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Bob Woolmer's Murder and Cyber Forensics

The news that Bob Woolmer was  murdered by strangulation has shocked the entire world even outside the Cricket fraternity. The investigative speculation is that Bob Woolmer had been writing a book in which he would have revealed some secrets which could be embarrassing for some. Who are those people who could have been affected by such revelation?.... is the lead which the investigators may be following.

However one needs to consider if the South African angle was relevant today and even if so, would it not be better for the murderers to chose a less secure venue than the World Cup to kill Woolmer. One can argue that by choosing to finish him off in the aftermath of the Pakistani debacle, the needle of suspicion could be pointed at the Pakistani team. But Pakistani debacle was not some thing which could be anticipated unless it was engineered and if so only those who engineered the defeat would know that there would be a good opportunity to finish Woolmer and divert the investigations.

This leads us to the thought that even if there was a South African angle to the crime, the immediate link to the Pakistani team's surprise defeat cannot be ruled out   The investigation cannot ignore the Pakistani connection. 

If the murder has happened the way it is feared, it would be interesting to understand what could be the evidences which the Police may hope to get.

First it is stated that access to each floor in the Hotel is through an electronic access system and hence no person could get into the particular floor unless he had a key or else he "Coat -tailed" an authorised person. Either way it is "Unauthorised access"  with or without an accomplice who would be perhaps a member of the Pakistani team. It is possible that the member of the team may himself be unaware of the intention of the person who walked in along with him some time earlier in the day. It is quite possible that the person gained the entry early in the day and waited in the room for Woolmer to return.

The "Electronic Access" records are therefore an important piece of evidence along with videos of any cameras that may be availale in te hotel for security monitoring.

Additionally, the preliminary investigations suggest that a manuscript of the book that Woolmer was writing is missing from his room. If this is true, there can be another vital evidence that the police may look for. It is unlikely that Woolmer would not have used his computer for writing the  book and hence any drafts that he might have prepared would have been prepared in the computer only. It is therefore to be expected that Woolmer's laptop needs to be forensically analysed for any existing files or deleted files .

The key to the case therefore lies in Cyber Forensics.

If the murderers are clever, they would have not only stolen the manuscript but also tried to erase the data on the computer.  Therefore the murder is associated with  cyber crime and if there are any leads to the cyber crime, then perhaps it will also lead to a solution for the murder investigation.

Hopefully, Jamaican police will be capable of Cyber investigation and they will succeed in coming up with the truth.

Naavi

March 23, 2007

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