Fitness Tracking App on Michigan Teenager's Phone Helped Police Get a Breakthrough on Her Murder
A teenager who was murdered in Michigan had a fitness app on her phone that helped investigators strengthen the case against the accused, police shared.
April Millsap was murdered on the morning of July 24, 2014, in Armada when she was out walking her dog, People reported.
Millsap sent a message during the walk to her boyfriend which read, “I think I almost got kidnapped omfg,” People reported.
Millsap got hit over her head with a motorcycle helmet, stomped on, and beaten to death, during an attempted sexual assault, Detroit Free Press reported. Authorities believe that the perpetrator killed the victim in an attempt to rape her.
After she failed to return home, Millsap's mother reported that she was missing, CBS News reported. Her body was found by a pair of joggers in a drainage ditch near Fulton and Depot roads after the victim's dog alerted them.
A police officer testified that the victim's blouse "was torn from her body and moved to around her waist area. Her undergarments had been removed from around her waist and were down about the ankles," CBS News reported. A medical examiner concluded that the cause of death was blunt head trauma and asphyxia due to neck compression.
Less than a month after the killing, James VanCallis was announced as a suspect in Millsap's murder, CBS News reported. At that time he was already in custody along with his father on marijuana charges. He was officially charged in October of that year.
Police alleged that VanCallis took the victim's phone after murdering her, Detroit Free Press reported. Surveillance video captures the suspect moving past a home in Armada, and tracking data from a fitness app on the victim's phone locates the device in the same area during that time.
The data further indicated that the phone was traveling at a high speed, before being dumped, as per police. Officials found the phone in a local rural area, one day after the murder.
Prosecutors stated that although no DNA evidence was found, three witnesses saw the accused talking to the victim along the trail shortly before her body was discovered, CBS News reported. They also found a shoe print at the crime scene that matched with VanCallis.
In February 2016, a jury found VanCallis guilty on the charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping, and assault with intent to rape in the death of Millsap, CBS News reported. He was sentenced to life in prison.
The victim's mother described her devastation in her statement during the trial proceedings, Detroit Free Press reported. "You, James, are a damn thief. You stole my beautiful daughter's life and you stole the rest of mine," she told VanCallis.
"My life has totally changed since April was killed. ...My life will never be the same. I will always miss April and will continue to hold her in my heart. I never thought this could happen to my daughter or me."
VanCallis appealed the conviction in 2018, CBS News reported. He filed an appeal on the grounds that no physical evidence tied him to the murder and that the witnesses used in securing the conviction were not reliable.
Michigan Appeals Court rejected his request. "Although there was no physical evidence tying defendant to the crime, there was plenty of circumstantial evidence from which a jury could conclude that defendant was the perpetrator," the court wrote in the ruling, CBS News reported.
"Defendant complains that there was no competent evidence tying him to the crime, but it is clear that he really argues that the prosecution's witnesses were not worthy of belief and that there were simply too many inferences to support his conviction. ...Based on reasonable inferences, there was sufficient evidence that defendant was the killer," said the court, the outlet reported.