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JonBenet Ramsey: What to Know About the Beauty Queen’s Murder 20 Years Later

Lee and gaensslen’s advances in fingerprint technology, third edition, world’s fastest 2-d camera may enable new scientific discoveries, hands off nist helps bring contactless fingerprint technology to market.

Ted Bundy Although serial killer Ted Bundy was responsible for an estimated 30-plus murders, there was little physical evidence to connect him to the crimes when he was arrested in 1975. Two years later, having been convicted only of kidnapping, Bundy was preparing to stand trial for murder in Colorado when he escaped and headed to Florida. There, he killed three more people early in 1978, and when he was finally captured in February of that year, the physical evidence in those cases led to his conviction. Most crucial was the matching of a bite mark on the buttock of victim Lisa Levy to the Bundy’s distinctive, crooked and chipped teeth. He was convicted also of the murder of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach based on fibres found in his van that matched the girl’s clothing. Bundy was put to death in 1989.

The Lindbergh Kidnapping On March 1, 1932, Charles Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month-old son of the famous aviator, was kidnapped, and although a ransom of $50,000 was paid, the child was never returned. His body was discovered in May just a few miles from his home. Tracking the circulation of the bills used in the ransom payment, authorities were led to Bruno Hauptmann, who was found with over $14,000 of the money in his garage. While Hauptmann claimed that the money belonged to a friend, key testimony from handwriting analysts matched his writing to that on the ransom notes . Additional forensic research connected the wood in Hauptmann’s attic to the wood used in the make-shift ladder that the kidnappers built to reach the child’s bedroom window. Hauptmann was convicted and executed in 1936.

The Atlanta Child Murders In a two year period between 1979 and 1981, 29 people — almost all children — were strangled by a serial killer. Police staked out a local river where other bodies had been dumped and arrested Wayne Williams as he was driving away from the sound of a splash in an area where a body was recovered a couple of days later. Police didn’t witness him drop the body, so their case was based largely on forensic evidence gathered from fibers found on the victims . In all, there were nearly 30 types of fiber linked to items from Williams’ house, his vehicles and even his dog. In 1982, he was convicted of killing two adult victims and sentenced to life in prison, although the Atlanta police announced that Williams was responsible for at least 22 of the child murders.

The Howard Hughes Hoax In 1970, authors Clifford Irving and Richard Suskind concocted a scheme to forge an autobiography of notoriously eccentric and reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. Assuming that Hughes would never come out from hiding to denounce the book, they felt that their plan was fool-proof. Irving went to publisher McGraw-Hill claiming that Hughes had approached him to write his life story and that he was willing to correspond with only the author. As proof, Irving produced forged letters that he claimed were from Hughes. McGraw-Hill agreed, paying $765,000 for the right to publish the book. When word of the book was made public, however, Hughes contacted reporters to denounce it as false. Not wishing to appear in public, the billionaire would talk to reporters only via telephone. Thus, a “spectographic voiceprint analysis,” measuring tone, pitch and volume, was conducted to determine if the speaker was indeed Howard Hughes. Although a handwriting expert had previously been fooled by the notes that Irving had forged, the voice analyst correctly identified the speaker as Hughes. Irving was exposed and confessed before the book was published. He spent 17 months in prison, while Suskind spent five. Irving later wrote a book about the scheme, The Hoax , which became a major motion picture in 2008.

The Night Stalker Between June 1984 and August 1985, a Southern California serial killer dubbed the Night Stalker broke into victims’ houses as they slept and attacked, murdering 13 and assaulting numerous others. With citizens on high alert, an observant teenager noticed a suspicious vehicle driving through his neighborhood on the night of August 24, 1985. He wrote down the license plate and notified police. It just so happened that the Night Stalker’s latest attack took place that night in that area, so police tracked down the car. It had been abandoned, but police found a key piece of evidence inside: a fingerprint . Using new computer system, investigators quickly matched the print to 25-year-old Richard Ramirez and plastered his image in the media. Within a week, Ramirez was recognized and captured by local citizens. He was sentenced to death.

