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Murder Suspect Asked Siri Where To Hide a Dead Body 160

Posted by samzenpus from the worst-laid-plans dept.
An anonymous reader writes A Florida man currently on trial for murder reportedly attempted to use Siri to garner ideas about where to bury the body of his dead roommate. According to police allegations, a University of Florida student named Pedro Bravo murdered his roommate via strangulation in late September of 2012 over a dispute involving Bravo's ex- girlfriend. According to a detective working the case, Bravo subsequently fired up Siri on his iPhone and asked it "I need to hide my roommate."
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Murder Suspect Asked Siri Where To Hide a Dead Body

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  • Shocker (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13, 2014 @10:53PM (#47668245)

    I wonder why my first thought upon seeing the headline was to assume it happened in Florida.

    • To be fair... (Score:4, Informative)

      by NotQuiteReal ( 608241 ) on Wednesday August 13, 2014 @10:56PM (#47668261) Journal
      It could have been Germany...

      • Re:To be fair... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by davester666 ( 731373 ) on Thursday August 14, 2014 @02:23AM (#47668891) Journal

        Real reporters and the jury actually noticed that the accused had an iPhone 4 at the time, which DOES NOT support accessing Siri [unless jailbroken, of which there was no evidence supplied to indicate it was], AND that all the prosecution introduced was a screen-shot of the Siri request.

        You know, the ones that were popular when Siri first was released and Siri would respond with something cute/weird/disturbing to cute/weird/disturbing questions....

        So, I guess he drove to the woods, then fired up his web browser and put in 'Siri, I need to hide my roommate.", then saw the screen shot, saved it to his camera roll, then proceed to ignore the advice in the image with a "Fuck this, I'll just dump him here".

        • Thanks, and thanks tandis, anubus iv, and exomundo. Slashdot editors can't really be blamed for letting this slide through, as it was reported as such even if the reporter was a UF grad or something. Shows the worst and best of the internet. Worst is someone composes a tweet or thought or joke or stereotype and it's reported as "news" EVERYWHERE. Best is that fellow nerds on /. are essentially acting as background checkers and via internet have the tools to out the hyperbole quickly.

        • Why should an iPhone 4S be able to use Siri and an iPhone 4 not? I had thaught this only a question of the iOS version?

          • At the time, Apple claimed it needed better microphone/audio hardware than the iPhone 4 had, but that was just bullshit [as it worked fine with jailbroken iPhone 4 and with bluetooth headsets]. They just wanted to keep it for the premium model that year, the iPhone 4S.

        • Real reporters and the jury actually noticed that the accused had an iPhone 4 at the time, which DOES NOT support accessing Siri [unless jailbroken, of which there was no evidence supplied to indicate it was], AND that all the prosecution introduced was a screen-shot of the Siri request.

          Look, just because the guy was allegedly willing to kill someone in cold blood, that doesn't also mean he's willing to do something as drastic as infringe on anyone's intellectual property rights. I mean, let's be fair! There's no need to jump to such extreme conclusions.

          Signed,
          -- The RIAA/MPAA

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        adam carolla made love-line

    • Re:Shocker (Score:4, Funny)

      by SJHillman ( 1966756 ) on Wednesday August 13, 2014 @11:02PM (#47668289)

      Because Florida Man only lives, works, and commits felonies in Florida. Expecting it to be elsewhere is like expecting to find Batman fighting crime in San Francisco. It's just not going to happen.

    • www.reddit.com/r/floridaman is one of my favorite reddits.

      'nuff said.

  • Oh shit! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Wednesday August 13, 2014 @10:54PM (#47668251) Journal

    All those old Clippy jokes are becoming reality

  • The Truth (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Siri was cheating on him with the roommate as well.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SpzToid ( 869795 )

      Siri could have been more helpful, like suggesting, "I see you're in Florida..."

      • "I see you're in Florida, hide the body in plain sight and say you stood your ground."

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by SpzToid ( 869795 )

          This makes perfect sense, because Siri's reply (or best-score) would be calculated as based upon previously successful tasks of a similar nature.

  • Gators (Score:5, Funny)

    by amiga3D ( 567632 ) on Wednesday August 13, 2014 @10:55PM (#47668259)

    Figures it's a UF student. In a state with swamps teeming with alligators he's got to ask his phone what to do with a dead body. This is why a college education costs so much. Trying to teach dumb asses like this anytihing beyond beer chugging has got to cost a fortune. He sounds like a futre CEO.

    • Re:Gators (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rolfwind ( 528248 ) on Wednesday August 13, 2014 @11:12PM (#47668329)

      Sad thing about requiring college education whether the job needs it or not. You can fill a moron with facts, but not logic.

