Silvia Galva died in her home in Hallandale Beach, Florida, in July when she was stabbed by a spear with a 12-inch blade. Adam Reechard Crespo, Galva's boyfriend, told police that Galva had stabbed herself accidentally during an altercation between the two. Crespo was arrested on a second-degree murder charge. A month later, police obtained a warrant for data from Galva's Amazon Echo and Echo Dot, hoping there was a recording of the incident.
“It is believed that evidence of crimes, audio recordings capturing the attack on victim Silvia Crespo that occurred in the main bedroom ... may be found on the server maintained by or for Amazon,” police wrote in their probable cause statement seeking the warrant.
Whether police stumbled across a silent witness or are overestimating the eavesdropping capacity of smart technology remains to be seen. Amazon turned over multiple recordings, but neither the company, police, nor the State Attorney’s Office will say at this point what was on them.
“We did receive recordings, and we are in the process of analyzing the information that was sent to us,” said Hallandale Beach Police Department spokesman Sgt. Pedro Abut.
Whether the recordings have any relevance to the case or not, it will be interesting to find out exactly how much of what is said in a home ends up on Amazon's servers, retrievable at a later date. Read more on the story at the South Florida Sun Sentinel. -via Gizmodo
(Image credit: Gregory Varnum)