The Stolen Nike Kobe 5’s
“It could go!!! And BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE!!! Kobe Bryant… WOW. Jeff (Van Gundy) that has got to be the most stunning finish to a NBA Finals game, I have ever seen! The Lakers beat their arch rival Boston Celtics on a game winning 3 by Kobe Bryant.” Jeff looks as if he had just soiled himself.
A few days later, “Kobe, we know who took your shoes…”
Rewind to the night of the NBA Finals...
“I can’t believe we are at Kobe Bryant’s house fellas” stated James Leroux to his partner Veronica Vaughn and the other investigators. It was breathtakingly huge, and fancy with awards and shoes in display cases everywhere. A short, stocky man was giving a statement to a uniform as they arrived. Another uniform told them that it was the butler, Chauncey Chalmers. They thanked him and walked towards Chalmers. The uniform wrapped up his interview and left them with Chalmers.
“What happened Chauncey?” asked Veronica trying not to give away any case evidence.
“Well you see ahhh, I was a sleepin’ in my bed and I heard this tremendous crash. I didn’t do anything at first, cuz’ it sounded so scary.”
“Wow, some kind of butler you are” Leroux murmured.
Chalmers seemed physically in control until that comment, when he became flustered. “Hey, that’s not my job, that’s the body guard’s job, and Kobe’s were at the Staples Center! Anyways, back to what happened… I came out with my paintball gun fully loaded with Celtics paintballs, don’t tell Kobe, and I immediately saw that the front door had been brutally assaulted and lay on the floor in a pile of splinters.” The investigators shuffle towards the entry way. The door was utterly destroyed proving his statement. Also, there was a footprint on the remains of the door. In addition, there were footprints seeming to be out of mud leading from the door to the case and back throughout the door.
"The guy wasn't even wearing shoes, just his bare feet. Maybe he just needed some shoes ha ha" Leroux joked. The footprint was a size 13 men's, and was made of dirt as if he came running in from outside. The investigators couldn’t use STAMP because it was a footprint not a shoe print.
There was also a ransom note found right on top of the glass podium where the shoes were supposed to be. It read “ 這是我的 (These are mine!) If you want your shoes back I want $1,000,000 and my own pair!” Obviously the first part is in Chinese, and this had Leroux very confused.
Leroux called over a handwriting specialist. He took one look and definitively said “this man knows and uses English very well, and it is not forged due to the absence of awkward breaks.”
“Well obviously someone feels screwed out of their pair of shoes, but who?” Leroux prodded.
"Hey we found something, come take a look at it!” one of the other investigators yelled. He was holding up a hair follicle with his forceps. It was black and super, super short. Continuing on with the search, they also found a medium length brown hair follicle and a long black hair follicle.
Using a microscope from the van, the cuticle, cortex, and medulla were examined. They determined the hairs were human. After visual inspection and comparison to other hair samples from the house, they figured out the short hair was Kobe's, and the brown hair was the butler's. That leaves the long black hair unidentified, so they bagged it in a small paper bag so the DNA would not be damaged by moisture.
Looking around, it was evident that Kobe loved his shoes, especially his Nike Zoom Kobe fives “Bruce Lee's” which were the ones stolen. Veronica was shocked and awed at the sheer amount of pairs of shoes in that glass room. She was looking intently at a specific shoe when she saw the outline of what seemed to be a droplet of dried sweat on the casing. “I found some sweat. Hand me that DNA swab test kit would you James? Thanks.”
James, now brought to the attention of sweat, started to notice that there were sweat droplets everywhere; on the floor, on the casings. “Whoever this guy was, he was really perspiring. It's everywhere!" The process of swabbing and bagging obtained a total of five different swabs of sweat, which took forever because of the amount of data to fill out on the evidence bags.
Right then, they heard Kobe roll up in his Lambo. “What! My shoes were stolen!? I'm sorry, let me introduce myself. My name is Kobe Bryant.""Yeah we kind of know that” Leroux shot back. “By the way congratulations on your finals victory, and last-second shot I believe I heard.”
“Hey thanks man. But, these shoes man, there bugging me. The Bruce Lee's were by far my favorite out of all the Kobe fives.”
“Trust me we will get your shoes back. I guarantee it.” Vaughn said.
”Thanks guys, I really appreciate it.” Kobe said as he dashed inside, leaving James and Veronica by themselves out on his driveway.
“What now?" asked James. “We need to go to my crib.”
Later that night.
Vaughn and Leroux get together to sort through the evidence and the suspects’ motives. “Let’s look at our possible suspects shall we? We got Lebron James. He’s jealous for Kobe making the finals while he did not, yet again. So he’s got motive, but he says he was in his LA crib/condo at the time watching the game, but no one can prove that he was there or not. As a result we have to rely on other evidence. His hair was not found there, and the size of the bare foot print on the floor is a size to small, so it can not be him” James said.
Now Veronica started talking about Shaq, but James quickly interrupted.
“What about him?” James questioned. “He was playing in the game, duh. He was putting the team on his back do!”
“Oh oops” Veronica sighed. She doesn’t play, watch, nor care about sports, and it showed.
“That leaves the butler Chauncey Chalmers” said James. “ He said he was sleeping , and heard a noise. He’s also a Celtics fan, and is powerful enough to break down the door. Also, his hair was found near the case, which could have been from him running in after the crime. He’s looking like a prime suspect here. The only thing we are missing is the DNA results from the sweat droplets.”
