State troopers using surveying equipment appeared to be taking measurements from the driveway to the home at 29 Violette Ave. where Ayla lived with her father, Justin DiPietro.
A window of the modest vinyl-sided house on the driveway side of DiPietro's house had been removed and appeared to be part of the measuring detail.
http://www.onlinesentinel.com/news/foul-play-now-suspected-in-ayla-
case_2011-12-30.html
I was curious of what that piece of piece of specialized equipment they they were using to in the picture from your link. Below is a somewhat similar station.
This is what the other station I am adding for comparison does:
“This machine can catalog and measure entire rooms, buildings, or outdoor crime scenes to preserve that information forever,” says
Chris Collins, Erie County Executive. “Law enforcement officials can then go back and see a 3-D bird’s eye view of the crime scene if need be years later.”
It essentially does for crime scenes what
Google Earth did for neighborhoods and streets.
The $175,000 device (paid for with Homeland Security funds) won’t be used for every crime scene, but will instead getting dusted off for homicides, fatal accidents, some fires and disasters.
Mostly the camera will be used corroborate information given by witnesses, which often pop up days or weeks after a crime scene has been cleaned up.
“We could actually take the witness [who says] they were standing at a certain point. We can put them in that video, make that point on that video and see exactly what they would see,” says John Simic, Public Safety Lab Director of Erie County.
This kind of access to the past could come in handy in establishing a witness’s credibility - evidence gathered with the machines has withstood court challenges in other parts of the country.
And local investigators have been waiting for a tool like this.
“Obviously, the most important thing is to go back after a crime scene has been cleaned, and if there’s a piece of evidence or a measurement that you need, this scan station will be able to do that, literally within seconds,” says Peter Vito, Central Police Services Commissioner.
http://innovationtrail.org/post/3-d-camera-keeps-crime-scenes-intact
Although they may just be taking shots for other investigators or document distances, there maybe a possibility they have a witness that has come forward (even to seeing a vehicle) and they are checking sight distancing IDK? I am think it is a possibility due to the picture of investigators doing this from the neighbors yard, with a big dose of wishful thinking on my part.
ETA >> Sorry I don't know how to post these pictures.
