Molly Palma
Mr. Ippolito C-Odd
Current Event 18
Due on March 12th
Due on March 12th
Rehman, Fareeha. “1998 Sexual Assault Cold Case Solved with Blood Sample from Suspect's
Autopsy.” KRQE News 13, 21 Feb. 2020,
In 1998, sexual assaulter, Juan Johnson “forced entry to a 32-year-old woman’s apartment and sexually assaulted her at gunpoint”. The woman luckily escaped after jumping out the window. There were no matches found in the DNA and fingerprint databases at the time, that would identify him as the perpetrator. In 2014, Johnson died (cause not listed). It wasn’t until last year, when the Virginia Department of Forensic Science found a match with Johnson’s blood sample, as well as his fingerprints. The database had grown vast enough to finally find a match, but it was too late. Even if Johnson hadn’t died, the statute of limitations had passed to put him in jail for his crime.
This article, “1998 Sexual Assault Cold Case Solved with Blood Sample from Suspect's Autopsy” is important in the grand scheme of forensic science for many reasons. First and foremost: Johnson’s DNA and fingerprints were not found in the database for 21 years proving that the database is constantly growing larger. This is because of new ancestry sites and the rising demand for the services. Secondly, Juan Johnson believed he was slick by posing as an exterminator with the initial entrance into this woman’s house, but his fingerprints and blood DNA were collected by the police. According to Major Ed O’Carroll, Bureau Commander of Major Crimes all members of this bureau are ‘caring and committed’ in seeking closure in cases like this. Forensic scientists are always ready to solve new and relook old cases, which is important to acknowledge for context purposes.
Rehman’s article was easy to read, because she carefully laid out a who, what, and a why for the reader. Rehman’s concise writing style was refreshing, but a criticism might refer to the lack in specificity with certain facts. For example, she says “detectives also matched Johnson’s DNA with a similar case in Arlington County a week before the August 17 incident.” To follow this statement, she should’ve explained which case matched with Johnson’s DNA, because a) the reader was wondering and b) it has everything to do with the topic which is Juan Johnson’s criminal record and how this plays into the evolution of forensic science. She could’ve done this several times like about how Johnson died and how the police collected the blood sample from Johnson in the first place.
3 comments:
Jordan Hoang
Mr.Ippolito
Forensics C Odd
3/8/20
Rehman, Fareeha. “1998 Sexual Assault Cold Case Solved with Blood Sample from Suspect's Autopsy.” KRQE News 13, 21 Feb.
2020,https://www.krqe.com/news/national/1998-sexual-assault-cold-case-solved-with-blood-s
mple-from-suspects-autopsy/
https://bhscsi.blogspot.com/2020/03/fareeha-rehmans-1998-sexual-assault.html
In her review of the article “1998 Sexual Assault Cold Case Solved with Blood Sample from Suspect's Autopsy”, Molly did many things well. First, I thought she did a good job of explaining the crime of Juan Johnson in a concise manner. In addition, I think she did a nice job of organizing her thoughts and the information from the case. She made it very easy to understand the timeline of the case and what occurred. Finally, I enjoyed how she incorporated a quote when criticizing the author of the article. Citing parts of the article is always a good way to legitimize and strengthen a review.
One thing I think Molly could improve on is having a more consistent tone throughout her article. At some points, I felt as though her word choice and sentence structure was a bit too casual. In addition to this, I wish Molly elaborated on how the investigators found the fingerprints and DNA from Juan Johnson. I think this would have made her background more comprehensive.
I always find it interesting when forensic cases from many years ago can be solved with new and improved technology. It is unfortunate that some cases go beyond a certain threshold of time and the perpetrator can no longer be prosecuted. Hopefully, in the future, we will develop efficient forms of forensic technology that will help us solve crimes more quickly.