Veronica countered with , “ Vanessa Curry is also a leading candidate. There was long, black hair found very similar to hers, and she had an affair with Kobe. That is your motive.”
“But keep in mind, there is no way she could have broken down the door like the suspect did,” James reminds her.
A day later
Kobe, Veronica, and James were at the Bryant household reviewing case evidence when the phone rang. He answered and the caller said something in Chinese. Everybody had no idea what he was saying, except the interpreter that was brought on the case from the note. The interpreter whispered to everyone as the guy continued talking, “The guy wants $1 million dollars, and Kobe to meet him at the Staples Center entrance at 7:00 tonight with no cops around. He wants it in a suitcase with the tags still on it. He will bring the shoes in the other suitcase. You will swap them in the doorway and walk away. If he sees cops, he is threatening that the shoes will be destroyed.”
Kobe starts freaking out and saying, “You do anything to my shoes, I will kill you. Don’t mess with them!”
The caller hangs up before he can finish his sentence. Kobe voices that he wants to abide by the caller’s rules. He recruits Leroux, just in case anything goes bad, to pose as a grounds crew member at the Staples Center entrance.
At 7:00 PM, Kobe shows up with Detective Leorux. He hurries into the ticket booth to pretend to clean up from game 7. Kobe approaches the entrance with a brand new Hello Kitty suitcase full of marked bills. A hooded figure approached from behind multiple parked cars. He was wheeling out a small American Girl suitcase. They approached. They were then within feet of each other when both stopped and stared. Leroux from the ticket booth couldn’t make out the suspects face.
At that moment, the suspect attempted to kick Kobe with lightning speed. Knowing Kobe in tip top shape, he jerks away just in time but gets grazed by his foot. The suspect then proceeded to grab the suitcase full of money and ran for the hills. Veronica, in a nearby car, calls for a tail to follow the suspect. Kobe runs over with the other suitcase to Veronica. She notices some dirt from the kick left on his sweatshirt. as she scrapes some of the dirt into an evidence bag, Leroux runs over.
“WHAT WAS THAT!!!?” he shouts.
“The capturing of yet more evidence”Veronica smiles.
“Pretty ninja right?” Kobe replies. Leroux agrees to keep Kobe happy and they head to the crime lab to dust the suitcase for fingerprints and swab for DNA.
There was a very clear fingerprint found on the handle of the briefcase. “Let’s dust and then lift it with a clear piece of tape and enter it into AFIS,”Leroux stated.
“This is going to take awhile,” Vaughn retorted. “You know how impatient I am James. Kobe you should probably go home because it will be a long time.”
“I aint leavin’ without my shoes. If they are in there, I need to know,” Kobe pleaded.
A few hours later, Leroux and Vaughn had searched every inch of the suitcase before they opened the zipper. Kobe was bouncing off the walls, waiting for them to open it the whole time.
Leroux finally stated, “Alright let’s open the case.” Kobe instantly snapped to attention. Leroux opened the zipper quickly, but did not lift it up right away. Kobe nearly tackled him trying to open the case.
“Slow down Kobe, we want to make sure that no evidence is missed or falls when we open it up.”
They inspected it with a magnifying glass for a few minutes, and then very slowly opened the suitcase. Kobe’s face instantly lit up as he saw the shoes sitting in the suitcase. He grabbed for them, but Vaughn slapped his arms away.
“Uhuh. If you touch them, any evidence that we could find in the suitcase would be ruined. Your shoes are here, you can go home now. We will have some more crime techies look over this, and you will get them back soon” Veronica explains.
Kobe exits the station looking as if he just won the lottery. They find nothing else in the suitcase. As they are finishing searching the case, Leroux gets a call on his cell phone. He hangs up and says, “The guy tailing the suspect, followed him to a martial arts studio with an apartment upstairs. He appears to be living there. The tail still hasn’t seen his face, but I am setting up shifts as we wait for the evidence to convict him.” Vaughn goes to the DA’s office to get an arrest warrant immediately.
At 7:00 that night, Vaughn sprinted into the station clutching an arrest warrant. “Lets roll” says Leroux. “Be careful, this guy clearly has a lot of martial arts training. Be on your toes.” The 10 car police convoy parks a block from the house.
Vaughn begins to bark orders. “ We need 2 teams at front and back door. Every window needs to be covered and set up a perimeter around the house. He caught us off guard with the kick last time, let’s not let him do it again. Be on your toes for any crazy martial arts stuff.”
They approach the house and come in both doors at the same time. The guy was meditating and didn’t hear a word they said while they arrest him and read him his rights.
When they get him in the interrogation room later, a cop recognizes him as Bruce Lee, the famous martial art guru and movie actor. They charge Lee with one count of breaking and entering, theft, and one of assault on Kobe.
A few days later, the evidence all came back. The dirt collected from Kobe’s shirt also matched the dirt found in the footprints at the crime scene. The sweat droplets, footprint, fingerprint, and hair follicle were all a match to the same person. Once they swabbed Lee for DNA, it was a match. They took a sample of Bruce Lee’s writing, making sure not to tell him why. After careful inspection by a handwriting expert, that was a match as well to the ransom note.
Kobe got his shoes back. The first thing he did was fire his butler for being a Celtics fan. Then he went out with Vanessa. Bruce Lee was found guilty on all counts a year later and was sentenced to 500 hours of community service because after all, he is a famous person.
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