The Paperhanger and the DA – How tech helps solve crimes – Part 5

I was on the phone the following morning early and talking with Andy.

“Did you get the sketch?” I asked.

“Got it right here,” he said. “Good morning, Mr. Hale. This is what you look like.”

A suspect sketch, especially one done with an identikit isn’t meant to look exactly like the suspect. It’s meant to be close (there’s no way you can get it spot on).

But having a face was the closest anyone had ever gotten to this guy.

“Rich,” he said. “There’s something we need to think about.”

“Go on.”

Andy didn’t talk right away. When he did, it sounded like he was still putting it together in his head. “I’m going to be sending this over to Seven-Eleven security. They told me they’ll send it out to every store in the U.S..”

“That good to hear.”

“Yes it is. But what do we do if someone calls one of us and says, he’s standing in the store right now.”

That was a problem. “I see what you mean. We could call the local cops.”

“And have them do what? All they’ll be able to do is scare the guy off. We want him picked up.”

And that meant a warrant.

“Man with a fake name. Sounds like we need a John Doe warrant,” I said.

“We do.”

“Andy, my DA will be reluctant to issue a John Doe warrant.”

A John Doe warrant is pretty much like it sounds. What you’re doing is getting an arrest warrant for someone who’s name you don’t know. You have facts (the pickup, the face, and so on). The idea was if someone shows up matching that, the local cops can arrest them.

The trouble is, it just increases the chances of a mistake. An IndentiKit sketch is close, it’s not a photograph. There was a chance the wrong person might be arrested. You fight that by providing as much information as possible to minimize mistakes.

“You’re in the best position to nail this guy. You’ve got all the fake IDs. We know what kind of truck he drives. We have the picture. And we have his Method of Operation. I think he’ll go for it.”

I was rather skeptical. “I can try,” I said.

“Really sell it,” Andy said.

After we hung up, I called Asst. DA Doug Primevera. I told him what I wanted. I could almost hear him cringe over the phone.

“Tell me about what happened in Antonito.”

So I told him of the altered Money Order. And how Emily remembered him and we got a picture sketch of him. She even remembered his truck. Additionally, there was all the painstaking work done by Andy.

“Doug, this guy has done this with hundreds of money orders we know of. This is someone who has managed to defeat the law at every step. This is our best shot at bringing him to justice.”

Doug didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Finally he said, “We’ve never done a John Doe warrant. But with all the circumstantial evidence, I think we should try.”

I hadn’t expected that. I guess I was better salesman than I knew.

“I’ll have the paperwork to you by COB,” I said.

I had my warrant two days later. The warrant went in with all the many names we had. It was also gave all the information we had. All of that went into the NCIC system.

We’d spun a web in the primitive World Wide Web to catch the guy.

Trouble was, it was a very thin web. If we were the spiders, we’d have to wait for the fly to fly into it.

Now, all we could do was wait.