Comic Book Heist Update
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Yeti Stereo Microphone: [00:00:00] Welcome to the multi-verse comics podcast. On today's episode, we give an update on the great Texas comic book heist, or the totally inept. Texas comic book heist, depending on how you look at it, we have an updated, we think we might've caught our villain. So listen in. And enjoy. /
Jason: so we had some news, didn't we? We did have some news. Look at that segue. Yeah, it was a good one. I'm pretty good at that.
Yeah. I'm telling you. Alright, for those of you listening as a reminder, we had a break in, well actually we didn't have a break in. Vandalism. We had, oh gosh, February, it was February, yeah, we had a window. A Window Assassin, even? Well, we, cause, I believe at some point we switched it so that it was shot out as opposed to be beat out.
Yes, the window was shot out. Right. And I think they were shooting at Spider Man [00:01:00] ultimately hit Optimus Prime. Yeah. Right. We picked the wrong transformer to put on the window. That's right. If we had put the Decepticons in as, as vandals, they would have been more respectful. So they shot out the windows with DBs and but did not make entry.
I think probably what happened is that crack the, like the completely cracked thing that probably happened later. If it, if that had happened while they were there, I bet they would have busted in. Right. Yeah, I think they would have busted it. I'm still mumbling over the fact that we didn't find any BBs on the ground.
That, That's the part they get did they come back? Did they pick up their casings? Well, they get one of these forensics, forensic BBs. And that, you know, once again, attacking a store where everyone thinks they're Batman, we'll go back to that theme. And that's, yes, that's where it started. I mean, it is very true.
We, we found no BBs. projectiles in the shop, which as someone who may or may not have shot out car windows before as a kid growing up you know, [00:02:00] abandoned cars out in the field, you know, the experience. Those were abandoned. They were. They were out in crumb, Texas when we were, when my daddy would take me out there and we go dove hunting.
You're starting to lose credibility on the may not part right now. But so. Sometimes if you shatter a window with a BB, it hits and bounces off the outside. Yeah. That's why you saw me scouring the walkway, the parking lot, and still, you know, to date as we've moved things around and cleaned up, we have not found, we can't with any degree of accuracy say what the type of projectile.
Yes. Did the damage, which is a shame because we've got that huge crime lab. And yeah, we do, you know, we spent all that money just sitting there. I'm just waiting for a set of fingerprints, you know, that's well, the, so what happened is there was a number of other comic shops that were hit, right all over the place.
So we had a bunch of other [00:03:00] comic shops hit. I think it was like seven in one weekend and two of them, they were successful. These were super inept burglars. Like they went to comic warriors and the lock defeated them. They couldn't get through the lock. They got, they. I think we may have been early in the list.
Like they shot out the windows in hours in like Galactics. Right. And then Comic Warriors, they stopped shooting at stuff. They're trying to break in. Somebody they just like, Spirit of banana on the back something weird. Rotten fruit or something. But yeah, there was something weird that happened over there.
And then Collected in Haltom City. Yeah. I think it's the one where they shattered the door. They actually stole some things. Yeah, they made entry into that. Yeah. So Collected, they actually stole some things. And this shop is super close to us, right? So Collected is very close to us.
close to where we are. Right. And I would imagine that I imagine that the same person was doing each of these. These stores are not far from each other. Galactic is very close. Collected is very [00:04:00] close. Yeah, I mean, looking at it, Comic Warriors. Looking at it one way, it's very easy to assume that One person's doing it because like I said last time I can do math the odds of seven people on the same weekend Oh, yeah, Saturday and Sunday deciding that I want to go randomly vandalize.
Oh, no, it wasn't Connie and Carlo's Baptism ceremony from the end of the Godfather. Well, yeah Michael standing there renouncing Satan while, you know, various agents are killing people around, around New York City. But so that, you know, that was the working theory that it may be one or two people.
Yeah. Bebopping around. Yeah. And, you know, still I was erring on the side of possibly kids that just because they were Yeah. Not that most vandals are brain surgeons to begin with, but a lot of it was just poorly executed. Yeah. You know, because There was no finesse. There was no style, there was no Ocean's Eleven vibe to it at all.
