Resemblance to TV celebrity helped police zero in on suspect
While it wasn’t the determining factor in linking Dominik Angeli Grou to two home invasions, the 27-year-old’s resemblance to an Emmy Awardwinning actor helped police connect the two crimes.
When Montreal police began investigating a March 16, 2011, home invasion in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, their starting point was that the culprit exhibited a thorough knowledge of alarm systems.
Angeli Grou had ordered the jeweller to call his alarm company and request that the system protecting his store in Westmount be set to test mode, anticipating that this wouldn’t alert the police if he managed to break in. Angeli Grou also revealed he knew the password the jeweller needed to say to turn off the alarm.
The first thing that steered Montreal police in Angeli Grou’s direction was that a representative from the alarm company noticed similarities between the N.D.G. home invasion and one involving another of its customers in Laval. The representative knew that one of his employ- ees was a suspect in the previous home invasion, and figured the same person had struck again. Up to that point, Angeli Grou had been working for the alarm company for years.
In the Laval case, carried out on Oct. 1, 2009, Angeli Grou made several mistakes, to the point where the homeowner he threatened mocked him and questioned whether the firearm he was brandishing was real (it wasn’t). Angeli Grou bolted from the Laval home as his plans fell apart and left several things behind, including a mask and an iPod, which Angeli Grou had dutifully registered with Apple.
Laval police cross-referenced the iPod’s registration with a list of the alarm company’s employees, and eventually settled on Angeli Grou as a suspect. By early 2011, Laval investigators were following Angeli Grou, waiting for a chance to get a DNA sample to compare it to DNA found inside the mask.
According to evidence heard during Angeli Grou’s bail hearing in 2011, the Laval police finally got their sample after he drank from a glass of water at a restaurant. They had been tailing him at the time and waiting for an authorization for an arrest warrant when Angeli Grou pulled off the second home invasion.
When the alarm company representative told the Montreal police about the possible link to the Laval home invasion, Patrick Denis, a Montreal police detective, called a counterpart in Laval. Denis testified, during the bail hearing, that the Laval detective he spoke to over the phone confirmed they were just about to arrest Angeli Grou.
During the call, Denis recalled how the victims in the N.D.G. home invasion had commented on how Angeli Grou bore a striking resemblance to Tony Hale, a character in the sitcom Arrested Development. Besides continuing to act in Arrested Development this year, Hale recently won an Emmy for his role in Veep, a comedy series starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Denis said that when the other detective then looked at an online photo of Hale, he was struck by the resemblance. Denis said that moment assured him both forces were looking for the same person.