A rose by any other name

would smell as sweet, so the phrase goes. But, a person by any other name is not the same. Once I investigated the death of a little boy in an apartment fire and discovered that his mother and another lady had just gone to bed at 10 am after a night of partying with a teen aged house guest. The two ladies were high on crack and alcohol when they laid down to sleep.

To find the truth I first had to find the people involved in the fire and after several years of searching, I finally found one of them, totally by mistake. She was "working" in Greensboro under an alias and called herself Robin Dee Lynn. Shortly after I made contact with her she was arrested by the Greensboro Police Department and it was while she was incarcerated that I discovered that she was indeed Tammy James, the person I had searched for.

Since I had figured it out, she admitted to the authorities that she was Tammy James, which at the time saved her some jail time as she was not prosecuted for filing false documents, i.e., lying under oath about her name.

While she was in prison, a detainer was issued by Cumberland county against her. I know detainer is not a real word but it is a term used by the NC Prison system designating that an inmate is wanted and when their term in prison is up, they are to be remanded into custody of the detaining party.

At the time I spoke with the DA of Cumberland County and solicted an agreement that they would drop the detainer and not seek to prosecute Tammy James as long as she agreed to stay out of Cumberland county. She willingly did so as she was facing a year in prison at the time.

Five years later she was arrested and is now in the Cumberland County jail on those charges.

I have since discovered that law enforcement believes that her real name is Robin Dee Lynn and that Tammy James is an alias. If Tammy James really doesn't exist, then my agreement with Cumberland County is null and void.

Her use of another person's identity has come back to bite her.

There was a little girl who told a little lie, white of course.