The Rat Pack wasn't, [00:05:00] There wasn't a small Asian man in a box. Exactly. I mean, you know, there was just no honor There certainly was no Yeah, there's just no panache. So, the, in our complex we had a vacant storefront next to us who a sports memorabilia owner is moving in. We're excited to finally be able to do this.
go, Hey, someone brought in sports cards and we don't do anything with them. Can you take them off our hands? And he can go, I'm tired of people bringing me comic books. Could you do? So we're hoping to have a, you know, a relationship like that. And he came over Friday with he's in a group chat with a bunch of store owners.
Now I do got to ask you, Jason, you've got One of the videos he showed me, are you in, is there a chance you're in that same group? I think it's probably from the same group. It's the, there's a I mean, are you a part of that group or is it a second group? it's the same. So, this one Cross pollinization there?
[00:06:00] So, my post was July 12th. So, two days ago, yeah, that would have been when he saw it too. He came in with a group chat and he said, you know, part of this group chat is mostly Magic and he's the only sports card dealer. So we're like, oh, okay. And some guy up in Corinth, which if you're familiar with DFW, is about 45 minutes north of here.
Kind of around Denton, out in the Boonies kind of area. Yeah. And oh boy, attacked a shop several times, it sounds like, and So Tommy thinks it's the same guy. It could be. Tommy looked him up. So Tommy's the guy from Comic Warriors. He looked up the he's looking up the guy's property. Yeah, all that.
What can I put a lien on? That's where he is. Ha! Yeah. Well, Tommy's an ex cop from New York, so, I mean, you know, that's what he was doing. Here's what the guy said. He said, approximately 4 10 a. m. on July 12th, 24, suspect came to my door with the [00:07:00] intent to break my lock after his last attempt on July 12th.
The second of July failed. So the guy apparently had come July 2nd. Also, he brought his tools up, tried to break the lock alarm tripped and he left shortly thereafter. So there's video of each of these things that happens, right? They've got a really good camera angle right on there. He actually has three videos here that are.
Pretty, pretty four now that are intense. So, cops showed up, inspected the door, and they left at 4. 45, right? The guy comes back at 5 a. m., and he finished his break in the lock, so he finally busts in. And the video is he's just hammering away at this thing. He's trying to crowbar. He's hammering stuff.
He's working this door pretty hard. And, I mean, he had to work to get this thing to go. Alarm's going. He's finally I'm going to go for a minute. He leaves. I'm sure just waits out the cop somewhere. [00:08:00] And then as soon as the cops leave, he's back at it again. So, he decided to return at 5 a. m.
Finished breaking the lot. Once he got finished, he left the scene again. So he breaks in and he's like, all right, I'm out. Came back at 5 13 a. m. With. bags and stuff ready to steal stuff. So he was like, Oh man, I got in. I better go get the stuff that I can steal with. So he goes and gets stuff to steal things.
I forgot the swag bags. I forgot the loot bags. And I have a theory on that. Right. Is that He was reasonably organized for a snatch and grab. He's attacking ballistic glass for the front door. Which means, you know, talking to Jody, the owner next door, could probably have taken a high powered rifle shot because this guy spent a lot of money on his door.
What happens with ballistic glass is there's a hard frame where I can sit there and shatter the glass and when it's trying to give, it will, that frame holds it in there so [00:09:00] it's not going to fall. Right. Okay. And th those mag plates over the is, you're having to work out, I bet you figured ou went with cops, he wait w
The cops come back or look, call the owner. Hey, there's nothing there. You sure your alarm's okay? Right. Right. Clear it off. Notice he's got three minutes to get in and out. Cause once he breaks, once he opens that door, that triggers a different stop. Door break is different than glass break on the little computer codes.
And so they'd say a door opened. There's motion in the store versus. Well, I think it's the store motion where they, because he never breaks the glass. Yeah. He can't get there. Yeah. He couldn't. He gets out with that sleigh. He's hitting that glass of that sledgehammer and can't get it to break. He's shattering it, but it won't fall.
Right. So he can't make entry. Yeah. He gets through the door ultimately. Yeah. So, he's getting up with bags of steel stuff, ransacks everything. For some reason, he was grabbing stuff that was super hard to get to. And I You're kind of [00:10:00] dumb. Like at least get a stool or something. Because he's jumping up trying to knock stuff off the top shelf in the video.
And I'm like, you could, there's this whole cabinet full of all the expensive magic cards. And he eventually gets to those. But again, not the smartest of robbers. So, he eventually gets to those and he's, he grabs all those, throws them in the trash bag. He's jumping up getting stuff off the top shelves.
