A man who appeared to fit the description of the killer wanted in the December unsolved murders of a Boca Raton woman and her 7-year-old daughter is not the carjacker, one of the victims told police.
The 30-year-old woman who survived a similar kidnapping and attack with her 2-year-old son on Aug. 7 at the Town Center Mall in Boca Raton was presented a photographic lineup that included the man. She was unable to identify him as the suspect, according to a Boca Raton police spokesman.
Boca investigators are still interested in questioning him but are no longer calling him a person of interest.
''At this time, other than [his] general appearance, there is nothing to link him to the cases at the Town Center Mall,'' said Officer Sandra Boonenberg, a spokeswoman with the Boca Raton Police Department.
The hunt for the killer took several twists and turns Friday after surveillance video was released a day earlier showing a man that appeared to look like the killer at the Aventura Mall.
The man, carrying a floppy hat and wearing dark sunglasses and a ponytail, looked like the composite sketch of the Town Center killer.
But instead police learned it was a 27-year-old student named Robert Bodek.
Bodek apparently returned to the mall again Friday, and authorities were again alerted.
When officers swooped in and explained why they were questioning him, they said Bodek became belligerent. He was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest without violence.
''He was yelling and cussing and wouldn't calm down,'' Sgt. William ''Skip'' Washa said. ``We explained to him what was going on and he wouldn't stop, so we arrested him.''
When asked for his wallet, Bodek told police he had lost it, but when they searched him, they found him carrying a U.S. passport and a paper copy of his driver's license, Washa said. He said it was ''suspicious'' that he was not forthright about not having his license.
The killer is wanted for the Dec. 12 murders of Nancy Bochicchio, 47, and her daughter Joey, 7. Bochicchio and her daughter were found dead in their SUV in the parking lot of the Town Center mall in Boca Raton.
They were shot in the head at point-blank range, bound with plastic ties and novelty handcuffs and their eyes were covered with blacked-out swim goggles. A similar incident occurred Aug. 7 when a woman and her 2-year-old son were bound the same way, their eyes covered with blacked-out swim goggles.
That woman and her son were released by the kidnapper. In both cases, the women were abducted near the Nordstrom entrance to the mall and forced to drive to ATVs to withdraw money.
For several months the sketch has been distributed across South Florida. The sketch depicts a man with his hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing dark sunglasses and gloves. His face was covered with a floppy hat. He was about five feet, six inches tall.
The city of Boca Raton is offering a reward of up to $350,000 leading to an arrest.
Anyone with information about the murders can call Boca Raton police at 561-416-3331 or Palm Beach County Crime Stoppers at 800-458-TIPS (8477).
Video | Man wanted in Boca Mall murder case