"Finding Missing Records: Looking Into The Case of An Unnamed Victim"- with Bellingcat's Peter Barth

WEBVTT
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You're listening to a stage talk titled Finding
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Missing Records, looking into the case of an
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unnamed victim with Bellingcat's Peter Barth.
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He broke down his recent investigation into a
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90s cold case murder, exploring how he filed
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record requests, which became central to finding
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answers. You can find links to all the resources
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mentioned in the talk in the podcast description.
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This talk was hosted by me, Charlotte Maher on
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Thursday the 17th of September 2026 in the Bellingcat
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Discord server. First and foremost, welcome all
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to today's stage talk. Before I get into the
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talk, I wanted to first announce, in case you
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haven't heard, that Bellingcat is finally launching
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an official merch line. I am so excited to get
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a Bellingcat t -shirt. And as part of this launch,
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we're asking you to submit design ideas for the
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merchandise. Those selected by public vote will
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feature in an exclusive community collection
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and the winning designers will receive merch
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for free. So if you're interested in submitting
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a design, details can be found on our website
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in the link in the chat that I posted earlier.
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but you do have less than three weeks to get
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your entries in. You don't actually have to submit
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an image. You can also submit a tagline, but
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please keep those suggestions PC and applicable
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to our brand. All right. Okay. Now on to today's
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speaker. We're exploring how to uncover records
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previously hidden today. What does it look like
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when your answers appear to not be online, but
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you know they exist, and how do you find them?
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My colleague Peter Barth is here to share what
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happened when he found himself in the same situation
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when looking into a 30 -year -old cold case of
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an unnamed victim. How do you get from a report
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of skeletal remains in an affluent suburb of
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Boston to a Chinese organised crime group? Following
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a paper trail with OSINT skills is not something
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we often speak about, but FOIAs, or FOIs if you're
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from Europe or Australia, have an important role
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to play in public data collection. And obtaining
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them and getting the vital information you need
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is an art in itself, as I'm sure Peter will go
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on to tell us. Bringing information into the
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public sphere is what we're all about here, and
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Peter spent a year in the shoot of a single name
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and an identity. So before we dive in, a short
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reminder that we will have plenty of time to
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answer your questions. You can place your questions
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in the chat accessible in the right -hand corner
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of your screen. But please remember that this
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is being audio recorded for the podcast. So if
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you don't want me to mention your username, please
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add that as a note in your question and I will
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avoid doing so. Okay. Peter, share with us your
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insights from this case. Yeah, thank you, Charlie.
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Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everybody,
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depending on where you are. I'm Peter. I mostly
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research organized crime here at Bellingcat.
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And as Charlie said, for the past slightly over
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a year, actually, I was working on a cold case
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from 1996. So if you haven't read it yet, I'll
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go over at a very high level the case, kind of
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as we go through the talk today. And my goal
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today is I want to try to avoid repeating what
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I talked about last year. We did another stage
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talk on cold cases. So there's going to be a
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lot of topics we don't cover. This is also just
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a huge topic. And I want to make sure that I'm
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giving you guys something new this time around.
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So if you have any questions that I don't get
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to during the presentation, we can also chat
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afterwards. But I'll go ahead and just launch
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into it. So real quick, a couple housekeeping
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items to address. Today, we're going to talk
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about using open source research to look into
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historic unresolved murder cases and also missing
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and unidentified persons cases a bit. We're going
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to focus today though on using records requests.
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You're going to hear me say FOIA a lot or FOI.
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Apologies if I say FOIA, that's just my American
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like shorthand lingo coming out. apologies in
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advance, but what I mean, that means Freedom
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of Information Act here in the U .S. It means
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freedom of information in a lot of European countries,
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I think, FOI. So if I say FOIA, I'm usually,
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I just mean records requests in general. Yeah.
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So for our purposes, we're talking about researching
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these cases to publish information in some way
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to get it out there. This could be for a media
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article, like it could be for an article in Bellingcat.
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This could be for an academic paper on a cold
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case. This could be for a blog post, for a Reddit
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post, what have you. We are not talking about
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hunting down suspects. That is for the police,
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obviously. So that's not the goal with any of
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the research that we're talking about today.
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The goal is to try to collect, organize information
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about these older cases. and get it online so
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that we tell the story of these victims. So that's
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kind of the lens we're looking at all of this
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material through. And we're not going to be getting
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into more traditional journalism methods like
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conducting sensitive interviews with surviving
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family members or talking to retired law enforcement.
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That's part of what we do and work on these articles
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that I've written, but just for the sake of time
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and because there are a lot of other people Who
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are a lot more talented at those things who could
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you could tell you more about that? I'm gonna
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keep it focused on public records requests and
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Overall, we're kind of talking about this fly
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-on -the -wall approach. We're kind of Going
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out there and seeking information about these
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cases that may be online or it may exist on paper
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somewhere And we're trying to get it online.
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Basically, that's what we're doing. We're not
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meeting with a confidential source at 2 a .m.
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In the morning This is this is open source research.
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So just wanted to put that out there And with
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that, a quick recap, I talked a little bit about
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this last year, but why do we even use open source
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research to look into cold cases? Basically,
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that's because there's hundreds of thousands
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of them in the US alone. I'm sure there's an
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equivalent number over in Europe and in other
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regions. There are an enormous number of unsolved
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homicide cases. There are tens of thousands of
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unidentified persons in the US and tens of thousands
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of missing persons as well. So the research we're
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talking about is kind of focused on that today.
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And I would argue that a lot of these cases haven't
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really received much attention at all. So in
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a couple of the cases I'll talk about today that
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I've worked on, when I started looking into these,
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I quickly realized that there really was almost
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no information online about these. And so really
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quickly my research became, how can I get information
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held by the authorities that's on paper? that
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can now be considered public information. How
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do I access that and work with that with other
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more typical open source methods? Cold cases,
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I would argue, are a matter of public safety
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because for every unsolved case, there is theoretically
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a murderer or plural murderers out there who've
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gotten away with this. So these cases are often
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tied to other forms of misconduct as well. So
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it could be decades ago that maybe investigators
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dropped the ball somehow. They misplaced evidence
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and they couldn't get a conviction. It could
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be that the case is tied in with organized crime
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groups, like with the cases I've looked at. The
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victim might have been also a victim of human
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trafficking and moved to somewhere from another
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place, from another country. So there's all kinds
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of other forms of wrongdoing tied in with these
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murder cases usually. And then, unfortunately,
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there's this term out there called less dead.
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And if you haven't heard it before, it's the
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concept that certain victims might get less attention
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from not only from law enforcement, but less
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attention from the media, less attention from
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the public because, you know, they were a sex
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worker perhaps, or they were suspected of involvement
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in crime themselves, or maybe the person is an
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undocumented immigrant. And you know, came to
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the U .S. or came to another country from another
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part of the world and their entire family and
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everyone who would normally be there to advocate
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for them and to call the police and ask for updates
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just isn't there. That was the case with the
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story that I'll talk about today. So a lot of
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these cases just they don't have advocates that
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are out there pushing them forward as much and
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they unfortunately fall through the cracks a
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lot of the time. So many, many, many of these
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unsolved cases when you when you look into them,
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you're gonna notice that a lot of them, the victims,
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sort of fit some form of that concept. Also,
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just for the simple fact that a lot of these
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cases, especially like the older ones, the ones
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that are, you know, three, four, five, six decades
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old, there's a lot of information that could
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be out there in the case, but it just isn't online.
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It might be in older newspapers, and it might
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be just sitting on a shelf in a police department
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somewhere. And... What we're going to talk about
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mostly today is filing records requests so that
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the authorities make some of that information
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public and some tips and tricks to do that. And
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I'll talk through some examples that I've done
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where that's happened. Real quick note on generalizing
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murder cases. This might be obvious, but just
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want to put it out there. Each case is unique.
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There are different motives. There are different
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structural causes at play. There might be geographic
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factors associated with the case, like someone's
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murdered in a national park, for example, versus
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in an inner city somewhere. Because of this,
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there's not a one -size -fits -all approach to
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working on these and to researching them. You're
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going to use different sets of tools and different
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resources, and you're going to go about your
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research in a different way. every time, and
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just like with anything else we research in open
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source, you need to tailor that each time. That
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said, there are some common tools that generally
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seem to work for a lot of this type of research,
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so records requests are a big one for that. They
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don't always work, they won't always uncover
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new information, but they can be a really powerful
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tool in some of these cases. So just as an example,
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It's been really neat the last couple of years,
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especially, to see incredible advances in DNA
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technology that are being used to crack cases
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that are from the 1950s, the 1960s. I think here
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in Massachusetts, where I live, they just solved
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our oldest Jane Doe case. And the victim was
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from the 1950s with some of those DNA advances.
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So there's a lot of that happening. It's like
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every couple of days there's something like that,
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it seems like. But for many cases, like the cases
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that I've covered, there's no suspect DNA evidence.
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There's not thought to be at least some piece
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of physical evidence that the authorities think
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might produce a DNA sample and identify a suspect.
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A lot of the cases that I tend to look at are
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usually gang related or have ties to organized
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crime groups of different kinds. And the victim
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is shot from a distance. There's very little
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physical evidence. And so in cases like that,
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I find that open source, especially decades later,
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and sometimes help in collecting, organizing,
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and telling these stories a little bit better.
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I won't recap in detail my latest story. It's
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on our website, on the front page still at the
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moment, if you want to check it out later and
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see exactly what we found and how we did it.
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But just at a very high level, we basically used
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records requests. to publicly identify a John
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Doe in Massachusetts. This person, his name was
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Fuchun Wang. He was a Chinese immigrant from
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Fujian province. He came to the States in the
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90s and unfortunately got wrapped up in Chinese
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organized crime and it cost him his life, it
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seems. So we tried to tell as much of that story
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as we could gather. Most of that was done through
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records requests and also interviews with some
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retired investigators who worked on it. So the
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story is closely tied with the story of Chinese
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organized crime on the East Coast in New York
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and Boston, specifically in the 1990s. The victim,
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his associates and the suspect and his accomplices
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in this case. were all thought to belong to the
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same gang. Really, I use the term gang loosely
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here because they were a street gang, they controlled
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territory in New York, but they're really more
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like an organized crime group. They're fairly
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sophisticated and international. And so the story
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gets into that a little bit, what that looks
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like. And lastly, our investigation raises some
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questions about why he still officially remains
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John Doe and why the suspect and none of the
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accomplices I've never been prosecuted by authorities
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for the case. So check it out if you haven't.
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And then just at a sort of a basic level, just
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to give you some like behind the scenes, the
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way I heard about this was actually just through
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a conversation with my barber. So I was getting
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my haircut last summer. We were talking about
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my previous cold case story. And he told me a
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crazy story about how his childhood friend in
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his hometown in Sharon, Massachusetts, their
00:14:12.840 --> 00:14:15.909
dog had walked. home one day with a human femur
00:14:15.909 --> 00:14:19.230
in its mouth. And the owners immediately recognized
00:14:19.230 --> 00:14:22.269
that bone as, ooh, that looks like a little too
00:14:22.269 --> 00:14:26.629
big to be like a deer bone or a coyote or something.
00:14:26.669 --> 00:14:28.570
This looks like it might be human. So they called
00:14:28.570 --> 00:14:32.370
the police. And sure enough, this young guy's
00:14:32.370 --> 00:14:34.289
skeleton was found in the woods behind their
00:14:34.289 --> 00:14:36.750
house. He'd been dumped there after being murdered
00:14:36.750 --> 00:14:39.710
in Boston. So that's how the story started. And
00:14:39.710 --> 00:14:42.610
we were able I wasn't sure if we'd be able to
00:14:42.610 --> 00:14:44.769
do this. I thought I'd do this as an experiment.
00:14:45.169 --> 00:14:47.370
Like, can I use records requests to try to put
00:14:47.370 --> 00:14:50.629
a name to this guy? And then can I try to find
00:14:50.629 --> 00:14:56.070
out more of what happened? So yeah, that's basically
00:14:56.070 --> 00:14:58.870
what we did. This is his photo, and I'd encourage
00:14:58.870 --> 00:15:02.490
you to check out the story. So I get this question
00:15:02.490 --> 00:15:07.250
a lot, and I try to ask my peers with other media
00:15:07.250 --> 00:15:09.070
outlets this question whenever I can, whenever
00:15:09.070 --> 00:15:12.250
we're chatting. And it's a tough one, and the
00:15:12.250 --> 00:15:14.830
answers differ for everybody. But the question
00:15:14.830 --> 00:15:17.970
is, how do you pick which cases to research?
