It would have been a clean getaway, “If only he hadn't dropped his wallet.”

Don’t know why, but I just love stories about stupid criminals, especially when they happen in Alaska. This one is from today’s Anchorage Daily News:

Benjamin Wallace Rucker nearly made a clean getaway, police say, after city snowplows covered the footprints leading away from the last vehicle stolen during a string of carjackings and robberies Tuesday night.

If only he hadn't dropped his wallet. With his photo ID.

"We would have caught him one way or the other," police Lt. Dave Parker said, "but it just made it so easy."

The series of robberies left a cab driver with slash wounds to his head and hands, a carjacking victim punched in the mouth and a pet dog that was in one of the stolen vehicles temporarily missing, according to police.

Rucker, 34, was arrested Thursday morning on six felony counts of robbery, assault and vehicle theft stemming from two episodes, and he is a suspect in a third. He was booked at the Anchorage jail on $50,000 bail. 

Moral of the story: If you don’t want to get caught, keep your wallet in your pants.