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Police Release Wrong Photo Of Suspected Thief In Haverhill

HAVERHILL (CBS) - The past three weeks have been a nightmare for a single mom from Haverhill.

Police released a surveillance picture of her withdrawing cash, with what they said was a stolen debit card, but she's not the thief police were looking for.

"I'm happy I can be able to put my face out there again because when this happened I was hiding," says Ginesis Gil.

The nightmare began for Gil three weeks ago when her picture was splashed over the front page of a local paper.

Wrong Photo
Police wrongly released this surveillance photo of Ginesis Gil, saying she was a thief.

Police mistakenly released her picture, instead of the real thief who used a stolen debit card to get $500 from an ATM in Methuen.

A single mom with two kids, Gil says she couldn't go shopping because people would stare at her. Even her friends gave her the cold shoulder. She couldn't even celebrate Halloween with her kids.

"I didn't take my kids trick or treating, my cousin took them and it was tragic," she says. "My son goes 'your gonna go to jail,' I just started crying."

Ginesis finally went down to the police station to straighten it out. The paper made a correction, and released the right picture.

"I'm all set, my name's cleared," says Gil. "That's all I wanted, just to get my name out of it just clear my name."

Gil's lawyer hopes police will be more careful when releasing surveillance pictures to the public. With the right picture out there, police are now asking for the public's help to find the real thief.

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