Charles Darwin at a green chalkboard.

2001 Darwin Awards

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Honoring Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool--by removing themselves from it in the most spectacular way possible.

God Saves?
2001 Darwin Award Winner
Unconfirmed by Darwin

"Generator thief cools off."

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(24 February 2001, Iowa) A wealth of literature makes it abundantly clear that deities often intercede to protect their sanctuaries from desecration. In light of this knowledge, two teen-agers who planned to burgle a church probably should have brought along their rosaries and their crosses.

Travis, 16, was on the roof of Grace Church in Des Moines, lowering a stolen generator to the ground, when his jacket became wrapped in the electrical cord and pulled him over the ledge to dangle precariously in the air. At that point he could have cut himself free with the sharp knife in his pocket. He could have escaped by wriggling out of his jacket. Travis, Inexplicably, did neither.

The surviving thief, unaware of his friend's plight, waited a fifteen minutes before leaving Travis, trapped in the freezing rain, to die of exposure.

Next time you steal from a church, remember Travis' fate and reconsider. That bit of booty is not worth risking the touch of a vengeful God.

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Submitted by: Michael Bolton, K. Hughes
Reference: Tom Alex of the Des Moines Register

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