Such records, if they existed back then, have surely berm purged by now.Has LE conducted Cell Tower Dumping of the tower(s) in immediate area? They could also dump from the area the girls spoke to the perp. This could provide so many possible leads. They could gather a wealth of information from this, cell info of potential suspects coming and going many times, monitor all cell phone activity of the area Shannon went missing, and much more! They do not need a supeona for it either. He could have used a cheap burner phone only to contact ads and switched to a regular with other uses, and there may be a way to see a ping from burner phone and if reg phone running they are simultaneously pinging together giving the suspects identity away!
Police officers in Richland County, South Carolina are currently defending the use of a controversial investigation method that grants their departments access to thousands of cell phone users data in the search for criminals.
The technique, in which law enforcement officials rely on what are known as tower dumps, is an increasingly common policing tactic in local departments across the country. Following a crime, law enforcement officials locate nearby cell towers and request all of the call, text, and data transmissions that occurred during the crime from the towers provider. The majority of the data collected belongs to individuals with no connection to the crime.
Subjecting yourself to data seizure through tower dumps is easy. Most cell phone activity connects you to a tower in a way that police can collect: making phone calls, texting, and using social media, such as Tweeting or logging into Facebook.kimncris/Flickr
"So for example if you have a smart phone and you're checking your email, that would cause some communication between your cell phone and one or more cell towers," Christopher Sogohian, a principal technologist for the ACLU, toldWLTX. "The police can then go back to the phone company and ask for identifying information.
Unlike many forms of data seizure, tower dumps can be executed without a warrant. In accordance with a provision of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, law enforcement can, and often does, rely on judge-issued court orders to obtain cell-site data. Such orders dont need to meet a probable cause requirement and so are based on significantly less evidence than is required for a warrant.
I think the girls who left their phones behind definitely knew who they were going to meet and felt comfortable enough to meet them without their security (phone.) Even if it were a couple, I highly doubt that they would put themselves in such a vulnerable position while meeting someone new. If more money was offered that would definitely raise red flags. I don't think any of these girls were new at this, so they would have known the signs (like someone asking them not to bring their phone) of when you DO NOT go! When the "creep factor" hits you in the gut, you bail!
Before there was such a thing as "Free Roaming Charges", my cell phone bill would often show that I made a call from Long Branch, NJ, Stamford, CT, etc... even though I never left the Fire Island/Jones Beach area.
