Dear diary: how OpenAI’s Computer History feature works, and why it’s risky

 From kaspersky.com

By Stan Kaminsky

A new feature in the ChatGPT app for macOS keeps a detailed log of everything you do on your computer, and stores that data in a freely readable text file. We assess the benefits, the risks, and settle on a plan of what to do. 

Picture your computer keeping a diary — the kind kids used to keep logging their daily activities, or the kind travellers, merchants, and nobles kept centuries before that. Here’s what it might look like.

Thursday, September 10.

• 8:00 AM. User read the news on cnn.com and bbc.co.uk (Safari).
• 8:10 AM. User replied to John Kaufman’s email about delivery dates, then sent the same question to the logistics team (Gmail).
• 8:20 AM. User checked his to-do list, reviewed recent updates, and planned out the day’s priorities (Todo).

We’re not exaggerating. This is exactly what your Mac’s new diary looks like. It’s a set of text files that any app on your computer can read — as can anyone sitting at the keyboard. The feature responsible is called Computer History, and it was released by OpenAI in mid-August. At the moment, it only works in the ChatGPT app for Mac, requires a Pro subscription or higher, and is disabled by default. According to its developers, the idea behind History is to let the AI assistant quickly get up to speed on your work context, so it can answer even vague requests, like “send a reminder to whoever I was emailing about last week’s deliveries”. Of course, that convenience comes at a price, ranging from your data being processed on OpenAI’s servers, to the risk of it leaking off your Mac — whether to a nosy family member or straight into the hands of cybercriminals.

How ChatGPT Computer History works

If this sounds a lot like Microsoft’s similar Recall feature, or Chronicle, which OpenAI itself announced earlier, that’s no coincidence. Both were built with the same goal in mind, just using different methods. Having watched Recall turn into the PR disaster it was, the team behind Computer History decided against constantly taking and analysing screenshots. Instead, ChatGPT relies on macOS’s Accessibility features to read the text on your screen and track your actions: mouse clicks, text typed into fields, switching between apps, and the like. All of this gets stored as a stream of raw activity data inside the ChatGPT container (app group), which only the ChatGPT app itself, or other apps you’ve specifically given permission, can access. In tests run by digital forensics researchers, just two hours of normal computer use generated around 3500 of these logged events.

That raw data remains on your computer for up to 48 hours. During this time, the ChatGPT app periodically runs hidden chat sessions behind the scenes, where it asks the AI to summarize related events into a single recap. Essentially diary entries, these summaries get saved as plain text files in a folder that any app on your Mac can open: ~/.codex/memories/extensions/skysight/.

When you chat with the assistant, or when certain automated features kick in, these notes can be pulled into the conversation for more context-aware responses. OpenAI is especially keen on pointing out that the assistant can spot patterns in your workflows and offer to automate them, creating what it calls “skills” that replicate your actions for you.

Once a summary is ready, the raw activity data behind it is deleted. OpenAI says it won’t keep those hidden background chats or use them to train its AI, except where required by law. The diary-style summaries that get pulled into your conversations, though, are stored on OpenAI’s servers under the exact same rules as your regular chats and the assistant’s memory, so your pre-existing privacy settings will apply to them too.

What Computer History can see, and what you can turn off

Since the whole feature runs on accessibility tools, ChatGPT only picks up what your operating system is already willing to share with those tools. That includes window titles, blocks of text, image captions in your browser, text you’re typing into a field as you type it, and the names of interface elements you click on. Watching a video? The AI can’t see the video itself, but it can read the window title, the site name, and the video description. Browsing photos? It sees file and folder names, not the actual images. Audio is never recorded or saved in any situation. All that gets logged from a video call is the meeting window title, unless the call itself has live captions turned on. Password fields that are masked (shown as dots) aren’t read at all and, according to OpenAI, private browsing windows are never scanned.

One thing that sets this apart from Microsoft Recall is the clearly spelled out step-by-step procedure the user needs to go through to turn it on. Computer History never activates itself. You have to navigate to the settings menu, then Integrations → Computer History and turn it on manually after reading through the warnings and explanations. You’ll also need access to the agent’s memory enabled for the feature to work. From there, you choose which apps and websites you want it to track, and confirm a series of macOS permission prompts.

For companies using a business subscription, this requires approval at two levels: an administrator first has to enable Computer History for the whole organization, and then each employee has to turn it on individually.

