In the real world, crimes are solved with a lot of tedious investigation by professional detectives sitting at a desk, filling out paperwork and poring through reams of witness reports. It doesn't make for compelling TV. That's how it goes down most of the time, anyway. But occasionally all of that painstaking legwork counts for nothing, and a serious crime can be solved by a series of coincidences so implausible that they'd be cut from the first draft of a CSI episode.

5 A Woman's Murder Is Solved By The General Lack Of All-Wheel Drive

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In 2000, a woman named Betty Lee was found murdered in the middle of the New Mexico desert. Police didn't have a lot to go on -- just a cellphone, discarded in the dirt near a web of tire tracks. The phone was traced to a tow truck driver named Charley Bergin, and this one piece of evidence cracked the case wide open. But Charley Bergin was not the killer. This story is a lot dumber than that.

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Turns out those Motorolas really are indestructible.

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The real killer was a guy named Robert Fry. With the help of an accomplice, Fry abducted the victim from a parking lot and drove her out into the desert to kill her. Unfortunately for them, Fry's car got stuck in the dirt on the way back from the crime scene. Ah, so he called Charley Bergin to help him out, right?

No. He called his father, James Fry, to bring his pickup to help wrench them out. But just to prove that stupidity is hereditary, the elder Fry's pickup also got stuck in the dirt during the rescue mission, stranding all of them. Now they were forced to call a tow truck to pull both vehicles to safety. So they called Charley Bergin, right?

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No. They called Floyd Robinson. Robinson drove out in his tow truck to give the hapless Fry the professional assistance he should have sought in the first place. Naturally, Robinson managed to get his truck stuck in the dirt as well. The comedy of errors continued as the steadily increasing pile of stranded vehicles had to call another tow truck. So they called ... Charley ... Bergin?

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"No. This is Greg. Charley's in the bathroom, hold on ..."

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This time, yes, they called Bergin. He was already having a bad night, which wasn't improved by getting called out to the middle of nowhere to pull three idiots out of the dirt. Shortly after arriving, Bergin's wife called him to nag about something, but due to the shitty phone reception, he couldn't hear what she was saying, so he got super pissed off and threw his phone into the sand, to later be discovered by police.