Consider this your occasional reminder that even on days when we don’t post anything new, there’s still something you can come here to read.
Every day, a new story from the archives of This is True is posted on this page. It changes every 24 hours, so bookmark it and make it part of whatever daily routine it is that makes you come here in the first place.
I bring it up today because the story, which dates back to 2005, is fantastically stupid. We missed out on it at the time, so this seemed like a good chance to right that wrong.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you car thief, home invader, armed robber, rapist and absolute fool Anthony Roberts.
A rapist who attacked a woman at gunpoint was captured when he forced his victim to write him a check in his own name and then tried to cash it, police said.
Officers said they arrested Anthony R. Roberts, 25, of Hialeah, on Wednesday night, minutes after he left the woman’s apartment as he tried to cash the $1,400 check. He had told the victim to write in the memo line that the check was for electrical work.
The cheque, of course, had his real name on it, which helped the investigation along. Also helpful was a clerk at the nearby cheque cashing store who was suspicious enough to call the victim’s phone number to ask questions while the police were on scene.
Roberts was arrested after a brief chase. He confessed to the robbery but denied the rape.
He was convicted and later lost an appeal. As best I can tell, he’s still in prison.