305

Caught by the Algorithm: How Geo-Fencing Solved a Murder

January 26, 2026

On this episode, Garrett and Payton explore the murder of Mitchell Jones Jr. and how a missing cell phone became the key to finding his killer.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on spotify

No items found.

Case Sources

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

You’re listening to an Oh No Media podcast.

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast.
This is Murder With My Husband. I’m Payton Moreland…
And I’m Garrett Moreland.
He’s the husband.
And I’m the husband.
And…
Happy Monday.
What? Okay.

Like, people could be watching this on Netflix.

Happy Monday. Thank you for being here, tuning in on Netflix.
It’s a little different, but we’re gonna try not to think about it.
It’s just a regular episode, a regular week, a regular day.

Okay, wait.
Chill. Okay.

If you’re listening and you have no idea what we’re talking about, or you’re watching and you’re like, huh? What’s happening? What is going on?
I’m Garrett.
And I’m Payton. And…
We’re married.
Yes.

We are husband and wife. And six years ago, out of the blue…
We started a podcast.
We started a podcast.

I love true crime.
And I have always, quote unquote, hated it. Hated it as in I’m not interested in it. I don’t watch true crime documentaries. I don’t watch or listen to anything true crime.

Yeah, so I was wanting to do something in true crime, and I was telling Garrett. I was like, oh my gosh, I wanna start a podcast. I just don’t know who to have as a co-host because I don’t wanna do it alone.
And he was like, well, I’ll be your co-host.
And I was like, Garrett, you hate true crime. Like, how would that work?
And he was like, well, maybe that can be the thing. You love it and I hate it.

And six years later, here we are on Netflix.
We’re still here.
We’re still making episodes, and we’re so glad that you guys love it.

Quick, so Payton tells me a new case each week.
I never know what case Payton is telling me.
I usually don’t know anything about the cases unless it’s a high-profile case and I’ve come across it on the news or on social media.

But even my social media, TikTok, Instagram, has nothing to do with true crime.
So again, I don’t know anything about the cases.

I am non-scripted.
I don’t have any scripts, any parts at all.

Yeah, and I just do the research.
I basically create a research paper and then give a summary overview of a different case each week to Garrett, and you get his perspective from someone who absolutely hates true crime, and mine, as someone who has loved true crime since I can remember.

And yeah, that’s basically it. We could ramble forever, but we won’t.

If you heard a bark, that is our dog, Daisy, who is a part of the show, who’s currently barking at us.
She’s the official mascot.

But essentially, the meat of the podcast is you are just getting nitty-gritty details about true crime cases from someone who loves it and someone who hates it.

Now, before we jump into every single episode, we do something called Garrett’s 10 Seconds, which is basically Garrett’s time in the podcast to, number one, start us off on a lighter foot before we get into murder.
And number two, just venture into his world for a second, because most of the script is my take on true crime.

So yeah, this is his time to shine.

I’ll make this pretty quick, because you’ll kinda get used to my 10 seconds and see a lot more of it if you keep listening, and we’ve already been rambling for a little bit at the beginning of the podcast.

So my 10 seconds this week is, for those who have been listening and know about the podcast, I’ve been working on opening a bagel shop.
If you don’t like bagels, this is not for you, and I’m sorry.
But if you do like bagels, I’m opening a bagel shop. It’s happening.

Permit has been acquired. It is in my hands. I started construction. We should be done in about eight to ten weeks, and then we’ll be opening.

It’s crazy. I’ll keep everyone updated. I know everyone’s always like, a bagel shop? It’s gonna be amazing. I’m excited.

On that note, let’s hop into today’s case.

Our sources for this episode are ajc.com, fox5atlanta.com, cobbcountycourier.com, wsbtv.com, oxygen.com, burtonquinnscott.com, 11alive.com, cobbcounty.gov, A&E’s Witness to Murder, Peacock and Oxygen’s Real Murders of Orange County, and infocrime.data.blog.

Orange County.

Privacy. It’s something a lot of us don’t even really think about anymore, especially when it comes to what we are sharing through our phones.

We offer up our location to friends and family to keep each other safe.
We literally post what we’re doing in our day-to-day lives for complete strangers to see.

And sometimes we don’t even know what terms we’re agreeing to, like sharing our cookies and search history with private companies, all by checking one little box on a webpage.

Now, with technology, we’ve obviously surrendered a lot of our privacy, sometimes unknowingly.
Sometimes we don’t even really care.

