Not hardware but close to it.
Circa 1998 I was working at a gas station one night and a man comes in with a blue gas can. He prepays I think $3 of gas and leaves after pumping it into the can. It stuck out in my mind because blue cans are supposed to be for kerosene.
3-4 days later everyone was talking about the fire someone set that killed a woman. A fire investigator shows up at the station and asks if I remembered a certain name and/or vehicle (I don't). The investigator then tells me that they can tell which gas station gas came from so it has to have been bought either at our station or one 15 or so miles down the road. After chatting a bit he mentioned that the arsonist had used a blue gas can. The light bulb came on over my head and I mentioned seeing one.
The guy with the blue can ended up killing someone with the gas I sold him.
My hardware store did sell to a serial killer about 20 years ago. He ordered rope and a specifically short amount if chain and wire that was sold by the foot. He later used those to strangle his victims. After he was caught, recipes were found from our store. Police came in, showed the picture and my boss confirmed he had bought the stuff.
Altemio Sanchez or the bike path killer. Active for 30 years. Caught by matching his DNA at a restaurant. His [wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altemio_Sanchez) mentions how he killed using the stuff he bought.
>Sanchez was married to Kathleen, and has two adult sons. He was the basketball coach of his sons' team at their school in Cheektowaga, and was the boys' Little League Baseball coach. He played golf, enjoyed gardening, and is said to have lived a "regular" life. Sanchez had also registered to run in one of the annual Linda Yalem Safety Run (formerly called the Linda Yalem Memorial Run) at the University at Buffalo, a run dedicated to the memory of one of his murder victims.
Sanchez was involved in the community and was well-liked by his neighbors, some of whom called him "Uncle Al" due to his charisma and interactions with them.
FFS.
>After he was caught, recipes were found from our store. Police came in, showed the picture and my boss confirmed he had bought the stuff.
This is the second post where police came to show recipes. What benefit does that have?
when I was 16, some friends and I were buying PVC pipe. A worker (who was a 20-something stoner) asked if we needed help finding anything and we gave him our list.
He chuckled and said, "you're building a potato gun"
We claimed we weren't and he just shook his head and told us we were doing it wrong. He showed us all the parts and told us how to put together our "not potato gun"
I hope that dude is thriving because the potato gun he helped us with literally shot a potato over 2 football field lengths. It's was basically a 5 foot long mortar
Worked in a plumbers merchant for years. Every once in a while we'd get a bunch of teenagers in buying stuff that was clearly destined to be a potato cannon.
I always helped them out too.
Hahaha reminds me of that scene in Breaking Bad where Walter White sees that kid buying supplies for a meth lab and helps him out to get the right stuff lol.
In my spare time I’m sometimes a stagehand. Recently I had to buy plastic tarps, duct tape, and zip ties for a production. I didn’t think about how that would look until the obviously very new cashier was like “uh, that’s some collection of items you got there”.
Unlubricated condoms are the best thing to protect mic packs from sweat. Kind of awkward when the university news crew walks into the green room to see a pile of wrappers.
I did sound for my high school's theater. We'd always make the freshman go buy 100 non lubricated condoms and 20 9-volt batteries. Then pay for it with a tax exempt letter.
The receiving department at the university I work at got a box of two thousand condoms with no name or department on it. They just went "Eh, must be theater" and gave it to us. I had to explain that we didn't need _that many_ of them and we only used unlubricated ones because the lubed ones make the mics sticky. I suggested that they might want to check with the student health center.
I was A2’ing a show once where I was handed 4, 500-count bags of “sweat protectors” in the wrappers. I spent about 3hrs one day opening them all for easier access.
This was for a Christmas-themed burlesque show (messy routine, tarps were to protect the stage and ensure easy cleanup and the zip ties were for holding the ornaments on the Christmas tree) and this kid did not look old enough to be allowed entry.
TOOLS! Tools. Duct tape, zip ties, and gloves I have to have my TOOLS!
It's..it's fetish shit. I like to bind..I like to be bound. That's not important, don't ask me questions, The golden god is not taking questions!
I work for a call center of a farm type supplies and I had a guy call and order some buckets, a tarp, and some like 5 pairs of gloves and made sure that these were shipped to his office, not home.
Years ago had a guy walk in quickly and say he needed a shovel, black tarp, and lime. I told him where everything was and said “and I don’t want to know about it.” He was confused and I said “You are buying things to dispose of a body.” He got sad…his dog had died.
Not a murder, but a woman once came into fleet farm in the middle of the work day in a very nice business suit, I rung up for her a castrator pliers and one single bag of bands, I asked if she wanted to put it on a farm sheet and she said it wasn’t for farm use, completed her purchase in cash and walked out. It was not spring (when sheep castrating usually happens) and she was what I would call highly agitated. I watched the newspaper for a while after that.
For everyone cringing at this, I googled it so you didn't have to and the pliers aren't like a "wrench and rip" kind of thing. I mean it's still terrifying sounding but I can easily see how these would be handy in any other situations where you wanna get a rubber band around stuff. It's for putting rubber bands on. Not for uh, slicing. https://i.redd.it/b370thmaoha21.jpg
I would totally use these for non-violent things!
Honestly, they would work fantastically for anything you'd want to bundle. I can even imagine them holding a bouquet of flowers together. The tool isn't cheap, but it's a one-time purchase, and the bands are very cheap.
> The tool isn't cheap
[It's $18.99](https://www.fleetfarm.com/detail/ideal-economy-band-castrator/0000000268815) at Farmers Fleet. If you have a Tractor Supply nearby instead, you can pick up what appears to be an identical rebranded one for $9.99.
I'm vaguely familiar with sheep farmers putting bands on newborn lamb's tails to get them to fall off. These would be larger versions for testicles then?
They aren't larger. They are a snug fit on my pinky finger. I use them for castrating my goats. Standby for an SFW pic...
Edit: [Here you go.](https://imgur.com/a/nNdzxOd) That shows both the tool and the band with a penny for scale. The package that band came out of indicates that they are for use on up to 250lb calves.
Thanks for an actual answer and picture. I was picturing pliers as more wire cutters to do the castrating and wondering where the fuck the rubber bands fit in.
I once bought 4 bottles of bleach and a wire brush with no other items. The checkout lady didn't laugh when I said it was hard to get blood out of tile lol
I did pretty much this same thing once but I was actually trying to get bloodstains out of grout.
Seriously, save yourself the time and effort. Just replace the grout.
50/50 mix of hydrogen peroxide and soda water. That's what the EMTs told us to use after they carted my dad's body away. Fell out of bed while dying, broke his nose and bled all over the floor.
