The pacemaker logs revealed arson for insurance claims.

The fire brigade arrived to extinguish a house engulfed in fire in Middletown

Medical devices built into the human body, in particular, implants-pacemakers, have already saved hundreds of thousands of lives. But these same devices can serve as evidence to help solve a crime. The other day, it was the pacemaker that helped uncover an attempt to deceive an insurance company. A man with such an implant set fire to his own house to receive insurance. All this happened in Middletown, Ohio, USA.

This case came to the attention of one of the TV channels, which showed a burning house in the frame and interviewed its owner. As it turned out, the man lost not only the house : his favorite pet, the cat, died in the fire. It is difficult to assume that someone will intentionally set fire to their home and kill their own animal. The incident happened in September 2016.

A month later, the owner of the house, 59-year-old Ross Compton, was arrested and charged with trying to deceive the insurance company in order to receive payment as a result of the insured event. The amount in question is $ 400,000.
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Specialists investigating this case, found that there were several fire points, and all of them were located outside the house, not inside. Immediately after it became clear, the police suspected Compton's perjury because the facts differed from his testimony.

Also against Compton testified and the operator of the 911, which he called. Giving testimony to the police, the victim said that at the time of the call, there was no one in the house. But the operator says that at the time of the call Compton asked someone to leave the danger zone. The victim stated that, while on fire, he grabbed some of the things, throwing them out of the window. He also said that during the incident he had time to pack his bags, which he then threw out of the house, breaking the window.


Police are carefully examining the state of the computer, allegedly thrown out of the window of a house engulfed in flames.

Compton, calling 911, told the operator that he had an “artificial heart”. After that, the police decided to examine a number of characteristics of the pacemaker at the time of the fire. They studied the rhythm of Compton's heartbeat before, during and after the fire.

On January 27, 2017, such information was published in court documents: “The cardiologist, who studied the data, stated that Mr. Compton was simply not able to pack, walk (or run) around the house, break windows, and throw away the saved things from window". And all this - for a very limited amount of time.

Evidence of a medical expert was one of the decisive evidence of Compton’s guilt in court. A person with a pacemaker and an implant pump is really unlikely to be able to carry weights and throw them through the window. Moreover, after what happened, he, he said, neatly collected things and placed them in a car parked next to the house. After analyzing the incident, studying the testimony of Compton, the neighbors and the operator of the 911 service, the court decided to arrest the “victim”, accusing him of deception for the sake of gaining profit.

The city police said that for the first time she used data from a medical device to obtain grounds for the arrest of a crime suspect. However, the data obtained during the analysis of the pacemaker, became "an excellent tool for the investigation," because they contradicted Compton's testimony. “It was one of the key evidence of the suspect’s guilt and the reason for his arrest,” police lieutenant Jimmy Cunningham said.

Of course, this is not so important evidence, as traces of gasoline on Compton's clothes, but the police received complete and unconditional evidence of the suspect’s guilt as a result of collecting all relevant data, including the testimony of a medical device. This situation may well become a precedent for future cases. Perhaps the police will begin to take evidence of implants to analyze the behavior of the suspects in the crime in the near future. And in light of the fact that now many companies are developing IoT-devices that can be controlled remotely, this problem becomes especially urgent.