Stolen shoe mystery solved at Japanese kindergarten when security camera catches weasel in the act

Associated Press

TOKYO (AP) — Police thought a shoe thief was on the loose at a kindergarten in southwestern Japan, until a security camera caught the furry culprit in action. A weasel with a tiny shoe in its mouth was spotted on the video footage after police installed three cameras in the school in the prefecture of Fukuoka. “It’s great it turned out not to be a human being,” said Deputy Police Chief Hiroaki Inada. Teachers and parents had feared it could be a disturbed person with a shoe fetish. Japanese customarily take their shoes off before entering homes. The vanished shoes were all slip-ons the children wore indoors, stored in cubbyholes near the door.