How Fitbit bracelet helped to catch its owner’s killer
'27.04.2017'
Source: BuzzFeed News
American Richard Dubate from Connecticut was arrested for the murder of his own wife. The data from her fitness tracker Fitbit helped the police expose the killer. - informs BuzzFeed News.
After carefully collected analysis, the investigators were convinced that the only witness was lying.
Connie DeBite died in December of 2015. It was her husband, Richard, who called 911 and reported that an unknown person had entered the house. According to Richard, the offender was a stocky, dense man, with a deep voice, like that of Vin Diesel. The criminal was dressed in camouflage, and his mask hid his face. The attacker broke into the house and began to demand money, threatening with a pistol. Then he shot the mistress of the house, Richard tied to a chair and ran away. In one of the versions that Richard later voiced during interrogations, the offender managed to burn him with a burner.
The police studied the data from numerous devices in the house of Dabits: electronic alarm recording, computers, cell phones. Also analyzed the data of spouses in social networks. When the investigators reached Connie's fitness tracker, they discovered that the information provided by Richard was not true. The husband claimed that before the murder, Connie visited the gym, and the fitness tracker showed that the dead husband was not only at home an hour before the murder, but continued to move around the house even after the criminal shot her.
Alarms in the house worked only after 6 minutes after its owner stopped moving.
In addition to data from the bracelet, there were other evidence that confirmed the guilt of Richard. With a thorough examination of the premises, police dogs could not detect the presence of an old man in the house. And the alarm has been activated from the host's key fob. The police also learned that Richard had a young pregnant lover.
In April, 2017, the court issued an arrest warrant for Richard Debeit. He was accused of murder, of giving false testimony and falsification of evidence. His trial will begin on April 28, but in the meantime he was released on bail in the amount of one million dollars.
This is not the first crime that the police were able to solve thanks to a fitness tracker. In 2015, a resident of the state of Pennsylvania said that an intruder had penetrated her house and raped her. According to her testimony, the offender climbed into her bedroom when she was sleeping peacefully. But the bracelet showed that his mistress did not go to bed at all, but moved around the house.
