"Sometimes wanting to be famous is really the downfall of people."

April 29, 2005 9:16 AM

"Sometimes wanting to be famous is really the downfall of people." Funny how initial news reports often don't tell the full story. It seems the gents who claimed to have found buried treasure in their back yard actually found it while doing paid repair work on someone else's house. If they'd only kept their yaps shut...
posted by twsf (26 comments total)

Roofers are not generally known for genuis.
I was so disappointed.
I wanted this to be a real buried treasure story!
A poor working stiff gets a break story!
But nooooo....!
posted by nofundy at 9:22 AM on April 29, 2005

Dang, they went from cool heroes to loser zeroes just like that. Oh well, no more fametime for these liars and my faith in the inherent good of humanity takes another shot to the nuts.
posted by fenriq at 9:24 AM on April 29, 2005

Thanks, great post.
posted by dfowler at 9:25 AM on April 29, 2005

what i think is terrible about this is that there still is a buried treasure story here... why was that money just chilling in a gutter for a hundred years... i could care less about the roofers and their story, the provenance of the loot is what's really interesting and makes one dream something like this might happen to them...
posted by cusack at 9:31 AM on April 29, 2005

I'm so proud to be a Masshole.

I just wish Suffolk Co. could be it's own breakaway republic.
posted by jsavimbi at 9:42 AM on April 29, 2005

I saw them on CNN yesterday morning with a rare coin/bill dealer...so funny/sad/dumb that they stole it, and had the balls to do media appearances.
posted by amberglow at 9:44 AM on April 29, 2005

See, and the 'they found it elsewhere' thing doesn't really even fly with me. That's supposedly according to witnesses; they must've been seen excited around the site. But here's the deal: the Boston Herald (not the finest news source, but they seem on about this) is reporting that one of them, Barry Billcliff, has a prior federal conviction on counterfeit charges.

This makes me wonder: how hard must it be to fake old bills? They didn't have all this technological protection back then, but the ink and paper had to be different. This stinks of 'grand scheme' to me.

Plus, they look like assholes.
posted by koeselitz at 10:02 AM on April 29, 2005

OKAY!
posted by iamck at 10:05 AM on April 29, 2005

koesitz, I just saw that pic and damn, they look like seedy cheesy buggers, don't they? Especially the dude on the right, he looks like he doesn't want to be there because he knows they were gonna get caught in this stupid lie.
posted by fenriq at 10:11 AM on April 29, 2005

They look like they're a shitty modern rock trio.
posted by ludwig_van at 10:25 AM on April 29, 2005

i heard the guy on npr telling the story and he sounded like a genuine nice guy..

heh they got the PR thing down lets see them fandangle their fame into a dave letterman appearance or a made for tv movie..
posted by stratastar at 10:29 AM on April 29, 2005

that's wicked awesome.
what tards.
proud masshole as well.
and here I was thinking this was the first cool story from Methuen in a long, long, while.
Now THIS is.
posted by Busithoth at 10:30 AM on April 29, 2005

There was an update also posted on the original MeFi thread from a couple days ago.
posted by stopgap at 11:24 AM on April 29, 2005

I just wish Suffolk Co. could be it's own breakaway republic.

You realize that Chelsea and all the Boston neighborhoods that you probably don't like are also in Suffolk County, right? And that Cambridge and Brookline are not?
posted by Mayor Curley at 11:27 AM on April 29, 2005

I'm with Busithoth. They're wicked stupid. How disappointing.
posted by Spencerinc at 11:29 AM on April 29, 2005

They look like they're a shitty modern rock trio.

Seconded.
posted by joe lisboa at 11:51 AM on April 29, 2005

Joe Lisboa, that link is awesome. "The Hall of douchbags." Check out this, this, this, this, this oh, that is just too funny.
posted by aacheson at 12:21 PM on April 29, 2005

When I say "Suffolk Co., Breakaway Republic", I kinda meant that we may need some ah, redistricting.

It would look a liitle something like this:

Cambridge, Davis Sq., Allston, Brighton, Back Bay, Fenway, JP, South End, North End, Brookline, Downtown, Beacon Hill, (some areas of) Charlestown and maybe a couple of satellite locations in Southie, but only by referendum.
posted by jsavimbi at 1:17 PM on April 29, 2005

People are so awesomely entertaining.
posted by The God Complex at 2:47 PM on April 29, 2005

Police declined to identify the barn's owners, and said they were not even aware the money was there.

Hrm. Sounds fishy.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 3:26 PM on April 29, 2005

Wow, if I had known they looked so evil, I never would have believed them.
posted by Citizen Premier at 7:02 PM on April 29, 2005

It was such a simple plan...
posted by 1016 at 8:34 PM on April 29, 2005

way to go blue staters , this is just like people from a blue state, crooks all of them.

*gives the blue states the finger* . . haha j/k :)
posted by nola at 10:08 PM on April 29, 2005

Waltham! Include Waltham! Leave Watertown out if you want, though. (No Newton either?)
posted by VulcanMike at 5:33 AM on April 30, 2005

(No Newton either?)

Newton wants no part in your treasonous plan to divide the Vaterland.
posted by Mayor Curley at 5:40 AM on April 30, 2005

i'm from methuen, and i though something was fishy when i saw that picture of the three yeahdudes with the money. it looked like they took it to the same folks who did their band promo pictures.

now order has returned to my karmic universe...
posted by es_de_bah at 8:30 AM on May 1, 2005