A dead man's finger could not unlock his phone, Florida police discovered after visiting a funeral home in a desperate attempt to access information that could assist them in an investigation.
The man, 30-year-old Linus Phillip, was killed last month after he tried to drive away from a Largo police officer trying to search him at a Clearwater gas station, Fox News noted.
Authorities had linked Phillip to a separate drug inquiry that they were investigating and were hoping to access data on his phone that could assist their case.
Phillip's fiancé, Victoria Armstrong, happened to be at the funeral home in Clearwater on the same day that two investigating officers visited in hope of unlocking the phone by holding the corpse's hand up to the device's fingerprint sensor.
She was deeply upset by the act, saying she felt "disrespected and violated," The Tampa Bay Times reported.
Lt. Randall Chaney defended the officers, saying they did not think a warrant was necessary as there is no expectation of privacy after death, however, several legal experts weighing in on the matter feel it is an inappropriate violation of privacy.
Remigius Nwabueze, an associate professor of law at Southampton Law School, said the law was "cruel" and "really unforgiving to a dead person," adding that it provided "no entitlement or legal rights after death to a deceased person," The Tampa Bay Times noted.
Greg Nojeim, director of the Freedom, Security and Technology Project at the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology agreed.
"There should be some dignity in death," Nojeim told the Tampa Bay Times. "If I was writing the rules on this, it would be that the police would need a warrant in order to use a dead person's finger to open up a phone, and I'd require notice to the family."
Phillip's family members are now seeking justice against the investigating officers and considering a lawsuit against the City of Largo for obtaining illegal access to the body after it left city custody, and for unwarranted search and seizure, The Sun noted.
They are also demanding video footage from the incident in which Phillip was killed, WFTS-TV reported.
Police said that they pulled Phillip over to search because his vehicle's windows were illegally tinted, and that they could smell marijuana coming from the car, according to the station. He allegedly dragged one of their officers when he tried to drive off, however, Armstrong has argued that her fiancée did nothing wrong to warrant being killed.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.