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(12 year old) Amateur Sleuth Jessica Maple Saw Clues Police Missed and Confronts Robbers
ABC ^ | August 20, 2011 | ALYSSA NEWCOMB

Posted on 08/24/2011 11:40:21 PM PDT by lowbridge

A 12-year-old amateur sleuth beat police at their own game by cracking the case of who ransacked her late great-grandmother's home last month.

Jessica Maple honed her detective skills at a Junior District Attorney camp in Atlanta this summer, sponsored by the Fulton County DA's office.

Police told Jessica, and her mother Stephanie, that whoever robbed the home would have had to have entered with a key, since such large items were stolen and there were no signs of forced entry, Jessica said.

But the curious 12-year-old knew something wasn't right. Her parents were the only two people who had keys.

She asked her mother to take her to investigate a few days later.

"I went to the side of the house and looked at the garage," Jessica told ABCNews.com

"The windows were broken. There were finger prints by the glass. Everything was ramshackled. There were clothes everywhere."

Jessica Maple, 12, is an amateur sleuth who beat police at their own game by cracking the case of who ransacked her late great-grandmother's home last month.

Not only did Jessica find a crucial clue police missed, but she took it one step further by visiting a pawn shop down the street.

Sure enough, she found her great-grandmother's furniture for sale.

(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events; US: Georgia
KEYWORDS: atlanta
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1 posted on 08/24/2011 11:40:25 PM PDT by lowbridge
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To: lowbridge

Inspector Clouseau? Didn’t even inspect the whole periphery of the building which had suffered the theft?


2 posted on 08/24/2011 11:44:03 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (There's gonna be a Redneck Revolution! (See my freep page) [rednecks come in many colors])
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To: lowbridge

>>”He was like ‘You beat me to this stuff’ and I was like, ‘ I did your job again,’” she said.<<

Across the board, the police don’t take theft as a very important crime. I have had 2 apartments burglarized and the police reaction was the same: “*SHRUG* - tough noogies, we don’t care.”

And they wonder why we strongly consider vigilanltism..


3 posted on 08/24/2011 11:47:58 PM PDT by freedumb2003 (Herman Cain 2012)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

It’s pretty easy to beat the cops in cases like this because usually you’ll be lucky if they spend more than a few seconds trying to solve it.


4 posted on 08/24/2011 11:48:18 PM PDT by rjeffries
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To: freedumb2003

Agreed. They couldn’t give a rats ass who broke into your house. My parents had their house broken into, it didn’t even make the local small town paper. Lots of collectors items stolen. Never heard a thing about it in 8 years now.


5 posted on 08/24/2011 11:49:58 PM PDT by rjeffries
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To: rjeffries

That’s sad, but it looks just like that was what happened. When the grandparents called to report the theft and the occifer showed up, they never said anything about a garage being broken into. Because the occifer couldn’t see it, he never thought of that as a possibility.

Inspector Clouseau and the Keystone Kops are elegant exercises in competence compared with this. This kid was no Encyclopedia Brown in a skirt, she simply pointed out the obvious.


6 posted on 08/24/2011 11:56:23 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (There's gonna be a Redneck Revolution! (See my freep page) [rednecks come in many colors])
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To: lowbridge

“The pawn shop manager told Jessica he knew one of the guys well because he frequently brought it items.”

Sounds more like a fence for stolen property than a pawn shop.


7 posted on 08/24/2011 11:56:26 PM PDT by wolficatZ (Somebody once wrote "Revenge is a dish that has to be eaten cold".)
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To: lowbridge

‘STOP BUGGING US! We’re exhausted from running that speed trap all day, and tonight we’re working overtime setting up a roadblock and making people show papers in the name of road safety...’

Why is crime down in a lot of cities? Because of all the hoops you have to go through to report a simple crime. In a lot of cities, if you’ve got a house broken into, you’d be told that you have to go down to the police station and file a report, no officer will ever visit the crime scene, and maybe, if you’re lucky, the stolen property report MIGHT be checked before they auction off unclaimed property found with criminals...


8 posted on 08/24/2011 11:57:06 PM PDT by kingu (Everything starts with slashing the size and scope of the federal government.)
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To: lowbridge

Hell, I found the car theif’s WALLET inside my abandoned car and the cops did nothing about it.


9 posted on 08/25/2011 12:02:24 AM PDT by Uncle Miltie (Gore Lauds Romney on Climate Position; 0bamaCare was based on RomneyCare.)
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To: lowbridge
Despite all of the evidence, no arrests have been made by police, who are in a different jurisdiction than Howard's.

"They have all the evidence," Jessica said. "I have no idea what is taking so long!"

She had to go to the pawn shop down the street to find the booty, now she has to go across the street to the donut shop to find the cops.

10 posted on 08/25/2011 12:09:43 AM PDT by Bon mots ("When seconds count, the police are just minutes away...")
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To: Uncle Miltie
Hell, I found the car theif’s WALLET inside my abandoned car and the cops did nothing about it.

See! They need to raise taxes so the Police can do their job. /s

11 posted on 08/25/2011 12:10:50 AM PDT by MaxMax
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To: lowbridge

She will be a worthy successor to "The Lady" ...

12 posted on 08/25/2011 12:18:54 AM PDT by Lmo56 (If ya wanna run with the big dawgs - ya gotta learn to piss in the tall grass ...)
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To: lowbridge
The gutsy, crime-fighting pre-teen, accompanied by her mother, then went to one robber's home and confronted him.

This would have been a far different story if the young crime fighter and her mother were raped and shot dead by the meth head thief. This mother should be up on charges for being dangerously reckless and stupid.

13 posted on 08/25/2011 12:21:46 AM PDT by Lazlo in PA (Now living in a newly minted Red State.)
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To: kingu

I think you meant, “STOP BUGGING US! There’s a sale at Dunkin’ Donuts!”


14 posted on 08/25/2011 12:41:02 AM PDT by AnAmericanAbroad (It's all bread and circuses for the future prey of the Morlocks.)
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To: freedumb2003

The police’s position on crime is that, and it’s mostly due to a lack of manpower and resources, as long as nobody got hurt in the course of a break-in, the people who do this stuff will spend time in prison, if not for this crime, then some other crime.


15 posted on 08/25/2011 12:48:57 AM PDT by Jonty30
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To: Uncle Miltie

With all due respect finding a wallet in your car after it has been stolen is no proof that the owner of the wallet stole you car (wallet could have been stolen too)- without further corroborative evidence it would not get a conviction. You would hope, however, that it would give the Police cause to fingerprint your vehicle and interview the person.

It’s the lack of action that annoys people most of the time even if the Police can’t make a case.

Mel


16 posted on 08/25/2011 12:58:55 AM PDT by melsec
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To: Uncle Miltie

I’m surprised they didn’t arrest you.


17 posted on 08/25/2011 12:59:05 AM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: lowbridge

When you see cops talking to each other they’re talking about how long before they can retire and how much they’ll be getting.


18 posted on 08/25/2011 1:34:09 AM PDT by lewislynn ( What does the global warming movement and the Fairtax movement have in commom? Misinformation)
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To: freedumb2003
>"Across the board, the police don’t take theft as a very important crime."

Crime doesn't pay!

Traffic violators, and taxpayers do!

19 posted on 08/25/2011 1:40:49 AM PDT by rawcatslyentist (It is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; ~Vattel's Law of Nations)
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To: lowbridge
Despite all of the evidence, no arrests have been made by police

Disgraceful.

20 posted on 08/25/2011 1:44:02 AM PDT by iowamark
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