But usually, we don’t think about the consequences it might have later on.

And that’s the thing about cell phones, and webpages, and social media platforms.
They are designed to keep that fine print hidden, to make you feel like your privacy is locked away in that little screen.

The truth is, when we agree to a lot of these terms and conditions, privacy is honestly no longer a right. It becomes a privilege.

And when you disrupt the social order, when you break the rules society has put into place, those secrets that you thought were contained in your cell phone can be used against you, and in ways you didn’t even know were possible.

I’m curious where this goes, because I feel like I am on the other spectrum where…
Look, if you’re on social media or you even have a cell phone, your privacy has been gone for years.
You know what I’m saying?
Yeah.

It doesn’t exist anymore.
But you also get to use social media, so…

So today, I’m taking you to Atlanta, Georgia, as we dial back the clock to 2018.

Now, over the years, Atlanta has become a pretty major hotspot for the entertainment industry.
Thanks to tax breaks and other incentives, the city has become kind of the Hollywood of the South.

Production for a lot of movies and TV shows has migrated to this state, which means a lot of people pursuing their dreams in entertainment have as well. And that includes 31-year-old Mitchell Jones Jr.

Mitchell was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, on August 7, 1987. After graduating high school in 2006, he went on to study the arts at Gannon University, a private Catholic college in his hometown. While there, Mitchell worked at the local Christian center and had a few different sales jobs. But after graduating, there was one dream he knew he needed to pursue: acting.

Mitchell decided to follow those dreams by heading south to Atlanta. He found a place just outside the city in Marietta, Georgia, and there it seemed like Mitchell really blossomed. He kind of came out of his shell. He told friends he never really felt safe in Erie, but in Atlanta he could be himself. He didn’t have to hide, which was an important shift for Mitchell, who was also gay.

Have you seen those videos recently of all the actors having to act like they’re in anything action or sci-fi? Like, they’re acting in front of nothing. You know what I’m talking about?
On the screens?
Yes, like on green screens and stuff? I could never be an actor. There’s no way.
It does go to show you how talented they really are.
Not that it’s cringy, but kinda.
Oh, yeah.
Like, just playing pretend.
I mean, good for them, because I could not do that. You know what I’m talking about? Have you seen those?
Yeah, like…
Like Stranger Things.
No.
They just posted one. And they were, it’s just crazy.
Like in Eclipse, when she’s petting a guy in a green suit?
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
And pretending it’s Jacob?
Ew!
I know.
Ew.
I couldn’t do it.

Okay, so like I said, Mitchell worked at a Christian center back home, but he is gay, and he’s now moved to Atlanta. And he’s like, “Oh my gosh, I feel a lot more comfortable here.”

As Mitchell established a life and started building his career in Georgia, he gained a huge circle of friends. They all said Mitchell had incredible energy. He was a blast to be around. He was funny and lighthearted. He also dated around, but kept things mostly casual, as he was focusing on acting. And everyone who knew him at this time didn’t mince words when they said he was actually extremely talented.

Now unfortunately, not many people would get to see Mitchell’s talents on the big screen, because his life was cut short that November in 2018.

Now it’s the day after Thanksgiving, so Black Friday, November 23, 2018. And that night, a woman named Lynette Hurt hears a commotion in the apartment next to hers. This apartment shares a wall with Mitchell Jones Jr.’s apartment. And while he sometimes plays his music a little louder than she would prefer, she actually really likes Mitchell. They’re good neighbors. She’s older than him, but she would cook for him. She kind of became a shoulder for him to cry on. She was sort of like an aunt to him at this point, and she’s used to him having friends over and things getting a little rowdy.

But for some reason, this Black Friday feels a little different. It sounds like Mitchell is actually fighting with someone in his apartment. There’s yelling and banging, but Lynette doesn’t want to be the nosy neighbor by knocking on Mitchell’s door. It’s after 9:00 p.m. She figures, okay, whatever is going on over there, it’s Mitchell’s business. So she just goes upstairs and heads to bed.

Now, about a half hour later, the local 911 operator receives a phone call. It’s around 9:30 p.m. when a man calls and says he’s hurt and he needs them to send help.

“I can’t talk. I’m dying. Help.”
“Okay, tell me exactly what happened, sir. Tell me the address.”

He doesn’t offer his name. He can’t even muster the strength to give them his address. All he can say is he needs the police because he’s dying. Now, luckily, 911 traces the call to an address: 3400 Laurie Joe Drive.

