Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Tracking of cell phone calls helped police catch suspect

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 11:02:09 -0500

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[Monday, Nov. 18, 2002]

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in news

Tracking of cell phone calls helped police catch suspect

By Bill Bryan

Of the Post-Dispatch

11/17/2002 08:46 PM

As Torry Miller dodged police last week in a six-day game of cat and mouse, he probably was unaware that police were tracking his Nextel cell phone with a high-tech device.

Those looking for Miller - wanted on a murder charge and as a suspect in the wounding of a St. Louis police officer - monitored who was called from his phone and pinpointed its location within a few blocks.

The monitoring device belonged to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. St. Louis police used it for the first time in a manhunt.

The assistance spun off from a cooperative program in which the two agencies exchange information on murders, other violence and narcotics trafficking.

While the phone-tracing equipment did not lead directly to Miller's capture - a tipster did - it corroborated key information and helped authorities to keep tabs on the elusive fugitive.

"We knew generally where he was by pinpointing the cell his phone was using," said a source in the DEA.

For the most part, Miller hid at a large apartment complex off Bellefontaine Road, the source said. But police couldn't pinpoint his precise location among the hundreds of units there.

"If he had moved away (from the complex) and used his phone, we would have caught him," the source said. "We had stakeouts at the apartments, and on one occasion just missed him." After his arrest, Miller told investigators, according to the DEA source, that he had known the searchers were closing in on him and that he expected to wake up with an officer's gun in his face.

The DEA's device was able to detect when Miller's phone moved to another cell and could trace the people it dialed.

"When we heard he might be at his aunt's house, where he was eventually caught, it made perfect sense because we knew he had called the house earlier," the source said.

Miller, 25, was captured Wednesday night while hiding in the basement of the aunt's home in the 1800 block of Annie Malone Drive. Police Sgt. Brian Gilmore persuaded Miller to surrender peacefully.

Miller was in possession of a 7.62-mm assault rifle which ballistics tests show was used in the wounding of Officer Robert Miller on Nov. 7 and in the fatal morning rush-hour shooting of a motorist, Antonine Brown, 25, on Interstate 55 on Oct. 16.

Torry Miller has been charged with first-degree assault on a law enforcement officer. Officer Miller was wounded in the left arm and lost a finger when three rifle shots blasted out the driver's side window of his patrol car as he was looking for two men who had jumped out of a stolen car. No charges have been filed against Torry Miller in the I-55 shooting.

When the manhunt began for Torry Miller, he was facing a first-degree murder charge in the killing Sept. 7 of Ebony Davis, 25.

William J. Renton Jr., special agent in charge of the DEA's St. Louis division, declined to discuss the agency's phone-monitoring capabilities. But he said he was glad to help the St. Louis Police Department get its man.

In turn, St. Louis Police Chief Joe Mokwa said he was thankful for the help. "They were very supportive - they offered every resource they had available," Mokwa said.

The phone-tracking assistance is one example of how the DEA can help homicide detectives. The DEA also provides information gleaned from federal wiretaps and phone numbers retrieved from recovered cell phones and pagers.

When St. Louis police developed information earlier this year that a possible serial killer was living in Ferguson, they turned to the DEA for help.

"The DEA was able to give us a bunch of Nextels right away when we needed them so we could conduct a proper surveillance on the suspect's home," said police Capt. Harry Hegger, commander of the crimes against persons division. That suspect, Maury Travis, was arrested and later hanged himself in the St. Louis County Jail.

The cooperative program began about a year ago. Jack Riley, an assistant special agent in charge of the DEA's St. Louis division, said the program grew out a wiretap case in which the federal agents had information about violent crimes.

"Usually, the court file is sealed at the end of a case," Riley explained. Instead, the DEA assigned two agents to work full time with homicide detectives as a conduit for passing along relevant information it gleaned about local violent crimes.

Hegger said the program "has worked out real well for both parties."

Reporter Bill Bryan:

E-mail: [email-masked]

Phone: 314-340-8950

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