A young pregnant mother with a little boy on a street in Bonita in San Diego, holding up a sign that says, 'Please help.' It's a heartbreaking scene that most people would be glad to hand out a bit of cash to help a struggling family.
Unfortunately, this particular scene unfolded to be some sort of scam when the young mother, after getting fistloads of cash from generous passers-by, was picked up by her boyfriend in nothing less than a new Mercedes Benz. Witnesses say the couple counted the money she collected from begging with her son as they drove off - and they didn't even put the little boy in a car seat.
The story doesn't end there because Melissa Smith, who uploaded a video of the panhandler online, saw the woman a few minutes later begging at a different location, and also receive a lot of money from sympathetic pedestrians.
"Lots of people gave them money. Probably five people in five minutes gave them money," Smith said.
In the original report on the woman, Smith tried to take photos of the family again at the new location but when she was spotted, the woman turned angry and threatened to attack her with a "boulder." Authorities were called in but the family sped away when the police cars came into view.
Reporters, however, were able to trace the license plate of the Mercedes Benz in Smith's video as registered to a woman living in an apartment complex in Encinitas that costs $2,400 a month.
Just when San Diegans thought they've seen the last of the 'Benz-beggar,' the woman was spotted yet again at a completely different location. This time, she was no longer pregnant and was holding her newborn baby in her arms at Regents Road in University City.
Reporters from Team10, who first wrote up the story the week before, were able to approach the woman and her partner but they feigned no knowledge of the expensive car and spoke to each other in Spanish. When pressed with more questions, the family drove off in a minivan parked nearby - again, not securing the children in car seats.
According to forensics expert, Kent Gibson, consulted by the reporting team, the possibility of the woman at Regents Road and the one in Bonita being the same person is 79.7 percent match.
"[A]nything above 50 percent is a pretty safe bet it's the same person." Gibson said.
