Fugitive Alfred Hightower Caught Through World of Warcraft

Alfred Hightower was a fugitive.

He was wanted on charges of dealing in a schedule III controlled substance, dealing in a schedule IV controlled substance, and two charges of dealing in marijuana. A warrant was issued for his arrest in 2007.

Unfortunately for Alfred, he was also addicted to playing World of Warcraft.

Howard County Sheriff’s Department deputy Matt Roberson got his man.  The Indiana officer says, “You hear stories about you can’t get someone through the Internet.  Guess what? You can. I just did. Here you are, playing World of Warcraft, and you never know who you’re playing with.”

Over the summer, the sheriff’s department  and several U.S. Marshals had been unable to locate Hightower because he had skipped the country.

“I received information from a childhood friend, who tells me the guy is in Canada,” said Roberson. “I held onto the information in the back of my head. I spoke to the marshals and asked if we could confirm the guy’s location, would they help us get him? They indicated that they would.”

With the help of sheriff’s major Steve Rogers, Roberson began collecting info on Hightower through a number of sources. Then they learned he was a World of Warcraft player.

“We received information that this guy was a regular player of an online game, which was referred to as ‘some warlock and witches’ game,” said Roberson. “None of that information was sound enough to pursue on its own, but putting everything we had together gave me enough evidence to send a subpoena to Blizzard Entertainment. I knew exactly what he was playing — World of Warcraft. I used to play it. It’s one of the largest online games in the world.”

Blizzard cooperated, giving Roberson the wanted man's IP address, his account information, his billing address, and his online screen name (pictured above) and preferred server.

“I did a search off the IP address to locate him,” said Roberson. “I got a longitude and latitude. Then I went to Google Earth. It works wonders. It uses longitude and latitude. Boom! I had an address. I was not able to go streetside at the location, but I had him.”

And now, Alfred Hightower is in custody, thanks to his WoW addiction!

[Source]

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