ScanWriter helps criminal investigators beat the clock in a cross-country murder case.
When a prominent Tampa Bay businessman was found dead in his home, the criminal investigation team, acting on an anonymous tip, was able to identify a possible murder suspect.
They quickly began to collect evidence, including the suspect’s bank statements and check images.
With the help of ScanWriter’s advanced data entry automation, they captured and converted the financial data in a fraction of the time it would have taken to do it manually.
Working against the clock, the team used ScanWriter’s ‘Flow of Funds’ visualization to trace the activity of the suspect and apprehended him in less than a week after the crime was committed.
ScanWriter Puts Investigators in the Driver’s Seat
Financial data, such as credit card activity, can provide significant clues for determining the motives and activity of a suspect.
Capturing and analyzing this data quickly and accurately made the difference in the timely arrest and arraignment of the murder suspect.
Once law enforcement obtained the suspect’s bank statements, ScanWriter did the rest.
In less than two hours, ScanWriter captured and analyzed more than 105 pages of the suspect’s bank statements from six accounts in four banks.
It converted this material into normalized data on an Excel spreadsheet that the investigators customized and analyzed according to expenditures and dates.
Visualization Provided the Key
The big break in the case came when ScanWriter was used to convert this data into visual reports which, among other things, traced the activity and movement of the suspect on a map of the United States.
ScanWriter’s Power BI function provided the investigation team with a map and timeline that illustrated the travel history of the suspect based on local financial transactions.
Accessing this information quickly allowed law enforcement to trace the suspect’s cross-country trajectory.
Nearly one week after the murder in Tampa Bay, Florida, police apprehended and arrested the suspect — an ex-employee of the victim — in Caldwell, Idaho.
ScanWriter Charts the Suspect’s Tracks
The success of this cross-country investigation was significantly impacted by ScanWriter, which saved the team precious hours by swiftly capturing and converting financial data from the suspect’s six bank accounts and more than 350 transactions.
From this information, ScanWriter automatically generated reports and converted them into visual representations custom-made for their strategic approach.
These live interactive visuals, including maps and charts, were shared by the investigation team, which collaborated to make connections and produce the insights that led them to the suspect.
Investigators were able to apprehend the suspect because ScanWriter’s ‘Flow of Funds’ model charted his movement in real time, placing him in specific locations.
When he finally arrived in Idaho, 2,600 miles from the murder scene, police knew he was there and were able to pinpoint his location to make the arrest.
ScanWriter Plays A Vital Role In Criminal Investigations
Law enforcement agencies use many tools to gather, analyze and interpret evidence and solve crimes such as this one — among them DNA testing, surveillance footage and cell phone data.
To this list, many agencies are now adding data integration and analysis tools such as ScanWrit