Initial Complaint: October 12, 2015– 8:41 AM.
Mary Jones, a junior at the University of New Haven has contacted local police stating that sometime between midnight on October 11th, 2015 and 8 am on October 12, 2015 her ex-fiancé, Pete Sampson, posted seminude pictures of Ms. Jones on his Facebook page and also called Ms. Jones several derogatory names on Facebook. Ms. Jones is very upset as many other students at the university have already seen and commented on her picture on Facebook. She feels that Mr. Sampson posted the picture as a way of harassing and humiliating her. As a criminal justice major, Ms. Jones is worried that Mr. Sampson’s postings may hurt her future career so she has contacted the local authorities.
In-person interview with Mary Jones: October 12, 2015– 9:30am
Mary Jones is a 20 year-old criminal justice major at the University of New Haven in her junior year at the school. At approximately 8:00am this morning, one of her friends texted Ms. Jones and asked her if she had checked out her ex- fiancé, Peter Sampson’s, Facebook page. When Ms. Jones loaded Mr. Sampson’s Facebook page she found a semi-nude picture of herself as well as derogatory comments about herself. When questioned about the origin of the picture, Ms. Jones stated that she had “sexted” the photo to Mr. Sampson sometime in the fall of 2013 when she and Mr. Sampson had just started to date. Ms. Jones also stated that she was only 17 years old at the time of the picture.
Upon further questioning, Ms. Jones explained that she had Mr. Sampson had met in early September of their freshman year and had started dating immediately. While they had become engaged over the previous summer, Ms. Jones had broken off the engagement several weeks ago and had begun dating Mr. Sampson’s roommate, Michael Davis. Ms. Jones felt that Mr. Sampson had posted the picture in retaliation to her ending their relationship and that the purpose of Mr. Sampson posting the picture was to harass her and to cause harm to her reputation and to her potential career in law enforcement.
In-person interview with Peter Sampson: October 12, 2015 – 2:45 pm.
Peter Sampson is a 21 year-old criminal justice major in his junior year at the University of New Haven. During the interview, which took place in Mr. Sampson’s dorm room, Mr. Sampson confirmed that he and Ms. Jones had dated and that the relationship ended abruptly several weeks ago when Mr. Sampson discovered Ms. Jones in bed with Mr. Sampson’s roommate, Michael Davis. While Mr. Sampson was still visibly angry with Ms. Jones, he denied having anything to do with posting her picture and making comments about Ms. Jones on his Facebook page.
Mr. Sampson further stated that following his discovery of Ms. Jones with Mr. Davis, Mr. Sampson deleted all of the digital photos he had of Ms. Jones as well as all correspondence between himself and Ms. Jones.
Mr. Sampson claims to have used one Toshiba laptop computer that was a high school graduation gift for the past 3 years and that no one else has had access to the laptop over the past 24-hour period.
When asked if anyone else had access to his computer in the past, Mr. Sampson stated that in Spring semester of 2015 he had loaned the laptop to his roommate, Michael Davis, so Mr. Davis could complete a paper because Mr. Davis’s laptop computer had been damaged and Mr. Davis had not yet gotten a new computer.
Mr. Sampson again adamantly denied posting Ms. Jones’s picture on his Facebook page though he admitted that he had left the picture on his page until contacted by law enforcement. When asked who he thought might have posted the picture, Mr. Sampson stated that he believed that his roommate, Michael Davis, had posted the picture to get back at Mr. Sampson because of continuing hostilities between the two roommates following Mr. Sampson’s discovery of Ms. Jones with Mr. Davis. Officers did notice that Mr. Sampson had several “sticky” notes on his desk that contained his passwords for several online accounts including that of Facebook.
As officers were preparing to leave, Mr. Sampson’s roommate, Michael Davis, returned to the room. When questioned about Mr. Sampson’s allegations that Mr. Davis had posted Ms. Jones picture, Mr. Davis denied any knowledge of the picture or of Mr. Sampson’s Facebook password. Mr. Davis stated that Mr. Sampson was trying to “pin” the posting of the picture of Ms. Jones on him in an attempt to get Ms. Jones back. When officers asked Mr. Davis about using Mr. Sampson’s laptop the previous Spring, Mr. Davis claimed that he did not remember whether or not he had ever used Mr. Sampson’s computer. Mr. Davis then stated he had to go to class and abruptly left.
Assignment
Your team of computer crime investigators has been assigned this case. Your goal is to attempt to determine who posted Mary Jones’s photo on Facebook. In gathering evidence your team should consider doing the following:
1) A whois search to determine who to contact at the University of New Haven and at Facebook for log files
2) Find out what is Facebook’s policy regarding their log files and requests from law enforcement. Also, does UNH have such a policy?
3) What type of log files will you need and from where? Will you need to get a subpoena, a court order, a search warrant, etc. to get the log files you need?
4) Will you need further evidence or interviews with any of the parties involved? If so, which individuals would you question or what evidence would you need to obtain?
5) If you decide you can determine who posted the photo, what crime or crimes would you charge the individual with?
6) Using the log files provided, lay out the time line for the crime and state who is the most likely perpetrator
Note: Make sure to document every step you have taken in the investigation and include all of the evidence that you gathered, including how you obtained the evidence.