Curses, Foiled Again
Police investigating a burglary in Lake Worth, Fla., identified Derek Codd, 19, as their suspect because he left his cell phone at the scene, and his mother called. Investigators answered and asked the woman whose phone it was. They then arrested Codd and Kristen Rynearson, 19, with the stolen goods. (South Florida Sun Sentinel)

• Authorities in Jonesboro, Ark., thwarted Larry Barnett’s plan to have a former employee murdered because the intended victim overheard the plot for himself when Barnett, 68, butt-dialed him while talking to a third party about burning down the man’s house “with him in it.” The call lasted 90 minutes, giving the target time to alert police, who found that his gas stove had been tampered with. (Jonesboro’s KAIT-TV)

Sunny Daze
Utility companies in Georgia, Arizona, California and Idaho, fearing the loss of revenue from customers who install rooftop solar panels, are proposing to charge solar customers extra or to roll back programs that allow those customers to trade the solar power they generate for power from the grid that they need when the sun isn’t shining. Georgia Power, for example, wants owners of basic home solar systems to pay an extra $22 a month. (Associated Press)

Slightest Provocation
Adrian Laroze Briskey, 28, shot and killed a fellow University of Alabama football fan, according to police in Hoover, Ala., because she didn’t think the victim seemed sufficiently upset when rival Auburn beat the Crimson Tide. “She said we weren’t real Alabama fans because it didn’t bother us that they lost,” the victim’s sister, Nekesa Shepherd, said, adding that Briskey flew into a rage. “And then she started shooting.” (Associated Press)

• Daniel Pirtie, 46, shot a Walmart assistant manager at a store in Anchorage, Alaska, who asked him to leave after he wouldn’t put his service dog on a leash inside the store. After wounding Jason Mahi, 33, Pirtie, a double amputee, tried to flee in a motorized shopping cart, but police arrived and stopped him at the door. (Anchorage Daily News)

• Alex Rossi attacked his father at a home in Lyman, S.C., after the father confronted him about cheese packets missing from a box of macaroni and cheese. The Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office arrest report said that Rossi chased after the victim and then punched him in the face and head. (Greenville’s WSPA-TV)

• James L. Cothran, 70, told sheriff’s deputies in Culleoka, Tenn., that he shot his wife to death after she threatened him with a kitchen knife because he refused to take off the shoes he was wearing. The shoes had belonged to the victim’s father, who died 30 years ago, according to the police report, which said the two argued for about 30 minutes until Cothran fired his .22 magnum revolver at his wife, claiming that she “had a crazy look in her eyes.” (Columbia’s The Daily Herald)

Hazards of Cabin Life
A man was shot while sitting on the toilet in a cabin in Norway’s Hvaler district when a hunter aiming at a moose missed. Police investigator Anders Stroemsaether told public broadcaster NRK that the bullet whizzed past the animal, pierced the cabin’s wooden wall and wounded the man in the stomach. (Reuters)

Heists of the Week
New York City police accused William Footman, 55, of as many as 37 bank thefts in 11 weeks, according to an official at JPMorgan Chase, his preferred target. Investigators said that the thief never took money, however, only rugs inside the front door. “I sell them to bodegas,” Footman explained, adding that he got $30 or higher per rug. (The New York Times)

• British police reported that thieves cut a hole in the curtain side of a delivery truck parked in Cookhill, Worcestershire, and stole more than 6,000 cans of baked beans with sausages. Police appealed for information “about anyone trying to sell large quantities of Heinz baked beans in suspicious circumstances.” (BBC News)

• Authorities charged David A. Neese, 57, with stealing four cases of hand bells from Wisconsin’s Sheboygan First Presbyterian Church, where he is an elder, and pawning them. The bells, each weighing 40 pounds, are valued at $10,500. (Sheboygan Press)

Government Giveaway Programs
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF) misplaced 420 million cigarettes—more than 2.1 million cartons—during at least 20 separate sting operations, according to the Justice Department’s inspector general. The agency also misused some of the $162 million in profits from the stings, including letting a tobacco distributor working as a confidential informant keep $4.9 million received from cigarette sales to criminal suspects. ATF Director B. Todd Jones blamed management and oversight lapses but insisted that “the report’s findings do not reflect current ATF policy or practice.” (Associated Press)

• The Internal Revenue Service issued tax refunds totaling $4 billion to identity thieves last year, according to a Treasury Department inspector general’s report. In one case, the IRS sent 655 tax refunds to a single address in Lithuania; in another, 343 refunds went to an address in Shanghai. The good news, IG J. Russell George pointed out, is that the IRS stopped more than $12 billion in fraudulent refunds to identity thieves, compared with only $8 billion the year before. (Associated Press)

• An entrenched practice of claiming unearned overtime at the Department of Homeland Security costs taxpayers tens of millions of dollars a year, according to the federal Office of Special Counsel (OSC). Many DHS employees consider the overtime their due, whistleblowers told the OSC, pointing out that government managers trying to recruit new employees often promote padding paychecks as a perk. “Employees will sit at their desks for an extra two hours, catching up on Netflix, talking to friends or using it for commuting time,” whistleblower Jose Rafael Ducos Bello said. “It’s pick-pocketing Uncle Sam.” (The Washington Post)

Compiled from the press reports by Roland Sweet. Authentication on demand.