A tale of two criminals

A strange story of a good man with problems and a good man who should be shot. From The Mercury News comes this twisted tale:

Risking a life term to protect a child
Convicted Burglar turns over Sex-Crime evidence from stolen property.

Matthew Ryan Hahn glared in disbelief at the digital photographs of a man molesting a girl. She was only a year old, maybe 2.

The next thing to do would be obvious -- call police. But Hahn had been convicted of burglary more than once. And the memory card on which he discovered the photos came from a stolen safe.

Hahn knew being nabbed for another crime could make him a three-striker and send him to prison for life. But the images were burned into his mind. One photo showed some freshly overturned earth -- could the little girl already have been killed and buried?

After a sleepless night, Hahn took the card, placed it inside a pink change purse and attached a typewritten note. It said: "Please remove this animal from the streets."

He wrapped the whole thing in a package that he jammed into a random mailbox. It was addressed to the Los Gatos Police Department.

And the bad man (talking about John "Robbie" Robertson Aitken):

Their lives collided sometime after midnight on Feb. 28, 2005, in the darkness of a messy studio apartment on Wedgewood Avenue.

Aitken woke up with a start and turned on the light, according to court records. He heard noises, like whispers and a box being kicked. His Liberty gun safe was gone.

He called 911.

He told police that there was a handgun and some personal papers in there.

Both the responding police and Aitken's friends noticed that he seemed extraordinarily anxious about the theft, court records said. His boss's wife recalled that after the theft, Aitken told her: "I feel like my life as I know it is over."

When asked how she responded to that, the woman told Aitken: "Oh, Robbie, you'll get over it."

More:

With the help of Overstreet and District Attorney Investigator Carl Lewis, detectives Dan Accardo and Mike Barbieri quickly came up with a plan. On March 3, they called Aitken. They had some follow-up questions -- could he come down? Aitken and the investigators talked for a while, casually. Then Lewis said he had something else they needed to talk about.

He opened up a leather folder. Inside was a blown-up photograph of Aitken's face from the memory card. Aitken knew immediately what it meant.

"He just melted into the chair," Barbieri said. "It gave me goose bumps."

Aitken put his hands over his face, according to court documents, took a deep sigh, and started talking:

"It was just, I, I, I -- it's stupid, you know? It was one day, you know being stupid. And you know, did it, and you know, halfway through it I was so upset at myself I just stopped and said 'What am I doing?'. . . And you know, stopped and spent the next week just throwing up, all upset about it, thinking, you know, how could I do this to somebody I love?"

Aitken was talking about his love for the Los Gatos family whose daughter he had allegedly molested. Years before, he had started as an employee -- working at the computer store owned by the father.

But soon he was more family than employee. Aitken went with them to Tahoe, Hawaii and Italy. He babysat. They had made him the godfather of their beloved, first girl. They were so close that "Robbie" sometimes slept with the child so she could go to sleep.

Anybody want to start a Dead Pool on how long it will take for Aitken to get beaten to a pulp once he starts serving his sentence? Hahn does have problems but he definitely did the right thing.