Cell phone pings & drive times

yllek said:

Previously posted on 2/5/2011

Background:
-SA first says he left work at 6:10 a.m. on 12.27.10 and went straight to his mom's house in Big Spring. This is what he told LE.
-After affidavits are released showing his cell phone was pinging in Colorado City from 6:35 to 6:56 a.m. (when cell service then stopped), he tells Billie he went to visit his grandmother in Dunn after leaving work. This puts him on the 208 which goes straight through Dunn and Colorado City and then connects to I-20.
-He claims (to Billie) no one was home at grandma's so he drove the 208 down past Colorado City and jumped on the I-20 to his mom's house in Big Spring.
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I just did a little map research on Google.

Monday, 12.27.2010

Billie leaves home at 6:30
She's on Hwy 208 from 6:32 to 6:55 (assuming they're doing the speed limit) and at her desk at Cogdell Memorial in Snyder by about 7 a.m.

Shawn leaves Weaver Pipeline Services in Snyder at 6:10
He's on Hwy 208 from about 6:15 to 6:35 p.m. when he gets back to CC city (assuming he's doing the speed limit)

Hwy 208 is the direct route for both of them. If both cars were doing the speed limit, they would have crossed paths when he was just getting off the 208 and Billie was getting on it. If he was driving much faster than the speed limit, I suppose he could have stopped at his grandma's in Dunn, knocked for a very short time, and gotten gotten off the 208 at around 6:30, just a minute or two before he would have passed Billie. But, he has to be near Billie's in CC from 6:35 to 6:56 per cell phone pings that hit off the same phone as Billie's house.

So, if he just exited the 208 onto the I-20 and drove straight through CC, what took him 21 minutes to get out of the CC cell tower range? I can't imagine he would be pinging off that same CC tower for 21 minutes headed down I-20 to Big Spring?. CC is a small city from what I understand, so it shouldn't be more than several minutes before he'd be out of that cell radius (I assume?). I think he had to have been doing something in CC for at least 10 minutes..

So, really, Billie's time line for SA on 12/27 a.m. is implausible to me when you consider the cell pings.

Note: I think tehcloser did something similar and more refined a few days ago when I was on and off the board. I'm gonna see if I can find her post for my own reference.

(my times are based on speed limits used for Google driving directions, so they're approximations only since we don't know how fast they were driving or if there was any traffic).

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captdj said:

I think we are on the same page....maybe

The affidavit says the NORTH transmitter was hit for 20 minutes..6:36AM to 6:56 AM then SA turns phone OFF or battery out of phone

This area is not in the Dunn tower area...and this tower 724 starts coverage a little south of Buford and we know the time it takes to travel from Buford to I-20 is only about 7 minutes not twenty minutes

Do you think its probable that he was stopped in a location along 208 south of Buford...

The 20 minute time frame??? if he was moving would take less than 7 minutes and also another side of tower would be hitting... like the east transmitter as he is entering I-20....

Hope this is what you are thinking....no way could he spend 20 minutes and still be moving correct??

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yllek said:

Yes, we are on the same page. If he didn't stop in Colorado City, why was his cell pinging off the tower that services Billie's house for at least 21 minutes before the phone went out of service? Makes no sense if he was just driving past CC on his way to Big Spring. He'd be in another tower's cell range well within 21 minutes (I presume)...

If SA gets charged with anything, I expect some story about stopping to visit someone in CC, or going through one of the 2 fast food places (if they have no surveillance)... He's gonna need to explain a stop there, not just a drive past, to explain those cell records, imo...

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Tugela said:

If the pings were for calls and texts only, keep in mind that he may have been in that area a lot longer. Alternatively, if he did make two calls/texts at that time (to bracket that period), he could have been stopped when he did that. That may account for the 20 minutes.

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captdj said:

Something has him stopped in that area (Im thinking) and we dont know how long he stayed there b/c he disabled the phone at this time he could have stayed put until around 9AM(maybe he already has Hailey) .....all we know is that the next time his cell phone is enabled is 9:56am at his moms home in Big Springs

Notice in the affidavits at 9:56AM he is pinged off the northwest transmitter of Tower 730...meaning his mom's home is north and west of the tower..but to me it looks more west and just a little north...maybe theres not a west or east transmitter...

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captdj said:

I think LE in the affidavits are working off the pinging of his phone and not the call logs...

Even if LE was using call logs ... If him is leaving work about 6:10 AM and with normal travel time it still put him south of Buford at 6:36AM.

Now he is staying in that area that is north of tower 724 until 6:56 when he decides to disable his phone....

But you are correct he could have stayed more than 20 minutes in this area.. indeed too much time in an area that SA stated as just passing thru to Moms

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Tugela said:

According to BD however he arrived at his mother's house before she left for work, so before 8AM. That should be easy enough for LE or BD to check, they could just ask the mother and she would confirm it (unless she was willing to become an accomplice to whatever might have happened). We don't know if the phone was enabled at 9:56AM, it might just have been when a call/text was made or recieved.