Now around 10:00 p.m., police and first responders enter the place easily. The front door is unlocked, and they hear someone upstairs calling from the bedroom, saying, “Help me.” When they get up there, they find a Black male lying on his bedroom floor up against a wall, covered in blood. And he keeps saying he was shot, even though his wounds, to responders, appear to be more like stab wounds.

Okay.

Now this victim is in and out of consciousness. So when they ask who did this to him, he says he can’t tell them his name. But police are wondering if he can’t, or if he won’t. So without even getting the victim’s name, they rush him off to the hospital. Then they find his wallet and ID. This is 31-year-old Mitchell Jones Jr.

But who did this to him, and why?

Well, that question becomes even more pressing as the night goes on, because Mitchell doesn’t survive the ride to the hospital.

Gosh.

He is pronounced dead before they even get there, which is so devastating to me in cases like this, when a victim themselves is aware enough to try and call police and get help, and police do respond, but they end up not surviving anyway.
Yeah. It’s horrible.
Like, I just can’t… I don’t like thinking about those last moments.

So the police now have a homicide investigation on their hands. And the silver lining is they have a good amount of blood evidence at this crime scene that might actually help them identify Mitchell’s attacker.

See, Mitchell had been stabbed in the face…
Oh, my gosh.
…in his head and his torso, which meant it was unlikely he ever even made it out of the bedroom with those injuries that night.

So when they find that there’s blood on the wall outside of the bedroom leading down the staircase, and then those drops of blood…
Geez.
…are on the doorframe headed outside, they’re pretty confident that this blood belongs to a different person. Because Mitchell most likely never even left his room and bled in the apartment.

We’ve talked about this before on the podcast. Usually, when someone is stabbed many times, it’s usually a case of some sort of rage, or passion, or something. So we’ll see.

Especially because Mitchell’s bedroom showed signs of an intense struggle. There are broken items and things turned over in the room. Whatever happened here went down with a fight, and it was very unlikely that the attacker left without injuries of their own. That could also help them potentially identify a suspect later on, if they find them soon enough.

But there’s something else any seasoned police officer will tell you. Or Garrett.

This was a crime of passion. Whenever you have a stabbing like this, it’s intimate. It’s close. And it’s personal.

I’ve done too many of these cases by now. It’s just, it’s getting out of hand. I think I’m gonna have to quit.

That theory was reinforced by a few other clues around the place, like all of these lit candles, which made it seem like Mitchell was maybe expecting a romantic encounter that night that potentially went wrong. Plus, Mitchell was in his underwear when he was found.

There’s no murder weapon in the house that police can find, and they’re very careful about collecting any blood evidence they can at the scene. They also realize when they go to look for Mitchell’s phone, they can’t find it, at least not the one he typically used. Mitchell did have a backup phone, which he used to dial 911, but they discover early on that this isn’t his primary device.

And when they couldn’t find his usual phone, they believed there was only one possibility, and it was that Mitchell’s attacker, whoever did this, took the phone with him.

Geez.

By the following day, the investigation was really starting to heat up. Police began canvassing the neighborhood to see if there were any other witnesses to the crime. Now, of course, they spoke with the neighbor, Lynette, who heard parts of the altercation, though unfortunately, nothing she said was very useful for the investigation.

And can you imagine? She wakes up the next morning and police are knocking on her door like, “Hey, your neighbor was murdered last night.” And she’s like, “Oh my gosh, I genuinely heard this fighting,” but “I don’t want to be a nosy neighbor.”
Yeah, but how are you supposed to know?
You don’t.

But just imagine that reality the next morning and how awful that would be.
Yeah, I mean, a lot of people would put blame on themselves, but hopefully not.
No, there’s nothing…
It’s not their fault.
They didn’t do anything. Yeah.

So there is another neighbor, though, who did give police a good clue. Their property directly faced Mitchell’s home, and the night before, they caught something on their outdoor camera. It showed a car pulling into the driveway at 9:09 p.m., and then the same car pulled out and sped off about 20 minutes later. This was right around the time that Mitchell placed the 911 call.

Police are obviously like, “Okay, you literally got our killer on doorbell footage,” which is pretty usual nowadays. Police couldn’t get a license plate off the grainy footage. They couldn’t even really tell the make and model of the car, but they were able to zoom in on the brake lights, which helped them narrow it down.

