Computer forensic investigators are bloodhounds for evidence of the truth. The truth could be evidence of a corporate crime or something as personal as relationships between spouses.
Divorce attorneys contact often with different requests. One case recently involved a forensic computer analysis.
The wife felt trapped in a marriage to a wealthy professional. Everyone thought he was a nice guy who did well at his job and provided a great home. In fact, he drank every night, spent time in his home office and would then go out for a few hours. She considered him a high-functioning alcoholic and was just waiting for the late-night phone call saying he’d been arrested for DUI or worse, had been part of an accident.
She was looking for solid proof that it wasn’t ‘all in her head’ like he told her it was. Her attorney suggested that step in to investigate his movements each night when he left the house. From the info obtained by the GPS, he was frequenting hotels with known prostitution and drug use.
After receiving the report with photos and information, the attorney recommended a computer forensic analysis be performed on the husband’s computer.
The wife brought the computer in one morning after he had left for work and the certified computer examiner began the computer investigation. We follow computer forensic investigation protocol and creating an exact image or duplicate of the hard drive is part of that. The cloning was completed by a computer forensic specialist and the computer back into the wife’s hands before the husband returned home from work that day.
In this case, there were lots of different pieces uncovered. He:
- Had registered and done a lot of advertising on a singles dating sight
- Had corresponded through email with several potential “dates”
- Had provocative communication, including setting dates, with other females in their social circle
- Had pornographic videos and photographs downloaded in a hidden file on the computer
About the same time of the computer forensic examination, she received those late night calls she had been dreading. Her husband was arrested for driving while intoxicated and also picked up with a known prostitute coming out of an alley.
Within a short time the wife had all the grounds she had wanted and filed for divorce. It definitely wasn’t ‘all in her head.’ The computer forensics services provided by can include a computer forensic expert witness for court, but we didn’t have to testify in this case.
-Brenda McGinley, CEO, All in Investigations, All in Investigations