And I'm thinking those were like like elite trainer boxes for Pokemon. There are boxes of some sort. So I'm guessing they weren't they weren't magic, like booster boxes. They were, there was something different because booster box are very expensive, but there, there was something else.
So he's jumping up, grabbing stuff off the top shelf. And he's in there for six minutes. He goes out, comes back in one time and wait a little bit too long. Cops come. So cops show up and he's like, all [00:11:00] right. He walks out, hands up. Right? So he walks out, hands up. And he's just turning himself in, you know, you got me that there's an outdoor camera shows him laying on the ground, getting all frisked or whatever getting hooked up.
But he also had a map in his possession with a bunch of other store names listed and their closing times. They're hours operations. Yeah. They're hours. Yeah. Yeah. So, and the days off, like if there's a closed certain day. So we had this whole thing where these are the other stores I'm going to hit.
That was all set up. So that's what made us think this is our guy though. You know, I think he progressed quite a bit from when we got hit. What was that? February. It wasn't that long ago. Yeah, it was February. God, that was a long time ago. Yeah, man. He came a long way in those months. I guess it did take forever for us to get our glass fixed.
It did. It did. That felt like it was the longest time ever. But, [00:12:00] I mean, we, yeah. Wow. So, we've got this guy's mug shot now. Which is also a great site gag for podcasting, but. Yeah. Yeah. And it is Public record, this guy's busted out in Denton and good old Tyler is his first name. Right. So, Tyler, he looks like a guy that would break into a game shop though.
Actually, he looks a little hardened criminal, like he doesn't look like the guy that's going to show up for magic. I don't know. I don't know. He's I'm either gonna steal a bunch of stuff or I'm gonna play Pokemon. Which will it be? Yeah. Yeah, he should have, you know what?
If he were smart, he would have cast just the right spell from D& D and kind of hidden himself away. What was interesting is, for me, Jody had other pictures of his truck being impounded. He had a really nice black stinted cab. It had poles sticking out, and we were speculating whether he was a tree guy or a pool guy.
Right. Because of the type, you couldn't see real well. Yeah. And once again, I [00:13:00] fancy myself the amateur sleuth a little bit and I have a hard time saying that this was necessarily our guy. Because it would have been very easy to make entry into our store after that. Now, like Jason, I agree that glass probably didn't shatter that quickly, but it did shatter.
He seemed patient. Also, he doesn't know what's on the other side of the door, like what kind of alarm systems he's facing things like that. The fact that he had a, I would love to see that map. I'd love to see that. And it will, when the trial comes, we keep an eye on the trial date. We'll be able to see that we can, you know, we could go to Denton County if he doesn't plea out.
Apparently the guy, I think Joey said the guy had a record already. This wasn't his first brush with the law. I would love to know the motivation for, of all the stuff I can go steal. Because I've got tools, I've got all this. Right. What zeroed you in on these kind of [00:14:00] collectibles?
Because it's much easier for me to go steal window air conditioners and sell them. Out of houses than it is for what this guy went through. So what was your tie to, I mean, that's why I forwarded the photo to Jason, is does anyone recognize this guy as a customer? Have you? I've never seen him in the store.
Right. Because he also stands out. He does not look like the shy don't like sunlight, doesn't really you know, I mean, he does look bathing as optional kind of, kind of guy. Yeah. And. If anything, he's got someone that's willing to buy this stuff. So who is that guy? Man, this is such a fascinating rabbit hole to go down.
It's interesting because we I don't know. Most of the community knows you. Seems a fair laugh in a way. No, because I'm just thinking, you know, like in every, you know, whether it's, you know, whether it's you know, Catwoman or you know, who's the fence re who reservoir dogs or whatever. Who's the fence?
Who's gonna fence it? 'cause it's always oh, I got a guy. I got a [00:15:00] guy. He'll pay a, you know, he'll pay a, who's gonna fence this? Fabricate, fabricate egg 20 cents on the dollar of what it's worth. So we're gonna net a cool, you know, a hundred grand here or whatever it is. Who's the local DFW fence for stolen comics and gaming cults and collectibles, I mean.
And I cut Jason off. I'm sorry. Keep going. I just saw him laughing so much. You just caught me giggling you know. So, a lot of the store owners know each other, right? So, the bigger store owners I know for sure just wouldn't have it. Like the, this guy bought, stole, he broke into, the store that he actually broke into was a game store in the end.
