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Murdered Woman's Fitbit Nails Cheating Husband (nydailynews.com) 131

Posted by BeauHD from the fitness-tracking dept.
BarbaraHudson writes: A murdered woman's Fitbit data shows she was still alive an hour after her husband claims she was murdered and he was tied up, contradicting her husband's description of events. New York Daily News reports: "Richard Dabate, 40, was charged this month with felony murder, tampering with physical evidence and making false statements following his wife Connie's December 2015 death at their home in Ellington, Tolland County. Dabate called 911 reporting that his wife was the victim of a home invasion, alleging that she was shot dead by a 'tall, obese man' with a deep voice like actor Vin Diesel's, sporting 'camouflage and a mask,' according to an arrest warrant. Dabate alleged her death took place more than an hour before her Fitbit-tracked movements revealed."
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Murdered Woman's Fitbit Nails Cheating Husband More

Murdered Woman's Fitbit Nails Cheating Husband

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  • Finally a good use for fitness trackers. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @05:51PM (#54301483)

    We've heard all about doctors not knowing what to do with fitness tracker data but now we're finally seeing a valid use case: recording your time of death! The police must be thrilled. ;)

    • This kind of thing was predicted long ago, though it was supposed to be a warning:

      "We'll know you're dead when you don't answer your phone".

      Well, we showed those prognosticators, and we ignored their warnings and went leagues beyond what they foresaw. We voluntarily wear electronics that spy on us regardless of whether we activate them or not.

      • Re:Finally a good use for fitness trackers. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by networkBoy ( 774728 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @06:22PM (#54301615) Journal

        Actually....
        Tie fitbit tracker "heartbeat" data with a deadman switch...

        Fitbit says you died, time to delete the crypto keys to the computer.

        • You're going to want a LONG fuse on that deadman switch, or any number of accidents or incidents of forgetfulness could cause you some serious annoyance.

          I have a friend who would wipe or destroy my digital media for me if I died, after migrating any family photos or videos my wife wanted to keep. My stuff is locked down for the sake of it, and not locked down well enough to keep law enforcement or a decent hacker out anyway.

          Security vs. convenience. By the time you've gone to deadman switches you're so fa

          • Re:Finally a good use for fitness trackers. (Score:5, Funny)

            by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @07:02PM (#54301821) Journal

            I have a friend who would wipe or destroy my digital media for me if I died

            I'm willing my collection of ASCII porn to the Smithsonian in the case of my death.

            • Make sure to include a 1541 floppy drive to read your box of floppy disks.

              • Make sure to include a 1541 floppy drive to read your box of floppy disks.

                I have a 5.25" floppy.

                But I keep my ASCII porn on Bernoulli tape.

          • Well yes...
            And actually I already have a system I use.
            Like you I have a friend(relative) who is responsible for my primary computer stuff, but there is one machine that requires a ping at least once a week or it goes dark, after a month it wipes its keys and my CA signed private key as well.
            I'll notice when it goes dark... and if I don't I have *way* bigger problems.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Hylandr ( 813770 )

          Fitbit says you died, time to delete the crypto keys to the computer.

          Fitbit says you died, time to delete my browser history, porn folder, and Google account.

  • DST? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Are DST adjustments automatic on a Fitbit? Asking as I don't own one.

    • Or time zones?

    • Found the defense attorney!

      Disclaimer: was thinking the same thing myself.

    • Re:DST? (Score:4, Informative)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @06:37PM (#54301703)

      Are DST adjustments automatic on a Fitbit? Asking as I don't own one.

      Very good question! Unfortunately for the husband they also have video of the woman leaving the gym at around the time she was supposed to have been murdered. So based on that it sounds like the time on the fitbit is correct. Well, unless the gym also didn't set their clock correctly on their video, but that would be easy to verify. The FitBit is just icing on the cake.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by zlives ( 2009072 )

        so the fitbit ... bit is just clickbait

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by EvilSS ( 557649 )
          Pretty much. I mean it gives the cops more of the timeline since they know when it stopped recording movement but it's not the key ..um.. bit of evidence here.

        • Is that a rhetorical question or did you not know that police are able to pretty damn accurately determine the time of death when someone dies from fairly ordinary wounds and the body hasn't been excessively tampered with?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GNious ( 953874 )

      I'd expect electronics like this to just record UTC/GMT, and not bother with timezones or daily saving.

      • Except the user usually checks the time on it.

        Tap to activate it, and the time is either the first or second item displayed. Most people don't want to translate from UTC to local time when they glance at their timepiece.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by GNious ( 953874 )

          Pretty much all devices handle time as e.g. UTC, counting time-units since a defined Epoch, and then translates that into date/time for humans.
          I'd wager that this is also the case for everything FitBit.

  • Stupid cops (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    DUNNo where this happened at, but it sounds to me like this guy is getting Deliverance'd by the cops. One hour discrepancy in his version of events doesn't mean anything at all, especially if he was traumatized. The cops on the other hand sound stupid so they're probably inbred.

  • Frame Job (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    How do we know the killer didn't wear the fitbit himself for an hour and put it back on the corpse to frame the husband?

    Captcha: executor. LOL

    • How do we know the killer didn't wear the fitbit himself for an hour and put it back on the corpse to frame the husband?

      Very often in any investigation, science- or criminal-, there isn't one clear "Proof" of what happened, but there are many, independant sets of data that all agree, and which together point to the same conclusion. It is quite possible that each data set is not all that conclusive, when they all point the same way, it would be amazingly hard to imagine that they would all be wrong.

