Talk about going out with a puff of smoke.
You'd think with all these cases of people getting stuck in chimneys, robbers would know better. The worse thing is masonry is a very good sound isolator. Even if he was yelling, unless someone was in the same room as the chimney, his cries probably went unheard. That's assuming he even could yell, depending on his position his lungs were probably compressed and could not take air so he probably suffocated rather quickly. Not enough room to try climbing out, either.