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GPS evidence being used in court by prosecutors
As devices become more common, so will the use of their records
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Published: August 29, 2008
Like millions of motorists, Eric Hanson used a GPS device in his Chevrolet TrailBlazer to find his way around. He probably did not expect that prosecutors would use it too -- to help convict him of killing four family members.
Prosecutors in Chicago analyzed data from the Garmin GPS device to pinpoint where Hanson had been on the morning after his parents were fatally shot and his sister and brother-in-law bludgeoned to death in 2005. He was convicted of the killings earlier this year and sentenced to death.
Hanson's trial was among recent criminal cases around the country in which authorities used GPS navigation devices to help establish a defendant's whereabouts. Experts say that such evidence will almost certainly become more common in court as GPS devices become more affordable and show up in more vehicles.
"There's no real doubt," said Alan Brill, a computer-forensics expert in Minnesota who has worked with the FBI and Secret Service. "This follows every other technology that turns out to have information of forensic value. I think what we're seeing is evolutionary."
Using technology to track a person's whereabouts is nothing new. For years, police have been able to trace cell-phone signals and examine other dashboard devices, such as automatic toll-collection systems.
But the growing popularity of GPS devices -- in cars, cell phones and other hand-held devices -- gives authorities another powerful tool to track suspects.
Among recent cases:
□ In September, a man in Butte, Mont., pleaded guilty to rape after a judge ruled that evidence from the GPS device in his car could be used against him.
□ In New Brighton, Pa., a trucker's GPS device led police to charge him with setting his own home on fire.
□ In the case of a missing Chicago-area woman named Stacy Peterson, investigators sought GPS records from the SUV owned by her husband, former police officer Drew Peterson. She still has not been found, and no one has been charged.
Developed for the military, GPS devices started showing up in cars in the 1990s. Prices have dropped sharply in the past few years, and many devices are available for less than $150.
The Consumer Electronics Association estimates that 20 percent of American households own a portable GPS device and that 9 percent have vehicles equipped with in-dash devices.
A GPS device receives signals from satellites to determine its position on the ground. That data can be used by mapping software to display the device's position to within yards.
Detectives are often able to extract map searches and desired destinations that have been entered into a GPS device by the user. Some devices are equipped with a "track back" feature that can show where the device was at a particular time.
"What we're dealing with here is a use of the technology that I don't think the good people at Magellan or Garmin or TomTom really thought about when they were developing it," said Brill, referring to manufacturers of GPS devices.
Law enforcement sometimes uses secretly planted GPS devices to monitor suspects.
The GPS feature on a cell phone has already helped solve at least one crime. In 2006, police in Virginia Beach, Va., used the GPS device on a homicide victim's cell phone to find the phone and her purse in a garbage can behind a house. The house was linked to the man who was charged with killing her.
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