00:15:18.490 --> 00:15:20.549
There are literally hundreds of thousands of
00:15:20.549 --> 00:15:23.750
these cases out there, tens of thousands of John
00:15:23.750 --> 00:15:26.789
Doe's, tens of thousands of missing persons,
00:15:27.929 --> 00:15:29.690
and hundreds of thousands of unsolved murders.
00:15:30.110 --> 00:15:31.649
So how do you pick which one that you're going
00:15:31.649 --> 00:15:37.000
to devote time, energy, potentially money? How
00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:40.360
do you make that decision? And I think for me,
00:15:40.639 --> 00:15:42.419
there's a couple important questions that I start
00:15:42.419 --> 00:15:46.279
with. So for one, I think you need to ask yourself
00:15:46.279 --> 00:15:48.580
when you start looking into any given case, can
00:15:48.580 --> 00:15:50.639
you add to the public understanding about this
00:15:50.639 --> 00:15:53.240
case somehow? And how are you going to do that?
00:15:53.620 --> 00:15:55.919
And it's a little tricky because you don't usually
00:15:55.919 --> 00:15:57.539
know the answer until you've started to do a
00:15:57.539 --> 00:16:00.919
little bit of research. And it usually kind of
00:16:00.919 --> 00:16:03.820
becomes apparent quickly. But a lot of these
00:16:03.820 --> 00:16:06.950
cases have been worked extensively by you know,
00:16:07.070 --> 00:16:11.529
loads of podcasters, journalists, people, you
00:16:11.529 --> 00:16:14.070
know, on Reddit even. A lot of these cases have
00:16:14.070 --> 00:16:16.590
a lot of material out there already, and a lot
00:16:16.590 --> 00:16:20.389
of them have next to nothing. Personally, I tend
00:16:20.389 --> 00:16:25.210
to select cases to research that have a little
00:16:25.210 --> 00:16:28.250
bit out there on them, but I feel like I can
00:16:28.250 --> 00:16:31.129
collect more and get more out there. I want to
00:16:31.129 --> 00:16:33.029
tell more of the story if possible. So that's
00:16:33.029 --> 00:16:35.600
kind of what I'm looking for. And I can talk
00:16:35.600 --> 00:16:38.639
more about that later, but there's also this
00:16:38.639 --> 00:16:40.600
tricky issue of like, is there enough to start
00:16:40.600 --> 00:16:42.519
with? Because unfortunately, a lot of these cases
00:16:42.519 --> 00:16:45.899
also have next to nothing out there on them.
00:16:46.019 --> 00:16:48.460
It's just human remains. It might just be here
00:16:48.460 --> 00:16:50.940
in Massachusetts, for example, on the coast.
00:16:51.500 --> 00:16:53.879
Every couple of years, like a single human bone
00:16:53.879 --> 00:16:55.980
will wash up on one of the beaches. And you'll
00:16:55.980 --> 00:16:59.620
see it pop up on NamUs, on our national Missing
00:16:59.620 --> 00:17:01.779
and Unidentified Persons database. but it'll
00:17:01.779 --> 00:17:03.779
just be like a fragment of a bone and it might
00:17:03.779 --> 00:17:07.119
be from a shipwreck like in the 1800s. You have
00:17:07.119 --> 00:17:10.039
no further context than that, just bone discovered
00:17:10.039 --> 00:17:12.819
on the beach. So it's tricky. Some of these cases
00:17:12.819 --> 00:17:14.880
are more doable than others from a research point
00:17:14.880 --> 00:17:17.839
of view. A note on cases that are tied to organized
00:17:17.839 --> 00:17:22.140
crime and gangs. I also tend to select cases
00:17:22.140 --> 00:17:26.759
that are tied to organized crime because, well,
00:17:26.759 --> 00:17:29.019
for one, that's what I work on at Bellingcat.
00:17:29.319 --> 00:17:32.079
I spend most of my time um, with the financial
00:17:32.079 --> 00:17:35.019
investigations team looking into contemporary,
00:17:35.019 --> 00:17:37.299
you know, modern day organized crime groups and
00:17:37.299 --> 00:17:39.660
all of their various fun activities all over
00:17:39.660 --> 00:17:42.420
the world. So I can apply kind of some of the
00:17:42.420 --> 00:17:44.519
experience and skills that I have through that,
00:17:44.519 --> 00:17:47.359
uh, towards, towards looking into cold cases
00:17:47.359 --> 00:17:49.180
that are tied to them. But also there's just
00:17:49.180 --> 00:17:51.460
a lot of those out there. A lot of the unsolved
00:17:51.460 --> 00:17:54.319
murders out there in the U S and Europe, anywhere
00:17:54.319 --> 00:17:56.460
in the world, a lot of them, a good portion at
00:17:56.460 --> 00:17:59.970
least, um, tend to be tied to gang activity,
00:18:00.130 --> 00:18:03.190
to organized crime, to mafia groups, and there's
00:18:03.190 --> 00:18:05.910
a lot of reasons for that. Cultural reasons,
00:18:07.069 --> 00:18:10.650
a lot of the time it is fear of gang retaliation
00:18:10.650 --> 00:18:14.250
and a stigma about touching anything that is
00:18:14.250 --> 00:18:16.450
even perceived to have connections to that. I
00:18:16.450 --> 00:18:18.490
come across that all of the time when I'm trying
00:18:18.490 --> 00:18:21.970
to interview people here. A lot of people understandably
00:18:21.970 --> 00:18:24.769
do not want to talk about that, especially on
00:18:24.769 --> 00:18:28.329
the record. And a lot of the cases too, this
00:18:28.329 --> 00:18:31.730
is extremely common, victims and their family
00:18:31.730 --> 00:18:33.670
members themselves and their friends and members
00:18:33.670 --> 00:18:35.829
of their community don't trust law enforcement.
00:18:36.150 --> 00:18:39.730
There are huge historical, there's years of history
00:18:39.730 --> 00:18:42.789
at play there where people in certain communities
00:18:42.789 --> 00:18:44.809
just don't want to talk to the police and that's
00:18:44.809 --> 00:18:49.150
ingrained in them. So you navigate kind of all
00:18:49.150 --> 00:18:51.109
of these sort of factors combined and they mean
00:18:51.109 --> 00:18:52.710
that a good portion of the unsolved cases out
00:18:52.710 --> 00:18:55.460
there are tied to that type of activity. And
00:18:55.460 --> 00:18:57.940
then I also, I tend to look at these because
00:18:57.940 --> 00:19:00.880
they're usually tied to other forms of crime,
00:19:01.019 --> 00:19:03.579
other kinds of wrongdoing, and you can use that
00:19:03.579 --> 00:19:05.220
to your advantage when you're doing the research.
00:19:05.359 --> 00:19:08.660
You can get information sometimes about some
00:19:08.660 --> 00:19:12.460
of these murder cases by asking for records about
00:19:12.460 --> 00:19:15.019
the other crimes tied to them, for example, so.
00:19:16.119 --> 00:19:19.880
Okay, real quick plug. I think in conversations
00:19:19.880 --> 00:19:25.680
about unsolved murders, a related Topic and sort
00:19:25.680 --> 00:19:28.960
of a subtopic from this are unidentified persons.
00:19:29.519 --> 00:19:31.119
There are an enormous number of these cases out
00:19:31.119 --> 00:19:34.259
there They tend to get a lot less attention unfortunately
00:19:34.259 --> 00:19:36.900
than some of the more like high -profile murder
00:19:36.900 --> 00:19:39.579
cases that are covered on podcasts or on Dateline
00:19:39.579 --> 00:19:42.740
or You know a lot of the unidentified persons
00:19:42.740 --> 00:19:46.779
cases are basically just sitting on a shelf and
00:19:46.779 --> 00:19:50.079
they need bodies on them. Like they need people
00:19:50.079 --> 00:19:53.019
to be researching them and trying to figure out
00:19:53.019 --> 00:19:57.460
the story behind it. So I just think that it's
00:19:57.460 --> 00:20:00.359
a worthwhile cause. I think there's a lot of
00:20:00.359 --> 00:20:03.000
good to be done here. And if you're looking for
00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:04.819
sort of something to get involved with, I'd really
00:20:04.819 --> 00:20:08.339
encourage you to look at unidentified persons
00:20:08.339 --> 00:20:11.180
cases wherever you live, but also missing persons
00:20:11.180 --> 00:20:13.980
cases. There's a lot of really awesome groups.
00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:15.619
I can't put them all here. These are just some
00:20:15.619 --> 00:20:18.900
of the big ones. In the United States, our national
00:20:18.900 --> 00:20:22.640
database is called NamUs. And in it, you can
00:20:22.640 --> 00:20:28.539
see a pretty comprehensive, at least, data set
00:20:28.539 --> 00:20:31.140
on missing persons and on unidentified persons
00:20:31.140 --> 00:20:33.400
and on unclaimed persons. So sometimes they've
00:20:33.400 --> 00:20:35.220
identified a person, but there's been no family
00:20:35.220 --> 00:20:38.359
member to claim the remains and the person was
00:20:38.359 --> 00:20:40.319
just found deceased somewhere. And so there's
00:20:40.319 --> 00:20:43.200
a lot of really tragic stories in there and a
00:20:43.200 --> 00:20:46.849
lot of unresolved mysteries. Other groups would
00:20:46.849 --> 00:20:49.730
be DNA Doe Project, the Charlie Project, which
00:20:49.730 --> 00:20:54.069
was started by basically just a person who cared
00:20:54.069 --> 00:20:55.869
a lot about the subject and wanted to get involved.
00:20:55.970 --> 00:20:59.849
So there's really great groups. And if you're
00:20:59.849 --> 00:21:03.750
overseas, it varies country by country, but I
00:21:03.750 --> 00:21:06.750
found that a lot of European countries have really
00:21:06.750 --> 00:21:10.730
much easier to use websites and national databases
00:21:10.730 --> 00:21:13.369
on missing persons and unidentified persons.
00:21:13.509 --> 00:21:17.779
Here's a couple examples of that. This is from
00:21:17.779 --> 00:21:21.000
the UK up top here. This is missing and unidentified
00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:24.259
persons in the city of Manchester, for example.
00:21:25.839 --> 00:21:28.640
I've got examples from Ireland down here on the
00:21:28.640 --> 00:21:30.279
right, and then the Netherlands down here on
00:21:30.279 --> 00:21:32.460
the left. In my experience, their websites are
00:21:32.460 --> 00:21:34.140
a lot cleaner looking. They're a lot easier to
00:21:34.140 --> 00:21:36.440
use and navigate, and I wish NamUs was a little
00:21:36.440 --> 00:21:39.240
bit more like those. It's very clunky and it
00:21:39.240 --> 00:21:41.000
feels like it's out of the late 90s. If you've
00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:43.200
ever been on there, you might know what I'm talking
00:21:43.200 --> 00:21:48.450
about. Pretty much a lot of countries, the National
00:21:48.450 --> 00:21:51.650
Police Force will maintain a website on missing
00:21:51.650 --> 00:21:54.930
persons cases, unresolved murders and unidentified
00:21:54.930 --> 00:21:59.829
persons. Okay, I know I'm hitting a lot fast.
00:21:59.950 --> 00:22:01.450
I'm trying to like fit a lot in here and then
00:22:01.450 --> 00:22:03.910
we can talk afterwards. But for pre -internet
00:22:03.910 --> 00:22:06.529
cases, where do you even begin? So let's say
00:22:06.529 --> 00:22:08.869
you started to look into a case like I was doing.
