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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JULY 8, 2016
Tools: Suspects are usually ‘shocked’
Continued from Page 1A
and training to uncover more
online sex abuse cases. Ofi-
cers are inding more crimes
occurring online, and in the
past few years investigators
have made huge leaps in their
use of technology.
Astoria Police partnered
with local agencies last fall to
purchase Cellebrite software
that pulls data off cellphones
and other mobile devices
smaller than a laptop.
Astoria Police Detective
Thomas Litwin estimates the
county’s agencies have already
used the software in about 100
cases, with the majority being
sex abuse cases.
Oficers are not just inding
evidence through texts or Face-
book messages. Local cases
have involved little-known
applications such as Kik Mes-
senger, MeetMe and Whisper.
All criminal activity on those
applications can be used as evi-
dence in a criminal case.
Greer met the 13-year-
old girl on the dating applica-
tion, Badoo. They also com-
municated on Kik Messenger,
Snapchat and Skype. The girl
used TextNow, allowing her to
send messages to Greer without
using her cellphone.
“That’s how people are
communicating,” Litwin said.
“It’s not calling on a phone or
meeting in person. Everyone
is doing things online through
messaging.”
‘Suspect is shocked’
Most online sex abuse cases
are brought forward by a par-
ent, friend or school teacher.
Oficers do not troll the
internet for predators, but rather
rely on someone’s report or a
referral from a group such as
the National Center for Missing
and Exploited Children.
In Greer’s case, it was a
friend of the victim who told
the girl’s parents.
By searching the victim’s
cellphone and social media
accounts, Humphrey said, he
can develop a case before con-
tacting the suspect.
The Cellebrite software
allows oficers to review all
text messages, photos and other
data on a device, including
deleted iles. Law enforcement
also has a special portal to ana-
lyze Facebook accounts by pro-
viding a search warrant to the
social media company.
“Most of the time, if I have
done my job correctly, the sus-
pect is shocked when they meet
me for the irst time,” Hum-
phrey said.
When searching a sus-
pect’s cellphone or electronic
device, oficers must apply for
a search warrant as if they were
searching a house. Oficers
must act fast to preserve digital
evidence.
The total process takes time,
Humphrey said, which is hard
to explain to concerned family
Photos by Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Clatsop County Sheriff’s Detective Ryan Humphrey demonstrates technology that can
map the location where a cellphone was used, at the Clatsop County Sheriff’s Office.
Clatsop County Sheriff’s Detective Ryan Humphrey demon-
strates the different technology available to law enforcement
to obtain information from social media accounts for cases.
‘That was then, this is now.
We are showing people
there is a consequence and
something will happen if
you report it.’
Ryan Humphrey
Clatsop County Sheriff’s detective
or friends. Downloading data
from a cellphone using Celleb-
rite can take up to six hours.
Before the software was
available locally, oficers had to
spend a day driving to a foren-
sics lab in Portland. Analyzing
a Facebook account can pro-
duce more than 30,000 pages to
sift through for evidence.
“It’s frustrating, especially
for parents to see their child
has been abused, and they
don’t always understand how
come I’m not running out of
the door to arrest somebody,”
Humphrey said. “Often times
with these kind of cases, I only
have one chance to do it right.
If I blow that chance, it’s game
over.”
Oficers encourage par-
ents to allow no online pri-
vacy for children, and believe
cellphones and tablets do not
belong in the bathroom with
the child or in their bed at night.
Oficers suggest every parent
have access to their children’s
electronic devices.
Even if a parent takes a
cellphone away, children can
download messaging applica-
tions such as TextNow on any
iPod, iPad, Kindle or Nook.
“Unfortunately, I’ve seen
cases where parents are doing
the right thing and took the cell-
phone, but didn’t take the Kin-
dle,” Humphrey said.
Victim impact
While more online sex
abuse suspects are being con-
victed in Clatsop County, advo-
cates are noticing impacts on
victims. It is dificult for vic-
tims to overcome the thought
of intimate photos or messages
being sent or often shared in the
community.
