Law enforcement has now, somewhat tentatively, identified the head and other body parts found in the Hollywood hills.  as belonging to a Mr. Hervey Medellin, aged 66, a former employee with Mexicana Airlines.

Here’s what interests me about this latest development:  In previous reports, the head was described as belonging to a person with Armenian features and appearing to be in  his mid-40’s. Now it’s a man 20 years older, and from south of the border.

All across the country, I’ve had people come up to me and talk to me as though I’m someone else they already know. The shopping carts at my local Albertson’s supermarket feature an ad from some Realtor, with his photo; I don’t see the resemblance, but three times people in the supermarket have approached me and pointed to the ad and to me, as though I’m a local celebrity because I’m on their shopping cart. And recently my own iPhoto account has started tagging photos of other people — men roughly my age, with similar facial hair — as potentially being me. When I was younger and lived on the East Coast, I was routinely mistaken for being Puerto Rican. I am of 100% German descent.

Remember all this the next time you see or hear about a police lineup, or witness testimony, or any other sort of personal identification.

And, for added measure, we might all dwell on the people on death row who were released decades later after DNA evidence exonerated them.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 21st, 2012 at 12:14 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.