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Police in the Philippines Use Facebook to Catch Murder Suspect

by Amar Toor on July 28, 2010 at 02:50 PM

murder suspect mark dizonOn July 12th, an armed vandal broke into a hotel room in the city of Angeles, Philippines, and murdered a Canadian man and his Filipino girlfriend. In the following days and weeks, seven more people in the city would fall prey to the killer, including five Filipinos, an American and a Briton. As police investigated, they began drawing connections to 28-year-old Mark Dizon, a computer technician from a well-to-do family. Authorities weren't able to apprehend Dizon, though, until one man came forward with some incriminating evidence he'd dug up on Facebook.

Last week, in the latest installment of Dizon's alleged killings, the technician robbed and murdered 70-year-old American Albert Mitchell and his wife, Janet. As he was fleeing the scene of the crime, a village guard and motorcycle taxi driver caught a glimpse of his face, and described him to investigators. When a family friend of the Mitchell's caught wind of the suspect profile, he searched for Dizon's name on Facebook, and showed the profile picture to police. The witnesses later identified the man by his Facebook picture, and, yesterday, police arrested the criminal at a public square in San Fernando. The most chilling part of the story, though, is that, when Dizon's Facebook profile was excavated, the Mitchells' friend noticed that the victims' daughter was listed as one of his friends on the social network.

Police say Dizon will soon be charged with murder, although he denies any involvement in the killings. Investigators, however, have already found surveillance footage of the man selling stolen items at local pawn shops, and claim that the same pistol was used in all of the crimes, linking Dizon to the other killings. But, in the end, it was the assassin's addiction to technology that precipitated his downfall. "He was fond of computers and this gave him away," said Danilo Bautista, Senior Superintendent of police. [From: Boston Globe]

Tags: crime, facebook, MarkDizon, murder, murderer, Philippines, police, SerialKiller, social networking, SocialNetworking, top, web

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