Forensic Entomology Investigation

The forensic classes have just begun the examination of the various stages if insect life cycle in to prepare for the determination the TOD (time of death) for two unidentified bodies in the ongoing case study they will be pursuing over  the course of this year.

Not being true forensic entomologist, who already know how to identify the main necrophagous insects that utilize a victim's body, the students began today by examining exemplars of two different species at various points in their life cycle. They were to observe the stages they were given looking for unique characteristics that would allow them to distinguish and identify the insects.

Once they have done this they will be given the insects found on the victims bodies, which had been located in an isolated cabin. They will identify the insects and use them to determine a time of death for the two victims.

The insect exemplars Thomas examined under the dissecting microscope.

Students worked in teams of four, each pair was responsible for identifying and categorizing one species' life cycle exemplars.

Sara examines an exemplar, while her partner logs the information into the evidence disposition log for their team.

Jill has begun to input the data collected so far into a google form for compilation and sharing. Her partner Emme is taking a picture of the exemplar through the dissecting microscope for future reference.

Kathleen is getting ready to examine the next exemplar, while her partner, Helen examine their photo of the examplar they just finished observing and logging.

Lain re-energizes with sip of her iced coffee (shades of Abby Sciuoto from NCIS and her caf-pow), while Gianna slaves away cataloging the current examplar being examined.

Jack is focused on observing the current exemplar as Liam looks on.

Liam is using the coarse adjustment to bring this exemplar into focus, as Jack looks on.

Lily and Maggie converse about Lily's uncanny ability to take awesome pictures of their exemplars. Lily looks so pleased with her success!!!

Thomas closely examines the maggots in the first picture of this series.

A new CSI tool could pinpoint when fingerprints were left behind

The television show CSI : Crime Scene Investigation seems to solve any case that is thrown their way. They solve it by using any means possible even if the way they solve it is not a real-life technique. With technology evolving and helping science evolve, new possibilities are around the corner. In this article, it is revealed that a new tool is coming into play that will be able to determine whether a fingerprint was recently left or was left there long ago. Police investigators who rely on fingerprints left by perpetrators to help solve their case can now take an ease with this new technology coming out. Fingerprints can led to clues to the owner's’ age and gender with the help of the patterns (loops, arches, whorls) integrated in the fingerprints. Shin Muramoto and his colleagues have recently been studying the molecules in fingerprints and found that a substance call Palmitic Acid migrates away print ridges at a predictable rate. With the help of this acid, scientists can tell how long a fingerprint has been there. although their findings only apply up to four days, they hope to expand the window to ten days.

  This affects our society today in many ways. This will first help people who have been wrongly accused of being in the place at the time of death. This will help them because they can test if the fingerprint has been there for X amount of days and compare it to the person's where abouts. This will in general help law enforcement rule out suspects and gain new ones. This will be a huge help in putting criminals behind bars and not allowing any of them to slip through the cracks.

  It would have been helpful if the article gave an example where this technique has been used to solve a crime. The article did include however all the information needed to understand the process of this along with the importance of fingerprints.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150812131502.htm

American Chemical Society. "A new CSI tool could pinpoint when fingerprints were left behind." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 12 August 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150812131502

- Martin Wilkins

http://www.forensicmag.com/articles/2015/10/dna-mixtures-present-statistical-problem-texas-labs-proactively-examining-thousands-cases

"DNA Mixtures Present Statistical Problem, Texas Labs Proactively Examining Thousands of Cases." Forensic Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2015.

