Original subtitles

[mysterious music]

Would you believe someone actually stole

one of the most famous brains in history?

- You are carting this man's brain around

in a cardboard box?

There's grounds for legal action.

- Or that a murder was solved by a ghost witness?

- Out of nowhere, she sees her dead daughter, Zona.

Zona points at her own throat,

as if to tell her mother something.

- What about the time NASA set up an elaborate sting

to take down a grandmother?

- Inside is a tiny bit of moon dust.

She's badly in need of the cash.

- However, this remains government property.

- Joann swears the lunar artifact is rightfully hers.

- These are the crimes so bizarre, so curious,

they are truly unbelievable.

[dramatic music]

Albert Einstein; the man is synonymous with genius.

Everyone wanted to pick his brain,

especially the man who ended up doing his autopsy.

See how one man's curious obsession

with Einstein's gray matter

puts him on the wrong side of the law.

[mysterious music]

- In 1955, Dr. Thomas Harvey,

the Chief of Pathology at Princeton Hospital, gets a call.

Albert Einstein has passed away at the age of 76,

and they need an autopsy to determine what happened.

- Dr. Harvey, who himself is a man of science,

he is honored.

As he's opening up Albert Einstein,

and doing his investigation,

he has someone looking over his shoulder.

It is Otto Nathan, the executor of Albert Einstein's estate.

They want discretion, they want accuracy,

they want it to be done the right way.

- [Dan] After determining the cause of death

as an abdominal aortic aneurysm,

Otto Nathan leaves Dr. Harvey alone

with Einstein's body to finish up the task.

- Einstein, in his final wishes,

said he wants to be cremated.

He didn't want to be buried anywhere

because he didn't want people coming over to his grave

and worshiping his bones.

But Dr. Harvey sees this as a great disservice.

[tense music]

- He thinks to himself, "As a man of science,

it would be criminal to not remove Einstein's brain

for the purpose of scientific study."

- [Dan] Dr. Harvey carefully removes the brain,

and stashes it in a jar in his basement,

while the rest of Einstein's remains

are sent to a crematorium.

- The key to getting away with any crime

is to keep it a secret.

But he ends up notifying the hospital director

of his actions and the story ends up in the New York Times.

- And this is how the Einstein family finds out.

They read about it in the morning paper.

They had no idea the ashes they scattered

weren't all of Einstein.

They are not happy.

- Theft of body parts and unlawful dissection

does carry a huge prison sentence with it,

and Harvey wants to avoid jail.

- [Dan] Desperate, Dr. Harvey attempts

to get retroactive permission from Einstein's family.

- He promises that this is never going to be sold,

that Einstein's brain

is not going to be turned into some sideshow spectacle.

This is going to be for real scientific advancement.

- And he promises the family that before publishing anything,

they will get to read it first.

And he even takes the extra step

of putting it all down in writing.

- [Dan] Once the family agrees,

Dr. Harvey starts to get oddly possessive.

- The military reaches out to him,

saying they wanna help him examine the brain,

and he turns down the military flat.

He also refuses to turn over the brain

to his boss at Princeton Hospital.

And because you're being insubordinate, he loses his job,

and because he loses his job,

he also loses his research funding.

So now, Harvey has to find somebody to partner with

so that he can keep this research going,

because remember, that's part of the condition

for him to keep Einstein's brain.

- So he slices up the brain into 240 different sections.

Some are thin slices, some are just small chunks,

and it's with these pieces that he starts to bargain

with outside researchers.

- [Dan] To Harvey's surprise,

few reputable doctors want any part of this research.

- Things continue to go wrong for Dr. Harvey.

He's jobless, he's penniless, his wife leaves him.

It's almost as if the brain

has become a floating curse in a jar.

- So Harvey decides to move out west, and of course,

he takes the brain with him.

Some in a glass jar,

and the rest in a couple of cardboard boxes.

For decades, he roams the country

with Einstein's brain in tow.

He's hoping to finally get money or connections to a partner

to finally finish his research paper.

- Wherever he goes, Einstein's brain is right next to him,

maybe in a closet, maybe stored in the basement,

sometimes even just in the trunk of his car.

In 1978, he gets an unexpected call.

On the phone is a young reporter, Steven Levy,

who's doing a story for a tiny regional paper,

the New Jersey Monthly.

