Have you heard the term web sleuths? Or Cyber Detectives? Did you know there are job openings for Internet investigators and online forensic analysts?

Last year YouTubers helped locate the body of Gaby Petito. And last week a TikToker who has been accusing a college professor of 4 brutal murders in Idaho and has been sued for defamation.

As 2022 ends, and a new year begins, science and technology have transformed our world. No case is too cold if DNA was left behind. And no criminal can escape if there is digital evidence of the crime.  

True crime on the internet has captured the interest of a new generation. And there are social media platforms, images, and records scattered around the net. 

Since the 1970s the books and movies of real-life crime writers have had a large audience. With the development of the world wide web, social media platforms, and DNA technology more web detectives are becoming a part of investigations. And they are using some of the same tools as police departments employ worldwide.

Something is compelling and almost addicting about learning the details of a case and trying to solve it. And sometimes it gives people the sense that they’re helping police solve the crime.

Before the web sleuths, true crime writers and readers did their research the old-fashioned way.

Ann Rule: True crime fiction gets personal

In the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the true crime fiction genre boomed. 

Author Ann Rule hit the bestseller list when her first book The Stranger Beside Me was published in 1980. Previously she had only written articles. The book came out the same year as Ted Bundy was convicted of murder. 

She met the serial killer in 1971 when they both volunteered for a suicide hotline. His first kill was confirmed in 1974, but it is believed there are earlier victims

Rule met with Bundy in jail. She interviewed everyone close to him during his years-long killing spree. She met with detectives that worked the cases. And she attended his trial.

The Stranger Beside Me became a definitive study of Bundy. And also presented profilers, of the time, with new details of the Bundy type of serial killer. 

Rule went on to write over 30 books over the next 25 years.  All were bestsellers. She passed away in 2015. 

After her death, an article came out in The New Yorker titled "Too Close to Ted Bundy." She was accused of being too close to Bundy to be objective.

Before there was the internet, writers like Rule spent hours in the library pouring over newspapers, magazines, and databases. And they made dozens of telephone calls and visited the places where events took place. True Crime writing was time intensive.

But the internet changed everything.

What are Cyber Detectives?

There are hundreds of thousands of real-life crime stories. And many of them are cold cases that have gone decades without being solved. These cases were once thought to be unsolvable. And with advances in DNA technology, they are being solved. 

Various cases capture the interest of mystery fans. And some of these true crime connoisseurs find a case and try to solve the mystery. 

A cyber detective aka web sleuth or internet investigator is a researcher. They are looking online for information. Trying to find clues or to solve the crime. The truth is almost everything is online. Records, images, databases and GPS data tracks everything that happens.. 

A cyber detective spends time searching the internet and doing research to uncover information about a person or an event. They are usually using the tools on the web to help solve criminal cases that law enforcement hasn't been able to crack. These are often unsolved disappearances and murders.