Tracfone will cancel the service if you report the phone lost or stolen.
Tracfone also does not keep call logs, according to their web page.
This could be one reason why the defense needs the actual phone.
And is the defense just saying they don't know the provider, but actually do if going by info from the search warrant?
no doubt, you report it and they will cancel it.
But I am saying that a crime with the level of Brutality described, your cell phone is the least of your problems.
and If it is me and there is any chance the people that perpetrated that brutality could use the phone, I am leaving leaving it active. The Distric Attorney would have loved to find that phone in a players dorm with calls to their home town in New Jersey.
The strippers were acting more like people with something to hide than victims of a terrible crime: in my opinion
Tracfone themselves may not keep call logs, but the carrier(s) who handled the calls (Verizon, Sprint, AT&T/Cingular, Alltel, et. sure as heck kept call detail reports.