I understand that when married couples decide they don't like each other any more, they sometimes opt for extreme feelings and gestures.
No wife, though, has perhaps expressed herself in quite as socially networked way as Angela Voelkert.
Voelkert, according to court records obtained by the Smoking Gun, decided to use Facebook to see if she could find out what was really in her husband's mind.
She created a Facebook profile for a superficially attention-grabbing teenage girl called Jessica Studebaker. Her first step was for her creation to friend her estranged husband. Her next step was to persuade a trusted friend to be Studebaker's typing fingers and to entice her husband, David, into communication.
This allegedly worked better than many might imagine. Soon, the court papers declare, David Voelkert was e-mailing his newfound Ms. Studebaker and revealing details of plans to disappear with his children.
It seems that Voelkert might be technically inclined, given that he owns a South Bend, Ind., business called Secured Alarms, some of whose customers are allegedly police departments.
So a Facebook message he allegedly wrote to Studebaker might just have tipped the balance in the eyes of the FBI. It is said to have read: "O.K. Here is the deal. I had a GPS tracker on my van and I took it off earlier, it was just installed on my ex-wife's van so I can track her and know where she goes."
He then allegedly made suggestions that he would find someone to "take care of" his ex-wife.
Source: CNET
EDIT: And now I find that the charges have been dropped, because the husband claimed that he knew it was his wife all along ... convenient.
While this is plausible, I think I saw later that it may have been a hoax.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I just edited my post to include the follow-up story ... I guess it's not necessarily a hoax, just that the husband knew that his wife had created a fake account.
ReplyDeleteOh well.
This was an interesting tale. It proved to be a hoax, but I can say that Facebook has proved to be enlightening for law enforcement. I serve on the juvenile hearing board in the town in which I live. We have had a number of cases in which the kids were caught primarily because they posted their crimes (more prank-like things) online. This not only helped inform the police of what they did, but the great photographs were also used in evidence during their presentation before us.
ReplyDeleteHow can you be sure what someone writes is true or fiction? There is no sworn statement saying anything written is true or not. As for using the information against kids in juvenile hearings, it is only a matter of time before they learn not to do that. Law enforcement will have to find alternative means to convict kids once they smarten up.
ReplyDelete