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A 90-year-old Los Angeles-area woman who was mugged and dragged into her home had credited the television show "NCIS" for helping her plan a ruse to obtain fingerprints from her alleged attackers.
The woman, whose first name is Barbara and requested that her last name not be used, was assaulted by two men who tied her up in her home and ransacked it while stealing some of her valuables.
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That's when her love of "NCIS," a procedural crime drama on CBS, inspired her to trick one of the men.
"I called to him and said, 'may I have that drink of water now,' thinking that I'd get fingerprints off the glass, but he had gloves on so they didn't get that," she said.
"I watch 'NCIS,' which I dearly love, and I've watched it all," Barbara said. "If there's a marathon on I'll sit and watch the whole thing. I think that some of that stuff I picked up from off of that."
During the entire incident, she remained calm and eventually used her Life Alert remote to call for help.
"I'm a graduate from UCLA and being a mathematician, everything that I do, I kind of think it through and figure it out," said the 90-year-old.
Thanks to her description of one of the attackers, police were able to create a composite sketch. An investigator saw the sketch and recognized the suspect from a similar case in Sunset Beach. After bringing in the 23-year-old parolee from Long Beach, authorities say she was able to pick the man out of a lineup.
A second suspect is on the loose.
Anyone with information was asked to call 855-TIP-OCCS, the Orange County Crime Stoppers Organization.
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Leave a Comment:
Good for her! Well, not that she was tied up and robbed but that she picked one of the bad guys out of the lineup.
So the article headline should say that victim failed at bid to get fingerprint from robber. I read the headline and i thought she was able to outsmart them. fooled again...
Glad that she didn't need the services of Ducky.
Oh good... let's publish that so that the next victim won't be able to at least try that...
most of these type of criminals don't read news articles.
What does her lifestyle, education and program choices have to do with her using her life alert to call for help and being able to describe the suspect well enough for an arrest to be made?
On another note~ metioning or referencing CSI or any other "crime drama" in any class in Criminal Justice got my class mates an automatic 0. Why you might ask~because the programs are not realistic portrayals of actual investigations.
My sympathies go out to anyone who is mugged, tied up, threatened or in any way harmed. You simply can't predict what the scum of this earth will do at any given moment. But I am so proud of her that she used her head and helped track this scum down. I too watch NCIS and the CSI programs and have picked up a lot of helpful things that have helped keep me out of harms way. Bless you my dear and have a very merry holiday.
What a cute old lady.
Don't mess with great grandma! Hope the perps get life! A good prosecutor should be able to pile on the charges.
Barbara sounds like a great person - I'm glad she's OK.
23-year-old parolee
Nuff said. Time to keep him in prison for a long long long time.
Why does the Headline read "Woman, 90, uses 'NCIS' fingerprint trick in bid to nab robbers" when in fact the perps were caught by being picked out of a line-up? Just once I would like to read a caption that reflects the actual story. I understand that she attempted to get fingerprints but it had nothing to do with the outcome.
Exactly. Here I was, hoping to read about a method she used to get fingerprints from the robber, and instead, I read about the use of a Life Alert remote and the ability to recognize a subject from a line-up. Please remind me...how does the 'NCIS' fingerprint trick play a role in this story again, considering he was wearing gloves so she didn't get anything and instead used the Life Alert to call the cops and then used her ability to recall the robber's features in the line-up to help nab him?
Very misleading (again). OK, the NCIS ‘trick’ never worked. Why is the story based on this, as it had nothing to do with the capture of the criminals. It was her description of them that caught suspects that she picked from a line-up. Great that she was not hurt and was able to describe her assailants in detail, but NCIS and the finger print thing had nothing to do with this.
Maybe it should have said "Loosing Bid"
But still, the link that got me to this story says she out-sleuthed robbers - ummmmm . . . . . . . don't think so. The glove-wearer clearly was not out-sleuthed by this grandma.
"Could I trouble you for a glass of water." "You could trouble me for a glass of shut the hell up."
Are you kidding? My father is 90 and doesn't look like this, but much more frail at that age. And sounds to me, since this happened in LA, another story to promote the television lineups since so many are cancelling their cable subscriptions at this point, due to all the crap that is now on most of the channels, including the "pay" news/entertainment shows which are nothing more than sensationalized stories for ratings...
This could have ended much worse--I'm glad it didn't. She kept calm, was quick-thinking enough that she made an attempt to get fingerprints.