      The body of Bravo's roomate was later found in a makeshift grave in a forest close to Bravo's apartment.

      That is stupid.

      Also of note is that investigators determined that Bravo, during the same time frame he asked Siri for advice on where to hide the body, also used a flashlight app nine times. Though circumstantial, the inference is that he used the flashlight on the iPhone to help him see as he disposed of the body.

      Scary how shit like that is tracked in the phone. I use my flashlight daily, wonder if that makes me a suspect for something?

      • Scary how shit like that is tracked in the phone. I use my flashlight daily, wonder if that makes me a suspect for something?

        don't worry, the cops are on the way.... damned serial murderers!

      • Scary how shit like that is tracked in the phone. I use my flashlight daily, wonder if that makes me a suspect for something?

        If the app prints out any debug messages, they'll get stored in the system log until the phone reboots or whatever. That's my guess as to what happened, but who knows.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by NoKaOi ( 1415755 )

        Scary how shit like that is tracked in the phone. I use my flashlight daily, wonder if that makes me a suspect for something?

        Dunno about the built-in flashlight that's in iOS7 (with Control Center), but the 3rd party flashlight apps tend to have ads. If it has ads, then it's being logged somewhere.

      • Re:Gators (Score:4, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 14, 2014 @12:31AM (#47668601)

        I use my flashlight daily, wonder if that makes me a suspect for something?

        Well no, I don't know what that has to do with a phone, it's just masturba...

        Oh wait, you said flashlight....

        • If they had a fleshlight app for the iPhone, I'd have to disable my "shake to activate/deactivate" flashlight app. Permanently.

          But at least my compass app would never need to ask for recalibration!

      • Re:Gators (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 14, 2014 @02:27AM (#47668901)

        I live in Gainesville. This is a big local story. It's a tale of Dumb and Dumber. I wonder how the guy got in college.

        1. I had already known he was using an iPhone on Verizon (look out for those pings!), but not until today did I see that delicious story in the Gainesville Sun that it was a Siri-looking screenshot. True or not, it seems to go great into the annals of Siri lore.

        2. What Bravo did close to his apartment was hide the shovel; the burial was in a neighboring county. He didn't go to nice soft ground either: he had trouble digging through limerock.

        3. He didn't bring a flashlight (though he did have three murder weapons prepared). An issue at trial was now much the battery charge went down during the time between when he turned off his phone's radio and when he turned it back on. They figured the murder and burial happened in that interval. If he had used a real flashlight, there would not be such a good trail to him.

        4. He told the whole story to his jail cellmate. The flashlight may have been bright, but Pedro Bravo wasn't.

        At the rate he's going, he'll soon have an address in Starke. That's in another neighboring county, but the reason he'd go there is not that it's close to Gainesville.

        • I hope it doesn't totally depend on the cellmate providing evidence of what he was told. That's fairly common for a cellmate to come up as a witness to get a reduced sentence. If he has a somewhat competent lawyer, that will get tossed.

          But if he really did ask his phone where to hide a body, and he was really trying to do so, that's just plain dumb.

          I was playing with Google auto-complete a few years ago. When searching "Where to hide a ", the top 3 suggestions were "bong", "tattoo" and "body". 115,000,0

      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by TapeCutter ( 624760 )
        AFAIK you cannot be convicted on circumstantial evidence alone, you can however be put to death on the unreliable recollections of an eye witness or two, especially if you're black and someone like Rick Perry needs a boost in the polls.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dcw3 ( 649211 )

          You can be convicted, as Scott Peterson was, based only on circumstantial evidence.

    • Yeah like a bunch of computer engineers having to look up money laundering in the dictionary.

  • Oh now Apple joins the team (Score:4, Interesting)

    by thieh ( 3654731 ) on Wednesday August 13, 2014 @10:58PM (#47668267)
    like Google and Microsoft as the moral police and they are trying to tell us what not to do. I suppose if we ask Siri how to avoid taxes now we probably will end up like Wesley Snipes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by suutar ( 1860506 )

      I dunno. Most of the people I know with iphones have asked Siri "where can I hide the bodies" because she has a funny answer (starts looking up quarries, if I recall). Of course, if any of them had become murder suspects shortly thereafter, it could have been a problem, but if Apple reported all of those, the police would probably give up after the first few as a waste of time.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by EvilSS ( 557649 )

        I dunno. Most of the people I know with iphones have asked Siri "where can I hide the bodies" because she has a funny answer (starts looking up quarries, if I recall). Of course, if any of them had become murder suspects shortly thereafter, it could have been a problem, but if Apple reported all of those, the police would probably give up after the first few as a waste of time.

        Actually I don't think it does this anymore. I was playing with it not long ago and wondered if they had updated any of the old "joke" queries and noticed some of them seemed to be removed and this was one of them. I wonder if this is why. I tried it just now and, of course, Siri appears to be down.