And the story is, "Whatever happened to Einstein's brain?"

- The reporter makes a plan to meet with Harvey,

and he's expecting to see some elaborate lab set up

with Einstein's brain in there, being examined.

That's not what he finds.

- [Dan] The reporter Levy is shocked

to see the brain of this genius,

in what looks like a pickle jar.

- The article and the photo send shockwaves

through the science community.

The disrespect and the dishonor that's being shown.

Einstein's family, Hans Albert and Otto Nathan,

they're looking at this article and saying,

"This is not what we agreed to."

You are carting this man's brain around in a cardboard box?

There's grounds for legal action.

- [Dan] Luckily for Dr. Harvey, charges are never filed.

[tense music]

- Finally, in 1998, a much older and beaten down Harvey

returns to the scene of the crime in Princeton, New Jersey,

and he does maybe what he should have done decades ago.

He turns in the brain.

- Today, you can see slices of that incredible,

brilliant, fugitive brain at the Mutter Museum

in Philadelphia,

next to President Grover Cleveland's tumor.

Wonder what Einstein would've thought about that.

Speaking of nicking body parts,

how about taking a five finger discount

on two slightly used toes?

[mysterious music]

- In May, 2018, the Body Worlds Vital Exhibit

is making a stop in Auckland, New Zealand.

The display is a whole bunch of corpses

that have been preserved, and they're skinned,

and posed in various positions to essentially show people

how the human body works.

It tours the world, and over 45 million people have seen it.

And Auckland is no exception, the place is packed.

- [Dan] But one day, as the caretakers are closing up shop,

they're horrified to discover that one of the exhibits

has become a crime scene.

- They look at this display of a female acrobat,

and they realize,

someone has not only broken off two of her toes,

they've taken them.

- The panicked caretakers call the police.

The cost to actually replace these two missing toes,

it's thousands and thousands of dollars.

Moreover, somebody has desecrated a human corpse,

and essentially stolen their toes.

I mean, this is gonna be a felony.

- This is a case where there aren't any ready clues.

The security cameras are not trained

on that part of the exhibit

at the time when the toes go missing.

Luckily, the police actually end up catching

an unbelievable break.

- [Dan] It turns out the only thing this thief likes more

than stealing toes is likes on social media.

- Foolish 28-year-old named Joshua Williams posts a picture

of himself on social media with the toes,

bragging about his crime.

The post reads, "Chur to the Body Works. I stole a toe!"

- [Dan] Williams' ghoulish plot might earn him clout

on social media,

but it also sends the police right to his door.

- He gets arrested and charged with theft,

as well as interfering with a dead body

of an unknown person.

Such a charge can land you seven years in prison.

- This charge is serious,

but the judge decides that a dead body

actually can't be property,

which means you can't technically steal it.

- Therefore, the theft charge has to be dropped.

As for the next charge, which is interfering

with the dead body of an unknown person,

Joshua is no grave robber.

- Judge Hastings decides this is kind of more like

taking something off of a mannequin

than a human dead body.

He tosses out all the other charges too,

and Joshua ends up maybe the luckiest person

in a New Zealand court ever.

- Joshua Williams returns the toes to the exhibit,

and walks away a free man.

- When it comes to solving violent murder cases,

detectives never know how they might catch a big break.

For cold case cops in India,

help comes from the most unlikely source.

- It is December of 1983, near the city of Agra.

The Singh family of Bad, India,

welcomes a lovely boy into the world, who they name Titu.

[mysterious music]

- He's precocious, but one day,

he starts behaving strangely.

He claims he has a beautiful wife named Uma,

and wealthy parents in the neighboring city of Agra,

and he even owns a radio shop.

- He further tells his family, "I'm not from here."

His name is not Titu, but it is Sutesh Verma.

- [Dan] He also tells them something else quite shocking.

That he was murdered.

- At first, Titu's parents are dismissive.

"Our son just has an active imagination like many children."

But when they tell him to knock it off, he gets incensed.

He's angry. He says these things happened to him.

- He tells his mother that his wife Uma

wears much nicer saris than she does.

His home in Agra is bigger, and cleaner, and nicer.

And by age four, he's absolutely adamant

that he comes from a better life and better circumstances.