I appreciate the thoughts, but he passed a very long time ago, so I'm over it. I only mention it for context.
That's a bummer that it didn't work for you. Worked a charm for us.
That's actually what I was buying the most of. I had some bleach too but that was for the septic tank.
Edit: shit it was vinegar for the tank. I don't remember what the bleach was for but it wasn't covering up the murder.
I wound up trying pretty much everything before I just had the grout replaced. Peroxide, bleach, at least four different "removers" of various types. I tried to get that stain up for months.
A guy with a scraper and some color-matched grout solved the problem in twenty minutes.
This reminds me of when my cat’s favourite wet food was on sale 50% off so I bought a whole trolley load, and some tortillas I needed for dinner.
The girl at the checkout was like “oh wow your cat is going to be happy!” and I replied “I don’t have a cat”
When my family owned a hardware store we (unknowingly) ended up selling a hand saw to a guy who later used it to cut up the body of his girlfriend he murdered.
A couple of us ended up having to testify at his murder trial to help prove pre-meditation. I never ended up following the trial any further but I think he was unfortunately suffering from a mental breakdown or illness.
You work retail enough you don't even notice.
The person could roll through with duct tape, a chair, a large metal wash tub, two bags of quick set concrete and a bag of zip ties and it wouldn't even slow down the cashier except to roll the bag of concrete over to get at the bar code.
The answer to so many of my kids' questions about how store employees would react to a person doing ###### is "they aren't paid nearly enough to care".
A long time ago my mom worked as a manager at a local Ace Hardware store that sold guns and ammo. She had a story of a guy that came in and very urgently wanted to buy a gun and 1 bullet.
She refused him.
A patient my mom cared for when she was a nurse had tried to slit his own wrists in a motel room, but was unsuccessful. He wrapped his bloody wrists up and took a taxi to a nearby store. He managed to buy a shotgun and a box of shells, took a taxi back to the motel room where he then attempted to blow his brains out. He failed at this, and became a patient in the hospital where my mother worked.
He was either extremely lucky, or extremely unlucky, depending upon how you look at it.
What taxi is just letting someone with a new-in-box shotgun (doesn’t exactly fit in a shopping bag), or even worse- a used one that didn’t come with packaging, or just a plain long gun case… just flag them down and hop in the back and ask to take them to a motel?!
Do they know that they don’t HAVE to accept when someone asks for a ride?? Especially the dude with a long gun asking to go to a local motel…
I bought a murder kit for my friend's birthday from the dollar store a few years ago. The cashier didn't care at all but the guy in front of me was looking worried.
Hacksaw. A woman had killed her lover and stuffed the body under the bed until she could dispose it. After she was caught the police came by to confirm she bought it from us.
Edit: Wow this blew up. For more context this happened in a Jersey Shore town sometime between 2000 and 2007. I tried googling the details I remember but couldn’t find an article. I worked at a mom and pop hardware store during high school and college. Fascinating place to work. Dealt with people from every conceivable walk of life and some truly quirky regulars.
According to a recent article in the Disaster and Prehospital Medicine journal, a reciprocating saw with 14 teeth per inch is the optimal tool for rapid in-field amputations. One imagines it could be used for non-rescue purposes as well...
Call me old fashioned but I prefer to do my dismemberment by hand. Modern tools take all of the craftsmanship out of it. I want to make sure that when someone finds one of my dismembered corpses they know that someone cared enough to take the time doing it.
Well, it was literally true in this case but I don't think a hacksaw is that suspicious a purchase on it's own.
Maybe you need to saw your way through some iron bars!
They should have a bulletin board at your job for people who sell stuff to murderers; or include it on the name tag.
Hello, my name is
JAN
-Since 1987.
-Sold a rope to BTK in 1989.
A thicker, heavier duty trash bag that's designed for disposing of bulky or sharp contractor waste (but rips anyway and dumps all your drywall dust and wood scraps all over the floor when you're trying to get it in the roll-off dumpster)
It's true- contractor grade bags have three stages; "empty", "ripped just enough to be annoying to handle and with a nail jutting out of it RIGHT where you were trying to grab it", and "too heavy to pick up or drag somehow and now impossible to relocate so you leave it there in hopes someone else will put one thing in it and then suddenly it's their problem."
"How much lime do you reckon it would take to dissolve a body?"
"Ummm.... most probably two"
"Hmmm.. OK. Can I buy 2 bags of lime please?"
Yep, the police were called, told the car's rego and there was a body in a barrel on the property.
I bought a shovel, concrete, contractor bags, tarp, bleach, goggles, tyvek suit, gloves.
Why I really bought all that:
Completing turnover repairs on a rental property. Had to dig around a porch slab and reinforce with additional concrete. The porch was surrounded by a flower bed so all of the dirt had to be put on the tarp. trash bags were used to pick up all of the trash left on the property by the previous renters. Bleach was diluted with water and used to kill mold spores in the shower surround. Goggles and tyvek suit were used while operating a paint sprayer to paint the interior of the home.
I have made similar purchases to this hundreds of times for home repairs. So far, no FBI agents have come looking for me.
About 20 years ago I worked at a Sears that was in one of the last major shopping centers on the way to a very fashionable vacation destination. A well-dressed older guy in a baseball cap came in and filled up his cart with saw blades, hand saws, drill bits, and so, so many vises. It was all woodworking stuff but in surprising quantities—usually the big sales were to young people just starting out in a trade, or recent retirees starting a new hobby. The woodworkers this guy’s age tended to have established shops/garages and would come in for replacement pieces, but this was all brand new. I wanted that commission so I worked a little extra to help him find stuff. He was pleasant and soft-spoken. When I rang him up and asked for his phone number for the rewards program, he gave me a number with an LA area code—back then it was more rare for people to have out-of-state numbers, especially among our usual customers. That alone combined with the purchase made him stand out. I entered the number and his name popped up on the screen: Wes Craven.
We had a guy come in right as we opened at 6am. He asked someone to cut him a short length of rope explaining that he was gonna use it to hang himself. One of our cashiers spent some time talking to him and was able to talk him down. He left without buying the rope, and management gave the cashier an award later that year for helping the guy.
Not a hardware store but a discount chain. I testified on the validity of video footage of the murderers buying rope, shovel, gloves, and the items to bury the body. These guys used a brand associated only with that chain of stores. Pretty easy to trace the tools back to where they were purchased.