At any point, you can go to Computer History → Permissions and either list specific apps and sites to exclude from tracking, or, conversely, set ChatGPT to only watch a limited list you choose (Include only these apps, Include only these websites).

To see what your own computer’s diary looks like, check Computer History → History. From there, you can delete individual entries or disable the tracking of specific apps directly from the list.

The risks of using ChatGPT Computer History

We covered the risks of centralized storage of someone’s entire activity in our earlier piece on Microsoft Recall, and most of what we said there applies to ChatGPT Computer History.

• You might assume your chats and emails are private, protected by passwords and encryption. But a copy of the most important parts of those conversations is sitting in plain text files that anyone with access to your computer, and plenty of other apps, can open.
• The people you’re messaging have no idea this extra copy exists. If they’ve turned on, say, a self-destructing chat feature, but the messaging app’s window itself isn’t marked as private, that precaution does nothing to protect them.
• Even if you trust OpenAI completely and take its privacy promises at face value, your data can still be stolen directly off your computer by an info stealer. Mac-targeting info stealers have exploded over the past two years, so this isn’t a hypothetical risk. And the people who write this type of malware move fast, quickly updating it to grab whatever new type of data looks promising. OpenAI’s files are a boon for them: everything you’ve done, already summarized by AI into something easy to read. While there are no passwords or credit card numbers in there, the available details are likely enough to craft a convincing targeted urgent email from the boss.
• And if a nosy co-worker or family member gets their hands on your computer, reading through the diary of your work and life would take them all of five minutes.

Computer History: turn it off, or just configure it?

We’d recommend limiting or fully disabling Computer History if your work involves sensitive information. This especially applies to doctors, lawyers, and anyone else bound by professional confidentiality, or handling personal or medical data. The same goes for anyone living with an overly controlling family member, or working in an office with nosy co-workers.

If none of that applies to you and you’d like to try out how useful the AI’s search and auto-generated skills actually are, here’s how to set things up safely.

• Lock down your Mac’s login. Turn off auto-login, and set your Mac to require a password immediately after the screensaver kicks in or it wakes from sleep. Use a strong password along with Touch ID, and make sure FileVault disk encryption is turned on.
• Set up your exclusions. Manually add every messaging app you use for private conversations, along with any finance apps or sites, and anywhere else you keep sensitive information, to Computer History’s exclusion list.
• Check in regularly. At least a couple of times a week, visit Computer History settings to see which apps and sites it’s been tracking. This helps you catch and remove any sources of private information you forgot to exclude earlier.

No matter how you configure Computer History, the two most common ways your data could end up in the wrong hands — on any Mac — are a macOS info stealer snatching it directly from your computer, and typing your information into a fake website. To guard against both, make sure you’re running full-featured security software on your Mac, such as Kaspersky for macOS.

AI can create privacy risks you might never think to look for. You can read about more of them in our other posts:

• Attacks on Gemini: the possibilities are endless
• Why AI agents need an iron curtain
• Knives, kinks, and shooters: what AI toys are really saying to kids
• AI and the new reality of sextortion

And if you’d like to know how to turn off AI features that activate on your computer or smartphone without your knowledge, check out our guide, Unplugged: how to disable AI on your computer and smartphone.

https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/chatgpt-computer-history-macos-risks-benefits/56380/

Diary of German paramedic who died in the Ukraine war published by her mother

From thestar.com.my

When Ula Wagner was told her daughter had been killed on the Ukrainian front line, she thought there must have been a misunderstanding.

Yes, her daughter Savita Wagner had joined the Ukrainian army as a German volunteer – but how could she be in danger, serving as a medical assistant, 50km away from the front line?

It seemed impossible for her to be dead.

But it emerged that Savita had served as a frontline medic, always deployed in the most dangerous places.

On Jan 31, 2024, she was trying to rescue two wounded soldiers when a piece of shrapnel pierced her carotid artery.

That came just a day after a similar fragment missed her by a hair’s breadth.

“I am luckier than anyone else in the world!” she wrote in her diary.

That was her final sentence. She was 36 years old.

For Savita, life on the front line was “hell”. But it was a hell of her own choosing. The world she had voluntarily left behind was perhaps no paradise, but by comparison it was an idyll.

Now, she is mourned by her mother Ula, in the city of Bonn.

On her walls, there are pictures of Savita as a little girl. In one, she is beaming as she hugs her mother, who had just returned from a business trip.

She had a sheltered childhood in the 90s, making it all the harder to imagine she would wind up buried in the Avenue of Glory at a cemetery in Kiev.

