Murder? Apparently there's an app for that, too.
That's according to Phoenix police who say a local guy was murdered by a 19-year-old fellow he met using a social networking iPhone app often used by gay men to hook up.
Mark G. Woodland, 54, was found dead at his apartment in the 3800 block of East Greenway Road.
Police say Woodland's roommate returned home to the apartment the men shared about 11 p.m. on Saturday and noticed that the place had been ransacked.
The roommate called police, who, after searching the apartment, found Woodland's body beaten and stabbed in a downstairs bathroom.
The roommate told police that Woodland had sent him a text message at 5 p.m. saying he was going to pick up a male date. He sent a second text at about 6 p.m. to make sure the roommate had left the apartment.
After finding his body, and his ransacked apartment, police tracked down a friend of Woodland's in California, who told them Woodland had met the man by using a social networking application used by gay men to meet each other.
The app uses a GPS positioning system to locate "dates" based on a person's proximity with other users.
Police were given Woodland's date's user name for the app by his friend in California, as well as a description of the man last seen with Woodland by one of his neighbors.
On Tuesday, police tracked down a suspect whose iPhone arranged the date with Woodland and matched the description of the man given to police.
Tommy Reed, 19, was arrested and taken to police headquarters for questioning. Phoenix police Detective James Holmes tells New Times that Reed made certain admissions -- combined with other evidence -- that gave police probable cause to make an arrest.
Reed was booked on charges of second-degree murder and taken to the Fourth Avenue Jail.
