A question in a whole different arena.
It sounds as though LE brought in CBI and FBI fairly on after SM was reported missing. Is it typical to call on state and federal agencies, or might the FBI involvement suggest an interstate investigation?
Beginning with CBI, they're the agency that performs forensic and laboratory services and criminal investigations at the request of local and state law enforcement, agencies, and district attorneys. They will always be a partner or on-call as they're the link to the district attorney.
I have a couple of comments specifically about FBI having learned recently from Gannon Stauch, age 11. The first is that the FBI will
initiate a kidnapping investigation involving a missing child “of tender years,” even though there is no known interstate aspect. “Tender years” is generally defined as a child 12 years or younger.
Exceeding 12 years of age, the FBI will still monitor other kidnapping situations when there is no evidence of interstate travel, and it offers assistance from various entities including the FBI Laboratory.
State and local law enforcement agencies are not subordinate to the FBI, and the FBI does not supervise or take over their investigations. Instead, the investigative resources of the FBI and state and local agencies are often pooled in a common effort to investigate and solve the cases.
Just as we know to follow the money when considering the motive of a crime, I always say you'd be remiss not to follow the money inside the investigation.
The infusion of federal dollars when FBI joins a small county like Chaffee tells me more about where I think an investigation is going to end. In this case, FBI came aboard from the very beginning. The Sheriff does not have jurisdiction outside of his county but knew within the first hour that the husband was allegedly in Denver County, daughters allegedly out-of-state, and the missing person and husband both had strong financial and family ties outside of Colorado (IN).
The above various locations alone could pose a significant issue for LE regarding cell phone and interstate cell towers analysis after the Supreme Court ruled that a search warrant is required to track an individual's cell phone location. The previous routine court order long relied upon by police that they were "seeking relevant information" from your phone carrier no longer works. The Supreme Court cited that a
n individual has a privacy interest in the day-to-day, hour-to-hour and even minute-to-minute records of his whereabouts — a privacy interest that requires the government to get a search warrant before gaining access to that information.
It's well established now that cellphone data are more reliable than more traditional sources of information. Investigators tell us that cell data is better witnesses than human beings ... who may be biased, may be uncooperative, may have a faulty memory. FBI brings an immeasurable resource to an investigation when they assist with all aspects of the electronic footprint.
I'd be worried had FBI not become involved as early as they did with this case.
MOO
In Major Privacy Win, Supreme Court Rules Police Need Warrant To Track Your Cellphone