“Savita wasn’t the war type at all,” insists her mother, now 73. “She never watched a war film; she couldn’t stand the sight of blood. If someone had told me all this five years ago, I would have said: utter nonsense.”

After finishing school, Savita studied medicine, but dropped out halfway through and began studying mathematics in Halle.

That was when she met Canadian Karl Stenerud online. The two married, and he relocated his job as a software specialist to Germany.

Soon afterwards, on Feb 24, 2022, the Kremlin launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine, launching the war that rages on.

One of the four medals for bravery awarded to Savita.

Many people were angry at the time. But Savita felt a deeper rage.

“Her home was under attack; Europe was being invaded. Freedom and democracy were at stake,” is what Ula says of how Savita saw the war.

She wanted to do something concrete, so she volunteered as a driver for aid convoys. That was a political decision.

Then she drove a journalist to Bucha, where she saw the bodies lying in the streets following the massacre carried out by Russian troops.

That changed everything. She then decided that everything she had done so far did not go far enough.

She undertook military training and went to the front as a medic, taking on the nom de guerre “Snake”.

Now, Ula has set up a small memorial shelf in the hallway of her flat for her only child. It features a photo of Savita at the front, in uniform, with a bulletproof vest and a firearm.

She stands bolt straight and even smiles a little.

“I see pride and contentment in her gaze,” says her mother.

Yet in her diary, Savita openly writes, “Of course I’m afraid.”

Afraid of being injured or paralysed. Afraid of being taken prisoner and paraded as a trophy.

“But I’m not afraid of dying in battle.” So people should not pity her if that happens, she said.

After all, she reasoned, in truly dangerous situations, she had no time at all to be afraid. She just focused.

Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that she had been diagnosed with autism.

“I ‘feel’ nothing as long as I have a goal in mind,” she realised. “I don’t know if that’s professionalism or an autistic trait. In any case, I’m happy that my brain works that way.”

Ula, a retired administrative specialist, had no inkling of any of this. Savita did have a blog where she shared her thoughts, but her mother knew nothing of it. Or did she simply not want to know about any of it?

“No,” she says after a moment’s thought. “I really had no idea.”

There is a video that Savita sent her from her post in a doctor’s office, supposedly 50km from the front line.

“Hello Mum,” it begins. “I thought you might like a video. I’m working here as a sort of nurse.”

Ula holding the published diary of her daughter.

Insects, spiders and snails everywhere

But another video shows a glimpse of her real life, filmed by one of her comrades. It starts with soldiers sitting in the trenches, bullets whizzing past them. Then there’s an explosion. You hear screaming.

But it wasn’t just this constant danger she had to learn to live with.

“It’s always cold and damp. All my things – my clothes, my sleeping bag, simply everything – are constantly damp. There are insects, spiders and snails everywhere. In the bed, in the food, under my clothes.”

Does her mother mind that she kept all this from her? No, she says.

“She did it to protect me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep a wink. Just like Karl, her husband. She spared me that. And I couldn’t have stopped it anyway. Once she’d set her mind on something, there was no dissuading her.”

                                                                  A picture of Savita, who is Ula’s only child

When Savita remained unwilling to return to Germany, even for a holiday, despite repeated urging, Ula finally announced she was going to go and visit her daughter herself.

“That’s when she panicked. Which trench should she have given as her address?”

She then came up with the suggestion that she should meet her mother in Kiev, in early January 2024. Her husband Karl would be there then too.

When they met, Ula realised how much her daughter had changed.

“I had the impression that a different person was standing before me. It was her eyes, above all, that had changed so much. They had a depth that wasn’t there before. Today, of course, it’s clear to me why. Those eyes have seen things one doesn’t want to see.”

No one can say how many lives she saved.

A month later, on Valentine’s Day, Ula was back in Kiev – this time for Savita’s funeral.

Only then did she learn that, through her work as a medic on the front line, she had saved many lives – no one could say how many.

Savita has been awarded four medals for bravery. Two have been given to the Haus der Geschichte history museum in Bonn, at her own request.

Savita’s boots, her helmet, her field jacket and her frontline diary also went to the museum – and has since been published as a book, too.

“It is important to me that she is not forgotten,” says Ula, and that she carries on her legacy.

Ula is currently setting up a foundation, and plans to add to it part of the proceeds from the sale of her family home in the historic centre of Bonn. She wants the money to support aid projects in Ukraine.