Machine Gun Kelly George “Machine Gun” Kelly was a notorious criminal during the Prohibition era, taking part in bootlegging, kidnapping and armed robbery. On July 22, 1933, he and another man kidnapped wealthy Oklahoma City oilman Charles Urschel. After a series of ransom notes and communications, a $200,000 ransom was paid — the largest amount ever paid in a kidnapping to date. Urschel was released nine days later, unharmed. The oilman had shrewdly paid close attention to every detail during his ordeal and was able to relate it all to police. Although he was blindfolded, he could tell day from night and was able to estimate the time of day that he heard airplanes fly above. He also noted the date and time of a thunderstorm and the types of animals he heard in what he presumed to be a farmhouse. Using his memories, the FBI pinpointed the likely location in which Urschel was held to a farm owned by Kelly’s father-in-law. What truly linked Kelly and his gang to the kidnapping, though, was Urschel’s fingerprints , which he made sure to place on as many items in the house as possible. Kelly was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 1954.

The Green River Killer The Green River Killer was responsible for a rash of murders — at least 48 but possibly close to 90 — along the Green River in Washington state in the ’80s and ’90s. Most of the killings occurred in 1982-83, and the victims were almost all prostitutes. One of the suspects that police had identified as early as 1983 was Gary Ridgway , a man with a history of frequenting and abusing prostitutes. However, although they collected DNA samples from Ridgway in 1987, the technology available didn’t allow them to connect him to the killings. It wasn’t until 2001 that new DNA techniques spurred the reexamination of evidence that incriminated Ridgway . He was arrested and later confessed. Ridgway pleaded guilty to 48 murders — later confessing to even more, which remain unconfirmed — in exchange for being spared the death penalty. He was sentenced to 48 life sentences without the possibility of parole.

BTK Killer The BTK (“Bind, Torture, Kill”) Killer was a serial killer who terrorized the Wichita, Kansas area between 1974 and 1991, murdering 10 people over the span. The killer craved media attention and sent letters to local newspapers and TV stations, taunting investigators. It’s this egotism that led to his capture, however. When he resurfaced in 2004 with a series of communications, he chose to send a computer floppy disk to the Wichita Eagle . Forensic analysts traced the deleted data on the disk to a man named Dennis at the Christ Lutheran Church in Wichita . It didn’t take long for the police to arrest Dennis Rader , who confessed and was sentenced to nine life terms in prison.

Jeffrey MacDonald Early in the morning of February 17, 1970, the family of Army doctor Jeffrey MacDonald was attacked, leaving the doctor’s pregnant wife and two young daughters dead from multiple stab wounds. MacDonald himself was injured by what he claimed to be four suspects, but he survived with only minor wounds. Doubt was immediately cast on the doctor’s story, based on the physical evidence on the scene that suggested that he was the killer. However, the Army dropped the case because of the poor quality of the investigative techniques. Several years later, though, MacDonald was brought to trial in a civilian court. Key evidence was provided by a forensic scientist who testified that the doctor’s pajama top, which he claimed to have used to ward off the killers, had 48 smooth, clean holes — too smooth for such a volatile attack. Furthermore, the scientist noted that if the top was folded, the 48 holes could easily have been created by 21 thrusts — the exact number of times that MacDonald’s wife had been stabbed. The holes even matched the pattern of her wounds, suggesting that the pajama top had been laid on her before during the stabbing and not used in self-defense by the doctor. This crime scene reconstruction was crucial in MacDonald’s conviction in 1979. He was sentenced to life in prison for the three murders.

John Joubert In 1983, two murders of schoolboys rocked the Omaha, Nebraska area. The body of one of the boys was found tied with a type of rope that investigators couldn’t identify. While following up on the lead of a mysterious man scouting out a school, they traced the suspect’s license plate to John Joubert , a radar technician at the local Air Force base. In his belongings, they found a rope matching the unusual one used in the murder (which turned out to be Korean). Although DNA analysis technology was not yet an option, the extreme rarity of the rope was enough to lead to Joubert’s confession . Furthermore, hair from one of the victims was found in Joubert’s car . The child killer was even linked to a third murder, in Maine, when his teeth were found to match bite marks on a boy killed in 1982. Joubert was found guilty of all three murders and was put to death in the electric chair in 1996.

