Police are pretty cheesed off about a string of bizarre mischief cases in Carrollton, Texas — but they’re also closing in on the culprit after pulling fingerprints off a processed cheese slice at the crime scene.
Authorities say someone damaged several cars and plastered them with American cheese singles earlier this month. The mischief happened in the city of Carrollton, a suburb approximately 35 kilometres north of Dallas and 320 kilometres west of Monterey, Texas.
“Today we learned two things,” the Carrollton Police Department wrote on Facebook.
“1) Covering cars in cheese slices is apparently the new trend in criminal mischief.
“2) Cheese slices produce GREAT fingerprints.”
Crime scene investigator Parker Powell explained his new “whey” of pulling prints in an interview with local station WFAA.
“The call was, ‘Hey, I’ve got some cheese prints, I heard maybe you can help us out,'” he told the station.
Powell showed up at the scene to find more than a few shreds of evidence. Someone had slapped several cheese slices onto a silver sedan, and their fingers had left streaks and imprints in the melting singles.
“We go to a lot of strange things, so I wouldn’t say it was the strangest, but it was definitely interesting,” Powell said.
Powell found prints on three of the slices, so he dusted them and filed them with the department.
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However, the cheese-slapper’s arrest is not a feta fait accompli. Police still need to identify the person through their records.
Throwing cheese is also not necessarily a crime, police told WFAA.
Police don’t know why someone would cover a car in cheese, but it’s become a bit of a trend on TikTok. One of the video service’s most popular videos shows a person performing several drive-by “cheesings.” The person can be seen tossing Kraft singles at cars while they’re stopped in traffic.
It’s unclear if other police departments have reached out to Powell about his cheddar-printing skills in light of the TikTok trend.
Perhaps he could make a cottage industry of it?
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