And I would go try to sell it to Common Ground or to Gen X, one of the big spots or whatever. But there's no way Wayne over at Gen X is going to get mixed up in that. And Jameson is he is a hugely principled guy. Like principle over profits kind of guy. But you're also going to, [00:16:00] you know, he's not going to go in and go, Hey, I just stole these.
It's. Hey, I'm returning, I mean, I mean, but yeah, for a shop over, but it is the, what if I was sitting there with him? You're already guilty. I know you're guilty. I don't care. You were there when the cops got there. Tell me your story. Yeah. You've, this obviously, if this is your first attempt to stealing anything and you picked collectibles, You're very bad at what you do.
I mean, you are because it's such a niche market. What gave you this idea? Why, who are you? Once again, if you don't have a fence, what were you going to do with it? Do you have an eBay shop? I mean, has anyone put this kid's name into eBay and looked to see, or start looking around? I mean, hell, Google is, just Google his name and see what else popped, you know, face or whatever.
But that's what I think is the way to do it. You would have to move it on eBay. Yeah, possibly. But. Once again, you're thinking about someone who isn't that smart. Yes, you and I, if we [00:17:00] decide to, you know, Tom Cruise it down from the roof and the black pulley system, I'm going to scan, you know, I'm not going to get the, I'm not going to get the slabs.
I'm going to get the 20 copies of Conan that are autographed by somebody no one cares about. And I'm going to try to sell it back to the same guy because, you know, why not? But, you know, where were you going with this? Because you weren't going to get. It is easy for all the tools he brought up to that door.
Yeah. And everything worked on, you're fighting ballistic glass. Just keep reiterating that you could have stolen a car and chopped it up. Right. Well, he stole like 50 5K worth of stuff. And that's an impressive, it's $55,000 the stuff, and that's in his hand. That's an impressive amount to steal.
But that doesn't mean I've got 50 5K. We probably got about 10. Maybe. Maybe. Like it's, I mean, think about it. Retail is probably, we'll call it, we'll be generous and call it 25 in retail. Or wholesale. I mean, wholesale is probably 25. So, [00:18:00] you know, you can get somewhere between 5 and 10, probably. But we talked about this when we had the last podcast.
Is that, if you're going, if you're going for slabs, that's going to be difficult to shift. Because, just Matey at Collected, you know, the books that were taken. He knew what books they were. They were he's put it on the list. So any shop suddenly sees that rare copy of Alf number one that was signed by the cast, you know, whatever it was.
And it's a while. I'm not touching this. This thing is hot. It actually was one. I think that's why it's saying. So there you go. So But now packaged stuff, you know, booster boxes and things like that. Yeah, okay, that's a little different. But even going the eBay route, you would be looking for those slabbed books.
I can see someone thinking, you know what, I'll stick it on eBay. But if you see it, you can be like, oh, you're that, user, and you're located in that city and st oh, okay, yeah [00:19:00] that gels, you know, that fits. It just seems like a ridiculous thing to do. I'm with you, Scott. If you're gonna go down if you're gonna turn to Cronk, you're much better off learning and practicing at home how to get a bloody catalytic converter off of a car in record time.
Apparently that's a booming business at the moment. Not that we're advocating Cronk. No, we're not. But, you know, but Knocking over a comic book store? I mean, first, you're telling me the story about what this guy did. And I'm thinking, okay, he had to kind of remember where things were and he obviously didn't think it through because he's trying to knock stuff off of top shelves and everything and he's leaving and he's coming back.
No. It's De Niro in heat. In and out. Yeah. 30 seconds. That's it. Anything else is invitation to do time Well, and once again, you know, look at this. Well, you stay armored up with that thing in heat. Yeah, with the heat body armor they had. Take some shots there. [00:20:00] You can take a bunch of shots that way.
You remember that? I don't have a buddy, Alma. Oh my. The last one where out on the street where they were out on the street where they got in the gunfire with the police. They were, they had body armor where they could just, they shots take a bunch of shots. They're just getting lit up and they're firing automatic weapons.
The cops have pistols. It's been a long time since they're still in the store idea from that live the actual in la Yeah. Those two people were taking hits but yeah. Like I said, looking at this cat. You know, he doesn't have all the usual signs of a drug addict. You know, his face isn't as jaunt skinny as you would expect, but he doesn't look happy.
