Why The Man Accused Of Murder Couldn't Have Asked Siri Where To Hide His Roommate's Body
A man is accused of killing his former friend. And a photo on his iPhone 4 showing an alleged "Siri exchange" with the statement "I need to hide my roommate" has fooled the International media into believing something that simply cannot happen.
By Sadho Ram — 14 Aug 2014, 05:40 PM — Updated about 10 years ago
Because of this photo on his iPhone 4, it appeared a Florida man standing trial for a 2012 killing had asked Apple's Siri where he should hide the body of his "roommate"
There has been a great deal of attention on the Pedro Bravo trial happening here in Gainesville. Unfortunately, some of the most recent news just isn't true. Following a story posted by WPXI and other Cox Media affiliates, many national and international media outlets are running with a story that Bravo, who is accused of killing Christian Aguilar, asked Siri where to stash his “roommate’s” body.
wuft.orgAccording to reports, Pedro Bravo allegedly drove 18-year-old Christian Aguilar to Best Buy to get the new Kanye West CD, then kidnapped, drugged, and strangled him
Aguilar disappeared from Gainesville, Florida, in September 2012. Within days, police had charged Bravo with homicide, kidnapping, poisoning, and a handful of other charges. Police say Aguilar disappeared after Bravo gave him a ride to Best Buy to pick up a Kanye West CD. Aguilar was missing for weeks, but in October of that year hunters found his body in a rural part of Levy County, Florida. It was buried in a shallow grave.
According to the Gainesville Sun and Palm Beach Report, on September 20, 2012 — the day the victim disappeared — the accused told iPhone’s Siri “I need to hide my roommate,” and Siri jokingly responded “what kind of place are you looking for? Swamps. Reservoirs. Metal foundries. Dumps.” Bravo allegedly went with woods.
gawker.com
However, two things are wrong with that narrative: Detective Goeckel never testified that Bravo performed that Siri search, and Aguilar and Bravo were not roommates
Back in 2012 when the murder happened, if you told Siri that you needed to hide a body, it would respond jokingly with location options like swamps and metal foundries. But Apple has tamed Siri's answer, perhaps because of incidents like this.
Siri’s overlords appear to have taken care of such confusion on their end, if it even existed. Buzzfeed just tried asking Siri the same question, and now Siri is all like “I’m sorry,” but we tried a few other things and she’s still pretty helpful. Forgetful, but helpful. Kind of.
animalnewyork.com
Moreover, there's absolutely no way Bravo could have asked Siri for help himself, because he owned an iPhone 4 at the time, and Siri wasn't introduced until the iPhone 4S
Siri has been an integral part of iOS since iOS 5 and was introduced as a feature of the iPhone 4S on October 14, 2011.
So it’s actually impossible that Bravo had conducted the search himself, having a different cellphone carrier than displayed in the screenshot and a version of iPhone that doesn't even do Siri at the time.
animalnewyork.com
In the meantime, WUFT News has pulled a footage from Bravo's trial where detective Goeckel discussed the image which prompted the reports that Bravo did a search on Siri. WATCH:
Basically, the screenshot presented in court was not actually taken by the suspect, but instead was discovered in the cache of images he viewed via Facebook
Goeckel, pictured above during Tuesday’s testimony, agreed there was no evidence Bravo made the Siri inquiry.
Image via buzzfed.comIn a trial transcript obtained by WUFT, detective Goeckel testified that the photo came from Bravo's Facebook cache. However, detective Goeckel did find GPS data that allegedly contradicts Bravo's stated whereabouts at the time of Aguilar's death, WPXI reports. He also turned his cellular connection off for an hour in the middle of that night, and his flashlight app had been used for 48 minutes that day.
gawker.com