Lily Monahan
Current #15
Forensics
February 6th, 2018
Baker, Al, and Alan Feuer. “DNA Helps New York Police Solve Infamous 1994 Rape Case.”The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Jan. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/nyregion/prospect-park-rape-solved-dna.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=4&pgtype=collection.
In Al Bakers article “DNA Helps New York Police Solve Infamous 1994 Rape Case” discuss how new DNA matching technology was able to help officials finally identify a suspect in an unsolved rape case from 24 years ago.A woman was raped in the early evening in Prospect park while returning home from grocery shopping. There was little evidence aside from some semen on her shorts ,and police had no leads on ny suspecs. One reporter went as far as to speculate in an article as to whether the entire story was a hoax. The case went cold shortly after. This month, a newly developed system of DNA testing which was not elaborated on in the article was used. The Rapist was identified as 67 year old James Edward Webb, who is already serving life in prison for serial rape charges, He cannot be charged with the rape that occurred in 1994, due to the statute of limitations.
This breakthrough is relevant for several reasons, the first being that a victim was given closure ad is now able to be at peace knowing that her rapist is behind bars and will be for the rest of his life. The victim was called a liar, so it’s important for the public to know that that accusation was false and inappropriate. This is also relevant because it shows the value of new forensic advances and the benefits it can have to society, like closure for the victim. It makes it clear that rapists and other criminals will no longer be able to get away with their heinous crimes because forensic technology is catching up to them and improving every day.
This article was well written and gave a great overview on the case and how it was resolved. There were alot of quotes from police, lawyers, and people closely connected to the crime. I think this article would have been better if there was a little more detail on the exact forensic process was used and how it was developed.
8 comments:
Mairead Cain
Mr. Ippolito
Forensics
5 February 2018
Baker, Al, and Alan Feuer. “DNA Helps New York Police Solve Infamous 1994 Rape Case.”The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Jan 2018. www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/nyregion/prospect-park-rape-solved-dna.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=4&pgtype=collection
Lily did a very nice job with her current event review on the article “DNA Helps New York Police Solve Infamous 1994 Rape Case,” by Al Baker. I decided to review her report as the title was rather intriguing and left many questions in the air. There are many good techniques she uses throughout the report. One example is how she gives thorough background concerning the New York Rape case. Her focus on this factor of the original report is important as the background helps readers understand what, exactly, happened and the subsequent criminal investigation that followed. Another aspect of Lily’s writing that was done rather well was when she explained why the identification of the suspect was important. She explained how the identification of the rapist offered the victim closure and how it shows advances in forensic DNA profiling. Lastly, I appreciated how Lily discussed the flaws in the original article. She explained that the original current event article would have benefited from the author explaining, in more detail, the techniques used to identify the rapist.
Overall, Lily’s report was extremely interesting and informative, however there are some details that she could tweak and add to make the current event report even that much better. I recommend that she adds some quotes from the original current event article. This would have been beneficial for her article because readers would have gotten some further context on the details of the case. Also, she could have gone into slight more detail considering the 1994 case and why so many assumed the victim was lying.
Lily’s report was very informative and I learned extensively about how investigators were able to solve a rape case that was considered by many to be cold. Before reading the report, I had little knowledge about this specific rape case from 1994. Countless people across the world are affected by this heinous sort of crime and after reading Lily’s report, I see now that investigators are working diligently to finding new methods to bring the suspects to justice.
YiFei Wu
Mr. Ippolito
Forensics
2/5/2018
Baker, Al, and Alan Feuer. “DNA Helps New York Police Solve Infamous 1994 Rape Case.”The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Jan 2018. www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/nyregion/prospect-park-rape-solved-dna.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=4&pgtype=collection
Lily did a very nice job with her current event review on the article “DNA Helps New York Police Solve Infamous 1994 Rape Case,” by Al Baker. So the title of this article interested me which made me want to read the rest. Lily uses great examples of the case, such as the New York Rape case. I like all of those background she gave the audiences, which make it clear to understand. "how new DNA matching technology was able to help officials finally identify a suspect in an unsolved rape case from 24 years ago.A woman was raped in the early evening in Prospect park while returning home from grocery shopping. There was little evidence aside from some semen on her shorts ,and police had no leads on ny suspects". This quote shows how detailed background Lily had in her article. Second, in Lily's article, she explained why the identity of the suspect is important in this situation. Third of all, she explained the aspect of this case form the original post which I appreciate the most.
