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Crime Date: December 27, 2015

Crime: Home Invasion/Attempted Murder

Agency: Ormond Beach, FL Police Department

Ormond Beach Police officers responded to a report of a stabbing that occurred during a residential burglary.

Police said a couple were asleep inside their home when the female resident was awakened by noise inside the home.  When she went to check, she was attacked by the suspect and stabbed approximately seven times.  Her husband was also attacked and suffered seven stab wounds. While the motive for the attack was unclear, both survived and were able to provide police with a description of their assailant.

Two days after the attack, Ormond Police requested the aid of Port Orange Police detectives.  They responded to the hospital where they worked with the victims to produce a composite sketch of the suspect using SketchCop FACETTE.

Once the composite image was released to the public, police received several telephone tips, including one from a father who told police the sketch resembled his son, Michael Phillips, age 19.  Detectives assembled a photographic line-up and both victims selected Phillips, who was later arrested and charged in the case.

I was later contacted by the detective who created the sketch.  He commented, “without the assistance of your software, it is unclear if this case would have been solved.”

Crime Date: July 28, 2015

Crime: Murder, Att. Murder of a Police Officer

Agency: Kern County, CA Sheriff’s Department

On July 28, 2015, three men were taken hostage after they confronted an armed suspect they believed to be living in a cabin illegally.  For the next several hours, he held the men hostage, threatening to kill them. It wasn’t until later they were able to escape and alert authorities. A short time later, they helped construct a composite sketch of the suspect that was widely distributed in the media.

Deputies immediately began conducting an area search for the suspect.  Two days later their search intensified when a retired dentist was found murdered inside another cabin 10 miles away.

On August 1, 2015, members of the Kern County Sheriff’s SWAT team were assisting deputies when they came under fire during a search inside a Kelso Valley mobile home. The armed confrontation led to two deputies receiving non-life threatening wounds and the suspect’s escape.

For the next two weeks, Kern County Sheriff’s deputies conducted the largest manhunt in the department’s history.  During the investigation, fingerprint and DNA evidence led to the identification of Benjamin Peter Ashley, 34, a homeless drifter with a lengthy arrest record, who was alleged to have access to numerous firearms.

It wasn’t until about two and a half weeks after their search began that deputies received a break in the case.

On Saturday, August 14, 2015, a citizen reported that Ashley was inside an Inyokern convenience market making a large purchase of junk food items. Deputies quickly responded to confront Ashley as he left the store.  During their contact with him, an officer-involved shooting occurred during which Ashley was killed.

 

 

Crime Date: August 8, 2014

Crime: Residential Burglary Series

Agency: Auglaize County, OH Sheriff’s Office

Several law enforcement agencies in Western Ohio were investigating a series of residential burglaries committed by an unknown suspect they called, “The Pillowcase Bandit”.  During his crime spree, that lasted several months, the suspect broke into approximately twenty-nine homes in Auglaize, Logan, Shelby and Allen Counties.  After connecting the dots, sheriff’s detectives from all four agencies began working together to identify and arrest the suspect.

A break in the case came during one of the burglaries when he was confronted by two sisters, ages 9 and 13.  The sisters were home alone when they left their bedroom to investigate a noise coming from another area inside the house.  After surprising one another, The Pillowcase Bandit fled, while the girls hid inside a closet.  The next day, they sat down with a Special Agent from the Ohio State Attorney General’s Office – Bureau of Criminal Identification to create a composite sketch.

The sketch depicted a suspect with long blonde hair.  Allen County Sheriff’s Deputies had recently arrested Mark Ball, age 51, on a theft/burglary warrant after he was identified through his DNA left at a crime scene.

Once word of his arrest reached Auglaize County Sheriff’s Department, they learned that Ball matched the composite sketch.  He admitted to the series of burglaries and the cases will be submitted to prosecutors.