The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Vancouver Island Major Crime Unit have recently scored a big success in an investigation where they ended up securing convictions for first degree murder against a pair of teenagers who brutally beat, raped and murdered another teenager. The team managed to amass a significant amount of evidence against the two suspects through a combination of surveillance and analysis of digital forensic evidence.
The investigators monitored Facebook, bugged the pair’s mobile phones and also managed to get a lot of computer forensic evidence including Wikipedia and Google search histories, text messages and transcripts of old instant messages from the online “World of Warcraft” amongst other evidence. Crucial evidence included a text sent from the site where the pair disposed of the victim’s body.
Corporal Darren Lagan of the British Colombia Island District R.C.M.P. commented that “People tend to be freer online, especially young people – they don’t feel any repercussions or anyone watching them”. Mobile phone forensics, computer forensics and cell site analysis enabled the convictions to be secured effectively with the equivalent of almost 1.4 billion pages of evidence being recovered in the case.
IntaForensics have been helping several Divisions of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and other forces in several countries, with their Digital Forensics Case Management, helping to protect the chain of custody and efficiency of working through complex investigations, with our Lima Case Management software. Lima has helped many Police clients and digital forensics practices to manage their investigations in an efficient and cost effective manner, reducing hours involved in the management of cases by up to 50%.
