The lucky photo shows Mr Myers and family posing for the camera as the thief picks up the bag.
31 AUG: A tourist in America has accidentally photographed a thief stealing his bag as he took pictures of his family.
When John Myers of New Jersey realised what had happened, he quickly checked the last photo he’d taken and found it showed the thief bending to pick up the bag from where Mr Myers had left it in the Wisconsin town of Madison.
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He then raced to a nearby police station, showed officers the photo and within minutes they found the thief walking along a street with the stolen bag.
Mr Myers had set the timer on his camera so that the entire family could be in the photo, but had positioned it in a way which meant they had their backs to the thief, who in turn was caught in the picture.
"I can’t believe how lucky we were", Mr Myers told media.
"The camera was set with a 10-second timer, so two seconds or so either way and he (the thief) could have been walking away, or been obscured".
On reflection, he said, it wasn’t a good idea to leave the bag, containing money, wallets and rental car keys, so far from where he was taking the photo.