00:22:09.049 --> 00:22:11.309
on my most recent story. And there's actually
00:22:11.309 --> 00:22:13.990
very little online. You might find a bare bones
00:22:13.990 --> 00:22:19.390
entry on NamUs that tells you there's a skeleton
00:22:19.390 --> 00:22:22.150
found in the woods. It's unidentified. That was
00:22:22.150 --> 00:22:25.029
basically the only note. It was five words, skeletal
00:22:25.029 --> 00:22:28.529
remains found in the woods. There might be, I
00:22:28.529 --> 00:22:30.710
found a Reddit post about it. Didn't have much
00:22:30.710 --> 00:22:33.490
more info. So it was very bare bones. And that's
00:22:33.490 --> 00:22:36.210
all I had to begin the research with. If that's
00:22:36.210 --> 00:22:40.009
the case with your story. then FOIA or FOI or
00:22:40.009 --> 00:22:43.309
records requests are your first and best stop,
00:22:43.650 --> 00:22:46.829
in my opinion. They can really be pretty key
00:22:46.829 --> 00:22:49.369
and they can unlock a lot of leads for you to
00:22:49.369 --> 00:22:53.410
start doing more research with online. But they
00:22:53.410 --> 00:22:55.430
can feel, if you don't work in journalism or
00:22:55.430 --> 00:22:57.250
you've never filed one before, they can feel
00:22:57.250 --> 00:22:59.910
a little intimidating or a little risky, like,
00:23:00.190 --> 00:23:02.549
you know, are the police going to be suspicious
00:23:02.549 --> 00:23:06.099
of me because I'm asking about this case? But
00:23:06.099 --> 00:23:08.799
just keep in mind that in a lot of countries,
00:23:09.319 --> 00:23:12.920
like in the US, for example, it's written into
00:23:12.920 --> 00:23:16.140
law that the public can request information.
00:23:17.420 --> 00:23:22.940
So in the case of the US and US states, there's
00:23:22.940 --> 00:23:26.500
no harm in asking the authorities for records
00:23:26.500 --> 00:23:28.519
on a case. The worst that can happen is they
00:23:28.519 --> 00:23:30.980
can say, we refuse to release them because of,
00:23:31.099 --> 00:23:33.680
and then they'll list. They'll list legal reasons
00:23:33.680 --> 00:23:34.839
why they're not going to release them to you.
00:23:34.839 --> 00:23:36.660
I'll show you what that looks like in a bit.
00:23:37.420 --> 00:23:39.880
But you do not have to be a journalist to file
00:23:39.880 --> 00:23:43.619
records requests in a lot of places. So a couple
00:23:43.619 --> 00:23:48.200
quick, big tips, just overarching ones. Try to
00:23:48.200 --> 00:23:50.720
file these as soon as possible. So if you're
00:23:50.720 --> 00:23:53.599
working on an investigation, and like me, you
00:23:53.599 --> 00:23:56.839
find very little online, out FOIA requests quickly,
00:23:57.980 --> 00:24:01.750
you can use tools out there like Muckrock. and
00:24:01.750 --> 00:24:05.269
similar guides and resources to help you craft
00:24:05.269 --> 00:24:07.630
those requests. Like, how do you word them? What
00:24:07.630 --> 00:24:10.789
kinds of records am I asking for? Who do I send
00:24:10.789 --> 00:24:13.210
it to even? There's a lot of really handy guides
00:24:13.210 --> 00:24:15.730
out there. And don't try to reinvent the wheel.
00:24:16.990 --> 00:24:19.630
More on that in a bit. So find similar requests
00:24:19.630 --> 00:24:22.109
to the ones that you want to file that have worked
00:24:22.109 --> 00:24:25.009
and use those as templates. Other communities
00:24:25.009 --> 00:24:29.180
are out there. There's a subreddit on FOIA. This
00:24:29.180 --> 00:24:31.400
is the National Freedom of Information Coalition,
00:24:31.400 --> 00:24:33.519
I think. I could be getting that wrong. There's
00:24:33.519 --> 00:24:36.000
all kinds of groups. University pages sometimes
00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:38.319
will have like a how -to guide on how to do these.
00:24:39.319 --> 00:24:43.480
And lastly, just collect as many records as you
00:24:43.480 --> 00:24:46.000
can from as many relevant government agencies.
00:24:47.299 --> 00:24:49.579
For the story that I just published, I filed
00:24:49.579 --> 00:24:54.200
27 records requests or FOIAs for one murder case,
00:24:54.599 --> 00:24:57.460
just because it was... It ended up being tied
00:24:57.460 --> 00:24:59.480
to crime sprees across other states and there
00:24:59.480 --> 00:25:01.420
were all kinds of different law enforcement agencies
00:25:01.420 --> 00:25:04.460
working on this or working on the related cases.
00:25:04.740 --> 00:25:08.359
So I file, I just did, I did a shotgun approach.
00:25:08.559 --> 00:25:11.859
I sent as many requests out as I could. And after
00:25:11.859 --> 00:25:13.680
a long time, they start trickling back in and
00:25:13.680 --> 00:25:18.400
you can start working with it. So backing up
00:25:18.400 --> 00:25:21.819
for a minute, why file records requests to begin
00:25:21.819 --> 00:25:25.779
with? And basically the answer is that law enforcement
00:25:26.360 --> 00:25:28.519
With unsolved murder cases or missing persons
00:25:28.519 --> 00:25:32.119
cases they they might decide to release more
00:25:32.119 --> 00:25:36.019
info than what's already out there online You
00:25:36.019 --> 00:25:39.099
never you never really know and in this case
00:25:39.099 --> 00:25:41.539
I heard about something from word of mouth. I
00:25:41.539 --> 00:25:44.220
heard about an unidentified person. I found very
00:25:44.220 --> 00:25:47.579
little online I submitted a records request and
00:25:47.579 --> 00:25:50.579
I'll show you within days. I got a phone call
00:25:50.579 --> 00:25:53.440
Basically saying hey, it looks like that. We
00:25:53.440 --> 00:25:56.509
pretty much wrapped up this case on our end We've
00:25:56.509 --> 00:26:00.089
pretty much identified this person. We're happy
00:26:00.089 --> 00:26:04.589
to send you the records." And they did. So you
00:26:04.589 --> 00:26:07.910
never know. I just stumbled upon that by sheer
00:26:07.910 --> 00:26:12.970
coincidence. In other cases though, what might
00:26:12.970 --> 00:26:16.410
happen is the law might compel them to release
00:26:16.410 --> 00:26:21.710
information. So I did a story last year on unsolved
00:26:21.710 --> 00:26:24.430
murder in Texas. and it ended up being connected
00:26:24.430 --> 00:26:27.250
to a second unsolved murder, again, in Texas.
00:26:28.170 --> 00:26:31.549
And when I filed my records request about that
00:26:31.549 --> 00:26:35.490
second murder, the related one, in Texas, there's
00:26:35.490 --> 00:26:38.849
this nifty little rule where if a law enforcement
00:26:38.849 --> 00:26:41.490
agency tells you that it's not gonna release
00:26:41.490 --> 00:26:44.170
records to you, they have to explain to the Texas
00:26:44.170 --> 00:26:46.930
attorney general, the illustrious Ken Paxton,
00:26:47.930 --> 00:26:51.390
No comment. But they have to explain to the attorney
00:26:51.390 --> 00:26:53.630
general why they're refusing to release records
00:26:53.630 --> 00:26:56.309
to you. So that happens automatically. Like I
00:26:56.309 --> 00:26:58.430
didn't have to write to the attorney general
00:26:58.430 --> 00:27:01.890
and appeal that decision myself. The sheriff's
00:27:01.890 --> 00:27:04.250
department that I requested records from had
00:27:04.250 --> 00:27:06.549
to send them a formal letter explaining, hey,
00:27:06.849 --> 00:27:08.549
this person requested records and we're denying
00:27:08.549 --> 00:27:11.069
them on these grounds. And what happened was,
00:27:11.369 --> 00:27:13.750
without me even being aware that this was happening
00:27:13.750 --> 00:27:16.470
and that there was a legal back and forth, the
00:27:16.470 --> 00:27:18.109
attorney general wrote back to them and said,
00:27:18.670 --> 00:27:22.230
actually, by law, you have to release more of
00:27:22.230 --> 00:27:26.809
the records than you think you do. So they wrote
00:27:26.809 --> 00:27:28.609
back and said, you actually have to release X,
00:27:28.769 --> 00:27:32.970
Y, and Z to him, because one of the explanations
00:27:32.970 --> 00:27:34.849
was that they hadn't established that the case
00:27:34.849 --> 00:27:36.890
was active and ongoing. This was a historical
00:27:36.890 --> 00:27:40.930
case from the 1970s, and that attorney general
00:27:40.930 --> 00:27:42.670
said, you know what, this case isn't active.
00:27:42.730 --> 00:27:44.650
You need to release more of the murder file.
00:27:45.450 --> 00:27:48.650
That can happen sometimes. And again, zero effort
00:27:48.650 --> 00:27:51.150
from my end. I filed the initial records request
00:27:51.150 --> 00:27:52.950
and this just happened. And a couple of months
00:27:52.950 --> 00:27:55.970
later, I had like most of the murder file in
00:27:55.970 --> 00:27:59.849
my hands. Be prepared to wait. I think this is
00:27:59.849 --> 00:28:01.809
the most difficult part for me, at least personally,
00:28:02.230 --> 00:28:04.750
because you will file these FOIAs or these records
00:28:04.750 --> 00:28:08.049
requests and they can take months and months
00:28:08.049 --> 00:28:10.670
and months. In the case of federal agencies in
00:28:10.670 --> 00:28:14.789
the US, they can take years sometimes. It can
00:28:14.789 --> 00:28:17.869
be really frustrating and that's why these investigations
00:28:17.869 --> 00:28:20.630
take so long. So this past one took me a year,
00:28:20.710 --> 00:28:23.970
but I was really working on it off and on in
00:28:23.970 --> 00:28:25.990
fits and starts. I was filing a records request
00:28:25.990 --> 00:28:28.089
and then a month might go by where nothing happens
00:28:28.089 --> 00:28:30.150
and I'm working on other stories for Bellingcat.
00:28:30.609 --> 00:28:33.150
So I kind of have them going on in the background
00:28:33.150 --> 00:28:36.910
at any given time. This is my research assistant.
00:28:37.079 --> 00:28:39.839
My cat right here, but basically this is to show
00:28:39.839 --> 00:28:41.539
you that when you do get their records It feels
00:28:41.539 --> 00:28:45.140
like Christmas morning. It feels like You filed
00:28:45.140 --> 00:28:48.039
them months ago. You've had a couple back and
00:28:48.039 --> 00:28:52.400
forth You know email exchanges with whoever's
00:28:52.400 --> 00:28:53.759
working on your records request and then you
00:28:53.759 --> 00:28:56.259
finally get your hands on them It's it can it's
00:28:56.259 --> 00:28:59.900
a really awesome feeling So, let me show you
00:28:59.900 --> 00:29:02.200
what my records request that started this latest
00:29:02.200 --> 00:29:05.380
story look like it was a simple email I had sent
00:29:05.380 --> 00:29:07.579
a couple of similar ones before, and I basically
00:29:07.579 --> 00:29:10.440
used those as a template. This is the chief of
00:29:10.440 --> 00:29:13.680
police in the town where the murder victim was
00:29:13.680 --> 00:29:16.000
found, and he happens to be the records access
00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:18.339
officer. I just went to their website, typed
00:29:18.339 --> 00:29:20.859
in sharing police department records requests,
00:29:20.940 --> 00:29:23.380
and the first page that came up was their how
00:29:23.380 --> 00:29:26.099
-to page, which included his email. So I sent
00:29:26.099 --> 00:29:28.400
him an email, I explained what I wanted, just
00:29:28.400 --> 00:29:32.720
very simply, and spelled out exactly what I was
00:29:32.720 --> 00:29:34.819
looking for. Please ignore my cat. He's right
00:29:34.819 --> 00:29:40.000
here. Um, and basically, um, within a couple
00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:43.500
of days, I got a phone call and he explained
00:29:43.500 --> 00:29:47.480
that the case, um, which is technically still
00:29:47.480 --> 00:29:50.140
unsolved and the victim is still publicly unidentified.
