Opinion ID: 1842672
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: facts

Text: On October 9, 1975, at about 1:15 PM Mrs. Santopadre was in her Tiptop Shoe Repair store on Carrollton Avenue in New Orleans when two men entered. She was alone in front of the store, her son Chris Santopadre was in a back room, and an employee, George Cox, had gone to a shop next door. One of the men stuck a gun in her stomach and announced a holdup, whereupon she immediately went to her cash register, accompanied by the two robbers. As she was handing money to them and one of them was reaching over grabbing the rest of the money, her son came to the front of the store and the man with the gun forced him to lie down on the floor. A few moments later Cox came back into the store, he was ordered to lie down by the other gunman, and the two robbers then fled from the store with the money. Chris ran out of the store after them and saw them getting into a yellow Volkswagen automobile whose license plate he took down. This information was immediately relayed to the police. A short time later the vehicle was stopped some distance and on the other side of the Mississippi River from the scene of the robbery. It was being driven by one David Singleton and a search of the car disclosed one of the weapons used in the holdup. On an anonymous tip the police subsequently arrested defendant and Miller. A few days later the police brought a stack of black and white photographs containing defendant's photograph and Mrs. Santopadre and her son picked the defendant's photograph from the stack. In a subsequent lineup at police headquarters Chris Santopadre picked out defendant Smith and again made a positive identification. Although Mrs. Santopadre did not identify defendant Smith at the lineup she and her son both made positive identifications of defendant in court.