Hannah Graham: The Search - #3

[neon_waterfall]

Someone in SAR explained the pinging to me briefly though I am sure there are others here with much greater information. But, effectively, the pings jump from cell tower to cell tower, so they can see where your phone was relative to any number of towers (time stamped or not, I don't know, but it sounds like it). The farther apart the towers (like out in the country, where we don't get cell reception at our houses!), the more inaccurate the pings in terms of coordinates. So instead of being accurate to, say, 100 yards, it's accurate to, perhaps, 1000 yards.

How LE gets that information, and in what format (graphical, GIS, text data) I have no idea.

Your cell phone's location is calculated by your distance from nearby cell towers.

Your phone will "ping" available towers at a regular intervals - this is little more than a "handshake" where both the cell and the tower confirm they received the message.

If you're 200 yards from tower A, 750 yards from tower B, 500 yards from tower C, then you must be at x degrees north and y degrees west - assuming that all "pings" were sent at the same time and relative reply latency is close to zero when taking the distance into account (the "Doppler Effect").

Obviously, the accuracy will depend on the speed at which the cell is moving - the greater ground speed, the less accuracy - and tower coverage; if the cell has more towers it can "see", the more accurate the triangulation.

Ever noticed your cell battery drain really quickly when you're in an area of poor reception? This is why. If the cell has to "scan" to triangulate its position because it can't see enough towers or they're distant, this can be a huge drain on the battery as it's constantly having to put more effort into "pinging".

Cell companies use your position to, essentially, route data to your cell the cheapest way possible. Of course, they keep records of this information for other purposes (marketing, originally) and, as this information can be very intrusive, they tend to need a warrant and some lead time (to run the reports) before they can hand over this data to law enforcement.

Surveillance programs are another ball of wax, of course - traditionally, they were targeted in "real-time", which meant the service provider was able to specifically track the cell(s) requested.

Coming back to this case, though: I personally believe that today's landowner and last week's webcam owner are legitimate due to how they carry themselves and by their "vagueness". Hoaxes tend to provide very specific and definitive "information" so the reader will believe them. Only LE will have enough information to determine whether the two leads match, hopefully they do.

One thing, though - and I hate to even say this - but if the cell phone in question was Hannah's, why didn't the suspect destroy it long before he even got to this location? And if the cell phone was his, that indicates a HUGE mistake on his part in ensuring it was elsewhere, switched off, with the battery removed and unable to give anyone any clues as to where he was.

The suspect has been linked to similar crimes - which indicates he's "experienced" at this ghastly stuff. It's a bit of a "rookie" mistake not to deal with the cell phones, which seems puzzling, as psychos like that tend to be obsessive about details.

 

[FindHG]

Oh my God, I'm balling. I really am.

Thank you so much, perfectingpink, and all of you here.

It is amazing to think that exactly 2 years ago today I joined this forum...to think that 2 years later I'd be on here day and night...so much I want to say...I was so angry, so terrified for my students, so heartbroken, it was like being in a real life horror movie, worried about tripping over body parts, looking over your shoulder every minute (I still do), wondering if its someone you know......etc etc...thinking about what Jessica must have gone through (still haunted by this)...some of you probably remember how cold I was, every word I uttered it seemed like was a curse word....I lost a lot of friends because of my anger...I literally lost my mind...don't know what I would have done without this forum...one of my best friends kept trying to help me turn it around somehow for the positive...I feel that being here is a part of that...I don't want to derail too much, but thank you sooo much. I think about the pain that Hannah's family (and all other victims' families) must be feeling...if there's anything here that we can do to help...

:grouphug:

balling my eyes out, lol

Jessica lives on through all of us here, as do all the other victims.

I posted a thread for her yesterday. An app was created that could help other missing kids in the future...it's called the Lassy Project...here is the link to thread:

Celebrating Jessica Ridgeway - Inspiration for The Lassy Project - Westminster PD
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?259234-Celebrating-Jessica-Ridgeway-Inspiration-for-The-Lassy-Project-Westminster-PD

Hey, you. Don't know how you do it, but the world's a better place for me because you do.

