Chapel Hill police have released the photo of a suspect in the murder of Eve Carson. To the surprise of absolutely no one who follows modern urban crime, it is of a man using her ATM card at an ATM.
A few minutes ago Chapel Hill police chief Brian Curran described the suspect — he called him a “person of interest” — as an African American male in his late teens or early 20s. Curran did not give the time or exact location of when the ATM photos were taken, other than to say it was in “the Chapel Hill area.”
He also said they are pursuing several leads in the case. Hurry. Faster. There is a predator on the loose.
Update: Why does the AP account of Curran’s press conference omit what the police chief said about the suspect’s race and age? The N&O accurately reports the details of Curran’s comments, describing the suspect in the photos as “a black man in his late teens or early 20s.”
More curious still, at this hour the Uptown paper of record is using only the AP dispatch on the photos and press conference and not the N&O story which adds in the additional details. More evidence that McClatchy does know what the hell it is doing. Then again, maybe the Uptown paper has already dispatched three reporters to Chapel Hill and we can expect 60-inches of copy tomorrow on the larger social meaning and impact of the case.
Update II: WRAL goes given further than the N&O and does not rely on Curran to characterize the man in the pictures. The TV station’s Web site simply says, “Two photographs show a black man in his late teens or early 20s.”
Update III: Again not a surprise, Chapel Hill police are now openly speculating that a second person was in the SUV in photos taken at an area ATM. This tells me the ATM photos were taken BEFORE Eve Carson was shot and that the accomplice was holding a gun on her in the backseat in order to get her PIN. Again, pure speculation on my part, but it makes more sense than the perps strong-arming the PIN in the middle of the street, then shooting her.
