Found Deceased AZ - Benjamin Anderson, 41, Car found burned, Phoenix, 31 Dec 2021

[Angleterre]

Ben's phone is missing, correct?
But LE can still examine any calls or texts Ben had that day, even the previous day, once they have a warrant? Through phone records or whatever means, can they also read content? I don't know.
I have no issues with the call Ben made to Dan, but there might be other calls or messages that could perhaps lead to what happened that day.
Same with his laptop.

Yes they can and the content of text messages
And they can do a data dump of mobiles in the area at the pertinent time frame

 

[Angleterre]

AngleterreVerified LE & Senior Investigate Officer, England
This may be an opportune moment to post a message that I have previously posted in another U.K. case last year, so that it reminds those of you who are interested, just what is happening behind the scenes of an Investigation:
(Albeit there are differences with the way cases are presented, Detectives are Detectives and U.K. and USA have often worked together previously on cases so any approach is of a similar nature….)



With any major enquiry wether that be a Murder / Homicide or a Missing Person, a dedicated team of detectives is set up with a SIO (Senior Investigative Officer ) as the lead.

Certainly in the UK, a Policy Book is commenced and everything that you know, everything that subsequently happens, every decision taken and every action followed up, is written into the policy book . Every decision made by the SIO and the justification behind such a decision, has to be written into the policy book . Even if the SIO considers a line of enquiry but makes the decision to discount it at that time, they MUST write it in the Policy Book and explain their reasoning for its consideration and then the reasoning for the decision taken to put it on hold or fully discount it and a full justification is written.
This justification is imperative for EVERY decision made wether it progresses the investigation forward or wether it’s just considered and discounted. You can have an infinite number of Policy Books by the time that the case is finalised at Crown Court I think the most Policy Books that I have ever written for an investigation is 6 and they are thick books with carbonated paper in between to enable the SIO to rip out the carbonated duplicate and enter it immediately into the HOLMES system . So it’s a LOT of writing.

I was responsible for leading a number of Murder investigations and Missing persons investigations and I would lead teams of Detectives and Forensic experts amongst other support staff.

A twice daily briefing would be held where everyone has an input as to what has happened that day , any evidence found , any witnesses spoken to etc and a summary of the day’s investigation would be written up by the SIO.

Each investigation has a MURDER INVESTIGATION STRATEGY and that strategy is followed from the Murder and Major Crime investigations Manual

So at the start of the Investigation, there will be various strategies drawn up to encompass all of the different strands of the Investigation.

They are :

1.Victim - what do we know ?

2. Suspect - Do we have any?

3. Circumstances of last seen and other pertinent information.

4. Intelligence - What do we know ? What can we find out?

5. Cell phone analysis.

6. Forensics -
Allocation of Forensic staff and any imperative retrieval’s made . Therefore, what do we have ? How are the Forensic Submissions to be prioritised? Which are being Submitted to the Forensic Laboratory and their cost? ( Forensics are a HUGE cost to the Investigation and the SIO has to make decisions having cognisance to the budgetary requirements and the Annual Forensic allocated budget.)

DNA evidence
Fingerprints
Paperwork recovered for treatment.

7. Search parameters and recovery of evidence to include continuity of retrieval as exhibits.

8. CCTV- What’s available ? How do we prioritise it? Which is viewed in what order ? (Again bearing in mind the cost of this exercise and the cost to the investigation of Officer Allocation to look through each and doing your best to ensure that it’s relevant and timely).

9. Cell Phones - Victims, Suspect’s, Family, people who are in the area at the relevant time who come forward as witnesses .

10. Family History and antecedents and any information deemed relevant to the enquiry.

11. Actions - those raised that need investigation and graded according to their priority, those that are considered but not deemed to take the investigation further ( but it still all needs recording ).

12. Forensic mapping

13. Witnesses to be identified and interviewed and statements taken.

14. Interviews - suspect/s? Who will conduct them ? Will it be ‘downstream monitored’ to allow ‘real time’ alibis and further enquiries to be made?

15. Exhibits/Property Officer - to record everything brought into the enquiry and the continuity of that evidence. A VERY IMPORTANT ROLE as this is the easiest way, alongside Procedural issues, to lose the case at Crown Court).

16. File of evidence - Who will create the file of evidence for submission to CPS?

17. Warrants - allocated officer to swear all warrants pertaining to the investigation.

18. Disclosure - Officer allocated to start a disclosure record ( court process which again is very important).

19. Family liaison officer - Officer allocate to be the go between for the family and SIO and this role can continue long after any Crown Court case and conviction.

