My best friend Eric, had a large amount of money stolen on Thursday morning. We left at approximately 12:30pm so I can get to the YMCA in time for GED testing, but the test wasn't on the 21st, but the 28th. When I foundout I was a week early I called Eric to pick me up shortly after I got there at 1:00pm, and he said it'd be about 30mins, cause he's gonna pick Ian up to hangout. So I went to the pullup bar and started working out, while paying attention to see his car. Didn't see it so I called an hour later at 2:05pm. He told me that someone robbed him, and that he's tearing apart his room looking for the money he was saving for college (almost $2,000) So I waiting outside the YMCA door entrance and when we got to his house we were in his room looking, but couldn't find anything.

NOTE: The only people Eric told about the camera besides his family was myself, Ian, and Dillion, but Dillion's alibi checks out, and he's scratched off the list, however Ian has had a past history with robbery, selling stolen items, as well as drugs. Dillion's mother told us that Ian's no longer allowed at her house, cause him and Dillion stole his sisters gaming system, and other items.

Now from what Eric has told me the only people that knew about the money was Ian, and myself, but Ian was the only one besides Eric of course who knew where it was, as he showed him the Tuesday night when he stayed the night at Eric's home. I was told that when Eric was sleeping (I don't recall the time off hand), but when Eric was sleeping Ian was awake and had the opportunity to unlock the back garage door.

Now that morning I was in a rush so I was running to Eric's house so I wouldn't be late for testing and as I was running I saw a from what I believe to be a purplish, dark colored car with two males inside wearing dark colored shirts, and both had short hair, but wasn't paying to much attention so I didn't see anything else. However when we were leaving I didn't see that car outside the clubhouse parking lot where I initially saw it earlier, and I mentioned that to Eric before we left.

When we got back after looking for it we waiting for his mom to get home and looked at the photo's taken from the camera, and saw that he came in at 12:43pm and left at 12:44pm. Now I'm 5-6 the height of the individual in the photos taken from the camera would haft to be about 5-10 or 5-11 around Eric's height which Ian, and Dillion fit that description, but Dillion has blonde hair, Ian has Black/Dark Brown.

Eric then remembered Ian saved his password on his computer, and supposedly left himself logged in. After going threw his messages he's asking multiple people to give him a ride from his place to Marquette/the parks and back to his place around the time he knew Eric would be leaving to drop me off at the YMCA, which is kind of close to his house. After Eric dropped me off he had to wait for Ian to come home, and he was walking home, and said that his girlfriend dropped him off at the wrong place. He also made an excuse that his boy is coming back from Cali, which I know he used to live in Denver, Colorado, but don't recall him mentioning anyone from Cali. Also Ian asked Eric to text him before he left, which Eric did.

Eric called Ian's dad Mike and asked him that when Ian came home to call him, and also discuss the money with Ian, which Ian still claims he never stole any money. Also his brother Colte hadn't heard from him that day. Initially Ian never answered any of Eric's calls that day except one, but answered and hungup without a word, very fast.

There was no police report filed the day of the incident, as we wanted Ian to man up and just give him the money back, but cause he didn't man up, and continued to lie a police report had to be filed the following day. Now one of the officers told us that the Facebook screenshots wouldn't be accepted by a judge. Which would be understandable as in Firefox the only way to edit a website is you need to get an addon like Firebug to do so, and then hide the addon after the edits by going to View/Toolbars/Customize, but we never tampered with the screenshots, nor edited them. Which doing it in Gimp you'd need to know the font, font size, line spacing, and would haft to deal with the line breakers, or horizontal rules in the messages which we never tampered with the screenshots.

So all the evidence we have is the Facebook messages, which maybe thrown out, and what Eric as well as Ian says, which is he said/she said crap. Although the white beanie in the video Eric's mom says she's seen Ian wear before. Also Ian does have a record, and is supposedly on parole.

The past few months Eric's been robbed 3 times (this recent one making 3) the last two Eric and I were leaving, and my wallet gets stole on May 15th. We've been friends with this dude sense 5th grade, trusted him, and he pulled this crap, and was planning on selling his mom, and dad's gaming computers, and ps3 (he has an xbox, Eric has a ps3) He never stole anything from me, but still a long friendship, and trust was broken over $2,000 dollars.

Now I'm just letting the cops do their job, but is there anyway to enhance/fix the blur from the image(s)? That way to get a positive ID on the suspect?

Unfortunately the file size of the camera's photos animation, zip are to big to upload on here so I just uploaded one of the images that isn't as blurred as the others.

EDIT: ZIP Download

Robbery Photo's/Animation:


Direct Downloads:
ZIP | Photo's/Animation

I don't know if this is any use. http://refocus.sourceforge.net/

Cool to hear from you again Mike and sorry about what happened to your friend. I used an enhanced details plugin and layer amplication to get this result. I see facial details, but not sure it will be of use to you. I also resized and cropped of course.

Need more photos. Send me a pm. I'll send you my email

I used unsharp mask then repeatedly burned the shadows and dodged the highlights on his face to increase contrast.

Gimp Plug-in for Image Registration may help. But you need a series of pictures.
See, "Example 2: Removing the White Stripe" for how it works.
http://gimp-image-reg.sourceforge.net/examples-en.html

Luminance HDR might help as well.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/qtpfsgui/

I spent hours this morning, and last night working on unblurring the image using everything I know possible to do it, but none of it was good enough for a positive ID and looked worse. I've already used Image Registration, but Luminance HDR is new to me, as well as refocus so I'll give refocus a try first, and then the other. Thanks for the help everyone!

PS: If you need more photo's send me a pm with your email.

Sorry about the situation mikethedj4.

Just to say... you can upload images up to 1GB at minus.com and get the link.
http://minus.com/pages/help
Then just post the links here instead of posting as images if there are too many or too wide/high.

But really... the police do have special equipment to sharpen up images better than anything for consumers. I think they even use nasa equipment in some cases.

Topic Updated!


Thanks I never knew about minus, and yeah I know law enforcement as well as the military have special equipment, and access to software that civilians don't. My dad's a security officer for the public aid building, my uncle gordon spent his whole life in the military about 60 years, maybe more. I don't recall what branch, or rank he was off hand, but he was up there. My papi was in the Mafia in Chicago back in the 1940's, and 50's which he worked with the government, but that goes into a whole different topic not relevant to this post.

I've always wanted to unblur an image like this, but not nessesarily under the current circumstances, and I know it can be done with free software, as anything is possible. I just haven't got to that level yet.

I however did made CamDesk in the past for desktop survalience while being on the computer, but there's no recording capability on it, which when I have free time I plan on adding the ability to record and have it take 1 photo every 3 seconds (you'll be able to change this later on). I just need a server where the photo's will go so the user can access them, and my hosting provider doesn't have unlimited webspace. If I can find someone willing to let me use their server, and it'll remain up (so you gotta be trust worthy) I'll give it about 5 maybe 6 months till development would be done, but that'd mean complete reconstruction of the application from top to bottom as I'll be planning on using OpenCV (The Open Source Computer Vision Library) for the motion recording, instead of tracking.

--You can see here that he is wearing some kind of tightfitting prosthetic silicone white/beige covering type of mask over his head and face, to disguise himself.
--You don't get a good look at his hands or any markings on it.
--His shirt might have some kind of design on it but robbers usually know to not show anything identifying on their clothing.

I don't think you or the police could ever come up with anything to identify him with the photo/video footage. Only forensics and witnesses could help.
But it is a good challenge for you to try and get a clearer picture... of a man wearing a mask!