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In the bodycam video of LE checking out the truck after it was abandoned at the carwash, in the audio he reads a number to dispatch (or whoever he's on the phone or radio with). Not sure if it was a plate number or a VIN number -- seemed too long to be a plate number.
Anyway from the onsite LE's half of the conversation he seems to be echoing what he's being told, that it's coming back as a Dodge -- I think he even asks for confirmation on that, and he says well this is a Ford.
Does anyone else recall that? So either they switched plates, or altered a VIN number, or something hoaky.
However the news reports don't seem to have touched on this so maybe I'm reading it all wrong?
MOO
Here’s the best article I’ve seen yet with an interview US Marshal Keely.
Here’s the part about the Ford truck. Guy who sold it said it had no license plates but CW didn’t care. Apparently the plates came off a Dodge as we can hear in the dash cam at the car wash. Luckily the seller had written down the VIN.
U.S. marshals and sheriff’s deputies led an 11-day manhunt for an Alabama murder suspect and jailer who were heavily armed and preparing for a shootout when they were captured.
apnews.com
The search was on for a hulking fugitive, a jailer and their orange car. But investigators had no idea the duo had already made it out of state and were nearly 200 miles (322 kilometers) away.
Tips flowed in to the Marshals Service and sheriff’s officials but nothing panned out until a tow truck driver from Tennessee called. He had towed
the Ford Edge three or four days earlier and it was still in his tow yard, Keely said.
The task force investigators rushed north to Williamson County, Tennessee. They had the right car, but the next question was where were Vicky and Casey?
Authorities scoured rural Tennessee looking for clues and showing photos of Vicky and Casey. They discovered a home with a few cars and trucks for sale on the lawn, Keely said. The homeowner instantly recognized a photo of Casey White and helped authorities piece together what had happened. He told investigators he sold White a Ford F-150 pickup truck for cash. The truck didn’t have license plates, but White didn’t care, the man told authorities.
“He says, ‘Yeah, I sold him a truck,’” Keely said of the homeowner. “And so, we learned that he sold him a truck the same day that they escaped from the Lauderdale County Correctional Facility. And it was just a few hours after they had escaped.”
During the sale, a woman in an orange Ford pulled up and the two drove off trailing one another, the man told authorities. And the homeowner provided one more clue — the pickup truck’s vehicle identification number, or VIN, according to Keely.