Thursday, May 16, 2013

Nichole Cable: Update


BANGOR, Maine (NEWS CENTER) 
- The Penobscot County Sheriff's Office continues to look for missing 15-year-old Nichole Cable
from the town of Glenburn, but one man says he has no connection to the case. 

The name of the person on Facebook Nichole was communicating with was a Bryan Butterfield, whose Facebook
account has been taken down, but there is a real Bryan Butterfield who did know Nichole and was questioned by police 

--but he is not a suspect. 
He wants is for the backlash to stop.

Butterfield called media wanting to clear his name and explain it's not him.

He tells media me he knew Nichole from when they went to high school together-- and spoke maybe twice. 
He had forgot about her until the Penobscot County Sheriff's office showed up at his door. 

When the officer knocked on the door they asked if Nichole was in the house-- ironically Bryan's mother is also named Nichole. 
Bryan went through questioning, handed over his phone and social media passwords and says he cooperated with police. 

What Bryan says is that he knew this fake account existed and claims he went to police after the person started 
contacting his friends and girlfriend. 

According to Bryan-- both police and Facebook security did nothing to correct the situation. 

Now both himself and his family are being questioned and scrutinized both on social media and in public. 
And he says it could have been prevented.
We did speak with Sheriff Glenn Ross with the Penobscot Sheriff's office to confirm whether or not Bryan has been cleared.

Sheriff Ross said they had heard about the theory that a Bryan Butterfield was involved. 

The Sheriff's department thoroughly investigated that and found he is not a suspect at this time.

35 comments:

Marie said...

Well that helps - not! Maybe it's just me, but I'm more confused than ever.

Lis said...

Is it the officials who cannot make a clear statement? Or the journalists who cannot write up a clear story?

Facebook has a history of failing to respond to issues like this.

Anonymous said...

It's like getting on a ferris wheel...that keeps going round and round.

Nic said...

Social media is showing itself to be a possibly dangerous place over and over again. So many predators lurk on-line. Why won't LE take things like "identity theft" seriously? Especially Facebook security. Why not follow-up and delete the dang account? It would have been so simple. I gave up my account over two years ago. I don't like the way Facebook operates. Every time they make changes, the security settings re-set and you're "wide open". Every time you leave their site to play a silly game (which I wouldn't do even though "friends" incessantly kept "poking" me and giving me "drinks",) they make your personal information available to a third party. They have a responsibility to the people using their forum. If they have security, security should be following through. If identity theft is the problem, LE should be getting involved, too. Especially if it's been identified that the person impersonating someone is in the same locale (approaching friends and girlfriend of said person they are impersonating.)

I hope they find Nichole. Soon.

SALurkerOne said...

There is a boy Nichole's age who's FB account was hacked by a man. The man used the account to meet up with Nichole. The boy has been cleared....this is all as per what was said on the Bring Nichole home FB page.

I hope this girl is OK! But this has me worried. As far as I know the FBI doesn't get involved for runaways. Although they do for kidnapping.

Authorities are searching a stretch of woods for anything related to Nichole. I hope it is just for clues like they say. But I don't know if I believe that.

This case is so close to home for me.

I pray she's alive & well. God be with her. With her family.

Skeptical said...

I am a bit of an "unintentional Luddite" (oxymoron?) when it comes to computer technology. How is it possible to steal someone's Facebook identity. I am not a member of Facebook for personal reasons (mainly Mark Zuckerberg is a wormy little underhanded thief in my opinion). I have no base for understanding how Facebook works.

John Mc Gowan said...

What Bryan says is that he knew this fake account existed and claims he went to police after THE PERSON started contacting his friends and girlfriend.

Peter,is this a direct qoute from Bryan?

If so,does the definite article come into play here..

Or is that friends contacted him letting him know whats happened,therefore he uses the Definite article,because he has heard second hand.?

Also,PERSON is gender neutral.

I hope i explained that well.i was getting confused writing it.lol. :)

Coughing said...

