18271: (Hermantin)Sun-Sentinel-Dogged work helps police identify victim in fatal accide (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>


Dogged work helps police identify victim in fatal accident as Delray man

By Nancy L. Othón
Staff Writer
Posted February 5 2004

DELRAY BEACH · With a key as his only clue to a dead man's identity, police
officer Vinnie Gray combed the city's Haitian neighborhoods in hopes of
putting a name to a face and perhaps ease a family's worries about a missing
relative.

The man had been killed Saturday night after being hit by an SUV on
Northwest 12th Avenue. In the two days that followed, no one contacted
police to report him missing.

Gray, who is investigating the crash, returned to the tow yard Monday to
take a second look at the Chevrolet SUV that hit the man and raised the
vehicle to look underneath.

"Lo and behold the dead man's keys were lodged in the brake rotor of the
car," Gray said.

"I retrieved the key and that was the only clue I had as to the identity of
this person."

Gray spent about 10 hours checking houses on Northwest 11th, 13th and 14th
avenues with the key, "like Cinderella's shoes," he said.

He figured that because the man was walking, he must live nearby.

He spoke to about 300 people about the man. Some thought they might know him
but didn't know his name, Gray said.

But Tuesday night, a woman called Gray and told him she heard he had been
asking questions. She knew a man that fit the description, she told Gray,
and she hadn't seen him in a few days.

Gray asked the woman to point out where he lived. Together, they went to
Northwest Ninth Avenue.

"I walk over and the key opens the door," Gray said.

Gray found an expired immigration card with the man's photograph inside the
house, where numerous people from several families live.

Once he had the card, he was able to match it to an autopsy photograph.

Three days after the crash, the man was identified as Dieuseul Alezi, 39. A
distant cousin living in Palm Beach County planned to notify Alezi's family
in Haiti of his death, Gray said.

"We met our obligation," Gray said. "Thank God I looked under that truck."

Nancy L. Othón can be reached at nothon@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6633.

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