What would Savita say if she could see this? That makes Ula smile.

“She would say: ‘Mum, you’re doing the right thing’.” – dpa

https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/living/2026/09/03/diary-of-german-paramedicwho-died-in-the-ukraine-war-published-by-her-mother#goog_rewarded 

"I’m a Bored Bartender at a Soulless Cafe. I Want to Quit But Can’t Just Yet"

From today.com/food

Anonymous Server, as told to Joseph Lamour

For our series “Server Diaries,” TODAY asks anonymous servers, bartenders and other hospitality workers to record their innermost thoughts while on the job.

Here, we follow a barista/bartender in Long Island City, New York through three shifts.

This transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Shift 1: Riding Dirty to the Medium Place

3:01 p.m. It’s hot as balls out.

3:04 p.m. I have a bad habit of waiting till the absolute last moment to get ready and leave for work because I really don’t want to be there.

3:06 p.m. I rush, washing the pits, tits and bits in my sink, smearing deodorant in the former and rushing out the door. I ride my motorcycle there and am still late, walking in the door with my helmet and gloves on.

3:20 p.m. I work in Long Island City at a cafe/wine bar, and it has a nondescript, trust-fund-corporate-bro-investment kind of vibe. Grey isn’t just in the walls — it designed my purgatory.

You’d think we’d have much more foot traffic in a newly-built, fat-cat, fancy-feast-ass tower near the subway, but we’re camouflaged by minimal design and millennial grey aesthetics. It’s slow.

3:31 p.m. I’m greeted by the morning-shift girl, and she looks bored. She glances at me momentarily to say “hey” before continuing to stare into space. She’s summer-job young, and her shock-pink hair looks more excited to see me.

3:33 p.m. No one’s tipped since she got here at 7 a.m., she tells me. I look in our till, and there is a $5 bill, a quarter and somehow, a couple of now-illegal pennies. F--- this s---.

3:45 p.m. My life’s dream is not to serve coffee and low-ABV drinks inside of a hotel lobby business centre designed by a sentient pair of Allbirds. I work in advertising, but freelance jobs have been vampired by AI. Who needs Don Draper when you can make your compu-slave push out endless slop?

3:55 p.m. A friend got me this job. She was like, “You may as well pick up some shifts.” So, now, I’m making money while I’m pitching bigger fish. Ad jobs are infrequent, but cortado-thirsty people are not.

4:45 p.m. I want to be back in the game, working with annoying marketing clients who don’t know s--- about s---, trying to convince them that the bold creative idea is better than the blob-monster drivel their nepo-hire stepson used Midjourney to “paint.” Who knew I would miss making a logo bigger?

5:19 p.m. Basically, the only useful purpose of this gig is to spend my time studying Spanish, writing prose and applying to jobs I actually want.

10 p.m. I served an average number of people today, and yet I still smell and sweat like a roofer in Albuquerque. How, Sway?

10:05 p.m. Walking to my bike, I do a lil’ lesson. “Quiero que mi sueño se haga realidad,” a green, nocturnal animal says to me on my phone. “Quiero que mi sueño se haga realidad (I want my dream to become reality),” I say back. I think a vacation would be fun, but I’m not in a place financially right now. Even for a hostel.

Shift 2: Boredom, Even When I’m Busy

3 p.m. I say out loud, “Well, it’s a hot one,” and immediately sing the next line of that song as I make my way uptown.

3:30 p.m.. The usual scattering of young people greets my eyes as I enter my bar-fé; some on laptops listening to headphones and others silently nursing sweaty, half-finished matcha lattes.

4:19 p.m. Another start-of-shift mistake: There’s a person today who is probably walking around tweaking out of their skull because I used regular beans instead of decaf. Oops.

5:07 p.m. A couple of girls are actually speaking to one another out loud with nary an electronic in sight. Laughter and human connection? In here? Rare.

6:04 p.m. A mother with a Goyard bag — every well-to-do subway mom in New York seems to have one — remarks on how quiet it is in here, but it sounds like an insult. Her toddler is playing with her sludge-coloured skirt. Probably cost more than half my paycheck.

6:05 p.m. She orders a “SMALL cold brew with LIGHT ICE,” said like there is a sign on my head that says “idiot.” She watches me like a hawk to make sure the ice is light. I prepare for her to complain about how the cup isn’t full.

When you order light ice, you get a less potent drink in many cases. Maybe it’s what she wants, judging by her “busy but successful mom of two in yogurt commercial”-ass fit.