This is an appalling article, bad grammar, sentence fragments--who wrote this? They should be fired.

JoJo said...

Another person using gender neutral terms in reference to the suspect- first mom, now a young man whose identity was "stolen". Is this because the identity is not known? Or because LE wants it to appear that the gender is unknown? To me, it would seem expected that if the "stolen" profile was that of a male, that people would assume the suspect is also male. So to continue using neutral terms such as "person" "someone" etc. is unexpected. Is this a purposeful attempt to conceal, or indicative of the unknown?

Eliza said...

To Sceptical: the same thing has happened to a friend of mine. Someome had downloaded her profile picture and made a new profile with her name and her picture! Then he/she added some of her friends who told my friend that there is another profile of her on fb! She reported that to fb and made us (her friends report it to) and the fake profile went down. But, as I understand, it doesn't always happen that way- sometimes FB doesn't cancel the fake profiles. Anyway, it's pretty simple to make a fake profile online, unfortunately.

Coughing said...

The FBI has been brought in....why? It was stated today that the case doesn't meet the criteria for an Amber Alert. Information is obviously being withheld.

Eliza said...

I typed the message above in a hurry and I spot too many spelling etc mistakes now.. Sorry! I hope you got it, Sceptical!

OldPsychNurse said...

Nobody (except, hopefully, the FBI) knows if the person who stole Bryan Butterfield's identity on FB was a female or male. This is why no one can be specific about gender.

REK said...

Some weirdo did this to my sister too.. used her pictures and tried to befriend her friends. we were able to figure out it was a teenage guy! I have no idea why but it freaked me out

Anonymous said...

too much second/ third hand rephrasing. his story could be true or not --

what matters is if he really made that report when he said he did.

also seems unlikely that somebody would make as second account to use for a crime and make it as themselves ---

Anonymous said...

a good place to look lext would be all of his facebook friends because somebody had access to his info

Anonymous said...

Wt with tats

John Mc Gowan said...

OT..

Nancy Grace..

In a shocking twist, Jodi Arias changes her mind, now she says she wants a life sentence and not death! Why the change of heart? Inside the courtroom today during the penalty phase Jodi Arias sobs as Travis’ family speaks directly to the jury. The mental & physical pain Travis’ family has endured is clear as his brother & sister speak of their tortured lives since Travis’ murder. Will the jury take mercy on Jodi Arias and spare her life? #JodiArias

www.HLNtv.com/Nancy

Fern said...

This should be a cautionary tale re: FB and all social media.

I never have and never will join FB.

Fingers crossed this child is found safe and sound.

Excruciating Headache said...

Would the FBI become involved because they suspect Nichole was taken across state lines or out of the country?

Anonymous said...

I thought I might be one of the last holdouts, refusing to join Facebook. But I couldn't access some of the links so I just created a fake one myself. Fake name, age. As minimal as I could make it. No pics or anything. To me it's always seemed unwise and unsafe to put everything about yourself online. And it never goes away. Even if they don't put things out there themselves, there is nothing to prevent anyone else from posting info and pictures of people that aren't even members. Not just on FB but anywhere online. Creepy

Anonymous said...

"As far as I know the FBI doesn't get involved for runaways"

_____________

Yes they do

Not in every case but in many cases

Sus said...

Peter,
I wondered if you are interested in looking at some of Bryce Reed's interviews. He is the first responder at West, Texas who was recently arrested for having a pipe bomb and for having materials to make a bomb.

He did quite a few interviews in the days after the explosion. Here is one with Anderson Cooper.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1304/18/acd.02.html

Coughing said...

I just found a better article...she left to wait at the end of her driveway for a friend she supposedly knew. Her parents did not realize she was gone UNTIL THE NEXT MORNING. That's crazy as hell.
This was a more recent article. The parents say she has run away before and they hope that's why again. I wonder why she keeps running away. Parents, meet your child's friends. Write down their license numbers. Don't treat them like miniature adults. If this girl has really run away before, she wasn't worthy of the blind trust they gave her to make good choices in friends, she needed adult supervision. I hope everyone who reads this realizes it is justified to be a little intrusive in your child's social life. It's your right and your responsibility. And for God's sake, check their freaking beds at sime point if thats all you can be bothered to do.

exhausted said...

http://www.wsmv.com/story/22123465/holly-bobos-brother-tells-his-side-of-the-story

I'd love to see analysis of this...