DNA Mixtures Present Statistical Problem, Texas Labs Proactively Examining Thousands of Cases

New science makes DNA a lot more complex as it advances. One state is currently looking at thousands of cases from the last 15-plus years, making sure their analysis of identification were accurate. The Texas Science Forensic commission sent a notice out to its labs in August, notifying them that DNA mixture interpretation involving genetic material from more than one person is currently being reevaluated, based on improvements in DNA lab technology at the FBI. According to Lynn Robitaille Garcia, the general counsel for the commission, around 24,000 cases involving DNA mixtures now have to be searched through. They are trying to find out where the CPI (Combined Probability of Inclusion) fell, in terms of statistical probabilities.  So when the reevaluation began, the FBI sent a notification that said they had corrected and updated their allele frequency data to all CODIS laboratories in the nation. The Combined Probability of Inclusion and Combined Probability of Exclusion have changed significantly in certain cases. This meant that a 1-in-674,000 chance of identifying a suspect's genetics could have fallen to 1-in-100. According to Professor Stephen Fienberg, there are multiple models for dealing with mixtures and they do yield different results, therefore the mixture problem is not just an issue of what tests to do in a lab, and there is not a real consensus on the ‘best’ statistical approach. Any calculation one does, should take into account there’s more than one person there.

These mixtures in DNA results could be accusing people of crimes they have never committed or maybe not even pick up DNA of the person that leads to the crime. These DNA should be read carefully so case’ have accurate conclusions.

It would have been helpful if this article gave an example of a case that had a mixture in the DNA reading, and to learn more about what happened, and what went wrong, and how they caught their mistake.

Personal microbiomes shown to contain unique 'fingerprints'

Jack Moonan

C. Ippolito

Forensic science

10/14/2015

                 Personal micro biomes shown to contain unique 'fingerprints'

  A new study at the Harvard school of public health has shown that human beings carry in and on their bodies a “micro biome” with the potential to identify individuals like a fingerprint,  A micro biome is the ecological community of symbiotic, and pathogenic microorganisms that share our body space. scientists demonstrated that personal micro biomes have enough features that it is possible to distinguish different individuals over time using a research study population of hundreds of people, this study which is also the first to show that using micro biomes is a possible way of recording evidence, also suggests that human beings have surprisingly unique microbial inhabitants.

Relevance

The study opens the door to connecting human micro biome samples between databases, which has the potential to expose sensitive subject information, for example, a sexually-transmitted infection, detectable from the micro biome sample itself.

this study is very important because it can help scientists distinguish criminals in society even better than a fingerprint test which is now a old means of acquiring information.   

                                                              Work Cited

Harvard School of Public Health. "Personal microbiomes shown to contain unique 'fingerprints'." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 11 May 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150511162914.htm>.   

                                                             

Oxford Police Demonstrates 3-D Crime Scene Mapping

Forensics Emma Verscaj

Current Event Report #5          10/20/15

Oxford Police Demonstrates 3-D Crime Scene Mapping

This article is about a brand new scanning machine that has recently come onto the market. FARO is a company that has been making various measuring devices for almost 35 years. Now, they have come up with a scanner that can perfectly capture a whole crime scene, inside or outside. It is like a thousand pictures in one. It is as if the investigator is at the actual crime scene without having to leave the police station. At Oxford Police Department in Anniston, Alabama, a police officer scanned a reporter and the room he was in and it generated a 3-Dimensional image. The officer exclaimed that it was, “the coolest stuff (he’d) ever seen.” I would tend to agree. In addition to quickly obtaining a detailed crime scene ‘sketch’, this new technology will aid investigators by saving them the time it takes to revisit crime scenes, preserving the crime scene in its original condition in case a detail was missed or forgotten or deteriorated in some way and also providing them with more convincing evidence when the case goes to trial. This device can also ‘teleport’ the juror to the crime scene. The Alabama police think that this would be best and most used at the scenes of vehicular homicides. Unfortunately, this technology is still new, expensive and not yet used everywhere.

This article is significant to me because I just learned how to document a crime scene in class and in our textbook. Of course, crime scene documentation began with sketches. Then came cameras and video cameras. We learned that a properly documented crime scene should include accurate measurements, bullet holes, line of sight and blood spatter where appropriate. Now, 3-D crime scene mapping does all this and more. It can allow for analysis of bloodstains and bullet trajectory revolutionizing crime scene investigation. This machine eliminates the need for a rough sketch, a finished sketch and perhaps a diagram created through computer aided design. The police want to use it for traffic accidents resulting in death. Those places require the fastest clean up. You can not just put caution tape around an intersection and expect no one to wander in or drive over it without constant monitoring. That is different from a homicide in a home that can be cordoned off until the trial is over.

