Fitness tracker evidence allowed at homicide trial

By: Associated Press//February 1, 2018//

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GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — A judge in northeastern Wisconsin will allow prosecutors to introduce some evidence from a fitness tracker which they say will help prove their homicide case.

George Burch will soon be on trial in the death of Nicole VanderHeyden, whose body was found in a Bellevue field in May 2016. Burch’s attorney plans to try to pin the homicide on VanderHeyden’s boyfriend, Douglass Detrie, who was arrested in the case, but later released.

WLUK-TV reports Burch claims Detrie discovered the two of them together and killed VanderHeyden. Prosecutors asked for permission to introduce data from Detrie’s Fitbit, showing that he was asleep at the time and didn’t walk three miles home from where his girlfriend’s body was found. Burch’s lawyers objected. A Brown County judge ruled prosecutors can introduce the step-counting Fitbit feature.

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