Gawker- Well, here’s a story not to think about next time you are in an enclosed space: A bank in Abbeville, La. that was undertaking renovations this year discovered a skeleton inside a chimney that had been closed for three decades.

The body’s been identified as belonging to Joseph Schexnider, who went missing in January of 1984 while apparently evading arrest for stealing a car. Schexnider had disappeared before—once, according to his mother, he actually joined a circus—and cops eventually stopped looking for him.

But he was right nearby the whole time! He seems to have entered the bank chimney from the top, and, since he died of “dehydration and starvation,” it seems fair to assume he got stuck while inside. If he was planning a robbery, it was a strange one—no bag was found among his effects—and certainly no one at the bank noticed he was there when the chimney was closed “in the 1980s.”

This should be a lesson o anyone out there that is planning on burglarizing and making their entrance through the chimney: you do the crime, you do the time. I’m in awe that no one had smelled his body decomposing and how they came about finally noticing it, 27 years later.

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