Update: They arrested the guy that robbed me back in March.

Alright, so I went downtown to participate in the lineup of the suspect they have in custody. As it turns out, he is also a suspect in 3 other robbery incidents that occured in that neighborhood, and the victims of these robberies were also there. Before we went into the room to view the possible suspects, we were all instructed to not talk to each other about our cases or show discernible emotions if we recognized any of them as being the perpetrators in our robberies. We were also told not to be influenced by any superficial characteristics such as facial hair and that skin tone can be different in different lighting, etc.

So, we are all lead into a room across from another room that the 5 suspects are led into, separated by one way glass. They are all tall black males in their 20's to 30's. I could immediately tell that I would have a problem identifying the suspect in my robbery. I had thought that it would be like some T.V. crime drama and I would see him and say, "THAT'S HIM!!!! THAT'S THE MAN THAT ROBBED ME!!!! I HAVE NO DOUBT IN MY MIND." Like I said in the original thread, I didn't look directly at the guy except very briefly, so most of what I remember were the superficial things--clothes, hair, facial hair, etc....

Of the suspects, I thought that the only ones that it could be were #3 and #4, but both of them appeared a little different than I had in my mind. #3 appeared too tall and skinny, but even though his voice wasn't exactly as deep as I remembered, his was the closest one to the distinctively low voice that was used by the guy that commited my robbery. He looked less scruffy than I would have expected too. #4 matched what I would have suspected in build and overall scruffiness, but his voice wasn't close to what I would have expected.

After all of the suspects had all turned around and mentioned their height and weight, we were asked if we had any special requests, or if we wanted them to say anything that was specific to our robbery. One witness said that he would like them to say something about demanding that he give him his money. The detective then talks to the suspects through a P.A. and says, "I'm going to ask each of you to repeat a sentence for me. That sentence is 'Give me the money'." There was something about the monotonous tone that the detective used to say that and that it was so cliche sounding, that all of the suspects laughed, and I did too. It was hard for some of them to keep a straight face while saying it.

Well, that really didn't help out for me. I still thought it could be #3 or #4, but didn't recognize either one of them to positively identify them. They led us all out one by one to ask us if we saw the guy that robbed us in the line-up room. When they got to me, I said "Well, it's definitely not #1 or #2, but I think it could be #3 or #4, but I can't say for sure that one of them is the guy. I would say #4 most resembles my suspect in overall build, but I can't positively say that's the guy."

As it turns out, everybody else (I think everybody) said that #3 was most likely their suspect, although it ranged from being pretty sure that was the guy to being 90% sure that it was the guy and so on. The suspect's attorney was there to make sure the officer couldn't influence us in any way.

The officer later told us that the suspect that was the focus of the lineup was indeed #3. If he is the guy that commited all of our robberies, my witness statement at the line-up would be the least helpful. However, the suspect has already confessed to all of these robberies, which is probably foolish of him because he might walk for lack of definitive eyewitness identification. As it is, the detective said that there would most likely be some kind of plea bargain, and he will most likely face some sort of sentence, even if he does not have to plea guilty to each of our robberies. I'm okay with that, but need to wait to see what exactly will happen to the guy.

Anyway, it was an interesting experience, but I had been hoping that I would be able to identify for certain the perpetrator that robbed me. After leaving knowing that #3 was the suspect in question, I'm starting to see how he could have been the guy, but he was really cleaned up, and it could just be that my hindsight knowledge is affecting my judgment. I'll wait and see what happens.

 

You know what, now that you mention it, I'm not sure if #3 laughed when saying "Give me the money." I should have looked for the guy who didn't laugh or did it in a really phony manner just to sound like everybody else.