Australia woman Caroline Nilsson has been charged with the murder of her mother-in-law, Myrna Nilsson, at their home in 2016, after data collected from the victim’s Apple Watch proved Caroline’s depiction of the events to be a bunch of BS.
The watch outlined a bone-chilling timeline of the victim’s demise, giving prosecutors a look into the woman’s last moments.
After the incident, Caroline told authorities a group of men invaded her home, tied her up, and killed her mother-in-law — an act she claimed took a total of 20 minutes — but authorities didn’t buy it.
Using the watch’s heart rate data, investigators saw a spike in activity followed by an abrupt slowdown in movement on the day-of, whittling the events to a 7-minute window, meaning Caroline is either lying, or terrible at telling time.
The trial is set to continue in June, when it will be decided if the Apple Watch data will be accepted as evidence — in the meantime, ol’ Carol continues to deny the allegations.
This is actually the second instance this year where Apple Health data was used as evidence in a murder trial.
In Germany, a third-party company examined the data to re-create the murderous activities the accused man had participated in through his movements.
That man pleaded guilty, but as more of these events (or ones like it) occur, the debate over ethical surveillance data will likely heat up.