- [Dan] In 1987, Titu's big brother, Ashok,

decides to help out with a little recon.

- He drives around town, looking for this radio shop.

He doesn't find a radio shop named Sutesh,

but he does find one named Suresh.

He goes inside, he goes up to the counter,

there's a nice woman at the counter.

She says Suresh isn't there,

because he died in August of 1983.

- She also says that she's Suresh's widow,

and her name is Uma.

[tense music]

- He asked how Suresh died,

and Uma tells him that he was murdered.

- Ashok is surprised. The story's starting to line up.

Ashok tells Uma about Titu's claims

that he is her husband come back to life.

- [Dan] Intrigued, Uma travels to Bad with her in-laws

to hear Titu's strange claims for herself.

- Titu recognizes them immediately.

He calls Uma by her first name, and he asks,

why are they arriving in a car he doesn't recognize?

"What happened to my Fiat?"

Uma is shocked.

How would he know that their car was a Fiat?

- [Dan] Titu doesn't just know intimate details

of Uma's deceased husband's life,

but also his unsolved death.

- He remembers driving home, honking his car horn twice

to have Uma come out and open the gate for him.

And then he remembers this next part vividly.

Two men coming down the street,

one takes a gun out, and shoots him in the head.

[gunshot firing]

- [Dan] Unbelievably,

Titu's memory matches the police report,

but he's also able to recall something

that's evaded the authorities for over five years.

- Titu claims to remember one of the assailants

as someone who Suresh did business with at the radio shop,

Sedick Johaadien.

- [Dan] There's also another strange piece

of evidence uncovered.

- On Titu's head, there is a birthmark on the right side,

and a scar on the left side.

And both of these roughly correspond with the entrance

and exit wounds as per Suresh's 1983 autopsy.

With all this circumstantial evidence,

the courts take extraordinary action.

They allow reincarnation evidence into the docket,

and allow the police to reopen the investigation.

- The police actually locate the two men

that Titu remembers.

They are charged with murder, found guilty,

and sent to prison.

- It's gotta be tough enough for police

to trust a reincarnated witness.

Now, imagine one that doesn't exist.

[mysterious music]

- It is 1897

in the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia.

A blacksmith named Erasmus Shue, known as Trout,

settles down with his bride, Zona.

- It's a chilly January morning,

and things are kind of slow at Trout's blacksmith's shop.

So he sends his assistant, Andy,

back to the home he shares with Zona

in order to find out if she needs any errands being run.

- Andy knocks on the door, doesn't get an answer,

so he carefully lets himself in.

And what he finds is terrible.

[tense music]

- Zona is at the bottom of the stairs,

dead.

- [Dan] Andy desperately calls for Trout.

And when he sees his wife's body, he is overcome with grief.

- He is crying and wailing,

and he sends Andy to go get the coroner,

which is Dr. George Knapp.

- Trout carries Zona up the stairs,

and is immediately just beside himself.

- Knapp comes to the house with Andy,

Trout is screaming hysterically,

and Dr. Knapp can get nowhere near the poor girl's body.

- [Dan] Because of Trout's emotional state,

Dr. Knapp does not examine the body.

Instead, he determines the cause of death

as an eternal faint,

a euphemism at the time for a sudden heart failure.

- There's a tradition within the community

that the women of the town would come

and prepare a woman's body for burial

by cleaning it and dressing it.

But when the women of the town arrive,

Trout has already done this.

She's wearing a crisp, high-collared dress,

with a large crepe veil,

and he's even wrapped her favorite scarf around her neck.

- [Dan] Trout puts Zona's body in a pine box,

and she's buried the next day in the local churchyard

with all the town folk present.

- Weeks pass, and then one night,

Zona's mother, Mary Jane Heaster,

is sleeping in her bedroom, when out of nowhere,

she sees her dead daughter, Zona.

And Zona points at her own throat,

as if to tell her mother something.

- She kind of chalks this up to, "I am a grieving mother.

My brain is playing tricks on me."

But then the next night, the same thing happens again.

It happens a third night, and then a fourth night.

After this, Mary Jane is convinced

they need to look into this death.

And she actually gets in touch with Dr. Knapp and says,

"I think we need to exhume my daughter's body."

