GA - Atlanta woman wrongly imprisoned for 53 days because of name mix-up

An Atlanta woman says she was mistakenly imprisoned for 53 days because police confused her for someone else with the same first name.

Teresa Culpepper says she called police to report that her truck had been stolen in August. But when they showed up at her home, they arrested her for aggravated assault committed by another Teresa.

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http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout...mprisoned-53-days-because-name-144442562.html

"I just don't think in another side of town this would have ever happened," Culpepper's attorney, Ashleigh Merchant says.

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That's a polite way of putting it.

What a nightmare... ugh.

I'm thinking she will be laughing all the way to the bank.

wow, how does this even happen? I have a very brief story here that relates...

One night I did not take my pocketbook to drop off a movie across from where I live at one of those red box things. A cop pulls me over because a headlight was out (which I didn't know at the time). Because I didn't have my purse I did not have my DL, but he took my name and the DL number I gave him (I have mine memorized,what can I say, I love numbers) and came back to the car saying that there was a woman by my same first middle and last name, same height hair/eye color, that has a warrant out for her arrest. He said we could clear this up if I accompanied him down to the police station and have my prints ran and compared to hers. Luckily when I got to the police station one of the clerks knew the other girl with my name and said no, this isn't her so the guy took me back to my car. Now, I can't imagine how long it would take to run the prints but i'm wondering, why was her prints not ran to determine if this was her? Did the other woman not have prints in the system? was the woman not allowed to call someone to bring an ID that would show she was, in fact, not the person the police were looking for? This is such a strange story and I hope that the woman get's some kind of money to try and fix this wrong. I couldn't imagine having to spend 50+ days in jail, on top of having my vehicle stolen.

momtective said:

I'm thinking she will be laughing all the way to the bank.

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I'm hoping she does. Normally I'm not on the "sue them!" bandwagon, but in this instance, I think it's warranted.

53 days?!

I think that they didn't know the actual identity of the other woman

but they should've gotten the victim to make a visual i.d. so yeah, I'd agree that she deserves some compensation (& by 'some', I mean a lot)

You have to wonder what kind of expenses she had to incurr while in the jail. Attorney fees are obvious. Did she have young children and have to hire a babysitter? Did she have a job and lose wages? Or completely lose her job?

Whoa! Bless her heart for real!!! They even have the right woman on camera, face hidden; & it actually took the victim coming to court to say that's not her!?

Her lawyer seems good. Hope she gets compensation. The only thing that matched was the name Teresa... Really!? Birth date wrong, etc... Wow.

AnaTeresa said:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout...mprisoned-53-days-because-name-144442562.html

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I just watched the video - a lot more info there than in the written article.

- birthdate didn't match
- description didn't match
- only thing that matched: "Teresa"

The news station actually interviews on camera the woman who claims she is the real culprit. If the media could find her, why couldn't LE?

ETA: I see that Tinsamd already posted this above... :seeya: