Catch Me if You Can: Analysis of Digital Devices and Artifacts Used in Murder Cases

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

1-1-2024

Abstract

The rapidly advancing field of digital forensics has become a crucial component in murder trials. We present an analysis of murder investigations that utilize digital evidence within the United States. One hundred six (n = 106) murder cases were examined with an emphasis on associated digital devices and artifacts that played an important evidentiary role. While other works attempt to identify relevant evidence in different types of criminal investigations, few, if any, attempt to do so using real-world cases with multiple digital devices and artifacts. Our results for devices showed favorable trends towards cell phones, where 66.98% of the examined cases employed a cell phone’s contents as digital evidence. An analysis of the digital artifacts identified location services (39.62%), photo/video/audio (33.96%), and SMS/iMessage (25.47%) as high-use evidence when conducting an investigation. Guilty verdicts made up 64.15% of the examined cases and 98.11% of the evidence was deemed inculpatory, or evidence that proves guilt. This work seeks to provide a refined outlook as to how digital evidence is used when conducting a criminal investigation to ameliorate the efficiency of the digital forensics process.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, LNICST

First Page

19

Last Page

32

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