Technology for Modern Murderers
You do not have to be a tech genius to understand the world of digital forensics.
Even aspiring serial killers of the third age, or those who do not speak great English, can excel at utilizing modern technology.
I know—the prospect of having your devices monitored and your online actions recorded can be intimidating.
But approach this chapter with an open mind and you’ll find most of it is common sense.
First off, you need to remember that every internet-enabled device, both yours and your victim’s, is trackable at all times.
This includes your car satnav, the little fobs that are part of your car keys and even your trusty Kindle.
Cameras and microphones are everywhere. Our laptops, computers and phones are as effective as semen in fertilizing forensics reports.
We all use these devices, and many of you will be addicted to a variety of apps that mean you already have a digital persona.
Your Instagram profile, for example, is a digital version of you living your best life.
You need to take as much care over your digital self as you do your physical self.
If you are arrested in the metaverse, you’re equally likely to be holding on tight to your soap in the real world.
While your digital activity, and that of your victims, can pose a risk, there is also the opportunity to use it to your advantage.
Take tracking, for instance. Even the simplest of mobile phones have tracking features.
You can pop a tracking device into your intended victim’s satchel and discover their regular routes; people rarely deviate from their usual journeys and routines.
Perhaps you could be really creative and use a tracked phone to lure a victim to where you want them to be by posing as someone else.
Tracking can be very useful when properly understood.
As well as technology to track your physical movements, there’s also tracking to follow your activity on your electronic device.
This means that every stroke of your keyboard or tap of your phone screen can be tracked from elsewhere.
However, the ability of law enforcement to perform activity tracking is significantly exaggerated in the movies.
The average murder investigation in the UK, Europe or even the US, is far more mundane, and officers will instead physically search through your phone or laptop.
It will then be sent to a lab for more in-depth analysis and the recovery of deleted files, etc.
This takes time and can only be done when your device is physically present and the hard drive is in good condition.
I recommend using so-called burner phones, bought using cash, which have none of your real data on them.
There are countless YouTube videos to help you get going with burner phones.
Keep one “real” phone that you use for family activity, and never use it for research or communication related to killing.
Never take your phone with you when you’re out enjoying yourself.
Your phone randomly being turned off (to avoid being tracked) when you enter the victim’s proximity is very damning.
Several cases have been won in recent times using a mountain of circumstantial evidence of this sort, one of which hinged on the fact that the killer’s phone had not been switched off for more than three months, then suddenly there was a three-hour window of nothingness.
So, take care. Leave your phone wherever you’re going to claim to have been, should you need an alibi.
If this is a public venue, simply secrete your phone somewhere safe and leave it connected to the venue’s Wi-Fi across your murder window.
Remember that your victim will have a phone on them, too.
You might want to use this to your advantage and leverage the phone to incriminate someone else.
For example, you could attach your victim’s phone to a power bank and plant it in someone else’s house or car.
This will mean that the phone is active for days after your victim is dead, thus reducing the accuracy of the police’s timeline and implying that someone else was involved.
If you’re keen on harnessing the power of technology, you can even learn to use the dark web. Honestly, it’s far more user-friendly than you might imagine.
The internet is made up of three parts. Currently, you use only two of these. The first layer includes websites carefully curated by search engines such as Google and browsers like Safari. Maybe you’re even old enough to remember Ask Jeeves. (I miss Jeeves—whatever happened to him?)
The second layer is known as the deep web.
This is where all the websites exist that are not accessible to the public via search engines—for example, private company databases, banks and paywalled sites.
Our emails live on the deep web, as does the private content of our social media (or so we are told).
These two upper layers account for 99 percent of the internet that we use.
However, hidden at the bottom is the dark web.
It sounds sinister because of its name, but a lot of it is pretty legit.
The BBC is on the dark web. Their mirror site was launched there so that people in countries where democratic content is blocked can access it.
Not that I’m pushing the old Beeb. ProPublica is the only outlet I trust for news, personally.
There is a darker part of the dark web, of course.
You can find some stunning artwork in this area of the internet.
You can also find some sites and sights that are enough to trouble even the most troubled mind.
It’s a surprisingly friendly place. You can join forums and social networks for like-minded people with similar interests to yours.
I’ve met many a chum in these forums. Some of them have gone on to become lifelong friends. Others are nuts.
I met Gerry in a dark-web chat room and we became friends.
Actually, I started out as his client because, despite my best efforts, I’d been unable to snap out of my grief following the loss of my dear Tony, shortly after Richie was convicted of the lovely Mel’s murder.
I had acquired a fresh pet from a shelter a few days after Tony’s demise but I found that I could not love Tony the Second as I had his predecessor.
In all honesty, I was contemplating tying the usurper to a lamp post and commending him to his fate.
I found Gerry through an advert he’d placed in a forum.
He offers counseling services to individuals of various tastes, in the secure, anonymous chat rooms of the dark web.
You see, Gerry used to be a doctor, but he vacated that role when the morgue assistant began wrestling with apprehensions about the private arrangement that he and Gerry had made.
Gerry had come to believe that people, his own parents included, used a condition known as PTSD as an excuse for wallowing, drinking and generally failing in life.
To prove this hypothesis, he needed to conduct some under-the-radar medical tests.
He came across a dark site called Human Experiments, a group made up of people wishing to prove controversial ideas by necessary but occasionally fatal experiments.
They’re a bit like flat-earthers, but much more rational.
Dr. Gerry recruited a number of PTSD sufferers, mainly veterans from the homeless population.
He secured the participants to an electrified dentist chair with a small TV screen above it and monitored their brains and physical reactions while they were bombarded with war footage, complete with soundtrack, and exposed to the smells of barbequing meat and rotting fruit.
If they reacted, they were given an electric shock.
Gerry theorized that reverse conditioning would swiftly occur and their PTSD would vanish.
However, it did not. He turned up the electric shock each time until he was Liam-Neesoming the shit out of them.
Still, no results. It was a hard lesson for Gerry and he took to his bed for several months after the trials failed. I digress.
As well as meeting interesting people like Gerry on the dark web, you can also conduct private transactions, message anonymously and secretly recruit people to do illegal things for you.
There are marketplaces, too—just like and eBay, but without any rules.
These are truly liberating. You can buy anything your heart (or other parts of your body) desires.
Check out my favorite store—. It’s vegan.
As a serial killer, the dark web has so much to offer.
You can purchase all kinds of drugs, from sedatives that don’t show on tox reports to recreational substances and serums. Specialist equipment can be found, should your tastes be more niche, or perhaps you’re a collector and would like to procure a swatch of Aileen Wuornos’s knickers.
The usual items are available, too: untraceable phones, phoney preloaded debit cards, mule bank accounts, dropboxes and so on.
I know that technology can be really frustrating, but I promise the dark web is worth the effort.
I realize I’m pushing this hard, but the dark web has a particularly special place in my heart.
You see, I’m a bit of a wallflower and the internet has helped me to make friends globally who have similar interests.
I confess, I haven’t traveled much in my life, although I hope to take some Saga tours in my older years.
But let me tell you about the one holiday I did take, during which I met Amy, the love of my life.