Fitness Tracker Data Betrays Husband After Wife Was Murdered

A connected bracelet allows you to do many things: monitor your heart rate, visualize your caloric expenditure, but also, more occasionally, scare off criminals. This is what happened to Richard Dabate, sentenced on August 18 to 65 years in prison.

The case takes place in the United States, in the state of Connecticut, in December 2015, says Gizmodo, in an article discovered by Slate. Richard Dabate leaves his house to go to work. He forgets about his computer and turns around. When he gets home, he meets a thief. The attacker then ties up the man before killing his wife, Connie Dabate, who stayed home, by shooting her.

Inconsistencies in the sequence of events with the recorded data

Richard Dabate then calls the police to describe the scene. The only problem, everything is wrong. And it’s a connected object that will prove it. Connie Dabate wears a Fitbit watch on her wrist, which tracks her physical activity.

According to her husband’s version, the attack took place around 9 in the morning. However, Connie Dabate’s connected bracelet continued to collect physical activity data until 10:05 a.m. With the help of this decisive element, Richard Dabate was able to be mistaken for and charged with the murder of his wife, whom he had actually killed, in 2017. The verdict of his crime was delivered on August 18: he received a prison sentence of 65 years

In recent years, connected objects have been used in legal cases. In 2018, a murder investigation also saw data from a Fitbit watch in California that helped solve the case. Most recently, an Airtag helped unmask an employee baggage snatcher at a Florida airport.