We're not saying that you should spend your spare time confronting violent criminals -- it ends badly more often than not. We're just saying that it's awesome when it works.

When we hear about a nasty crime being committed, the most common reaction is saying, "Oh no, that's terrible!" and then going back to launching birds through the air on our iPhones. But, while most of us think that it's best to leave the crime fighting to those who are actually trained (and paid) for it, sometimes a normal citizen will decide to take the law into his or her own hands ... and end up doing a way better job than the cops.

5 12-Year-Old Finds and Confronts the Criminal Who Ransacked Her Grandma's Home

In July 2011, two thieves broke into a house in Fitzgerald, Georgia, and stole all the furniture. The homeowner had died a few years earlier and her family only came around once a year, so the thieves could have probably taken the walls and ceiling, too, if they'd found a sack big enough. By the time the neighbors noticed that the door was open and called the cops, the criminals were long gone ... but they weren't counting on being tracked down, confronted and forced to confess their crime by this master detective:

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"And then I kicked him until his head exploded."

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That's 12-year-old Jessica Maple, whose late great-grandma owned the newly empty home. Maple asked her mother to take her to the crime scene and found something the authorities had missed: a broken window in the garage and multiple fingerprints. The cops were still trying to process this new information (or pretending to) when Maple managed to locate all the stolen furniture at a nearby pawnshop. At this point, she called the main detective involved in the case and told him, "I did your job again."

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"Now you do my homework and tell me what happened on iCarly."

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But that isn't the end of our story: The pawnshop owner, who apparently didn't think it was weird when two jackasses came into his store dragging an entire grandma-style living room, also happened to have the pictures and IDs of the two guys. Rather than giving that info to the inept police department, Maple and the single most permissive mom in history drove down to the address on one of the IDs and confronted the 17-year-old robber in front of his mother.

At first, the guy denied having anything to do with the burglary, but Maple kept questioning him until he finally broke down and confessed to the crime, and possibly 9/11 and the Zodiac killings. Eventually, the police got around to arresting him.