Usually, when someone tries to steal something they have the minimum equipment required to execute the heist. An Iowa man had significantly less than that and failed fantastically.
In the movie The Sandlot, a group of boys lost a baseball over a fence to a dog in a neighboring yard. The same thing happened in Iowa, except in this case "The Beast" was a 71-year-old woman.
When the cops are at your house, there are a few things that one can do that may not seem like a big deal, but are a huge red flag for law enforcement.