20. Media strategy - controlled release of information to press.

I could go on but I think that you get the drift that any investigation of this type is massive and takes time and has to be that way to get it right so that by the time it gets to the Court process, there’s no room for doubt or for weaknesses in the investigation to allow the accused to get off on a technicality or procedural issue .

Then if there is a suspect you need to start thinking of who will do the suspect interview and the downstream monitoring and alibi checks .

And on top of all that, the biggest and most onerous task besides MOBILE PHONE DATA is CCTV . Both are huge, time consuming and onerous tasks. ... it takes Detectives hours upon hours to go through and watch CCTV to enable them to ascertain if there is anything of evidential value on each individual recording and that can be CCTV from the street , from a shop, car park, toll booth , buildings, churches , Public CCTV along a route and individual CCTV in peoples driveways or on their mobile phones, dashcam from vehicles and private residential CCTV etc

You start to get the idea of just how much work is involved in a Major Investigation and that’s before you go to a Judge to swear out warrants and arrest the perpetrator. Once an arrest takes place, you then have interviews and downstream monitoring in real time of the interviews and then liaison with the CPS in UK .And then putting the whole file of evidence and Investigation together and ensuring full disclosure to the defence ... it’s massive workloads and it goes on and on ...

Cell phone data is also massive because of pings of location and subsequent searches and data dumps of all cell phones active within a specific MAST area and tracing who those numbers belong to and ascertain what they were doing in the area. And I can tell you that the evidence from one cell phone alone can run into thousands of pages for my Detectives to read through and decipher what, If anything, is relevant to the case . So can you imagine when you have numerous people involved in an investigation, wether it to be rule them in or out or as a suspect, an alibi or a victim, just how onerous this task is? And it is just one small part of the investigation. Everything has to be prioritised as much as reasonably possible .

In the UK we have HOLMES ( Home Office Major Enquiry System ) and everything is entered into the system and looked at by three Police officers and Police supervisors above each officer, working with a large number of administrative support staff and any actions deemed necessary as a result of those 3 officers painstakingly going through every piece of information, item, cell phone number, cctv , search recovery evidence etc and allocating actions ( work ) to officers to compete before they are given another action . And some officers are individually given specific roles for example CCTV, Cell phones, Intelligence, Statement takers , Family liaison .

So this gives you an idea of just what is going on behind the scenes .

And the information released has to be protected and provenanced to ensure accuracy and the SIO doesn’t want information released unless absolutely necessary because the perpetrator may slip up and say something that hasn’t yet been released to the public and that then becomes dynamite to the investigation.

I hope this helps you all to understand the process , procedures and time for any major investigation to bear fruit .

 

[branmuffin]

Or does it not exist because they didn’t know what the situation was an were already running on adrenaline fight/flight mode and did not want to be seen directly filming in case it exacerbated an already dangerous situation that even
LE wouldn’t attend (to which point Dan et al
Said “if you don’t then we will “ ) and they were fearful that the trio may pull weapons on them
Sometimes there’s being brave and putting your head above the parapet to help
And then there’s being stupid! None of us know if any exists and if not why not so it’s a moot point at this time which is making it appear that there’s potentially a clash between friends groups
Also, @BenAndersonAlly said Ben was secretive and kept certain friends groups apart so maybe Ben did drive back from friends the night before and Ben just didn’t disclose this to him but he did tell Dan
How do any of us know what LE knows at this point in time. I’m sure about one thing - Ben is and was a very much loved friend and I’m sure that he would not wish there to be finger pointing between his friends unless there was concrete evidence of wrongdoing on DS et al part

I don't think it's unusual to compartmentalize friends. I have friends that I see on a regular basis that have never met each other. Mostly it's because of life experiences. People aren't a homogenized group. My high school friends probably haven't much in common with those I worked with. I wouldn't consider it secretive to consciously separate groups. Sure, at a cocktail, everyone can get together, but just sitting around late at night, I can't see me hanging out with people I worked with. Relocating also plays a role in how you make friends.

 

[whitelilac]

@Angleterre
Re: Investigative methods
Good heavens....impressive and enlightening.
Thank you.

 

[Another friend of Ben]

Ben's phone is missing, correct?
But LE can still examine any calls or texts Ben had that day, even the previous day, once they have a warrant? Through phone records or whatever means, can they also read content? I don't know.
I have no issues with the call Ben made to Dan, but there might be other calls or messages that could perhaps lead to what happened that day.
Same with his laptop.

Yes the phone is still missing and I agree the phone records and computer search will provide some information. From my understanding that takes a while. I have a strong feeling another call came in that caused him to leave pretty quickly otherwise he would have made sure his home was clean before he left.

