Shock burns cable thief beyond recognition
Mon Oct 8, 2007 12:46pm EDT

BERLIN (Reuters) - A thief in Germany was charred beyond recognition by a 10,000 volt electric shock when he tried to steal a live copper cable, authorities said Monday.

Police in the western city of Duisburg found the 32-year-old man's blackened remains by a set of cable cutters and pile of non-live cables he had already stolen.

Only because one of his hands survived incineration were officers able to identify the man as German of Kazakh origin.

"His fingerprints were already logged on police files," a local police spokesman said. "The force of the shock was so great that the hand was severed from his body."

Source: Reuters

damn - gotta hate that. i guess crime really doesn't pay

Holyyyyy crap!

This reminds me of one episode I watched on the tv show cops. Cops were called out to a building to investigate a burglary in progress. The police arrive at the empty residence to find nobody there. They notice a clue however, a trail of water leading out the front door. They follow the trail of water out the door and into an ally close to the house and you see a man with a MASSIVE Hot water heater trying to ride with it balanced on the handlebars of his bike! Water was still leaking out of the copper cable for the water heater, and led the police right to the man. And of course when questioned, he says someone "gave" him the water heater at 2am in the morning.

Omg. That gotta suck for him majorly. Poor guy.

And his hand from his body. Gross.

Oh, wow, that is terrible. He shouldn't have been stealing, but I wouldn't wish that on him.

This is not so bizarre news here. Cable theft is rampant here, and punishable by a year in jail at least, or more.

Same where I come from.

They steal the cables and then sell the copper for thousands, trouble is, that cable has to be replaced and it will be the users of that service that end up forking out.

When they steal the cables, the remains are sometimes left dangling too and it may be a while before the dangling bit gets noticed and reported to the relevant authorities.

Unfortunate, but it’s hard to feel sorry for this guy... he brought this upon himself. IMO

shockin

i thought he may have somehow checked to see if the cable was live first before just stickin his mitts on it.

That's a sucky way to go, but if you're going to commit a crime, and then not at least check to see that's it's not live, I say you deserve what you get.

Those kinds of thefts are going on everywhere now, and a few people have gotten killed commiting these crimes. But this is just so gross and freaky!