When I first heard about this story about a fugitive being caught after 35 years, I didn’t think twice about it. Until I saw a detail about the Intelligence Fusion Center being involved.
State investigators say the very things that helped a convicted Indiana murderer stay under the radar for more than three decades were what finally got her caught.
When Tennessee police officers saw the 1970s prison photo, they knew Linda Delaney, a well liked, small town grandmother, was in fact Linda Darby, an escapee from the Indiana Women’s Prison. She was a wife convicted of settling a family financial hardship by shooting her husband and setting him and their Hammond home on fire.
So, how was this accomplished, and what is the Intelligence Fusion Center.
McKee runs the Fusion Center under the Indiana Department of Homeland Security. It was just ten days ago its state and federal analysts re-entered the data from the cold 1972 escape case of Linda Darby.
In less than the equivalent of three workdays they were focused on a retirement aged Tennessee wife and mother of two. A woman who shared the first name of Linda, whose registered birthdate and social security number were just a few digits off their suspect’s. Those were changes that might be easy for a fugitive to remember and avoid attracting attention.
McKee adds, “It was her undoing in this case as well.”
Darby never got another driver’s license, another red flag used to pick her from a database of millions of people. Officials hope to follow up this closed case with others. The Department of Corrections brought the Fusion Center analysts another 300 cases of missing prisoners and parolees.
Some analysis of common practices that fugitives must use to hide, and simple data crunching. Not a problem right?
Now, why should this be of any concern to anyone. Well, like any good tool, there is always a potential for misuse. Catching fugitives, terrorists and criminals, is all well and good. But how far can this tool reach? How about tax cheats, and people skipping on child support payments? It wouldn’t be to hard to feed the information in, and find out what current jobs, and assets a person has.
How far reaching is this? The following states have operational centers:
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia
EPIC has a good roundup of information on the issue.
For more info on the Indiana Intelligence Fusion Center…
The Mission of the Indiana Intelligence Fusion Center is to collect, analyze, and disseminate information and intelligence data regarding criminal and terrorist activity in the State of Indiana while following Fair Information Practices to ensure the rights and privacy of citizens.