00:29:50.500 --> 00:29:53.039
He explains that internally they had identified
00:29:53.039 --> 00:29:57.799
this guy years ago and, um, basically determined
00:29:57.799 --> 00:30:00.480
that he had not been murdered in that town. So
00:30:00.480 --> 00:30:04.839
the murder case itself, um, You know, prosecuting
00:30:04.839 --> 00:30:07.099
the murder suspects for this case is probably
00:30:07.099 --> 00:30:08.940
something that's going to have to be handled
00:30:08.940 --> 00:30:12.960
by the Boston police. And within days of sending
00:30:12.960 --> 00:30:16.799
that email, this is what I got. So they sent
00:30:16.799 --> 00:30:20.900
me a summary of their investigation that included
00:30:20.900 --> 00:30:23.000
the victim's name immediately. This was nowhere
00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:25.920
else online. I knew immediately, okay, I've got
00:30:25.920 --> 00:30:28.619
a story here. This is a John Doe. The police
00:30:28.619 --> 00:30:30.500
actually have his name and they're confident
00:30:30.500 --> 00:30:32.940
about it. And they've released it to me crucially.
00:30:33.910 --> 00:30:36.970
So this is what I started with. And if you see
00:30:36.970 --> 00:30:41.549
here, what happened was, more on that in a second,
00:30:42.130 --> 00:30:44.769
in this summary of the investigation that they
00:30:44.769 --> 00:30:48.769
sent me, they noted a couple of things. They
00:30:48.769 --> 00:30:51.890
said that he was suspected of being tied to a
00:30:51.890 --> 00:30:54.470
crime spree in another state. And they mentioned
00:30:54.470 --> 00:30:57.650
an arrest in Boston where the victim had actually
00:30:57.650 --> 00:31:00.250
been arrested. They also mentioned that he'd
00:31:00.250 --> 00:31:04.059
been reported missing. So that gave me a lot
00:31:04.059 --> 00:31:05.839
of stuff to work with that basically gave me
00:31:05.839 --> 00:31:08.160
ammunition for more records requests immediately
00:31:08.160 --> 00:31:12.140
So in terms of what the what the research map
00:31:12.140 --> 00:31:14.559
actually looks like it's quite simple in this
00:31:14.559 --> 00:31:18.279
case It was literally a convo with my barber
00:31:18.279 --> 00:31:21.880
That let me find a couple results online a couple
00:31:21.880 --> 00:31:24.380
newspaper articles reddit posts and that sort
00:31:24.380 --> 00:31:28.670
of thing and then from there I found the NamUs
00:31:28.670 --> 00:31:32.789
entry. I found a few articles about the discovery
00:31:32.789 --> 00:31:35.609
of the remains. And I immediately, like within
00:31:35.609 --> 00:31:37.609
a couple of days, I'd sent that email to the
00:31:37.609 --> 00:31:40.829
police asking for more info, basically. And then
00:31:40.829 --> 00:31:44.329
what happened was, in the information that I
00:31:44.329 --> 00:31:47.250
got from the police, I then had more avenues
00:31:47.250 --> 00:31:49.970
to file more records requests. So I knew that
00:31:49.970 --> 00:31:51.789
he'd been arrested in Boston, and I immediately
00:31:51.789 --> 00:31:54.289
sent a records request to Boston, to the police
00:31:54.289 --> 00:31:56.859
department there. for that arrest because I knew
00:31:56.859 --> 00:32:01.940
the date and I knew the name of the guy who'd
00:32:01.940 --> 00:32:04.859
been arrested. And I could also file a records
00:32:04.859 --> 00:32:07.559
request for the missing persons report in the
00:32:07.559 --> 00:32:09.160
town where he was living in Quincy, which is
00:32:09.160 --> 00:32:12.140
just outside of Boston. Because it had mentioned
00:32:12.140 --> 00:32:14.920
this crime spree, I could then go to newspapers
00:32:14.920 --> 00:32:17.819
.com or whatever digitized newspaper archive
00:32:17.819 --> 00:32:20.400
you want to use. I happen to use newspapers .com.
00:32:20.500 --> 00:32:23.140
I'm not endorsed by them or anything, but I happen
00:32:23.140 --> 00:32:26.069
to use them And I started looking up newspaper
00:32:26.069 --> 00:32:28.809
articles about this spree of home invasions that
00:32:28.809 --> 00:32:31.750
was going on that the victim was allegedly associated
00:32:31.750 --> 00:32:35.450
with. And so the third stage of that was sort
00:32:35.450 --> 00:32:38.309
of, okay, I need to send out as many records
00:32:38.309 --> 00:32:41.349
requests as humanly possible to as many law enforcement
00:32:41.349 --> 00:32:44.269
agencies as possible, because some of them might
00:32:44.269 --> 00:32:47.589
decide to release records to me. And you'll see
00:32:47.589 --> 00:32:51.410
that the home invasions had happened in another
00:32:51.410 --> 00:32:54.039
state in New Hampshire. So I immediately sent
00:32:54.039 --> 00:32:56.200
records requests to all of the local police departments
00:32:56.200 --> 00:32:58.500
where there had been home invasions. And then
00:32:58.500 --> 00:33:00.940
I sent records requests to all of the Massachusetts
00:33:00.940 --> 00:33:03.940
towns where those had happened. And then sort
00:33:03.940 --> 00:33:06.559
of above that, I sent them to state agencies
00:33:06.559 --> 00:33:08.380
that were involved with the investigation, the
00:33:08.380 --> 00:33:10.880
Massachusetts State Police, the medical examiner,
00:33:11.660 --> 00:33:14.500
the New Hampshire State Police, and there was
00:33:14.500 --> 00:33:17.680
mention of the FBI as well. So I filed a FOIA
00:33:17.680 --> 00:33:22.240
with them. And check this out. What do you guys
00:33:22.240 --> 00:33:25.460
notice about this? You see a lot of rejections,
00:33:25.619 --> 00:33:27.940
right? A lot of my records requests for different
00:33:27.940 --> 00:33:31.640
reasons were rejected, denied, or they came back
00:33:31.640 --> 00:33:33.200
to me and said that they don't have any records
00:33:33.200 --> 00:33:36.160
anymore because it's been 30 years. And you'll
00:33:36.160 --> 00:33:39.279
notice that the ones that did reply to me that
00:33:39.279 --> 00:33:41.160
weren't rejected and where they wrote back to
00:33:41.160 --> 00:33:43.240
me and sent me, you know, sent me files, sent
00:33:43.240 --> 00:33:45.319
me PDFs or I went and I picked up paper copies,
00:33:45.619 --> 00:33:48.299
they were local law enforcement agencies. They
00:33:48.299 --> 00:33:51.099
were pretty much all Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
00:33:51.319 --> 00:33:54.579
local police departments. And I thought that
00:33:54.579 --> 00:33:58.539
was really interesting because in those records
00:33:58.539 --> 00:34:00.500
releases, they would have documents from like
00:34:00.500 --> 00:34:03.779
the FBI or from the state attorney general's
00:34:03.779 --> 00:34:07.779
office or from the local prosecutor. So I was
00:34:07.779 --> 00:34:09.719
able to kind of use records requests at the local
00:34:09.719 --> 00:34:11.579
level to unlock a little bit more than that.
00:34:12.300 --> 00:34:14.039
I noticed that they had a bit more discretion
00:34:14.039 --> 00:34:16.760
in what they decided to release. So yeah, that's
00:34:16.760 --> 00:34:19.199
basically what I was doing here. I was asking
00:34:19.199 --> 00:34:21.460
all the local police for records on the home
00:34:21.460 --> 00:34:24.920
invasions and for the murder itself and explaining
00:34:24.920 --> 00:34:27.480
I'm a journalist. I work at Bellingcat. I'm looking
00:34:27.480 --> 00:34:31.320
into a home invasion that happened on, you know,
00:34:31.539 --> 00:34:34.260
June 20th, 1996. Can you please give me the offense
00:34:34.260 --> 00:34:38.550
report for that? So tracking records requests.
00:34:38.869 --> 00:34:40.590
There's a couple ways to do this. I keep it simple.
00:34:40.590 --> 00:34:42.750
I use Muckrock. They're really awesome. They
00:34:42.750 --> 00:34:45.789
have an automatic way to track those. And then
00:34:45.789 --> 00:34:49.409
I also just use a simple Google Sheets tracker
00:34:49.409 --> 00:34:52.789
for ones that I send outside of Muckrock, if
00:34:52.789 --> 00:34:54.409
that makes sense. So you can kind of do what
00:34:54.409 --> 00:34:56.530
you want and see what works for you. But that's
00:34:56.530 --> 00:34:59.750
what works for me, at least. What to include
00:34:59.750 --> 00:35:02.789
in your requests. And really easy way to do this
00:35:02.789 --> 00:35:05.340
is just go to Muckrock. I want to know about
00:35:05.340 --> 00:35:07.880
a murder case from the 1990s. You can go in there
00:35:07.880 --> 00:35:09.800
and you can search for folks who have submitted
00:35:09.800 --> 00:35:12.199
records requests that have been completed. And
00:35:12.199 --> 00:35:13.980
you can look at those records requests and see
00:35:13.980 --> 00:35:16.300
how they worded them and use them as a template,
00:35:16.320 --> 00:35:17.920
essentially. You're not reinventing the wheel
00:35:17.920 --> 00:35:21.480
here, but you can see what they asked for. And
00:35:21.480 --> 00:35:24.519
in this case, you can see that they worked. So
00:35:24.519 --> 00:35:27.760
if you wanted an example of a records request
00:35:27.760 --> 00:35:29.840
on a murder case that has worked where the person
00:35:29.840 --> 00:35:32.719
has gotten some files. successfully, you could
00:35:32.719 --> 00:35:34.739
go in there and use examples from someone like
00:35:34.739 --> 00:35:38.179
that. So a couple other little tricks. You can
00:35:38.179 --> 00:35:41.300
ask for the, quote, public information portions.
00:35:41.739 --> 00:35:44.380
So what's going to happen is the law enforcement
00:35:44.380 --> 00:35:47.460
agencies by law, in a lot of cases, are going
00:35:47.460 --> 00:35:50.159
to have to redact sensitive information. So that
00:35:50.159 --> 00:35:53.599
usually will be suspect names, birth dates, social
00:35:53.599 --> 00:35:55.519
security numbers, sensitive information like
00:35:55.519 --> 00:35:58.090
that. But they will internally have discussions
00:35:58.090 --> 00:35:59.909
about, hey, what can we release here? What do
00:35:59.909 --> 00:36:02.190
we need to release by law? What can we release?
00:36:02.730 --> 00:36:06.909
That sort of thing. The end product is that they
00:36:06.909 --> 00:36:09.369
might end up releasing some material that they
00:36:09.369 --> 00:36:11.489
consider should be public, but that's not already
00:36:11.489 --> 00:36:14.969
online. Borrow from requests that have worked.
00:36:15.510 --> 00:36:17.929
So here's an example from the guy in Muckrock
00:36:17.929 --> 00:36:20.329
that ended up working. He had a nifty little
00:36:20.329 --> 00:36:23.269
list here of the types of records he was requesting
00:36:23.269 --> 00:36:25.809
from the police. So if you're looking into a
00:36:25.809 --> 00:36:29.010
similar case, you could sort of base your request
00:36:29.010 --> 00:36:31.730
off of this. Of course, there's going to be limits
00:36:31.730 --> 00:36:34.329
to this. In a lot of cases, your requests are
00:36:34.329 --> 00:36:37.110
just going to be outright denied. They'll tell
00:36:37.110 --> 00:36:39.369
you, look, this is an active and ongoing investigation
00:36:39.369 --> 00:36:41.469
and we're not going to release anything. That
00:36:41.469 --> 00:36:44.730
happens fairly commonly by law, U .S. federal
00:36:44.730 --> 00:36:48.369
agencies, for example, because of privacy laws.
00:36:49.210 --> 00:36:52.130
If you're submitting a FOIA to the FBI, for example,
00:36:52.130 --> 00:36:54.699
on another living person, That's going to be
00:36:54.699 --> 00:36:57.539
denied based on privacy laws that we have here.