I'm praying for nicholes family.

Amaleen6 said...

Nic, thanks for pointing out that when FB changes, settings change, too. I checked my settings and my profile was open to the public. Not anymore!

rkg said...

It's crap like this that led me to insist that my then 13-yr-old daughter take down the Facebook acct that her dad (my ex-husband) helped her set up (and helped her lie to me about, ensuring me that she didn't have one, and wouldn't get one until I was on board with it). Behavior like that, and young teens who have no idea what it means when they post info and photos online, is a recipe for disaster.

My 9-yr-old has a "practice Facebook," set up through my husband's email acct. She is only allowed on it when I'm next to her. It is fully private, and cannot be searched for, AND it does not use her real name. It uses the name she chose for her Disney Fairy, and the info entered on the Facebook is the made-up info for her "fairy profile." The only friends added are our family members (so, she has, like, 12 friends on it).

She rarely gets on it, but when she does, she is amazed at what happens. I help her post a picture of her fairy's home, or something of that nature, and then go to the settings that allow her to view her profile as any one of her friends. I show her that her picture, info, and EVERYTHING are immediately available to EVERYONE she is friends with.

After the first time I showed her that, guess what came next? She said to me, "So, if my profile were public, does that mean that all the millions of people on Facebook could see everything about me?"

THIS is exactly why I helped her create a "practice account." The reality of what happens on social networks is largely unknown to those who have never known a world without social networking. They have to be taught, and experience is a great teacher. The experience, though, must not compromise the safety of the child, or ANY of their personal information.

My husband and I have a Word doc set up on my laptop, and it holds a running list of every single online account for every member of our household (from shopping sites, to social media, to email, and everything in-between). The list includes every single user name and password to every account, and we check the computer history regularly to be sure things are not being accessed without our permission. We will not snoop on our children or each other, but safety is more important than whether or not our teenager is "miffed" that we refuse to let her roam the WORLD-WIDE-web without full knowledge of what is going on.

I am so sorry for Nichole's parents. They must be terrified. I do not place blame on them; many parents really want to trust their children, and sometimes to a fault. They were doing what they believed was best at that time, not necessarily knowing what might be around the corner. How could they have known? If they had, they wouldn't have let it happen. I will admit that it's because of news reporting on so many dangerous things happening to kids where social media was the source for the "dangerous activity." I am desperately sorry for all the parents who have suffered the loss of their children, or other bad things, because of improper use of social sites (whether by their child or someone else); but, I am determined, as well, to learn from those things do my best to safeguard my kids. No one should have to worry about their kids being on social sites, but the reality is, even if YOUR kid is trustworthy, THEY are not the only ones with an account.

Anonymous said...

Why was my comment about hackers deleted? I think people should be aware how easy it is for someone to steal their information, especially on public wifi.

rkg said...

OH...and after that novel I just posted, I realized I'd forgotten to add:

Bigtime *GRRRRR at Facebook and anyone else that received the real Bryan's reports of a stolen network identity and did nothing. That's horrific, as they can clearly see now, because of what could happen.

It's just that it shouldn't take a parent losing their child to bring about any level of change in response. The VERY FACT that CHILDREN are legally allowed to manage a FB page or online profile without parental permission is justification enough for there to be ACTUAL LAWS that ensure the privacy of every single user under 18 years old, and that require proof of age before allowing a profile to be opened to the public. When FB changes the way their pages operate, they should be bound by LAW not to change privacy settings that have been applied to existing accounts. THAT is misuse of their system, and it should be illegal. If I post something with the reasonable understanding that it will only be shared with those I've chosen to share my info with (reasonable, because I specifically set my profile options that FB PROVIDES to me), there should not be anyone, including the FB developers, who can legally compromise the umbrella of privacy they lead me to believe I am operating under. If I have the ability to set my own privacy levels, then I should reasonably expect that they will not legally be tampered with.