I like this article and how the author shows a huge advancement in technology in a very important area. This thing is not just something awesome but useless. This could actually be a huge help in putting a criminal away faster, rather than letting him or her slip through the cracks due to human error. The author could have included a photograph of a scanner image or (if an online article) a video of the scanner working. It would have been nice to see the quality of the mages the scanner captures. An improvement could have been more information about the product in the article. While it is nice to know this device exists, we don’t really know how effective it is yet. I also wonder if it has a zoom function. The author could have included a website to more information like I did.

Tyler, Zach. "Oxford Police Demonstrates 3-D Crime Scene Mapping." Annistonstar.com. The Anniston Star, 8 Oct. 2015. Web. 15 Oct. 2015.

http://www.annistonstar.com/news/oxford-police-demonstrates--d-crime-scene-mapping/article_c98af106-6d46-11e5-a587-0b487b74a1f1.html?

Sticky Fingers: Developing a materials science approach to forensics

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150427163511.htm

Oak Ridge National Laboratory. "Sticky fingers: Developing a materials science approach to forensics." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 27 April 2015.

According this Science Daily article, research has revealed that faded fingerprints can be rebuilt, effectively extending the window of time that forensic scientists have to collect fingerprints. Traditionally, it was believed that fingerprints only last a certain amount of time before degrading. This new technique, that involves acetic acid, and heated-superglue, could help recover fingerprints that would otherwise be useless. Linda Lewis, a wildlife biologist, is the forensic scientist responsible for this new discovery. She managed to come across this technique by applying materials science techniques to forensics. Her research shows that acetic acid could be used to reveal old fingerprints, then heated super glue could be used to build on these prints to bring them up to a detectable level. This could potentially be a breakthrough in forensic science because this could reduce the amount of cases that are thrown out because fingerprints could not be recovered.

In my opinion, this discovery is very important because it could make the difference between a conviction and a thrown-out case due to lack of evidence. This method effectively extends the lifetime of fingerprints. While this method may not help with the majority  of cases, it will help scientists to discover evidence that would otherwise be unusable. This small discovery could lead to the conviction of many criminals that would otherwise be roaming free. This method prevents a scenario where a crime scene is discovered long after the crime had been committed, and any fingerprints found were useless because they had faded over time.

While this article explained who discovered this technique, and how it could be applied, it failed to give many details about how the process works. I also felt like this article could have elaborated more on how the discovery was made. Otherwise, I thought that the article was accurate, and provided factually correct information, which is important for readers who want to take this article seriously.  I also thought that this article properly conveyed the importance of the discovery, and the effect that it could have on forensic science.

posted for A. Murphy

Forensic Pathologist’s New Job Leaves 10 Colorado Counties in a Bind

Forensic Pathologist’s New Job Leaves 10 Colorado Counties in a Bind

SUMMARY

In the United States, there are different kinds of forensic laboratories set up, but when there are too few employees for one state, this can create quite a problem. For instance, Grand Junction-based forensic pathologist Dr. Robert Kurtzman has taken a job working out of state in Montana for another medical examiner’s office after working to serve 10 Colorado counties and one Native American tribe. After the retirement of another of his colleagues, he also had to travel to Durango, the county of which she covered. After his change of jobs, there has been talk of replacing Dr. Kurtzman since if there is a local forensics pathologist, “about five autopsies can be done a day” says Jann Smith, a coroner who works in La Plata, one of the counties Dr. Kurtzman originally covered. However, if the body has to be transported, it can take up to ten hours per body to be inspected. This is a huge problem that is primarily based around the coroner system, which ten states follow, including Colorado, which states that “coroners are elected and do not have to have a medical degree.” If the former is a case, someone who does will take over the postmortem inspection.