        Also, let this be a record that I was asking this to verify if it still worked or not!.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by rioki ( 1328185 )

          Also, let this be a record that I was asking this to verify if it still worked or not!.

          All the murder suspects say that. Now, where did you hide the bodies?

    • Re:Oh now Apple joins the team (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NoKaOi ( 1415755 ) on Thursday August 14, 2014 @12:34AM (#47668607)

      The article does not say that Apple contacted law enforcement because he searched on it. The article is sensationalistic click bait. Pretty much every search engine logs what you search on. Whether it's Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc etc etc. Even if it doesn't your browser is probably logging it in the history. Why would you expect Siri to be any different? It's really just a search engine with voice recognition. And, in a murder investigation, it's going to be standard procedure to investigate all of your browsing history and other activity leading up to and after the time of the murder. Nowhere in the article does it say they did any of this without a warrant. When they have lots of probable cause already and the suspect has already been arrested, it's not hard to get warrants to search their whole life to build a case (and if they find exculpatory evidence they are compelled to hand it over to the defense).

      Now, if Apple sent law enforcement notification that said, "look, here's a list of people that searched for suspicious things" that would be an entirely different story. And, if law enforcement tried to get Apple to give them the information without a proper warrant (like if they sent them an NSL) then that would be a different story too. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of instances of corporations and law enforcement being scumbags and violating the constitution, but this doesn't appear to be one of those instances.

      • If any of them sent law enforcement questionable searches, I'd have daily visitors at my house. :) I like to look for information on how factual elements of TV shows and movies are.

        • If you're good enough at fact-checking fiction, you can get paid to do it. Visit Cracked.com and look for the "Write for Us" button. With a name like Smythe, you'd be a shoo-in.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by fleabay ( 876971 )
            From a Cracked reader from a bygone era, I doubt the Cracked staff know who Sylvester was. Hell, he was just a janitor.

          • heh. I'm already in their writers group, I just haven't had time enough to spend writing any articles.

      • Posting to undo moderation mistake. I accidentally modded troll when I wanted to mod you up. Sorry.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by thieh ( 3654731 )
        From the article:

        Though Siri now responds to such queries with a "That's very funny", the software at the time actually responded with the following:

        What kind of place are you looking for? Swamps. Reservoirs. Metal Foundries. Dumps.

        I am saying that the fact that they changed it is implicit that they are telling us what not to do. This is in common with what Google and MS (reporting someone to the authorities is a good way to tell them not to do something) do but not identical.
        If you need a more accurate comparison it is probably the censorship of search engine results in this case. And with this precedent the problem will be other places will start the censorship of search engine results in order to tell you not t

    • At least Wesley Snipes hat some funny quotes in the expandables.

  • No, he didn't. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Tanlis ( 304135 ) on Wednesday August 13, 2014 @11:00PM (#47668275)

    He didn't actually do this. Please do a little research.

    • Re:No, he didn't. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Rosyna ( 80334 ) on Wednesday August 13, 2014 @11:43PM (#47668435) Homepage

      GAINESVILLE- We're on day 7 of the Pedro Andres Bravo trial. Bravo is being accused of the premeditated murder of his high school friend and UF student, Christian Aguilar. Bravo's phone records were reviewed.

      "I need to hide my roommate," that is a picture found on Pedro Bravo's phone. In the picture you can see Siri responded, "Swamps? Dumps?"

      The image was most likely a screenshot Bravo took from Facebook not an actual search he made. That was actually addressed by the jury who asked how he could do a Siri search when he had an iPhone 4 not 4s.

      It was a screenshot (Shit Siri Says [shitsirisays.com]). His iPhone 4 was incapable of asking Siri anything.

      The Gainesville PD also said it never happened.

      https://twitter.com/gainesvill... [twitter.com]

      Multiple reports of Bravo asking Siri to hide a roommate are incorrect... GPD Det. Goeckel certainly did not testify to that. #BravoTrial

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Rosyna ( 80334 )

      Also, Pedro Bravo was not the roommate [huffingtonpost.com] of Christian Aguilar.

      But this is /., who needs facts?!

    • Link to save on research: http://www.wuft.org/news/2014/... [wuft.org]

  • It was a saved screenshot (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bodero ( 136806 ) on Wednesday August 13, 2014 @11:00PM (#47668283)

    This story has already been debunked. It was a saved screenshot (different cell carrier and all).