But yeah, we just got arrested, you know, too long in the thing. And once again, for the audience out here, please forgive us as we go down these rabbit holes. I know I have some law enforcement people that listen to this because, and most professional law enforcement tell you, our thieves are just dumb.
We're just expanding more on the, but why would you pick this? And their answer is because they're [00:21:00] dumb. That, that is the answer is they're there because they're dumb. they're robbing stores like this. They're not successful thieves. It's the ones we can't catch that are super disappointed because the elite trainer boxes right now are just not moving like they usually do.
Pokemon's really slowed down. So I'm not sure what this guy was thinking. It's just not working. But that would be, I would love to see the, I would love to see the list. Everything, you know, everything he compiled because that does show some insight. You put some work into it, because I'm just going to knock over a store or knock over, you know, I'm just going to wait until it's dark, you know, because I can go from midnight to six in the morning and waste all my time trying to get in.
Well look, clearly he's, you know, he's underestimated himself. Like he's willing to get up early. He is, you know, he could have got a nice job. He's willing to clean some pools or cut some tree limbs ahead of time. Didn't want to screw up those. He's not a slacker, not very [00:22:00] bright, but yeah, he worked hard.
He worked hard. I don't know, but it's like, There's sort of stories about art thefts, and it's always you know, if somebody steals a painting, a famous painting, if somebody steals that, there has to have Some kind of, either you stole it for personal use, fine. Or you have an underground buyer that wants stuff.
Or you're a professional thief, and so out there is I really want that painting. Will somebody go steal it for me? The Prince of Thieves. Turkey Manistad, wants it in a palace and no one's ever going to see it. He's called out for raffles or, you know, the gray fox or, you know, what, whatever, the black cat.
Exactly. And there you go, because for somebody to just go, all right boys, this is what we're going to do. Actually, I'm going Let's go Ray Winstone on this. Alright boys, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna knock over the Louvre. And so, in you go. I kind of wanted some more of that. That might be a whole other [00:23:00] podcast right there.
Right in. Mona Lisa. Chuck it in the bag. Off we go. Now my throat's shot now. But that's it. Okay, we've stolen the Mona Lisa. What are you gonna do with it? Yeah. You can't sell it to anyone. Damn. No, you sold it to that one ultra billionaire that just has to have everything. What, Edward Norton from the Glass Onion sequel?
Yeah, but if you That's what it is. But you would have set that up beforehand. Yeah. You're not gonna say, Look, once we get on Once we steal it, once we steal it, and you get into the underground that, you know, Windstone's mob has actually got the Mona Lisa, pretty soon the phone's going to start ringing. Oh, I'll have a taste of that.
Oh yeah. No, that's not how it works at all. This is why some I wanna say it was the Scream, the Edvard Munch painting, like they stole it, and then a couple of weeks later, they gave it back. Because nobody would touch this painting. That's funny. So, [00:24:00] You know, it was like, yeah somebody got a phone call.
Oh, it's in a garbage can outside this takeaway. You want to go now before they dump anything in it before they dump anything in it, and it's the same with jewels. It's that you want, Oh it's the tier of India. It's the largest diamond. You're going to sell that If at best you're gonna break that thing up into smaller diamonds.
And that's it. But, that's fun to, you know. I wanna know though, and this is a, this is an absolutely serious question, that If he was counting the minutes, did he sing a song? Like Hudson Hawk? Hudson Hawk. Was he singing Swingin on a Star? So I was thinking about this movie a while ago. Just as professionally See, I love all this music.
This is my Go to playlist right now is like singers and standards, right? And I was wondering about this movie because it doesn't play anywhere like it's you don't show up on netflix. You don't show up It's nowhere. [00:25:00] No That's right. That's probably because there's a reason Bruce willis bought all of them and doesn't want anyone to listen.
I know that people didn't love it I love it. I really enjoyed I liked it a lot when it came out I know that it's just generally panned, but I thought it was great I thoroughly enjoyed it. That was that Michael Lehman the guy who did, you can watch it on Tubi for free. You can watch it on Tubi for free.
I will do that. Well, no, see, I never want to watch anything for free. I want to pay for things. You know why? Freaking commercials. Nothing's free. Well, then you can rent it from Prime Video for 3. 99, it says, or Apple TV. I'm just going to buy it. There you go. I'm going to buy it. There you go. I will. Hudson Hawk./
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