SUCCESS STORY
Clallam County Sheriff’s OfficeIndustry• Law Enforcement

Solution• OpenText™ EnCase™ ForensicServices• OpenText Learning Subscription

Clallam County Sheriff’s Officeharnesses digital forensics to build
strong cases, faster

Law enforcement agency analyzes three-times more storage devices
each month with OpenText™ EnCase™ Forensic, helping officers
apprehend criminals and protect the publicResults
Allows the Sheriff’s Office toanalyze three-times more storage
devices per month
Reduces reliance on externalresources, cutting digital evidence
processing costs by 40%
Helps accelerate investigations
and secure criminal convictions“We recently prosecuted a triple homicide caseusing evidence collected via EnCase Forensic tolink the perpetrator with their crimes. Without adoubt, the OpenText solution is already playing
an important role in protecting the people ofClallam County.”
Guy Cranor

Special Deputy – Computer Forensics Analyst
Clallam County Sheriff’s OfficeClallam County Sheriff’s Office harnesses digital forensics to build strong cases, faster

Analyzing digital evidence to prosecute criminals
Clallam County Sheriff’s Office is the law enforcement agency
responsible for Clallam County, Washington—an area with apopulation of 77,000 covering more than 2,600 square miles.

the chain of custody—a six-hour round trip. Crucially, it often
took several months to receive the results, potentially delaying
criminal investigations.”

Enabling advanced digital forensics

As ownership of mobile phones, laptops, tablets and other electronic
devices skyrockets, digital evidence is becoming an increasingly
important part of criminal investigations. To help identify suspects
and build strong cases against perpetrators of crime, the Sheriff’sOffice must sift through hundreds of gigabytes of data each year.

To accelerate digital forensics processing and better protect
residents across Clallam County, the Sheriff’s Office selected
OpenText™ EnCase™ Forensic—a court-proven solution for
identifying, collecting and preserving forensic data from a wide
variety of devices.

“During the course of a criminal investigation, it’s common for
officers to seize hard drives and flash storage devices,” says Guy
Cranor, special deputy – computer forensics analyst at Clallam County
Sheriff’s Office. “To support our detectives with their work, weneed to extract as much relevant information as we can from thosedevices—ranging from text documents, photos and video files tometadata showing when users were logged in and which websites
they may have visited.”“One of the things I appreciate the most about the OpenText
solution is that it supports our entire digital forensics processfrom end-to-end,” Cranor says. “While we use additional tools
to carry out tasks such as cloning drives or analyzing image
metadata, it’s the OpenText solution that allow us to find andact on evidence—for example, by highlighting information ofinterest for detectives and building reports for prosecutors.”

External processing introduces delays
To ensure digital evidence is admissible in court, law enforcement
agencies must follow strict procedures for data extraction, processing
and reporting. In the past, the Sheriff’s Office relied on an external
lab to perform all these tasks, adding significant lead times tosome investigations.
“Previously, the Sheriff’s Office lacked the capability to process
digital evidence,” Cranor says. “Instead, an officer would drive
seized storage devices to a specialist forensic lab to preserve

Hitting the ground running
Using an OpenText Learning Subscription, Cranor got up to speedwith the solution rapidly.
“The training I received through our OpenText Learning
Subscription was extremely valuable,” Cranor recalls. “Even though
the in-person sessions had to be carried out remotely because of
the COVID-19 pandemic, I was very impressed by the quality of
the instruction. The initial foundation class helped me to hit theground running from day one, and the solution is now supporting
active investigations at Clallam County Sheriff’s Office.”“The training I received
through our OpenText
Learning Subscription
was extremely valuable.
The initial foundation
class helped me to hit
the ground running fromday one, and the solution
is now supporting active
investigations at Clallam
County Sheriff’s Office.”
Guy Cranor

Special Deputy –Computer Forensics Analyst
Clallam County Sheriff’s OfficeClallam County Sheriff’s Office harnesses digital forensics to build strong cases, faster

Enhancing investigations using digital evidence

Expanding digital forensics, keeping citizens safe

By enabling on-site forensics processing, the Sheriff’s Officecan help detectives make better use of digital evidence to support
their investigations.

Looking ahead, the Sheriff’s Office aims to become a regional
processing center in the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task
Force Program, a national network of coordinated law enforcement
resources. This process could see the Sheriff’s Office scale out its
digital forensics capabilities to support work across two or moreneighboring counties.

“In the past, if the Sheriff’s Office received evidence from the labthat would point an investigation in a new direction, they neededto submit a new analysis request to the lab and wait for the results,”Cranor says. “Today, I can discuss the results of our forensic
analyses with detectives as soon as I get them, and immediately
follow up on their questions. As a result, it’s much easier for themto incorporate digital evidence into their investigations.”

Building rock-solid cases, fasterIn the past, reliance on external resources meant that Clallam County
Sheriff’s Office could process around three storage devices permonth. Today, the organization can process three-times more drives
in the same amount of time—accelerating investigations, reducing
operational costs and freeing the state crime lab to assist othercounties with their forensic needs.
“Our officers don’t need to spend hours every month transporting
storage devices to the state lab, which reduces the cost ofprocessing digital evidence by around 40 percent and frees uptime for other work,” Cranor says. “Most importantly, we’re able
to discover evidence that helps detectives apprehend criminals
sooner. For example, we recently prosecuted a triple homicide
case using evidence collected via EnCase Forensic to link theperpetrator with their crimes. Without a doubt, the OpenText
solution is already playing an important role in protecting thepeople of Clallam County.”“When it comes to crimes against minors, acting quickly toapprehend suspects is even more crucial and thanks to EnCase
Forensic, we now have that ability,” Cranor says. “The support wereceive from OpenText is outstanding. Their team is always willingto answer our questions and advise on best practices, and we’relooking forward to working with OpenText to further enhance ourdigital forensics capabilities and better protect people acrossClallam County.”

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