Eventually, they decided they were looking for a dark-colored Buick Lucerne. Which, actually, that’s a pretty good clue because it’s not a car that everyone’s driving. It’s not like it’s a Honda Accord or a Honda Civic. So that really does narrow things down quite a bit.

And when police looked back at footage from days and weeks before Mitchell’s death, they saw that same car pull into his driveway on a few earlier occasions.
I don’t know what that car looks like.
This is someone who had been there quite a bit.

Which proved to police that Mitchell had known this person after all.

Now, at this point, police were trying to follow every lead they could. They had subpoenaed Mitchell’s phone records and were waiting on them to come back. Meanwhile, they were looking into everyone Mitchell was close to, just trying to figure out his life. They knew he had a big social life and that he had dated a lot, which only made their pool of potential suspects larger.

But when they speak to Mitchell’s mother, she says there’s one close friend Mitchell had in Atlanta that was like a sister to him, and that if anyone knew the details of Mitchell’s personal life, it was probably her. Her name was Jasmine.

When police speak with Jasmine, she says there was this one guy Mitchell was dating before he died who was giving off a lot of red flags, and that there had already been some physical altercations between the two of them. Which actually fits something Mitchell’s neighbor, Lynette, had told police too, that there was a night prior to the murder when she also heard Mitchell fighting with another man.

But the following day, she saw them outside together laughing, so she was like, “Okay, maybe it was just a little fight.”

Still, police are like, this lead is worth pursuing. So they have Jasmine tell them more. She says Mitchell and this guy had broken up a few weeks before he died. Apparently, things reached a breaking point when Mitchell kicked him out of his place one night.

The problem is, Mitchell had never told Jasmine this guy’s name. Apparently, they weren’t all that serious, because Mitchell only ever referred to him to Jasmine as “that boy.”

Interesting. I wonder if they met on, like, a dating website. Like Tinder or something.
We’ll get there.
Yeah.

Though he had shown her a few photos of this guy, “the boy,” and in one of those photos Mitchell sent, “that boy” had his shirt off and he had a lot of tattoos, including one on his arm that read, “Rest in peace, Brandon,” with the date of a death.

So police see this photo and they see an opportunity here. They go online and they start looking for a Brandon that passed away on that specific date.
That’s so smart.
And they find someone who they think could be the Brandon referred to in this mysterious tattoo.

When they look at Brandon’s social media, they find that he’s friends with a guy that looks exactly like “that boy” in the photo Mitchell had been seeing. Police discover his name is Eric Hopkins.

This being a pretty good lead, they immediately start looking into Eric’s background, and they find he actually has a criminal history. He had stabbed one of his previous lovers before. It was during a domestic dispute, though I’m pretty sure his partner survived.

The coincidence was too much to ignore, though. So the next…

I just hate that DV cases are so hard, because there’s almost always past convictions, or…
A history of abuse.
A history of abuse. And then it sucks because they abuse, abuse, abuse, abuse, abuse, and then a lot of times they kill someone. And it’s just like, what are you supposed to do about that?
Frustrating.
It’s definitely frustrating.
You want to be like, “How was this allowed?”
Yeah.

Obviously, the next step was to get this Eric guy down to the station. So investigators try the nice way. They call him and ask, “Hey, do you know a man named Mitchell Jones Jr.?”
Good luck.

And he says yes. And when they tell him, “Okay, well, he was killed a week ago,” Eric responds by saying, “Are you serious?”

Now, to police, he does sound genuinely shocked in those audio recordings. But he must know this doesn’t look very good for him, because at this point he refuses to speak with police and says they’re gonna have to contact his attorney. He wants nothing to do with the investigation, which honestly…
I mean, good answer, honestly.
Not that dumb of him to be like, “One of my past boyfriends or lovers was killed, and now you’re calling me to ask about it.”

So this is when police realize they’re gonna have to get him down to the station a different way if they actually want to talk to him. But luckily for them, Eric has violated his parole for that prior stabbing charge. So, ten days after the murder, they move in and force Eric down to the station for an interview.

Now, Eric openly admits he wasn’t really in a relationship with Mitchell. They had just kind of fooled around occasionally, more of a situationship. But the last time they spoke was a few days before the murder, so right before Thanksgiving. He denies having been to Mitchell’s house that night or having anything to do with the murder, but the alibi he gives police isn’t the strongest.