- When Trout gets wind of this, he is incensed,

arguing that he does not want his wife's body

to be disturbed.

- [Dan] Despite Trout's protests, Zona's body is dug up.

And when they remove the scarf Trout placed around her neck,

a brutal truth reveals itself.

- They find markings of strangulation.

Of course, with murder charges,

they always look at the spouse first,

and Trout's actions were considered suspect.

His carrying on and crying,

keeping the doctor from examining the body

point to someone who's trying to conceal evidence.

- [Dan] Trout is immediately arrested,

and he's put on trial for the murder of his wife, Zona Shue.

- In court, Trout's attorney attempts to make Zona's mother

seem crazy for suggesting that her daughter had come to her

in an apparition.

But the problem is, the forensics back up her story.

- [Dan] The jury sides with Zona's mother,

and I suppose, by extension, Zona's ghost.

They find Trout guilty and sentence him to life in prison,

but they also set a very unusual legal precedent.

- Zona Shue's case is the only time in recorded history

of the state that a ghost actually provided testimony

that resulted in the conviction of their killer.

[mysterious music]

- Ghosts solving murders?

Sounds like the plot of a successful Demi Moore movie,

if you ask me.

- Sometimes in life, it's hard to tell

the bad guys from the good.

They don't always wear ski masks.

And that dilemma certainly holds true

for some confused bank tellers in San Francisco.

[tense music]

- It's Saturday, December 13, 2014,

in downtown San Francisco.

It's just two weeks before Christmas,

and the place is abuzz with people shopping

and getting their errands done.

And there's a bank all done up for Christmas.

It's got Christmas trees, lights, wrapped presents,

all for the impending holiday.

So nobody is surprised when in walks a man

dressed as Santa Claus.

- Witnesses say Santa goes up to the teller,

says that he has a gun,

and if she wants to stay off his naughty list,

she better start handing over cash.

- She freezes.

Although the teller doesn't see the gun,

she hands him a sizable amount of cash.

Santa puts it in his sack,

and he gets the hell out of there.

- [Dan] As the bad Santa escapes from the bank,

and into the streets,

you'd expect him to stick out like a sore thumb.

But not today.

- This day is the annual SantaCon.

It's essentially a big Christmas time pub crawl.

People dress up as elves, as reindeer,

and there are hundreds of Santa clauses roaming the streets.

He basically disappears into thin air.

- [Dan] The FBI and San Francisco police work together,

and go through hundreds of hours

of surveillance camera footage, but to no avail.

- How are you gonna find a single Santa

amongst thousands of Santas on the street that day?

It's like trying to find Waldo,

but the book is full of all Waldos.

- According to the FBI,

December is the worst month for bank robberies.

People get desperate for cash to buy presents.

Banks are carrying a lot of cash.

It's just a rife time to be hit with a robbery.

- As of now, San Francisco's bandit Santa remains at large.

Greedy Santa's not the only unlikely thief.

Consider the story of a band of anti-heroes

who pull off one of the biggest heists in British history.

[tense music]

- It's 1950 in Glasgow, Scotland.

And Ian Hamilton is a 25-year-old

politically active college student.

He joins a group called the Scottish Covenant Association,

which shares his belief the Scots should rule themselves,

and not be ruled by England.

Ian has a plan to bring greater attention to the cause,

and that is to steal the Stone of Destiny,

which sits beneath the coronation chair

in Westminster Abbey.

- Every English king or queen since 1296

has been crowned sitting on that throne

with the Stone of Destiny underneath.

It is a symbol of the power of the British monarchy.

[tense music]

- [Dan] Before that, however,

it belonged to the kings of Scotland.

Now, Ian wants it back.

- Ian prepares for this robbery.

He takes out every book from the library

on the Stone of Destiny,

and he does reconnaissance missions to the Abbey.

- Considering that the stone weighs 335 pounds,

he brings in his friend, Gavin Vernon and Alan Stuart,

to help him move the stone,

because these guys are built like brickhouses.

- He also recruits 22-year-old Kay Matheson.

He knows her from the Covenant,

plus, he may have a little crush on her.

- Because the stone is 335 pounds,

the plan is to take two cars.

One for the stone and a driver,

and the other car for the other three.

- [Dan] What could be more brazen

than stealing a national treasure

from the royal family's church?

