Mistaken Identity

It was one dreadful afternoon when two burly looking men in gray suits knocked at my door. As I opened the door, they grabbed me by my arms and started handcuffing me. I tried to ask why I was been handcuffed, they did not respond and told me to come with them to the station because for some reason they thought of me to be a murderer and a despicable human being. When I tried to ask them again what I did wrong, they replied by telling me that I know what I did and I should not pretend to not know anything. A few minutes later, I was put in their police car and was forcefully taken to the station. While at the station, I was put in an interrogation room and two detectives came in and started questioning me. They began by telling me to admit to the crimes that I was not aware of and didn't commit. I tried telling them that I was innocent and would never kill another human being for no reason whatsoever. They called me names and referred to me as a disgusting person even though I had no hand in the killing of the three people that I had been accused of. A few hours later, a polygraph test was done and the results confirmed that I did not do what I was been accused of doing. Before I could be released, a call came in from one of the detectives' sources telling him that he just spotted the criminal that they mistook me for and this time they were confident he was the right one. The detectives went to the location where the culprit was spotted along with other police officers. He was from another town so he rented an apartment 1km away from the police station. Two minutes before the police arrived. He stepped out for a walk at a nearby park. Unaware of the police's presence outside his apartment building, he decides to return but before he arrived, he saw police cars and hid in the bushes. Just as he was about to escape. One of the detectives. Detective Kylian saw him and ran after him with his partner running behind him. It didn’t take long before detective Kylian caught up to him and wrestled him down and cuffed him. The guy looked exactly like me so I understood how I was mistaken for him. He was later taken to the station where he was interrogated by the two detectives. He was asked why he killed 3 innocent people in cold blood and with no remorse at all he said to the detectives “they deserved to die that way” after what they planned to do to my client. The detectives asked him who was his client who had sent him to kill the victims but never said anything about him. After hours of interrogations, he finally gave up the name of the man who hired him. The man who hired him was George McBurnie. George McBurnie was the chief executive officer and co-founder of a well- known business firm in the same city. Having been given the name, the detectives paid McBurnie’s office a visit and asked him some questions about the alleged involvement in the murder of 3 people. He denied having any involvement in any killings and immediately told the detectives to speak to his lawyer. The sudden change he showed when the killings were brought up made the detectives suspicious of him. The detectives went back to the station to look for more evidence which would put McBurnie in the case. They managed to retrieve phone records that were deleted by both My lookalike and Mr. McBurnie after the killings happened. These phone records were a step in the right direction as this was slowly putting McBurnie in the picture. While looking at the phone records, detective Kylian started looking at the transactions that were made between the two parties and found huge amounts of money were deposited in an offshore account. The account’s name was under a fake name which would have made it impossible for the cops to trace it back to the hired killer. Finally, the detectives were coming close to putting Mr. McBurnie into prison so they kept an eye on him just to make sure he didn't leave town. A day later, he was spotted at a local airport trying to board a plane. He wanted to escape but luckily the detectives caught up to him and was arrested. They took him back to the station and started their interrogation. After a few hours, he admitted to hiring someone to kill the victims in question but will only talk to the police if he had a lawyer with him. His lawyer was called and arrived a few minutes later, the detectives continued their interrogation and found him wanting of the crime. McBurnie was charged with the murder of three people who happened to be former employees of his. The reason why they were killed was that they threatened to expose their boss of the dirty ways he used to earn money on top of what he earned from his business. He was afraid of what this could do to his business and his reputation and thought it wise to eliminate his threat before word got out. The detectives decided to get a warrant to search his house to find out if the dirt was truly there. They found a lot of drugs in the house and a gun which was used to commit the crime. This discovery was surely going to put both the accused in prison for a long time. They were charged with murder and sentenced to life in prison with hard labor. I was released the same day and the police cleared me of any charges that they accused me of. Before leaving, the chief commissioner of police approached me and compensated me for all I had gone through and the embarrassment that came with it and apologized on behalf of his workers at the police station. I arrived home a few minutes later and pondered on how life can be a tragedy in a snap.

                                    THE END