Audio By Carbonatix
The photo seen here is not a mug shot, even though the woman seen in it is definitely mugging. No, it’s a self-portrait of the person who apparently found and snagged an iPad left on a plane traveling from Phoenix to Denver. Finders, keepers.
Why are we seeing this snap? Because the pic, and quite a few others, started showing up on the phone of the iPad’s owner — and he’s been kind enough to share the hilarity on his Facebook page. Look below for the whole story, including more candids and two videos.
Earlier this year, according to 7News, Little Rock, Arkansas resident Allen Engstrom forget his iPad after deplaning in Denver — and when he realized it was missing, he figured it was too late to report and wrote it off as a loss.
But the oversight turned into a gain soon enough.
About a month later, his son was playing with Engstrom’s phone at a doctor’s office when he stumbled across a goofy photo of a woman posing for a pic.
This woman, in fact:
Other shots followed: Engstrom says he’s received about a dozen of them. He shared the first on February 27 along with this message:
Hey cool! This is an actual pic of the wonderful person who stole my iPad. Apparently the pics she is taking of herself are backing up and appearing on my phone. No, I’m not kidding, this is really happening.
Engstrom isn’t one of those Facebook users with thousands of online friends; he’s got 442 followers at this writing. But somehow, the story, and the photos, began to circulate to a far wider audience, with some folks who saw the images even trying to figure out the woman’s identity. On Tuesday, he posted this:
First possible match, submitted by Amanda Eslick-Thomasson (thank you, Amanda). So Facebook Nation, do you think we have a match for the “EyePad Thief”? As much as I’d hate to think someone named “Twinkle” could commit a crime, alas I think her little star has fallen already, since this pic was taken from “justmugshots.com.”
Could Twinkle be the iPad grabber in question? Decide for yourself after eyeballing this Justmugshots.com screen capture:
Before long, the mainstream media came calling, too — not just in the U.S. but internationally.
Continue for more about the missing iPad, including more photos of its apparent finder plus videos.
On Wednesday, Engstrom posted the following:
So that would explain the sudden influx of Croatian friend requests LOL
They say you know you’ve arrived when you’re on the news in Croatia! Must be a slow news day there, too.
Here’s the image that goes along with the post:
Other items on Engstrom’s Facebook page include links to stories from an Arkansas TV station (“Here’s the KTHV story,” he writes. “Misspelled my last name”) and 7News (“KMGH in Denver. They edited out my ‘Go Buffs’ at the end”). See both reports below, after more images of the woman whose discovery has made her cyber-famous.
The KTHV report:
The 7News report:
More from our Tech archive: “iPhone saves itself from thieves.”
