Add another one to list of most moronic nabbed in routine traffic stop

Praise be for the routine traffic stop and moronic fugitives.

Chester Stiles and Warren Jeffs were both apprehended in Nevada because they were in vehicles without proper license plates. That's sort of a red flag to a diligent police officer, practically crying out to be stopped.

Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh? Stopped shortly after the bombing because he didn't have a license plate.

Three guys on the run feeling free to flout simple traffic laws. How bright is that?

Accused child rapist Stiles was driving a Buick without license plates when Henderson police officer Mike Dye stopped him Monday. The officer didn't recognize the scruffy man, who looked nothing like the photos we'd all seen for 18 days, since Stiles was identified as the suspect seen on a videotape raping a tiny girl not quite 3 years old.

But Stiles' hands were shaking, and Dye was quick to sense something was out of whack. His backup, officer Mike Gower, arrived, and he and Dye asked Stiles about the expired driver's license that didn't look a thing like him.

Stiles, 37, didn't exactly hang tough. He caved quickly, saying he was the guy police were looking for, surprising the two Henderson officers, who were clearly delighted at capturing a big fish, a big fish who promptly vomited.

Stiles had the wherewithal to have a phony driver's license. But he didn't have the sense to steal a license plate and put it on the car he was driving. Was he hoping to be pulled over? Maybe.

Warren Jeffs, leader of a controversial religious sect that practices polygamy, was arrested Aug. 28, 2006. He'd been hiding from authorities for more than a year before the routine traffic stop nabbed him.

Jeffs was in the back seat of a new red 2007 Cadillac Escalade, and the temporary license plates weren't visible. Nevada Highway Trooper Eddie Dutchover pulled the vehicle over on Interstate 15 near Apex. He didn't know that one of the three people in the vehicle was on the FBI's Most Wanted list. But Dutchover was savvy enough to recognize a nervous man behaving oddly. One clue: When asked for identification, Jeffs offered a receipt for a contact lens from Florida.

These guys are put on the FBI's most wanted lists, featured on "America's Most Wanted," rewards are offered, but they were captured because a police officer sees a vehicle without a license plate.

If I were a criminal, I'd obey the traffic laws, I'd certainly drive with a license plate (how tough would it be to steal one?), and I'd make sure the headlights and taillights were working. I wouldn't speed. I wouldn't change lanes without signaling. (However, Lt. John Bradshaw says I'd end up looking too suspicious by being overly careful, squelching my potential criminal career.)

Perhaps we assume criminals are brighter than they really are, or we assume they think like law-abiding citizens who would never drive a car without a license plate.

We assume wrong.

That's why routine traffic stops can make a police officer's heart pound. They don't know who is inside that car. Somebody crazed on meth or drunk out of his mind? A screaming loonie? America's most wanted?

Stiles was supposed to be a survivalist. He was thought to be dangerous. But he didn't go to the wilderness. For crying out loud, the man was captured in Henderson. The Great Escape it wasn't.

When the FBI put Jeffs on its Most Wanted list in May 2006, it warned that "Jeffs is considered armed and dangerous and may be traveling with armed bodyguards." (Actually, he was traveling with a brother and one of the brother's wives when he was captured.)

Don't forget, shortly after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Charles Hanger stopped Timothy McVeigh for driving a car without a license plate.

McVeigh was arrested for carrying a loaded firearm and was still in jail in Oklahoma from that routine traffic stop when he was identified as a suspect in the bombing.

It takes police officers like Henderson's Mike Dye, and the Nevada Highway Patrol's Eddie Dutchover and Oklahoma's Charles Hanger paying attention and doing their job right to nail fugitives like Stiles, Jeffs and McVeigh.

Let's not forget their efforts.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275.