One missing underscore in a Kik subpoena jailed an innocent Canadian for 18 months

A 2018 child-luring investigation that started in Wisconsin collapsed on a single-character error. Forensics on a 12-year-old victim’s phone identified her adult contact as the Kik user “fus__ro_dah” (two underscores, a nod to the Skyrim dragon shout). When the Dane County Sheriff’s Department subpoenaed Kik for records, it typed “fus_ro_dah” with only one underscore. Kik returned data for that different account, tying it to the email and Canadian IP address of Brandon Klayme, an entirely unrelated man in Nova Scotia.

The error propagated through every downstream step because no one re-checked the original username. Halifax police traced the IP through Bell Aliant to Klayme’s home and arrested him in 2020, despite finding no incriminating evidence on his devices. He was convicted at trial in 2023, sentenced in 2024, and served the full 18 months. The mistake surfaced only while he was preparing his appeal after release.

On Thursday the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal overturned the conviction, declaring Klayme “factually innocent” and stating he should never have been charged. The case is a stark illustration of how digital evidence carries an unearned aura of precision: a transcription typo in a legal request, never validated against the source, was enough to convict an innocent person while investigators ignored the absence of any corroborating forensic evidence.