Suicide? Murder? Darwinism? Or just an accident?

How could it be anyone but the burglar?

The burglar is at fault for not consulting with Santa for advice on safe chimney entry :)

This is California. They’ll probably arrest the homeowner for failure to have warning signs at the the top of the chimney.

The law may be screwy, but clearly the burglar is at fault.

Depends on whether the firestarter really did not know that the guy was there.
He might be lying, you know?

I have a wood burning fireplace and I just can’t imagine how this happened. It takes a while for my fire to really get going, so I can’t figure out how or why the guy stuck in the chimney didn’t scream sooner. Or maybe he did and as @ragingloli suggests, the owner may be lying.

Roll out the red carpet for a Darwin Award. But what I really want to know is who in California actually needs to light a fire to stay warm especially in light of the drought they have had?

@Cruiser It’s freezing where I am, down to the high 20’s-30’s at night. We just got a lot of rain and snow, snow, snow in the Sierras! Northern CA, is cold, Southern CA, is more temperate.

I think its the perfect trifecta of dawinism, instant karma and home owners insurance. The bungled burglar with the brain of a mud puppy got smoked with the flick of a bic, resulting in instant karma, and the home owners will get a nice new fireplace/chimney built since they had to tear the bricks apart to extract the guys charred remains.

I remember it snowed in San Francisco once between 1975 and 76.

Definitely Darwinism. Unfortunately, for every crook that is removed from the gene pool by his own stupidity, there seem to be ten more to take his place.

Darwinism for cause of death.

A ticket to the homeowner for causing particulate pollution by burning on a “spare the air” day.

This is a learning moment for all would-be burglars… if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the fireplace.

The—bungler- burglar’s wife is at fault.
If she would not have insisted he have a hearty breakfast before heading out to work, he would not have gotten stuck.

I love how grossly misused and misinterpreted Darwin’s name is these days.

@Darth_Algar I don’t think it’s so much his name, just the natural selection concept he’s famous for. The Darwin awards have become a major cult fad for the stupidist of the stupid. lol

It isn’t even natural selection though. Darwin’s concepts had nothing to do with moments of dumb behavior or impulsiveness that end up having unfortunate results.

@Darth_Algar – my reference to Darwin isn’t pertaining to unfortunate results. It’s more forward-looking,

The idiots don’t survive to procreate.

I’m with @chyna. The story hit me as curious too. The fire wasn’t lit long enough to burn him. It said the guy yelled as soon as the homeowner lit it. The homeowner immediately put the fire out, so what did the guy die from? Unless he tried going in headfirst, then he could have died of smoke inhalation, because the article said the house filled up with smoke.

@Dutchess lll, probably smoke inhalation.
@Darth_Algar It could be interpreted that if the Wildebeast is stupid enough to jump into the lions den, well… there’s one mentally inferior animal that won’t reproduce other mentally inferior animals. breed a mean dog to a stupid dog, get mean and stupid dogs. haha

@Coloma some were suggesting that he was burned to death. Which is not likely.
As for smoke inhalation, if his body was stuck in the chimney feet first, then the smoke could barely get past his body. Plus his head would be facing fresh air. I wonder if he had a heart attack.

@Dutchess_III Hard to say, but if the chimney was filled with smoke I’m sure he inhaled a lot, and if it was very hot smoke, even worse.

It couldn’t have been very hot. The homeowner put the fire out immediately.

^Or so he said.

But to assume the guy sadistically let the fire go on is to assume that he knew that the guy who was in his chimney was a real bad guy. It could have been a kid for all he knew,or some sort of freak accident.

@Dutchess_III This article says he was stuck for over a day and died of smoke inhalation and burning. He was 19. Dumb kid. www.fresnobee.com/news/local//crime/article46988790.html
Fresno is about 200 miles from me.

Thanks for that update. The link the OP just said the cause of death had yet to be determined. Your article gives much more information.
What a tragedy. However, I just don’t believe the homeowner did it maliciously.

@Dutchess_III No, I don;t either and poor kid, one fatal mistake.

@elbanditoroso

Dude, seriously…. How can you take a honest look around and say that idiots don’t survive to procreate?

@Coloma

Again, Darwin’s ideas of natural selection has nothing to do with being stupid. They have nothing to do with individual members of a species period. There’s no shortage of stupid, impulsive individual humans out there who meet sudden ends due to being stupid and impulsive, yet humans remain one of the most adaptable and successful species on the planet. Natural selection isn’t, as most think, survival of the strongest or the smartest, it’s survival of the fittest. “Fittest” referring to those who can successfully adapt to new or changing environments. And even at that it has nothing to do with individual animals, but species’ on the whole. Those species who can adapt survive. Those species who adapt better thrive. Those species who do not adapt die out.

@Darth_Algar Point taken, okay then, this guy was an epic fail at adapt or die. He couldn’t adapt to being squeezed into a chimney and he died. lol

Hell, I’d bet that there is not a single one of us who didn’t do something so stupid when we were younger that we could have died.
Part of this, though, is the fact that he was committing a crime at the same time that he was being stupid.

@Dutchess_III Exactly, I did plenty of stupid things that could have caused my death but I never committed a crime. Of all the ways to attempt a break in trying to go down a chimney seems way harder than just breaking a flippin’ window. haha

And a lot more obvious too! I did smoke pot tho…which technically was a crime. And underage drinking. And I ripped off Shopeze and Cricket Alley. And….

Well, count me in on illicit drug fun in the 70’s, okay, I was a criminal. lol

@Dutchess_III I hope you didn’t smoke pot in California in the70s, you could get a ticket for that!

No, it was in Kansas. I believe you got a life sentence for it!

As I recall, in CA possession of 1 ounce or less of weed, was reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor on 1/1/75.

Good memory, @Brian1946!

@Brian1946 It was moved to an infraction. Steve Martin even made a joke about it on his first album.