Police in Kansas City are hoping to use data collected by an Amazon Alexa device to catch a killer.
Camila Behrensen, 24, and Pablo Guzman-Palma, 25, were members of the Predoctoral Researcher Class at the Graduate School of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research. On Saturday, they were found dead.
According to a report obtained by KSHB, someone shot the researchers in an apartment building and then attempted to burn the building down. Firefighters were called out to battle the blaze and discovered the researchers' bodies in the process. They alerted the local police.
Investigators told KSHB that they believed the shooter had been with the researchers for several hours before and after they were killed.
Police are hoping that any conversations the killer may have had with the pair were captured on the apartment's Alexa device.
Amazon's Alexa is a a virtual assistant that "listens" for voice commands using an always-on microphone. If the Alexa was recording during the crime, there is a chance the device captured the killer's voice, details about a possible motive, and could provide police with a clear timeline of events.
If police manage to obtain the data, it would not be the first time a smart devices' recordings are used in a criminal investigation. In 2020, WIRED spoke with Douglas Orr, the head of the criminal justice department at the University of North Georgia about police requesting data from smart devices. Mr Orr said that police now request smart device data as often as they request smartphone dada.
Raul Gonzales, who lived across the hall from their apartment, told KMBC the duo seemed like normal people.
“I just saw them hanging out, nothing really much beside that. They’d sit on their deck and talk on the phone. I would get their mail in my mailbox on occasion, but besides that, they were just normal,” he said.
He knew the duo spoke Spanish and enjoyed hosting friends at their apartment. Both researchers were born in South America. Ms Behrensen was from Argentina, and Mr Guzman-Palma was from Chile.
According to Stowers Institute, Ms Behrensen previously studied fruit fly metabolisms and hoped to one day finish her post-doctoral degree and start her own lab.
Mr Guzman-Palma had previously worked on cellular regeneration and was also interested in starting his own lab later in his career.
“These researchers were members of our 2020 class and vibrant members of our Stowers Institute community,” the university said in a statement. “We want to honor and remember the joy, optimism, and exceptional work these two individuals embodied and all that they have accomplished.”
Kansas City police have made no arrests and have not released a cause of death for either of the researchers at this time.
