The person who burlarized the home of the late Steve Jobs was apparently found when he connected the stolen Apple hardware.
The late Steve Jobs
(Credit: Apple)The thief who broke into the home of Steve Jobs is probably now wishing he had picked a different house.
The Palo Alto home was robbed on July 17 of more than $60,000 in computers and other items, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney's office. Kariem McFarlin, a 35-year-old man, was arrested and charged with the crime.
And apparently it wasn't hard for police to catch him.
After the thief plugged in some of the stolen computers, the PCs communicated with Apple servers to perform needed upgrades, according to The Daily. That alerted Apple security people and Palo Alto police who traced the hot goods back to the source.
After he was caught, McFarlin led police to a storage locker, where he had hidden Jobs' wallet, some credit cards, and a letter. He also admitted he didn't know it was Jobs' house until he actually read the letter, The Daily added.
Confessing to the crime, McFarlin said he robbed the home because he was desparate and in "dire straights" and that he wanted to send a letter of apology. Homeless and living in his car, McFarlin even had to Google how to offload the jewelry he had stolen.
Undergoing a renovation, the house has been temporarily unoccupied and surrounded by a construction barrier. All of that likely made it a tempting target for the thief.
"The house was under renovation," Scott Tsui, Santa Clara County supervising deputy district attorney, told CNET News yesterday, "so you know how that can be. I didn't see the house myself, but I'm not sure if the conditions of the perimeter were as secure as they would have been with a regular house. I think that may have given the defendant an opportunity to break in."
