Last Tuesday criminal investigators began looking for the missing 7-year-old girl missing since Monday from Orange Park. They began “a slow and careful search of the Chesser Island Road Landfill in Georgia” for clues to the missing girl Somer Thompson who and gone missing on Monday.
Ross Gardner, a national forensics expert based in Oklahoma, said “it's usually easy to know where to start looking, because most landfills are strictly organized into cells by location and date.” The problem is that it is very difficult to find evidance in land fill because of all of the contamination in the landfill. As Gardner said "it's kind of poke and hope,". One of the other main problems is that by the end of the day when the trash arvived it ends up being coverd by soil and compacted to prevent odors from spreading. Paul Laska, a forensic consultant in Palm City said that unless the body is sitting on top of the garge there needs to be some excavation to dig deeper into the landfill. For them this means bringing in cadavor dogs to try and sniff around to find human remains.
Once the body was found it was difficult to differentiant between trash and evidance. Lou Eliopulos said "with a scene like this, you're basically limited to the core; you're limited to the body." The lack of DNA evidance on the outside of the boday and the bruising that is on it do to all of the trash the covered the body make it very difficult to make heads or tails of whether the body was carried or dragged to the landfill or what happened to it in genral.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Experts say landfill forensics search isn't easy: It's hard to preserve and gather clues even under the best conditions.
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8 comments:
Three Aspects I liked
1. How hard it is to find evidence or solve a crime investigation when crime scene investigators need to search landfills.
2. Even if a body was found at a landfill so many problems arise to the investigators, contaminated DNA, what evidence if any can be connected and damaged evidence.
3. I liked how he explained that if a body is missing on a certain date the landfills are divided into cells with location and date which would make the search much easier.
Two Recomendations
1. Explain a little more about how they began their search at the landfill, no explanation of the crime or how they got a lead to the landfill.
2. Explain how the Cadavor dogs are able to find the body even with all the other odors of the landfill.
One Thing I learned
1. Even with all the odors from the landfills Cadavor dogs are still brought in to try and find human remains.
There are many aspects of this article that I liked. First was that the article really showed how hard it was to investigate a landfill due to all of the odors. Also, the landfill is very hard to examine due to all of the trash and other articles that maybe be near the body, but may not be evidence. A third thing is that due to the landfills odor, cadaver dogs were needed to find the body.
Twp recommendations that I have are to give a little more background into the case and show how the landfill connects to the case. I would also recommend adding if they were able to catch the suspect using the evidence that they found in the landfill.
One thing that I learned from this article is that landfills sort the garbage by dates. I didn’t know that the landfill was organized.
I like how this review tells us why forensic science in landfills is not easy. Also, I like how it gives direct quotes from scientists, and informs us that though it is difficult, it is being applied to a missing persons case. This review could have been made better by telling us the success rate of solving the murders of those found in landfills, and perhaps how investigators start their search once they get to the landfill. I learned that not only does the landfill make it difficult to find the body, but it also makes it almost impossible to use evidence other than the body.
One thing i liked was that this article showed how hard it was to solve a crime using landfills. To find evidence and to solve the case searching landfills was something that I did not think could be done. Another thing was that even though evidence may be found, it is not always useful because it can be contaminated and damaged. Another thing I liked, was how landfills help a scientist in helping decide a date of death, because they are sectioned off per date.
I would recommend to the author to give more background into an actual case, and show how the evidence collected in the landfill helps prove a case. Also, if landfill evidence would be enough to convict a suspect.
One thing i found interesting and learned, was that landfills can help predict time of death, as well as through all the contamination and damage caused by landfills, how any evidence is supported and legitimized
Three Aspects:
This article had many interesting aspects. One of these aspects is that its easy to know where to start looking since the landfill is seperated into dates. The second thing that was interesting was that even if the body was found at a landfill it could be contaminated. The third thing that i found interesting was that due to the intense odor dogs had to be used to find the body.
Two recomendations
1. Give more insight onto the cause of the girls death.
2. explain how the dogs can pick up the scent of the body through all of the other scents
One Thing i learned:
I learned that even with a body being put into a landfill evidence can still be found.
1) Showed the difficulty forensics science deal with when solving crimes involving landfills.
2)The article uses direct quotes from article which is nice.
3)Explains just how tough missing persons cases are
1)Tell how the landfill came into the the picture in the first place.
2)Explain how the use of canines can help to solve cases and discover evidence.
1)I was unaware that there was a system of organization with landfills.
1) Showed the difficulty forensics science deal with when solving crimes involving landfills.
2)The article uses direct quotes from article which is nice.
3)Explains just how tough missing persons cases are
1)Tell how the landfill came into the the picture in the first place.
2)Explain how the use of canines can help to solve cases and discover evidence.
1)I was unaware that there was a system of organization with landfills.
I liked:
1. I liked how much detail was put in about how to search for a body in a landfill. Especially how it is necessary to bring in dogs to find the body sometimes.
2. It was interesting how the landfill was separated by sectors for each date so it was easier to find the body.
3. Finding evidence in a landfill must have been very difficult but the fact that they were able to find the body is interesting.
I didnt like:
1. There could have been a bit more background information about the child who was missing.
2. More information on why the killer chose that spot and why not hide the body in a different sector.
Interesting:
1. I didn't know how police go about finding bodies and learning that the dogs are used to search through an area that seems unsearchable is interesting.
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