MONTGOMERY, AL—Noting the incredibly similar circumstances surrounding all of the cases, legal sources confirmed Tuesday that countless copycat criminals across the country continue to imitate the infamous Blackjack Collins’ robbery of a Pittsburgh-area liquor store in 1822. “We still see thousands of individuals each year who have clearly patterned their heists after Blackjack, an early American criminal who masked his face in cloth, walked into Johnsons’ Spirit & Tobacco Shoppe brandishing a firearm, and screamed at the clerk, ‘Give me the money!’” said criminal profiler Paul Gorman, adding that the meticulously recreated homages are typically executed by those—just like Collins—who seek to quickly increase their personal wealth. “And just as Blackjack fled the scene on horseback, we find that nearly every modern-day culprit uses some form of transportation to make their getaway, a hallmark of the initial crime that has repeated itself over and over for nearly 200 years.” Gorman added that an equally strong trend exists among those carrying forth the legacy of mid-18th-century Fort Edward, NY man Ira Brouwer, who burned his log cabin down for the insurance money.

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