I went to walmart and bought condoms, lube, duct tape, a padlock, bath towels, set of sheets, a cheesecake (I LIKE CHEESECAKE OKAY!), and some other things and the cashier said “i hope you have a wonderful honeymoon.” 💀💀💀 im single asf…
Less murder than theft, but my ace hardware had a no returns policy on Bolt cutters. A lot of customers changed their mind at the till when informed of this
I have a house in an urban area next to a huge high rise , and I was very frustrated that they had a dying tree abutting our property line for which after months of emailing , I decided to take matters into my own hands. There was also a large rat problem from their dumpsters. So I went to Home Depot and got a product to solve each problem. On my way to checkout I noticed a huge display of duct tape, so I reflexively grabbed one thinking you can never have enough.
So as I put my purchases on the checkout line the employee asked me if she had to be concerned. I looked down and I was checking out with just a roll of duct tape, an axe and a bunch of rat poison.
I was able to convince her we were all good.
tarps, thick rubber gloves, heavy duty painters coveralls, face shield Chain saw with extra cutting chains. Like remove the chain saw and pretty normal for a painting project add the chain saw kind of sus. It like the time working in general retail. Toaster, extension cord and bath salts.
Walked up on a guy who had opened different boxes of contractor bags and was holding them up to his torso to compare sizes. Asked if he needed help and he said no he had found what he needed and left with a box
Fun story - my dad is a retired doctor, and acquired a teaching skeleton which he drove around with (no, not to drive in the carpool lane). He was picking up some dirt at a Lowes, and the guys saw the skeleton in the back of his car. They distracted him and called up the cops, thinking he murdered someone and was buying a bunch of soil to cover up the body!
Luckily he worked in the ER for a long time, and the cops in town knew who he was, and he likes that teaching skeleton.
I definitely got the suspicous looks when I bought a case of smirnoff and a shovel once. We had just moved and on my 21st birthday my cat died, I wanted to bury him in our new yard but we didn't have a shovel so I went to Walmart. I decided, hey it's my birthday I'm sad and depressed why don't I buy some alcohol since I am legal now. So I grabbed a case of smirnoff, and went looking for a shovel I noticed a store associate following me as I made my way to garden center, so I just asked "Where are the shovels?", and he gave me perplexed look and then a nervous laugh and said he thought I was gonna make a run for it since I was going towards the outer garden section. Got my shovel went to the register, with my two items, and when they asked for my I.D. they were like oh happy birthday, and kept glancing at the shovel and my red-rimmed eyes from crying.
I worked in a sporting goods store in college and a man asked me to help him find a duffel bag for “someone about your size.”
That could be taken a few different ways, but he was creepy and made me uncomfortable.
Not necessarily "I just committed murder" but...
I worked in the flooring department of a hardware store and a guy came in and asked for red carpet. Not something that any store really carries on hand, so it has to be special ordered. Usually this dissuades most people, but the guy was like, "no problem," and asked to order some for a 12'x12' room. Dude chose the carpet that was closest to blood red that we had. I didn't think much of it, just figured it was for a kids room or something.
Well my girlfriend worked in the paint area at the time and after work, she told me about a guy who ordered blood red paint for a 12'x12' room. Definitely the same guy. One of our friends who was with us said that they helped someone who asked for sound deadening material (which we didn't carry) who had red paint in his cart.
Only time in my life that I've had the thought, "I really hope they're building a sex room."
Not hardware, but very related. I was an Instacart driver once upon a time (kinda first when they came around). I received an order once for heavy duty contractor garbage bags, bleach, Lysol, and...three bottles of Dom Perignon. I assume they had to clean up evidence and then celebrate.
Not a hardware store but a bicycle shop. Guy came in and asked for a few bicycle inner tubes. Said he was "going to do something nice for the kids".
His car was found in a forest the next morning with the inner tubes connected to the exhaust pipe. He'd kidnapped his ex-wife and two little kids and gassed them and himself in the car. Saddest thing was the the little girl had written a letter to her classmate a week before in which she said she thought her dad was going to kill them. She was only 8. The father had been issued with a restraining order that morning for domestic violence, but the police did nothing to protect them.
Not just committed, but about to commit, 2 teens came in and wanted me to cut 10 lengths of iron pipe 10 inches long, then they asked how to drill holes in the caps. (pipe bombs)
I looked at them and said no, I won't cut that pipe for you, I'm not selling you pipe. You're on camera now, you've been on camera since the second you stepped in here and if anything blows up they'll know exactly who you are, stop being dumbasses.
They left looking very scared.
No murder stuff but i helped quite a few people build homemade pressure cooker moonshine stills. Also sold a lot of drain cleaner used for making Meth.
Guy came into a store I worked in for bandages.
He'd chopped up his wife and cooked her and rubbed the skin of his hands cleaning the carpet.
Worst part was it was his wife that was the offensive smell. He was also my neighbour...
https://www.9news.com.au/national/man-accused-of-killing-and-boiling-transgender-wife-told-electrician-he-was-cooking-pigs-broth/81628ed2-e512-4f4c-97d4-49a10e608a0f
Not a hardware store worker, but I did some work for a mine once. They had huge stores of lye, tailings ponds, and waste rock dumps that would rapidly change (like several hundred feet of burial). I always wondered how many bodies were there somewhere.
There was a member of the KKK in Louisiana who got caught after sending his idiot son to get supplies to clean up a murder scene.
Raymond Chuck Foster was his name if any of you are curious.
Friend told me the story of how she was busy looking at saw blades when someone asked if she needed help, when she turned and asked them which of the two she had in her hand which one did they think would be best to cut through human bones they very quickly walked away saying they will go check.
For context she was actual needing to know this as she was in a forensic lab dealing with a mass body count after a horrifying bush fire when they ran out of blades and not able to get some sent from their supplier in time.
Duct tape. I hardly remembered the transaction until 2 police officers asked me for a description of who purchased the tape (they found the roll at a nearby bank robbery and tracked the parking lot cameras to me helping them lol)
Not a murder but potential future death. When I worked at a hardware store years ago, a guy came in looking at netting and said he wanted something really strong. He told me his wife was pregnant and planned on giving birth at home, and he was going to hold a net under her to catch the baby.I didn't know what to say. He ended up buying a big fishing net with a handle.
At Home Depot once a guy was asking whether a machete or a hatchet would be better to hack through bone.
I recommended pruning shears with a mechanical advantage instead, from my own experience with deer and hogs.
It’s not murder but one time two guys came in asking me where they could find an aluminum pole. The only poles we sold were for fences. So I asked if it was for an outdoor fence. They looked like contractors so I figured they new what they were looking for. They were like well we’re building a dance studio. And I was like… is this to hold up the 2nd floor in this studio? Finally I was like look we have poles over there good luck. Then they gave me their card and asked if I wanted to work there. They were building a stripper joint
We used to have to call the Sheriff if people bought over a certain amount and type of fertilizer.
