A Missing Underscore

[“He should never have been charged, let alone convicted.”]
Now here’s a modern nightmare.

Police were looking for a man using the Kik messaging service under the name “fus__ro_dah” (two underscores after “fus”), but they accidentally requested records for the username “fus_ro_dah” (one underscore after “fus”).

As a result of that missing underscore, an innocent man who had absolutely nothing to do with the crime in question served 18 months in jail.

While I understand how the mistake led to this poor guy becoming a suspect, I really can’t fathom how he was convicted. What the hell happened during that trial?

Link: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/07/police-missed-one-underscore-and-sent-the-wrong-man-to-prison/