Source: Criminal Justice School

Serial Killers

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Clippings from the Great Falls Tribune were part of the Cascade County Sheriff's Office investigative file into the 1956 murders of Patricia Kalitzke and Lloyd Duane Bogle. Traci Rosenbaum/USA Today Network via Reuters Co. hide caption

Clippings from the Great Falls Tribune were part of the Cascade County Sheriff's Office investigative file into the 1956 murders of Patricia Kalitzke and Lloyd Duane Bogle.

It was only three days into 1956 when three boys from Montana, out for a hike on a normal January day, made a gruesome discovery they were unlikely to ever forget.

During a walk near the Sun River, they found 18-year-old Lloyd Duane Bogle, dead from a gunshot wound to the head. They found him on the ground near his car, and someone had used his belt to tie his hands behind his back, according to a report from the Great Falls Tribune . The next day brought another disturbing discovery: A county road worker found 16-year-old Patricia Kalitzke's body in an area north of Great Falls, the paper reports. She had been shot in the head, just as Bogle had been, but she had also been sexually assaulted.

Their killings went unsolved until this week when investigators announced they had cracked what is believed to be the oldest case solved with DNA and forensic genealogy.

The victims were discovered in a lover's lane

Bogle, an airman hailing from Texas, and Kalitzke, a junior at Great Falls High School, had fallen for each other and were even considering marriage, the Tribune reports. The place where they were believed to have been killed was a known "lover's lane," according to a clipping from a local newspaper posted on a memorial page.

But their love story was brutally cut short by the actions of a killer whose identity would not be revealed for more than 60 years. And it was not for lack of trying: Early on in the case, investigators followed numerous leads, but none of them panned out. The case eventually went cold.

For decades, the Cascade County Sheriff's Office continued to work on it, with multiple detectives attempting to make progress over the years. One such investigator was Detective Sgt. Jon Kadner, who was assigned the case in 2012 — his first cold case, he said during an interview with NPR. He was immediately met with the daunting task of digitizing the expansive case file, an endeavor that took months.

He continued to work on the Kalitzke/Bogle case even while handling the newer cases that were landing on his desk all the time, but he had a feeling that more was needed to get to the bottom of what had happened to the couple all those decades ago.

"My first impression was that the only way we're gonna ever solve this is through the use of DNA," Kadner said.

Detectives turned to a new forensic investigation

Fortunately, Kadner had something to work with. During Kalitzke's autopsy in 1956, coroners had taken a vaginal swab, which had been preserved on a microscopic slide in the years since, according to the Great Falls Tribune report. Phil Matteson, a now-retired detective with the sheriff's office, sent that sample to a local lab for testing in 2001, and the team there identified sperm that did not belong to Bogle, her boyfriend, the paper reports.

Armed with this knowledge, Kadner in 2019 sought out the assistance of Bode Technology. After forensic genealogy was used to finally nab the Golden State Killer the year prior, law enforcement officials were becoming increasingly aware of the potential to use that technology to solve cold cases — even decades-old cases like Kalitzke and Bogle's.

With the help of partnering labs, forensic genealogists are able to use preserved samples to create a DNA profile of the culprit and then use that profile to search public databases for any potential matches. In most cases, those profiles can end up linking to distant relatives of the culprit — say, a second or third cousin. By searching public records (such as death certificates and newspaper clippings), forensic genealogists are then able to construct a family tree that can point them right to the suspect, even if that suspect has never provided their DNA to any public database.

In this case, "Our genealogists, what they're going to do is independently build a family tree from this cousin's profile," Andrew Singer, an executive with Bode Technology, told NPR. He called it "a reverse family tree. ... We're essentially going backwards. We're starting with a distant relative and trying to work back toward our unknown sample."

