10 Small Crimes That Uncovered HUGE Crimes

10 Small Crimes That Uncovered HUGE Crimes

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re taking a look at relatively minor offenses that exposed far greater wrongdoing — or finally brought down the people responsible for it.

Gary Siders II’s Public-Indecency Charges

In May 2026, Gary Siders II was accused of exposing himself in public on four separate occasions in Vinton County, Ohio. The resulting misdemeanor case brought investigators to his family’s home, where court-authorized searches uncovered something far more serious. Inside were 16 young people, several of whom required hospital treatment. Authorities described the situation as prolonged and extreme familial neglect and abuse. Siders, his wife, and his parents were each charged with 16 felony counts of endangerment. All four pleaded not guilty, and the case remains ongoing.

Randy Kraft’s Lane Violation

Shortly after 1 a.m. on May 14, 1983, California Highway Patrol officers spotted Randy Kraft swerving along Interstate 5 in Mission Viejo. He failed a sobriety test, but impaired driving quickly became the least alarming part of the stop. Officers found 25-year-old Marine Terry Lee Gambrel dead in Kraft’s passenger seat. The evidence recovered after Kraft’s arrest included photographs, victims’ belongings and a coded list believed to catalogue numerous killings. Investigators eventually connected him to crimes stretching back more than a decade, and he was convicted of murdering 16 men. In short, one of America’s most prolific serial killers was finally stopped because he couldn’t keep his car inside the lane.

Charles Ng’s Stolen Vise

A $75 vise was all it took to expose the crimes of Charles Ng and Leonard Lake. In June 1985, Ng was allegedly caught shoplifting the tool from a South San Francisco lumberyard. He fled, leaving Lake behind to deal with police. Officers discovered that Lake was carrying identification belonging to a missing man and found an illegally modified firearm in a vehicle connected to another disappearance. The trail eventually led investigators to Lake’s remote property near Wilseyville, where they uncovered human remains, victims’ possessions and videotaped evidence. Ng was later captured in Canada and convicted of 11 murders.

The Yorkshire Ripper’s False License Plates

British police spent years hunting the man responsible for a series of attacks across northern England. Peter Sutcliffe was questioned repeatedly during the investigation, yet kept slipping through the cracks. His luck finally ran out in January 1981, when officers found him sitting in a car carrying stolen license plates. Before being taken into custody, Sutcliffe discarded a hammer, knife and rope near the scene, while another knife was later found hidden at the police station. The evidence prompted renewed questioning, and Sutcliffe confessed. He was ultimately convicted of murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven others.

Harold Shipman’s Forged Will

General practitioner Harold Shipman might have avoided scrutiny for much longer if he hadn’t tried to inherit money from one of his patients. After 81-year-old Kathleen Grundy died in 1998, a suspicious will surfaced, naming Shipman as the sole beneficiary of her estate. Grundy’s daughter, solicitor Angela Woodruff, immediately contacted police. Her mother’s body was exhumed, revealing morphine in her system, while investigators traced the forged document to Shipman’s typewriter. Police then began reviewing other unexpected deaths among his patients. Shipman was convicted of murdering 15 people and forging Grundy’s will, while a public inquiry later concluded that he had killed at least 215 patients.

Son of Sam’s Parking Ticket

For more than a year, the so-called “Son of Sam” terrorized New York City while police struggled to identify him. The breakthrough came after the final attack in July 1977, when witness Cacilia Davis remembered seeing a suspicious man near the scene. She also recalled that officers had been writing parking tickets nearby. Detectives reviewed the tickets and found one issued to a vehicle registered to David Berkowitz, a Yonkers resident with no obvious reason to be in that Brooklyn neighborhood. The lead brought investigators to Berkowitz’s home, and he was arrested on August 10. In the end, the decisive clue turned out to be a citation for parking in the wrong place.

Timothy McVeigh’s Missing License Plate

Only about 90 minutes after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, State Trooper Charlie Hanger noticed a yellow Mercury Marquis driving without a license plate. Hanger pulled it over and arrested its driver, Timothy McVeigh, after discovering that he was carrying a concealed weapon. At that point, neither man knew the FBI was already tracing the bomb vehicle’s axle to a Kansas rental shop. Employees helped produce a sketch, and motel workers supplied McVeigh’s name. When federal investigators searched law-enforcement records, they discovered their suspect was already sitting in an Oklahoma jail. The missing plate didn’t solve the bombing by itself, but it prevented the man responsible for killing 168 people from vanishing into thin air.

Ted Bundy’s Traffic Stop

In August 1975, Utah Highway Patrol Sergeant Bob Hayward spotted a Volkswagen parked suspiciously outside a home during the early morning hours. When Hayward approached, the driver sped away. That driver was none other than Ted Bundy, who was arrested for evading an officer. Inside the car, police found rope, handcuffs, masks, gloves, garbage bags and a crowbar. The items initially looked like burglary equipment, but Bundy and his Volkswagen also resembled descriptions of Carol DaRonch’s attempted kidnapping. DaRonch later identified him, helping secure his first major conviction. That traffic stop gave investigators the first firm foothold they needed to bring one of America’s most infamous serial killers to justice.

Al Capone's Tax Evasion

Tax evasion isn’t trivial, especially at this scale, but it seemed almost mundane beside the criminal empire associated with Al Capone. Authorities struggled to make charges involving the Chicago Outfit’s violence stick, so Treasury investigators followed the money instead. They reconstructed Capone’s income from gambling, bootlegging, and human trafficking, even locating an overlooked ledger from one of his gambling operations. The investigation established that Capone had earned more than $1 million without filing returns or paying taxes. In 1931, he was convicted of three felony tax-evasion counts and two counts of failing to file, earning an 11-year federal sentence. The government couldn’t imprison Capone for his reputation, but it could imprison him for his paperwork.

The Watergate Break-In

On June 17, 1972, Watergate security guard Frank Wills noticed tape covering a door latch at the complex in Washington, D.C.’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood. He removed it, continued his rounds, and later discovered that someone had taped the door open again. Wills called police, who arrested five burglars inside the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters. What initially appeared to be a clumsy break-in soon led investigators toward President Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign. The subsequent inquiry exposed political espionage, hush-money payments, and a White House cover-up. Recordings eventually showed that President Nixon had approved a plan to conceal the White House’s connection to the burglary. He resigned in August 1974, becoming the only U.S. president ever to do so.

No clue is too small: which minor offense had the biggest consequences, and what case did we miss? Be sure to let us know in the comments.