RELEVANCE

Unfortunately, Dr. Kurtzman’s decision to change jobs will result in the need for many counties to spend a lot of money and time transporting any bodies they have for autopsies in areas that do have coroners and medical examiners, such as Colorado Springs. In fact, because a lot of coroners do not have the expertise that a forensic pathologist like Kurtzman has, the need for medical examiners and forensic pathologists is higher than ever. Hence the coroner system seems to become obsolete; although, it is popular because coroners maintain a large amount of political power and influence, particularly in small counties not unlike the ones of which Dr. Kurtzman worked at. Although he is not worried about the competence of the coroners he used to work with, not everyone is equally at ease. His decision to move to another state and work for them may result in justice being delayed for the families of victims of unnatural causes because exporting bodies to and from small counties to cities will result in many complaints unless if a replacement is found. Currently, there is an unspecified replacement, but it does not mean that many important questions have been raised about the many systems used to run forensic labs, including: who is fit for being a coroner or any other forensics expert and how should people deal with the shortage of forensic pathologists and medical examiners? Is the coroner system outdated? Or is the medical examiner system just as flawed too? The situation in Colorado is just one of the many ways those questions can be answered.

CRITIQUE

Overall, this article was well-written with little to no errors. The article consistently follows standard English writing conventions and gives a lot of insight into the situation, providing solid details and examples to support the points the writer makes. Also, it flows nicely and maintains the reader’s attention from the hook until the very end. Last but not least, this article is concise yet has enough detail to provide a fleshed outlook of the circumstances regarding Dr. Kurtzman’s change in jobs and how that impacts the rest of his state and nation as well. Still, there were a few crucial problems. Jessica Pace, although she writes well, provides little to no information on several of the locations she mentioned. Even though this is a county newspaper, the least Pace could do is take into consideration that people outside of the state is able to read it since it was posted on the Forensic Magazine after all. Secondly, a select few of the quotations Pace uses are varied awkwardly due to the switch from using quote punctuation to using none. Paragraph breaks are often unnecessary and many paragraphs are made up of one sentence when ideas could have been connected better. Above all, not everyone has learned about the crime lab systems in the United States and though Pace did provide some information, particularly regarding the coroner. medical examiner and combined systems, there was plenty more that could have been explained. However, those flaws are just nitpicking and the article was enjoyable and easy to read for just about everyone.

CITATION

Pace, Jessica. "The Durango Herald 10/13/2015 | Forensic Pathologist’s New Job Leaves 10 Western Colorado Counties in a Bind." The Durango Herald. The Durango Herald, 13 Oct. 2015. Web. 14 Oct. 2015. <http://www.durangoherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20151013%2FNEWS01%2F151019874%2F0%2FFRONTPAGE%2FForensic-pathologist%E2%80%99s-new-job-leaves-10-Western-Colorado-counties-in-a-bind&template=printpicart>.

Forensic Examiners Pass the Face Matching Test

Yumi Mita

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150902082936.htm

"Forensic Examiners Pass the Face Matching Test." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 2 Sept. 2015. Web. 11 Oct. 2015.

Are the law enforcers, who have been trained for facial recognition, good at their job as we expect them to be? The answer is, yes. A study to test the skills of facial forensic examiners have been performed, and the research suggests that the examiners identify better than the average person or computers, while using analytical methods. The facial experts’ use of analytical methods leads to an understanding that they identify faces differently from the super-recognizers, a group of people who are naturally good at face-matching.

The study, which is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B with help of many scintillating minds, such as colleagues at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Texas at Dallas in the US, was tested on 27 international, experienced facial forensic examiners who were attending a meeting of the Facial identification Scientific Work Group. These members belong to agencies like the FBI, homeland security, and police and customs of various countries, including the US.

How were they tested? All examiners were given three tests where they had to decide if the same person was pictured in the paired photographs. This may sound like an easy task but the chosen images were particularly challenging, given the fact that “computer algorithms were 100 percent wrong on one of the tests.” The forensic examiners’ performance was then compared to non-experts’ performance, who were the control group of this experiment. The results indicated positive, high performance levels of the experts, but Dr. White, a research leader of UNSW Australia psychology, reminds us that “although the tests were challenging, the images were relatively good quality. Faces were captured on high-resolution cameras, in favorable lighting conditions and subjects were looking straight at the camera,” meaning that harsher tasks are bestowed upon the examiners “when images are extracted from surveillance footage.”

