Fitbit Leads to Murder Arrest
A Connecticut man has been arrested for murder after police examined his wife’s Fitbit wrist tracker and determined that she was active for about an hour after her husband said that an intruder killed her, according to his arrest warrant and reports in the Hartford Courant.
If the husband is convicted, it will be the first time that a Fitbit exercise tracker has been instrumental in solving a murder.
According to reports, Richard Dabate, 40, told police that a masked man had come into their Ellington home just before his wife, Connie, 39, arrived at the house from exercise class at the local YMCA. He said the man tied him to a chair, took his wife to the basement and shot her, and tortured and stabbed him with a box-cutter and blowtorch. He finally was able to turn the blowtorch on his tormenter, who then fled, he said. Then he called 911, and the police came and found him partially tied up. An ambulance took him to a nearby hospital, where he was treated for superficial wounds.
Police had trouble with this story from the beginning, but Fitbits don’t lie. Connie took 1,217 steps between 9:18 and 10:05 a.m. on the day of the murder, according to court documents, which does not coincide with the time when her husband said she was killed. Putting this together with the time she made Facebook postings, they were unable to accept much of his story. And so they arrested him. He’s been arraigned for the murder of his wife and has pleaded not guilty.
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