Girl honored after her stick-figure sketch helped police catch suspect

11-year-old Rebecca DePietro was honored in Stratford, Connecticut, on Thursday night for some detective work that helped officers solve a string of burglaries on her street.
It all started when her family got a knock at the door a few months ago from a Stratford police officer who wanted to know if they had seen anything or anyone suspicious. “I was like, yeah I can draw a picture of him,” DePietro said.
“It wasn’t like the best picture, it was just a head and some legs and I thought oh he’s probably just going to crumple it up and throw it out.” However, police took the doodle seriously, superimposing the picture and matching it up with a picture of the suspect. They say it helped them catch the suspect, who has since confessed to 10 burglaries in the area, including the break-in at DePietro’s home.
“It was kind of like payback like you did this and my daughter’s drawing kind of resolved the issue,” Paul DePietro said. Police say the drawing not only helped them make an arrest, but also recover some of the items the suspect stole. “For us to take that sketch and match it up, it was remarkable,” Stratford Police Chief Patrick Ridehour said. “Maybe she’s part of our next generation of detectives.”