Miis save the day in stolen Nintendo Wii caper

 Nintendo

The thieves would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids ... I mean Miis.

Well here's a good reason to make a Mii avatar of yourself and everyone else living in your household if you happen to own a Nintendo Wii.

Police in Florida say it was a family of virtual Miis who helped them return a stolen Wii to its rightful owner after a burglary, according to Fox 30 News.

Meg Witherspoon of Jacksonville, Fla., recently reported to police that her house had been burglarized. Among the items taken were a flatscreen television and a Wii game system.

Over the course of the next couple of days after the burglary, one Latrina Shepard pawned a 19-inch TV and a Wii at two different pawn shops telling the proprietors that she owned the electronics. Police were finally able to confirm that the TV actually belonged to Witherspoon by matching the serial number to the one she had given them.

But Witherspoon didn't have the serial number for her Wii. Instead, when police found the Wii at the second pawn shop they were able to confirm that it was hers based on the Mii avatars she her daughter and two sons created and stored on the device.

As anyone who has created a Mii avatar of themselves knows, they may be cartoony little figures, but you sure can do up a pretty good likeness of yourself.

Though Shepard has insisted she got the Wii and TV from a friend and didn't know they were stolen, she's been charged with illegal pawning, a third-degree felony. 

(Thanks to Kotaku for the heads up.)

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Winda Benedetti writes about games for msnbc.com. You can follow her tweets about games and other things right here on Twitter or join her in the stream right here on Google+.  You can check out the In-Game Facebook page right here.

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