Problems sometimes result from cases of mistaken identity, which is blamed for two women being wrongly linked to felony crimes in Mount Airy.
“That’s exactly what it was,” Police Chief Dale Watson said earlier this week in providing an explanation for a unusual situation involving Celeste Danielle Hawks, 33, of Lowgap, and Alicia Cheryl Harrison, 39, of Greensboro.
They had emerged as the suspects in false-pretense crimes occurring last month.
Those cases involved two women using distraction tactics on clerks to obtain gift cards from the Food Lion stores on West Lebanon and West Pine streets on March 17 without paying for the cards. The monetary loss was put at more than $1,700.
A image of the pair was lifted from surveillance footage at one of the businesses which was posted on Facebook and published in The Mount Airy News seeking the public’s assistance in identifying them.
This led to Hawks and Harrison being implicated. Coupled with that, a photo of Hawks also was sent to the Mount Airy Police Department by a law enforcement officer in Virginia in connection with an unrelated matter involving her there.
The comparison of photographic images and description information all seemed to indicate Hawks’ participation in the Food Lion scam, and warrants subsequently were filed against her and Harrison for felony charges.
Those warrants accused Harrison of two counts of obtaining property by false pretense and Hawks, two counts of conspiracy to obtain property by false pretense.
The two women remained at large through the first week of April.
Last Saturday, a city officer with knowledge of the Food Lion case located Hawks at Northern Regional Hospital.
And despite the evidence indicating her involvement, the officer realized once he laid eyes on Hawks during that face-to-face encounter that she didn’t match the description of the person being sought — including not appearing in the surveillance photo. Harrison also was cleared as a result.
“We realized it wasn’t her,” Chief Watson said of Hawks.
The warrants against the two “dissipated” at that point and were rescinded, Watson advised. “We just felt that we didn’t have probable cause anymore for those charges.”
Such cases of mistaken identity are a rarity for the Mount Airy Police Department, the chief said. “That’s why we always need to do our due diligence, he added.
With Hawks and Harrison off the hook, the suspects in the crimes at Food Lion were still being sought at last report.
In one side note involving Hawks, she has not escaped involvement in the criminal justice system altogether.
After being located at Northern Regional Hospital last Saturday, she was found to be the subject of an outstanding warrant from Carroll County, Virginia, on an unspecified matter, leading to Hawks being charged locally as a fugitive from justice.
She was released under a $10,000 unsecured bond to appear in Surry District Court on May 8.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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