00:36:57.780 --> 00:37:00.079
If the subject is deceased though, and you can
00:37:00.079 --> 00:37:02.440
prove it with a death certificate or obituary
00:37:02.440 --> 00:37:04.400
from a major newspaper or something like that,
00:37:04.519 --> 00:37:07.460
they might release files to you if the case isn't
00:37:07.460 --> 00:37:10.840
considered active and ongoing. So there's limits
00:37:10.840 --> 00:37:13.079
to it. I've had a lot of requests that are just
00:37:13.079 --> 00:37:14.920
denied where they just, they don't want to release
00:37:14.920 --> 00:37:17.340
anything. Actually, for the most recent case,
00:37:17.460 --> 00:37:20.219
the district attorney would not release any of
00:37:20.219 --> 00:37:22.300
their file to me, but the local police department
00:37:22.300 --> 00:37:24.340
would. So that's a little interesting. There's
00:37:24.340 --> 00:37:27.619
differences between some of the agencies. So
00:37:27.619 --> 00:37:30.159
this is my process on the latest story. This
00:37:30.159 --> 00:37:33.059
might look different for others, but I kept it
00:37:33.059 --> 00:37:35.019
pretty simple. I just started with basic open
00:37:35.019 --> 00:37:36.940
source research, like you do on anything, search
00:37:36.940 --> 00:37:40.139
engines, newspapers .com and NamUs. And then
00:37:40.139 --> 00:37:42.239
I had multiple rounds of FOIAs. And the ones
00:37:42.239 --> 00:37:44.980
that worked the best for me were the FOIAs with
00:37:44.980 --> 00:37:46.860
the lead investigating agency, which was the
00:37:46.860 --> 00:37:48.860
local police department investigating the murder.
00:37:49.340 --> 00:37:52.199
So my first FOIA with them. unlocked a lot of
00:37:52.199 --> 00:37:53.980
leads to work with. And then I actually went
00:37:53.980 --> 00:37:57.980
back to them when I had worked the story from
00:37:57.980 --> 00:37:59.860
every other possible angle. I went back to them
00:37:59.860 --> 00:38:02.679
and I asked for more records and they released
00:38:02.679 --> 00:38:06.400
more records to me. So those were the most valuable
00:38:06.400 --> 00:38:10.699
FOIAs in this story. But I did get some extra
00:38:10.699 --> 00:38:13.440
sort of contextual info, some more info on the
00:38:13.440 --> 00:38:15.539
gang and the crime spree from other police departments
00:38:15.539 --> 00:38:18.920
in other states. And then lastly, our billing
00:38:18.920 --> 00:38:21.460
cat stories, the final step is I'm writing that
00:38:21.460 --> 00:38:23.639
up into a story form. I'm working with my editors
00:38:23.639 --> 00:38:26.519
to make the necessary edits. And then we're seeking
00:38:26.519 --> 00:38:28.159
comment from the authorities. Hey, we're about
00:38:28.159 --> 00:38:30.619
to report X, Y, and Z. Do you have an official
00:38:30.619 --> 00:38:33.300
comment you'd like to make? So keep it simple.
00:38:33.460 --> 00:38:35.840
Do one step at a time. Like with other OSINT
00:38:35.840 --> 00:38:38.940
investigations, be methodical. Keep track of
00:38:38.940 --> 00:38:40.940
your findings and leave a trail of breadcrumbs
00:38:40.940 --> 00:38:44.579
for yourself so you know how you found everything.
00:38:45.719 --> 00:38:48.420
And I think most importantly, be patient. There's
00:38:48.420 --> 00:38:52.500
a reason. these cases are unsolved and that they're
00:38:52.500 --> 00:38:55.539
decades old. They are usually very complicated
00:38:55.539 --> 00:38:58.280
or there's not a lot out there. Um, and it takes
00:38:58.280 --> 00:39:00.960
time for the person processing your records request
00:39:00.960 --> 00:39:03.360
to actually work on it. A couple of lessons I
00:39:03.360 --> 00:39:06.679
learned in this. Um, I filed that first records
00:39:06.679 --> 00:39:08.619
request with the local police department, and
00:39:08.619 --> 00:39:10.699
then I spent like months and months filing other
00:39:10.699 --> 00:39:13.219
records requests with like every other supporting
00:39:13.219 --> 00:39:15.199
law enforcement agency remotely mentioned in
00:39:15.199 --> 00:39:19.369
those documents. Before I went back to the lead
00:39:19.369 --> 00:39:21.849
investigating agency and asked for more. And
00:39:21.849 --> 00:39:25.250
they decided to release a lot more to me. And
00:39:25.250 --> 00:39:27.730
I remember they actually told me, they were like,
00:39:27.750 --> 00:39:28.769
you know, you probably would have saved some
00:39:28.769 --> 00:39:30.769
time if you had just come back and asked us again
00:39:30.769 --> 00:39:34.630
earlier. And I'm like, yeah, you're right. And
00:39:34.630 --> 00:39:36.409
then behind your records request, just remember
00:39:36.409 --> 00:39:38.170
that there are real people working on these.
00:39:39.170 --> 00:39:42.349
I have found working in this story that the people
00:39:42.349 --> 00:39:45.639
responsible for dealing with records requests,
00:39:45.719 --> 00:39:47.539
and a lot of cases with the local police departments
00:39:47.539 --> 00:39:51.320
here in New England, really, like, cared about
00:39:51.320 --> 00:39:54.239
trying to release what they could. And they would
00:39:54.239 --> 00:39:56.659
call me or email me with questions and try to
00:39:56.659 --> 00:39:58.539
kind of work with me a little bit to determine,
00:39:58.840 --> 00:40:01.179
like, hey, we're not having any luck finding
00:40:01.179 --> 00:40:03.559
these records. Is maybe the date wrong? Like,
00:40:03.579 --> 00:40:05.880
I had a couple really awesome interactions like
00:40:05.880 --> 00:40:07.679
that where they actually worked with me to try
00:40:07.679 --> 00:40:10.219
to release as much as they could under the law.
00:40:10.809 --> 00:40:12.769
So just remember that. I think that helps. It's
00:40:12.769 --> 00:40:14.389
not just like a robot answering it. It's usually
00:40:14.389 --> 00:40:17.909
a person on the other end. So retired law enforcement,
00:40:18.389 --> 00:40:19.969
when you work in the media, retired law enforcement
00:40:19.969 --> 00:40:23.590
are sometimes willing to be interviewed. In the
00:40:23.590 --> 00:40:26.030
case of this story, I ended up being able to
00:40:26.030 --> 00:40:28.530
interview a retired detective who was really
00:40:28.530 --> 00:40:31.010
like the main investigator for the homicide case.
00:40:31.489 --> 00:40:35.030
And I could talk to him and ask him questions
00:40:35.030 --> 00:40:37.880
that were sort of... gaps in the murder file
00:40:37.880 --> 00:40:39.619
where I wasn't sure about something I could check
00:40:39.619 --> 00:40:41.940
it with him and he would sort of confirm or point
00:40:41.940 --> 00:40:44.400
me in a better direction. So that helped a lot.
00:40:44.760 --> 00:40:48.019
And if possible, go local. I've generally had
00:40:48.019 --> 00:40:52.079
much better luck getting useful records back
00:40:52.079 --> 00:40:54.579
from local law enforcement agencies than I have
00:40:54.579 --> 00:40:56.980
from federal and state here in the United States.
00:40:57.440 --> 00:40:59.639
So if you're interested in getting involved,
00:41:00.300 --> 00:41:04.119
these are just, in my opinion, some ways to maybe
00:41:04.119 --> 00:41:07.420
start that. So join a community, even if you're
00:41:07.420 --> 00:41:09.860
just there to lurk. You know, obviously I'm biased
00:41:09.860 --> 00:41:11.260
because I'm a Bellingcat and we're kind of all
00:41:11.260 --> 00:41:14.059
about that, but we have a Discord channel, for
00:41:14.059 --> 00:41:16.239
example, on using OSINT to look into cold cases.
00:41:16.300 --> 00:41:18.280
That's a good place to start. There's plenty
00:41:18.280 --> 00:41:22.360
of communities out there. Read, watch, listen,
00:41:22.980 --> 00:41:27.199
consume well -reported investigations and try
00:41:27.199 --> 00:41:29.539
to sift through the more sensational and stuff
00:41:29.539 --> 00:41:31.599
out there because I'm sure all of you are aware
00:41:31.599 --> 00:41:34.980
that there is a lot of true crime. It's a huge...
00:41:34.730 --> 00:41:38.449
huge space and there's a whole spectrum of people
00:41:38.449 --> 00:41:40.530
creating all kinds of content and doing all kinds
00:41:40.530 --> 00:41:44.489
of investigations of varying qualities and Ranging
00:41:44.489 --> 00:41:46.610
from people making accusations on tick -tock
00:41:46.610 --> 00:41:48.630
or something like that. So you need to be careful
00:41:48.630 --> 00:41:52.090
and I would look for People who do the types
00:41:52.090 --> 00:41:54.210
of investigations that that you're interested
00:41:54.210 --> 00:41:58.489
in and go from there. I Have only I've only worked
00:41:58.489 --> 00:42:00.969
on three Unsolved murder cases in two different
00:42:00.969 --> 00:42:03.070
stories. So I'm still learning a lot of this
00:42:03.070 --> 00:42:06.650
myself and I'm constantly Looking at my peers
00:42:06.650 --> 00:42:09.210
at other media outlets that focus on unsolved
00:42:09.210 --> 00:42:10.809
murders and I'm trying to like learn from them
00:42:10.809 --> 00:42:13.590
Like how are how are they filing foyers in a
00:42:13.590 --> 00:42:15.690
better way that I can learn from and I try to
00:42:15.690 --> 00:42:17.429
talk to them whenever possible and we kind of
00:42:17.429 --> 00:42:20.050
share share our experiences and stuff and that
00:42:20.050 --> 00:42:22.710
that helps and I've learned a lot that way and
00:42:22.710 --> 00:42:24.730
lastly, I would just say try to look for under
00:42:24.730 --> 00:42:26.590
reported cases that need attention because there
00:42:26.590 --> 00:42:28.809
are just tons of them out there. They are not
00:42:28.809 --> 00:42:31.329
hard to find. They're just sitting out there
00:42:31.329 --> 00:42:35.630
online in databases. And these research projects
00:42:35.630 --> 00:42:39.150
are marathons. They are not sprints. I am always
00:42:39.150 --> 00:42:41.869
working on other investigations for Bell and
00:42:41.869 --> 00:42:46.210
Cat while I'm doing these. So yeah, this is not
00:42:46.210 --> 00:42:49.429
comprehensive. These are a lot of the sources
00:42:49.429 --> 00:42:53.699
that I tend to rely on. So online newspaper articles
00:42:53.699 --> 00:42:56.659
are huge because a lot of the information on
00:42:56.659 --> 00:43:00.619
cases from like the 60s, 70s, 80s, even the 90s
00:43:00.619 --> 00:43:03.599
isn't really online outside of digitized newspapers.
00:43:04.119 --> 00:43:06.980
And a lot of reporters for those newspapers did
00:43:06.980 --> 00:43:11.420
really awesome, sometimes very in -depth articles
00:43:11.420 --> 00:43:14.159
early on about some of these cases. So pretty
00:43:14.159 --> 00:43:16.019
much everyone I've worked on, there's been an
00:43:16.019 --> 00:43:18.039
in -depth piece about sort of the initial murder
00:43:18.039 --> 00:43:20.510
or the initial discovery of the remains. and
00:43:20.510 --> 00:43:22.130
then you'll find that they sort of trail off
00:43:22.130 --> 00:43:24.309
and that's why they're cold, right? So those
00:43:24.309 --> 00:43:27.570
are very important newspapers. Genealogy Services,
00:43:27.769 --> 00:43:31.730
Ancestry .com, there's others out there, but
00:43:31.730 --> 00:43:34.789
you can find useful materials like a death certificate
00:43:34.789 --> 00:43:37.050
sometimes for the victim that might help you
00:43:37.050 --> 00:43:41.369
with your records requests. Social media, I look
00:43:41.369 --> 00:43:43.289
at cases that are pre -social media, so this
00:43:43.289 --> 00:43:45.630
is less relevant for the past couple that I've
00:43:45.630 --> 00:43:47.690
worked with at least, but they might be useful
00:43:47.690 --> 00:43:49.960
if you're looking at... had cases from, I don't
00:43:49.960 --> 00:43:52.320
know, the early 2000s or the 2010s or something
00:43:52.320 --> 00:43:55.579
like that. And last, but certainly not least,
00:43:56.139 --> 00:43:59.440
eFOYAs. Filing FOYAs electronically online are
00:43:59.440 --> 00:44:01.539
super important and there's so many good resources.
