‘I was just helping!’ says man who parked stolen trailer next to his house

Here’s another entry in the “Dumb Crooks Contest.” Boils down to this: If you steal an RV, be careful where you park it. Call this guy the Good Samaritan thief.

Police in Polk County, Florida, got a theft report. Seems a fellow wanted to curbstone his 2008 Rockwood travel trailer, so he parked it in a vacant lot with a “For Sale” sign on it. It didn’t take long for the trailer to go away—without the benefit of a money/title exchange.

Good Samaritan thief “helps out” a man in distress

When deputies started sniffing around, they found somebody who’d seen a man with a truck hitch up to the now-missing trailer and haul it away. They noted a company sign on the rig, and remembered it.

It didn’t take long for investigators to find out to whom the truck was assigned when they checked with the company owner. The employee was one Robert Laney (54) of Polk City. When questioned, Laney had an interesting, albeit sketchy, story.

Laney told police that he’d happened upon some “white guy” with vehicle trouble, towing that trailer. Since Laney fancied himself a sort of Good Samaritan, of course, he hitched up to the man’s travel trailer and offered to store it—conveniently on a vacant lot near Laney’s home.

Laney, the alleged Good Samaritan thief, never quite did catch the man’s name, or his phone number, or anything else about him.

Police do their own “Good Sam”

Good Samaritans that they were, sheriff’s officers helped out Laney. They gave him a free ride to, and room and board at, the Polk County Jail.

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