Facebook and MySpace have been leading cops to crooks for years. Recently, one woman turned in a guy she was about to go on a first date with because she found discovered, via a web search, that he had an FBI warrant out for his arrest.
This story is the first case we've heard of where the suspect initially incriminated himself by performing a Google search...
A San Francisco investment banker with quite a history of DUIs was
out driving on January 11th 2005 when he hit, and killed 55-year-old
Gurdeep Kaur. Lee Harbert, the driver fled the scene.
The story that Mr Herbert stuck to was that he hit a deer.
Releasing him from the need to stop and assist with whatever he had
just ran over. Originally police reports were for a burgandy Jaguar,
and Lee’s was black. No way it could have been him.
The cops weren't sure he was their man, since his car had been cleaned up...
Police later searched his house and computer. They searched his
recent queries in Google and found these recent search terms: “auto
parts, auto dealers out-of-state; auto glass, Las Vegas; auto glass
reporting requirements to law enforcement, auto theft.” [Yeah, That's Odd]
But that's not what will ultimately convict the guy. Harbert's later search included the words "hit and run," followed by his looking up a news story about his own hit and run. Of course, we've heard plenty of instances of teachers, already arrested, being convicted of sex with underage students after their internet histories revealed such memorable phrases as "sex laws between teachers and students" and "laws against underage sex." But this is definitely the first case we can think of where a guy was arrested because of his internet searches.
By the way, the guy is now serving three years in the pen.
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