In the fairy tale 'Hansel and Gretel,' the brother-and-sister pair leave a trail of breadcrumbs behind to help them retrace their steps back home.

But apparently some California thieves weren't familiar with the story -- it was their own trail of food-related evidence that helped police find them.

Last Thursday night, residents in La Mesa, CA, alerted police to a disturbance at a snack bar in a local Little League ballpark. When the cops arrived, the perpetrators were gone -- but it seems they were a hungry bunch, because they left empty food wrappers behind in a straight line leading right to where they'd fled.

Officers followed the trail of empty cookie, chips and Cheetos packages to a house a couple blocks away. And that's where they found the Little League's cash register and other missing property.

We're assuming the stolen snacks were a total loss.

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