CHICAGO -- Theresa Unkrur's daughter was on her iPhone checking her Facebook page when she spotted a new photo posted from her MacBook.
Her stolen MacBook.
The computer was taken in a break-in last week, and days later the new photo showed up on Facebook showing two guys sitting on a couch and smiling into the laptop's camera.
Unkrur, an attorney, says she doesn't know the guys in the picture and understands there could be an innocent explanation for why they were sitting in front of the stolen computer when the camera snapped and - thanks to an app - automatically posted the photo to Facebook.
A thief or thieves broke into the Unkrurs' Chicago home last Wednesday, four days before Christmas, and took computers, an iPhone and a Playstation 3. The family filed a report with police, then contacted authorities again after the photo popped up Monday evening.
The family figures that if police can identify the young men in the picture, that could help them track down who took the electronics. A Chicago police spokesman declined to comment on the photo, and police were not releasing the picture, as of Tuesday evening.
Meanwhile, members of Unkrur's family, including daughter Liz, 22, and son Alex, 21, were showing the photo on Facebook and asking visitors whether they recognized the two. They even showed the photo in the neighborhood, but so far have gotten only vague leads.
Unkrur said the break-in occurred after her son briefly left the home to visit a neighbor. When she arrived home, all the doors and a lower window were open, she said.
Missing were an iPhone, two MacBooks, a PlayStation 3, video games and a controller. The thieves apparently loaded it all into three pieces of luggage that also are missing. Unkrur said she was told by police that they got some "good fingerprints" from a wall-mounted television the thieves tried to take.
Crime experts say Unkrur's case is an extreme example of how technology can potentially aid in solving crimes.
According to James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston, criminals aren't always savvy when it comes to technology, and tend to underestimate how they can be detected electronically.
Fox cited conventional ways that technology is fighting crime, including surveillance cameras, car alarms and home security systems. He had never heard of a case quite like the Unkrurs'.
Yet a reminiscent case occurred just last August in the Chicago area.
A laptop was stolen from a home in suburban Riverside, and when it was recovered a few days later at an electronics store, a photographic self-portrait of the suspected burglar was found on it. Police went public with the photo, quickly identified a suspect, and ultimately arrested him.
Theresa Unkrur said the break-in has left her family feeling exposed and violated. "It's a terrible feeling just knowing someone was in here ... that they could have hurt the dogs," Unkrur said. "It's very unsettling."
"I'm afraid," she added. "I just don't know what their (burglars') states of mind are ... if they are on to the fact that we are on to them."
Source: http://www.bnd.com/2011/12/27/1994313/family-hopes-photo-posted-on-facebook.html
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