--- title: "Fitbit Data Helped California Police Track Down a Murder Suspect" description: "Investigators have charged California resident Anthony Aiello with the murder of his stepdaughter — based on her Fitbit data." date: "2018-10-04" modified: "2018-10-04" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/fitbit-data-witness-murder" categories: - "Cybersecurity" - "Data Privacy" - "Future Society" tags: - "fitbit" - "john hancock" - "the digest" - "wearables" --- # Fitbit Data Helped California Police Track Down a Murder Suspect ![Investigators have charged California resident Anthony Aiello with the murder of his stepdaughter — based on her Fitbit data.]() *\Image: Victor Tangermann\* ## Murder She Wore You might think of your fitness wearable as an easy way to track your health. But to police, it could be a digital witness to a crime. Case in point: On Wednesday, *The* *New York Times* [reported that]() investigators charged California resident Anthony Aiello with the murder of his stepdaughter Karen Navarra — based on data from her Fitbit. ## Heart Stopper On September 13, a coworker discovered Navarra's lifeless body in the deceased's San Jose home. According to the *Times*, when police questioned Aiello about his stepdaughter's death, he told them that he had last seen her when he brought her homemade pizza and biscotti five days earlier. Aiello told them that his visit ended with Navarra walking him to the door. But when detectives examined data from the Fitbit Navarra was wearing on the day of her death, they found that her heart rate had first spiked before slowing and stopping completely **—** all during the time of Aiello's visit. ## Data Cops Fitbit declined to comment to the *Times* about the murder charge. But data from wearables has come up in many criminal investigations, the *Times* found, from a [sexual assault case in Pennsylvania]() to a [murder in Connecticut.]() Police departments aren't the only ones using data from wearables, either. Life insurance company John Hancock [recently announced]() plans to let customers share fitness tracker data in exchange for discounts, raising concerns that other insurers could create policies that would reward healthy people and perhaps punish unhealthy ones. The bottom line: Sure, letting a wearable collect your biometric data and store it on the cloud might help you hit your fitness goals — as long as you understand that the information isn't particularly private. **READ MORE:** [Police Use Fitbit Data to Charge 90-Year-Old Man in Stepdaughter’s Killing]() \[*The New York Times*\] ***More on wearables: A Wearable That Could Change Life for the Visually Impaired*** ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()