We have, in the past, written blogs regarding Forensic Phone Data Extractions and cell phone data recovery for hundreds of cases. There are requests relating to FCC Regulations, deleted text messages for Divorce and Custody Cases needed for Court, or accidentally deleting information, loss of contacts numbers, call histories, but none compared to the request we received today. Our Client walked into our office and we were not quite prepared for her request. It wasn’t because we weren’t capable, it was because this was the first time, we were asked to conduct an Extraction for an emotional need. She told us her father had passed away almost five years ago and after his passing, she realized he had left a voicemail for her that she had never heard. He was gone; she had photos, videos, birthday cards and memories, but this voicemail he left on her cell phone was more precious than all the visual memories she had of him. She had played that message almost every day for a year, then she recorded the voicemail on her phone so that she couldn’t accidentally delete it. It was the last call he made to her before he left this earth. Her dad called her sis and they spoke almost every morning on her way to work. They both knew his health was not good, but their conversations were always upbeat and positive, both knowing these calls would someday end.
She had accidentally deleted the voicemail message, but not prior to making a video recording of it on her phone. Our Client had just created what she called, “An Account in the Clouds”, so she could safely transfer her data from her phone to a safe place that could never be deleted. She had gone through her phone and deleted old pictures and short video clips and hadn’t realized at the time she had deleted the recorded voicemail message until she downloaded her phone to her Cloud account, and it wasn’t there. After careful review of the videos on her phone, she could not find the one short 45-second voicemail message. She told us she had read a previous blog that we had extracted deleted information and that is what she was asking us to do. She stated it had been over a month since the deletion and she was worried the message couldn’t be recovered as she had deleted so much data.
We plugged her phone into our software program and began the cell phone Forensics Extraction. Once the phone data extraction was complete, we reviewed the deleted information and within an hour of the review, we found the deleted voicemail message. We then downloaded the message onto a Flash Drive, we also had the Client come into the office and we assisted her with transferring the message from the Flash Drive onto her “Cloud” and made sure it was viewable. We also, at her request downloaded the message back onto her phone so that she could at anytime play the message whenever she needed to hear his voice.
For it was an easy task, cell phone extraction service, but to her, it was the recovery of 45 seconds of a voice that meant so much to her.
~ Brenda McGinley, CEO, All in Investigations