A man who claimed to be innocent of killing his wife has been found to be guilty in part to prosecutors’ using evidence from the Apple Health app on his iPhone to convict him.
While there was also physical evidence that led to a 16-year reckless manslaughter sentence for defendant Jeff West, the Apple Health app data on his iPhone helped strike down a point of West’s defense.
The Birmingham News (via Cult of Mac) reports that Kathleen Dawn “Kat” West, Jeff West’s wife, was found dead outside the couple’s home in January 2018 after suffering a blow to the head. West claimed that she was drunk and fell while he was asleep in bed. However, the Health app on his iPhone indicated otherwise.
Jurors also heard testimony about forensics found on Kat West’s phone, which included the phone’s Health App, showing the number of steps she took, or where her phone was, the night authorities believe she was killed. The last time her phone moved, according to the data, was at 1054 p.m. and recorded 87 steps.
West told investigators that he fell asleep around 10:30 p.m. and was in bed until 5:15 a.m., but his Apple Health app showed that he took a total of 18 steps from 11:03 p.m. to 11:10 p.m., a fact that contradicted his claims.
West’s fingerprints were also found at the bottom of the bottle that was used to hit his wife in the head. Prosecutors believed that Jeff West, who was a trained crime scene investigator, killed his wife after an argument and then staged the scene to make himself look innocent.
The argument was apparently over Kat West’s subscription-only website, where she went by the name Kitty Kat West. Kat West also had Twitter and Instagram accounts featuring revealing photos of herself, which directed viewers to her paid adult website, where they could pay a $15.99 per subscription fee to access additional content.
West, who declined a plea bargain deal prior to the start of last year’s trial, has been in prison for the past three years as the murder trial has progressed.
