Once when I was a homicide detective in South Central Los Angeles, we we’re handling a very difficult gang murder. It had happened in broad daylight on a residential street, but this particular gang had intimidated the neighborhood to the point where after a number of weeks we still didn’t have an eye witness to the murder. We had already canvassed the neighborhood on two previous occasions, but if you’re dead in the water on a case you go back to Detecting 101. So we went back out for a third canvass. We came to one particular house where we had already interviewed the two elderly residents. One was blind and the other one had beginning stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Being dogged detectives, and having no other good clues to work with, we again door knocked it. When we were let into the residence, I noticed a middle aged female sitting in the kitchen. She looked towards me, and then immediately looked down at the floor. I walked down the hallway to where she was sitting and the first thing I said to her was, “You saw it, didn’t you!” She slowly looked back up and nodded her head. She identified the shooter and the other participants and we were able to solve the case. Like I said, I'd rather be lucky then good.
