Take a look at the attached video clip and isolated frames, then come back to this document.
Yes, that is Francine Pearl Hughes in that video. (Rest assured, I used a facial-recognition program to confirm the match.)
I didn’t start out looking for Ms. Hughes in this particular location. I had been attempting to place her near the art museum on the night of the murder. I was not successful, so I expanded my search geographically and chronologically. Within minutes, I had a match elsewhere in the city, three days before the murder.
Details on the video:
Ms. Hughes and her male companion are on the 100 block of Chestnut Street, closer to Second Street, in front of a Belgian restaurant/brewpub. This was at 9:47, according to the time stamp from the surveillance camera.
I don’t know if Francine and her companion dined at the restaurant before the images were captured; a standard check on all of their credit cards came up with no record of either of them dining anywhere that evening. It’s possible that they paid cash. I have a call in to the restaurant’s owner; I’ll update you when I know more.
While it is difficult to make out specific details from the video, I took the best single frames, enlarged them, and used image-enhancement software to bring things into focus. As you can see, Ms. Hughes and her companion are holding hands, hugging, and embracing.
Even without image enhancement, you can probably recognize the identity of her companion. He’s a hard man to miss: Eagles tight end Jimmy Tua.