In 2000, after being charged with child sexual abuse and kidnapping in New Mexico, Neil Stammer fled the city. Fourteen years later, he was arrested in Nepal.
How did the authorities catch the fugitive? With the help of facial recognition technology.
Stammer was first arrested in 1999 on multiple charges, but after being released on bail, he never appeared again. He was said to be a talented magician who spoke several languages and traveled the world as a street entertainer. The FBI thought he could be anywhere. After years of trying to track down Stammer, with no luck, the feds decided to close the case.
Then, earlier this year, FBI Special Agent Russ Wilson took over as fugitive coordinator in New Mexico.
So Wilson reissued Stammer’s “Wanted” poster. At the same time, the Diplomatic Security Service, which checks for fake U.S. passports, had just begun testing facial recognition software designed to expose passport fraud.
An agent from the Diplomatic Security Service ran the software on a poster of Stammer and spotted something interesting – the poster matched a passport photo of someone named Kevin Hodges. The agent contacted Wilson, who quickly located Stammer in Nepal. Stammer was living under the alias Kevin Hodges and teaching English to Nepali students.