Clatsop County Deputy
District Attorney Dawn Buz-
zard said many of the victims
in her cases are dropping out of
school and not returning.
“Most of the cases I can
think of have kids deciding not
to go to school,” Buzzard said.
The Harbor, the domestic
and sexual violence resource
center for Clatsop County,
recently hired a teen intimate
partner violence specialist.
Erin Hofseth, who joined the
Harbor in April, works with local
schools to prevent dating vio-
lence and does outreach to offer
resources and education for teens
to shed light on what abuse can
look like. She hopes to develop a
support group for teens.
Online and texting harass-
ment, stalking and the pressure
to send nude photos are intense
for teens in this generation,
Hofseth said.
“It does look different for
teens than it would in a domes-
tic partnership or marriage,”
she said. “Teens are facing
issues that adults don’t face.”
Well-trained
A key to catching online sex
abuse is having well-trained
detectives in the county, Buz-
zard said.
Detectives regularly attended
trainings around the Northwest.
Humphrey went to a train-
ing this year about cellphone
mapping technology. He
learned how to use a computer
program that tells where a cell-
phone call is made.
“You really need a detec-
tive willing to dive in,” Buz-
zard said.
In addition, detectives and
oficers must learn what to
look for to charge a suspect
with online sexual corruption,
using a child in display of sex-
ually explicit conduct or luring
a minor.
Greer was charged with
each type of online sex abuse.
Through a plea agreement this
spring, he pleaded guilty to
attempted unlawful sexual pen-
etration and was sentenced to
three years probation. He will
face four years in prison if he
violates the probation.
Getting online sex abuse
cases to a conviction is prog-
ress for the county, Humphrey
said. A decade ago, he said,
nothing would happen for vic-
tims abused online.
“That was then, this is now,”
he said. “We are showing peo-
ple there is a consequence and
something will happen if you
report it.”
Submitted photo
Map indicating donated portions of land to the Seaside
School District from Weyerhaeuser Co.
Seaside: District
‘faces a predicament
without precedent or
equivalent in Oregon’
Continued from Page 1A
offset local costs to relocate our
schools, and it has been a frus-
trating path to provide our stu-
dents with a safe, new educa-
tional space,” Dougherty said in
a statement. “With the donation
of 80 acres from Weyerhae-
user for the new campus and
potential access to state fund-
ing, the pathway to providing
a safe learning environment
has opened up for us to pur-
sue a school relocation bond in
November.”
Dougherty displayed a map
of the property at a June school
board meeting. The donated
property is in the shape of a
rectangle on the hillside imme-
diately east of Sunset Heights
Elementary School. Build-
ings will be constructed on the
western portion of the parcel,
while the eastern portion will
contain a ball ield, he said.
The district determined a
total bond amount of $99.7
million for polling purposes
only, Dougherty added in an
email Thursday, a number that
would not necessarily relect
the inal request to voters.
The next Seaside School
District meeting is scheduled
for Aug. 8, however, a special
meeting may be called earlier.
When voter polling results are
received, the exact amount of
the bond will be determined.
Those results are expected
within the next two weeks.
The funds come after the
school district was unable to
access funding through the
Seismic Rehabilitation Grant
Program to use to retroit or
relocate its schools because
the schools are sited within
the tsunami inundation zone,
Dougherty said.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden vis-
ited Seaside this spring with a
pledge to bring federal dollars
to the school district as well.
Among the expenses listed
in the school district budget
is the cost to prepare a bond
measure for next November’s
ballot to relocate the district’s
schools out of the tsunami
inundation zone.
A $128.8 million bond mea-
sure to relocate the schools on a
hill east of Seaside Heights Ele-
mentary School failed in 2013.
According to Dougherty,
the district, with enrollment of
1,519 students in 2012-2013,
“faces a predicament with-
out precedent or equivalent in
Oregon.”