I don’t care enough about protecting the financial interests of the ownership class, so I just fill the empty part with more milk.

7:05 p.m. It’s so empty in here I’m learning Spanish out loud. The green bird teaches: “No me gustan los hosteles; son poco elegantes.”

“No me gustan los hosteles; son poco elegantes (I don’t like hostels; they are not elegant),” I say back.

9:33 p.m. A guy and his girlfriend come in hesitantly, looking around. “Is this … the same place as during the day?” he asks. “Or is this a different thing, a speakeasy?” she asks. I am f---ing elated.

Shift 3: My Pal, the Green Owl

3:07 p.m. Another hot-ass day. Temps in the 90s, maybe past 100.

3:19 p.m. As with any toxic relationship, I experience complicated feelings every time I walk through the front door.

4:30 p.m. This is a hobby business for the wealthy. Six people own it — more Injustice Society than Superman investing with Diana Prince.

4:32 p.m. The owners create inherent hypocrisies. It sucks. It’s slow here, so they only want to pay for one person to work the bar but then get pissed when they get a Google review saying the lines are too long. Vandal Savage behaviour.

4:35 p.m. I met one owner, an older woman, months ago. She was notable because she apparently does not know anything about coffee, wine or business. Once I saw her strut behind the bar to pour herself a wine from the tap. She sprayed liquid all over the bar — and herself — because she didn’t realize there was a stopper in the spout that needed to be taken out first.

7:50 p.m. Oh God, 10 people came in at once. Must be a museum field trip. A group order with significantly varying drinks can really throw me.

8:03 p.m. I realized I forgot to add caramel to one of the big group’s cappuccinos. F---.

I thought about running after them, but ennui is heavier than my compassion. Also, I don’t give a s--- about this job.

8:19 p.m. I turn back to the green, spectacled animal in my phone. “Tomas demasiado café,” it says. “Tomas demasiado café (You drink too much coffee),” I say back, adding, “Y vino.” I realize I haven’t learned from the bird how to say “wine” yet. This is irony.

https://www.today.com/food/restaurants/server-diaries-bored-bartender-wants-to-quit-rcna593804

How a diary entry solved the murder of a missing man

From bbc.co.uk

When Det Con Tom Ryan came across a diary entry about an old cattle trailer in July 2025, he knew he had finally solved the murder of a man who had disappeared six years earlier.

Richard Dyson vanished without trace in November 2019. He was last seen alive on 17 November that year and was reported missing eight days later when he failed to meet his daughter, Bethany.

"He was by all accounts a very good father, and he was regularly in contact with his daughter Bethany who was, I believe, 19 at the time of his disappearance. It was totally out of character," Ryan recalled.

"It was clear that he had disappeared off the face of the Earth."

Richard, who was 55 at the time, had been living in his car at Parkside Cottage on Christopher Wright's farm on Sheffield Road in Barnsley, helping with small jobs around the farm.

The farm was searched, but other than a collection of illegal weapons belonging to Wright, nothing more unusual was found and there was no sign of Richard.

His phone, however, showed it had never left the farm.

Police believed from the outset that Richard had been killed and that Wright and his childhood friend, Karl Schwalbe, were responsible, according to Ryan.

"We very much suspected their involvement, but without a body it's very difficult to prove murder," he said.

On 28 July, Wright, 73, and Schwalbe, 72, were convicted for their roles in Richard's disappearance and murder, ending a six-year wait for answers for Richard's family.

At a sentencing hearing at Sheffield Crown Court on Thursday, Wright was jailed for 35 years for murder and Schwalbe was given a three-year sentence for perverting the course of justice.

Richard Dyson (left) vanished without a trace in 2019 and Christopher Wright (right) was found guilty of his murder in July this year

But how did police finally catch them?

Nearly six years had passed when Ryan reviewed phone records relevant to the case.

Among several calls made by Wright, one to Ian Ollerenshaw on 20 November 2019 caught his attention.

"I went round to Ian's house and I asked him, 'Can you by any way remember that phone call that you received over six years ago' - and, to be entirely honest, I expected him to say no," he said.

But the farmer, who lives at Alderthwaite Farm, just over a mile from Parkside Cottage, did remember.

More remarkably, he produced a leather diary from 2019, in which he had noted that Wright had stopped by to drop off an old trailer.

"As soon as I spoke to Ian and he remembered the phone call and he said 'the trailer is still here, do you want to go and see it' - as soon as he said that, I knew I'd found Richard," said Det Con Ryan.

