Cat burglars foiled by new technology Brief
By SSN Staff
Updated Sat April 1, 2006
PHILADELPHIA--The recently released book, Confessions of a Second Story Man: Junior Kripplebauer and the K&A Gang, by Allen Hornblum, is about the exploits of a group of "high school dropouts who made an art of robbing wealthy surburban homes in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s," reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. Among other jobs, the gang stole a priceless collection of paintings from the Woolworth estate in Maine and $2 million in rare coins from the du Pont compound in Miami. Despite their well-heeled targets, Hornblum describes the group as "two-fisted, beer guzzling ear- and nose-biting hoodlums," who were sophisticated in disabling alarms and cracking safes. Why did they stop in the '70s? One main reason, he says, was the "advent of new home-protection technologies like motion sensors."
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