Using Facebook to nab a Facebook killer
Suffolk County police are using Facebook to solve a murder which appears to have been related to Facebook; a 31-year old woman was found dead; the police searched her Facebook page, and found two individuals with whom she had recently been in contact; one of them was using her credit cards after her death; the police has now created a page seeking information about the man, looking to arrest him
In a time of ever-increasing technology, police everywhere are forced to keep up with both the virtual and the physical worlds in their law enforcement duties.
Worldwide, it seems, technology-related crimes are on the rise. Some crimes occur entirely online, while others blur the lines between the computer-generated and material worlds.
Suffolk News-Herald reports that one such crime, it seems, occurred earlier this week in Suffolk. After 31-year-old Katina Jones was found dead in her apartment Sunday, police began piecing together her last hours and found that she recently had reconnected with an old friend on Facebook, a social media networking site. Police now are accusing that friend of using Jones’s credit cards after her death, giving the crime connections to two distinct technological realms that, unfortunately, ended in a violent reality for Jones.
The Suffolk Police Department, however, is fighting back against this technology-related crime by using some of the very same technology that it believes was involved — the Facebook social networking Web site.
On Wednesday, a Facebook page went live that released details of the crime as well as an identification and photo of the man police say is their main suspect, 32-year-old Larry N. O’Neal of Houston, Texas. Throughout the week, the number of people who had “liked” the page grew by the minute. As of Friday afternoon, 833 people had helped spread the word.
Suffolk police were wise to use Facebook to get the word out. With the help of the online realm, we’re confident that a law enforcement officer somewhere will soon be slapping some very real handcuffs on the person responsible for Jones’ murder.
