15 Flabbergasting Crimes Involving Pizza
Pizza is like ice cream—if you don’t like it, you’re probably a murderer.
Actually, scratch that—one can be a murderer and also enjoy a nice spicy pizza pie, as many of the following true-life stories will demonstrate.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, professional drivers—a category that includes pizza-delivery peeps—suffered 748 fatalities in 2013, which is more than three times as many deaths as construction workers, who represent the second most-fatal occupation. The Baltimore Sun cites an Association of Pizza Delivery Drivers website claiming that police reports show that one or two pizza drivers are assaulted daily.
Although it’s true that pizza can make you flabby and give you gas, I’ve designated these 15 pizza-related crimes as “flabbergasting” due to their uniqueness. After you’ve swallowed all 15 slices, I’ve generously served up another 20 links to pizza-related crimes.
1. Man gets life sentence for stealing a slice of pizza.
California’s “Three Strikes” law—in which you get a sentence of 25 years to life for your third felony—struck Jerry Dewayne Williams especially hard. In July 1994 he stole a slice of pepperoni pizza from a group of children eating at a seaside pizza shop and was convicted of felony petty theft. It would have been a misdemeanor, but his prior felony convictions upgraded it to a felony.
2. Pizza delivery driver explodes on live TV after being strapped to bomb.
High-school dropout Brian Douglas Wells had been delivering pizza for almost three decades in Erie, PA. In 2003, he had become enmeshed in a labyrinthine plot with accomplices that involved being strapped to what he thought would be a fake bomb. Instead, his co-conspirators called for a pizza delivery at a remote location and when Wells arrived, they fastened a real bomb around his neck at gunpoint. They gave him a shotgun and instructed him to pull off a bank robbery. Police tried to apprehend Wells after the heist, but he warned them to keep their distance because he was strapped with a bomb that was scheduled to explode. While a bomb squad was on its way and TV reporters were covering the event live, the device exploded and killed Wells.
3. Suspected serial killer caught after leaving DNA traces on pizza slice.
An alleged serial killer that LA police dubbed “Grim Sleeper” was suspected of at least 10 murders, nearly all of his victims black females, between 1985-88 and 2002-2007. When police realized that the DNA of a felon named Christopher Franklin was very similar to that found at several crime scenes, Christopher’s father, Lonnie David Franklin, Jr., became a prime suspect in the slayings. Detectives set up a sting operation at a restaurant where a detective posed as a waiter and collected a DNA sample from a pizza crust that Lonnie Franklin had left behind. It matched saliva found on several victims, and Franklin was arrested in July 2010. He is still awaiting trial.