He says he was at a movie that night, and while the person he went with seemingly vouches for him, there’s no other evidence that he was there. So police decide to take a sample of his DNA, because they want to compare it to the blood found in Mitchell’s home. But until they get those results back, they decide to keep pursuing Eric, because right now he’s kind of the best lead they’ve got. Which is why they get a search warrant for his phone, to see what he’s been up to.

When they get a search warrant, I feel like I’ve asked this before. When they’re searching his phone, I assume they don’t actually… do they actually grab his phone, or do they grab it and make a copy of it? Do you know?
Usually they confiscate the phone.
Like, the actual phone? Okay.

And if they have, say police were responding to an overage person talking to an underage person, and they show up and both those people are there, or even just the overage person is there, they will take their phone.
Interesting.
Like, on scene. They will be like, “This is, you know, a part of our investigation.”
Yeah, that makes sense.
I think in this case…
I don’t know the answer.
…they have the warrant, and I’m assuming they probably confiscated his phone.
Interesting.

Now, not only do they find that Eric and Mitchell spoke many times in the two weeks before his murder, he also called a second number a lot. So this other guy in Eric’s phone was named Diondre Fleming.

Now, basically, they want to rule out the possibility that Eric may have had someone else kill Mitchell for him. So police follow this trail, which leads them to Diondre Fleming’s parents’ house, where he is still living. And when they get there, right off the bat, they notice something suspicious. Because what do you think is literally sitting in Diondre’s parents’ driveway when police pull up?
The Buick, the car.
A dark-colored Buick.

I mean, game over at that point. Just like the one that was seen coming and going pretty often from Mitchell’s house. So police feel like they’re steps away from solving this case. They feel like they’re on the right track.

They knock on the Flemings’ door and speak with Diondre, who is seemingly very cooperative. But when they ask, “Okay, do you know Eric Hopkins?” he’s like, “Hmm. No, the name doesn’t ring a bell.” Which is hilarious, considering all the calls that just came through.
Yeah, he’s like, “Okay…”
Come on, man.
“You’re being a little sketchy, since we obviously know that…”
Get out of here.
“…you had called his phone a bunch.”

So they pull out a picture of Eric and show it to him. They’re like, “Well, this is Eric. Are you sure you don’t know him?” And right away, Diondre’s like, “Oh, yeah, that guy. I play video games with him.”

He says they never met in person, but that Eric has used Diondre’s phone as a hotspot to play video games before. I’m a little confused, because how is that possible if they haven’t played in person? Like, for a hotspot, you have to be somewhat near that person to use it.
Yes. Let me explain it to you.
So that doesn’t make sense.

So the explanation of why the phone calls are there, if he’s only used it as a hotspot, actually does make sense to police. Because when your phone links to someone’s hotspot, it actually appears like a phone call on your records.
Okay.
That’s kind of how it shows this activity.

Now, again, like Garrett just said, I had the same exact question. What I personally found strange about this was how Eric linked to Diondre’s hotspot if they never met. Because as far as I’m aware, you need to be in close proximity to link to someone’s hotspot.
Yep.

So maybe the two were neighbors, but just didn’t know each other well? Either way, his story did seem to check out to police, especially because when they look at Diondre’s cell and type in Eric’s number, no past correspondence in text or the phone log comes up. It really is just the hotspot.

I’m really confused about this hotspot thing, but I’m gonna ignore it for now.
Well, it’s annoying because none of the sources or even police explain why.
Yeah, because it doesn’t make any sense to me. They’re like, “Yep, it was just him connecting to the hotspot,” but they’ve never met in person.
That’s…
There’s no explanation about it.
That’s literally impossible.

All we have is that police apparently went forward with this explanation.
Okay.

Either way, they decide to take a look inside the Buick. They’re like, “Can we look inside the Buick?” And this is when they realize there’s no blood or DNA evidence in the Buick that they can see. It seems like it’s just a coincidence that this random guy was hooking up to this guy’s hotspot, and it’s completely random that his parents drive a Buick.

Get out of here. That’s insane.

And police are like, “Okay, I don’t think we have any choice but to clear him.” All the evidence makes sense in his connection to Diondre, and so he’s cleared.

Because police then get word that the blood found inside Mitchell’s home that night is actually not a match for Eric Hopkins. So they’re like, okay, we only got to Diondre through Eric, and now we’re learning that the blood we believe is from the attacker is not even Eric Hopkins’ blood.

In fact, when they run that DNA profile from the crime scene through CODIS, there’s no match in there either. Meaning investigators are basically back at square one when it comes to evidence.

