Hayley Berry
Mr. Ippolito
3/15/18
Current Event 19
“Case Study: A Death Mystery in an Indiana Barn Solved by Spots.” Forensic Magazine, 14 Mar. 2018, www.forensicmag.com/news/2018/03/case-study-death-mystery-indiana-barn-solved-spots.
For this current event I read the article called “Case Study: A Death Mystery in an Indiana Barn Solved by Spots.”. This article was about a 81 year old women who lived in Indiana on a farm. She would tend to the horses in the morning and night. She was found dead on the floor of the barn by her grandson a couple of days after the death. She was found half naked and when the police arrived they assumed it was a sexual assault. They ran a whole investigation in the path of sexual assault but they found no evidence. Then they ran a homicide investigation. They concluded that it was a freak accident. “But then she had fallen and broken her hip. Unable to move, with the cold and wet floor, she had gradually gotten colder and colder—especially with the hose gushing water across the bottom of the barn—despite it being a typical summer in Indiana.” They said that since she was older and it was a low of 68 she could have gotten hypothermia and started having symptoms like undressing because you feel warmer than you actually are. This is why she was partially naked. They concluded that she in fact broke her hip and could not move and when she was dead the horses got hungry and would push her with their hooves to try and wake her up. This was the cause of the bruises and spots that were on her body.
I chose this article because it shows how at any moment something bad could happen and you can lose your life. She was an old lady who was doing her daily routine and she did not have the best of luck that day. I also chose this article because it shows how the police can work to figure out the cause of death even when they were very far off. They started with a sexual assault case and they ended up saying it was a freak accident. This shows how important forensic scientists are because they found all the evidence while doing the autopsy the police ordered.
I thought that this article was very interesting. It had a lot of unexpected twists and turns when figuring out what exactly happened to the old lady. The only thing that I thought that they could have done better was putting more detail in when they were talking about the autopsy. I thought that they just skimmed it and they should have put more evidence in to make the story unfold better. A quote from the person who did the autopsy would have been a nice addition to the article as a whole.
7 comments:
Andy Goldbaum Forensics D Even 3/16/18
Augenstein, Seth. “Case Study: A Death Mystery in an Indiana Barn Solved by Spots.” Forensic Magazine, Advantage Business Media © Copyright 2018 Advantage Business Media, 14 Mar. 2018, www.forensicmag.com/news/2018/03/case-study-death-mystery-indiana-barn-solved-spots.
Hayley Berry’s review of “A Case Study: A Death Mystery in an Indiana Barn Solved by Spots”, by Seth Augenstein of Forensic Magazine, was very well written. For example, she summarized the case in the same logical order of events that was written in the article: first, Berry started with how the findings led police to begin a dead-end sexual assault case, then she proceeded to describe what the investigators later concluded, and just like in the article, she explained the different pieces of evidence that helped built a picture of the events and describe how each piece of evidence impacted/was impacted by her death. Because she did this with orderly, complete, grammatically correct sentences, her summary was very easy for a reader to follow. A second well written aspect of Berry’s review was when she described how the article impacted her life. Even though some of the events that kill people in horror movies like Final Destination seem a little far off, I agree with Berry that it is important to realize how easy it actually is to lose your life just by some accident occurring in your daily routine, and even while we try not to be afraid to do what matters to us in our lives because something might kill us, it is always important to be aware of one’s own mortality. Lastly, Berry’s constructive criticism of the article was evidence-based and relevant towards making the article more related to forensic science: I do agree that some more information on the autopsy and overall what led to the pivot from sexual assault to accidental death would have based the article more in forensics rather than just simply an interesting story.
One aspect of Berry’s review that could be improved is that she inserted a quote that did not provide anything helpful to her summary. Because she immediately in the next sentence reiterates the point about hypothermia, there was no need to randomly stick a quote in about the running water when she could have said the same thing more concisely herself. As a general rule, quotes should only be used to give expert authority to a topic or to add an interesting aside that will capture the attention of readers and support the evidence. Otherwise they are just random and take up space in the article. Secondly, Berry did not cite specific evidence as to what “twists and turns” existed that made the story so exciting. Adding her favorite example would have been a stronger way to end her review.
I agree with Berry that this type of story should make people aware of their own mortality. I almost always eat non-processed fruits, vegetables, meat and I avoid processed carbs and sugar partially to decrease my chances of getting cancer or heart disease, but it would probably serve me better to make sure that I always bike and drive carefully so that I don’t get into a crash. For some reason, people act like it is impossible to die tomorrow and focus on long term quality of life if not at all even though it happens all the time.
Case Study: A Death Mystery in an Indiana Barn Solved by Spots.” Forensic Magazine, 14 Mar. 2018, www.forensicmag.com/news/2018/03/case-study-death-mystery-indiana-barn-solved-spots.
Hayley’s review of the article “Case Study: A Death Mystery in an Indiana Barn Solved by Spots,” was well written. I thought that she provided a detailed summary of the situation, allowing for a better understanding of the article. I also thought that she did a good job by incorporating a quote describing how the series of events played out, leading to her death. I also thought that she did a good job in explaining how important of a role forensic scientist played in determining the cause of a death given the evidence they are provided with.
Although Hayley’s review was overall well written, I thought that there were a few areas which she could have improved. I thought that she should have gone into more depth in describing the forensic process of determining the death and how they came to their conclusion. I also thought that she should have incorporated more quotes from other experts to provide more input from those such as forensic scientists or police.
Overall, I found Hayley’s review of the article “Case Study: A Death Mystery in an Indiana Barn Solved by Spots,” to be equally informative as interesting to read. I found it interesting how after an investigation, they were able to determine that the cause of death was not sexual assault and was in fact an accident due to her age.
