Facebook, Not Just for Drunk Pics Anymore. Also for Catching Drunk Perps.

One more in the ongoing series: Who needs police when you have the Internets? (Or, How gimmicky online applications can be seriously useful when it really counts.)

Be stirred by tale of Carla Pillo Mote, who used Facebook, her iPhone, and Google to retrieve her company computer, taxes, and wallet after they were stolen from a bar by a drunken idiot. She pulled credit card data, posted to Facebook to take advantage of her network's research abilities, found the address of the perp, confronted him, and got her stuff back within hours of the original theft. The police told her they'd need to wait until 4:00 pm the next day for a warrant, paperwork, etc.

Sample passage:

Meantime her colleague Jamie, who happened belong to a St. Louis network on Facebook, saw Mote's status and did some digging. Some call it Facebook stalking, but in this case it seemed warranted.

Jamie unearthed a few details about the St. Louis [thief] Bransky, and sent a Facebook photo of the guy to Mote's iPhone. "It's him!" she exclaimed. The guy that sat next to her not an hour before had been identified by Facebook. Awesome. Jamie mentioned that he looks drunk in pretty much every Facebook photo. Mote also learned that Bransky is a financial planner with a major company. Oh boy. He went to Syracuse….

While the detective was en route, Mote Googled Bransky's name et voila, she found an address.

Read the whole wild tale, which involves breaking and entering, plus someone peeing on themselves.

Bonus: The perp Facebook friended his victim the next day.