 

[Angleterre]

I don't think it's unusual to compartmentalize friends. I have friends that I see on a regular basis that have never met each other. Mostly it's because of life experiences. People aren't a homogenized group. My high school friends probably haven't much in common with those I worked with. I wouldn't consider it secretive to consciously separate groups. Sure, at a cocktail, everyone can get together, but just sitting around late at night, I can't see me hanging out with people I worked with. Relocating also plays a role in how you make friends.

I agree @branmuffin
I mentioned this in particular because Benjamin Anderson Ally was questioning the integrity of Dan S saying that he (BAA) spoke to Ben the night before his murder and didn’t mention this about visiting friends up north but also he (BAA) said that Ben compartmentalised his friends so my point was that taking his (BAA) own theory of compartmentalised friends, could be the reason that Ben hadn told him about visiting friends up north but he had told Dan. We tell our different friends groups different things pertaining to our role as their friend

 

[Angleterre]

@Angleterre
Re: Investigative methods
Good heavens....impressive and enlightening.
Thank you.

You are welcome

 

[Ilex]

Just catching up so a late welcome to the verified insiders, there's certainly a lot of information here. My condolences to both of you. If someone can be judged by the company they keep, your both giving me a clear picture of how kind and open Ben was. Initially I thought someone had lured Ben to the area his body was found, intending to go back to Ben's apt and steal whatever they wanted and then ditch his vehicle, but given that an expensive bag was left behind in the vehicle that seems unlikely. Now I'm wondering if he left quickly because of some emergency and he was accosted during his travel to help someone. Or somehow got involved in a domestic situation that went very bad, very quickly. Would Ben have been the type to jump in and try to defend someone if he saw something? If he was out and saw someone being attacked, would he step in?

 

[branmuffin]

ME TOO! Thank you! That may prove to be extremely useful.

You can also click on the number of messages under a poster's avatar. It will show you every post that person has written from most recent to last. If they are only on one thread, like this one, it's easy to find all their input. It's a bit more difficult if they bounce around to different threads. I know @Spartygirl has said you can find a person's input based on the thread but I don't know how to do that.

 

[branmuffin]

HA!! I have been here about 6 yrs and just recently found that (and other) features.

Sheesh.. I am such a late bloomer here.

How do you access a specific poster's comments in a thread?

 

[Angleterre]

You can also click on the number of messages under a poster's avatar. It will show you every post that person has written from most recent to last. If they are only on one thread, like this one, it's easy to find all their input. It's a bit more difficult if they bounce around to different threads. I know @Spartygirl has said you can find a person's input based on the thread but I don't know how to do that.

You can use the search function and put in the WS members name

 

[branmuffin]

It looked too damaged to tell in my opinion. But you never know what may survive a fire. If they already have the vehicle may as well go through his bag. Maybe they took out what was useful and left the bag for whatever reason.

[/QUOTE]

Do you know whether Ben carried or owned a weapon?

 

[Another friend of Ben]

Just catching up so a late welcome to the verified insiders, there's certainly a lot of information here. My condolences to both of you. If someone can be judged by the company they keep, your both giving me a clear picture of how kind and open Ben was. Initially I thought someone had lured Ben to the area his body was found, intending to go back to Ben's apt and steal whatever they wanted and then ditch his vehicle, but given that an expensive bag was left behind in the vehicle that seems unlikely. Now I'm wondering if he left quickly because of some emergency and he was accosted during his travel to help someone. Or somehow got involved in a domestic situation that went very bad, very quickly. Would Ben have been the type to jump in and try to defend someone if he saw something? If he was out and saw someone being attacked, would he step in?

Great question. I think if he saw something not right he would at least check on the other person. Like I don’t think he would stand by and let a woman get beat up by a man without trying to intervene. We know those situations can be dangerous. It’s not like he was constantly inserting himself in other peoples business but I can totally see him stepping in to help.

Maybe they did try to go back to his home but people were already looking for him there so they couldn’t.

regarding leaving the expensive bag in the car maybe taking it and walking around with it may make them stand out more. Certain items draw more attention and make them stand out more to potential witnesses.

 

[JJ Ray]

AngleterreVerified LE & Senior Investigate Officer, England
This may be an opportune moment to post a message that I have previously posted in another U.K. case last year, so that it reminds those of you who are interested, just what is happening behind the scenes of an Investigation:
(Albeit there are differences with the way cases are presented, Detectives are Detectives and U.K. and USA have often worked together previously on cases so any approach is of a similar nature….)



With any major enquiry wether that be a Murder / Homicide or a Missing Person, a dedicated team of detectives is set up with a SIO (Senior Investigative Officer ) as the lead.

