Police in Indiana are crediting a parole officer with helping them take a bite out of crime after she turned in an ex-con who allegedly showed up at an appointment wearing someone else’s dentures.
Joann Childers has been charged with theft in connection with the incident.
Deputies at the Jennings County Sheriff’s Office are still grinning about the bizarre caper, which started on Monday morning with a report that the dentures had been stolen.
“The victim reported that Joann Childers had stolen her teeth and had reportedly been wearing them around,” the Jennings County Sheriff’s Office wrote in a Facebook post. The post included several hashtags including “where’s my teeth,” “you can’t make this up” and “she’s not the tooth fairy.”
Childers’ parole officer told police that same morning that she’d shown up at a meeting with teeth that “clearly were not hers.”
The parole officer “believed they may be the stolen teeth,” according to police.
A sheriff’s deputy visited Childers at her home on Wednesday to follow up on the theft report. He immediately spotted the dentures sitting out in plain view.
“The dentures had the victim’s name written on them,” police said.
Authorities have recovered the slightly used teeth and returned them to the right mouth.
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