You’ve seen it on the news many times. A criminal states that he was nowhere near the crime scene at the time of the crime yet his cell phone says otherwise. Or he says he doesn’t know a particular individual yet his cell phone shows a flurry of calls between the two around the time of the crime. Unfortunately for the criminal, but good news for investigators, cell phone data can show that a tower was accessed, a call was made or received, a text was sent, or a GPS signal was stored. Any or all of these could place the suspect much closer to the crime scene that he’s willing to admit or create a connection between the suspect and an accomplice. Or a victim. The Brian Stidham case is an example.
Police will often work with the service provider to gather this data from their computers. But what if there was a simple and easy way to glean this information from the suspect’s cell phone directly? There is. Cellebrite has a much improved portable device that will extract this data very quickly.
This is definitely something that crime writers can use.