Certainly in the UK, a Policy Book is commenced and everything that you know, everything that subsequently happens, every decision taken and every action followed up, is written into the policy book . Every decision made by the SIO and the justification behind such a decision, has to be written into the policy book . Even if the SIO considers a line of enquiry but makes the decision to discount it at that time, they MUST write it in the Policy Book and explain their reasoning for its consideration and then the reasoning for the decision taken to put it on hold or fully discount it and a full justification is written.
This justification is imperative for EVERY decision made wether it progresses the investigation forward or wether it’s just considered and discounted. You can have an infinite number of Policy Books by the time that the case is finalised at Crown Court I think the most Policy Books that I have ever written for an investigation is 6 and they are thick books with carbonated paper in between to enable the SIO to rip out the carbonated duplicate and enter it immediately into the HOLMES system . So it’s a LOT of writing.

I was responsible for leading a number of Murder investigations and Missing persons investigations and I would lead teams of Detectives and Forensic experts amongst other support staff.

A twice daily briefing would be held where everyone has an input as to what has happened that day , any evidence found , any witnesses spoken to etc and a summary of the day’s investigation would be written up by the SIO.

Each investigation has a MURDER INVESTIGATION STRATEGY and that strategy is followed from the Murder and Major Crime investigations Manual

So at the start of the Investigation, there will be various strategies drawn up to encompass all of the different strands of the Investigation.

They are :

1.Victim - what do we know ?

2. Suspect - Do we have any?

3. Circumstances of last seen and other pertinent information.

4. Intelligence - What do we know ? What can we find out?

5. Cell phone analysis.

6. Forensics -
Allocation of Forensic staff and any imperative retrieval’s made . Therefore, what do we have ? How are the Forensic Submissions to be prioritised? Which are being Submitted to the Forensic Laboratory and their cost? ( Forensics are a HUGE cost to the Investigation and the SIO has to make decisions having cognisance to the budgetary requirements and the Annual Forensic allocated budget.)

DNA evidence
Fingerprints
Paperwork recovered for treatment.

7. Search parameters and recovery of evidence to include continuity of retrieval as exhibits.

8. CCTV- What’s available ? How do we prioritise it? Which is viewed in what order ? (Again bearing in mind the cost of this exercise and the cost to the investigation of Officer Allocation to look through each and doing your best to ensure that it’s relevant and timely).

9. Cell Phones - Victims, Suspect’s, Family, people who are in the area at the relevant time who come forward as witnesses .

10. Family History and antecedents and any information deemed relevant to the enquiry.

11. Actions - those raised that need investigation and graded according to their priority, those that are considered but not deemed to take the investigation further ( but it still all needs recording ).

12. Forensic mapping

13. Witnesses to be identified and interviewed and statements taken.

14. Interviews - suspect/s? Who will conduct them ? Will it be ‘downstream monitored’ to allow ‘real time’ alibis and further enquiries to be made?

15. Exhibits/Property Officer - to record everything brought into the enquiry and the continuity of that evidence. A VERY IMPORTANT ROLE as this is the easiest way, alongside Procedural issues, to lose the case at Crown Court).

16. File of evidence - Who will create the file of evidence for submission to CPS?

17. Warrants - allocated officer to swear all warrants pertaining to the investigation.

18. Disclosure - Officer allocated to start a disclosure record ( court process which again is very important).

19. Family liaison officer - Officer allocate to be the go between for the family and SIO and this role can continue long after any Crown Court case and conviction.

20. Media strategy - controlled release of information to press.

I could go on but I think that you get the drift that any investigation of this type is massive and takes time and has to be that way to get it right so that by the time it gets to the Court process, there’s no room for doubt or for weaknesses in the investigation to allow the accused to get off on a technicality or procedural issue .

Then if there is a suspect you need to start thinking of who will do the suspect interview and the downstream monitoring and alibi checks .

And on top of all that, the biggest and most onerous task besides MOBILE PHONE DATA is CCTV . Both are huge, time consuming and onerous tasks. ... it takes Detectives hours upon hours to go through and watch CCTV to enable them to ascertain if there is anything of evidential value on each individual recording and that can be CCTV from the street , from a shop, car park, toll booth , buildings, churches , Public CCTV along a route and individual CCTV in peoples driveways or on their mobile phones, dashcam from vehicles and private residential CCTV etc

You start to get the idea of just how much work is involved in a Major Investigation and that’s before you go to a Judge to swear out warrants and arrest the perpetrator. Once an arrest takes place, you then have interviews and downstream monitoring in real time of the interviews and then liaison with the CPS in UK .And then putting the whole file of evidence and Investigation together and ensuring full disclosure to the defence ... it’s massive workloads and it goes on and on ...

