Giving information that only the police release to the public is pretty damning evidence.
And is also a standard police ploy, especially in the social media era. Have an official spokesperson give out a few leading fact-bites then watch to see if anyone pipes up with details the spokesperson withheld.
Unlawful flight is also when the purpose of the flight was to avoid prosecution. I don’t think it’d be very hard for the defense to argue that that wasn’t his purpose for traveling across the country. His purpose was just to spend the holidays with his family, the same as a very large number of college students. He probably did the same in previous years, when he didn’t kill anyone.
That we know of.
Yet.
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If they can forensically link previous posts they may be able to solve previous murders (if they exist).
But isn’t the information he posted wrong? He talks about the the murderer fleeing at 3:45, after having committed the crime….but didn’t one of the victims receive a Door Dash order at 4:00AM? Wasn’t she on Tik Tok until 4:12?
I like the post right after his… “Dude’s solving his own crime… Psycho!”
No kidding, man! How fucking stupid is this guy???
The perp bears a strong resemblance to Dennis on “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”
I don’t know if it’s bias from the storm clouds following him around but his expressions really trigger a warning with me.
Fair point.
I hope I didn’t come across as nit-picking. Or nut-picking.
My intent was to take your very cogent point and add a confirmatory exclamation point. You nailed it.
How big an area would that tower provide coverage to? Or in other words, how far from that house could he have been while that tower was pinging him (or his phone was pinging it, whichever is correct)?
I’m not an expert on these matters, but two things should be noted here. First, the main question isn’t whether some cell tower would have the range to connect with his phone, but whether that was the optimum (i.e.- closest) one. Handover from one tower to another isn’t always perfect but it’s the basis of how the cellular network functions. The other point is that since many towers receive the phone signal at any time, law enforcement can geolocate a phone through triangulation. I have no idea if that was done in this case, but it’s possible. There may be a great deal of evidence that we know nothing about.
I remember discussions about cell towers. The older ones in rural areas give less detailed connection information. IIRC the older towers indicated which phones pinged the tower. The newer towers gove connection information.
It comes up at trial. I remember in the Mollie Tibbetts case the prosecution had to establish that Cristhian Bahena Rivera was in the area where Mollie jogged. He was also pinged on towers close to where her body was found. The prosecution had a expert on the stand that explained how phones connect and had a map of Rivera’s movements.
The towers near the body were older and the tracking wasn’t as precise. Rivera did get convicted.
This article argues that forensic genealogy was almost certainly used, and was purposely excluded from the affidavit.
According to a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation with whom I spoke, a key reason police focused on Kohberger as a likely suspect has to do with something that is never mentioned in the 18-page affidavit: forensic genealogy.
…
Soon after Kohberger appeared in front of a judge in Idaho, the court released the affidavit. Some suggested that the absence of any reference to forensic genealogy meant that it had not been utilized after all. But forensic genealogy leaders at the FBI and beyond have directed police departments to omit all references to the technique, numerous people involved in these investigations told me.
Can’t have the public realizing the cops are snooping around in those commercial databases, now can we?
This sounds way more likely to matching up his vehicle with cell phone records. Faster, too.
FWIW, it is not necessary to include everything in an affidavit that leads you to believe that you have probable cause. In this case the DNA wasn’t used to charge him, merely lead police to focus their attention on him. They then came up with the PC to arrest and search. The use of DNA genealogy is legal and therefore, not even a “poisonous tree” unless the police obtained the information in some illegal way, like hacking into a computer system. But if the police simply asked the DNA company and the company handed it over knowing that the customer was already aware this might happen, I don’t see a problem. There is no harm to the customer. However, I also don’t see the need to hide the fact that the technology was used. It just adds a red herring to the investigation.
Good info. Thanks.
My POV is that as a general matter, most users of the genealogy sites are unaware it’s an open book to law enforcement. Yes, they clicked the [I agree] box when they sent in their spit or whatever, but they didn’t / don’t know what all they were agreeing to. And if that open book feature became common enough knowledge, they’d demand laws & regulations be enacted to prevent routine law enforcement use of commercial genealogy databases. As such the law enforcement community has a desire to avoid highlighting their use of what they see as a very effective tool.
Just as a 20-ish years ago there was a hue and cry about medical insurance companies potentially using genetic data to price policies differently or deny coverage altogether based on DNA testing. The public demanded it be banned proactively, and by golly that’s exactly what happened.