I’ve written here about defendants using technology to convict themselves, but this one takes the prize. Justin Barber is on trial in Florida for murdering his wife. He claims that a mugger accosted him and his wife as they walked along a beach, shooting them both. Unfortunately for Mr. Barber, forensic computer experts found evidence on Barber’s laptop computer that on the night of the murder he downloaded a Guns N’ Roses song with the following lyrics:

“I used to love her, but I had to kill her/ I had to put her/ Six feet under/ And I can still hear her complain,”
“I knew I’d miss her/ So I had to keep her/ She’s buried right in my backyard,”

And that wasn’t enough. Barber apparently deleted the song after the murder. Of the 1700 or so songs on his computer, it’s the only song he deleted. And then there were the Google searches for “trauma cases gunshot right chest”, “medical trauma gunshot chest”, and the ever-popular “Florida divorce”. Prosecutors sat smugly as they played the Guns N’ Roses song to the jury, complete with synchronized video lyrics.

Yet more evidence of the impact of technology in the courtroom. You’d think more people would be getting the message that computers leave trails behind users, particularly with the pervasiveness of crime TV reinforcing the point. Apparently not.

Read the full story here.

RP

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 15th, 2006 at 10:06 pm and is filed under News, You Won't Believe This. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.