Peek-A-Boo I see you!

In this line of work, we often have people hide from us, and some of them are very good at hiding because they have done it for so long. But every now and then we find someone who is not so good at hiding and all we can speculate is maybe they smoked a little too much crystal meth.

Over the years there have been many cases where people were not so good at the hiding part of their fugitive career. One of my favorites was when I went to a house with my detectives in search of a wanted fugitive, and after searching a few rooms, we walked into a bedroom to find a pair of legs sticking out from under a pile of clothes and covers on the bedroom floor.

Now these were not your everyday pair of legs, these were some extra-long legs with bright blue jogging pants, and a pair of neon green shoes, with some bigfoot size feet. The covers were hiding the person attached to these legs above the waist so we could not see who was attached to them. But the person we were looking for was very tall, and lived in that house, so there was a good chance it was him.

The rest of the room was surprisingly clean, leaving only the large pile of clothes with the feet sticking out of them in the center of the room. We approached the blue pair of legs and identified who we were before telling him to stand up. There was no movement, and after giving commands to stand up a second time we assumed this person was asleep or unconscious. It was neither.

Trying one last time I said "stand up, we can see your legs sticking out from under the covers." It was then that we heard an exasperated sigh and the tall wanted fugitive stood up, and shaking his head said "man you got me." Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I asked why he was sleeping in the middle of the floor to which he replied, "Man I was hiding, I can't go back to jail."

Understanding his desire not to be locked up, we all made a great effort to appear serious and understanding, but none of us were doing a very good job at hiding the humor we found in this situation. It was when one of the detectives said, "Couldn't you find anywhere to hide besides the middle of the floor?" that we could no longer contain the laughter.

This soon to be returning customer of the Vernon County Bed & Breakfast did not understand why it was so funny that he was hiding from the police. After all isn't that what many wanted people do? The guy expressed his deepest sorrow for getting caught and rambled all the way back to the jail. After hearing him talk for a while, it was clear that he had smoked a little too much of his own product and was short a few brain cells.

Every time I think of that guy and those long legs with neon green shoes, I think of the cartoons with the ostrich sticking its head in the sand attempting to hide from danger. Although the event was very comical, and even though ostriches do not really hide by sticking their heads in the sand, it was sad to see that someone who could have been good at so many things, was now about as smart as an ostrich. Due to his long heavy drug use, he had obviously lost his ability for rational thinking.

That old commercial with the eggs and a frying pan (this is your brain on drugs) was not a joke! These drugs are illegal because they are harmful to you and if you continue to take them, they can literally destroy your brain cells. Do not be dumb and listen to that "friend" that tells you its okay to try it. You will only end up in trouble, in jail, and in the end, about as dumb as the ostrich in the cartoons.