I think Lily's post is very helpful as well as let us learn more about the forensic technology. But she can literally add more details to some stuff. First, she can use words from the original post, quote them, that will make the post more trustworthy. Second, she could tell us why the forensic technology is important.
Overall, Lily's post is very very helpful in our daily life knowledge about raping.
Hana Eddib 2/5/18
Forensics current event 15
Baker, Al, and Alan Feuer. “DNA Helps New York Police Solve Infamous 1994 Rape Case.”The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Jan 2018. www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/nyregion/prospect-park-rape-solved-dna.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=4&pgtype=collection
I thought Lily did a great job with her review. I appreciated that Lily kept her review short and concise so not to overwhelm readers with details that didn’t highlight the importance of the article. I also appreciated that she highlighted the importance of victims receiving closure as, often times, that is what they want more than anything. I also appreciated how she highlighted the lack of details on the forensic process as that was would solved this case.
While Lily did do a great job, there were two aspects she could improve on. The first being, I wish she would’ve included a quote from the article to provide us with direct context. The other being to include why many people doubted the victim in the first place and more details of the whole case in question.
Overall Lily did a great job on her article and I was very surprised to learn about this case as it was new to me, and happy to know we can still solve cases that were deemed “cold.”
Catherine Faville
Mr. Ippolito
Forensics
Baker, Al, and Alan Feuer. “DNA Helps New York Police Solve Infamous 1994 Rape Case.”The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Jan 2018. www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/nyregion/prospect-park-rape-solved-dna.html?
Lily's analysis of “DNA Helps New York Police Solve Infamous 1994 Rape Case,” written by Al Baker was very informative and interesting to read. She had a lot of background detail on previous rape cases in New York. She went into great depth of the background knowledge, making it a lot easier to understand with the recent cases. She also did a good job with explaining the process of identifying suspects, and how key it is to the whole process.
I think her article was really well written, however she could have compared and contrast similar rape cases, in order to prove how common these cases are. In addition if she added some quotes from the article it would have made a stronger impact on the reader. Also if she added more detail on the actual case rather than the older cases, it would have made for a better analysis
Lily’s report was a interesting read, it was new to learn about how investigators were able to learn and solve rape cases, especially cases that were given up on. It is comfortating to see how investigators are working endlessly on finding new methods to find new imformation for cases, and how to bring the suspects to justice.
Jack Harwood 2/5/18
Baker, Al, and Alan Feuer. “DNA Helps New York Police Solve Infamous 1994 Rape Case.”The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Jan 2018. www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/nyregion/prospect-park-rape-solved-dna.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=4&pgtype=collection
Lily Monahan wrote a review of the article called “DNA Helps New York Police Solve Infamous 1994 Rape Case,” by Al Baker. Lily did a great job summarizing the story and providing lots of background details on utilizing graphics and technology. She also supplied the reader with very informative details and specific statistics. Lastly, I felt that you did a great job at explaining why it is relevant in modern society by explaining what forensic scientists could do wrong.
I believe your review could have been significantly better if your writing flowed better. It was slightly choppy and it felt like you were just listing facts. However, that being said, it allowed me to remember and understand your review more clearly. Also, I would have like to see more quotes from the author. It validates your points and with ethos, it makes your review more credible.
Overall I thought that Lily did a great job with the article and this was a very interesting read. I found it to be a very interesting read. It was new to learn about how investigators were able to learn and solve rape cases, especially cases that were given up on.
Gordon Hoffman
Mr. Ippolito
Current Events
2/5/18
Baker, Al, and Alan Feuer. “DNA Helps New York Police Solve Infamous 1994 Rape Case.”The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Jan 2018. www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/nyregion/prospect-park-rape-solved-dna.html?