Cell phone data is also massive because of pings of location and subsequent searches and data dumps of all cell phones active within a specific MAST area and tracing who those numbers belong to and ascertain what they were doing in the area. And I can tell you that the evidence from one cell phone alone can run into thousands of pages for my Detectives to read through and decipher what, If anything, is relevant to the case . So can you imagine when you have numerous people involved in an investigation, wether it to be rule them in or out or as a suspect, an alibi or a victim, just how onerous this task is? And it is just one small part of the investigation. Everything has to be prioritised as much as reasonably possible .

In the UK we have HOLMES ( Home Office Major Enquiry System ) and everything is entered into the system and looked at by three Police officers and Police supervisors above each officer, working with a large number of administrative support staff and any actions deemed necessary as a result of those 3 officers painstakingly going through every piece of information, item, cell phone number, cctv , search recovery evidence etc and allocating actions ( work ) to officers to compete before they are given another action . And some officers are individually given specific roles for example CCTV, Cell phones, Intelligence, Statement takers , Family liaison .

So this gives you an idea of just what is going on behind the scenes .

And the information released has to be protected and provenanced to ensure accuracy and the SIO doesn’t want information released unless absolutely necessary because the perpetrator may slip up and say something that hasn’t yet been released to the public and that then becomes dynamite to the investigation.

I hope this helps you all to understand the process , procedures and time for any major investigation to bear fruit .

Excellent. Thank You so much. Can I copy and use in future threads as a reminder to the members (particularly new ones as each case draws it's own set of new members)? Giving full credit of course.

 

[branmuffin]

There was something else that day he was supposed to do that he didn’t which is another reason there was concern. The person I spoke with that spoke with him that day in the same timeframe as Dan said his mood was fine. So I wonder how many other calls and text messages he had before leaving home. I could be wrong but I believe whoever got it him leave the house is involved.

Have you had any friends or know of anyone who was going through some kind of crisis and called Ben? Did he recently break off a relationship or end one before it really got started?

 

[whitelilac]

@Another friend of Ben
Do you know at all whether Ben was on any dating sites?

Or, if he was selling anything and advertising on Craigslist or other selling platform?
Didn't he recently move to that condo? Maybe he wanted to redecorate.

I can't help think he may have been catfished.

 

[Another friend of Ben]

Do you know whether Ben carried or owned a weapon?[/QUOTE]

I can’t say for Arizona but he didn’t in California. Our gun laws are different. I don’t think so or if he did I don’t recall seeing it. I’m going to ask another friend if she knows anything about this.

 

[Ilex]

Great question. I think if he saw something not right he would at least check on the other person. Like I don’t think he would stand by and let a woman get beat up by a man without trying to intervene. We know those situations can be dangerous. It’s not like he was constantly inserting himself in other peoples business but I can totally see him stepping in to help.

Maybe they did try to go back to his home but people were already looking for him there so they couldn’t.

regarding leaving the expensive bag in the car maybe taking it and walking around with it may make them stand out more. Certain items draw more attention and make them stand out more to potential witnesses.

There is this site where you can check on crimes that are committed in an area. When I put in the date range of 12/30-12/31, the only thing I found in the area he lives in was a robbery of an individual at 9:39am. If he saw someone being robbed and he stepped in, not that this was the exact situation, he may have been forced back into his vehicle and then taken to a secondary location. It just seems so odd, though, that his car was driven back to the area he lived in. It's hard to distinguish whether someone who knew him lured him out or if he just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This is the site for looking up crimes.
LexisNexis® Community Crime Map

 

[JJ Ray]

can’t say for Arizona but he didn’t in California. Our gun laws are different. I don’t think so or if he did I don’t recall seeing it. I’m going to ask another friend if she knows anything about this.

Going to quickly piggy back on this and ask about any mental health issues also; depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, psychosis. Doesn't sound like it but no one has directly brought this up so I thought we'd better cover.

 

[JJ Ray]

There is this site where you can check on crimes that are committed in an area. When I put in the date range of 12/30-12/31, the only thing I found in the area he lives in was a robbery of an individual at 9:39am. If he saw someone being robbed and he stepped in, not that this was the exact situation, he may have been forced back into his vehicle and then taken to a secondary location. It just seems so odd, though, that his car was driven back to the area he lived in. It's hard to distinguish whether someone who knew him lured him out or if he just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This is the site for looking up crimes.
LexisNexis® Community Crime Map

I think you have the wrong area. He lived on E. Ocotillo off 7th Street (between Maryland and Glendale Ave.) I don't see anything for Dec. 31,2021
Looks like you are looking over where the car was located at the Super 8.