THE EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS IN THIS CASE
The validity of the eyewitness accounts in this case vary tremendously.
The detectives in this case committed a gross error by placing Dror into two lineups that were then shown to the witnesses in this case. While this may seem like the routine, it is an often-repeated mistake that has ruined many police investigations.
By having only one repeating person in two lineups, there is a strong possibility that the witnesses in the case will choose that repeated face as a suspect.
In this case, Dror’s Polaroid picture was placed into a photo lineup with five other Polaroids. Then Dror was videotaped in a video lineup. Of the five other men in the video, non matched the description of the attacker that the witnesses gave the police. Two of the men were Hispanic, one had a beard, one was only 5”6, and another was 6”2. The description of the attacker was of a white male, aged between 18 and 25, medium build, and six foot tall.
Out of the lineup, Dror was the only one that fit the description.
Even though the detectives warped the lineups to point out Dror to the witnesses, he was still never positively identified as the attacker.
THE WITNESSES IN THIS CASE
The one steady account in this case was of a white male, 18-25 years old, with a medium build. However, over seven different descriptions were also given. In these descriptions, the attacker wears a baseball cap forward and backwards, a hoodie, a beanie, a stocking over his face, no hat what-so-ever, a purple jumpsuit, and a black jumpsuit. The lack of consistency is astonishing.
The five main witnesses in this case that gave testimony were Roberta and Roland Ingrando, who were the stabbing victims in the store; Randal Beckman, who was the pedestrian across the street and wrote the license plate of the vehicle that he believed the attacker drove away in; Mary Ellen Ditto, who worked at the Tuesday Morning store across from the parking lot; and Delois White, an employee of the U. S. Post office three stores down from the wig store.
Of all of these witnesses, none could positively identify Dror as the attacker. Roland Ingrando could not identify Dror as the man that stabbed and wrestled with him. Roberta Ingrando testified that she believed that Dror was her attacker, but only after seeing his face on the front page of the Houston Chronicle and on the nightly local news.
Randal Beckman claimed that he was 80% sure that Dror was the attacker. However, it was revealed at trial that Beckman was a work associate of Dr. Goldberg, Dror 's father. Beckman also admitted that he may have seen Dror repeatedly when he would visit his father for lunch at his father and Beckman’s hospital.
The other two witnesses in the case did not identify Dror at all. Ms. Ditto actually picked another face from the police lineup and stated that twenty minutes before the attack took place, a young white man in his late teens that fit the description of the attacker came into her store and acted in an erratic manner. Ms. White watched through the windows of the post office where she worked as a man ran into the parking lot at around the time of the murder. She stated that the man was not Dror.
None of these witnesses positively identified Dror, but the investigators in the case chose not to pursue any more leads or to check for similar crimes in the area.