Two cases of mistaken identity are in the news today. In the first, charges against Michael Lee Brown were dropped in Riverside. He'd been accused of — and pleaded not guilty to — a series of bank robberies across southern California. He was arrested last year and spent time in jail after a photo lineup, without any physical evidence tying him to the crimes. Another man, who looks a lot like Brown, was busted robbing a bank and admitted to officers that the earlier robberies were his. Talk about having a crummy doppleganger.
Out in Michigan, when a car crash left one blonde college student in a coma and another dead, the two were misidentified at the site of the accident. The girls had similar features and the surviving teen, Whitney Cerak, had serious injuries to her face, apparently rendering her unrecognizable. The family of the dead girl unknowlingly sat vigil by Whitney's bedside for five weeks, tracking her progress on a blog. Meanwhile, Laura VanRyn had been buried by the Cerak family, who thought their daughter was dead. The girls were described by the VanRyn family as having an "uncanny resemblance."