Isabelle Kennedy
Forensics C Odd
3/9/20
Current Event 18
Rehman, Fareeha. “1998 Sexual Assault Cold Case Solved with Blood Sample from Suspect's
Autopsy.” KRQE News 13, 21 Feb. 2020, https://www.krqe.com/news/national/1998-sexual-assault-cold-case-solved-with-blood-s
mple-from-suspects-autopsy/
For this week’s current events, I decided to respond to Molly Palma’s analysis of 1998 Sexual Assault Cold Case Solved with Blood Sample from Suspect's Autopsy,” by Fareeha Rehman. First Molly, briefly summarizes the article. She does an excellent job at opening her response, quickly summarizing what happened making it easy to digest. “In 1998, sexual assaulter Juan Johnson “forced entry to a 32-year-old woman’s apartment and sexually assaulted her at gunpoint”. The woman luckily escaped after jumping out the window,” Molly clearly describes the instance that she is going to describe in her response, without making the description overly complicated. Molly also does an excellent job at explaining how this particular case is important to forensic science today. She clearly addresses how the fingerprinting database is growing, and reports that data from cases years ago can still show up today. “This article, “1998 Sexual Assault Cold Case Solved with Blood Sample from Suspect's Autopsy” is important in the grand scheme of forensic science for many reasons. First and foremost: Johnson’s DNA and fingerprints were not found in the database for 21 years proving that the database is constantly growing larger.” Molly clearly states how the database is constantly evolving, explaining how it is growing far more advanced. Molly also does a great job at critiquing the article. She outlines the lack of specificity by the author and highlights a particular example of this in the article. “Detectives also matched Johnson’s DNA with a similar case in Arlington County a week before the August 17 incident.” To follow this statement, she should’ve explained which case matched with Johnson’s DNA.” Molly clearly explains what she would have liked to see from the author.
Although Molly did an excellent job at providing a concise, easy to digest response, some detail was definitely lacking. The situation with Johnson and the woman could have been described a bit more, instead of just explaining all the basic details. Although it was easy to understand, a few complex details would have added to the sophistication of the response. As well as this, Molly could have included more on what she liked from the article. She had a very long response for a critique, but highlighting some more points about what she liked about the author’s writing would be helpful to give her likes and dislikes a more even balance.
Overall, Molly did a good job at providing a response to Rehman’s article. She could have included more detail in her summary of the article, as well as highlighting more positives with the author’s writing. Other than that her response was very well written.
Charlotte Cagliostro
Forensics
C Odd / Current Event 18
3/11/20
Rehman, Fareeha. “1998 Sexual Assault Cold Case Solved with Blood Sample from Suspect's
Autopsy.” KRQE News 13, 21 Feb. 2020,
https://www.krqe.com/news/national/1998-sexual-assault-cold-case-solved-with-blood-s
mple-from-suspects-autopsy/
Review: https://bhscsi.blogspot.com/2020/03/fareeha-rehmans-1998-sexual-assault.html
Molly wrote a great review of Fareeha Rehman’s article “1998 Sexual Assault Cold Case Solved with Blood Sample from Suspect's Autopsy.” In specific, there were three components of her piece that I especially enjoyed. First, I appreciated Molly’s writing style. She is clearly a talented writer who can convey her ideas in an informative yet still engaging manner. Second, I enjoyed her introductory paragraph a great deal. Molly did a very good job presenting the information from the original article in a clear and concise manner. Third, I liked Molly’s choice of article. I believe that the use of DNA analysis in cold cases is an incredibly relevant matter, so I appreciated being able to read and learn about such an important topic.
However, there were two aspects of Molly’s piece that I think need work. First, Molly should definitely fix the formatting of her review. It was clearly not pasted correctly into the blog, which made reading it quite difficult. Second, I think Molly could have expanded upon her critique of the original piece. Generally, I just felt like her conclusion was a bit rushed, so I think she could have spent a few more sentences analyzing the piece.
One thing I learned through reading Molly’s review is that a cold case can be solved by forensic evidence that was collected decades ago, which I believe is truly incredible and a testament to how much the field of forensic science has grown in recent years.
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