Increasingly, investigators use social networking websites for police work
When a Wilmington man in his early 20s overdosed on heroin the day after Christmas, local police Detective Pat Nally turned to his computer. He wanted to look at the deceased's Facebook and MySpace pages for possible clues about the source of the drug and who might have been using it with the man.
"People arrange to buy and sell drugs on Facebook; there's talk of what they may do and where they may go," said Nally. "We'd be foolish not to use it as an investigative tool."
The Wilmington investigator is not alone. In an informal survey of 14 departments in this area, officials in half of them said they use social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace in detective work - particularly in investigations involving young people.
In Harvard, the police signed on to such sites about three years ago, after a woman was sexually assaulted and beaten by three men whom she met on MySpace and invited to her house. Police contacted MySpace and tracked the assailants using their online usernames and accounts, said Chief Edward Denmark.
Now even the chief has a Facebook page himself.
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