I'm thinking out loud here with some facts we now know and some questions. Bear with me as I may seem redundant:
On August 20, 2015 a state search warrant was obtained for WH's iphone which was recovered from WH himself on March 20, 2015 at the Norfolk Police Operations Center.
(Why did it take five months to get a search warrant for Wes' phone? At first I thought they went for that right after AJ's official COD came in but I went and checked and that came in at the end of June - so it was still two months later before they searched the phone that had been sitting in their custody all along.)
The search warrant was for any and all subscriber info, call logs, sms/text messages, contact list & images on the phone. Warrant recites it was issued in relation to two offenses: abduction and murder. On August 27, 2015 "search inventory and return" filed in circuit court notes a dvd containing electronic data" was seized.
I'm guessing that means the search was complete and the data from Wes' phone transfered to a dvd?
The government has provided discovery (for the phone) to the defense but will NOT provide a copy of the probable cause affidavit that enabled the phone search warrant, OR the related affidavit & search warrant for the motel room. "The Government has represented that the affidavit (along with the related search warrant and a search warrant and related affidavit for a hotel room 1) is sealed pursuant to sealing orders in the Norfolk Circuit Court."
Am I understanding correctly that the state hasn't disclosed the probable cause for the search warrant for the phone, in addition to the probable cause and search warrant for the motel room - only the search warrant itself, for the phone?
If that is the case, and that sure seems to read that way to me, why is WH's defense only concerned about the probable cause for the phone, and not the PC and warrants for the motel room?
I suppose the 64k question at this point is: what gave LE probable cause, enough that it convinced the judge to sign off on the warrant?
My guess? (and this is total speculation here) is that they LE used WH's violent criminal history (previous abduction) against him, AND there was something else discovered during the course of AJ's autopsy (some type of violence - aside from the COD - a type of violence also connected to WH's criminal history) that pointed right at him, without any actual physical proof it WAS him.
I'm still stumped on why it took five months to get that search warrant for his phone.