Ride the Lightning

Fitbit Data Results in Arrest of 90-Year-Old Man on Murder Charges

October 10, 2018

We have surrounded ourselves with digital witnesses.

Naked Security reported on October 8^th that on Saturday, September 8th, at 3:20 pm, Karen Navarra's Fitbit recorded her heart rate spiking. Within 8 minutes, the 67-year-old California woman's heart beat rapidly slowed. At 3:28 pm, her heart rate ceased to register at all.

She was found dead, slouched in a chair at her dining room table, when a co-worker found her five days later when Ms. Navarra failed to show up for work in a pharmacy. She had a gaping wound to her neck and wounds on the top of her head. In her right hand was a large kitchen knife, but police think that her murderer put it there to stage a suicide.

Two pieces of technology led police, on September 25^th, to charge Ms. Navarro's stepfather, Anthony Aiello, with allegedly having murdered her. Besides the Fitbit records, there are also surveillance videos that refuted Aiello's version of events.

Aiello claimed that the last time he spoke with his stepdaughter was when he brought homemade pizza and biscotti to her house in San Jose, California, for a brief visit. When investigators questioned Ms. Navarro's 92-year-old mother, Adele Aiello, and her 90-year-old stepfather, Anthony Aiello, he told them that he'd dropped off the food for his stepdaughter and then left her house within 15 minutes.

But, Aiello said, he saw Ms. Navarra drive by his home with a passenger in the car later that afternoon.

Police got a search warrant and retrieved the Fitbit. When they compared the dead woman's Fitbit data with video surveillance from her home, they discovered that Aiello's car was still there at the point when her Fitbit lost any traces of her heartbeat. Later, police found bloodstained clothing in Aiello's home.

Investigators confronted Aiello with the Fitbit information during questioning, explaining to him how the device records time, physical movement, and heart rate data. Then police told Aiello that his stepdaughter was dead prior to the time he left her house. Aiello said that couldn't be because she'd walked him to the door. The detective explained that both systems were on internet time, and there was no deviation.

After detectives finished questioning Aiello, they left him alone in the interview room. According to the police report, Aiello then began to talk to himself, saying repeatedly… "I'm done."

If that's a prediction, it's a pretty good one.

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