It just so happens there was line-of-sight from the living room window to the alarm system keypad. It was eerie seeing the zoomed-in photo of the code. There it was in all its liquid crystal glory: "6637." The tip of a lady's slim finger was pressing the Enter key. We figure he was near the premises the day the family left for Costa Rica. That's when he took a snapshot of their German Sheppard locked up in a kennel being shoved into the back of their minivan. Folks don't kennel their dog for day trips. He knew they would be gone for a few days at least. He pretty much had the place nailed.
Our guys assembled the evidence. It's clear what happened. He walked up to the house, picked up a fake rock, pulled out the spare key, and opened the front door; walked right in. The kids would use that hidden key when they got home early from school. He had seen them use it dozens of times. He disabled the alarm using the code he photographed and then began rummaging around.
He didn't have any problems making himself at home. There was a half can of Red Bull on the counter and an empty carton of Swiss Cake Rolls on the floor. The TV was blaring upstairs. The drawers in the master bedroom were ransacked and jewelry was missing from the jewelry box. Clothes were everywhere. Apparently, not finding what he was looking for in the bedrooms, he wend downstairs, and that's where the fun starts.
There was some plastic wrapping on the stairs to the basement, and crumbs of a chocolate, cake-like substance. Sweet tooth, I guess. He had gone through most of the lower guest bedrooms before he made it to the mother load. They say he couldn't believe his eyes when he opened that heavy steal door...
Basically, it runs down like this: the owner was a diamond dealer. He liked to work at home, and had his own diamond cutting operation in this little room located in the center of the basement. There was basically a showcase of rings all along the walls. There were no doors or windows, just hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of diamonds and gold bands. He didn't advertise it or anything, but some folks found out about it. One time some friends-of-friends showed up for a barbecue extravaganza and meandered down to the basement. Discovering a few aging, glossy-eyed hippies marveling at the shiny gems was enough to persuade him to install a webcam in the upper corner of the room, just to be on the safe side. That was his story anyway. It had enough storage for about one month of video. It was nothing to special—but enough for our forensic team to see exactly what happened. He cooperated with the police entirely, and didn't hesitate to hand over the digital surveillance video.
Here's what they saw: the guy opened the door and the lights turned on automatically, revealing the diamonds. The way the system worked, as soon as the door opened the lights came on, and the bulletproof glass closed down over the valuables. This way, the rings were never accessible when the door was open. As soon as the door closed, the case elevated, granting clear access to everything. This gentleman noticed this—that the glass was open when he first entered the room, but then quickly closed. He opened and closed the door from the outside a few times to try to get a feel for how the system worked. It seemed as though all he would need to do was walk inside, close the door behind him, fill his pockets, and walk out.
The video is painful to watch. You can see him from the inside, carefully trying to close the door just enough so that the case would lift without the door closing altogether. Even though he was able to open the door freely from the outside, he wasn't quite comfortable closing the door from the inside. He seemed to realize the possibility the door may lock him in, but, it didn't lock when it was closed from the outside, so it was probably reasonable for him to assume there was no automatic lock when closed from the inside either. Finally, he pushed the door shut and all the cases open up. His smile went from ear to ear...
He jumped over to the showcases and shoveled everything he could find into his pockets. It might have been the most thrilling moment of his life. You can see him laughing and dancing. When his jacket pockets, pants pockets, and backpack were loaded up and overflowing, he walked over to the door, turned the handle, and tried to walk out. To his dismay, the door did not open.
He was instantly infuriated. He dropped his backpack and began kicking the door. He picked up some tooling and slammed it against the handle. No use. After about 15 minutes of being obsessed with the door, he tried to dig through the drywall. You see him kicking the interrior wall and then falling to the ground, grasping his foot. It turns out you can't kick through a half inch of solid steal with a human foot. After smashing up the whole room, walls, ceiling, and all, he realized the severity of his state. He was trapped in a solid, impenetrable box. There was no way out. The vents weren't even big enough to fit a person's fist.
You could tell the moment James lost hope. It was about 2 hours in. He just sat there on the floor against the work bench, sobbing. At the time, he probably thought he would be arrested and thrown in jail. He probably thought about his third strike. He realized he would be going to jail for a very long time. He really had no idea at first...
The reality began to set in after about 12 hours. He suddenly got up and began frantically smashing the diamond cutter against the same place in the wall. This went on for a few hours. It was completely useless. He was just using up energy, as if it would have mattered anyway.
By the second day he began to go crazy, just ripping everything apart. He started talking to himself, then screaming. He made hand gestures to the webcam. He turned over the work bench and scattered the tooling and rings all over the floor. The room was trashed.
By the third day he calmed down, then drifted off and died quietly of dehydration.
The family returned from their trip a few days later. The diamond cutter, alarmed by the obvious break-in, walked downstairs and into the room. You can see the footage of him gagging on the stench of the rotting corpse. He promptly left the room and called 911. After a few minutes, he returned and seemed very distressed. He crouched down by the corpse, which had a cutting tool in his hand. Carved on the adjacent leg of the workbench was a message:
"Me = thief. You = murderer."
Did James deserve to die? I don't know. Did the diamond cutter set this up as a trap? Some of the investigators said he could have, but there was no way to prove it. It was just a door that happened to lock from the inside, requiring a special code to get out. The guy explained that there was a lock malfunction which allowed the door to be opened from the outside, and that he hadn't gotten around to fixing it. He wasn't charged with anything.
I guess you just shouldn't break into other people's houses and try to take their stuff. Seems to me there isn't really of any sort of law that's going to protect James here, no matter what anyone says.
Of course, later on, we learned the disturbing truth. It turns out the diamond cutter was watching him—watching the live webcam footage the whole time from his beach house in Costa Rica. He had planned the whole situation just to bait the guy. He had opened the drapes in the living room just so James could photograph the keypad. He had told the kids to use the fake rock with the key inside so James would see. He planned the whole trip and put the dog in the kennel just for James' benefit, so that he would know the wouldn't be home. Incredible stuff. It gets pretty crazy.
We learned that there was a speaker in that room. There was no audio on the recovered webcam footage, so the investigators thought James had simply gone mad when he started screaming things. Actually, it turns out the diamond cutter was taunting James—telling him there would be no one coming to save him—telling him he would die for his crime. In fact, investigators suspect the diamond cutter explained exactly how he had set James up. They say he did everything he could to lure a burglar to his house, any burglar, just so he could have the pleasure of watching the guy die in his little dungeon.
How do they know this? He confessed to it. He openly said that it was total, 100% premeditated, cold-blooded murder. He just felt like killing a guy who was serious about robbing him, and somewhat capable of doing so. It was a game. I guess he lost a bunch of money in the Madoff scandal or something. I guess he just needed some sort of twisted justice. But, even after his confession, no one believed him. It was just too absurd. They didn't think it was possible. After all, there wasn't any particularly sophisticated trap set—just a standard automatic lock that had a particular malfunction. It was a trap designed not for any specific individual, but for a particular type of individual— a clever burglar.
Anyway, if you ask my opinion, I guess I'll have to stick with what I said before—it seems to me you just shouldn't break into other people's houses and try to take their stuff. I don't think James should have been killed like that, but I don't think people should step into bear traps either. Just one of those things, I guess.
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