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Woman Uses Facebook to Track Down Attacker

by Amar Toor on November 23, 2009 at 10:24 AM

When regular old police forces can't hunt down an evildoer, Facebook, like Batman, is there.

The social networking site swept into crime-fighting action recently when the victim of a brutal attack used it to track down her assailant. The Telegraph reports that, on the night of March 20th, 20-year-old Jennifer Wilson, of Hertfordshire, England, was at a nightclub when another woman, Ashleigh Holliman, slammed a pint glass into her face for no apparent reason. Police who arrived at the scene found much of the evidence to have been cleared away by the club's staff members, and weren't able to sufficiently identify Holliman in security tapes. The club's bouncers had been unable to apprehend Holliman, who wasted no time in getting out of Dodge. Wilson, who got an inch-long scar from the incident, decided to take matters into her own hands -- with the help of Facebook.

Having thought she vaguely recognized one of Holliman's friends, she found him online and searched through some 200 of his pals before coming across her attacker's photograph and name. She tracked down her home and work address with the help of a mutual Facebook friend, and Holliman was arrested on April 1st. Just a couple weeks ago, on November 10th, she was sentenced to 120 hours of community service.

A lot of things obviously had to come together for this kind of Facebook vigilante justice to be served: Wilson's recognizing an online acquaintance; Holliman's posting a real photo of herself and making it visible to non-friends; and the critical mutual friend who sealed the deal. But still, it's kinda nice to know that no matter what, the Caped-Crusader-that-is-Facebook will be there to keep a watchful eye over all of us. [From: The Telegraph]

Tags: crime, facebook, police, socialnetworking, top

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