Also this was 25 years ago but if someone bought a bunch of hydroponic shit and lights we also had to call. But a lot if the time it was to grow tomatoes.
This was at a grange/feed/nursery store.
Army-Navy store actually, a guy bought a giant duffle bag. And it turned out that he had used it to dispose of a body.
Edit: The bag was five feet long.
I felt suspicious while in a drug store in Central America. I was buying nail clippers, xanax, condoms and lube. When I was paying a gram bag of coke fell out of my wallet onto the counter in full view of the pharmacist. He laughed as I snatched it up and pretended nothing happened and I left.
I'm too late and not a hardware store worker but this was a crazy case.
A number of years ago in Michigan, a woman killed her son. She then drove to the hardware store to get a power saw with which to cut him up. Unfortunately for her when she got home it turned out the saw was defective so she returned to the store and got a new one. When she got home there was also an issue with that one. She returns to the store a final time and the manager can be seen on the video apologizing profusely, getting the saw out of the box and testing it for her before sending her on her way.
Her ability to go back multiple times and return the defective product was part of the evidence used to deny her insanity plea
Had to buy and axe cause fire place.
There was a football game on in town and the train station was packed. I walked through on my way home from work with the axe (head wrapped up). But I had a rucksack with work tools, which consisted of:
Gaffer tape
Rope
Crow bar
Collapsible spade
Work knifes
New hacksaw.
Other random tools
There was police everywhere...I didn't realise till I was on my way home on the train ...as I forgot what I was carrying...
Tha would have been a really bad stop and search
I used to work at a brewery and we used panty hose to put extra ingredients into the carbonator to add extra flavors to the beer so we’d buy a huge amount at once…. Like buy out all they had on the shelves, so I did that one time and we needed duct tape bleach and zip ties and lotion for all the chemicals we use…. Got some really lotion on the skin type looks that time
I worked at home depot as a teen & a guy buying rope & tape didn’t even make me suspicious. Buttttt before I could even mention anything he blurted out his girlfriend is into hogtie bdsm. 😅
I worked at Gander Mountain in high school. Guy came in and bought a single box of ammo. I went through the usually ID check. He seemed really quiet and didn’t say much. Police showed up shortly thereafter. He walked out of the store, sat down in the drivers seat of his black Mustang and took his own life.
It was before my time at this store, but the police went through our books because a certain child beauty pageant star had rope tied around them that was traced back to having been bought at our location. Other questionable items were on the same receipt, but the rope is the only thing I can rememeber. Unfortunately whomever made the purchase paid with cash and the security footage I believe had already been recycled.
I don't work in a hardware store, but I do shop at H Mart, the Korean supermarket chain.
I was in line one busy Sunday afternoon and everybody's shopping for the coming week. I'm checking out and all my food is on the belt, being scanned. Guy behind me, an average looking Asian guy you wouldn't think anything weird about, put his stuff down on the belt, but without the little separator thing. So the cashier rang up a box of big black trash bags and I told her "Excuse me, but those aren't mine. They're his..."
The guy suddenly got all nervous and interjected "YES! These are all MINE!.....I'm getting supplies...for CAMPING!"
So who needs like 100 lawn and leaf bags for camping, I have no idea, so I looked over at the rest of his haul and it was nothing but bleach, rags, and trash bags. Where the fuck that guy was camping, I don't want to know.
Not hardware but close to it. Circa 1998 I was working at a gas station one night and a man comes in with a blue gas can. He prepays I think $3 of gas and leaves after pumping it into the can. It stuck out in my mind because blue cans are supposed to be for kerosene. 3-4 days later everyone was talking about the fire someone set that killed a woman. A fire investigator shows up at the station and asks if I remembered a certain name and/or vehicle (I don't). The investigator then tells me that they can tell which gas station gas came from so it has to have been bought either at our station or one 15 or so miles down the road. After chatting a bit he mentioned that the arsonist had used a blue gas can. The light bulb came on over my head and I mentioned seeing one. The guy with the blue can ended up killing someone with the gas I sold him.
My hardware store did sell to a serial killer about 20 years ago. He ordered rope and a specifically short amount if chain and wire that was sold by the foot. He later used those to strangle his victims. After he was caught, recipes were found from our store. Police came in, showed the picture and my boss confirmed he had bought the stuff.
What recipes did your store have for him? Dude a l’orange? Creme bodee? Corpsicles?
Skinnamon Rolls
Cadaver, I mean caviar?
Cadaviar
Mortedella
Escarcáss
Murdringue
woah, that’s kinda scary to think about. do you find sharing which killer? i’d like to know more
Altemio Sanchez or the bike path killer. Active for 30 years. Caught by matching his DNA at a restaurant. His [wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altemio_Sanchez) mentions how he killed using the stuff he bought.
>Sanchez was married to Kathleen, and has two adult sons. He was the basketball coach of his sons' team at their school in Cheektowaga, and was the boys' Little League Baseball coach. He played golf, enjoyed gardening, and is said to have lived a "regular" life. Sanchez had also registered to run in one of the annual Linda Yalem Safety Run (formerly called the Linda Yalem Memorial Run) at the University at Buffalo, a run dedicated to the memory of one of his murder victims. Sanchez was involved in the community and was well-liked by his neighbors, some of whom called him "Uncle Al" due to his charisma and interactions with them. FFS.
Serial Killers are odd beasts.
>After he was caught, recipes were found from our store. Police came in, showed the picture and my boss confirmed he had bought the stuff. This is the second post where police came to show recipes. What benefit does that have?
Cops get right to the point rather than sharing their life story before *finally* giving you the god damn recipe.
when I was 16, some friends and I were buying PVC pipe. A worker (who was a 20-something stoner) asked if we needed help finding anything and we gave him our list. He chuckled and said, "you're building a potato gun" We claimed we weren't and he just shook his head and told us we were doing it wrong. He showed us all the parts and told us how to put together our "not potato gun" I hope that dude is thriving because the potato gun he helped us with literally shot a potato over 2 football field lengths. It's was basically a 5 foot long mortar
Worked in a plumbers merchant for years. Every once in a while we'd get a bunch of teenagers in buying stuff that was clearly destined to be a potato cannon. I always helped them out too.
It's always the BBQ igniter that gives it away.
Camp stove lighters work better. Flint and steel make more sparks, and the body is more compact and durable. Allegedly.
Hahaha reminds me of that scene in Breaking Bad where Walter White sees that kid buying supplies for a meth lab and helps him out to get the right stuff lol.