If he was at his mothers house at 8PM that doesn't leave a lot of time for nefarious deeds.

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Tugela said:

When trying to figure out a timeline I think it is pretty critical to know if it is a proper ping history or just a call ping history.

If they were working off the pinging they would have reported the data for Snyder as well as when he returned to CC and they didn't. So unless he routinely disabled his phone when traveling they are not using ping history. It is possible that he might simply be doing that to conserve power and if so you can't really use it to track his movements.

A question for the locals: how long does it take to drive through CC from when you recieve a signal until when you lose it?

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SmoothOperator said:

*{am just bringing this over and putting this in our new Thread designated to: Timeline and detailed map of Shawn Adkins travels on 12/27/2010}*

Here's a little mapping I did with times and info..
Monday.December.27.2010


*(A)- WSI in Snyder {SA work}
6:00am- Adkins arrives at WSI in Snyder

6:10am- Adkins immediately leaves WSI without a word
He now claims from WSI he drove to grandmas in Dunn..distance from WSI to Dunn is 18mins..That would roughly put him in Dunn at..

*(B)- city of Dunn where Grandma lives
6:38am- According to Shawn per BILLIE "they" didn't answer the door at grandmas..
Shawn leaves Dunn and goes to Big Spring via continuing down 208 to the Interstate 20 junction..Also there needs to be an allotted amount of time for SA to park..go to door..and knock..not get an answer..return to car..and back on 208(Id guess 5-10mins..so we'll tack on 7mins allotted for this)With I20 being roughly 15mins from Dunn+the 7mins allotted time for grandmas stop..He'd be arriving at I20 junction around 6:50am{*note I20 is right there near Billies home}...

*(C)- Interstate 20/280 junction
6:50am-Shaun heads on I20 towards Big Spring.. From the I20 junction to Big Spring is approx. 48mins.. which would put Shaun at his mom's in Big Spring at about..

*(D)- Big Spring
7:38am- Arrives at mom's before she leaves for work at 8am

I'll attach the google map for reference..with each corresponding with A..B..C..D on google maps..

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Cellular providers tend not to retain moment-by-moment logs of when each mobile device contacts the tower, in part because there's no business reason to store the data, and in part because the storage costs would be prohibitive. They do, however, keep records of what tower is in use when a call is initiated or answered--and those records are generally stored for six months to a year, depending on the company.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10...#ixzz1DBzNxgtN

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Originally Posted by belimom
That's possible, but based on what that CNET article says (and CNET is a well-respected source in the tech world), I'm leaning more towards him having it on but just not making/receiving calls during that time, kwim?

If the company really does not log every little ping when we're all driving around and passing towers all day, then I think they just don't have a log of tower-by-tower pings as he drove around w/o making calls....hence the "break in usage" wording in the affidavit.

JMHO

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Sorry to quote myself but I wanted to bounce off that post.

I'm thinking the timeline went something like this:

- SA arrives in CCity/starts making calls from 6:35 to 6:56, possibly to someone else - an accomplice? Or, it could have been BD calling/texting while she was driving to work - asking normal questions like "What are we doing for supper tonight?" "Did you make it work okay?" "Are you picking me up after work or do I need a ride?", etc. (I do think it's interesting that the calls that pinged off that tower would fit perfectly for the time that BD was in the car on the way to work: 6:30-7:00. As if, "Okay, hon, I'm at work now - gotta go" at 6:56am...(MOO). But whose phone would she have used if her phone was left at home that day?)

- SA does something to Hailey (IMHO) after that time but does not make calls b/c he's either too busy, is with/meeting the accomplice that he may have called in my first point above, or both

- He obviously makes calls at his mom's, but the affidavit doesn't say anything about calls after that, which I'm sure LE knows.

- 2:40: last ping from the tower in Big Spring, while 2:16 was the text to Hailey's friend. Where was that from? Again, I'm sure LE knows. If it were from the house, then I'm assuming LE would be leaning more towards validating the sitings on Monday, 12/27. But since they're not, I'm inclined to believe that the phone ping for that text was not in CCity. MOO

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belimom said:

I wanted to bring these posts over from the last 'thread'.


Okay, I found this interesting. This article is saying that even though a phone will ping when no calls are made, companies don't usually log that data into a database. They only log the data when a call is made or text sent. (ETA: So the "live" pings can be used to find a missing person, etc., but are not stored. Only calls/texts are stored. Make sense?)

So IF this is correct, then he was using the phone while pinging off the tower in CCity:

bbm

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captdj said:

A question for cell tower experts...

If cell tower 724 is located here

32.41262 -100.86900 - Google Maps


What area would be considered the
Northern coverage area transmitter for tower 724
Area north of I-20
Southern coverage area transmitter for tower 724
Area south of I-20

Am I correct in this direction of transmitters?

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