It worked: DNA testing led investigators to a man named Kenneth Gould. Before moving to Missouri in 1967, Gould had lived with his wife and children in the Great Falls area around the time of the murders, according to the Tribune .

"It felt great because for the first time in 65 years we finally had a direction and a place to take the investigation," Kadner told NPR. "Because it was all theories up to that point ... we finally had a match and we had a name. That changed the whole dynamic of the case."

Investigators' goal is a safer world

But there was one big problem: Gould had died in 2007 and his remains had been cremated, according to the Tribune . The only way to prove his guilt or his innocence was to test the DNA of his remaining relatives.

Detectives had an uncomfortable task ahead of them: letting a dead man's family know that, despite the fact that he'd never previously been identified as a person of interest, he was now the key suspect in a double homicide and rape.

Authorities traveled to Missouri, where they spoke with Gould's children and told them about the Kalitzke/Bogle case and eventually identified their father as a suspect, Kadner said. They asked for the family's help in either proving or disproving that Gould was the man responsible and the family complied.

The test results said Gould was the guy. With the killer finally identified, Kadner was able to reach out to the victims' surviving relatives and deliver the closure that had taken more than 60 years to procure. It was a bittersweet revelation: They were grateful for answers, but for many of the older people in the family, it was a struggle to have those wounds reopened.

"They're excited, but at the same time, it has brought up a lot of memories," Kadner said.

Now, the sheriff's office is considering forming a cold case task force, as other law enforcement agencies have done. The hope is that they'll be able to provide more families with the answers they deserve and, in many cases, have spent years waiting for.

"If there's new technology and we are able to potentially solve something, we want to keep working at it, because ultimately we're trying to do it for the family," he said. "Give them some closure."

The Kalitzke/Bogle case is one of the oldest criminal cases that has been solved using forensic genealogy, and authorities are hopeful that they'll be able to use this ever-advancing technology to solve cold cases dating back even further — although new state legislation restricting forensic genealogy could complicate matters.

Even without that complication, Singer explained to NPR, the success rate depends heavily on how well the evidence has been preserved over the years. Still, he hopes that it can be used to help law enforcement improve public safety and "[prevent] tomorrow's victim."

"It's really fantastic technology and it's going to solve a lot of cold cases," Singer said.

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Delve into the intriguing world of forensic science and criminal investigations with our comprehensive collection of case studies. Explore real-life examples of serial killers, unsolved cold cases, missing persons, and other true crimes. Gain insight into the forensic techniques and investigative strategies used to analyze evidence, identify suspects, and...

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In August 2001, a man walking his dog in Lindley Woods, near Otley, in West Yorkshire, found the body of 16-year old Leanne Tiernan, buried in a shallow grave. This was about ten miles from her home in Landseer Mount, Bramley, Leeds. She had been walking home from a Christmas shopping trip with her best friend in November 2000 when she disappeared.

How she was found

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Length of time since her death

The dog collar, the twine and the cable ties.

Police tracked down suppliers of the dog collar and found that a man from Bramley had bought several similar to the one found around Leanne Tiernan’s neck. His name was John Taylor, and he was a poacher who had been seen around the woods where the body was found.

The twine was an unusual kind, used for rabbit netting, and was tracked down to a supplier in Devon, which had only produced one batch. It matched twine found in John Taylor’s home.

Some of the cable ties used on Leanne Tiernan were of a type used almost exclusively by the Royal Mail, the patent company of John Taylor’s employer, Parcel Force. When the police searched John Taylor’s house they found more of the cable ties and one of the dog collars.

DNA examination

Hairs found in the scarf.

The scarf tied around Leanne Tiernan’s neck had a few hairs caught in the knot. Unfortunately, there was not sufficient DNA in the roots for standard DNA profiling. However, the scientists found very small amounts of DNA in the hair shaft and used mitochondrial DNA testing to match it to John Taylor.