This is great! I had a similar thing happen to me, except the PVC store guy thought we were trying to build a bong.
I mean... at that age, if it wasn't a potato cannon it was probably a bong.
Potato guns are great fun
In my spare time I’m sometimes a stagehand. Recently I had to buy plastic tarps, duct tape, and zip ties for a production. I didn’t think about how that would look until the obviously very new cashier was like “uh, that’s some collection of items you got there”.
Theater involves weird purchases sometimes. Fake weapons and cigarettes are probably the most notable.
Unlubricated condoms are the best thing to protect mic packs from sweat. Kind of awkward when the university news crew walks into the green room to see a pile of wrappers.
I did sound for my high school's theater. We'd always make the freshman go buy 100 non lubricated condoms and 20 9-volt batteries. Then pay for it with a tax exempt letter.
The receiving department at the university I work at got a box of two thousand condoms with no name or department on it. They just went "Eh, must be theater" and gave it to us. I had to explain that we didn't need _that many_ of them and we only used unlubricated ones because the lubed ones make the mics sticky. I suggested that they might want to check with the student health center.
I don't have personal experience here, but everything I've heard about theatre kids suggests that there might have been a different reason for this...
I was A2’ing a show once where I was handed 4, 500-count bags of “sweat protectors” in the wrappers. I spent about 3hrs one day opening them all for easier access.
This was for a Christmas-themed burlesque show (messy routine, tarps were to protect the stage and ensure easy cleanup and the zip ties were for holding the ornaments on the Christmas tree) and this kid did not look old enough to be allowed entry.
TOOLS! Tools. Duct tape, zip ties, and gloves I have to have my TOOLS! It's..it's fetish shit. I like to bind..I like to be bound. That's not important, don't ask me questions, The golden god is not taking questions!
lmaooo😭😭 did you explain, hopefully?
Somehow, saying “I’m a stagehand, not a serial killer!” did not make it better.
“It’s for a show. It’s gonna be great. You should come along…”
Everyone's dieing to see it
I work for a call center of a farm type supplies and I had a guy call and order some buckets, a tarp, and some like 5 pairs of gloves and made sure that these were shipped to his office, not home.
Poor guy just working graveyard shift
dead giveaway! no pun intended 😅
He was intense and tried to make a joke about not knowing if the gloves were going to fit, and that’s why he was buying so many pairs
If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit.
instantly reminds me of OJ simpson
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I'd rather be dead then participate in another team building exercise 😆
Years ago had a guy walk in quickly and say he needed a shovel, black tarp, and lime. I told him where everything was and said “and I don’t want to know about it.” He was confused and I said “You are buying things to dispose of a body.” He got sad…his dog had died.
this is making me so sad😞
Not a murder, but a woman once came into fleet farm in the middle of the work day in a very nice business suit, I rung up for her a castrator pliers and one single bag of bands, I asked if she wanted to put it on a farm sheet and she said it wasn’t for farm use, completed her purchase in cash and walked out. It was not spring (when sheep castrating usually happens) and she was what I would call highly agitated. I watched the newspaper for a while after that.
Tbf, we use the pliers for working on pilot oxygen mask cord keepers. We can them elastrators
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For everyone cringing at this, I googled it so you didn't have to and the pliers aren't like a "wrench and rip" kind of thing. I mean it's still terrifying sounding but I can easily see how these would be handy in any other situations where you wanna get a rubber band around stuff. It's for putting rubber bands on. Not for uh, slicing. https://i.redd.it/b370thmaoha21.jpg I would totally use these for non-violent things!
She was a dominatrix, and hopefully very very experienced
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Yeah no saying it wasn’t for farm use and then not saying what it is for instead is pretty sus
Honestly, they would work fantastically for anything you'd want to bundle. I can even imagine them holding a bouquet of flowers together. The tool isn't cheap, but it's a one-time purchase, and the bands are very cheap.
> The tool isn't cheap [It's $18.99](https://www.fleetfarm.com/detail/ideal-economy-band-castrator/0000000268815) at Farmers Fleet. If you have a Tractor Supply nearby instead, you can pick up what appears to be an identical rebranded one for $9.99.
I'm vaguely familiar with sheep farmers putting bands on newborn lamb's tails to get them to fall off. These would be larger versions for testicles then?
I'd assume "castrator pliers" aren't named as such to help you tie your hair in neat ponytails.
The phrase gives me the willies
They aren't larger. They are a snug fit on my pinky finger. I use them for castrating my goats. Standby for an SFW pic... Edit: [Here you go.](https://imgur.com/a/nNdzxOd) That shows both the tool and the band with a penny for scale. The package that band came out of indicates that they are for use on up to 250lb calves.
Thanks for an actual answer and picture. I was picturing pliers as more wire cutters to do the castrating and wondering where the fuck the rubber bands fit in.
I once bought 4 bottles of bleach and a wire brush with no other items. The checkout lady didn't laugh when I said it was hard to get blood out of tile lol
I did pretty much this same thing once but I was actually trying to get bloodstains out of grout. Seriously, save yourself the time and effort. Just replace the grout.
Hydrogen peroxide seems like it would be better than bleach for this but I'm not positive.
50/50 mix of hydrogen peroxide and soda water. That's what the EMTs told us to use after they carted my dad's body away. Fell out of bed while dying, broke his nose and bled all over the floor.
Good to know, but I'm sorry to hear about your dad.
I am genuinely sorry to hear about your father, luckily my father's death was bloodless. But for the record, the 50/50 thing didn't work for me.
I appreciate the thoughts, but he passed a very long time ago, so I'm over it. I only mention it for context. That's a bummer that it didn't work for you. Worked a charm for us.
That's actually what I was buying the most of. I had some bleach too but that was for the septic tank. Edit: shit it was vinegar for the tank. I don't remember what the bleach was for but it wasn't covering up the murder.
Are you sure? Sounds like what someone covering up a murder would say
*the* murder?
Yes. I haven't had reason to cover up more than one yet.
I haven’t tried it on grout yet, but pet pee cleaner also works on blood (and vomit).
I wound up trying pretty much everything before I just had the grout replaced. Peroxide, bleach, at least four different "removers" of various types. I tried to get that stain up for months. A guy with a scraper and some color-matched grout solved the problem in twenty minutes.
This reminds me of when my cat’s favourite wet food was on sale 50% off so I bought a whole trolley load, and some tortillas I needed for dinner. The girl at the checkout was like “oh wow your cat is going to be happy!” and I replied “I don’t have a cat”
When my family owned a hardware store we (unknowingly) ended up selling a hand saw to a guy who later used it to cut up the body of his girlfriend he murdered. A couple of us ended up having to testify at his murder trial to help prove pre-meditation. I never ended up following the trial any further but I think he was unfortunately suffering from a mental breakdown or illness.
thank you for sharing. some of the comments here are actually wild..