This was until they get the records back on Mitchell’s missing cell phone. So they’re now getting his records through his logs and cell phone activity.

And here’s where technology falls short.

While your phone records show who you call and text with, it obviously doesn’t show who you’ve been messaging over social media apps. You could only find that through going through someone’s phone…
True.
…and getting into their apps.

So if you send someone a DM to come over to your house, that’s not gonna come up through a subpoena to, say, Verizon. You’d have to subpoena the social media platforms themselves to give you access to that specific user’s data, or actually physically have the person’s phone, which I just don’t think happens very often.
Well, the phone’s missing. They literally…
Until they find the attacker…
Okay.
And then even then, you gotta know passwords, or you need a subpoena to get the passwords.
I’m dumb. I wasn’t thinking about that.

So it’s obviously a tedious process.

Now, police were hoping Mitchell would have texted or called the person he invited over that night, but they don’t find any evidence of that on his logs. The last person he spoke to was his neighbor. So they believe that this conversation probably happened through a social media platform, which they don’t have access to at this time.

However, they do notice something else interesting when they get his records back. Remember, Mitchell’s phone wasn’t at the crime scene when police got there. He had used a backup cell phone to call 911. His primary cell phone actually moved to the area of downtown Atlanta after his murder.

So police say, “Well, let’s just go to his cell phone’s last known location, because we believe the attacker had it.” And it’s an empty lot in downtown. They’re like, “Maybe the suspect just ditched it there.” But they have no luck finding the cell phone in this empty lot.

So this case hits another roadblock. That was until March of 2019.

One of the detectives on the case had just come back from an FBI training seminar where he learned about a new technique they were teaching known as geofencing.
Okay, yep.
I think we’ve talked about geofencing before on the Egypt Covington case, but in case you missed it, here’s how it works.

Google has this technology called Sensor Vault. So whether you like it or not, if you have a device that is using Google, it is tracking the device’s location at all times, whether you have your location history or permissions on or not. So Google has the ability to track you whether you’re like yes or no.

Google then stores all of this information in their Sensor Vault database, and ever since 2016, law enforcement has been hitting up Google to get this information when they think it might solve a crime. There are even special warrants for this kind of thing called geofencing warrants.

And if you don’t like this technology or it makes you uncomfortable, it’s because you are a murderer. Just saying. I got nothing to hide.
Hot take.
Track my location at all times. I’m probably just at home in my basement working or playing video games.
Truly?
Or playing pickleball or making bagels.
Or golfing.

I mean, I totally…
Look, I get it. I know that…
I know we’ve debated this before.
We’ve talked about this on multiple episodes, yes.
I understand why people are like, “Whoa, government, give me privacy.” Look, the majority of people don’t care what you’re doing daily, you know.

Right. It’s kind of like that joke about… how do I say this? We’re not that important. Like, whatever FBI agent is spying on me, can you send me a few more ads…
Yeah, exactly.
People joke about it because it’s like…
What are you gonna do?
Yeah.

So what’s kind of cool about this geofencing thing is that when a police department goes to Google with a geofencing warrant, they’re basically saying, “We need a list of all the cell phones that were in this specific chosen area.”

Which is really cool, because if you have a crime scene in a specific area of town, you can be like, “We need to know every single cell phone that was in this area from this time to this time,” and get a warrant for it.

So Google basically hands over a map of a chosen area, and that map shows what cell phones were inside a perimeter at a certain time. So in Mitchell’s case, that map would be the area around his apartment during the date and time of his murder.

Now, this technique is becoming more and more common in solving cases, which is why you’re hearing more and more often that murderers are leaving their phones at home, like serial killers, or turning their phones off because they don’t want their phone with them, even if their location services are turned off.

There’s one stat I actually found from 2019 where Google said they received about 180 requests for geofencing data a week. Now, I imagine it’s grown exponentially since 2019.
Holy crap, that’s a ton.

And by the way, it’s not just Google. If you have your location settings on, any service provider can say where your cell phone was at any given date and time.
Meaning…
I’m down. It doesn’t bother me.
…police don’t have to rely solely on pings from cell phone towers now, which have already been messy when it comes to true crime.

It’s like Payton said, it’s so complicated to deal with pings. It’s so complicated.

They can really narrow it down to a small radius to see exactly where your cell phone was, and if you were carrying it, where you were and when you were there.