00:44:01.699 --> 00:44:04.920
Muckrock being like the key, in my opinion, at
00:44:04.920 --> 00:44:08.179
least for US research. More resources out there
00:44:08.179 --> 00:44:10.019
to find cases in your local area, but I would
00:44:10.019 --> 00:44:12.500
turn to your national databases first, wherever
00:44:12.500 --> 00:44:15.599
you live. There's these other ones. Charlie Project
00:44:15.599 --> 00:44:18.670
is really great. The DNA Do network. You can
00:44:18.670 --> 00:44:21.789
find cases all over the place. There's also some
00:44:21.789 --> 00:44:23.789
kind of crowdsourcing platforms that are newer.
00:44:24.349 --> 00:44:26.949
There's one called Solve the Case that I like
00:44:26.949 --> 00:44:29.809
in the U .S. where it doesn't have a lot of cases
00:44:29.809 --> 00:44:31.769
in it yet because it started in the past like
00:44:31.769 --> 00:44:34.690
two years. But there's a map where you can search
00:44:34.690 --> 00:44:37.510
for cases that have been put in there either
00:44:37.510 --> 00:44:39.789
by researchers or by law enforcement or by victims'
00:44:39.969 --> 00:44:42.969
families. And they'll have photos of the victim
00:44:42.969 --> 00:44:44.849
and kind of an account of the investigation and
00:44:44.849 --> 00:44:48.000
whatnot to get started. your library even, I
00:44:48.000 --> 00:44:50.460
ended up asking some reference librarians questions
00:44:50.460 --> 00:44:53.480
on how to do like some of the pre -internet research
00:44:53.480 --> 00:44:55.559
that I needed to do and that was really helpful
00:44:55.559 --> 00:44:58.059
and it was kind of fun to like go to a local
00:44:58.059 --> 00:45:00.440
library and like talk to a human person in person
00:45:00.440 --> 00:45:04.159
and learn some of that old school research. And
00:45:04.159 --> 00:45:07.460
lastly, if you guys have any questions, you have
00:45:07.460 --> 00:45:11.760
my Discord username here. You can send me a DM
00:45:11.760 --> 00:45:16.849
on here. I'm also on bluesguy there. And just
00:45:16.849 --> 00:45:19.010
keep in mind that there are so many of these
00:45:19.010 --> 00:45:21.130
cases that you could be the only person that's
00:45:21.130 --> 00:45:22.969
really interested in finding anything about it.
00:45:23.050 --> 00:45:25.409
It might be a case from the 60s where there's
00:45:25.409 --> 00:45:28.369
no living family left and this person's remains
00:45:28.369 --> 00:45:30.110
are sitting in a box somewhere unidentified.
00:45:30.630 --> 00:45:32.949
So I think it's a really cool area that can benefit
00:45:32.949 --> 00:45:35.849
from open source research. And I would encourage
00:45:35.849 --> 00:45:38.389
folks who are interested in it to learn about
00:45:38.389 --> 00:45:41.610
it. Yeah. Thank you, Peter. Thank you. That was,
00:45:41.610 --> 00:45:43.449
I think someone put in the comments earlier.
00:45:43.739 --> 00:45:47.579
What an amazing talk that was. So much information
00:45:47.579 --> 00:45:51.619
and so many helpful tips and tricks. I can absolutely
00:45:51.619 --> 00:45:56.099
second the need to call some of these offices
00:45:56.099 --> 00:46:00.260
and how charm can take you a long, long way in
00:46:00.260 --> 00:46:04.219
terms of getting a response. Peter has that in
00:46:04.219 --> 00:46:08.559
a lot of charms. Yeah, I didn't talk about that,
00:46:08.579 --> 00:46:10.400
I guess. I kind of skipped it over, but that
00:46:10.400 --> 00:46:14.519
ended up being... Very useful as if possible
00:46:14.519 --> 00:46:16.559
if you can talk to a human person looking at
00:46:16.559 --> 00:46:20.300
your requests on the phone And they can tell
00:46:20.300 --> 00:46:24.239
that you know, you're Like a researcher doing
00:46:24.239 --> 00:46:26.900
just trying to just trying to figure out information
00:46:26.900 --> 00:46:29.760
about this And again in this case, I'll just
00:46:29.760 --> 00:46:31.360
I can only speak to the experience that I've
00:46:31.360 --> 00:46:34.639
had so far in this case It was something that
00:46:34.639 --> 00:46:38.059
they all all of the current police that that
00:46:38.059 --> 00:46:40.420
I dealt with all remembered this case because
00:46:40.420 --> 00:46:42.159
they were working at the time that this skeleton
00:46:42.159 --> 00:46:44.739
was found, but none of them had remembered any
00:46:44.739 --> 00:46:47.420
kind of resolution with it. And they had had
00:46:47.420 --> 00:46:49.960
to move on to other murder cases and other crimes
00:46:49.960 --> 00:46:53.880
to investigate. And so they were willing to work
00:46:53.880 --> 00:46:56.179
with me to try to tell as much of this story
00:46:56.179 --> 00:46:59.780
as possible and to release as many of the records
00:46:59.780 --> 00:47:05.599
as they could under the law. So it was having
00:47:05.599 --> 00:47:07.360
the sort of exchanges with them, like over the
00:47:07.360 --> 00:47:11.889
phone. Was was useful and it was it I think it
00:47:11.889 --> 00:47:14.389
it can help out more than just like doing it
00:47:14.389 --> 00:47:17.030
over email But you have to decide that for yourself
00:47:17.030 --> 00:47:19.349
as well. I mean you have to decide how involved
00:47:19.349 --> 00:47:22.630
you want to be so Absolutely, and as we've only
00:47:22.630 --> 00:47:25.070
got like 10 minutes left, perhaps we can go five
00:47:25.070 --> 00:47:27.670
minutes over just because we have so many questions
00:47:27.670 --> 00:47:31.309
Just on that point. We had a question earlier
00:47:31.309 --> 00:47:34.059
from somebody in the audience who's asking when
00:47:34.059 --> 00:47:36.039
they ask for credentials, what are some ways
00:47:36.039 --> 00:47:39.760
we can respond? Obviously they should be replying
00:47:39.760 --> 00:47:42.440
to your freedom of information requests anyway,
00:47:42.780 --> 00:47:45.840
because it is a legal right that you have to
00:47:45.840 --> 00:47:48.599
ask these kinds of questions. But if you are
00:47:48.599 --> 00:47:52.219
doing those kinds of personal reach outs, for
00:47:52.219 --> 00:47:54.780
example, for interviews and you don't have Bellingcat
00:47:54.780 --> 00:47:58.150
backing you, what are ways to kind of... perhaps
00:47:58.150 --> 00:48:01.349
convince people that you aren't looking for a
00:48:01.349 --> 00:48:04.550
sensational murder podcast, for example, and
00:48:04.550 --> 00:48:07.429
you're actually trying to help further the case?
00:48:07.989 --> 00:48:09.630
That's a really, that's a really, really good
00:48:09.630 --> 00:48:11.650
question. And it's different for interviews than
00:48:11.650 --> 00:48:14.409
with records requests. Again, I can only speak
00:48:14.409 --> 00:48:19.090
to my experience. And in the US, when I'm filing
00:48:19.090 --> 00:48:21.210
the records requests themselves, I don't have
00:48:21.210 --> 00:48:24.389
to prove that I'm anybody. I usually say that
00:48:24.389 --> 00:48:29.550
I'm a researcher with Bellingcat. and they'll
00:48:29.550 --> 00:48:32.590
see my email signature or whatever. But I don't
00:48:32.590 --> 00:48:35.349
have to provide them like a press card or something
00:48:35.349 --> 00:48:38.489
like that to prove my credentials. So for the
00:48:38.489 --> 00:48:39.869
records requests themselves, that's different.
00:48:40.230 --> 00:48:43.070
For interviews, it's really tricky because I
00:48:43.070 --> 00:48:46.329
have an enormous amount of difficulty even working
00:48:46.329 --> 00:48:49.269
for Bellingcat, getting people to agree to speak
00:48:49.269 --> 00:48:51.610
with me. In fact, I'd say 90 percent of the time
00:48:51.610 --> 00:48:54.250
when you reach out to someone to speak with them,
00:48:54.349 --> 00:48:57.230
retired, law enforcement a lot of the time, just
00:48:57.230 --> 00:48:59.630
they're not interested in speaking to the media
00:48:59.630 --> 00:49:04.650
at all, let alone someone just a random Joe's
00:49:04.650 --> 00:49:06.929
Moe who wants to know about an old case that
00:49:06.929 --> 00:49:09.289
they worked on. So it's a good question. I don't
00:49:09.289 --> 00:49:11.230
really have an answer for the interview part.
00:49:12.110 --> 00:49:14.829
I try to interview anybody who will speak to
00:49:14.829 --> 00:49:18.110
me that I can identify. And I try to give them
00:49:18.110 --> 00:49:21.469
an opportunity to speak if they're going to be
00:49:21.469 --> 00:49:24.269
mentioned in the story, especially. But in most
00:49:24.269 --> 00:49:27.019
cases, people actually don't really, they have
00:49:27.019 --> 00:49:29.739
no interest in revisiting it. So it depends.
00:49:29.860 --> 00:49:33.199
I lucked out though, I was able to find a retired
00:49:33.199 --> 00:49:35.199
detective who decided like, you know what, I
00:49:35.199 --> 00:49:37.139
remember this case and it's ridiculous that it's
00:49:37.139 --> 00:49:41.119
still unsolved and he's still unidentified. That's
00:49:41.119 --> 00:49:43.719
the best I can answer. I think there's a lot
00:49:43.719 --> 00:49:45.320
of people out there who are a lot more skilled
00:49:45.320 --> 00:49:47.719
than me at getting people to talk on the record
00:49:47.719 --> 00:49:50.380
and get interviewed. Yeah. I would maybe suggest
00:49:50.380 --> 00:49:53.179
if you're thinking about interviewing individuals
00:49:53.179 --> 00:49:56.460
involved in cases, One, make sure that they are
00:49:56.460 --> 00:49:58.179
from the get -go. They're aware of what's going
00:49:58.179 --> 00:50:00.980
to happen to their voice in terms of where you're
00:50:00.980 --> 00:50:04.000
going to put it and what the outcome or the output
00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:06.380
is going to look like. And two, maybe listening
00:50:06.380 --> 00:50:09.539
and looking for resources on how to deal with
00:50:09.539 --> 00:50:13.099
sensitive sources would be a useful place to
00:50:13.099 --> 00:50:16.079
look for advice. We've had a previous talk on
00:50:16.079 --> 00:50:19.940
that. You can find it on our RSS feed or on any
00:50:19.940 --> 00:50:21.500
podcast platform under stage towards the villain
00:50:21.500 --> 00:50:24.079
cat. But there's also loads of resources online
00:50:24.079 --> 00:50:27.219
for journalists and researchers on how to talk
00:50:27.219 --> 00:50:30.119
to people who perhaps have gone through a traumatic
00:50:30.119 --> 00:50:32.900
event. Because again, all of the cases that we're
00:50:32.900 --> 00:50:35.320
talking about here are traumatic events, even
00:50:35.320 --> 00:50:37.480
if you're a detective. Some of these murder cases,
00:50:37.639 --> 00:50:40.260
for example, particularly unsolved ones, may
00:50:40.260 --> 00:50:42.219
still be in the back of your mind as something
00:50:42.219 --> 00:50:45.059
that's niggling away. Moving on very, very quickly,
00:50:45.440 --> 00:50:48.659
because of time, I was going to ask you about
00:50:48.659 --> 00:50:53.179
whether having A first response to an FOIA was
00:50:53.179 --> 00:50:56.239
useful to then file others, but in your case,
00:50:56.539 --> 00:51:00.469
it absolutely was. Do you think if you hadn't
00:51:00.469 --> 00:51:03.170
got that initial response with so much detail
00:51:03.170 --> 00:51:06.269
in it, that you would have been able to map out
00:51:06.269 --> 00:51:11.210
the bureaucratic maze of agencies and where you
00:51:11.210 --> 00:51:13.730
should have FOI'd in the first place? Or do you
00:51:13.730 --> 00:51:15.889
think it's quite difficult to find that out when
00:51:15.889 --> 00:51:18.369
you're starting afresh? For example, how do you
00:51:18.369 --> 00:51:22.949
know which local authority to message first?