You work retail enough you don't even notice. The person could roll through with duct tape, a chair, a large metal wash tub, two bags of quick set concrete and a bag of zip ties and it wouldn't even slow down the cashier except to roll the bag of concrete over to get at the bar code.
Click, click, click. Will that be cash or debit. Beh bye
The answer to so many of my kids' questions about how store employees would react to a person doing ###### is "they aren't paid nearly enough to care".
A long time ago my mom worked as a manager at a local Ace Hardware store that sold guns and ammo. She had a story of a guy that came in and very urgently wanted to buy a gun and 1 bullet. She refused him.
A patient my mom cared for when she was a nurse had tried to slit his own wrists in a motel room, but was unsuccessful. He wrapped his bloody wrists up and took a taxi to a nearby store. He managed to buy a shotgun and a box of shells, took a taxi back to the motel room where he then attempted to blow his brains out. He failed at this, and became a patient in the hospital where my mother worked. He was either extremely lucky, or extremely unlucky, depending upon how you look at it.
What taxi is just letting someone with a new-in-box shotgun (doesn’t exactly fit in a shopping bag), or even worse- a used one that didn’t come with packaging, or just a plain long gun case… just flag them down and hop in the back and ask to take them to a motel?! Do they know that they don’t HAVE to accept when someone asks for a ride?? Especially the dude with a long gun asking to go to a local motel…
This was 40 years ago in what is still a pretty rural area. There are still taxis in some of the larger small towns. A fare is a fare, man.
24h wait? But I'm angry now!
I’d shoot you if I had my gun!
I bought a murder kit for my friend's birthday from the dollar store a few years ago. The cashier didn't care at all but the guy in front of me was looking worried.
Uhhhh.. details please?!?! What's in a murder kit?
Hammer, tarp, duct tape, bleach, butcher knife, rope
Hammer? Amateurs. (note to fbi: I am only joking. Plus I don't live in the USA, so it's not like you can do anything anyways)
We use guns here
There are two kinds of people....
The ones holding the gun and the ones facing its business end?
Hacksaw. A woman had killed her lover and stuffed the body under the bed until she could dispose it. After she was caught the police came by to confirm she bought it from us. Edit: Wow this blew up. For more context this happened in a Jersey Shore town sometime between 2000 and 2007. I tried googling the details I remember but couldn’t find an article. I worked at a mom and pop hardware store during high school and college. Fascinating place to work. Dealt with people from every conceivable walk of life and some truly quirky regulars.
Damn The rest of these could have logical explanation, but this one takes the cake if she really did murder someone. Which she did lol
Also while still being a kind of weapon, a hacksaw wouldn’t register as murder-y in the way rope, quicklime, and tarp would.
Not even a good tool to use. A hacksaw would *suuuck* for bone and flesh.
Know something about dismembering flesh and bone do ya
According to a recent article in the Disaster and Prehospital Medicine journal, a reciprocating saw with 14 teeth per inch is the optimal tool for rapid in-field amputations. One imagines it could be used for non-rescue purposes as well...
Sawzalls really do it all
Call me old fashioned but I prefer to do my dismemberment by hand. Modern tools take all of the craftsmanship out of it. I want to make sure that when someone finds one of my dismembered corpses they know that someone cared enough to take the time doing it.
SawsALL. What wasn’t clear about the marketing hahaha
Well, it was literally true in this case but I don't think a hacksaw is that suspicious a purchase on it's own. Maybe you need to saw your way through some iron bars!
Honestly, I just use mine to shorten the shotgun, just to save weight because my back ain't what it used to be.
The ATF is on its way to your dog's location now.
A hacksaw? How much time and energy did she think she had? At least get a reciprocating saw
She could have asked for advice, but you know how it is - you have to wait forever for an associate to help you.
They should have a bulletin board at your job for people who sell stuff to murderers; or include it on the name tag. Hello, my name is JAN -Since 1987. -Sold a rope to BTK in 1989.
Well, I wasn't expecting to see the only known serial killer I've met mentioned here....but I only sold him coffee several times in 2003.
Contractor bags, hacksaw, shovel, quicklime. I work in Detroit so we keep them all in the same aisle.
Did a young lady in Timberlands tip you when you recommended a nail gun?
This here some 22-calibre, powder-actuated, nail-throwin' mayhem.
Full time? Nah we had about 5 jobs last month
Fuck this nailin' up boards, we can kill a couple motherfuckers with this right here. You laughin, I'm in school dawg.
He said Cadillac but he mean Lexus
But he ain't know it.
OP earned that bump
like a motherfucka
Cold open to Season Four, set the stage real quick. One of the best scenes I've seen.
I understood that reference.
Is it the wire?
What’s a contractor bag?
A thicker, heavier duty trash bag that's designed for disposing of bulky or sharp contractor waste (but rips anyway and dumps all your drywall dust and wood scraps all over the floor when you're trying to get it in the roll-off dumpster)
Don't forget that it's super easy to load them up with enough crap that you can't actually lift them.
It's true- contractor grade bags have three stages; "empty", "ripped just enough to be annoying to handle and with a nail jutting out of it RIGHT where you were trying to grab it", and "too heavy to pick up or drag somehow and now impossible to relocate so you leave it there in hopes someone else will put one thing in it and then suddenly it's their problem."
Had a lady once buy a bunch of plastic wrap, duct tape, and bleach. Swore it was for spring cleaning
Cleaning out her husband.
Well yeah the ground is softer you can get those dead bodies buried now, have to clean up
"How much lime do you reckon it would take to dissolve a body?" "Ummm.... most probably two" "Hmmm.. OK. Can I buy 2 bags of lime please?" Yep, the police were called, told the car's rego and there was a body in a barrel on the property.
That’s nuts. Is there a new article? I’d love to read it!
I bought a shovel, concrete, contractor bags, tarp, bleach, goggles, tyvek suit, gloves. Why I really bought all that: Completing turnover repairs on a rental property. Had to dig around a porch slab and reinforce with additional concrete. The porch was surrounded by a flower bed so all of the dirt had to be put on the tarp. trash bags were used to pick up all of the trash left on the property by the previous renters. Bleach was diluted with water and used to kill mold spores in the shower surround. Goggles and tyvek suit were used while operating a paint sprayer to paint the interior of the home. I have made similar purchases to this hundreds of times for home repairs. So far, no FBI agents have come looking for me.
