The Ultimate Heist Fail: When Teenage Burglars Mistook Human Remains for Party Drugs
You think you’ve heard the wildest true crime stories? You think you know how dumb criminals can get? Think again. We are about to look at a case that defies logic, biology, and basic human decency. It is a story of greed so blinding that it literally left a bad taste in the mouths of the perpetrators.
Imagine the scene. It’s dark. The adrenaline is pumping. You’ve just kicked in the door of a stranger’s house. You are grabbing cash, electronics, jewelry—anything that glitters. Then, you see it. The holy grail. A box hidden away. It looks suspicious. It looks valuable. You open it up, and there it is. A pile of powder. Jackpot. Cocaine. A lot of it.
But it wasn’t cocaine.
This is the insane, true story of Devin Gesell and a crew of teenage burglars who committed perhaps the most embarrassing crime in Missouri history. They didn’t just steal from the dead; they tried to consume them.
The St. Charles County Incident: A Timeline of Stupidity
The year was 2014. The setting: St. Charles County, Missouri. A quiet place. A safe place. Until Devin Gesell and his two juvenile accomplices decided to turn a random afternoon into a felony spree.
Devin was 17. Old enough to know better? Apparently not. He wasn’t the mastermind, though. He was the lookout. The eyes. While he watched the street, nervously scanning for patrol cars or nosy neighbors, two younger teens—names withheld because they were minors—breached the property. They were hungry for quick cash.
The Loot
They tore the house apart. Drawers pulled out. Closets ransacked. The haul was actually pretty significant for a smash-and-grab job. Here is what they found:
- Cold Hard Cash: Over $800 sitting around.
- Bling: A necklace valued at $500.
- Tech: An $800 tablet and multiple Xbox gaming consoles.
Most thieves would stop there. They had the goods. They had the money. Time to run, right? Wrong. They kept digging. They found prescription bottles. Morphine. Oxycodone. Heavy hitters. But then, they found the box.
The Forbidden Taste Test
This is where the story takes a turn into the bizarre. They found a container. Inside, a powdery substance. To a desperate, drug-addled teenage brain, white powder equals one thing: Cocaine.
They didn’t stop to think. They didn’t wonder why cocaine would be stored in a decorative box on a mantle instead of a plastic baggie in a drawer. They grabbed it. They fled the scene, hearts racing, thinking they had just scored thousands of dollars in street drugs.
They get to the getaway spot. The car? A back alley? We don’t know exactly where it happened, but we know what happened. They opened the box to sample the goods.
One of the teens dipped a finger in. The moment of truth. He put it in his mouth. He expected the numbing chemical bitterness of high-grade coke. Instead? Grit. Ash. Bone fragments. The dry, dusty taste of death.
It was the homeowner’s father.
The Ultimate Disrespect
The realization must have been horrifying. Or funny. Or sickening. But here is the part that makes your blood boil. Upon realizing they were eating a stranger’s grandpa, did they return the ashes? Did they leave them on a church step? No.
They rolled down the window and threw the ashes out of the moving car. Just dumped them on the side of the road like fast-food trash. A lifetime of memories, a human soul, scattered into the Missouri dirt because a couple of kids were mad it wasn’t drugs.
Not an Isolated Incident: The Florida “Cocktail”
You might be thinking, “Well, that’s a freak accident. That never happens.” Wrong. This is a pattern. It happens more often than you want to believe.
Let’s rewind to 2011. Florida. Of course, it’s Florida. If weird things happen in Missouri, impossible things happen in Florida.
A gang of five repeat offenders, known locally as the “Silver Creek” burglars, decided to hit a nice middle-class home. The crew included David Diaz (19), Matrix Andaluz (18), Waldo Soroa (19), and two younger accomplices. These weren’t first-timers. They knew the drill.
The Haul
They stripped the house. Flat-screen TV? Taken. DVD player? Gone. Jewelry? Snapped up. But then, they found the stash. Or so they thought.
They found fancy jars. Heavy urns. They opened them up and saw fine, grayish-white powder. Their eyes lit up. They thought they had stumbled upon a kingpin’s secret supply. They took the urns.
But the story gets darker. In Missouri, they tasted it. in Florida? They snorted it.
Snorting the Dead: A Forensic Nightmare
The Florida crew didn’t just find one urn. They found several. They thought they had different “cuts” or strains of drugs. They drove away, celebrating their victory. As they were driving, or perhaps later at their hideout, they decided to test the product.
They lined it up. They used bills or straws. They inhaled the remains of the dead deep into their sinuses.