Overall, the article gave a thorough explanation and procedure of the study that highlighted the expertise of facial forensic examiners, which was delightful to hear as a member of a society where crimes are occurred daily. It also included a sample image of what might the test have used, allowing the readers to connect to the study more personally. This article focalized on sharing the result of a study so I think it was just right, without any weaknesses. However, it could have been made more intriguing if an opinion of a test-taker, examiner or control, was integrated in the piece.

Forensics Class Identifies "Skeletal Remains"

In the forensic anthropology unit the students examine and measure the "skeletal remains" of 5 different victims. Most of the samples include a skull, pelvic girdle and at least one long bone (femur, tibia, humerus). Through a thorough examination/measurement of the characteristics of these bone samples, the students should be able to deduce the age, height, sex and ancestry of the individual. The students are also exhibiting their school spirit for the coming weekend's Homecoming Celebration. Go Broncos!!!

Lain is examining a skull. The skull will hold clues to the sex, age and ancestry of this individual.

Emma is entering her skull measurements into a google form to share her data with the rest of the Forensics students.

Liam is proceeding with the measurements of the pubic bone of the pelvic girdle of his team's remains.

Ian and Thomas consult on their observations of the femur from their skeletal remains.

Carlie was so intent on measuring her long bone she was not even aware she was being photographed hard at work.

Martin and Eric are busy using their measurement to calculate the height range of their skeletal remains.

Julia examines the proximal head of the tibia from her skeletal remains, explaining how she will use this information to her teammates. Michelle is intent on reviewing her data tables to assure the are a correct reflection of her observations so far.

Yusrah holds the femur of her team's skeletal remains while Ralph measures its length using the large calipers.

Julia measures the proximal head of the tibia from her skeletal remains.

Cindy uses the large calipers to measure the length of the humerus of the skeletal remains being studied by her team.

Emme and Helen ponder pelvic parameters of their skeletal remains.

Lily and Maggie are examining a pelvic girdle to determine the sex of this individual.

Caught by a Hair: Quick, New Identification of Hair May Help Crime Fighters

Current Event

Natalia Kaminski

Caught by a hair: Quick, new identification of hair may help crime fighters

Queen’s professor Diane Beauchemin and student Lily Huang have recently developed a cutting-edge technique for identifying human hair. Their test consists of grinding the hair, burning it, and analyzing the vapor that is produced from it. This test takes 85 seconds, which is much quicker than other DNA analysis tests that are being used by law enforcement today. Although blood samples are mainly used to identify gender and ethnicity, blood can easily be contaminated and can deteriorate rather quickly. Hair is very stable and contains evidence of diet, ethnicity, gender, and the environment of working conditions of a person. Study samples so far have proven a 100 percent success rate, including trials with dyed hair.

This technique could be very beneficial to forensic science if law enforcement starts encorporating it into their investigations because it is efficient and accurate. 85 seconds is signficantly less time to determine identity, and time is precious in criminal investigations. If their tests have proven 100 percent success rates, than forensic science can definitely be revolutionized. The discovery of new forensic techniques is important because there are many errors that have been made in criminal investigations, and these errors can result in throwing an innocent man or woman in jail. The more forensic scientists can improve in their tests, the more justice and accuracy they will bring to law enforcement system.

The author did a good job of making the article clear and concise. The article was not long because the author simply summarized the new technique for identifying hair and gave a quick explanation of how it is more efficient than sampling blood for human identification. I understand that the the article’s length was a result of the technique being relatively new, and it has not yet been used in a real investigation.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140529142542.htm

Craig, Anne. "Caught by a Hair: Quick, New Identification of Hair May Help Crime Fighters." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, n.d. Web. 04 Oct. 2015.