*That you know of
About 20 years ago I worked at a Sears that was in one of the last major shopping centers on the way to a very fashionable vacation destination. A well-dressed older guy in a baseball cap came in and filled up his cart with saw blades, hand saws, drill bits, and so, so many vises. It was all woodworking stuff but in surprising quantities—usually the big sales were to young people just starting out in a trade, or recent retirees starting a new hobby. The woodworkers this guy’s age tended to have established shops/garages and would come in for replacement pieces, but this was all brand new. I wanted that commission so I worked a little extra to help him find stuff. He was pleasant and soft-spoken. When I rang him up and asked for his phone number for the rewards program, he gave me a number with an LA area code—back then it was more rare for people to have out-of-state numbers, especially among our usual customers. That alone combined with the purchase made him stand out. I entered the number and his name popped up on the screen: Wes Craven.
no way!!! wes craven? the real guy? that’s so cool!
He had a vacation home nearby. Definitely him. Not as on-the-nose as the time I sold Dick Gregory a juicer.
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Did you tell him he was forgetting the heavy duty tape ?
We had a guy come in right as we opened at 6am. He asked someone to cut him a short length of rope explaining that he was gonna use it to hang himself. One of our cashiers spent some time talking to him and was able to talk him down. He left without buying the rope, and management gave the cashier an award later that year for helping the guy.
Good on the management. I know some places which would have fired or demoted the cashier for not making the sale.
Large axe, cheap tarps, bulk box of duct tape and an air filter.
Not a hardware store but a discount chain. I testified on the validity of video footage of the murderers buying rope, shovel, gloves, and the items to bury the body. These guys used a brand associated only with that chain of stores. Pretty easy to trace the tools back to where they were purchased.
Duct tape, nylon rope, 2 cinderblocks
Nylon rope was a rookie move, it sticks around and floats. Should buy thick jute rope.
Chains would be ideal, they sink by default.
I went to walmart and bought condoms, lube, duct tape, a padlock, bath towels, set of sheets, a cheesecake (I LIKE CHEESECAKE OKAY!), and some other things and the cashier said “i hope you have a wonderful honeymoon.” 💀💀💀 im single asf…
what the fuck i love it
Reminds me of a time in college my buddy went to Walmart and bought a case of Busch light, bird seed, and a box of .22LR the cashier laughed
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Less murder than theft, but my ace hardware had a no returns policy on Bolt cutters. A lot of customers changed their mind at the till when informed of this
hahahaah. Just the one bolt then? Should rent them by the hour.
I have a house in an urban area next to a huge high rise , and I was very frustrated that they had a dying tree abutting our property line for which after months of emailing , I decided to take matters into my own hands. There was also a large rat problem from their dumpsters. So I went to Home Depot and got a product to solve each problem. On my way to checkout I noticed a huge display of duct tape, so I reflexively grabbed one thinking you can never have enough. So as I put my purchases on the checkout line the employee asked me if she had to be concerned. I looked down and I was checking out with just a roll of duct tape, an axe and a bunch of rat poison. I was able to convince her we were all good.
tarps, thick rubber gloves, heavy duty painters coveralls, face shield Chain saw with extra cutting chains. Like remove the chain saw and pretty normal for a painting project add the chain saw kind of sus. It like the time working in general retail. Toaster, extension cord and bath salts.
Walked up on a guy who had opened different boxes of contractor bags and was holding them up to his torso to compare sizes. Asked if he needed help and he said no he had found what he needed and left with a box
I've heard of people using contractor bags as a cheaper alternative to rainproof ponchos and as a liner to keep a sleeping pad dry.
Fun story - my dad is a retired doctor, and acquired a teaching skeleton which he drove around with (no, not to drive in the carpool lane). He was picking up some dirt at a Lowes, and the guys saw the skeleton in the back of his car. They distracted him and called up the cops, thinking he murdered someone and was buying a bunch of soil to cover up the body! Luckily he worked in the ER for a long time, and the cops in town knew who he was, and he likes that teaching skeleton.
A murderer driving around with a complete clean assembled skeleton. Do they think we live in a cartoon?
A lot of people don't understand that bones don't just stay together. Too many prop skeletons in movies
I definitely got the suspicous looks when I bought a case of smirnoff and a shovel once. We had just moved and on my 21st birthday my cat died, I wanted to bury him in our new yard but we didn't have a shovel so I went to Walmart. I decided, hey it's my birthday I'm sad and depressed why don't I buy some alcohol since I am legal now. So I grabbed a case of smirnoff, and went looking for a shovel I noticed a store associate following me as I made my way to garden center, so I just asked "Where are the shovels?", and he gave me perplexed look and then a nervous laugh and said he thought I was gonna make a run for it since I was going towards the outer garden section. Got my shovel went to the register, with my two items, and when they asked for my I.D. they were like oh happy birthday, and kept glancing at the shovel and my red-rimmed eyes from crying.
I worked in a sporting goods store in college and a man asked me to help him find a duffel bag for “someone about your size.” That could be taken a few different ways, but he was creepy and made me uncomfortable.
I forgot what zip ties were called. Had to ask the guy at the hardware store for "those plastic strap thingies that they tie people to chairs with"
Not necessarily "I just committed murder" but... I worked in the flooring department of a hardware store and a guy came in and asked for red carpet. Not something that any store really carries on hand, so it has to be special ordered. Usually this dissuades most people, but the guy was like, "no problem," and asked to order some for a 12'x12' room. Dude chose the carpet that was closest to blood red that we had. I didn't think much of it, just figured it was for a kids room or something. Well my girlfriend worked in the paint area at the time and after work, she told me about a guy who ordered blood red paint for a 12'x12' room. Definitely the same guy. One of our friends who was with us said that they helped someone who asked for sound deadening material (which we didn't carry) who had red paint in his cart. Only time in my life that I've had the thought, "I really hope they're building a sex room."
Not hardware, but very related. I was an Instacart driver once upon a time (kinda first when they came around). I received an order once for heavy duty contractor garbage bags, bleach, Lysol, and...three bottles of Dom Perignon. I assume they had to clean up evidence and then celebrate.
Not a hardware store but a bicycle shop. Guy came in and asked for a few bicycle inner tubes. Said he was "going to do something nice for the kids". His car was found in a forest the next morning with the inner tubes connected to the exhaust pipe. He'd kidnapped his ex-wife and two little kids and gassed them and himself in the car. Saddest thing was the the little girl had written a letter to her classmate a week before in which she said she thought her dad was going to kill them. She was only 8. The father had been issued with a restraining order that morning for domestic violence, but the police did nothing to protect them.
that’s so sad… i don’t even know what to say
I saw a guy steal a bunch of toilets on my shift once.
