An alleged thief on the run from the police was found after he sent a Snapchat message to a friend that disclosed his hideout location.
Christopher Wallace was hiding out in Fairfield, Maine after allegedly stealing an iron wood stove and propane cook stove from a sporting camp in Somerset County. The Somerset County Sheriff’s Office put out the word on Facebook about the robbery and asked for people to contact their office if they had any information about his whereabouts. Whoever runs the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office’s Facebook page also asked Wallace to turn himself in and please don’t leave the state of Maine because, “Why the heck would anyone want to do that?!”
As social media was working for the sheriff’s office, however, social media was working against Wallace. He sent a Snapchat message to a friend, saying that he was hiding out at the house in Fairfield. The police were tipped off and got permission to search the house. Erika Hall, a woman who was also at the house, claimed that Wallace was not there and that she had not seen Wallace in weeks. When they couldn’t find Wallace in the house, the police seemed to be at a dead end, until Wallace decided to send a Snapchat message saying he was hiding in a cabinet:
“A search of the kitchen cabinets turned up some food, some pots and pans, and also a pair of feet,” the Somerset County Sheriff’s office wrote on Facebook. “The pair of feet just so happened to be attached to a person, and that person was Christopher Wallace. He was removed from the cabinet, and placed under arrest.”
The Somerset County Sheriff’s Office shared their success on Facebook and offered some sound advice to their readership:
Always remain humble, my friends… [and] when the police ask you multiple times if someone is in the house, and you answer repeatedly that they are not in the house, and that you have not seen said person in “weeks”, you’re just going to get arrested. That’s how it happens.
If I might add to that, always remain humble, and don’t use social media when hiding out from the police.
(Source: Digital Trends)