won a contest" spam, just thought I'd give y'all a heads up in case it extends to the rest of the Whistleverse.
That employee with a bucket most likely lost his job for possibly getting everyone killed. Just let them take the money. Your life and others are more valuable than money that is probably insured.
You should do the disaperence of Shannon Matthews and the man who kidnapped her. It is a really odd case. I remember it on the TV in England when I grew up.
Really enjoying a couple of your channels! Your purple light looks like a Lcorice all Sort too!
I love the O.G.B.B. reference Danny makes at 31:50!
Thanks again Simon
I'm a native to the Charlotte area, and I vaguely remember hearing about this as a child. It was such a wild story that I always kinda assumed it was an urban legend, to be honest 😆
That was so well written! X
Sweet! I know I recommended this a bit ago in one of the more depressing episodes. I doubt this was selected because of my comment, but I'll choose to believe otherwise!
We’ll just imagine you were the first or final person to request it. Truly pivotal 🎉
Very nice, Danny!
This episode was just charming!
This was one of my favourite episodes
So glad for the change of pace with this episode. Nice to have some robberies instead of murder and worse
As someone who dealt with inventory at toysrus on the store level and completed shrink reports. The fact that no one notices the massive amounts of product loss is incredible.
Thank you
A suggestion for a non-murder case would potentially be covering McKaney Manor in The Casual Criminalist format. I think it's Liam who's the resident law-expert and it'd be really interesting to see him dissect the legality of it from the original wavers to the payment being in dog food rather than money to skirt certain laws to whatever Russ did related to tax evasion in California. It would especially be interesting to see him dissect the legality of the infamous 40-page waver that was leaked, and if it would stand up in court because if it wouldn't, would that make McKaney Manor illegal?
Plus, it'd be fun to see Simon react to some of the batshit crazy things included in that waver like the barrel roll down a mountain into a pond or shooting you up with hallucinogens or using "MK Ultra Mind Control".
McKamey Manor is more of an Into the Shadows kind of deal, I think, but I would love to see Simon's reactions to hearing about it.
@@Garmbreak1 yeah I think it probably fits ITS better but I'd love to see it in this format just for Simon reacting to it
What can I say, Simon. We Americans love Thanksgiving more than we love our fast food and 24/7 drive thru liquor stores.
Pistol whip used to mean to whip with the barrel of the gun, what is generally called pistol whipping today, using the heft of the whole gun to club someone was called "buffaloing". Common usage pretty much means using any part of a gun to hit someone is now refered to as the umbrella term pistol whip now.
Yes Simon America used to close on holidays, we even used to close on Sundays in some areas and it used to be illegal to force an employee to work on Sundays if they attended church😊
Simon! Popped in here with two suggestions:
1) Isabella Gardner Museum Heist (a good unsolved heist story with NO murder! Yay!)
2) The Story of The Boys on the Tracks (this is a story where it's a death investigation that goes down a rabbit hole of craziness - you'll need ALL the "allegedly"s for this one but it's a worthwhile read I think you and the team will excel with)
Pawn shops are a lot of people's #1 place to buy guns. Usually have flimsy locks & are easily accessed
I'm sure the US ran things differently, but in the UK we didn't do thorough stock checks very often at Toys R Us. We'd have to do weekly checks for ticket items, but that was to ensure the correct number of tickers were on display. Otherwise, stock taking was only done annually, over a day and a half, around mid January. The whole store was done in one go, it took hours of counting and recording.
One guy got away with theft by leaving empty games boxes in the bottom of a display cabinet, which were found, but as our manager said "well I know it isn't you and he hasn't got a bad bone in his body". Their security was awful.
I miss when cas crim was my sleep podcast/RUclips show. But now, the volume levels are all over the place and the memes are loud enough to jar you out of half-sleep.
kudos to danny for this very very well written script!
The writing, editing, and narration in this episode were amazing for a light-hearted cas crim. It pleases me to know that Danny still writes for Simon, trapped in the blazement 'mindlessly following a entirely predictable cycle of monotonous events, doomed to repeat the same actions over and over again. Almost as if he was trapped in a perpetual time loop.' 😋
Most businesses are either closed or close early on Thanksgiving in the US. Most grocery stores here will advertisr as being open until noon only for those last minute dinner emergencies. The thing to remember however, is that the following day is back Friday. Nowadays that doesn't mean as much thanks to internet ordering but it held a lot of significant up until recent years. Most people not in retail will get the day off but thsoe who do are going ro be working extra as that is the day all the big sales occur. We would have masses of people lining up outside stores for even days on end and yes, there were some serious injuries. The shopping frenzy for artificially limited supplied discount items was so large you would get stampeding, fights and even armed assaults as a result. It was serious business with the emphasis on buisness. Anyone and everyone from the 90s would have HATED working retail on Black Friday but the companies loved it. That McDonald's may have been closed that day but you can bet the following one would have been packed with hungry shoppers trying to get a quick egg sandwhich before rushing off to the next store. As bad as it is to attempt a ribbery on a closed day, I think doing so on a Black Friday packed with crazed shoppers looking to eat and move on, would be worse.
About the "robbing the store after closing time": I work at a supermarket chain in Europe, so idk if it is any different at a fast food chain (especially some place different), but here we store the whole earnings, change and cash registers in a big safe. Once per week a company that transports the money to the main office (or wherever it's stored) comes and picks up the earnings and brings us fresh change. So it really depends on which day you choose to rob a chain store afaik. However, we also have a silent alarm system running at night until opening the store (in case of a robbery in daytime, we have strict protocols on what to do) and believe me, the cops WILL show up (yes, of course I accidentally triggered it once in the morning when I had to unlock the store the first time alone... and then I panicked 😐)
On the question of "how did Toys'R'Us not realize someone was stealing thousands of dollars in merchandise from the store?", a lot of American 'big box' retailers allow for a certain amount of "shrinkage" - basically, a monetary amount of stuff that people are inevitably going to shoplift, before the store managers will start getting suspicious or corporate will start scrutinizing the store more closely. This ties directly into the point about people acting in set patterns: as long as the inventory totals are only short by the shrinkage allowance or under, the expected reaction is just "well, we can't catch every kid who stuffs a toy under their shirt and walks out with it".
Also, this was the 90s - computerized inventory tracking and accounting systems weren't *nearly* as good back then, so it might have been very difficult for anyone to fully put together how much merchandise was actually missing without doing quite a comprehensive review.
I've been to Placerville nice pronunciation you got it right
I'm a simple man, I see Simon, I click.....
This was superbly written
It amazing when we get these kind of ep