The farmer told him the trailer had been sitting padlocked and undisturbed in the corner of a field for years.

By the time Det Con Ryan came across it, it was partially obscured by overgrown hedges and long grass.

Image source,Crown Prosecution Service

Image caption,

Richard Dyson's body was found inside an old cattle trailer on a farm in Barnsley

Most of the trailer was empty, but about a third of it was crammed from floor to ceiling with junk.

And there, tucked away in a corner and covered by a baby changing mat, was a blue barrel.

"The barrel was full of concrete, but it quite clearly had human bones protruding out of the top of it," said Det Con Ryan.

A post-mortem examination later confirmed the bones belonged to Richard and that he had been shot with a shotgun before his body was dismembered, placed inside the barrel and encased in concrete.

A jury would later hear how Wright had worked as a butcher for several years in the 1970s.

Alongside Richard's remains, police found something else that would help them bring the person responsible for his murder to justice - an ID card in the name of Christopher Wright.

Wright and Schwalbe were both arrested the same day.

Image source,Crown Prosecution Service

Image caption,

Christopher Wright's ID was found by police inside the trailer

Between 2019 and 2023, police had spent more than 286 hours searching Parkside Cottage.

But what they found during their searches in 2025 dwarfed their earlier discoveries.

Instead of a handful of firearms they had discovered previously, officers found an arsenal of weapons, including dozens of guns, thousands of rounds of ammunition, swords, 30 to 40 axes, daggers, crossbows and even tripwires.

"It's obviously a man who has a fascination with weaponry," Det Con Ryan said.

"It is the most weapons that I've ever known to be found in a person's house.

"He had as many weapons and guns as you would need to arm an army."

CCTV footage of Richard's last movements on 17 November 2019 further supported what officers already knew - Wright had been the last person to see him alive.

The cameras captured Richard returning to Wright's farm shortly after 23:00 GMT.

About 20 minutes later, Wright called his friend, Schwalbe. The first call went unanswered, but minutes later a second call, lasting only a few seconds, connected.

Not long after, footage showed Schwalbe's car making its way towards Wright's farm.

"The extent of the physical assistance that Schwalbe provided to Wright is unknown to everybody other than the two men," said Ryan.

"What is known is that Schwalbe could on any day in the last seven years have helped stop the suffering of Richard's family, but he chose not to."

Three days after Richard's disappearance, bank transactions showed Wright went to Allendale Building Supplies in Hoyland.

While it was never proved, it was suggested he went there to buy cement.

Image source,South Yorkshire Police

Image caption,

The fateful entry from Ian Ollerenshaw's diary

Long before Wright's and Schwalbe's trial began, prosecutors expected Wright to argue that someone else must have been responsible for Richard's disappearance and murder.

But senior crown prosecutor Jamie Barton said the investigation consistently pointed in one direction.

"All lines led to Mr Wright and Mr Schwalbe," she said.

However, she said the six-year gap between Richard's disappearance and the discovery of his body left investigators with limited forensic evidence, poorer-quality CCTV than would be expected today and little mobile phone data.

Even the murder weapon remained elusive, with none of the weapons seized presenting a link to Richard's fatal injuries.

Although prosecutors did not have to prove motive, Barton said detectives uncovered evidence supporting long-standing rumours that Richard had stolen from Wright and, therefore, Wright killed him.

"It's a case theory, it's not something that we can be certain of - but it's one thing that is relevant," she said.

During the trial, jurors were played a covert recording of a conversation between the two men outside Barnsley Police Station.

On the recording, Wright can be heard apologising to his friend for getting him into trouble and Schwalbe saying he wished he had never gone to the farm that night.

In another recording, Wright can be heard praying.

"He was saying things along the lines of 'I only did what I had to survive, they bit the hand that fed them, I hope the police don't find my weapons'," said Ryan.

Christopher Wright (left) asked his childhood friend Karl Schwalbe (right) to help him hide the body of Richard Dyson 

After six years of unanswered questions, it was not the covert recordings, the diary entry, the animal trailer or the weapons that mattered most to detectives.

"I think more than anything, it's the fact that Richard's daughter knew that her dad had gone," said Ryan.

"She knew he must have died because he'd not been in touch for all this time, but you hold on to that 5% of hope because you don't quite want to believe it.

"To give her some closure has been wonderful and I hope they get the justice they so richly deserve."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62vzv2xyq9o