Crime Spree Chase Ends With Violent Crash

Forensics AB Odd 10/4/15

Current Event 03 Lain Miller

Kalthoff, Ken, Johnny Archer, Frank Heinz, and Tim Ciesco. "Crime Spree Chase Ends With Violent Crash." NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth. NBC, 25 Sept. 2015. Web. 04 Oct. 2015.

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Arlington-Chase-Ends-in-Crash-329544921.html

This article exemplifies the problems that occur for forensic specialists when the crime scene is a large scape of land. In this crime a man named Dylan Perry went on a crime spree in arlington. On Friday morning (October second), Perry robbed a Valero Gas station, a Bank of America, and a Moritz BMW. He stole a suburban and a BMW, was involved in a high speed car chase from 11am until 5pm, open fired on Arlington police, and crashed into another car, seriously injuring himself and three civilians. There are clearly a lot of moving parts in this case, since more than one crime is being investigated across multiple locations. This amount of data was too vast for the Arlington police alone to cover. The FBI was called in to help them string the bank robberies together because they were unable to handle the workload themselves. A key issue presented in this kind of situation is that over such a large span of area and action a lot of the evidence could be lost or contaminated. This problem will make it difficult to find the shooter of many of the bullets, including one that hit Perry in the leg; which will be a key piece in jurisprudence of the case.

Cases like this always get plenty of news action and eye witnesses which may end up causing problems. It is seemingly helpful to have witnesses in these cases, but everyone has a different side of the story to tell and they more often than not will conflict somewhere. This crime is clearly too vast for a group of local authorities to handle alone. It is great that the FBI is there to help them with connecting the bank robberies, but they could do more. FBI agents are far more equipped and trained to handle cases over large area. Their insight could go much deeper than the banks and better all of the community of Arlington, Texas by bringing their knowledge of how to handle cases like this into the situation. A forensics case is always like a puzzle that needs to be put together, but cases like this one are like the puzzles you are missing pieces to; making the task all the more difficult.

This article was a little difficult because it was oriented more towards news than to science. As said before, everyone has a story to tell. Therefore the story was told in great detail which gave me a clear understanding of the timeline of the crimes. Although it lacked on the analysis. By focusing less on the story and more on its impact the piece would have been much more balanced. I also thought this was interesting because Arlington Texas is in the hot spot for having the inaccuracy in the forensic labs in the Texas area. I’m curious to see how the spotlight this case will bring will force the local authorities to manage the forensic side of the case.

A New CSI Tool Could Pinpoint When Fingerprints Were Left Behind

The article “A New CSI Tool Could Pinpoint When Fingerprints Were Left Behind” by American Chemical Society is about how scientists have found a technique that can help them identify how old fingerprints are. The crime scene investigators on CSI seem to be able to solve a case with a little bit of science and lot of artistic license, but now there is a real-life technique that can help scientists figure out how old a fingerprint is. Law enforcement officials have always relied on fingerprints left behind in a crime scene to solve a case. Finding out how long the residue has been at the crime scene is challenging, but if scientists found out how old the fingerprints were then it would be easier to “rule certain suspects in or out of the investigations.” Researchers have studied certain molecules in fingerprints and found a substance called palmitic acid which “migrates away from print ridges at a predictable rate.” Based on this diffusion, scientists can estimate how old a fingerprint is. These findings only apply to four day old prints, but they are planning to expand it to ten days.

This discovery is very significant. This discovery is letting scientists be able to see how old the fingerprints are which can lead them to rule suspects in or out of investigations. Without this technique it would be a lot harder to rule out suspects of the investigation because fingerprints is what a criminal case can be based on. If scientists do expand the window time to ten days it can really help solve a case in the future.

I thought that this was a very interesting read and discovery. The article was pretty straightforward and easy to read. The article could have been improved by giving some examples of cases that were solved using this technique. Overall, I enjoyed reading the article and thought that this discovery was very interesting.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150812131502.htm

"A New CSI Tool Could Pinpoint When Fingerprints Were Left behind." ScienceDaily.

ScienceDaily, 12 Aug. 2015. Web. 04 Oct. 2015.