A Cochrane man may have the last laugh after his laptop was stolen on January 16.

Stu Gale's discovered his laptop and tools were stolen from his truck the next day. Gale has a background in security, automation and lighting control and used his skill set to figure out the identity of the thief.

"I run several laptops at once so I can work on a dozen laptops at once. They are all hooked together with this remote control software, I can remote into one [computer] anywhere so it creates your own network, and it alerts you when a machine comes online. So I was working away and all of a sudden 'ding' the laptop came online."

Gale used the remote connection to access the stolen computer.

"I was able to rifle through her Facebook profile, I got her contact information, all of her friends list, and she also had a text app coming up that she was reeling her Facebook password reset through."

Using that information, Gale communicated to the suspect's friends that she was using a stolen laptop.

"A couple conversations opened up, and one had a phone number in it, so I called the phone number, told her who I was, and said she [the suspect] is on a laptop that doesn't belong to her, it is stolen, she needs to return it."

Gale also gained information possibly relating to other crimes in and around the Cochrane area. He has shared this information with the RCMP, who are still investigating the incident. Gale is still hopeful an arrest will be made.

 

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