True Crime in the Smart Device Era

Crime scenes and criminals are covered with hair follicles, droplets of blood and now, in the 21st century, data from smart devices.

In one instance, Connecticut police used multiple segments of data to bring in Richard Dabate for the alleged 2015 murder of his wife, Connie. His alibi, that a masked intruder tied him and killed his wife after he returned to inspect a home alarm signal, contradicted information harvested from Connie’s Fitbit wristband that recorded her movements after he said she was dead. Police later learned the alarm was triggered by his own key fob, and an email he claimed to send to his boss from the car was tied to an IP address associated with his home, The Post’s Jouvenal reported.

And in another case, an Ohio man in 2016 was charged with arson and insurance fraud after he claimed his house was ablaze as he slept. Police filed a search warrant for data from his pacemaker, and his heart rate and cardiac rhythms appeared to show he was awake at the time.

Social media appears to be a particularly malleable form of covering tracks, though it may not always be convincing: After Antoine’s sentencing, Ritter, the senior prosecutor, said it was “quite remarkable” how investigators used Facebook and other technology to build their case.

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