http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051019/NEWS01/510190369/1001/NEWSThe e-mail to Des Moines police said: "Sorry to take the challenge out of this."
Detective Bill Boggs was happy for the help.
Boggs had been tracking a laptop computer belonging to William Penn University in Oskaloosa that was stolen from a church parking lot nearly two weeks ago.
The e-mail was from a software maker in Canada, which knew the hot laptop had been connected to the Internet from a telephone line in southeast Des Moines.
"They sent us the address, the telephone number, the name of the person who lives there," Boggs said.