 

[whiskers]

Sorry, my point was IF JM killed MH he knew that taking her battery and chucking her phone, so it remained stationary would make them untraceable. Why would he be so sloppy when it comes to HG? Whoever kidnapped HG was smart enough to disable her phone so she could be tracked otherwise we wouldn't be here on this forum. Why would JM then be so careless as to make all his travel trackable by LE? This makes little sense to me.

Maybe he knows he still needs to keep in touch with friends and family, but not HG. We already know from TX, he is worried about his own belongings and appearance. JMO

 

[FindHG]

Perhaps he was smart enough not to have GPS turned on. We don't allow it function on ours, for safety reasons. Ironic.

originally, if i remember right, the LE had said they had no idea in which direction he went. If that means they couldn't track him, it may mean that he then turned it back on at some point, at some time, but we don't know when.

 

[FindHG]

good reason to have a watch with gps

 

[ksj3]

Smart enough to disable GPS, but not to either leave his phone somewhere else, or take the battery out while he dumps a dead body? Don't know...

We don't yet know when these pings are from. Perhaps he did leave his phone somewhere or take the battery out until he was done, or even hours after he was done. The pings could be his movement well into Saturday, not at the time he had Hannah. That's been suggested above, such that perhaps he was coming back to visit or is even playing a twisted game with LE by allowing them to "track" him there later, where she is not, in case he got caught.

Regardless, pings with time stamps reduce the search radius.

 

[neon_waterfall]

Perhaps he was smart enough not to have GPS turned on. We don't allow it function on ours, for safety reasons. Ironic.

That doesn't stop you being "tracked" by your cell provider, though. It does prevent third-party services from using location tracking and is a sensible security practice.

 

[Jade127402]

Been out of the loop on a lot of this story. However, was they able to get cell phones records and have they released information stating they have his records. It just stinks we live in a world with so much technology and you would think there would be a way to find her with all the technology today. So very sad, feel bad for her parents. What bothers me most he is able to sit in jail and not say a damn word even though he knows exactly where this poor girl is, criminals have more rights then victims that is for sure.

 

[margarita25]

Re: the current discussion, who knows, but here are a few ideas as to why JM might have possibly left a ping trail:

-Lack of knowledge on how the pings work, meaning he thought he was untraceable for whatever reason (turning off gps, etc)

-Maybe he had an emergency and had to turn his phone on (remember when AL (Beverly Carter's killer) got stuck in the mud?)

-Maybe his cockiness led him to believe that he would not ever be on LE's radar (at that time, he might not have been on their radar, nor would he have known there was surveillance footage that existed), therefore thinking his pings may never have reason to be analyzed (after all, he'd gotten away with so much for so long)

-Maybe he thought that even if they could ping a general vicinity, they could not find the exact location, nor tie him to it ("just because I pinged at a convenience store, doesn't mean etc etc etc)

-Criminals make mistakes. This is what LE hopes for and banks on.

I don't know, been a long day here, my brain is starting to turn to jello, I started here at 6 this morning, along with many others of you here...

jmo

We'll see what tomorrow, and the next few days hold. Gosh, I hope her case does not go cold. I don't think this LE team will let it. They are obviously very, very committed here.

Earlier when I was looking at a map, I saw "Waynesboro" and was trying to remember why it was ringing a bell. It was because of Police Captain Kevin Quick, murdered and dumped by gang members after a car jacking. He was found down an old logging road, or hunting trail, iirc...Anyway, LE has got some presence and experience behind them up there. I truly believe they are highly dedicated to finding Hannah, and making sure this creep never sees the light of day again.

 

[FindHG]

Hannah's is an iphone. Battery isn't removable.

IPhone5S

 

[themom]

Re: the current discussion, who knows, but here are a few ideas as to why JM might have possibly left a ping trail:

-Lack of knowledge on how the pings work, meaning he thought he was untraceable for whatever reason (turning off gps, etc)

-Maybe he had an emergency and had to turn his phone on (remember when AL (Beverly Carter's killer) got stuck in the mud?)

