A man who appeared to fit the description of the killer wanted in the unsolved murders of a Boca Raton woman and her 7-year-old daughter last December is not the kidnapper, authorities said Friday.
Police concluded the man was not a suspect after a 30-year-old woman -- who survived a similar abduction and attack last August at the Town Center Mall in Boca Raton -- did not pick him out of a lineup of photographs.
''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.
Boca investigators, who questioned him for five hours Friday, said the North Miami-Dade man is no longer a person of interest.
The arrest of the man took several twists and turns Friday after a surveillance video was released a day earlier showing a man at the Aventura Mall who resembled the Boca mall suspect.
''Initially this lead looked very interesting because of the video, but the Aug. 7 victim was unable to identify him,'' said assistant chief for Boca Raton police Edgar Morley. ``This is absolutely not a setback in the case because every single lead becomes part of the case.''
''We are still not done,'' Morley added. ``This investigation remains at the top of the list.''
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 the man in the video was a 27-year-old student named Robert Bodek.
Authorities were alerted that the man resembling the Boca mall killer was at Aventura Mall.
When officers swooped in and explained why they were questioning him, they said Bodek became belligerent, they said. He was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest without violence and transported to the police station. ''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. It was ''suspicious'' that he was not forthright, he added.
Boca Raton detectives traveled to Aventura to question Bodek. Authorities said that during the five hours of questioning Bodek was cooperative.
Late Friday, Bodek was jailed in connection with the mall arrest. Bond for both offenses was set at $1,500.
At his home, a woman identified as his mother sobbed and wailed as reporters interviewed neighbors about her son. She did not talk to reporters.
Police retrieved the Aventura Mall surveillance video after an anonymous caller phoned Palm Beach County Crime Stoppers on Monday to report that she remembered seeing a man who matched the description of the composite sketch of the Boca mall killer.
The tipster said the man appeared to be following a mother and daughter near the Nordstrom entrance at the Aventura Mall.
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 the 30-year-old woman and her son, 2, were bound the same way.
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 ATMs to get money.
The city of Boca Raton is offering a reward of up to $350,000 leading to an arrest.
Anyone with information can call Boca Raton police at 561-416-3331 or Palm Beach County Crime Stoppers at 800-458-TIPS (8477).
Miami Herald staff writer Jennifer Mooney Piedra contributed to this report.
Video | False alarm in search for killer