First British murder investigation using dog DNA profiling

There were dog hairs on Leanne Tiernan’s body, and scientists in Texas produced a partial dog DNA profile – this was the first time a British murder investigation had used dog DNA profiling. However, John Taylor’s dog had died, so this could not be used in evidence.

The carpet and bloodstains under floorboards

John Taylor was arrested in October 2001, and sentenced to two life sentences in July 2002. In February 2003, he was convicted of two rapes, based on DNA evidence, and given two additional life sentences.

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Forensics Colleges » Forensic Education Blog » Resources » Fraud in Forensics: Five Cases of Abuse and Evidence Mishandling

Fraud in Forensics: Five Cases of Abuse and Evidence Mishandling

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There’s no shortage of crime-fighting TV shows where protagonists brandish the latest forensic science techniques. Whether it’s DNA testing, tool mark identification, bite mark measuring, or blood spatter analysis, it’s assumed that these methods are reliable, consistent, and valid measures of criminal activity. Of course, the evidence is available for experts with trained eyes and the proper equipment, but the science isn’t without fault.

Even those at the upper echelons of criminal justice have been found guilty of fraud in forensics. In 2015, the FBI admitted to decades of relying on faulty hair analysis in trials , a grave error in criminal proceedings. Among those convicted on fraudulent evidence are 32 defendants sentenced to death, 14 of whom have either died in prison or already been executed.

Overstating the utility of common forensic methods has serious consequences. In recent interviews with three prominent professors , www.forensicscolleges.com explored the impact of a recent bombshell in the community: a September 2016 report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). The PCAST publication cast doubt on common forensics methods due to insufficient testing. It found that only single-source DNA had both of the requisite types of scientific validity: foundational (i.e., accurate in a controlled lab environment) and applied (i.e., applicable in a real world context). While multiple-source DNA, fingerprinting, and other forensic methods may be useful, they require further testing to establish both foundational and applied validity. Notably, all three of the interviewed professors highly recommended a strong core of hard science courses to thrive in forensics careers.

While the future of forensics methods is beyond the scope of this article, it’s important to remember examples where the collection or processing of evidence have failed. This article explores five fascinating cases of fraud in forensics to underscore the importance of using scientifically valid and reliable methods in this growing career field.

Amanda Knox

On November 2, 2007, American college student Amanda Knox returned to her flat in Perugia, Italy. She found the bathroom she shared with her roommate, Meredith Kercher, covered in blood. The carnage disturbed Knox, who described her roommate as “neat and tidy.” Knox had spent the night with her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, and she attempted to get into Kercher’s room, which was locked. Sollecito tried to force the door open and failed, prompting him to call the police.

Filomena Romanelli, the third roommate, returned home following a phone conversation with Knox. Fearing the flat had been robbed, Romanelli began rummaging around, unknowingly disturbing the crime scene. It was Romanelli who uncovered Kercher’s two cell phones in a garden nearby and she requested that the police break into Kercher’s room. After the police refused, Romanelli’s friend broke through the door to uncover Kercher’s bloody and partially naked body. Autopsy reports indicated that most of Kercher’s injuries—bruising and cuts near the genital region—were sustained as a result of being restrained during the sexual violence.

Both Knox and Sollecito were arrested and charged with Kercher’s murder due to trace amounts of Knox’s DNA found on the kitchen knife—the presumed murder weapon—and Sollecito’s DNA found on Kercher’s bra clasp. Once Meredith Kercher’s room was thoroughly searched, police uncovered fingerprints and DNA belonging to Rudy Guede, who had gone on a date with the victim the night of her murder. Still convinced of Knox and Sollecito’s guilt, the prosecution spun a narrative claiming the couple had partnered with Guede in Kercher’s murder.

During the June 2011 appeals trial, experts uncovered the numerous flaws in the forensic evidence levied against Knox and Sollecito. For example, the police didn’t wear caps or change gloves as they collected items , allowing cross-contamination of the objects in the room. Experts also noted that while the alleged murder weapon did contain trace amounts of Knox’s DNA, it was curiously free from the victim’s DNA.

