Thieves Steal Trailer, Get Grim Surprise

Cops recovered trailer with body inside
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 12, 2017 3:23 AM CDT
Thieves Steal Trailer With Body Inside
Police say it's legal to transport bodies with the proper permit.   (Flickr/Tim Patterson)

A grim surprise may have been enough to make some New Mexico crooks give up stealing: A U-Haul trailer with a body inside was stolen from outside a Residence Inn in Albuquerque late Sunday night or early Monday morning, KOAT reports. Police say the thieves made off with both an SUV and the trailer it was towing, which held the body of a woman's father in a casket. A couple was taking the body from Oklahoma to bury it in Kirtland, NM. The SUV and trailer were found elsewhere in the city a couple of hours later. The thieves apparently fled after opening the trailer and discovering the corpse.

Police say they made the case a priority after receiving a phone call from one of the victims. "Clearly, his wife was extremely emotional, as her father's body had just been stolen," a police spokesman tells the Albuquerque Journal. "We immediately started allocating resources to try to find this vehicle, not only because it's just a heart-wrenching story, but also you're going to have the biosafety factors of having an unaccounted-for dead body." No arrests have been made yet, though police suspect three men taken into custody early Monday for driving recklessly and possessing burglary tools were behind the theft. (More weird crimes stories.)

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