Apple Watch Provides Murder Clues.

[toucana]

Police in Adelaide Australia have used data from an Apple watch in a murder trial to discredit the version of events provided by a witness.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43629255

Grandmother Myrna Nilsson was wearing the device when she was killed in 2016. Her body was found in the laundry room of her own house

Her daughter-in-law Caroline Nilsson claimed they were both the victim of a home invasion attack by a group of men who had followed the older woman home and entered the house after a row outside. The younger women was later found outside the house by neighbours in a distressed state around 22:00. She claimed she had been tied and gagged by the attackers, and that she had made her way out of the house as soon as they left.

An Apple watch has sensors that record the wearer’s movement and heart rate. According to police, the watch had recorded data consistent with a person going into shock and losing consciousness at around 18:38, and the victim was deceased by 18:45 - over three hours before the younger woman came out of the house.

Prosecutor Carmer Matteo said evidence from the victim’s watch suggested Ms Nilsson had staged the home invasion. Magistrate Oliver Koehn denied bail based on the apparent strength of the prosecution case. The trial will continue in June.

[Watson]

This case aside, it is just a modern version of the old murder mystery where the murderer resets the wrist watch and smashes the watch to suggest a different time of death. People will learn from this, and perhaps the murderer will wear the smart watch in such a fashion so as to provide false data, then strap it back on the victim.

[TheVat]

A murderer with any sort of brain would have removed Grandma's watch and any jewelry, and then ransacked chests and drawers for other valuables. This was supposed to look like a home invasion. Missing valuables usually a part of the aftermath....

[toucana]

An Apple watch normally backs up all its data automatically to an iPhone associated with it, and an iPhone can be set to automatically back up everything to an iCloud archive. (Plenty of fitness fanatics do this).

A killer would need to be a little more devious to ensure that inconvenient biometric data didn't wind up where police investigators could find and analyse it.

Stealing the watch from granny's wrist and tossing it down a drain won't suffice.