St. Louis wine thief repents
Can you find forgiveness for your sins by returning at least some of the stolen merchandise? It seems in the greater St. Louis area, a lone male wine connoisseur has been piling up the vintage, but at the same time loading his soul with guilt. A wine thief has been plaguing booze stores for quite some time. He has struck at several shops and always seems to follow the same modus operandi. He posed as a customer, filling up bags with 12 bottles of very expensive wine — and then walking out without paying. Aaron Zwicker, told KMOV4 that the man stole $3,000 in wine from containers and boxes on display at the store. In the surveillance video, the man browses the wine aisles and picks out some choice bottles, each costing more than $200. He then pulls out a bag he had hidden in his coat, fills it, and leaves the camera’s sight. Owner Endicott said the man simply walked out, but he realized something was up. “The way he exited, his demeanor, and the way he was acting, it was pretty clear to me that something was going on,” he said. Endicott followed the man to the street, where he saw him get into the car. As he drove off, Endicott had to jump out of his way as he seemed uninterested in not hitting him. All in all, he made away with $1,000 in wine.
Even though the lone man has excellent taste, the ill-gotten goods weighed heavily on his conscience. While the stores had him on security video, they did not have an ID to prosecute. Morality won out, but the middle-aged man could not just confess to police, so he did the next best thing, he gave some of the stolen wine to a priest he knew and asked him to take it back to the stores. A lone priest recently returned a large industrial container full of stolen, unopened bottles to a wine shop on behalf of a thief. The Wine Merchant store owner Jason Main said a priest entered the store. “It was a slow Monday and I saw a priest come in with a big box said, ‘Look, I need to make a return,’” said Main. The priest told Main he was returning the stolen wine and that he wasn’t answering any questions. And indeed, in the industrial box was every bottle stolen from the store, unopened and unharmed. The priest left the box, along with a manila folder containing a handwritten letter. The letter was a two-page apology explaining that the alleged thief had faced a series of serious personal setbacks and was selling the stolen wine to make a bit of money. He indicated that he had stolen from other wine stores and, even though the bottles had been sold, he would find a way to pay them back.
Guilt – the gift that keeps on giving
The prosecutor hammered the accused on the stand. “You still insist you are innocent in spite of the fact that seven witnesses swear they saw you steal the necklace.”
The defendant replied, “If you want witnesses, your honor, I can provide 70 witnesses that will swear they never saw me steal it.”
A good wife always forgives her husband when she’s wrong.
A nun gave little Mary a long talk on sin, prayer, and forgiveness.
When she finished the lesson, she asked little Mary, “What do we have to do before we ask the Lord for forgiveness?”
Little Mary Confidently said, “Sin.”
“Let he who is without sin throw the first stone,” Jesus said.
As the stones began to fly, Jesus realized he might have made a mistake by including the local Democrat Club.
November 11th Birthdays
1962 – Demi Moore, 1961 – Uldouz Wallace, 1993 – Camille Hyde, 1964 – Calista Flockhart
1994 – Tye Sheridan, 1922 – Kurt Vonnegut, 1885 – George Patton, 1974 – Leonardo DeCaprio