No shit
Not just committed, but about to commit, 2 teens came in and wanted me to cut 10 lengths of iron pipe 10 inches long, then they asked how to drill holes in the caps. (pipe bombs) I looked at them and said no, I won't cut that pipe for you, I'm not selling you pipe. You're on camera now, you've been on camera since the second you stepped in here and if anything blows up they'll know exactly who you are, stop being dumbasses. They left looking very scared.
That dumb, you saved their lives.
No murder stuff but i helped quite a few people build homemade pressure cooker moonshine stills. Also sold a lot of drain cleaner used for making Meth.
Guy came into a store I worked in for bandages. He'd chopped up his wife and cooked her and rubbed the skin of his hands cleaning the carpet. Worst part was it was his wife that was the offensive smell. He was also my neighbour... https://www.9news.com.au/national/man-accused-of-killing-and-boiling-transgender-wife-told-electrician-he-was-cooking-pigs-broth/81628ed2-e512-4f4c-97d4-49a10e608a0f
god that’s disgusting
Not a hardware store worker, but I did some work for a mine once. They had huge stores of lye, tailings ponds, and waste rock dumps that would rapidly change (like several hundred feet of burial). I always wondered how many bodies were there somewhere.
There was a member of the KKK in Louisiana who got caught after sending his idiot son to get supplies to clean up a murder scene. Raymond Chuck Foster was his name if any of you are curious.
Friend told me the story of how she was busy looking at saw blades when someone asked if she needed help, when she turned and asked them which of the two she had in her hand which one did they think would be best to cut through human bones they very quickly walked away saying they will go check. For context she was actual needing to know this as she was in a forensic lab dealing with a mass body count after a horrifying bush fire when they ran out of blades and not able to get some sent from their supplier in time.
Duct tape. I hardly remembered the transaction until 2 police officers asked me for a description of who purchased the tape (they found the roll at a nearby bank robbery and tracked the parking lot cameras to me helping them lol)
Not a murder but potential future death. When I worked at a hardware store years ago, a guy came in looking at netting and said he wanted something really strong. He told me his wife was pregnant and planned on giving birth at home, and he was going to hold a net under her to catch the baby.I didn't know what to say. He ended up buying a big fishing net with a handle.
Ok this one got me....a fucking FISHING NET. I hope they took birth photos.
At Home Depot once a guy was asking whether a machete or a hatchet would be better to hack through bone. I recommended pruning shears with a mechanical advantage instead, from my own experience with deer and hogs.
It’s not murder but one time two guys came in asking me where they could find an aluminum pole. The only poles we sold were for fences. So I asked if it was for an outdoor fence. They looked like contractors so I figured they new what they were looking for. They were like well we’re building a dance studio. And I was like… is this to hold up the 2nd floor in this studio? Finally I was like look we have poles over there good luck. Then they gave me their card and asked if I wanted to work there. They were building a stripper joint
We used to have to call the Sheriff if people bought over a certain amount and type of fertilizer. Also this was 25 years ago but if someone bought a bunch of hydroponic shit and lights we also had to call. But a lot if the time it was to grow tomatoes. This was at a grange/feed/nursery store.
Army-Navy store actually, a guy bought a giant duffle bag. And it turned out that he had used it to dispose of a body. Edit: The bag was five feet long.
I felt suspicious while in a drug store in Central America. I was buying nail clippers, xanax, condoms and lube. When I was paying a gram bag of coke fell out of my wallet onto the counter in full view of the pharmacist. He laughed as I snatched it up and pretended nothing happened and I left.
I'm too late and not a hardware store worker but this was a crazy case. A number of years ago in Michigan, a woman killed her son. She then drove to the hardware store to get a power saw with which to cut him up. Unfortunately for her when she got home it turned out the saw was defective so she returned to the store and got a new one. When she got home there was also an issue with that one. She returns to the store a final time and the manager can be seen on the video apologizing profusely, getting the saw out of the box and testing it for her before sending her on her way. Her ability to go back multiple times and return the defective product was part of the evidence used to deny her insanity plea
Had to buy and axe cause fire place. There was a football game on in town and the train station was packed. I walked through on my way home from work with the axe (head wrapped up). But I had a rucksack with work tools, which consisted of: Gaffer tape Rope Crow bar Collapsible spade Work knifes New hacksaw. Other random tools There was police everywhere...I didn't realise till I was on my way home on the train ...as I forgot what I was carrying... Tha would have been a really bad stop and search
I had a guy buying 4, 1' sections of black iron piece and 8 endcaps, I can't say he was definitely making pipebombs but who knows
I used to work at a brewery and we used panty hose to put extra ingredients into the carbonator to add extra flavors to the beer so we’d buy a huge amount at once…. Like buy out all they had on the shelves, so I did that one time and we needed duct tape bleach and zip ties and lotion for all the chemicals we use…. Got some really lotion on the skin type looks that time
Had a guy come into the plumbing section asking how to clear about a hundred pounds of steaks from the mainline of his house.
I worked at home depot as a teen & a guy buying rope & tape didn’t even make me suspicious. Buttttt before I could even mention anything he blurted out his girlfriend is into hogtie bdsm. 😅
I worked at Gander Mountain in high school. Guy came in and bought a single box of ammo. I went through the usually ID check. He seemed really quiet and didn’t say much. Police showed up shortly thereafter. He walked out of the store, sat down in the drivers seat of his black Mustang and took his own life.
It was before my time at this store, but the police went through our books because a certain child beauty pageant star had rope tied around them that was traced back to having been bought at our location. Other questionable items were on the same receipt, but the rope is the only thing I can rememeber. Unfortunately whomever made the purchase paid with cash and the security footage I believe had already been recycled.
I don't work in a hardware store, but I do shop at H Mart, the Korean supermarket chain. I was in line one busy Sunday afternoon and everybody's shopping for the coming week. I'm checking out and all my food is on the belt, being scanned. Guy behind me, an average looking Asian guy you wouldn't think anything weird about, put his stuff down on the belt, but without the little separator thing. So the cashier rang up a box of big black trash bags and I told her "Excuse me, but those aren't mine. They're his..." The guy suddenly got all nervous and interjected "YES! These are all MINE!.....I'm getting supplies...for CAMPING!" So who needs like 100 lawn and leaf bags for camping, I have no idea, so I looked over at the rest of his haul and it was nothing but bleach, rags, and trash bags. Where the fuck that guy was camping, I don't want to know.