In the Name of the Law, Pancake: The True Story of a Leopard Print Onesie and Four Confused Hamsters

How a 3 a.m. Columbus burglary spree ended with four hamsters, one escaped ferret, and a police scanner announcement nobody was prepared for.

Image Credit- Unsplash: Silje Roseneng

Hi, I’m Heather. I tell my embarrassing stories so you don’t feel so alone in the world. Today’s story belongs to a man named Matthew Pancake, and I need you to understand that every single word of this is real.

On July 9, 2024, at approximately 3 a.m., Columbus police responded to a burglary alarm at a Roosters restaurant on Nike Station Way near Hilliard, Ohio. They reviewed the security footage and saw a man with long hair inside the restaurant, wearing leopard print pajamas.

This is the last normal sentence in this article.

The Onesie

Let’s begin with the outfit, because it sets the tone for everything that follows.

Matthew Pancake, who’s 31 years old and, yep, that’s really his name, didn’t just stumble into crime based on what he was wearing. He made some choices and thought things through. And in the end, he went for leopard print. Full body. Footed.

I am not here to judge anyone’s loungewear. What a person wears in the privacy of their home is their business. But if you’re planning to break into multiple businesses at 3 a.m., the leopard print onesie is a… bold operational decision.

He was also, according to the police report, wearing a dog collar. This detail gets overshadowed by everything that comes later, but it deserves a moment of quiet reflection.

The Itinerary

Matthew Pancake wasn’t wandering around without a plan. He had a routine to stick to.

Stop one: Famous Footwear on Hilliard-Rome Road, where he shattered the front doors and collected a pair of boots. He left behind toppled shoeboxes and, reportedly, some blood, because smashing glass with your body while sporting a onesie should only be done by a professional. He wasn’t.

Stop two: Roosters restaurant, where the alarm system graciously informed police that the evening was about to take a turn. I didn’t say what kind of turn.

Stop three: Petland, roughly 100 yards away, where he smashed open dog kennels with a rock and released the animals. Officers arrived to find dogs, birds, rabbits, and assorted other adorable creatures wandering the parking lot at 3 a.m. A ferret escaped entirely and was still missing the next day.

Don’t worry, a veterinarian examined the animals. They were all okay. The hamsters, specifically, were described as unharmed, which will matter shortly.

The Nap

After completing his rounds, Matthew Pancake located a bench near the Big Lots on Roberts Road and went to sleep. I mean, obviously, he’d be tired after all of that.

He was found at 4:47 a.m., covered in glass and blood, wearing his leopard print onesie and dog collar, asleep on a strip mall bench like this was the natural endpoint of the evening. Makes sense to me.

Columbus Police Sgt. Joe Albert told reporters: “It’s very odd. Obviously, we don’t know what this individual is going through.”

Sgt. Albert is a more restrained person than I will ever be.

The Discovery

Officers woke Matthew Pancake and began searching him for evidence and injuries, which is standard procedure when you find a man outside a freshly burglarized pet store, wearing a onesie that has seen a few things.

This is when the situation… expanded. To put it mildly.

An officer reached into Matthew Pancake’s pants and announced over the police scanner:

“I got a gerbil. There’s multiple gerbils in his pants. Multiple gerbils recovered.”

There were four of them. However, they were not gerbils. They were hamsters, freshly sourced from Petland, currently residing in his pants at 4:47 a.m. Can hamsters get PTSD? Probably.

He had also brought bedding. For the hamsters. In his pants. He planned for their comfort, but he did not plan for the alarms, the cameras, or the shards of glass lodged in his outfit.

Another officer, expressing a level of professionalism that deserves a medal, asked him, for safety reasons, whether he had any animals inside of him.

No response was provided.

A Brief Pause to Appreciate the Name

His name is Matthew Pancake.

When officers found him asleep on the bench, they reportedly shouted:

“Get on your belly, Mr. Pancake! In the name of the law, Pancake, get on your belly!”

This is real. It is in the bodycam footage. A police officer said, “in the name of the law, Pancake” out loud while a man in a leopard print onesie had four hamsters in his pants. That isn’t a sentence I ever thought I’d be saying out loud, but here we are.

Columbus police initially gave the press the wrong first name by identifying him as Michael Pancake, and later issued a correction apologizing for, and I quote, “the confusion over Pancake’s first name.”

They did not address any confusion regarding the hamsters, the onesie, the dog collar, or the bedding. Understandable.

The Charges

Matthew Pancake was charged with three counts of breaking and entering and two counts of theft. A grand jury indicted him. His bond was set at $10,000, and the judge ordered him to stay away from the businesses he had burglarized, which feels like the bare minimum.

One police official, surveying the hamster situation, said simply: “Yeah, definitely animal abuse.”

The hamsters were photographed by officers, probably for the case file, though I choose to believe someone wanted proof that this is not a made-up story, and returned to the store.

What I Keep Thinking About

There is a version of this story where Matthew Pancake is just a man who had a very bad night and made a series of decisions that stacked up like unstable Jenga blocks. That version gets compassion, and Sgt. Albert was right: we don’t know what this individual is going through.

But then there is the bedding.

He brought bedding for the hamsters. Into his pants. At 3 a.m. In a leopard print onesie.

Somewhere in the chain of events leading to July 9, 2024, Matthew Pancake evaluated the hamster situation and determined that the pants habitat required proper materials.

He had a game plan. The plan did not account for the police scanner, but it accounted for the hamsters.

I think about this more than I should. I think about the moment he decided to bring the bedding and whether the onesie was always part of the plan or simply what was available. I think about the ferret, still unaccounted for, living its greatest life somewhere in the Columbus metro area. At least I hope it is. I love ferrets.

Mostly, I think about the officer who had to ask, in a professional capacity, whether any animals were currently inside of Matthew Pancake.

And how no response was provided.

Some questions simply remain with you.

I wish Mr. Pancake all the best.

The hamsters are fine. The ferret remains at large. Matthew Pancake’s case proceeded through the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas. The onesie’s current location is unknown.

If you made it this far, you’re welcome. And if you’ve ever had a night where one bad decision led to another and you woke up on a bench at 4:47 a.m. covered in glass… I’m going to need you to share all the details on that one.