Now, in terms of this investigation, police pared that geofence down to the 500 feet surrounding Mitchell’s home in a 45-minute window around the time of his 911 call. And they ruled it down to four devices based on who came and went during that time. Because if someone’s just sitting in their house, their phone’s gonna be there, versus coming, murdering someone, and leaving.

Now, two of those devices actually belonged to an elderly couple that lived down the road, so they crossed them out. One was someone who was visiting a friend on the block, so they crossed them out.

And then there was one that really stood out to investigators. Someone who left the geofence moments before Mitchell placed his 911 call. Someone who hadn’t even been on police’s radar before.
Oh, man.

A 22-year-old man named Dunte Holmes.

Dunte had a history of aggravated assault and theft.
What a surprise.
But he wasn’t in the CODIS database, which explained why police might not have gotten a hit on him through his DNA.

So they get a subpoena for Dunte’s phone, because they’re like, “This covered our warrant, so now we can get a subpoena for his phone.” And they find an image he had uploaded to iCloud right after the time of the murder. It’s a picture of a bloody wound on his leg.

But that’s not all.

They find out that Dunte’s mother had a brand new Buick at the time of Mitchell’s death, and then sold it quickly after the incident.

That’s insane.

Also pretty damning. Remember how Mitchell’s phone traveled to the downtown Atlanta area right after his death? Well, guess whose phone was right there, traveling alongside Mitchell’s phone at the same time. Dunte’s.

So this is more than enough to get an arrest warrant for Dunte Holmes. And on April 12, 2019, almost six months after Mitchell’s death, Dunte is taken into custody.

And one of the first things they do is take some of Dunte’s DNA to run it against the blood sample they have. Then they start interrogating him, which he does agree to without an attorney present.

Now, at first, Dunte profusely denies having anything to do with Mitchell’s murder. In fact, he denies knowing Mitchell at all. And then, little by little throughout the interrogation, he begins to change his story.

He says, “Okay, yeah, I do know Mitchell, but we just hooked up once or twice. I didn’t even actually know his name.” And he says the last time he saw him was actually back in September, two months before the murder.

Obviously, police know this isn’t true. The Buick was spotted on Mitchell’s neighbor’s security camera several times in the weeks leading up to the murder. So even if it was, like, September and then he just came back around the time of the murder, that’s still a lie.

And I think it’s so funny because the geofencing also has him literally in the area. So it’s just like, come on, man, give it up.

And this is why police don’t release all their cards or all their evidence, even to the media.
100%.
Because you can catch people in lies like this. And once you catch them in a lie, then they have to backtrack, and then they lie again.
It’s just over at that point.
Right.

But even though he’s caught in these lies, he’s not really budging. So the interrogators change their tactic. They start playing the “How will your family feel about all of this?” card, and the “Listen, you will feel better if you just confess, because we have all this evidence. We know you’re lying.”

And then Dunte finally gives in. He says, okay, he went over there that night because he was going to call it quits with Mitchell. He claims Mitchell called him over to talk about things, invited him up to his room, and he claims it was actually Mitchell who started this.

Dunte says, “I turned around for a second when I was in his bedroom, and then when I turned back around, Mitchell was standing there with a knife in his hand.”

What a loser, because no one can… there are no witnesses to be like, “Oh, he’s lying.”
Right.
So it’s just like, come on, man.

So Dunte claims that’s when Mitchell tried to stab him, and Dunte then acted out of self-defense. They get into an intense struggle, fighting over the knife, and Dunte says that was when Mitchell cut his leg.

Eventually, he got the knife out of Mitchell’s hands and stabbed him in the back, and then just kept going, all in an effort to protect himself.

He then took the knife and Mitchell’s phone with him in a panic and fled the scene before getting rid of both items later on. Instead of calling 911 and saying, “Oh my gosh, this guy just tried to stab me and I stabbed him back in self-defense. Please, can you come here?”

Dunte said it was never his intention when he arrived at Mitchell’s home that night for things to go down the way they did.

But police aren’t really buying it. They think if Dunte really did show remorse for what he did, he wouldn’t have stolen the victim’s cell phone, making it harder for him to call for help, which is most likely why he even took the phone. He also likely would have called 911 on his own to say what had happened.

At least now they have a confession, though, whether he’s saying it was self-defense or not.

And soon, they do get confirmation that his blood also matches the blood on the doorframe found at Mitchell’s house, which is more than enough to get him indicted on charges of malice murder. This is a criminal offense in Georgia when a murder is committed with express or implied malice.