Three of the district’s four
schools are located just a few
feet above sea level within the
tsunami inundation zone.
Dougherty described the
three schools as situated on
the Seaside spit and in the
community of Gearhart, too
far from high ground to be
evacuated safely in the event
of a Cascadia earthquake on
the coastal fault and the tsu-
nami that earthquake would
produce.
Sixty-percent of the Senate
Bill 447 funds are based on a
priority list, he said.
Smith: She appeared emotional while watching her video interview
Continued from Page 1A
a call from her ex-husband’s
lawyer telling her to return the
children.
She and her ex-husband,
Gregory Smith, separated
about four months before
the incident. The girls’ father
sought a custody evaluation
less than two weeks before
they were discovered in the
hotel room.
Smith, 42, of Vancouver,
Washington, told investiga-
tors her ex-husband was a
passive-aggressive bully. She
researched if he was a socio-
path or a psychopath, she
said.
“I needed to ind out what
he was doing to my mind,”
she said.
Smith said she and the
girls were terriied of her
ex-husband. Alana Smith
apparently told her mother
she would rather die than go
back to live with him.
Instead of bringing the
children back, prosecutors
believe Smith made spe-
ciic plans to drug her daugh-
ters and used razor blades
to cut the throat and arms of
her teenager. She reportedly
drugged and drowned Isabella
Smith and attempted to kill
Alana Smith on July 31, 2014.
On video, Smith told the
investigators the toddler fell
asleep peacefully, fell into
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Clatsop County Sheriff’s Office Detective Ryan Humphrey
testifies during Jessica Smith’s hearing Thursday at Clat-
sop County Circuit Court.
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Jessica Smith attends a hearing Thursday at Clatsop County Circuit Court in Astoria.
the water and was gone.
“The intention was to
drown her and end her mis-
ery,” Smith said.
Smith said she felt like a
mother rabbit that takes their
babies out. When asked what
she meant, she said, “you
know what I mean.”
In previous court hear-
ings, Smith’s defense law-
yers William Falls and Lynne
Morgan described her as hav-
ing a mental breakdown. The
lawyers submitted records on
postpartum psychosis.
Judge Cindee Matyas
recently determined Smith is
mentally competent to stand
trial.
Cooperative
The video interview was
played during a pretrial hear-
ing to determine what evi-
dence can be used in trial
next year. The state presented
the evidence in response to
the defense lawyers claims
that Smith was illegally inter-
rogated by law enforcement
after her arrest.
Four days after the alleged
murder, a U.S. Coast Guard
MH-60 helicopter spotted
Smith near her gold 2007
Chevy Suburban on a heavily
forested logging road, just off
of U.S. Highway 26, about 15
miles east of Cannon Beach.
Clatsop County Sheriff’s
Ofice Detective Ryan Hum-
phrey and FBI Special Agent
Denise Biehn drove an SUV
down forest roads to arrest
Smith.
The defense lawyers are
questioning the handling of
Smith after her arrest. They
believe she was in great dis-
tress, living out of her car,
without food and drinking
water from a stream.
Humphrey and Biehn tes-
tiied Thursday that Smith
was read her Miranda rights
multiple times and appeared
in good shape upon her arrest.
She did tell the oficers how
she tried to starve herself, but
it did not work.
“She was cooperative and
she was thankful we located
her,” Humphrey said.
The arresting oficers
offered her food and drink,
and asked if she needed any
medical attention.
Smith politely asked for
vegetarian food and declined
medical attention, only ask-
ing for a breast pump.
The oficers noted how
calm and talkative Smith was
during her arrest and inter-
view. She regularly thanked
them and apologized for cry-
ing at times.
“Thank you so much for
being so nice,” she said. “I’ll
try to get it under control.”
In court Thursday, Smith
appeared emotional while
watching the video of her
interview. She remains in
custody in Clatsop County
Jail.
Judge Matyas will con-
sider the lawyers arguments
and decide what evidence
will be used in trial, sched-
uled for July 2017.