William O. Brown, a 35-year-old Black man from Wilmington, Delaware, was killed in the early hours of November 16, 2015, after an altercation inside the Gold Club at 1031 South Market Street. The confrontation moved to a bathroom near the club’s entrance, where Brown was shot in the upper torso and later died at Christiana Hospital. The gunman fled immediately after the shooting.

Investigators built a case against Lamott Matthews, who had been at the club that night with two women after drinking earlier at a bowling-alley bar. Prosecutors said Matthews left and then returned, interpreted Brown’s behavior as challenging, and shot him. There was no murder weapon, no surveillance from inside the club, and no physical evidence directly linking Matthews to the killing; much of the government’s case rested on witness accounts that contained inconsistencies. Witnesses who featured in the trial included Jennifer Sanchez, Hector Ocampo and Natasha Chanelle; testimony differed on identification and on key movements just before and after the shot. Matthews was arrested in New York on a Delaware warrant and was tried beginning June 5, 2018, with a jury finding him guilty on June 13, 2018.

Why do readers think the identification issues in the Gold Club testimony became so pivotal to the outcome of this case?