Shoe prints lead FBI to suspect couple involved in multiple New Mexico wildfires | Hacker News Reader

Shoe prints lead FBI to suspect couple involved in multiple New Mexico wildfires

nbcnews.com

63 pointsgeox89 comments

Shoe print evidence has a high chance to lead to false convictions:

>> The National Institute of Justice, part of the U.S. Department of Justice, has just published a report which found certain techniques, including footprint analysis and fire debris, in forensic science were disproportionately associated with wrongful conviction

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bad-science-and-b...

(https://archive.ph/4ezJo)

Also see wikipedia:

>> It must also be considered that footprints discovered at a crime scene remain fixed, while the wearer of the footwear continues on likely changing the wear of the shoe. Thus, unless the print is immediately matched its potential value may be lost. Also of concern is the lack of science and standards demonstrating that footwear marks are unique. There are a lack of scientific studies demonstrating how many characteristics are needed to determine a match with such evidence. This is similar to other forensic evidence such as bite mark analysis, tire tread analysis, etc. where there is little scientific evidence of its efficacy. In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences made the conclusion that, aside from DNA, there was little if not any, scientific evidence for many forensic disciplines, including footprint evidence.[13]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_footwear_evidence#Lim...

Well the El Paso Times has been covering this for about a month [0]. Witnesses, including a park ranger, repeatedly describe seeing a dark Jeep leaving the scene of each fire. Prints from a pair of Vans slip-ons and tire treads were found at multiple fire scenes. When she was pulled over, the prints of the girlfriend's Vans slip-ons matched those found at the scenes, as did the tread of the dark-colored Jeep she was then driving.

[0] https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/crime/2024/07/22/fbi-...

I understand why someone may intentionally or accidentally start ONE wildfire but always been baffled anyone could do it a second time realizing the effects. It's a weird phenomenon.

Some people just want to watch the world burn.

sounds like something a bot would say

Some people do, in fact, want to watch the world burn whether figuratively or literally or both.

Ideally both at once, while cackling maniacally.

Literally is already both these days.

For me too, I can see how ONE person would be psycho/sexually charged by starting fires.

But a couple in a stable relationship? How does that conversation start? Did they meet at a climate denial convention for radicals?

Epstein and ghislaine were in it together. People with hobbies find like minded people I guess.

Bonnie and Clyde were also a bit notorious.

I think it’s that couples can either average out a bit (destructive interference?) or ramp each other up to an insane degree (constructive interference).

Usually it’s a mix across attributes, so nothing too notable occurs. But obviously not in this case…

> in it together

In Mossad together?

I'm not sure why you would think they are climate deniers. The odds are that they are exactly the opposite.

Having been around far left activist groups in my past, there are many who think that doing things like this on purpose is morally justified, because it keeps the conversation on climate change. The media incentivizes it by covering them as "climate-fueled wildfire" stories, every single time.

Wildfires in Canada were at a two-decade low in 2020, during the lockdowns. Think about that.

>Wildfires in Canada were at a two-decade low in 2020, during the lockdowns. Think about that.

Likely because most wildfires are accidents, even with accelerationist provocateurs being profoundly stupid and causing the thing they're worried about to get you to worry about it. People radicalized enough to do that are wildly uncommon.

Perhaps as a percentage of the population - but we do have groups like Stop Oil routinely and deliberately causing massive traffic congestion, which ironically produces more wasteful emissions. Or the fools throwing liquids and pigments on irreplaceable historical artifacts and monuments.

Never underestimate a radicalized idiot... they are capable of the inconceivable.

They are (allegedly) criminals. All this people rushing to assign them to a particular left/right group just are doing damage control or trying to promote the relate that would suit better the interests of their own particular tribe.

Without more data, just criminals. Activists would behave differently IMO.

It was a random example of an absurd type of convention that normally would not have people seeking romance or hooking up. My comment originally did say "climate convention" but that didn't seem absurd enough to me. Climate denial is absurd, so I switched the example.

> Did they meet at a climate denial convention for radicals?

Why would you automatically assume this? The world has had pyromaniacs long before it was fashionable to make radical climate activism one's identity.

Given that there are serial killers, serial rapists, serial abusers, and so on for every other type of violent crime, I would be more surprised if there weren't serial arsonists on occasion.

