The New York Police Department's self-professed "car geek" usually spends his days tracking stolen vehicles and the occasional carjacking, but his skills at identifying models based on a hubcap led to the arrest of an 8-year-old's killer.
Earlier this month, NYPD Det. Tom Burke was called in as police were searching for Leiby Kletzky, an 8-year-old Brooklyn boy who went missing as he was walking home from school. Police had few leads, but they did have grainy video of a tan-colored car they suspected was driven by Kletzky's abductor.
According to the New York Daily News, it took Burke just seconds to narrow down the possible models via the hubcap and a few more minutes to figure out what street patrols needed to look for: a gold 1990 Honda Accord sedan. Forty-five minutes later, police spotted that model outside the home of Levi Aron. Kletzky was already dead, and Aron has been charged with his murder and abduction.