We know. The question is, how could they have gotten the results that quickly?
From what I’ve heard, Crooks was killed by a head shot (unsurprising, if he was in a prone shooting position basically pointed at where the countersnipers were). A body isn’t going to be very recognizable after a headshot.
Another thought: Even if he left his ID behind, he had to have had his car keys. Go through the parking lot clicking until you find the car that beeps, and then run the plates.
EDIT: They had to have done something like this, actually, since there was reporting fairly early on that his car was full of explosives. That implies that they found his car relatively quickly.
NewsNation interviewed one last night.
The DNA piece has been widely reported.
One cite:
Thomas Crooks had not been carrying ID, so investigators used DNA and facial recognition technology to identify him, the FBI said.
Could that be incorrect? Sure. I suppose it could be.
If they traced the gun that opens other questions since the ATF claims they do not archive the 4473 forms. They are kept on file at the dealer.
Didn’t they supposedly do a very rapid DNA test of Bin-Laden before dumping him? How quickly was the shooter IDed?
At the “national security” level, I can imagine some things are available that aren’t generally available.
A blind test hoping to get a match through CODIS would still take a long time. A match test between two samples doesn’t take long at all if you are at the front of the line.
Receiving results back from CODIS can be measured in years rather than hours. 24 hours for a comparison test seems right.
Yes. I’ve seen the picture. Not totally unrecognizable but in line with the FBI saying they had a preliminary ID that required verification.
Nah, his head wasn’t badly mangled. I accidentally stumbled across a very clear, very graphic close-up in a forum last night.
(Forum URL blurred because of aforementioned graphic nature.)
The pensylvania DMV will have his picture ( assuming his drivers license is from there) which is digitally scanned and they use facial recognition software to check for fraud etc. I imagine it would not be difficult to match what remains of his face with a search on the DMV records to get a list of possible matches. Probably could have searched a few more adjacent states databases as well.
Yeah, that’s why I had the (?!) after that.
It’s not my idea, it’s something that was being reported in the media.
It’s possible he’d left his driver’s license in his car.
How would they know which car?
It was reported that they used the sales record of the gun from the serial number and worked from there.
Someone upthread conjectured he had his car keys on him and that’s how they found his car.
I daresay they used more than one means of IDing him before announcing it.
They looked up the gun owner from the gun. They found that the gun owner had a 20 year old son. They looked up the son and the pictures on line looked like the dead guy. The end.