How about doing it in the wee hours of Christmas morning?

- Kay pulls up alongside the Abbey,

and she's serving as the lookout.

The other car pulls up to a door known as the Poet's Door.

The first thing they try to do is pick the lock.

Quickly, they realize that none of them

have ever picked a lock before in their life.

They go to the next plan,

which is just pry the damned door open.

[mysterious music]

- This is not a quiet process.

They get the door open, but they make a ton of noise.

- [Dan] Afraid they've already alerted the guards,

they race through the dark halls

to find the coronation throne

and the Stone of Destiny beneath it.

- The muscle guys come forward,

and they're trying to shift it,

but it's so heavy even they can't really manage it.

So Ian gets his overcoat,

and the plan is let's get the stone onto the coat,

and use it as a sort of sled to drag the thing out.

But then, the stone falls to the ground,

and cracks in two.

- Ian, freaking out, completely panicked.

He picks up a 95 pound part of the stone,

and just books it for the door,

leaves Gavin and Alan behind in the Abbey.

- [Dan] Ian sprints to Kay's car,

carrying over half his body weight.

While his speed is incredible, his timing is not.

- Also arriving on the scene is a police officer.

And Kay says, "Quick, kiss me."

- She does not have to ask twice.

And they begin making out,

as though their freedom depended on it.

The officer taps on the window,

and Ian and Kay pretend to be surprised and embarrassed,

and they explained that they're college students

who just got into town and haven't found a hotel,

and the officer lets them go, and they speed away.

Little does this officer know

that a priceless piece of history has just driven off.

- [Dan] But this robbery is nowhere near over.

Ian realizes that in the rush to flee

with half of the stone,

he's dropped the keys to the other getaway car

inside the Abbey and must return to the scene of the crime.

- Ian walks into the Abbey.

His friends are nowhere to be seen.

But Ian manages to drag the 230 pound stone to the car,

and he hops in.

- [Dan] The team regroups,

and buries both pieces of the Stone of Destiny in England,

in separate holes, of course,

before escaping back to Scotland.

- Upon realizing it is stolen, there is an all out manhunt.

- Ian and the gang are panicked,

so they gather up the bits of the stone,

give them to the Scottish Covenant Association.

They try and keep the whole thing under the radar

while they figure out what the heck they're gonna do.

- [Dan] While the Covenant

has the stone fused back together,

the cops close in on Ian.

- The cops make their way to the University of Glasgow,

specifically to the library,

and they notice that Ian Hamilton

has been checking out a ton of books

about the Stone of Destiny.

- [Dan] Luckily for Ian, the Scottish Covenant steps in

to return the now repaired stolen stone

to British authorities, who in turn drop all charges.

Even though Ian and his crew get away with it,

they learn a very important lesson.

When planning one of the biggest heists in British history,

it's important to put together a strong crew,

never leave a trail,

and make sure you don't break the merchandise.

- When you think of hard-nosed criminal interrogations,

I doubt NASA comes to mind.

However, they take guarding their assets quite seriously,

as one entrepreneurial granny finds out the hard way.

[tense music]

- It's Los Angeles, 2011.

Joann Davis, a 74-year-old, 4'11" grandma,

is about to meet a new friend at Denny's.

Joann claims to be in possession of a paperweight.

- Inside is a tiny, tiny bit of moon dust,

no bigger than a grain of rice.

She also claims to have a piece of the heat shield

from one of the Apollo missions.

She's spoken to Jeff many times,

and they've arranged this date to make the transfer of money

for the moon rock and the heat shield.

She's badly in need of the cash.

- As Joann and her second husband, Paul Cilley,

sit across the table and get down to business,

they're suddenly surrounded by armed agents.

- Joann is wondering what the heck is going on.

An armed agent is searching them for weapons.

Now she's being read her rights.

- They drag Joann and her husband

out into the parking lot,

and detain both of them for questioning.

- [Dan] But the agents aren't from the FBI, DEA, or ATF.

They're from NASA,

and they have some questions about this moon rock.

- Joann swears up and down

that the lunar artifact is rightfully hers.

That it was a gift by Neil Armstrong himself

to her late husband, Robert Davis,

who was an influential NASA engineer.

She's arguing that everything she's doing is fine.

