MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. – Using data from a fitness tracker app, an FBI investigator was able to re-create the final steps 14-year-old April Millsap took before she was killed.
Agent Matthew Zentz, a digital analysis expert, testified Thursday that he extracted information from a Sports Tracker app on the Armada teen's cellphone and combined it with location information on Google Earth to create an animation that shows the path Millsap took while walking her dog along the Macomb Orchard Trail in July 2014.
Zentz also was able to drop pins on the route to mark when phone calls and text messages were sent. One text included in his investigation was a text Millsap sent to her boyfriend, Austin. It read, "I think I almost got kidnapped omfg."
Millsap's body was found beaten along the trail. Police said she had been hit by a motorcycle helmet.
Prosecutors said witnesses saw the teen with a man on a motorcycle just before she was killed and gave police a detailed visual description for a sketch.
James VanCallis, 33, was named a person of interest in the case, and eventually charged in Millsap’s death with murder, kidnapping and attempted criminal sexual conduct.
His attorney maintains there is no DNA evidence linking him to the crime.
Millsap’s mother, Jennifer, testified Wednesday that she began to get worried when her daughter wasn’t answering text messages and calls after leaving to walk the family dog. She testified that she began searching for her daughter along her normal walking route and that’s when she came upon the scene with police.