Some Jerks Stole A 20-foot BBQ Pit Full Of Brisket from a Funeral

Barbecue is dead serious business. Back in May, a woman in Muncie, Indiana, stabbed another woman in the eye with a fork because she was attempting to take the last rib (fucked up on both sides). In September, a woman was hit with a 250° flying slab of brisket at the Kentucky State BBQ Festival when a fight broke out between pitmasters over a shared cooker. Kentucky.com reported, ominously, that, "Meat started flying… brisket was the weapon." Here in NYC, the NYPD even has a Barbecue Patrol.

With all that hot beef, there's a reason that the boys of barbecue throw down on shows with names like Big Bad BBQ Battle ("I'd like to apologize, but I'm about to kick your ass") and BBQ PIT WARS. When it comes to worshipping at the meat altar, these motherfuckers don't mess around.

But this week a new line was crossed, and the violence wasn't over barbecue—the violence was done to barbecue. Plunging into the depths of depravity, some real sickos stole a 20-foot barbecue pit that was slow-cooking some moist, juicy, smoke-kissed brisket that was to be served at a funeral in Castroville, Texas.

Paul Minnick was donating his time and materials to serve some barbecue at a local funeral. He got the fire going, loaded up his pit with brisket, and went away for a few hours. When he came back, the pit was gone, brisket and all. Some embers smoldered in the parking lot.

"I was just trying to be nice and volunteer," he told KENS 5 Eyewitness News. "I have about 40 pounds of chicken in my freezer right now that I was supposed to be doing this morning."

Minnick pointed out some custom embellishments to his pit, which is mounted on a trailer, should anyone happen to come by his rig. They include silhouettes of stag heads on the main chamber, blue handles in the shape of horseshoes, and crosses on the pit. A pit like his runs $3,000 to $5,000. He thinks the thieves who took it must have taken back roads to avoid being seen.

KENS 5 said the meat and pit heist led to funeral service guests saying their final goodbyes without any food.

"The food situation at the funeral is what I feel worse about right now," Minnick said. "He doesn't care, or else he wouldn't have done it," Minnick said of whoever took his pit. "I have no respect for people like that."

Neither do we.

This isn't the only big pit theft in Texas this month. In Austin, someone stole the legendary pitmaster John Mueller's pit from his barbecue joint, John Mueller Meat Co. The Houston Chronicle reports that he was likewise about to embark on a mission for charity—he was headed to Q For A Cause, a benefit for veterans in Houston.

There will always be arguments over who has the best barbecue, what with different regions of Texas, Memphis, the Carolinas, Kansas City, and others ready and willing to throw down. But if amongst the various rulebooks of BBQ there is one universally agreed upon commandment, it's don't steal another person's pit.