It appears, though, based on current info, that Nichole's parents, and Nichole herself, were, in fact, using FB properly for her age. I say this because Nichole apparently believed she was meeting a person she already knew in real life. This Bryan kid was her friend on FB, it seems, because she knew him from school at one time or another. That's how FB is supposed to be used. There was NO evident reason for alarm, if Nichole believed she was meeting a person she knew from school, and no alarm would have been raised if she told her mother that a friend from school was going to drop by for a second to say hi.

So, the real danger here, as it seems in reports right now, is that FB allows the information/photos of underage users to be presented as "public" knowing that doing so allows "public use" of all said info. When a profile is set to "private," there is also a button that allows one to opt out of having their profile appear in search engines. A user can set their profile to a setting so private, that no one can even search and find his/her name as having an account; you must send someone a message or friend request in order for them to ever be able to know your account exists. If that user is tagged in another user's photo/post, the private user's tag will not show up when someone views that photo/post. The private user will not show up in his/her friends' "friend lists." THIS should be the default setting for anyone under 18.

I don't care about personal preferences. I care about the safety of our kids.

brosnanfan said...

Trial by Social Media. Sites like ThatsNonsense.com and hoax-slayer.com warn against this stuff all the time, with real articles to back up their stance, but the people who need to read those articles are too busy skewering Jon Doe, who happens to have a similar name to John Doe the puppy kicker.

Seriously, there are times I think that people need to take an aptitude test before being allowed to get online.

brosnanfan said...

Plus, as has been proven time and time again, facebook couldn't care less about online safety and privacy and hoaxes. They remove a photo of a mother breastfeeding her own baby, but don't do a thing about unauthorized usage of a photo of a baby with a tumor being used for someone's jollies. You've seen them...they claim if you share this photo, facebook (or whoever) will donate a dollar (or however much) per share. They're called "likewhores" and they're just out for their own purposes; in the meantime, the parents of these babies are angry and heartbroken at their baby's image being used in such a way. Facebook does NOTHING about those.

John Mc Gowan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

http://www.eonetwork.org/knowledgebase/specialfeatures/pages/social-media-networks-facilitate-identity-theft-fraud.aspx

Nic said...

Amaleen6 said...
Nic, thanks for pointing out that when FB changes, settings change, too. I checked my settings and my profile was open to the public. Not anymore!


Amaleen6, it's not just the publicly announced changes that reset settings. It's any change. You have to keep checking/managing them. I gave up in frustration and decided to communicate "the old fashiion way". Now I call or email. People who are close get hard copy pix of the kids at Christmas in their card except for family on the other side of the world who in addition to that get a periodic pic attached to an email. Another thing that frosts my flakes is people "tagging" pics on Facebook. My husband has a Facebook and Linkedin acc't primarily for work purposes and I have him remove the tags of pics we and/or the kids are tagged in on Facebook. People don't even ask (or think) that if it's a business acc't it wouldn't be appropriate or okay to tag/broadcast their private life. They just do it with zero regard.

I even went onto 411 and went through the process to have us "de-listed". Being able to plug in our tel number to see where we live (and even the house via street view!) creeps me out.

Privacy appears to be a thing of the past. The www has completely infiltrated our privacy. Boundaries are blurred. Neighbours and acquaintances (and prospective employers and insurance companies, etc.,) can sleuth a ton of information about [you] that was never available to them before, and use it to judge you anyway they choose to. Or worse, target you like Nichole was.



w/e said...

the missing girls other facebook accounts there are photos of her "kissing" another girl??? and recently a boy?
and you all thought i was confused.
the worst thing they did was shut down the fake account. not only is it impossible for me to find out who it is in real life, but future activity will not happen.