What were they actually snorting? It wasn’t just a person. It was a mixture. A “Forbidden Cocktail,” if you will. The urns contained:
- The ashes of the homeowner’s father.
- The ashes of two Great Danes.
Yes. You read that correctly. They were snorting a mixture of a human man and two giant dogs. Imagine the biological confusion happening in their bodies. The gritty texture. The lack of a “high.” They kept trying, though. They were convinced it was drugs, just maybe “bad stuff” or “cut with something weird.”
It wasn’t until one of the burglars saw a news report on TV about the break-in—specifically mentioning the stolen urns—that the color drained from their faces. Reality hit them like a freight train.
The Psychology of the Mistake: Why Does This Happen?
How does this happen? How can a human being confuse cremated remains with cocaine? Let’s break down the science and the psychology, because it is fascinatingly stupid.
1. The Hollywood Effect
In movies, cocaine is always a fluffy, white mountain of powder. In reality, cremation ashes (cremains) look nothing like that. Ashes look like grey kitty litter or coarse sand. They are crushed bone. There is no chemical smell.
However, these thieves aren’t chemists. They are desperate opportunists. Their brains are wired for reward. They want it to be drugs so badly that their perception warps. It’s a phenomenon called “confirmation bias.” They see powder; they think payout.
2. The Dunning-Kruger Criminal
We are dealing with the Dunning-Kruger effect in full swing. These criminals overestimate their intelligence. They believe they can identify drugs by sight. They believe they are master thieves. In reality, they are breaking into houses and eating dust.
The Karma of the Crypt
There is a strange pattern in these stories. The “Curse of the Stolen Dead.” In almost every case where thieves steal human remains, they get caught. Fast.
In the Florida case, the guilt ate them alive. After realizing they had snorted a man and his dogs, panic set in. Did they do the right thing? No. They debated returning the urns but were too cowardly. They feared getting caught with the evidence.
So, they drove to a lake. They hurled the urns into the dark water. They tried to wash away the sin. But the dead don’t stay buried—or submerged—that easily.
Police divers eventually found the urns. They recovered the remains of the father and one of the dogs. The evidence was wet, but it was there. The fingerprints, the confessions, the sheer stupidity—it all led the police straight to the gang.
Modern Technology vs. Ancient Crimes
In the old days, grave robbing was a physical act. You had to go to a cemetery with a shovel. Today, grave robbing has moved into the living room. Urns are common. They sit on mantles, unprotected.
But modern forensics is the enemy of the dumb criminal. In the Missouri case, Devin Gesell was caught because fingerprints were left at the scene. In Florida, the news cycle worked against them. The media blast about the “stolen ashes” forced the criminals to panic, make mistakes, and eventually turn on each other or slip up.
It makes you wonder: Is there a supernatural element? Does disturbing the rest of the departed mark you? The Florida gang didn’t just get a burglary charge. They became the laughingstock of the global internet. That is a stain that never washes off.
The Biological Hazard
Let’s get gross for a second. Is it dangerous to eat or snort ashes? Technically, cremains are sterile. The high heat of the retort (the cremation oven) burns away all bacteria and viruses. It is just calcium phosphate and minerals.
However, snorting bone grit? That is a mechanical nightmare for your nose. It can cause micro-cuts, infections, and severe irritation. So, not only did these guys go to jail, but they likely spent the first few nights with a burning, bleeding nose, regretting every life choice that led them to that moment.
What Happened to Devin Gesell?
Back to our main character in Missouri. Devin Gesell. He was charged with burglary and theft. The court documents paint a picture of a young man who threw his future away for an Xbox and a mouthful of ash.
The judge was likely not amused. Stealing money is one thing. Desecrating remains is another. It shows a lack of empathy that is chilling. The “tossing of the ashes” on the roadside was the nail in the coffin for his defense. It proved malice. It proved he didn’t care.
The family of the deceased had to live with the knowledge that their father’s remains were scattered in a ditch, treated like garbage. That is a trauma that doesn’t go away.
Conclusion: The Ultimate Lesson
If there is a lesson here, it is simple. Don’t steal. But if you are going to be a criminal, for the love of everything holy, learn what drugs look like.
These stories serve as a dark, twisted reminder of how low people can sink for a quick high. They also serve as a warning. The universe has a funny way of punishing disrespect. You break into a house, you steal a TV, maybe you get away with it. You steal a man’s soul and try to smoke it? You are going to get caught.
The next time you see a fancy vase on a shelf, show some respect. It’s not a cookie jar. It’s not a drug stash. It’s a person. And they probably don’t taste very good.
Originally posted 2018-03-29 06:02:38. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