-Maybe his cockiness led him to believe that he would not ever be on LE's radar (at that time, he might not have been on their radar, nor would he have known there was surveillance footage that existed), therefore thinking his pings may never have reason to be analyzed (after all, he'd gotten away with so much for so long)

-Maybe he thought that even if they could ping a general vicinity, they could not find the exact location, nor tie him to it ("just because I pinged at a convenience store, doesn't mean etc etc etc)

-Criminals make mistakes. This is what LE hopes for and banks on.

I don't know, been a long day here, my brain is starting to turn to jello, I started here at 6 this morning, along with many others of you here...

jmo

We'll see what tomorrow, and the next few days hold. Gosh, I hope her case does not go cold. I don't think this LE team will let it. They are obviously very, very committed here.

Earlier when I was looking at a map, I saw "Waynesboro" and was trying to remember why it was ringing a bell. It was because of Police Captain Kevin Quick, murdered and dumped by gang members after a car jacking. He was found down an old logging road, or hunting trail, iirc...Anyway, LE has got some presence and experience behind them up there. I truly believe they are highly committed to finding Hannah, and making sure this creep never sees the light of day again.

I'm guessing your 3rd point is the reason. Look at his trail of unsolved attacks...

 

[whiskers]

Thank you so much for this information. (Explains a lot when my cell battery dies down.)

If the cell was Hannah's, I could see a perp looking through her phone. Who she knows on FB. Instagram updates. I see this as being nosy. Maybe he doesn't have an iPhone. Could be location where he threw her phone. I'm on IG much more than FB. Friends who don't have IG always want to see my phone and updates. I see the perp as stalkerish and going through her phone. Probably even taking time to read texts from friends and family. His way of getting to know her. JMO

Your cell phone's location is calculated by your distance from nearby cell towers.

Your phone will "ping" available towers at a regular intervals - this is little more than a "handshake" where both the cell and the tower confirm they received the message.

If you're 200 yards from tower A, 750 yards from tower B, 500 yards from tower C, then you must be at x degrees north and y degrees west - assuming that all "pings" were sent at the same time and relative reply latency is close to zero when taking the distance into account (the "Doppler Effect").

Obviously, the accuracy will depend on the speed at which the cell is moving - the greater ground speed, the less accuracy - and tower coverage; if the cell has more towers it can "see", the more accurate the triangulation.

Ever noticed your cell battery drain really quickly when you're in an area of poor reception? This is why. If the cell has to "scan" to triangulate its position because it can't see enough towers or they're distant, this can be a huge drain on the battery as it's constantly having to put more effort into "pinging".

Cell companies use your position to, essentially, route data to your cell the cheapest way possible. Of course, they keep records of this information for other purposes (marketing, originally) and, as this information can be very intrusive, they tend to need a warrant and some lead time (to run the reports) before they can hand over this data to law enforcement.

Surveillance programs are another ball of wax, of course - traditionally, they were targeted in "real-time", which meant the service provider was able to specifically track the cell(s) requested.

Coming back to this case, though: I personally believe that today's landowner and last week's webcam owner are legitimate due to how they carry themselves and by their "vagueness". Hoaxes tend to provide very specific and definitive "information" so the reader will believe them. Only LE will have enough information to determine whether the two leads match, hopefully they do.

One thing, though - and I hate to even say this - but if the cell phone in question was Hannah's, why didn't the suspect destroy it long before he even got to this location? And if the cell phone was his, that indicates a HUGE mistake on his part in ensuring it was elsewhere, switched off, with the battery removed and unable to give anyone any clues as to where he was.

The suspect has been linked to similar crimes - which indicates he's "experienced" at this ghastly stuff. It's a bit of a "rookie" mistake not to deal with the cell phones, which seems puzzling, as psychos like that tend to be obsessive about details.

 

[margarita25]

Someone in SAR explained the pinging to me briefly though I am sure there are others here with much greater information. But, effectively, the pings jump from cell tower to cell tower, so they can see where your phone was relative to any number of towers (time stamped or not, I don't know, but it sounds like it). The farther apart the towers (like out in the country, where we don't get cell reception at our houses!), the more inaccurate the pings in terms of coordinates. So instead of being accurate to, say, 100 yards, it's accurate to, perhaps, 1000 yards.