Unless you are paid for doing exactly this 16 times.

By who, and for what reason?

I don't know what the parent comment was referring to, however it's notable how brittle society actually is.

Society only works when people generally play by the same rules, ie. "The Social Contract". When people stop adhering to the contract, chaos happens and society rots or crumbles.

There's a plethora of recent examples of this - including mass riots, mass looting and mass shoplifting. Society doesn't have an automatic and efficient way to deal with people who collectively decided societal rules don't apply to them.

For some people, chaos is a means to an end. Tear down the things you don't like in society by literally breaking them.

I would argue there are some baseline ones to follow, mostly revolving around consent, property rights, and violence. Fortunately even other apes generally understand these instinctually at some level so it's baked in well enough it won't completely break down, with various asterisks attached.

If we all stopped paying taxes and started smoking weed we would probably manage somehow. On the other hand if everyone becomes an arsonist we'd have real problems.

Dunno, but when somebody spends a lot of resources and time to assure that wildfires happen, there is something to gain in their minds. Poor people don't spend their scarce precious money so randomly.

My first question would be: Can they find a link between this people and Gary Stephen Maynard? I assume that the answer will be not (or not evident) but, the `modus operandi` is very similar and both attacks fall in USA election years, so we see the same patterns repeating again (as expected). This has happened before.

My second question would be: provoked fires happen more often, less often or are equally distributed between blue and red states?

Finally it seems that a lot of countries are starting to take the crime aspect of wildfires more seriously. This is probably a year with a high risk by the elections so I would expect a complicated summer.

Always wear different shoes when you commit a crime, then dispose of the shoes afterwards. A friend told me that.

And make sure they don't fit properly. So that they will acquit. On a related note: Also, change your tires.

we may also skim down to: don't be the person who commited the crime ^-^

Or, if you are, don't get caught

By changing your shoes and tires

I'm glad we've come upon this groundbreaking discovery in crime prevention.

When I moved and had a set of tires I had no room for, it was surprisingly hard to give them away even to tire shops.

I guess this explains some of it lol.

Just go to a lake and tie them against someone's boat launch, or just throw them in the lake. After all, you've gone this far of committing a crime, what's a little illegal dumping going to bother you?

This reminds me of another human behavior I see when driving.

Some guy goes speeding down the freeway, weaving through traffic. Easily a reckless driving ticket, possibly jail time or car impounded.

But they won't dare enter the carpool lane, even though it's totally empty. A ticket of $165.

They're basically hazardous waste. Even if they have plenty of tread and a possible long life ahead of them, no shop wants the hassle or comeback risk that comes with installing parts that don't have a fresh warranty.

My wife knows a used-tire shop in New Orleans. Used to go there when her car had a flat and needed it replaced quick and cheap.

my first car had a bad tie-rod-end, something wrong with the steering. It would chew through tires unevenly every 4 months or so. but the beauty was (20+ years ago) they were only 13" tires, and getting them rotated was dirt-cheap. So I'd do that and replace them quarterly with used ones for $20 a pop instead of fix the steering problem.

Probably still cheaper to fix the steering problem... Tie rod ends are like $15.

Go to a tire shop in a poor part of town. They will gladly sell you a used tire if you have a blowout.

"Bought a new set of tires within a week of each serial killing" is a thing that's easily datamine-able. Make it challenging by using different tire vendors each time and limiting your crimes to traditional seasonal tire changeover times.

Allegedly.

Or just do what many serial killers do and just kill non-white women and minorities, and the cops won't care enough to put in much of an effort.

Playing devil's advocate, you don't have to buy new tires. Just swap them. A couple hundred bucks at Harbor Freight and you can be setting beads at home.

When I read a headline like this, my mind always goes to parallel construction.

I'm not saying forensics can't do some amazing stuff, but it just feels so much more likely that someone was able to correlate a pair cell phones to both locations, pull search histories and know for certain who did it

Parallel construction is mainly used in the context of intelligence sharing. The CIA and NSA don't give two flying fucks about the 4th Amendment, but the FBI needs criminal convictions that will stick in US courts, so they at least have to pay lip service to it. Conversely the CIA/NSA really want their methods to remain secret, but the FBI has to disclose their reasoning as part of prosecution. Traditionally, the CIA and FBI didn't talk to each other at all[0], until 9/11 happened and Congress forced them to, so parallel construction is how they avoid stepping on each other's toes.

