Wednesday, January 26, 2011

War Story Wednesday: ID Blunder



Welcome to War Story Wednesday, when I share a story from my days on the job, or share someone else's war story. I'd love to hear your war stories, so please feel free to participate in the comment section, or write a blog post and provide a link here, and I'll revise my post to include your link.

This story comes from a P.A. (Physician Assistant) who worked in the M.E.'s office.

A victim was found in the back seat of a car. He had been shot in the chest, the gun pressed right against his chest when it fired. In order to prevent the identification of the victim, the bad guy(s) cut off the victim's head and hands.


They failed to check his pockets, where the victim's wallet contained his identification.




5 comments:

  1. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this. Did they ever catch the bad guy(s)?

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  2. Kathleen - Amazing! Yeesh! A horrible murder, of course, but I am glad they were able to find out who the victim was. I also hope they caught the criminals quickly. It's my guess that a criminal who didn't think to remove the victim's wallet probably gave him/herself away somehow....

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  3. I'm very grateful that at least some criminals are stupid

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  4. Hi Madeline,
    It is "funny" when you think of all the hard work the criminal(s) went through to remove the poor victim's head and hands, only to have the cops figure out his identity simply due to the ID in his wallet. I can only imagine that the nightmares following that experience had to be intense, and would affect someone for years.
    I don't know if they ever caught the bad guys...I believe this occurred many years ago, before the advent of DNA.

    Hi Margot,
    It does fall into that category of "dumb criminals," doesn't it? And you're right, if they failed to check for his wallet, they probably made some other errors, too.

    The criminals at least know that once the police ID a victim, the pool of suspects starts to take shape. If ID is delayed or thwarted altogether, the bad guys have a better chance of getting away.

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  5. Hi Charles,
    Oh, yes ~ I wholeheartedly agree! Their stupidity usually makes the job of the police much easier :-)

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