Overall I thought Lily did a good job in her review of the article. She presented the information in a clear way that made it easy to follow and didn’t present unnecessary information. It was good that she included the forensic side of the case showing how it relates to what we’re learning. Lily also did a good job explaining the processes of identifying suspects and how it all works.
There were two thing that she could have done to make her review better though. It would have been nice if she added in some quotes to add to her review. She also could have talked about why people didn’t believe that it was happening as that seemed like it was an issue when it was happening.
Overall Lily did a good job and I learned some new things and that it’s always good to revisit old cases that people gave up on.
Justin McCarthy
Mr. Ippolito
Forensics 12H
Current Event 16- Reviewing Lilly Monhan
Due February 14th 2018
Baker, Al, and Alan Feuer. “DNA Helps New York Police Solve Infamous 1994 Rape Case. ”The New York Times. 9 Jan 2018.
www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/nyregion/prospect-park-rape-solved-dna.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=4&pgtype=collection
Lily did a nice job with her current event review on the article “DNA Helps New York Police Solve Infamous 1994 Rape Case,” I felt that I was able to learn many new things that she explained. The first factor that I liked about Lilly review was that she incited many great details in her review. For which Lilly did a good job explaining the background regarding the story and kept the timeline throughout the review very clear and very simple as well. This made it easy for readers to understand her review. A second factor that I liked about Lily’s review was that she added very good depth from the article which gives the reader another incite about what others thought about the case. I believe this was critical because it added and was able to set the tone throughout her article to help her set up her own opinion regarding the matter. And finally I thought Lilly did a great job on adding to her own thoughts and opinions into the review rather than just facts because she was able to do a perfect balance and in result Lilly was able to do a great job on her article when it came to having to balancing two fates within each other.
Although, Lilly’s article was a very good one to read, there were parts that I think Lilly could address on in the future. The first thing that I think Lilly could have improved on was add a few more ideas to his review to make it perfect. One way I think that Lilly should add more frequency when it forensics to her article. I say this because there are parts where Lilly can make her point more clear and concise through the review that she wrote very well. Another area where I also think Lily would have done a better job at was by bringing in a quote or two to help validate her argument that she is trying to make and make us realize in her review. I believe if Lilly can improve on this area as well, by adding a quote or two to her article. However beside these two minor fields, I was very impressed with her work because I learned alot from it.
Overall, I think Lilly did a very good job at summarizing the article and adding her own thoughts and opinions. Thence based on her article, I feel like it was conclusive for me because I thought it was very interesting how she constructed her argument. I found this review interesting and informative because I have never thought crime could be this sinister and I believe Lilly did a great job when it came to writing this review. The reason why I picked this review is because I thought this article was very interesting as well as I am a fan of the New York Times. Therefore based on her article and review, it is easy for me to conclude that Lilly did a great job writing her article here and it shows up as she is able to write a near perfect current event.
Baker, Al, and Alan Feuer. “DNA Helps New York Police Solve Infamous 1994 Rape Case.”The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Jan. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/nyregion/prospect-park-rape-solved-dna.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=4&pgtype=collection.
Lily did a very good job on her review of Al Bakers article, “DNA Helps New York Police Solve Infamous 1994 Rape Case.” I thought that she did a good job in thoroughly describing the rape case. I thought that it was good how she highlighted the importance of breakthroughs such as the newly developed system of DNA testing, as they allow for victims to have closure. Also, I found it helpful that she specified that the newly developed system of DNA testing was not further discussed in the article.
Although Lily’s review was overall well done, there were a few areas which could have been improved upon. I thought that it would have been helpful if she had included quotes from experts, which would help in further understanding the importance of breakthroughs such as the newly developed system of DNA testing. Also, she did not elaborate on why the reporter believed that the woman was lying and that the story was a hoax.
Overall, I found Lily’s review to be equally informative as it was interesting to read. It was comforting knowing that investigators will still reopen cases such as this one which have already “went cold,” and that DNA testing systems are continuously being developed.
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