Suspect Flushes Pounds of Nails (In Multiple Toilets!)

This blue-collar criminal has it out for public sewer lines.
Suspect Flushes Pounds of Nails (In Multiple Toilets!)
We know you’ve seen a lot, but have you ever heard of a criminal who has it out for public sewer lines? Tell us your best drain cleaning tale.

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Earlier this week, the StarTribune.com reported that Nicholas Mullenmaster, a seemingly innocent Starbucks customer looking for his morning coffee fix, had finally been arrested for an unthinkable crime — he flushed pounds of hardware nails down the toilet, causing a flood that required the store to close for hours.

We’ve covered the 5 Craziest Things Found in a Sewer and asked you What’s the Wildest Thing You’ve Found in a Sewer?, but have you ever come across an ongoing problem like someone sneaking into public restrooms and pouring pounds of nails down the drain?

And Starbucks wasn’t the only victim of this St. Paul, Minn., native’s odd antics. This blue-collar criminal also duped a nearby Subway, Leann Chin restaurant and a city transit station by flushing nails in their restrooms. Fortunately, he was spotted on a surveillance camera coming out of the restroom at Subway.

A local plumber had to cut through the walls to fix the damage at the Starbucks. Could you imagine getting that emergency call?

The story reads like a crazy game of cat and mouse, as police were repeatedly called to different locations where Mullenmaster had just flushed nails, but (shoot!) he got away just in the nick of time. Where’s Dick Tracy when you need him? 

The best part? They finally caught Mullenmaster because “officers listened by the door and heard metallic sounds hitting porcelain or tiled surface as well as the toilet flushing” at a bathroom at Leann Chin, says the article. 

The silver 3-inch nails they found on him when he emerged were the same type removed by the plumber at Starbucks. No, really?

Clearly Mullenmaster is no “master” of crime because he’s been charged previously with violating a harassment order and disorderly conduct, plus two counts of trespassing. For this latest plumbing misconduct, he is charged with “first-degree criminal damage to property for orchestrating the dumps, which caused thousands of dollars of damage to sewer lines,” says the article.

Of course, it’s easy to joke about this ridiculous crime, but the damage he caused to sewer lines and plumbing is no joke. I can only assume that those poor sewer lines somehow wronged Mullenmaster, and he had it out for those evil drains.  

We know you’ve seen a lot, but have you ever heard of a criminal who has it out for public sewer lines? Tell us your best drain cleaning tale. 



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