She needs the money to take care of her grandkids.

What's the problem here?

[shuttle booming]

- NASA does give moon rock and similar material

to high-ranking government officials as gifts,

but the understanding

is that this remains government property.

It's not for resale.

And they will go after aggressively,

anyone who tries to profit from this material.

- [Dan] However, it becomes clear

that Joann isn't aware of this understanding.

- Joann had no idea that she was trafficking

in stolen goods.

In fact, she herself had emailed NASA

asking for tips on how to sell it.

- Instead of just responding to her emails

by telling her that this was illegal and she can't do it,

they decide to create a sting,

where they drag her into a Denny's, and then arrest her,

and then humiliate her in an impromptu interrogation.

- [Dan] When the moon dust settles,

Joann decides the best defense is a good offense,

by taking NASA to court.

- In 2013, Joann Davis sues NASA

for detaining her in a hot Denny's parking lot,

and interrogating her for hours.

The Ninth Circuit agreed this was over the top.

There was no need to treat this little,

4'11" grandma like that.

- She settles out of court for $100,000.

It's not the seven-figure score she was hoping for,

but not too bad.

- [Dan] This isn't the first time NASA's found themselves

on the wrong side of the law.

- [Announcer] We have ignition sequence has started.

- It's May of 1973.

Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida

is abuzz with activity.

NASA's Skylab is about to launch.

- [Announcer] ...two, one, zero.

The Skylab lifting off the pad now. Moving up.

- [Hakeem] And this mission is set to prove

that humans can actually live and work in space.

- Skylab is able to successfully host

three different teams of astronauts.

They perform more than 2,000 experiments,

take tens of thousands of images of the Earth and the sun,

and generally prove that it's possible to live in space.

- [Dan] Not bad for a price tag of 2.2 billion.

But there are other expenses that they hadn't planned for.

- By 1974, Skylab's in a sorry state.

Clearly, the mission cannot continue.

So NASA decides it's time to deorbit Skylab,

and to do it in such a way

that the big pieces fall into the Indian Ocean.

- On July 11, 1979, Skylab does start to fall to Earth.

And most of it burns up on re-entry,

but some of the pieces do fall over western Australia.

It lands in a place called the Shire of Esperance,

population 2,700.

- When NASA sends a team to recover the debris

that fell in western Australia,

a ranger from the Shire hands them a ticket

with a bill of $400 for the crime of littering.

According to Article Seven of the Outer Space Treaty,

governments and states are responsible

for any damage caused by their space objects.

- [Dan] But NASA never pays the fine,

and the violation is largely forgotten about,

until 30 years later.

- In 2009, on the 30th anniversary,

a US DJ, Scott Barley, goes on the air and says,

"Let's pool our money, and let's pay off NASA's fine."

The mayor says, "Thank you very much,

but we wrote that money off ages ago."

But thankfully, he reports that no further debris from NASA

has fallen on any of the local population.

- Ever notice in crime movies and TV shows,

we often find ourselves rooting for the bad guy?

But in rare instances,

that can be true with real crimes as well.

Witness the strange case of a very charming bank robber,

with a very unlikely fan club.

[tense music]

- It's August 1973.

Police sharp shooters are getting in place.

There's a robbery happening at the credit bank.

- Police commissioner Curt Lindroth has gotten word

that 32-year-old career criminal and safe cracker,

Jan-Erik Olsson has taken four employees

of the bank hostage, one man and three women.

- The police know Jan-Erik means business.

He's already shot one of the police officers

who responded to the silent alarm.

- [Dan] His demands start with money, and a getaway car,

but then get more audacious.

For instance, that his old cellmate, Clark Olofsson,

be released from prison,

and brought to the very bank he's robbing

to be an accomplice.

- Incredibly, the police take him from prison,

and they bring him to the bank

to be reunited with his criminal colleague.

On the surface, this seems like a bad idea,

but the police have a logic behind it.

- [Dan] In return, the commissioner is allowed

into the bank to see the hostages,

and get a better idea of how to rescue them.

- When Lindroth enters the bank, the hostages are unhurt,

but their demeanor is outright puzzling.

They don't seem afraid of their captors.

In fact, they seem somewhat chummy.

They refer to their captors by their first names.

- [Dan] The standoff continues for days.

