Top 10 Crimes Solved By The Smallest Details in Photos
#10: Walgreens Order Number
In February 2012, Edward Byam, Akeem Monsalvatge and Derrick Dunkley robbed a Pay-O-Matic in Queens, New York, wearing realistic masks and wearing police uniforms. They threatened the cashier with a gun and showed her a photo of her own home to prove that they knew where she lived. While this threat may have been successful in intimidating the employee, it also helped lead to their downfall. On the back of the photo was an order number and information that indicated the Walgreens where they’d developed the film. This allowed police to identify them - as did their polite thank you email to the company that manufactured the masks. Talk about a paper trail!
#9: Murder Weapon
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They say to be careful what you post on social media: apparently, this guy didn’t get the memo. In February of 2016, Rito Llamas-Juarez was shot and killed in Indianapolis, Indiana while meeting a buyer for an iPhone he posted on OfferUp. After meeting up, the buyer tried to rob Llamas-Juarez and then ultimately shot him. Police were able to locate the Facebook profile connected to the OfferUp account of the buyer, Larry Thomas. This profile turned out to be a gold mine for police when they discovered that Thomas posted a photo of himself with an AR-15-style rifle, which uses the same .223 caliber bullets that matched a shell casing found at the scene. Thomas was later sentenced to 60 years in prison.
#8: Mugshots
With the help of old photographs, the 38-year-old mystery of Janie Landers’ murder was finally solved. On March 9, 1979, 18-year-old Landers, who functioned at an 8-year-old level, disappeared from Fairview Training Center in Salem, Oregon, and her body was found five days later. Despite numerous witnesses, the case went cold. Decades later, in 2015, police found DNA on Landers’ clothing that matched that of Gerald Kenneth Dunlap, a man who had previously been convicted of sexual assault and worked in the laundry department at the training center. Because Dunlap could have inadvertently transferred his DNA to Landers’ clothing, authorities turned to mugshots of Dunlap and compared them to composite sketches from the original witness descriptions. They were a match, and authorities named the since-deceased Dunlap as the murderer.
#7: Pill Bottle
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A picture may be worth a thousand words, but the police only needed a few letters to solve this case. In November 2012, Stephen Keating was arrested for producing illicit material of minors. He’d been caught thanks to clever analysis of a photo he’d shared of one of his victims. Special agents removed motion blur to decipher Keating’s first name and the first three letters of his last name on a prescription pill bottle in the background, along with part of the prescription number. After contacting the pharmacy, they identified Keating and arrested him. Luckily, Keating will have ample time to think about how he was responsible for his own downfall during the 110 years he’s spending in prison.
#6: Cleavage Coordinates
Technology is a hacker’s best friend… until it’s not. In April of 2012, Texan hacker Higinio O. Ochoa was arrested and charged with unauthorized access to a protected computer after posting the personal information of police officers on the internet. After sharing the information, he went on to taunt authorities by posting a picture that showed a woman’s cleavage and a sign claiming responsibility for the crime, using his hacker moniker. Because the photo was taken with an iPhone, investigators were able to extract data from the post and find the coordinates of where the photo was taken in Melbourne, Australia. This information, along with other photos of the same woman and additional information Ochoa posted online, led police to the hacker.
#5: Car Grille
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On April 7th, 2012, 56-year-old Betty Marcelle Wheeler was killed by a hit-and-run driver in Waynesboro, Virginia. While the driver fled the scene, a piece of their vehicle was left behind. Authorities posted a picture of the part asking for help from the public to identify the vehicle it belonged to. Discerning commenters were able to identify it as part of the grille of a Ford F-150. Police used this information to help them apprehend two suspects after finding the vehicle in question, which was still missing the piece.
#4: Purse in a Tree
Teenager Tina Faelz was murdered on April 5, 1984 while on her way home from school in Pleasanton, California. The crime scene, a culvert along Faelz’s route home, didn’t offer many clues. She had been stabbed 44 times, but no murder weapon or fingerprints were left at the scene, and the case remained unsolved for decades. In 2007, Detective Dana Savage looked back at crime scene photographs and noted Tina’s purse in a tree. She found this odd and believed that the murderer must have touched it. FBI analysts found four drops of blood on the purse and matched it to Steve Carlson, a high school classmate of Tina Faelz. Carlson was sentenced to 26 years in prison, and he later confessed to the murder.
#3: Topography & Buildings
A video appearing to depict Cameroonian soldiers executing two women and two children gained attention on social media in July 2018. BBC Africa Eye decided to look into the origin of the video by using forensic analysis of the topography, buildings, and other details of the video to determine the location of the murders. Through their analysis, BBC Africa Eye found that the video took place near the town of Zelevet between March 20th and April 5th of 2015. Despite attempts to persuade the world that Cameroonian soldiers were not to blame for the killings, the Cameroonian government eventually relented and arrested seven soldiers in connection with the murders. Four of the soldiers were subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison.
#2: A Yellow Sock
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Sometimes a detail that seems mundane or insignificant can turn out to be critical. That was the case when Byron Wolfe, head of photography at Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University, was asked to help authorities looking into the 1991 murder of 27-year-old Denise Sharon Kulb. Kulb’s body was found in Delaware County, Pennsylvania wearing just a sweater and with the rest of her clothes piled on top of her. Wolfe was able to look at some of the 35mm negatives authorities had from the crime scene and restore them enough to note a yellow sock on Kulb’s body that matched one found in the apartment of the suspect, Kulb’s then boyfriend, Theodore Dill Donahue.
#1: Belt
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On March 24, 2015, 18-year-old friends Cheyenne Antoine and Brittney Gargol from Saskatchewan, Canada posted a selfie on Facebook. They headed out for the night, but later, Gargol was found dead on the side of the road, with a belt nearby. While Antoine initially stated that Gargol left with a man she met that night, police determined that her story was untrue after looking at surveillance video. The selfie posted the night of Gargol’s murder came into play when authorities noticed that Antoine was wearing a belt similar to the one found at the scene. Eventually, Antoine admitted to killing Gargol by strangling her with her belt during a drunken argument.