    No, Pedro Bravo Didn't Ask Siri Where to Stash His Roommate's Body [wuft.org]

    • Re:It was a saved screenshot (Score:5, Interesting)

      by sg_oneill ( 159032 ) on Wednesday August 13, 2014 @11:20PM (#47668357)

      Yeah "Where do I hide a body" is an old Siri joke from launch. You used to be able to ask her that and she'd give you locations of nearest mineshafts, dumpsters and so on. It was just a bad taste demonstration of the backend search powers.

      I call bunkum on this, and if it IS true, I'd personally want to send a "friend of the court" submission that its a pretty famous joke search and doesnt necessarily prove anything.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Yeah "Where do I hide a body" is an old Siri joke from launch. You used to be able to ask her that and she'd give you locations of nearest mineshafts, dumpsters and so on. It was just a bad taste demonstration of the backend search powers.

        Well, anyone asked Google Now and Cortana the same question? I think everyone's been comparing them to Siri for a while now so do they give useful responses?

      • Related Searches (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        "Siri, where do I hide a dead body?"
        "Siri, how do I get arrested by the police?"
        "Siri, where can I hire an incompetent but really cheap lawyer?"
        "Siri, how do I get convicted by the jury?"
        "Siri, how do I get the judge to sentence me to death instead of to life in prison?"
        "Siri, when do I collect my Darwin Award?"

  • Cortana on the other hand... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    has first-hand experience with cold-blooded mass murderers.

    R.I.P. legions of covenants

  • Really? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PRMan ( 959735 ) on Wednesday August 13, 2014 @11:22PM (#47668361)
    EVERYONE has asked Siri this question. It went viral in the first days of Siri. Even my 14 year old daughter has done it and the image is passed around to everyone.
    • This.
    • Did Peter predict that Siri would "deliberately forget" where to hide a body?

      EVERYONE has asked Siri this question. It went viral in the first days of Siri. Even my 14 year old daughter has done it and the image is passed around to everyone.

  • Well... (Score:5, Informative)

    by djupedal ( 584558 ) on Wednesday August 13, 2014 @11:29PM (#47668369)
    Asking Siri where to hide a dead body was one of the first favorite phrases when that service came out. She would recommend bogs, swamps and landfills depending on what was nearest. These days she's not quite that helpful, tho...

  • how the F does this make it to slashdot? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13, 2014 @11:45PM (#47668443)

    http://www.wuft.org/news/2014/08/13/no-pedro-bravo-didnt-ask-siri-where-to-stash-his-roomates-body
    there. end. now somebody fire the submitter.

  • I just keep wondering when we are going to get there.

  • And more relevantly, did her answer involve lye?

  • "I'm sorry Dave I'm afraid I can't do that."

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It actually can give a response like that if you ask it to open the pod bay doors. However it apparently also dislikes being asked to open them repeatedly.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAjhDx4yoAA

  • Who hasn't asked Siri that. It's in a ton of "Stupid Siri Tricks" youtube videos. If you ask Siri after a recent software update, she says "I used to know the answer for that." Stupid reporting like this is why we can't have nice things.

    My favorite response she had for that question was "What, again?"

  • Heck, I remember when Siri came out, it was kind of a gag where I worked to ask Siri "where do I hide a dead prostitutes body" or some variation thereof, and some of the answers were, of course, hilarious.
  • In Florida even the stark raving insane are found capable of intent and fit to stand trial. And I am certain that this genius is able to assist in his own defense as well. As far as i can tell any accused person in Florida that can form one or two words is fodder for execution. There may be cases where a person is so far gone that he makes sounds like a pig feeding at a trough and nothing at all intelligible might be found unfit for trial but it must be rare. If they have an IQ of 20
  • The screenshot posted in the article shows a question "Where can I hide my roommate". Unlike the joke question "where can I hide a body", there isn't really any indication that there is a dead person involved. More a case of the landlord entering and not knowing that you sublet your apartment and need to hide your roommate. So it is highly unlikely that Siri would give (joke) advice where to hide a dead body.

    Second, Siri doesn't give advice on hiding dead bodies anymore.

    Third, Siri never gave advice i
  • What was the answer??

  • In fact a LOT of people ask siri , "where can I hide a dead body" It's one of the funniest Easter eggs siri has."

  • The problem is, if your roommate really does wind up dead, and there's evidence pointing to you, the police will ask Siri who did it, and she'll tell on you.

  • Bravo, Pedro. Bravo!
  • The includes browser records, google searches, etc. for major crimes. Its didnt quite work for the Newtown killer who trashed is computer and operated under aliases.

  • I just received a large kickback from my congressman. Where should I invest the proceeds?

  • He didn't *ask* Siri for help. Siri just told him where and also where to pick up the body.
  • I think that makes Apple an accessory to murder. :-) It would be funny if a lawsuit were brought against them.

  • Pretty crazy they record all voice requests to Siri

    I wouldn't be surprised if they activate the camera remotely to spy

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