01:02 PM EST on Tuesday, March 30, 2004

Associated Press

Mesa, Arizona -- A burglar saw the light -- after seeing "The Passion of the Christ."

Officers in Mesa, Arizona, say 20-year-old Turner Lee Bingham walked up and confessed to about a half dozen burglaries.

The officers were checking a burglar alarm at a cell phone store at the time. They say Bingham told them that he had taken $80 from the cash register there.

Bingham says he decided to fess-up to his crimes after seeing Mel Gibson's movie about the last hours of Christ's life. Bingham told police he threw the money from a highway overpass. But officers couldn't find any of the loot. Bingham's been booked into a Phoenix jail on suspicion of felony burglary.