Social Networking Sites Help Combat Crime

CBS Evening News: MySpace And Facebook Provide Law Enforcement With Case Leads

(CBS)  MySpace and Facebook help link friends. But lately, the two social networking sites have helped link cops to criminals.

In Pittsburgh, a Facebook page showing an out-of-control Super Bowl celebration led to arson charges against two men, reports CBS News correspondent Daniel Sieberg. In Baltimore, police charged a student after her attack on a teacher was placed on a personal MySpace page. And in St. Paul, Minn., a woman was charged with vandalism after she posted pictures of her ex-boyfriend’s ransacked apartment.

“It's definitely a great investigative tool,” said Detective Diana Tilton, who works in McKinney, Texas.

Tilton used a murder suspect’s own Web page to help send him to death row. Accused of four murders, Raul Cortez testified that he was no longer a gang member. But Tilton turned Cortez’s gangster-filled MySpace page against him.

“The MySpace page and its contents was one of the two things the jury asked for during their deliberations on whether he was going to be sentenced to death,” Tilton said.

It’s even helping amateur cyber sleuths like Tracie Edwards. When her 15-year-old son was attacked by a local gang, Edwards tapped into MySpace. Starting with just one name, she followed an interlinking trail from one suspect to another.

“I started typing in these names and boom,” Edwards said. “Got my son in front of the computer and I was like, ‘Do you know this little boy? Do you know this boy?’ And he was like 'this is the boy who did it.'”

Eventually, five people were charged.

Neither MySpace or Facebook would reveal how many investigations they help each year, but both say they work with authorities by maintaining a 24-hour law enforcement hotline, issuing manuals and request forms for police departments, and even training officers on how to better use their sites.

But often the suspects are the biggest help, like the convicted felon who posed with a sawed-off shotgun. It sent him back to prison.

“We're not dealing with the smartest people generally speaking, and they help us in a lot of ways,” said Greg Davis, a prosecutor. “And MySpace is just another way they are helping law enforcement solve these cases.”

And - in at least one case - helping an angry mother find justice for her son. Edwards said people call her the “MySpace Mom.”