Cell Phone, Location and Mapping the Route

[axe2grind]

First off, this whole battery removed thing is based on a rumour.

And second, could you please provide a reference to phones that can be traced when turned off. I've never heard of such a thing.

Still looking for an "official" statement, but I'm finding comments like this for now..

Unless you pull the battery you can be logged. All part of the E911 law to make us safer, ya’know.

It depends upon how you define ‘Off’.

If you are completely ‘Off’; your phone has to re-register and find towers, effectively re-boot and re-initialize. Typically, when a phone is turned ‘off’ it’s really set to a sleep mode. So, when you drive, the phone isn’t really burning a whole lot of power; but it is picking up new cell towers and dropping other cell towers as they move out of range.

If you want total radio silence; you have to remove the battery - or turn the phone completely OFF - such that it has to reboot when you re-power it on again.

 

[SnooperDuper]

This my take on the two points of interest with the phone:

When/where it was turned "off"
(IIRC it was two minutes down the road from TB's around the Ancaster Fairgrounds area)

When/where the battery was removed (about 40 minutes after they left on the test drive / outside of Brantford)

Not sure how the phone works that Tim had, but it seems the cell tower was able to "track" the phone's location, even while the phone was turned off but the battery was still inside keeping the phone in a sleep mode. Once the battery was removed, no more tracking.

Around the time TB's phone was found and this was announced to the press, a WS member posted a story about the battery falling out that began approximately, "I know a guy who knows a guy who said: ...". Ahem. since that is a pretty good marker for what we call a rumour, and cannot be substantiated in MSM, the story was purged from the WS TB threads. So if you think you read something, yes, you may have read the dude who knows a dude who knows, story. It is unfounded rumour.

 

[axe2grind]

Here's an indication that the a phone can be tracked even when it is turned off...

http://www.3y3.net/locator/

 

[skatergirl]

If they went North as SB indicated, 1 mile would be just North of the powelines and about the driveway of the first "trucking business" per google map.

If both(after 10 pm AND 1 mile) are true they would have to be on their way back towards TB's.
Just look at the amount of towers in the area, towers of all carriers, hard to believe there is not a better pinpoint from the amount of towers.
The best explanation I suppose, for no better pinpoint, is that carriers likely target the 403 corridor and very little coverage either side thus the poor reception. IMO

unless, they were within 1 mile, and had stopped to 'take care of TB', and decide from there what to do, where to go to dispose of the body, and at that point turned off TB's phone, or removed the battery, whatever the case may be.
I mentioned this earlier, in another thread, but I do have a blackberry, which I read was the type of phone TB had, and I can put it into a sleep mode, or do a full power off, which requires restarting completely, much the same as a computer would, so if it was in full power off, perhaps it would not get a ping from a cell tower? On this topic also, whenever my phone is off, whether in 'sleep' or 'completely off' if someone calls me, it doesn't ring on their end, just goes straight to my voicemail. I assume SB attempted to call TB to find out where he was, before becoming alarmed that he hadn't returned

 

[Archangel7]

unless, they were within 1 mile, and had stopped to 'take care of TB', and decide from there what to do, where to go to dispose of the body, and at that point turned off TB's phone, or removed the battery, whatever the case may be.
I mentioned this earlier, in another thread, but I do have a blackberry, which I read was the type of phone TB had, and I can put it into a sleep mode, or do a full power off, which requires restarting completely, much the same as a computer would, so if it was in full power off, perhaps it would not get a ping from a cell tower? On this topic also, whenever my phone is off, whether in 'sleep' or 'completely off' if someone calls me, it doesn't ring on their end, just goes straight to my voicemail. I assume SB attempted to call TB to find out where he was, before becoming alarmed that he hadn't returned

Yes, exactly. The point being(or mine was anyway,) that both the test drive and TB were likely terminated by that time AND that close to TB's home.

But you are correct, they would either have to hang close to that area OR be returning to that area after the murder to pick up the chase car.

 

[axe2grind]

About Tim's cell phone:

http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2013/05/18/tim_bosma_the_painful_search_for_a_missing_man.html

They learned from police that Bosma’s phone was turned off within a mile of the house. So they started searching.

http://www.thespec.com/news-story/2557918--our-daughter-needs-her-daddy-says-tearful-sharlene-bosma/

Bosma had his cellphone on him, but it was turned off shortly after his disappearance. Because of the rural area's poor reception, police were able to track its last ping — that is, the final signal from the phone that bounced off the nearest tower — only to within 50 kilometres.

"That goes into Grimsby, Six Nations … outside of our area," homicide Detective Sergeant Matt Kavanagh said.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/0...ive-with-two-strange-men-and-never-came-back/
Police found the phone in an industrial area near Brantford; they say they’re able to get records of calls made to Bosma’s cell phone before it was shut off at about 10 p.m. on Monday.

 

[lanman]

“You Can't Believe Most of the Quotes You Read On the Internet” -Abraham Lincoln

 

[Coldpizza]

Hi all,

If a link shows up with ******** that means the link is not one that WS recognizes as MSM and the link will be removed.

Thank you!

 

[lanman]

Interesting article about what LE can do with a cell phone

Part 1:

http://www.hendonpub.com/law_and_order/articles/2012/11/cell_phone_analysis_part_1

Part 2:

http://lawandordermag.epubxp.com/i/98779

 

[lanman]

I was giving some thought tonight about the timeline, and something occurred to me that I don't think anyone has thought of before.

According to the news conference Q&A session on May 10th, TB's cell phone was turned off 'shortly after 10 pm'.

Hamilton Police Press Conference - Update on Tim Bosma (missing person) for May 10, 2013 - YouTube

Going from memory (can't find exact links) TB and the accused left TB's home at approx 9:20. So the phone was shut off about 40 minutes after.

Now...if your spouse went out on a test drive, how long would it be before you got a little worried? 5 min? 15 min? 30? 40?

My answer was 30. But 40 would also be an expected amount of time. Anyway, I was just thinking that perhaps the accused didn't realize of forgot that TB had a cell phone on him, and shortly after 10, SB called TB to find out where he was..(or maybe someone else called).

The accused are surprised by the ringing phone, panic, turn it off in a hurry and chuck it out the window.

Just a theory, but certainly plausible imo.

This new information certainly backs up my theory.

" Tim left shortly after 9 p.m., headed out the door with the men who said they were interested in buying his Dodge Ram, which he had put up for sale a few weeks earlier.

"I gave him one hour," she said. "Then I started calling and texting."

When there was no answer, she called police.

http://www.thespec.com/news-story/3841708--we-still-don-t-know-why-this-happened-/

 

[FastLikeLight]

Maybe it will be useful to sleuth a place where the TB phone was found.

http://www.genzel.ca/?p=3120

 

[lanman]

Maybe it will be useful to sleuth a place where the TB phone was found.

http://www.genzel.ca/?p=3120

The former BGI building is where LE set up a command post late Friday afternoon. The phone was found approx 24 hours earlier. The problem is that reporters didn't show up until Friday, and all had opinions on where the phone was actually found based on their sightings of the search parties.

One would think that LE would first search the immediate area where the phone was found, and then branch out from there. That would mean by the time the reporters showed up the next day, LE was searching outside of the exact location.