Body of murdered student tracked down using Apple's Find My Friends app

CBS 48 Hours
CBS 48 Hours

The body of a nursing student who was strangled to death by her classmate was discovered by her friends after they used Apple’s Find My Friends app to track her down.

Binghampton University student Haley Anderson, 22, went missing in March 2018, and it later emerged she had been killed by Orlando Tercero, 23.

After the murder, Tercero fled New York to Nicaragua. Her friend Josie Artin, speaking on the latest episode of CBS48 Hours, said: “She had told me she was going to come watch me read poetry at poetry night that Thursday and then she didn't show up.

“We were all calling her and she didn't answer. It was the next morning and we were like ‘this doesn't make sense’.”

Friends eventually discovered Anderson's phone was in Tercero's apartment using the Find My Friends app.

The app allows the phone user to permanently share their location with a chosen group of friends.

When they arrived at the apartment in search of Anderson, the doors were locked and Tercero's car was not in the driveway.

They climbed in through a window and found Anderson’s body inside.

Anderson reportedly had a casual romantic relationship with Tercero, but ended it after he pushed for a more serious relationship - causing him to kill her in jealous rage.

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Tercero, a dual citizen of the US and Nicaragua, was convicted of femicide, a Nicaraguan law that covers domestic or sexually motivated murders of women. He was sentenced to 30 years behind bars.

The trial for Tercero, who is a dual citizen of the US and Nicaragua, was tried in Nicaragua because the Central American nation’s laws forbid the extradition of citizens.

Six months before her death, Anderson filed a police report against Tercero that revealed she feared him.