On March 27, 2015, both Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were exonerated for the murder of Meredith Kercher.

On June 13, 1994, the bodies of Ron Goldman and the ex-wife of OJ Simpson, Nicole Brown, were found outside of Brown’s home. They’d been stabbed multiple times.

When detectives arrived at OJ Simpson’s home to inform him of the death of his ex-wife, they noticed blood on Simpson’s white Ford Bronco. Without a search warrant, Detective Mark Fuhrman jumped over the external wall and opened the gate for the other three detectives present, claiming they believed Simpson might have been injured and went to investigate. While walking along the outside of the house, Mark Fuhrman uncovered a matching bloody glove to one found at the crime scene.

During the trial, all of the missteps of the forensic team came to light, including the possibility of evidence tampering (and obvious evidence mishandling), as well as the glaring absence of evidence security. The defense noted several items that had gone missing, including a vial of blood from OJ Simpson. Jurors, infuriated by evidence of racism within the LAPD, questioned whether the missing blood was a result of planted evidence on the part of the detectives . Furthermore, Simpson’s Bronco , which had been impounded at an LAPD facility, was entered at least twice without authorization.

OJ Simpson was found not guilty on October 3, 1995.

On September 28, 2000, David Camm—a retired Indiana State Trooper—returned home to find his wife and two children dead of gunshot wounds. Camm believed his son was still alive and attempted CPR on the seven-year-old. When his son failed to respond, he called 911. Three days later, Camm was arrested for the deaths of his family. A state forensic analyst claimed that Camm’s t-shirt had been stained with the wife’s blood in patterns suggesting he was the perpetrator.

During Camm’s trial, the prosecution stated that Camm had dual motives: a $750,000 life insurance policy and alleged infidelity. On March 17, 2002, the jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to 195 years in prison .

In 2004, the Indiana Court of Appeals overturned the conviction and ordered a new trial. The case caught a break in 2005 when the DNA of career criminal, Charles Boney, was matched to a sweatshirt at the scene of the crime. Boney’s history included attacking women. Boney ultimately claimed it was Camm who murdered the family. Camm was charged once again—this time as a co-conspirator with Boney.

In 2009, the convictions were reversed by the Indiana Supreme Court. During the third trial, the defense presented evidence that the initial blood splatter expert had falsified his credentials and had no history of working with blood splatters. Additionally, a Dutch forensic expert found Boney’s DNA under Kim Camm’s fingernails and her DNA on his sweatshirt, two pieces of evidence which sealed his conviction.

On October 24, 2015, after spending 13 years in prison for the deaths of his wife and two children, David Camm was acquitted and released.

Ford Heights Four

On May 11, 1978, newly engaged Carol Schmal and Lawrence Lionberg were found shot in the head. Schmal had been raped seven times. An eyewitness claimed to have seen Dennis Williams, Kenneth Adams, and Willie Rainge in the abandoned townhouses where the bodies of the victims were found. Another witness named Paula Gray—a woman with an IQ of 55 who would later recant her testimony, thereby facing perjury charges—added Verneal Jimerson to the attackers. A final eyewitness named Marvin Simpson came forward five days after the murders identifying four completely different men as the killers, but the police failed to investigate these claims. The “ Ford Heights Four ”—all black men—were tried by an all-white jury.

During the first trial in 1978, state serologist Michael Podlecki testified that at least one of the rapists had type A secretor blood, a trait shared with approximately 25 percent of the population. Podlecki also testified that both Williams and Adams tested positive for being type A secretors, an assertion later refuted by an independent forensic witness. When the prosecution presented hairs found in the back of Williams’s car, Podlecki claimed they were consistent with the victims. Williams, Adams, Rainge, and Gray all received harsh sentences. Jimerson was not initially convicted because Gray had withdrawn her testimony, although she later testified against him in a plea deal with the prosecutors and he was sentenced to death.