00:51:23.260 --> 00:51:25.980
How do you go about that process? And then somebody
00:51:25.980 --> 00:51:28.860
else has asked that's linked to that. It sounds
00:51:28.860 --> 00:51:31.460
like local is more responsive than larger jurisdictions.
00:51:31.639 --> 00:51:34.199
Are there other attributes common to organizations
00:51:34.199 --> 00:51:37.400
that are more responsive to requests? Yeah, those
00:51:37.400 --> 00:51:41.099
are both very, very good questions. So for one,
00:51:41.139 --> 00:51:44.300
with the first records request, in short, I would
00:51:44.300 --> 00:51:46.260
not have been able to do the research that I
00:51:46.260 --> 00:51:48.980
did on this story had they not given me that
00:51:48.980 --> 00:51:54.880
initial summary that identified other jurisdictions
00:51:54.880 --> 00:51:58.559
where I could then ask for more records. And
00:51:58.559 --> 00:52:00.539
essentially my initial request got me a name
00:52:00.539 --> 00:52:04.219
and two more agencies to file records requests
00:52:04.219 --> 00:52:06.659
with and material to be searching for in historic
00:52:06.659 --> 00:52:08.860
newspapers. So it opened up the whole can of
00:52:08.860 --> 00:52:11.739
worms. That's not always going to happen. I lucked
00:52:11.739 --> 00:52:15.380
out here again. So that would be my answer to
00:52:15.380 --> 00:52:19.380
that is you're looking for opportunities to widen
00:52:19.380 --> 00:52:22.119
your research window. And sometimes FOIAs can
00:52:22.119 --> 00:52:24.639
do that for you, but that's not always the case.
00:52:25.400 --> 00:52:28.480
To the second question about, are there other
00:52:28.480 --> 00:52:30.659
attributes with agencies that are more willing
00:52:30.659 --> 00:52:36.119
to be responsive to records requests? It's tricky.
00:52:36.599 --> 00:52:39.260
In the US right now, at the federal level, we've
00:52:39.260 --> 00:52:42.940
had enormous changes to our freedom of information
00:52:42.940 --> 00:52:46.239
offices across federal agencies. And I've heard
00:52:46.239 --> 00:52:48.099
from colleagues at other places that they have
00:52:48.099 --> 00:52:51.480
a lot more trouble and they face more significant
00:52:51.480 --> 00:52:53.760
delays in getting records at the federal level
00:52:53.760 --> 00:52:59.400
now. And I know a lot of my peers are turning
00:52:59.400 --> 00:53:02.460
to more local government offices when they're
00:53:02.460 --> 00:53:06.320
able to. So I think the biggest difference for
00:53:06.320 --> 00:53:09.059
me at the local level was that usually it would
00:53:09.059 --> 00:53:12.239
be a person who is assigned to be like the records
00:53:12.239 --> 00:53:14.940
access officer as like a side duty to their main
00:53:14.940 --> 00:53:17.039
job. It might be a police officer. It could be
00:53:17.239 --> 00:53:20.960
like an admin assistant in the office. And usually
00:53:20.960 --> 00:53:24.420
when it was like a single person who was writing,
00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:27.219
who was responding to me or calling me, that
00:53:27.219 --> 00:53:31.679
was when it became a little bit more productive
00:53:31.679 --> 00:53:34.539
is because we could kind of work together to
00:53:34.539 --> 00:53:36.679
first find these records because they're so old
00:53:36.679 --> 00:53:38.420
that a lot of times they're kept in like a separate
00:53:38.420 --> 00:53:42.159
storage location. So sometimes the issue is just
00:53:42.159 --> 00:53:44.280
that these are old paper files that are misplaced
00:53:44.280 --> 00:53:46.920
or lost. And it's just a matter of like finding
00:53:46.920 --> 00:53:48.920
them. I wish I had a more comprehensive answer
00:53:48.920 --> 00:53:50.980
and like what else makes it easier, but I think
00:53:50.980 --> 00:53:54.940
being detailed and concise and using other records
00:53:54.940 --> 00:53:56.519
requests that have worked for others, I think
00:53:56.519 --> 00:53:58.219
using those as a template is a good place to
00:53:58.219 --> 00:54:01.800
start. Yes, I also put in the chat, sometimes
00:54:01.800 --> 00:54:04.820
it's also okay to just ring up and ask who is
00:54:04.820 --> 00:54:07.320
the right authority for this. I have done that
00:54:07.320 --> 00:54:10.039
on a few occasions and they've actually thanked
00:54:10.039 --> 00:54:12.219
me for doing it before filing because it saves
00:54:12.219 --> 00:54:15.159
you time and it saves them time. We had a question
00:54:15.159 --> 00:54:18.679
earlier from Delta who said, what do you suggest
00:54:18.679 --> 00:54:20.940
someone who is investigating cold cases do if
00:54:20.940 --> 00:54:25.539
their home country does not have FOIA capability?
00:54:26.260 --> 00:54:29.420
Which is the case in some countries. And also
00:54:29.420 --> 00:54:31.880
what is the general legality for digging into
00:54:31.880 --> 00:54:34.440
these cases? For example, if there isn't freedom
00:54:34.440 --> 00:54:37.340
of information requests at your disposal. Yeah,
00:54:37.539 --> 00:54:41.739
in short, I have personally never worked on trying
00:54:41.739 --> 00:54:44.420
to work on a case in a country without any FOI
00:54:44.420 --> 00:54:47.400
laws. So I'm very curious about that too. I wish
00:54:47.400 --> 00:54:49.059
I had some answers. I would like to learn them
00:54:49.059 --> 00:54:53.039
myself. I think in some of those countries that
00:54:53.039 --> 00:54:54.820
are like that, I would also assume there might
00:54:54.820 --> 00:55:00.940
be very significant risks in doing that, even
00:55:00.940 --> 00:55:03.860
more risks than in other places in doing that
00:55:03.860 --> 00:55:07.340
type of work. You know, I don't want to, that's
00:55:07.340 --> 00:55:09.400
a whole separate subject is like, like you're
00:55:09.400 --> 00:55:11.380
like conducting your risk assessment on how safe
00:55:11.380 --> 00:55:13.840
is it for me to do this type of investigation?
00:55:14.039 --> 00:55:15.320
That's like, we could give a whole other talk
00:55:15.320 --> 00:55:18.820
on, on that. And I think we've had talks on like
00:55:18.820 --> 00:55:21.559
personal safety and security when doing OSINT,
00:55:21.760 --> 00:55:25.000
but that's a great question. I've never tried
00:55:25.000 --> 00:55:27.460
it in a country that doesn't have FOI laws. I
00:55:27.460 --> 00:55:30.099
think you do have to be relying a lot more on
00:55:30.099 --> 00:55:33.679
previous, you know, previous media coverage,
00:55:33.840 --> 00:55:39.519
older newspapers. talking to other researchers
00:55:39.519 --> 00:55:42.739
who've worked on it or to retired investigators
00:55:42.739 --> 00:55:46.019
or to members of the community wherever you are.
00:55:46.800 --> 00:55:48.639
That's what I would do. My first stop would be
00:55:48.639 --> 00:55:52.300
members of other researchers who investigate
00:55:52.300 --> 00:55:54.900
this type of crime in that country and learning
00:55:54.900 --> 00:55:56.840
from them. Charlie, what was the second part
00:55:56.840 --> 00:55:59.260
of the question? Sorry. It was about the legality,
00:55:59.460 --> 00:56:03.989
but I think you've answered it. Yeah, thanks
00:56:03.989 --> 00:56:07.769
so much. Yeah. I mean, with all Bellingcat stories,
00:56:08.349 --> 00:56:11.809
like the legality part, we have the benefit of
00:56:11.809 --> 00:56:14.409
working for a newsroom with an editorial team.
00:56:14.869 --> 00:56:17.010
We go through legal review on our articles and
00:56:17.010 --> 00:56:18.570
stuff like that. So if you're an independent
00:56:18.570 --> 00:56:23.369
researcher, that looks a lot different. But I
00:56:23.369 --> 00:56:25.710
would say on a positive note with that, when
00:56:25.710 --> 00:56:28.289
you're asking authorities or government offices
00:56:28.289 --> 00:56:30.719
to release information to you, you're asking
00:56:30.719 --> 00:56:32.780
them to make certain information public so they
00:56:32.780 --> 00:56:35.420
have those discussions internally. And that happened
00:56:35.420 --> 00:56:38.059
in this case where the police had to go to a
00:56:38.059 --> 00:56:40.440
town attorney and determine, this happened actually
00:56:40.440 --> 00:56:43.920
multiple times, and the town attorneys would
00:56:43.920 --> 00:56:45.920
go through and redact sensitive information or
00:56:45.920 --> 00:56:48.119
tell them, hey, you can release this, you can't
00:56:48.119 --> 00:56:51.119
release that. So you're asking them to make those
00:56:51.119 --> 00:56:54.099
decisions for you in some cases. And we had a
00:56:54.099 --> 00:56:56.739
question earlier about complaints as well, like
00:56:56.739 --> 00:57:00.269
if you have to then take it Further, for example,
00:57:00.269 --> 00:57:02.650
if they reject it, but you feel like they shouldn't.
00:57:02.809 --> 00:57:06.550
And just as a quick note on that, most countries
00:57:06.550 --> 00:57:10.130
that have FOI systems also have a place for you
00:57:10.130 --> 00:57:14.190
to report if you feel like your request has not
00:57:14.190 --> 00:57:17.969
been met, your legal right has not been met.
00:57:18.670 --> 00:57:20.889
For example, in the UK, we have like the information
00:57:20.889 --> 00:57:23.630
commissioner. I think you have a similar system
00:57:23.630 --> 00:57:26.610
in the US and it's usually you have to wait a
00:57:26.610 --> 00:57:29.679
certain amount of time. And then you can kind
00:57:29.679 --> 00:57:33.380
of complain to the authority and see if they
00:57:33.380 --> 00:57:36.579
will rectify that. And then you can push it to
00:57:36.579 --> 00:57:40.420
the information commissioner or the similar legal
00:57:40.420 --> 00:57:42.940
authority that exists in your country. And that's
00:57:42.940 --> 00:57:44.739
quite a quick Google and you can find more information
00:57:44.739 --> 00:57:49.880
about that. We've had a few questions actually
00:57:49.880 --> 00:57:53.619
about your safety when working on organised crime,
00:57:53.800 --> 00:57:55.860
cold cases particularly. I know we just covered
00:57:55.860 --> 00:57:58.000
that slightly, but I wonder if you could just
00:57:58.000 --> 00:58:02.480
reassure people that you are safe working on
00:58:02.480 --> 00:58:06.780
cold cases of criminal organised networks. And
00:58:06.780 --> 00:58:10.340
it is due to the fact that you have some experience
00:58:10.340 --> 00:58:13.690
in this, right? Yeah, there's there's a that's
00:58:13.690 --> 00:58:16.590
a there's a lot to that question and and a lot
00:58:16.590 --> 00:58:19.010
to try to cover in a short amount of time So
00:58:19.010 --> 00:58:23.090
at a very high level and not gonna be able to
00:58:23.090 --> 00:58:25.110
answer this completely in a short window But
00:58:25.110 --> 00:58:28.130
at a very high level in a lot of ways doing this
00:58:28.130 --> 00:58:32.269
type of story You I'm taking the same precautions
00:58:32.269 --> 00:58:34.909
that I would with other organized crime stories
00:58:34.909 --> 00:58:37.849
that I'm doing a Bellingcat and a big part of
00:58:37.849 --> 00:58:41.210
that is the sort of like With it with the online
00:58:41.210 --> 00:58:44.110
portions of it. It's it's not leaving a trace
00:58:44.110 --> 00:58:47.769
I think a big part of cold case investigations
00:58:47.769 --> 00:58:52.610
though is the concept that the killer the killers
00:58:52.610 --> 00:58:56.170
the accomplices the suspects in it are Theoretically
00:58:56.170 --> 00:58:58.349
still out there if they're still alive, right?
00:58:59.550 --> 00:59:02.829
That's definitely a serious consideration with
00:59:02.829 --> 00:59:06.429
this case I'll speak to like this case for example
00:59:07.779 --> 00:59:10.860
It was a big reason, I mean, it was one of many
00:59:10.860 --> 00:59:14.380
reasons why the law enforcement records I got,
00:59:14.519 --> 00:59:18.500
the suspect names were redacted because they
00:59:18.500 --> 00:59:21.039
had internal discussions about what they considered
00:59:21.039 --> 00:59:23.739
safe to release to the media and what wasn't.
