A team of engineers at Apple couldn’t extract information from an iPhone belonging to one of the two teens who went missing last summer, but one of the families is still pushing for further testing.
Austin Stephanos’ cell phone was retrieved from the capsized boat he and his friend Perry Cohen, both 14, had taken on a fishing trip off the Jupiter Inlet when they disappeared last July 24.
The phone was discovered in March when a Norwegian supply ship found the boys’ capsized 19-foot SeaCraft off the coast of Bermuda. The phone, which was still on the boat, was then handed over the Stephanos’ family.
Blu Stephanos, Austin’s father, said in a statement that he received a call Tuesday night from his attorney, Michael Pike, who told him the phone couldn’t be restored by Apple engineers.
Pike said he spoke to Apple representatives Tuesday and his client is “devastated.
“It’s just a tragic, devastating situation,” Pike said. “I know the families are very disappointed relative to the outcome of not being able to power on the phone.”
In a statement, Perry Cohen’s mother Pamela said that according to Apple, there were other experts who may be able to extract data from the phone. She said the company offered to hand over the phone to experts if the families can come to an agreement.
“As I said before, I owe it to Perry to exhaust every possible avenue in pursuit of finding out what happened to him,” Pamela Cohen said. “We look forward to working cooperatively with Austin’s family toward this transition. We are not giving up on the iPhone’s potential for evidence until all viable efforts have been exhausted.”
An extensive search by the U.S. Coast Guard, law enforcement agencies, private groups and others couldn’t locate the pair.
The boat was initially found by the U.S Coast Guard off the coast of Daytona Beach two days after they disappeared, but drifted away because it wasn’t secured.
On March 18, the Edda Fjord, a Norwegian supply vessel, came across the boys’ boat off the coast of Bermuda.
The discovery of the phone sparked a brief legal dispute, with the Cohen family filing a lawsuit against the Stephanos family and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The Cohen family wanted the phone to be examined to determine whether any information on it could shed light on where the boys were before disappearing.
The families agreed to send the phone over to Apple to see whether any data could be retrieved from it.
Apple had to take the phone apart “in order to run the diagnostics, clean and restore components and perform a chemical workup” in an effort to analyze the data, according to Blu Stephanos’ statement.
“One of the problems that we seem to have run into is even if the phone was able to be powered on, it is running the 8.4 iOS [operating system] software, which is very challenging, if not impossible to break the access code/password,” Pike said.
Stephanos said he was told Apple had a team that worked “around the clock” on his son’s phone. He thanked the company for trying to assist his family.
“Needless to say, we were disappointed, having hoped to get some information or maybe just some final memories from Austin’s phone,” he said in the statement. “But the fact that it can no longer function doesn’t diminish its value as a cherished memory of my beloved son.”
Apple spokesman Fred Sainz declined to comment.
Stephanos added that now the phone has been deemed unusable, he hopes the family can grieve in private.
kjacobson@sunsentinel.com, 561-243-6547 or Twitter @katejacobson