How LE gets that information, and in what format (graphical, GIS, text data) I have no idea.

Possibly slightly O/T, but FTR I do want to mention a case from a long time ago, (cell phone pinging technology has likely evolved since then) of 2 ladies, bffs, who were accused of conspiring together and murdering one of their husbands. The most damning evidence against them was cell phone pings from a tower nearby to where the victim's body was found. They were later exonerated because it was proven that sometimes, when one tower is overloaded with heavy cell phone activity, the ping can be redirected to another tower, meaning, that they were not necessarily in the vicinity of the tower where the phone pinged.

 

[FindHG]

Seeing this map from ksj3, I feel JM probably attended parties at the house they rented to students or he knew his way around from being there in some way. When you live in an area like this, the body isn't actually too terriblly far from either house. Not being far I'm inferring perp walked through a field already cut. Could be similar what we are searching for with HG?

I don't get the feeling he'd walk through say a corn field like in the Midwest that had not been shorn and picked. I'm thinking a field where he could walk and then do God knows what. I don't "feel" he would wade through large grass and brush unless it was simply a light journey until his destination. JMO

At this point, no idea when, sometime last week, a woman who had lived there and knew C-ville night-life well, and had also attended a party or parties at the farm posted her impressions.

 

[Conductor71]

Do you mind pointing out what details you believe to be questionable?

Absence of any sort of search warrant on private property
Description of tracking technique/technology
Description of SAR dogs
Sharing of details in an ongoing criminal investigation on the Internet

 

[neon_waterfall]

Thank you so much for this information. (Explains a lot when my cell battery dies down.)

If the cell was Hannah's, I could see a perp looking through her phone. Who she knows on FB. Instagram updates. I see this as being nosy. Maybe he doesn't have an iPhone. Could be location where he threw her phone. I'm on IG much more than FB. Friends who don't have IG always want to see my phone and updates. I see the perp as stalkerish and going through her phone. Probably even taking time to read texts from friends and family. His way of getting to know her. JMO

I really hate to say this, but I would expect that a serial killer would use two "sites" - one to murder the victim and the other to dispose of the evidence. You'd think that the phone would be at the former location, unless it was a spur-of-the-moment thing (more unlikely to be a serial killer, then).

It makes me feel physically sick to type that. Seriously.

Hopefully, he's made such a mistake - it is what LE look for, after all.

 

[otto]

Anybody else think the report of today's search on someone's private farm is a hoax? Kind of like the web/ deer cam video that supposedly was JM and just disappeared? Just to get us going?

I heard that there was movement in the search for Hannah.

I'm guessing that there is still no clue about the location of her body ... no assistance from Jesse Matthew, even though it's just a matter of time until he is charged with Morgan's murder.

It is such a shame that someone like the 32 year old Jesse was able to walk out of a restaurant/bar with an incapacitated 18 year old named Hannah ... and no one intervened.
She had such a life in front of her.

Jesse should be so ashamed that he is suicidal.

 

[margarita25]

Who knows, maybe he left his phone on on purpose as a red herring in case he were to be looked into. Maybe she's nowhere near there...

Or maybe he turned his phone on after he was well out of the area/after he finished disposing of her.

Ugh, this is all so sickening. I hope Hannah's family is not reading any of this.

 

[margarita25]

I heard that there was movement in the search for Hannah.

I'm guessing that there is still no clue about the location of her body ... no assistance from Jesse Matthew, even though it's just a matter of time until he is charged with Morgan's murder.

It is such a shame that someone like the 32 year old Jesse was able to walk out of a restaurant/bar with an incapacitated 18 year old named Hannah ... and no one intervened.
She had such a life in front of her.

Jesse should be so ashamed that he is suicidal.

JM is a MONSTER!!

 

[neon_waterfall]

Who knows, maybe he left his phone on on purpose as a red herring in case he were to be looked into. Maybe she's nowhere near here...

Unfortunately, I suspect this is the case.