Opinion ID: 7089211
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The FBI's Cell-Phone Analysis

Text: {¶ 66} FBI Agent Kunkle testified that cell-phone records show which cell towers, and which side of a particular tower, a given cell phone used when it made or received a call. With this information, an expert can determine the general area a given phone was in at particular times. {¶ 67} Kunkle conducted a study of cell-phone records pertaining to Mary's Verizon phone and to Tench's Sprint phone. Kunkle's analysis indicated that Mary's phone was in Lakewood (where she worked) at 11:15 p.m., when Tench called her. By 11:51, when Mary's phone was used to call Tench's phone, her phone had moved to Brunswick and was in a location consistent with 758 Camden Lane, i.e., her house. Between 1:22 and 1:59 a.m., when Tench was calling and texting Kyker, his phone was using the south side of a cell tower (designated by Kunkle as Tower 1) located west of the Tench house. Therefore, the phone was located in a sector including both the Tench house and the Carquest Drive area. Tench's phone was still in that sector from 2:03 to 2:04 a.m., when it called Mary's phone, which was still in the vicinity of her house. {¶ 68} However, soon thereafter, both phones moved in a northerly direction. At 2:05, Tench's phone began to use a different tower (designated by Kunkle as Tower 2), located northwest of the one it had been using (Tower 1). Tench's cell-phone signals initially were hitting the southern side of Tower 2, then they shifted to the northwest side of that tower, indicating movement to the north. However, at 2:23 a.m., Tench's phone went back to using Tower 1. At 2:39 a.m., calls to Mary's phone began hitting cell towers in North Royalton, which is northeast of Brunswick, indicating that since 2:04 a.m., her phone had moved from its previous location into the area covered by those towers.