00:59:23.860 --> 00:59:26.239
And that was a big one. They redacted the suspect's
00:59:26.239 --> 00:59:30.079
names. Personal safety steps, I mean, a lot of
00:59:30.079 --> 00:59:33.610
standard stuff, you know, using VPNs. I think
00:59:33.610 --> 00:59:35.969
a big one for me is having a big network of people
00:59:35.969 --> 00:59:38.130
that I'm talking to at any given time. I'm talking
00:59:38.130 --> 00:59:41.670
to current and retired law enforcement. I'm talking
00:59:41.670 --> 00:59:45.269
to colleagues that do this type of work. We have
00:59:45.269 --> 00:59:48.670
our own safety and security officer at Bellingcat
00:59:48.670 --> 00:59:51.570
that I can go to with any sort of, you know,
00:59:51.789 --> 00:59:54.130
if there's any sort of threat or risk or I'm
00:59:54.130 --> 00:59:58.050
worried about anything in particular. But let
00:59:58.050 --> 01:00:00.329
me be very, very clear about something too. And
01:00:00.329 --> 01:00:02.460
I tried to say this at the beginning. Like, we're
01:00:02.460 --> 01:00:05.159
talking about open source investigations into
01:00:05.159 --> 01:00:07.980
these cases, right? I am asking the government
01:00:07.980 --> 01:00:11.980
for information that, under the law, that they're
01:00:11.980 --> 01:00:16.079
willing to release. And I'm looking at historic
01:00:16.079 --> 01:00:19.739
newspaper reporting. I am not meeting with the
01:00:19.739 --> 01:00:22.559
suspects or interacting with them in any way
01:00:22.559 --> 01:00:27.820
whatsoever. So it's a passive form of research,
01:00:27.840 --> 01:00:29.780
like a fly in the wall way. The most active thing
01:00:29.780 --> 01:00:33.789
I'm doing is is asking for records from law enforcement
01:00:33.789 --> 01:00:37.030
and trying to interview like retired law enforcement
01:00:37.030 --> 01:00:41.409
or a journalist that wrote a story on this or
01:00:41.409 --> 01:00:46.570
a victim of one of the home invasions. So that's
01:00:46.570 --> 01:00:49.230
a short answer and it's not comprehensive. There's
01:00:49.230 --> 01:00:52.469
other steps. It just depends on the investigation
01:00:52.469 --> 01:00:55.420
you're working on too. I wish I could be more
01:00:55.420 --> 01:00:57.460
detailed, guys, but I'm trying to save time for
01:00:57.460 --> 01:01:01.500
other questions. We've already had requests for
01:01:01.500 --> 01:01:04.460
a separate session focusing on exactly what you
01:01:04.460 --> 01:01:07.440
just spoke about. So perhaps we'll pursue that
01:01:07.440 --> 01:01:12.039
as well. Yeah, as you said, it is basically you
01:01:12.039 --> 01:01:15.260
are investigating the historical record of that
01:01:15.260 --> 01:01:18.539
case, not investigating the criminal case itself.
01:01:18.900 --> 01:01:22.599
And I think that's the distinct shot between
01:01:22.599 --> 01:01:25.619
the two. You're looking at what was previously
01:01:25.619 --> 01:01:28.659
collected and understanding kind of the missing
01:01:28.659 --> 01:01:31.179
information from the public sphere. Exactly.
01:01:31.460 --> 01:01:33.519
You're collecting and organizing information
01:01:33.519 --> 01:01:35.719
that's either already out there or that's sitting
01:01:35.719 --> 01:01:39.039
on a shelf that the authorities decide should
01:01:39.039 --> 01:01:42.559
be out there. So I think that's a really important
01:01:42.559 --> 01:01:44.079
distinction and we should be very clear about
01:01:44.079 --> 01:01:47.750
that. You're not out there as a vigilante trying
01:01:47.750 --> 01:01:50.289
to chase down suspects and stuff like that. Yes,
01:01:50.550 --> 01:01:52.969
absolutely. And you need to make sure that it's
01:01:52.969 --> 01:01:55.070
very clear that you're not law enforcement as
01:01:55.070 --> 01:01:58.110
well when you are working on these kinds of things.
01:01:58.250 --> 01:02:00.690
Quick last questions because we are way over
01:02:00.690 --> 01:02:03.449
time. Sky asked earlier, was there a relationship
01:02:03.449 --> 01:02:05.469
between the size of the police department and
01:02:05.469 --> 01:02:07.230
willingness to work with you? New Hampshire will
01:02:07.230 --> 01:02:08.889
tend to have smaller towns and departments. I
01:02:08.889 --> 01:02:10.449
thought it was interesting how willing they were
01:02:10.449 --> 01:02:13.429
to help you. My colleagues in Los Angeles really
01:02:13.429 --> 01:02:17.190
struggle with FOIA requests to LAPD. Yeah, that's
01:02:17.190 --> 01:02:19.050
not super surprising. I had the same experience
01:02:19.050 --> 01:02:23.679
here in Boston. I had a lot of trouble. getting
01:02:23.679 --> 01:02:26.559
anything from the Boston Police Department. And
01:02:26.559 --> 01:02:28.199
talking to peers here in New England, that's
01:02:28.199 --> 01:02:30.840
a common experience. The smaller New Hampshire
01:02:30.840 --> 01:02:33.940
departments are very responsive. They have an
01:02:33.940 --> 01:02:36.539
interesting caveat in their law, which is that
01:02:36.539 --> 01:02:39.639
in some cases, I had to drive up there and pick
01:02:39.639 --> 01:02:41.960
up the copies in person, which was fun because
01:02:41.960 --> 01:02:44.079
then I had to go scan them. But more often than
01:02:44.079 --> 01:02:46.960
not, those are the departments where I was working
01:02:46.960 --> 01:02:51.079
with an individual person who Told me what their
01:02:51.079 --> 01:02:53.199
name was and I had an email address or they called
01:02:53.199 --> 01:02:54.840
me and I was working with that person to try
01:02:54.840 --> 01:02:57.019
To like locate the records and then they would
01:02:57.019 --> 01:02:58.400
respond to me and be like, hey, we're working
01:02:58.400 --> 01:02:59.960
on redacting them We'll probably have them in
01:02:59.960 --> 01:03:02.239
like two or three weeks. That was my experience
01:03:02.239 --> 01:03:04.219
in New Hampshire. I've got to say it was actually
01:03:04.219 --> 01:03:07.440
pretty pretty great Massachusetts it really varied
01:03:07.440 --> 01:03:10.159
place to place but I had an enormous amount of
01:03:10.159 --> 01:03:12.260
Difficulty getting records from the Boston police
01:03:12.260 --> 01:03:15.079
I was able to get an arrest report from them
01:03:15.079 --> 01:03:17.079
or the victim because he'd been caught with some
01:03:17.079 --> 01:03:19.480
stolen credit cards That was that was the only
01:03:19.769 --> 01:03:21.690
That was the only information from the Boston
01:03:21.690 --> 01:03:25.889
Police Department I got. Okay, final, final,
01:03:25.889 --> 01:03:27.550
final thing. Guys, I wish I could get to all
01:03:27.550 --> 01:03:29.050
of these. There's some awesome comments and questions
01:03:29.050 --> 01:03:33.929
in here. So many. Feel free to DM me too. Okay,
01:03:34.210 --> 01:03:36.809
final, final thing, and then we will wrap. In
01:03:36.809 --> 01:03:40.480
regards to... when you're collecting information,
01:03:40.639 --> 01:03:42.880
is there any key information about a case that
01:03:42.880 --> 01:03:45.920
would be useful to keep when you are referencing
01:03:45.920 --> 01:03:49.000
it in FOI requests, for example, the arrest number,
01:03:49.099 --> 01:03:51.360
things like that. So anything that's super, super
01:03:51.360 --> 01:03:54.400
important details that people might want to know
01:03:54.400 --> 01:03:57.239
to keep a note of once they collect it from one
01:03:57.239 --> 01:04:01.039
agency to then request from another. Yes, great
01:04:01.039 --> 01:04:07.420
question. Name of either the victim, Yeah, name
01:04:07.420 --> 01:04:09.519
of like the victim. If you're looking into a
01:04:09.519 --> 01:04:11.739
missing persons case, a murder case or something
01:04:11.739 --> 01:04:13.980
like that, obviously the name, you want the date
01:04:13.980 --> 01:04:16.699
of the offense if it's available. If you don't
01:04:16.699 --> 01:04:18.900
have an exact date, you can give them a window,
01:04:18.900 --> 01:04:21.239
but the shorter that window is, the more likelihood
01:04:21.239 --> 01:04:24.500
they'll be willing to look for you. So yeah,
01:04:24.579 --> 01:04:27.820
date range, victim name. I've had trouble in
01:04:27.820 --> 01:04:30.239
a couple cases. Actually, Boston used this as
01:04:30.239 --> 01:04:33.179
a way to not get me something, in my opinion,
01:04:33.440 --> 01:04:36.300
which is I didn't have an address for where something
01:04:36.300 --> 01:04:41.199
had happened. And even though I feel like they
01:04:41.199 --> 01:04:42.599
should have been able to find what I was looking
01:04:42.599 --> 01:04:45.139
for without the street address, they said that
01:04:45.139 --> 01:04:48.559
without one, they couldn't. So address, state
01:04:48.559 --> 01:04:52.360
range, name. If you have, sometimes like with
01:04:52.360 --> 01:04:55.119
the district attorneys, they would ask for like
01:04:55.119 --> 01:04:57.760
a case number. So I think with the New Hampshire
01:04:57.760 --> 01:05:00.460
State Police actually, one of the local police
01:05:00.460 --> 01:05:02.159
departments wrote to me and said, hey, by the
01:05:02.159 --> 01:05:04.400
way, The state police have more records on this.
01:05:04.480 --> 01:05:05.880
Here's the case number. You should give that
01:05:05.880 --> 01:05:08.800
to them. So they helped me out a little bit with
01:05:08.800 --> 01:05:12.519
that. Amazing. And yeah, it brings us back to
01:05:12.519 --> 01:05:15.039
the whole, if you get to know the people behind
01:05:15.039 --> 01:05:18.719
the emails, it's always awesome. Oh, and Frogman
01:05:18.719 --> 01:05:20.539
said the main law enforcement officer involved
01:05:20.539 --> 01:05:23.320
is a good one, too. Yeah. If you have the names
01:05:23.320 --> 01:05:27.860
of any investigators, the main ones especially,
01:05:28.400 --> 01:05:30.989
that can definitely help. Yeah. Amazing. You
01:05:30.989 --> 01:05:36.210
must be very charming. I'm not. All right. We
01:05:36.210 --> 01:05:38.730
should wrap because we are seven minutes over.
01:05:39.170 --> 01:05:42.130
Thank you so much, Peter, for today. And for
01:05:42.130 --> 01:05:44.349
all of this information, this recording will
01:05:44.349 --> 01:05:47.949
be put on podcast platforms in the next few days
01:05:47.949 --> 01:05:50.449
and possibly some of the slides that you've seen
01:05:50.449 --> 01:05:53.510
today as well. Definitely all of the links mentioned.
01:05:54.079 --> 01:05:57.019
And we'll be back in two weeks time with another
01:05:57.019 --> 01:06:00.579
stage talk. But for now, go read Peter's stories.
01:06:01.619 --> 01:06:04.199
And yeah, thank you so much again. Thank you
01:06:04.199 --> 01:06:06.300
guys. Thanks for the comment. Thanks, guys. I
01:06:06.300 --> 01:06:09.659
really appreciate it. Thank you for listening
01:06:09.659 --> 01:06:12.780
to the stage talk. If you'd like to catch a stage
01:06:12.780 --> 01:06:15.920
talk live where you can ask the guest questions,
01:06:16.380 --> 01:06:19.280
join the Bellingcat Discord server by visiting
01:06:19.280 --> 01:06:25.340
www .discord .gg slash Bellingcat. The music
01:06:25.340 --> 01:06:28.820
you've heard is titled Dawn by Newer Self and
01:06:28.820 --> 01:06:30.480
is courtesy of Artlist.