  • Detectives? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by networkzombie ( 921324 )
    It took 15 months to figure this out and now the guy is out on bail? His gun matches, he had major insurance, and the husband is always the prime suspect. This investigation should have taken weeks. Ellington seems to have had 4 murders in the past 12 years, including this one. Must have been a high priority case. I'll bet the crime scene had over a dozen cops onsite eating donuts. The next day they went back to their speed traps.

    • Re:Detectives? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @06:28PM (#54301635)
      So you have never been in trouble with the law before. Despite what you see on TV it takes a while for a case to be made and I promise you its longer then a commercial break.

      Wow I swear some people just need to watch a little less CSI.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Falos ( 2905315 )

        In all earnest, without any trace of cocked brow or wry grin, I submit that they have done more for our fear culture than most terrorists ever will.

        Not that pointing it out helps much.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          I've always been annoyed that in the US showing half a tit is a criminal offense while showing people getting raped/murdered/abused/attacked is good entertainment.

          • I was walking through our customer waiting area earlier this week and saw something very upsetting. There were roughly 10 people in the waiting area, sitting in chairs all facing the flat panel TV on the wall.

            On the TV: a guy in a business suit places a bag over another guy's head in the foreground. He then smashes the guy's head in with a bat. Not one hit mind you, but like 10 or 15 hits. The bag gets bloody, the body falls off of a chair to the floor.

            It was not what was on the TV that upset me. Well

      • I don't watch CSI, but I do know quite a few cops. I vent here because if I criticized them to their faces they would put me in jail for resisting arrest. No joke.

    • It took 15 months to figure this out and now the guy is out on bail? His gun matches, he had major insurance, and the husband is always the prime suspect. This investigation should have taken weeks. Ellington seems to have had 4 murders in the past 12 years, including this one. Must have been a high priority case. I'll bet the crime scene had over a dozen cops onsite eating donuts. The next day they went back to their speed traps.

      If you see at least some real investigation shows, you would have an idea that often times a murder case takes months to years to collect enough evidence in order to charge someone. I am sure that the husband was in their suspect list, but they did not charge him until now because they wanted to have as much evidence as they could to fight in the court. They might have asked their DA (or someone who has the authority to make the decision) whether they should charge him, and the person said NO and told them

    • They probably wanted clear evidence that his claims were false before going to trial. Because if you don't, that's how guilty men walk. They must discredit his story beyond a reasonable doubt.

      And since the court system insists on fairness, both sides would have access to the Fitbit data. Both sides would have an opportunity to have experts examine it. Maybe they could agree on a single independent expert, but either way it takes time.

      If it takes a year or two to nail a murderer, I see that as time well-spen

  • Kind of a pyrrhic victory, unfortunately. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mellon ( 7048 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @06:14PM (#54301593) Homepage

    The wife is still dead, whether this story is true or not.

    • Re:Kind of a pyrrhic victory, unfortunately. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @06:31PM (#54301665)

      The wife is still dead, whether this story is true or not.

      So every time someone is murdered we shouldn't look for their killers because the person will still be dead? We should let criminals roam free?

    • Wouldn't "Pyrrhic victory" apply to the husband here? In that case, the "unfortunately" seems inappropriate.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      A pyrrhic victory would imply that the police somehow harmed their case by discovering this, intentionally.

      Pyrrhic Victory:
      noun
      1.
      a victory or goal achieved at too great a cost.

    • Your point being...?

  • such possibilities

  • Jesus christ people (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Haven't we all seen enough episodes of CSI to avoid making these mistakes?

    Summer is coming up. HINT: If you're going to murder your kids by leaving them in a hot car, wipe your browser cache after Googling "how to kill my kid in a hot car"

  • yup, sounds fishy to me too (Score:4, Insightful)

    by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @07:37PM (#54301973)
    why would the home invader shoot the wife dead but only tie the husband up, when it would be just as easy to shoot him too which also eliminates him as a witness to the intruders identity and crimes

    • "why would the home invader shoot the wife dead but only tie the husband up"

      Perhaps the first death was an accident. People don't exactly behave cool headed and rational in these sorts of situations. Anything could have happened. The wife stepped up and got killed, the husband cowered in a corner. The killer realized what he did and didn't want to be in jail for the rest of his life. The killer hated women, or recognized her and knew she could ID him. Who knows.
      Thats why we have courts and rule of law. 'It

  • Tolland County, got it. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "...at their home in Ellington, Tolland County"

    Who wrote this summary, Forrest Gump?

    Seriously, I don't care what the county is, I just want to know the state. And I don't want to read TFA FFS.

  • "I'm ready for u big boy." Are we sure there was even another woman? Only time have seen messages like that is reading my spam messages .

    • "I'm ready for u big boy." Are we sure there was even another woman? Only time have seen messages like that is reading my spam messages .

      Well if you had a girlfriend other than your right hand, maybe you'd have seen a text like that.

  • Who edits this crap anyway ?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Murdering husband murdered wife would seem rather redundant, while "cheating" gives additional information.

    • It hints at the motive. Based on that single word, I assume he was headed for divorce and humiliation.

    • He hasn't been convicted (yet).

      So really, it shouldn't really be saying he's been nailed for anything, not by the Fitbit anyway.

  • Fitbit Nails? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm confused by the headline - what's a Fitbit Nails?

  • Murdered Woman's Fitbit Nails Cheating Husband

    He's not been nailed for anything yet. Still got to get that pesky trial out of the way first.

  • It nailed him? It was shoved up his ass? Finally a real use for a fitbit.

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