Top 10 Times the Internet Solved Crimes
#10: Brad Willman’s Trojan Horse
Back in the late ‘90s, a Canadian man named Brad Willman devised a Trojan horse that allowed him complete access to the computers that downloaded it. Willman placed the Trojan horse on websites dedicated to predators, and at the height of Willman’s activity, he was monitoring up to 3,000 computers. These belonged to a wide variety of people, including priests, social workers, police officers, and military personnel. His program aided in numerous official channels, including a Kentucky state investigation and a case involving the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. But perhaps his biggest catch was Superior Court Judge Ronald Kline, who pleaded guilty to possessing explicit material and was sentenced to 27 months in prison.
#9: Finding Sean Power’s Laptop
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A Canadian web consultant named Sean Power was the victim of a laptop thief while visiting New York City. After returning home to Canada, a tracking tool called Prey alerted Power that his computer was in use, and provided screenshots of the user. The man logged into Skype using his real name, giving Power his name, face, and location. His 12,000 Twitter followers then banded together, with one discovering that he was the owner of a restaurant called Oficina Latina. Powers sent a female friend to investigate, and a Twitter follower named Nick Reese ventured to the restaurant on behalf of Powers. They were able to reclaim the bag and the laptop, and Powers called the perp to thank him for returning his belongings.
#8: iPad Selfies
That pesky cloud and its penchant for stopping criminals. In January of 2015, Randy Schaefer woke up to find his truck broken into. Missing was a bag containing cash, an iPad, and a Macbook. After informing the police, Schaefer realized that some pictures had been uploaded to his iCloud account. Schaefer uploaded the photos to Click2Houston’s Facebook page and received 11,000 shares. Meanwhile, his friend shared the photos on Reddit, and a user recognized one of the perps from high school. The friend was linked to the Facebook account of one Dorian Walker-Gaines, where they found a video of the man flaunting his newfound cash. The authorities were alerted, and the perps were promptly arrested.
#7: Virginia Hit and Run
On April 7, 2012, a 57-year-old woman was killed in a hit and run in Virginia. No description of the car was provided, and the only thing that police had to go on was a small piece of metal that broke off the car upon impact. They posted a photo of the piece online, and it was quickly picked up by car enthusiast website Jalopnik. Its users quickly identified the metal as the grille from a Ford-150. They narrowed it down to the exact year and trim level, and the police used this information to build their case. It eventually led them to Victor Espinoza and Juan Gonzalez-Vasquez, both of whom were arrested and slapped with hit and run charges.
#6: Steubenville High School Case
This very public and controversial case involved a crime perpetrated against a 16-year-old high school student. The act was graphically disseminated through social media, with dozens of people documenting the event through text messaging and social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Many of these posts were found and publicly released by crime blogger and amateur sleuth Alexandria Goddard. Extra footage was leaked by an Anonymous offshoot known as KnightSec. Both were paramount in publicizing the Steubenville case and making it national news. The information was also responsible for exposing the perpetrators, both of whom were convicted and sent to juvenile detention for one and two years, respectively.
#5: Philadelphia Swarm
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In this horrible case, over a dozen people attacked a gay couple on the streets of Philadelphia while making disparaging remarks about their sexual orientation. The police released surveillance video of the incident, and a Twitter user named Greg Bennett posted a Facebook photo of what looked like the assailants in a nearby restaurant. Bennett claims that the photo was sent to him by a “friend of a friend of a friend”. The restaurant was identified as La Viola, and user @FanSince09 cross-checked Facebook for people who had checked into La Viola that night. They found numerous matches, and Twitter now had names. The names were given over to police and detective Joseph Murray thanked them for their efforts.
#4: The Death of Gregory May
20 Times the Internet Solved Crimes
Back in 1995, cousins of Ellen Leach went missing, and this eventually inspired the Mississippi resident to become a web sleuth dedicated to finding missing persons around the country. In the early 2000s, a skull was found inside a bucket of concrete, and a clay reconstruction of its human face was produced. Web sleuth Leach found a match with one Gregory May, a missing antiques dealer who was robbed by his roommate. The roommate, Douglas DeBruin, had stolen May’s antiques collection worth $70,000 and was going to trial for May’s potential murder. The only problem was the lack of a body. Fortunately, the skull was indeed matched to May, and DeBruin was convicted and sent to prison for orchestrating his death.
#3: The Case of William Francis Melchert-Dinkel
Top 10 Times Dogs Solved Crimes
This married father of two perused chat rooms and posed as a depressed 20-something woman. He would then enter into fake death pacts with despondent people, often providing them with detailed instructions. In November of 2006, a retired schoolteacher named Celia Blay got word of one “Li Do” who had made a death pact with her friend. Blay investigated “Li Do” and found other aliases and prior pacts. The police weren't interested, so Blay set up a sting operation in which she was able to track the user’s IP address to William Francis Melchert-Dinkel in Minnesota. The Saint Paul Police Department apprehended the man and he was convicted on two counts. He spent 178 days in prison.
#2: Abraham Shakespeare
While buying cigarettes at a Florida convenience store in 2006, Abraham Shakespeare decided to try his luck and bought some lottery tickets. Those tickets made him $17 million richer. A lady named Dee-Dee Moore then started a business with Shakespeare and gave herself full control over the funds. So when Shakespeare later went missing, police immediately suspected Moore. She in turn claimed that Shakespeare had gone to live somewhere remote, having grown sick of the constant requests for money. Websleuths also blamed Moore, and when an anonymous user logged in to defend Moore’s name, their IP address was traced. It led directly to Moore herself. She was later arrested for the death of Shakespeare, as his body was found in the backyard of her house.
#1: Luka Magnotta
In 2010, a video was posted online depicting violence against animals. This resulted in the creation of a Facebook group intent on identifying the perpetrator. Eventually the amateur sleuths were tipped off to the name Luka Magnotta — perhaps by Magnotta himself. The group was able to match their clues to publicly available photos of Magnotta, proving successful in their hunt. Then, in 2012, student Jun Lin was killed in Montreal, Canada, and the graphic video depicting his death further drew the group’s attention. They were able to help link Magnotta to the killer in the video. Magnotta was eventually traced by police to Berlin and extradited back to Canada, where he was sentenced to life in prison.
