Sometimes Truth is Stranger than fiction…or at least more entertaining

From the San Diego Union Tribune:

Call it a case of a thief with very bad timing. Last Wednesday, officials at a Baptist Church in Clairemont discovered that a thief had stolen the choir’s electric piano and soundboard during the night. Without them, the choir couldn’t perform its Sunday Christmas music program. The theft was immediately reported to its insurance company, which authorized replacement of the items, worth about $5,000.

Shortly after music director Nathan Robinson arrived at the Guitar Center in Grossmont Center mall to buy new equipment, in walked a man in his 20s carrying the church’s Yamaha keyboard. Robinson recognized the fellow as someone who’d stopped by the church about three months earlier to inquire about its program.

“It was Twilight Zoney,” says Robinson. “A guy walked through the door holding our equipment.” As the fellow negotiated with a clerk to sell the keyboard, Robinson alerted the store’s management to the theft.

While awaiting police, an employee tested the keyboard and detained the seller. As soon as the La Mesa police arrived, the man bolted out of the store and blended into a sea of holiday shoppers – but he conveniently left behind his driver’s license and thumb print.

Was the church missing anything else, the Guitar Center manager asked Robinson. Yes, a soundboard. It was there in a corner where the fellow had left it while he returned to his car for the keyboard.

When the choir arrived for rehearsal that evening, the equipment was back in its place and ready for service. The thief, no doubt, was wishing he’d gone to a different music store.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041214/news_1m14bell.html