Mobile technology is a fantastic instrument, especially for law enforcement in their attempts to locate your whereabouts and track down criminals.
A smartphone keeps records of many things the user does on it; when used as an investigative tool, it can provide valuable information to determine an area where someone is last seen alive or pinpoint the exact spot of the owner thanks to network signal ping.
In one case, a young woman who put her phone in a “Do Not Disturb” mode went missing without a trace.
Investigators had to rely on old-school detective work until another form of technology, a CCTV camera, offered a clue about the incident.
Mollie Tibbetts, the missing 20-year-old student from Brooklyn, Iowa, was found dead in a cornfield. Investigators discovered her last known whereabouts from the surveillance footage.
They managed to identify a male farm worker named Cristhian Bahena Rivera, also seen on the video as the suspect.
He was later arrested, charged with first-degree murder, and convicted for his crime. Rivera is serving his life sentence at Iowa’s maximum security facility prison.
10 /10 Time For Herself
On July 18, 2018, Mollie Tibbetts did what she had always done every evening before: going for a jog. She laced up her shoes, put on a sports bra, and headed out into the quiet roads of Brooklyn.
Those closest to her knew that Mollie thought of jogging as a time for herself.
She never wanted any distractions during the activity, so she always kept her phone silent. The phone would not ring in case someone called or sent messages. That was how Mollie could unwind.
9 /10 Her Last Run
She never knew it would be her last jog ever. After leaving her boyfriend’s home, she began her run on a familiar route. Then she vanished without a trace.
The possibility of her getting lost somewhere was improbable. Mollie’s last communication was with her boyfriend, Dalton Jack, on Snapchat.
His “good morning” text the next day went unanswered. Someone from the day-care center where she worked also called to ask why she had not shown up, but that too went to voice mail.