katydid23
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When you delete something from an electronic device it is not actually deleted, all that happens is that the file pointers are removed, but the files are still there until they eventually get overwritten.
If there was such a program, LE would be all over that.
Whatever SA deleted, if he actually did that at all, would have been recovered from the phone. Further, there would be records with the phone company so deleting it would be futile. You will notice that LE make no mention of following up any of these avenues. It is unlikely that they would have not done that, so they probably did, but did not find anything incriminating.
Also, such programs need to be downloaded from somewhere, and there would be a record of that.
Since it is not a simple thing, it would have required planning long in advance, and there is no indication of anything like that.
Keep in mind that none of these people appear all that interested in computers beyond email and message boards. They dont even have a computer for goodness sakes. I think it is very unlikely that any of them have enough familiarity with computer systems to have credibly have done anything like that.
If you delete a picture, there are no records of it anywhere else. And I am not sure that small town PD had any way to retrieve it either. I think SA would have been able to delete a picture without it being recovered.