Completely off topic: Need sleuthing help

[NCBanker]

Fellow Sleuths! I hope you are all well. I need your help.

I have been extremely impressed with many of you who are absolute pros at uncovering information online. I'm calling upon that expertise at this time.

A dear relative of mine died unexpectedly recently, and we all suspect that his wife did it, as there are many circumstantial items. The autopsy results have yet to return from the medical examiner, but we're all hard at work putting the pieces together in the interim.

The wife made an extremely bizarre post on Facebook on the day of his death prior to phoning 911 that would point to her guilt. Within an hour of that post, she deleted it. Only a handful of people saw it, but those who did see it can repeat it verbatim, and it is extremely incriminating.

Is there any possible way to recover a deleted post on Facebook?

 

[LadyL]

only if you have access to her hard drive IMO (or the facebook servers)
and only legally if you're LE with a search warrant

my best advice would be to report this to LE immediately and ask all the people who saw it to do the same

 

[NCBanker]

only if you have access to her hard drive IMO (or the facebook servers)
and only legally if you're LE with a search warrant

my best advice would be to report this to LE immediately and ask all the people who saw it to do the same

Thanks for your feedback! I hope others will provide their feedback as well.

We've turned over a voluminous amount of evidence to LE. The DA's office is reviewing everything at this time. They're definitely taking a serious look at the case because of so many inconsistencies and a slew of affidavits from friends, family members, and even his physician.

I feel confident that LE can uncover the deleted post, once they've obtained a search warrant and taken possession of the pc, but I wondered if there was a way of somehow looking at archived posts that no longer exist without having to rely on the proper channels. I recall a few folks here finding deleted posts that Raven had made on various sites and hoped beyond hope that the same could be done with Facebook.

 

[terminatrixator]

That was made using
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

NCBanker, I'm really so sorry to hear that you are dealing with something like this so close to home. Of all the help you have given to us all here at Websleuths, if there is anything we can do to help you, just say the word.

My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.

EDITED TO ADD: Please keep the faith. Have faith in Law Enforcement, faith sometimes goes a long way to finding Justice.

 

[NCBanker]

That was made using
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

NCBanker, I'm really so sorry to hear that you are dealing with something like this so close to home. Of all the help you have given to us all here at Websleuths, if there is anything we can do to help you, just say the word.

My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.

EDITED TO ADD: Please keep the faith. Have faith in Law Enforcement, faith sometimes goes a long way to finding Justice.

Thanks for the link and the kind words. That's a great tool, but unfortunately had nothing archived for Facebook. I would guess that it's more useful for conventional websites.

 

[nancy botwin]

Thanks for the link and the kind words. That's a great tool, but unfortunately had nothing archived for Facebook. I would guess that it's more useful for conventional websites.

I'm very sorry for your loss. And for your frustration.
Like others have noted, Facebook is a virtual dead end if you're looking for deleted items because it doesn't get cached like other websites. If the post in question were on Myspace or Twitter, for example, you could probably find it in a google cache search.*

What you're asking is generally impossible unless
a) the deleted post was actually posted on someone else's wall (in which case the recipient of the post would still have the full text in their email notifications, even after deletion).

b) someone used a mobile device (like a Blackberry), viewed the deleted post on their main feed updates and the mobile device has not since been refreshed. (If I use my Blackberry to look at FB on Sunday, I'll reopen the FB application on Thursday and see the screen as it was on Sunday until I refresh the application to get new updates.)

*you might try entering the text of the deleted post into a search engine on the off-chance this person duplicated the entry in a personal blog/twitter etc. -- some people link their FB and twitter accounts etc so that the same content is automatically posted on all their social networking sites etc. And some people just say the same things in different places. So maybe play around with the post text itself, if you haven't already?

 

[NCBanker]

I'm very sorry for your loss. And for your frustration.
Like others have noted, Facebook is a virtual dead end if you're looking for deleted items because it doesn't get cached like other websites. If the post in question were on Myspace or Twitter, for example, you could probably find it in a google cache search.*

What you're asking is generally impossible unless
a) the deleted post was actually posted on someone else's wall (in which case the recipient of the post would still have the full text in their email notifications, even after deletion).

b) someone used a mobile device (like a Blackberry), viewed the deleted post on their main feed updates and the mobile device has not since been refreshed. (If I use my Blackberry to look at FB on Sunday, I'll reopen the FB application on Thursday and see the screen as it was on Sunday until I refresh the application to get new updates.)

*you might try entering the text of the deleted post into a search engine on the off-chance this person duplicated the entry in a personal blog/twitter etc. -- some people link their FB and twitter accounts etc so that the same content is automatically posted on all their social networking sites etc. And some people just say the same things in different places. So maybe play around with the post text itself, if you haven't already?

Thanks for the recommendations and additional insight. We've looked into all those things. Aside from this Facebook post, there is plenty of incriminating evidence. I suppose we'll simply need to wait for LE to get a search warrant for her computer, and hope that they find that post, along with all the other suspicious activity.

 

[OneLove]

Would you be interested in sharing any more detail of the circumstances? Often, people here think of things that have not been considered yet once they start pondering all the pieces of the puzzle. You never know.