And eventually the Prime Minister himself calls in

to speak to the hostages.

- Prime Minister gets on the phone

with captive Kristin Enmark,

and she explains that she and Jan-Erik

and Clark have a connection.

She wants to escape with them.

Things have so flipped for Kristin,

she's putting the blame for the standoff on the police.

- Then Jan-Erik tells the Prime Minister

he wants a bulletproof vest,

and a car big enough to transport all of them,

him and the hostages.

- He then tells him he's got 60 seconds to make up his mind

or there will be no hostages left.

He begins counting down from 60, and hangs up the phone

when he reaches 15.

- [Dan] Worried the hostages will either be killed,

or worse, become criminals themselves,

the police fire tear gas into the vault.

- And it works.

Jan-Erik announces from inside that they surrender.

The police counter that.

"Let the hostages go first."

- [Dan] Incredibly, even though the robbers surrender,

the hostages do not.

- The police have no choice.

They have to storm the bank and arrest everyone on premises.

But the strangest thing happens.

The hostages and the criminals embrace.

- They're begging the police not to hurt their captors.

One even has a tear in her eye.

- [Dan] Many wonder,

how could you feel this way about someone

who is prepared to kill you?

- A figure who causes harm

is sometimes also viewed as a caregiver.

It's sometimes called trauma bonding,

much like what you'd find with people

who perhaps are abused by spouses,

or parents, or their own captors.

So there is this strange and disturbing symbiosis.

- [Dan] A Swedish psychologist comes up with a name

for this bizarre phenomenon.

- He calls it the Norrmalmstorg Syndrome,

after the square in which it took place.

Luckily for us, we call it the much easier to say,

Stockholm syndrome.

- It takes a lot of gumption to steal.

And probably even more to steal something

that can bite your arm off.

[tense music]

- It's your average, ordinary Sunday

at the San Antonio Aquarium.

There's a special section that has open tanks,

where people have an opportunity to get a little up close

and personal view of the marine life.

- [Dan] But not everyone is here to sightsee.

- Two men eye a 16-inch gray horn shark,

a favorite among visitors,

known affectionately as Miss Helen.

- In what appears to be a coordinated heist,

one man nonchalantly reaches into the tank

and scoops the shark up in a net that he's brought with him.

- [Dan] Oddly, visitors don't seem to notice

a man carrying a dripping shark,

as he disappears to a surveillance camera blind spot.

- Back in view of the security cameras,

he hands the bundle to another man,

who places it in the escape vehicle,

which in this case, is a baby stroller.

- It's not just a simple smash and grab.

He's got several accomplices,

including a woman carrying a small child.

- [Dan] At this point,

aquarium manager Jen Spellman suspect something is up,

and confronts the men.

- The sharknappers deny that they've taken a shark.

They insist that the baby's sick,

and that they have to leave immediately.

They speed away.

But Jen has just enough time

to take down their license plate number.

- Jen calls the police.

They track the license plate to a private residence,

and they discover a menagerie of aquatic animals,

some of them kept in a 6,000 gallon pool in the garage,

which includes a variety of fishes and five sharks.

- [Dan] They find Miss Helen safe in a large tank.

But aquarium workers notice there's something oddly familiar

about suspect Anthony Shannon.

- The staff realize this guy looks just like the guy

that came to the aquarium a few weeks earlier,

saying that he worked for the company

that sells them their salt.

- As he's posing as the salt supplier,

he gains access to the maintenance closet,

where the staff maintains the filtration system.

There he sees buckets which he can use

to transport the shark out of the facility.

- While he's there, he checks out the security cameras,

he sees where Miss Helen is.

This heist is actually meticulously planned.

It's basically "The Thomas Crown Affair,"

except this guy doesn't steal art, he steals sharks.

- This is how he knew about the off-camera

utility closet, where he took Miss Helen

to transfer her to a waiting bucket.

Despite his obvious love for marine life,

casing the joint in disguise

means that Shannon can't claim this was a crime of passion.

Miss Helen can now proudly sport the T-shirt,

"I survived the great San Antonio Aquarium heist of 2018."

From outrageous plots to steal a shark,

to solving your own murder in your next life,

or even the theft of a famous brain.

These are the crimes so curious,

they can only be called unbelievable.

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