That being said, that's all moot, because the article says the guy self-reported[1]:

> The man in the Jeep had reported the first fire that occurred on May 3, claiming to be a wildland firefighter who tried to put it out, authorities said. Investigators said they observed, however, a stark contrast in his reaction to the Salt Fire; he didn't attempt to report or extinguish it, even though he claimed in an interview that it was visible from his house.

And to add to the stupidity, his girlfriend voluntarily provided shoeprints to compare:

> Less than a mile from where the Salt Fire started, an agent from the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Office of Justice Services conducted a traffic stop of the suspected Jeep, with a man and his girlfriend inside.

> The Jeep’s tire tread patterns closely matched those near the fires, authorities said. A shoe print of the woman's Vans also matched the previously found impression, and the woman voluntarily gave her shoes to the FBI, it said.

More powerful than forensics or spyware is the fact that criminals suffer from profound stupidity. I mean, the reason why people say "crime doesn't pay" is because, in most cases, it literally doesn't. Crime is not an economically productive activity on net, but even for individuals, they rarely profit from it. The way you actually profit from crime is to make other people do the crime for you, so they get caught, like some kind of MLM pyramid scheme that eventually becomes the new state if left unchecked.

[0] Yes, the GTA5 subplot about the IAA breaking into the FIB to extract a man that was already arrested so they can go Jack Bauer on him is only slightly an exaggeration of actual US executive branch politics

[1] In Among Us, if you kill someone as the Impostor, you can accidentally click the Report button to report your own kill. This happens more often than you think.

Until the DA asks you in court why you spend so much on shoes every year.

There are a bunch of buying strategies or reasonable explanations, I think you'll be fine explaining why you spend money on shoes if its even asked.

Always, ALWAYS, leave answering questions to your attorney.

"I don't recall."

I run multiple trail races greater than marathon length every year, along with the training to run those races. I have a whole rack of running shoes in various condition. That also explains why I was out in the woods in the first place.

Or remember you are never gonna get away so better not commit any crime

I mean...something like half of homicides go unsolved.

It depends on where

In Seattle, I think the homicide closure rate was about 50% pre pandemic, and got a lot worse since then. But also closure != punishment, because not all homicide prosecutions end up being guilty (it's not like the feds with a 99.X% conviction rate once they bring a case).

probably because a lot of the offenders end up being victims. in many situations the problem is self-optimizing.

Wow, and that's a multi-decade low [1]!

[1] https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/01/12/as-murders-spi...

Well, this is just not true. There are plenty of people that have committed crimes and gotten away with it. Some might have been done so well that nobody noticed the crime at all. Some might have done it just slightly less perfectly so that people know the crime happened, but nobody can find the culprit. There's an infamous art gallery heist that comes to mind right off the bat.

Or, just be the CEO, apologize profusely one time, then watch as the disaster doesn't even affect your stock price for more than a week or two. Because, hey, sometimes a catastrophe is just the cost of doing business.

You could also say you didn't have "good product market fit", and then get another round of funding. Remember: it's not fraud if you sincerely believe in your business idea!

> you are never gonna get away

"Selection bias" here. You don't know about all the people who DID get away with it.

Not that I'm encouraging anyone /s

Canada has a legit wildfire season, and electrical and accidents obviously occur, but it also has an arson problem apparently because the fires drive a set of other narratives. eco-terrorism has its own internal status system that incentivises it. It's a source of chaos for its own sake. The irony is that instead of dealing with the crime, police mainly protect these "activists" from the communities they harass and the impunity from traditional consequences just makes them worse.

I mean, sure, you could blame the climate crisis on the petrol companies that have doubled production in Alberta in the past 10 years, or you suspect "eco-terrorists" which, as far as I know, is a Maxime Bernier conspiracy theory that has never been proven, despite the fact that environmental groups are constantly under CSIS watch? (https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230609-canada-wildfi...)

BBC podcast series Burning Wild paints a pretty different picture than your narrative. Highly recommended.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0cx6tw7

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