Case Study: A Death Mystery in an Indiana Barn Solved by Spots.” Forensic Magazine, 14 Mar. 2018, www.forensicmag.com/news/2018/03/case-study-death-mystery-indiana-barn-solved-spots.
Hayley reviewed the article “A Death Mystery in an Indiana Barn Solved by Spots,”. I thought the article review was comprehensive and well written, which made it easy to understand. She also provided good quotes that furthered my understanding of what was going on and did a great job relating the article to forensics.
Hayley could have gone into more detail on the actual forensic practices in the case instead of giving a brief overview, but other than that I don’t think there was anything else she could have done better.
I thought hayleys review was interesting to read because it was just another example of how new scientific advances are helping to solve cases from the past and provide closure.
Hana Eddib 3/18/18
Forensics current event 19
“Case Study: A Death Mystery in an Indiana Barn Solved by Spots.” Forensic Magazine, 14 Mar. 2018, www.forensicmag.com/news/2018/03/case-study-death-mystery-indiana-barn-solved-spots.
Hayley’s review of her article was very well written. She did a very good job of providing enough details in her summary so that we could understand the article.I also appreciated that she included a quote in her article to help give us a direct point of view leading up to the death. I appreciated that she included the timeline of events and how the police changed their tracks when they released the case was going in a different direction.
Even though Hayley did a great job, there were two areas in which she could improve. The first being even though we understood how we got to the death, it would’ve been nice if she gave us an explanation of the forensic side of it and what the connection to the death was. I also wish when she connected it to us she would’ve included the forensic importance to these cases.
Overall Hayley did a great job and I was very intrigued to learn how a sexualt assault case could end up being a case about how we are really mortal and must take care of ourselves.
This week my classmate Hayley Berry did a current event on “Case Study: A Death Mystery in an Indiana Barn Solved by Spots.” which was written by Seth Augenstein. The article that was published in Forensic Magazine talks about how forensic investigators solved a death by investigating spots on an old lady's body. The first thing that shocked me about this story was that investigators changed what they thought happened. At first, the lady was seen half naked which led investigators to believe there was a sexual assault. However, due to the location and circumstances of the death investigators recanted their clams to the death being caused by a homicide. The second thing that surprised me was that the investigators found a reason for the missing clothes. They believed the water on the barn floor caused her to get very cold and get pneumonia. Pneumonia causes your body temperature to get hotter, so getting her clothes off would help cool her. Finally, the spots on her body were the horses hitting her with their hooves trying to “wake her up” to feed them.
Overall, this was the most interesting current event I read this year. Hayley did a really good job explaining everything that happened in this article. However, I felt that she could have added more to the current event so the reader could have a better understanding on the forensics side of the article. I also felt that she could have added more quotes. Nevertheless, the article was still written really well.
This was a very fascinating article. It shows how quickly investigators could change the story due to facts present. At one point they thought it was and an instance of sexual assault, but when more information was gathered investigators changed it to an accidental death. This should warn investigators to not jump to conclusions about investigations and always check twice with the information given as well as make sure that there are no other possible scenarios when concluding a crime.
Mairead Cain
Mr. Ippolito
Forensics
11 April 2018
“Case Study: A Death Mystery in an Indiana Barn Solved by Spots.” Forensic Magazine, 14 Mar. 2018, www.forensicmag.com/news/2018/03/case-study-death-mystery-indiana-barn-solved-spots
Hayley did a very nice job with her current event review on the article “Case Study: A Death Mystery in an Indiana Barn Solved by Spots,” from the Forensic Magazine. There are many good techniques she uses throughout the report. One example is how she explains the details of the specific case involving the 81 year old woman. Hayley described her day to day life and the initial shock after her grandson found her on the floor. Another aspect of Hayley’s writing that was done rather well was when she explained what the forensic scientists initally thought of the case. At first, the investigators believed it was sexual assault. Then, after not finding enough evidence, they believed it was a homicide. Finally, investigators settled on the notion that it was a freak accident. Lastly, I appreciated how Hayley discussed the importance of this article. Her own input concerning the fact that anyone could die at any moment was very interesting and thought provoking.
Overall, Hayley’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 discusses each forensic process that she listed in her report. The forensic scientists thought of many possibilities during this investigation and it would have been interesting to see how these processes were conducted. It would have been beneficial for him to go into further detail concerning the importance this case has to the world of forensics. Hayley did discuss the importance concerning morals so it would have been interesting to learn about its importance in the world of forensics.
Hayley’s report was very informative and I learned extensively about this specific case in which an 81 year old woman passed away in her barn. Before reading the report, I had little knowledge about this specific case and the many processes that the investigators went through. After reading Hayley’s report, I see how important it is to treat life with the utmost importance.
Augenstein, Seth. “Case Study: A Death Mystery in an Indiana Barn Solved by Spots.” Forensic Magazine, Advantage Business Media © Copyright 2018 Advantage Business Media, 14 Mar. 2018, www.forensicmag.com/news/2018/03/case-study-death-mystery-indiana-barn-solved-spots.
She reviewed the article “A Death Mystery in an Indiana Barn Solved by Spots,”. I thought the article review was comprehensive and well written, which made it easy to understand. She also provided good quotes that furthered my understanding of what was going on and did a great job relating the article to forensics.
She could have gone into more detail on the actual forensic practices in the case instead of giving a brief overview, but other than that I don’t think there was anything else she could have done better.
I thought hayleys review was interesting to read because it was just another example of how new scientific advances are helping to solve cases from the past and provide closure.
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