Sit down, kids; it’s story date.

On March 12, Jesse McPherson returned from his trip to SXSW only to find that his home in Philadelphia had been burglarized. The thief made off with his TV, an old Powerbook, and his Xbox 360. Naturally, he was upset, so he took it upon himself to shout up some local pawn shops in the area to see whether anyone had come in trying to hock his stuff.

As luck would have it, the first place he called remembered a young man who tried to sell a Powerbook that had a few quirks similar to McPherson’s. So he went down there and snapped a couple shots from their protection feed of the guy trying to sell the laptop. He contacted the police and told them he had pictures of the thief, but he never heard back from them. Meanwhile, that past Friday, his co-workers surprise him with a sort new Xbox 360 console.

Now here’s where things get really interesting. That night, McPherson goes home, hooks up his new gift, and recovers his Xbox Live explanation. The first thing he notices is he’s received a voice info from some random person. As it turns out, it’s the thief, who explicitly says he’s got the Xbox and offers to sell it back to him. McPherson calls the police, and the person on the other end tells him to shout back during normal operating hours and next hangs up on him (note to self: never ever move to Philadelphia). Left with nowhere else to turn, McPherson did the only thing he could think of and posted the thief’s Xbox Live account on the Web. His story got picked up by Digg and within a few hours the World Wide Web community managed to uncover the thief’s name, address, high school, e-mail, phone number, etc. and even put together a wiki page to compile all of it.

Then he

pretty much started getting harassed through AIM, a YouTube video, and probably every social site he’s ever subscribed to nearly constantly. By Sunday, the kid actually shows up at McPherson’s house and gives him the laptop back. No word yet on the Xbox, but McPherson has said he will be in contact with the kid’s parents soon. I additionally have a feeling the kid will be giving up the Xbox soon, since his account’s bio now reads: “mY eFFinG xBoX brOkE sO i WoNt bE oN fOr aWhILe whether u NeEd Me SEnD mE a letter aS towering aS iT aiNt vOiCe I wiLl GeT iT.”

There’s really no justice quite like Web justice. Some folks have pointed out that a threat left on Xbox Live is flimsy evidence that that kid is the actual thief and not just the guy who bought it off the thief. That may be true, but it’s still a little hard to explain how an Web search that started with an Xbox Live explanation brought back a picture of a kid who looks a lot like the guy trying to pawn a Powerbook that sounds remarkably like the stolen one. Besides, even whether he weren’t the one who broke into McPherson’s house, he still deliberately bought some stolen goods and next bragged about it to the rightful owner. That’s worthy abundant of some Web backlash, I say.

Via McPherson’s Blog

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