After various appeals and retrials, students from the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism—including award-winning NPR journalist Laura Sullivan—presented new evidence in 1996. They uncovered Marvin Simpson’s genuine eyewitness account. Coupled with confessions from the murderers and DNA evidence, Williams, Adams, Rainge, and Jimerson were finally exonerated after 17 years in prison.

In 1999, the Ford Heights Four won a $36 million in damages from Cook County—the largest settlement for a civil rights case in U.S. history.

Cameron Todd Willingham

On December 23, 1991, a fire ravaged Cameron Todd Willingham’s house killing his two-year-old daughter and one-year-old twins , while Willingham escaped with minor burns. His wife had been out Christmas shopping and despite her insistence that Willingham had never been abusive and had no motive for the crimes, he was arrested.

At the trial, James Grigson—a psychiatrist known as “Doctor Death” for frequently recommending the death penalty for defendants—was called as an expert witness. Grigson cited Willingham’s tattoo of a skull and serpent and some of his music posters as evidence that he was a sociopath. He did not perform a thorough psychiatric evaluation.

Furthermore, Johnny Webb, a jailhouse informant, testified against Willingham claiming he had confessed to the arson leading to the murders. Webb would later recant his testimony, telling a reporter he was mistaken as a result of being on multiple medications for bipolar disorder. The recanted testimony was never reported to Willingham’s attorneys and the prosecution ultimately cited the statute of limitations.

Manuel Vasquez, a state deputy fire marshall, took the stand and testified to seeing “puddle configurations” (i.e., areas of rapid burning) suggesting the use of accelerants in the fire and indicating arson. Vasquez also had claimed that Willingham’s first and second-degree burns were most likely self-inflicted with the intent to avert suspicion. It wasn’t until many years later that investigators would attribute his wounds to Willingham being in the fire before the flashover (i.e., when the entire room suddenly ignites in flames). Sadly, Willingham was found guilty and executed February 17, 2004.

Acclaimed fire investigator and scientist Gerald Hurst found Vasquez’s claims to be dubious and stated that there was no evidence to suggest arson.

In 2010—after more than a year of renewed investigation and stiff opposition from embarrassed state authorities, including Governor Rick Perry—the Texas Forensic Science Commission led by Dr. Craig Beyler concluded that there was not ample evidence for arson and Vasquez’s testimony was “hardly consistent with a scientific mind-set and was more characteristic of mystics or psychics.”

Conclusion: The Innocence Project

For aspiring forensics professionals, these documented abuses of the science are presented as cautionary tales. The collection and meticulous analysis of evidence aren’t easy processes and the techniques are still far from perfect. It’s worth noting that as of June 2017, the federal government remains committed to keeping current processes in place. Rebuffing scientists who had presented evidence of false applications of DNA analysis, Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated, “I don’t think we should suggest that those proven scientific principles that we’ve been using for decades are somehow uncertain and leaving prosecutors having to fend off challenges on the most basic issues in a trial” ( Washington Post , April 2017).

Despite setbacks in the advancement of the science, there are groups committed to exonerating falsely accused people with sound forensic evidence. For example, the Innocence Project aims “to free the staggering number of innocent people who remain incarcerated, and to bring reform to the system responsible for their unjust imprisonment.” Founded in 1992 by Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck, it has helped to free 350 people on DNA evidence and identified 149 alternative perpetrators as of June 2017.

In short, forensic science depends not only on types of evidence with foundational and applied validity, but also on the dedicated efforts of ethics-minded groups such as the Innocence Project. How many innocent people are serving sentences for crimes they didn’t commit? How many criminals are walking free due to untested rape kit backlogs ? Forensic scientists can be part of the solution.

Jocelyn Blore

Jocelyn Blore is the chief content officer of Sechel Ventures and the co-author of the Women Breaking Barriers series. She graduated summa cum laude from UC Berkeley and traveled the world for five years. She also worked as an addiction specialist for two years in San Francisco. She’s interested in how culture shapes individuals and systems within societies—one of the many themes she writes about in her blog, Blore’s Razor (Instagram: @bloresrazor). She has served as managing editor for several healthcare websites since 2015.

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