Police Hacked iPhone of Actor's Murdered Wife

Authorities say text messages show the couple were fighting
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted May 5, 2016 6:41 PM CDT
Police Hacked iPhone of Actor's Murdered Wife
Actor Michael Jace, seen here in 2012, is accused of killing his wife in 2014.   (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

While the FBI was trying to figure out a way into the locked iPhone that belonged to one of the San Bernardino shooters, the LAPD found a hacker to crack a phone belonging to the murdered wife of actor Michael Jace, the Los Angeles Times reports. Jace—best known for playing a cop on The Shield—is accused of killing his wife April in 2014 at their Los Angeles home. Investigators say April's iPhone contains text messages that show the couple argued "about their relationship" shortly before April was killed. According to the International Business Times, authorities were able to get the SIM card data off the phone in January but were unable to turn the phone on again afterward.

Jace's defense team says there is further evidence on the phone showing April was having an affair, and a judge delayed the trial for a thorough search of the phone, the New York Daily News reports. According to documents obtained by the Times, the LAPD found a "forensic cellphone expert" who was able to break the phone's encryption back in March. The documents don't say how the unidentified expert was able to do so. It's likely April's phone was running an older and less well-encrypted operating system than the one the FBI was trying to crack in the San Bernardino case. The 2014 killing, which took place with two young children in the home, surprised Michael and April's neighbors. "They were the Huxtables on the block," the Times quotes one neighbor as saying. (More Michael Jace stories.)

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