Digital Forensics Dispatch

Missing Persons Case: Strange Text Messages, Cell Tower Records and Digital Surveillance Video Assist Investigators

April 21, 2020

According to a report in The Palm Beach Post, digital forensic evidence has been crucial in putting together the pieces of a missing person’s case in Jupiter Florida. Family and friends of the missing woman, Gretchen Anthony, started receiving strange text messages from Anthony’s cell phone number starting on March 23^rd. The messages indicated Ms. Anthony had contracted COVID-19 and was being treated at various healthcare facilities in the region. Family members grew suspicious and involved law enforcement when the information in the texts didn’t seem to line up and hospitals had no records of her being admitted. One text even referenced a “CDC approved task force in Belle Glade” however there was no CDC task force in the area.

Suspicion soon turned to Ms. Anthony’s estranged husband David Anthony as some of the language in the texts appeared to more closely match that of David according to a friend of the family. Neighbors also came forward with digital surveillance video that appeared to show David and his vehicle at Gretchen’s home on March 23^rd. 

While investigators initially had a difficult time locating David for questioning, even more digital evidence was uncovered that allowed them to show both his and Gretchen’s cell phones connecting to cell towers in the Pensacola area on March 25^th. In Pensacola more surveillance video was retrieved from a pawn shop where a man matching David’s description attempted to sell a bag of women’s jewelry. Finally, on March 27^th police were alerted to more cell tower activity for both of the cell phones, this time in Texas. On March 31^st. David Anthony was eventually located and arrested in Las Cruces, New Mexico.       

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