They also charge him with aggravated assault and aggravated battery, as well as two counts of felony murder. It’s safe to say the prosecution feels pretty confident about their case against Dunte.

However, they aren’t sure how this geofencing technology is going to translate to a jury. Are they going to understand it? Are they going to trust it? And will they think it’s a violation of personal privacy?

Luckily, that’s not the only evidence they’re working with. They do have Dunte’s confession and his DNA at the crime scene. So they decide to pursue the death penalty.

And that’s when Dunte’s attorneys think, okay, maybe we should start talking about a plea deal.

Three weeks before Dunte’s trial is set to begin, in January of 2020, his lawyers say he’s changing his plea to guilty to avoid the death penalty.
Which, at that point, you’re just admitting everything, right?
Right.

He is sentenced to life in prison.

With that, the state of Georgia solves one of, if not its first case ever, using geofencing technology. And Mitchell Jones gets the justice he deserves.

Why? Like, why? Sorry, why?
Yeah, like, why…
What was his reason to do this?
What was even the motive?

He never actually gives one. He does the typical, “I’m pleading guilty because I don’t want the death penalty, not because I actually did this.” Like, did they get in a fight? What was… we’ll never know, I guess.

And the prosecution theory was just that, like, a lover’s quarrel. Maybe he didn’t want to be broken up with, whatever it had happened.
Oh, that’s so sad, man.
But the truth is, we’ll never know.

But I do think it’s important to note, as far as true crime goes, geofencing has actually sparked a lot of controversy in the years since Mitchell’s case.
I get it.

While law enforcement sees it as an incredibly useful tool, others are afraid it’s a slippery slope when it comes to an invasion of privacy, especially because, like any crime-solving method, it is not completely fail-safe.

Take the case of Jorge Molina in Phoenix, Arizona, for example. Back in 2018, 23-year-old Jorge, a warehouse worker, was arrested after a geofence placed him at the scene of a murder. He spent the next week in jail arguing for his innocence before he was released.

It was then determined that Jorge’s stepfather was to blame for the murder. He had Jorge’s phone in his car while it was happening.
Dang.
Okay, I mean, that part I understand. That’s not okay.

Yeah. Who’s to say who’s carrying whose phone? It’s just a phone. It’s not necessarily proof that the person was there.

Now we learn from, like, did you actually have your phone? Can we prove that person actually had that phone? So it’s not as concrete as maybe people once believed.

And even though Jorge was released from prison after a week, the mistake was never fully corrected. The arrest stayed on his record.
An arrest for murder, mind you.
What the freak?

Which will make it very difficult to find work and support in the future, because you have an arrest for potential first-degree murder on your record, all because his cell phone was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person, in his father’s car, which is, like, completely normal.

And then there’s obviously the argument of privacy Garrett and I were talking about. Should it be a right or a privilege?

Of course, there is the idea of, “I have nothing to hide. I’ll show you the contents of my phone.” But some people see this as a complete invasion of their personal space regardless. They’re like, “No, I have the right to privacy.”
Ah, little sus.

Even if they have nothing to hide, the government and law enforcement agencies should not have complete access to their lives and know where they are 24/7. Because as we know from doing this show, and even in Jorge’s case, sometimes even those with nothing to hide are blamed for things they didn’t do.
Sure.

At least in Mitchell’s case, geofencing did lead to a success story. Mitchell’s father even praised it when he spoke to the press. And if it weren’t for those new tools, Dunte Holmes might be out there walking free today, because they never would have linked him to Mitchell.

And that is the murder of Mitchell Jones Jr.

Horrible. I just…
I mean, I guess we’ll never know the actual motive, but…

We do so many cases, and we’ve done so many cases. And to kill someone will never stop blowing my mind. I’ll never be able to understand it, because it’s not okay. We don’t kill people. We just… we don’t do it. We’ve got to control our emotions.

There are many other ways to handle things, and it’s crazy to me that people just kill people.

Honestly, I’ve been down the police body cam footage rabbit hole lately, you know? Just out of, I don’t know, when I have free time. And I’ve been watching police responding to murders and having their body cam on, and it’s just like…
Lovers fighting murders.
I know.
I honestly had to turn it off.
Any type of DV is just so sad.

Because it just feels like, “What? Hello? Control your emotions.”

But all right, you guys. That was our episode today, and we will see you next time with another one. I love it.
And I hate it.

Goodbye.

‍

Sorry, no sources available yet.