The Forensic Examiner (Sample) - Winter 2012 by CNTA, Inc.

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vision science identification overview p. 24

Paul ekman: the man of 1,000 faces p. 64

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you can also Subscribe Online today at www.theforensicexaminer.com Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

VOLUME 22 • NUMBER 1 • WINTER 2012 / SPRING 2013

Contents CE ARTICLES

24 40 72

Vision Science Identification Overview: Ocular Dental and Ophthalmic Appliances as Potential Aid in Forensic Identification

by E. Robert Bertolli OD, Gregory E. Berg, PhD, and D. Robert Pannone, OD

Art Forensics: Processing Questionable Ancient Ceramic Greek Pottery (1200BCE–1CE) For Authenticity/Fakery by John Daab, PhD, MBA, MPS, MA

Virtual Autopsy

by Cyril H. Wecht, MD, JD

FEATURES 14 the presence of absence: An Investigative Case Study by Dave Pauly and Katherine Ramsland, PhD, CMI-V

50 beneath the canvas: A Conversation with Forensic Artist Stephen Mancusi

82 bath salts:

Emerging and Dangerous Products

COLUMNS 10 forensics in the news

18 Success files: Shelly King 20 ipredator: iPredator Bridge 64 profile: The Man of 1,000 Faces: Paul

Ekman and the Science of Facial Analysis

89 LEGAL: Deadly Force and the Right of

110

Self Defense: Stand Your Ground Laws

96 fiction: You Again?

By Shelly Reuben

110 falsely accused: The Englewood Four

IN THIS ISSUE 36 conference recap:

Executive Summit 2012

61 book review: Forensics by the Numbers

109 product reviews: New

Mobile Ductless Fume Hoods

111 Logo products

INTERVIEWS 56 A DIALOGUE WITH

DISTINGUISHED AUTHOR DOUGLAS PRESTON

62 INTERVIEW WITH

KATHY REICHS

84 INTERVIEW WITH GLEN HANSoN

87 INTERVIeW WITH

MATTHEW HOWARD

93 IS IT REAL? Interview with Jimmy Chilcutt

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER速

2013 EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD *Note: For spacing and consistency considerations, the number of designations listed has been limited to four.

ACFEI EXECUTIVE ADVISORY BOARD

CHAIR Cyril H. Wecht, MD, JD, FACFEI, CFP,

Nicholas G. Apostolou, DBA, DABFA, CPA, Cr.FA

Monique Levermore, PhD, FACFEI, DABPS

Donna Bader, MA, MSN, CFN, DABFN

Jonathan Lipman, PhD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABPS

Larry Barksdale, BS, MA

Judith Logue, PhD, FACFEI, DABFSW, DABPS

E. Robert Bertolli, OD, FACFEI, CHS-V, CMI-V

Mike Meacham, PhD, LCSW, DABFSW, FACFEI

Kenneth E. Blackstone, BA, MS, CFC, DABFE

David Miller, DDS, FACFEI, DABFE, DABFD

David T. Boyd, PhD, DBA, CPA, Cr.FA

Leonard I. Morgenbesser, PhD, FACFEI

Jules Brayman, CPA, CVA, DABFA, FACFEI

Jacques Ama Okonji, PhD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABPS

John Brick, PhD, MA, DABFM, FACFEI

Norva E. Osborne, OD, CMI-III

Dennis L. Caputo, MS, DABFET, CHMM, FACFEI

Ronald J. Panunto, PE, CFC, CFEI, DABFET

Dennis H. Chevalier, BS, MSM, DM, CMI-I

Larry H. Pastor, MD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABFM

David F. Ciampi, PhD, FACFEI, DABPS

Theodore G. Phelps, CPA, DABFA

Andrew N. Dentino, MD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABFM

Marc Rabinoff, EdD, FACFEI, DABFE, CFC

James A. DiGabriele, PhD, DPS, CPA, FACFEI

Jerald H. Ratner, MD, CFP, PA

John Shelby DuPont Jr., DDS, DABFD

Harold F. Risk, PhD, DABPS, FACFEI

Ramond Fish, Phd, MD, FACFEI

Susan P. Robbins, PhD, LCSW, DABFSW

Per Freitag, PhD, MD, FACFEI, DABFM

Jane R. Rosen-Grandon, PhD, DABFC, FACFEI

L. Sue Gabriel, MSN, MFS, EdD, RN

Douglas Ruben, PhD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABPS

Ron Grassi, DC, FACFEI, DABFM, DABFE

J. Bradley Sargent, CPA, Cr.FA, DABFA, FACFEI

Richard C. W. Hall, MD, FACFEI, DABFM, DABFE

William Sawyer, PhD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABFM

John J. Haberströh, DC, CFC, CMI-V, FACFEI

Howard A. Shaw, MD, DABFM, FACFEI

Raymond F. Hanbury, PhD, ABPP, FACFEI,

Ivan Sosa, MD

DABFE

Henry A. Spiller, MS, DABFE, FACFEI

David L. Holmes, EdD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABPS

Marilyn J. Stagno, PsyD, RN, FACFEI

Leo L. Holzenthal Jr., PE, DABFET, FACFEI

James R. Stone, MD, MBA, CHS-III, CMI-IV

Matthew Howard, PhD

George S. Swan, JD

Edward J. Hyman, PhD

William A. Tobin, MA, DABFET, DABLEE, FACFEI

Zafar M. Iqbal, PhD, DABFE, DABFM, FACFEI

Robert Tovar, BS, MA, DABFE, DABPS, CHS-III

Nursine S. Jackson, MSN, RN, DABFN

Patricia A. Wallace, PhD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABFM

Philip Kaushall, PhD, DABFE, DABPS, FACFEI

Raymond Webster, PhD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABFM

Eric Kreuter, PhD, CPA, DABFA, FACFEI

Dean A. Wideman, MSc, MBA, CFC, CMI-III

Ronald G. Lanfranchi, DC, PhD, CMI-IV, FACFEI

2013 EDUCATION COMMITTEE *Note: For spacing and consistency considerations, the number of designations listed has been limited to four.

Larry F. Stewart, MSFS, CFC

Douglas H. Ruben, PhD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABPS

Joseph A. Juchniewicz, MA, RI, SSI, LPT

John D. Petkanas, DDS, DAAPM, DABFD, FACFEI

Kevin R. Theriault, BS, CCI, CFC

Puneet Arora, MD, MBBS, CFP, CMI-V

Joan C. Perin, CPA, Cr.FA, CGMA, CFC

Mark Tomlin, CMI-III

Larry D. Crumbley, PhD, CPA, Cr.FA, CFF

E. Frank Livingstone, MD, CFP

Amy M. Garcie, DPN, APRN, ACNP-BC, CFN

Jerald H. Ratner, MD, CFP

L. Sue Gabriel, EdD, MSN, MFS, CFN

Michael Fitting Karagiozis, DO, MBA, CFP, CMI-V

Ralph Carnesecchi, MPS, CMI-III

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

Chair, American Board of Forensic Medicine

MEMBERS Robert K. Minniti, CPA, MBA, Cr.FA, Chair, American Board of Forensic Accounting Marilyn J. Nolan, MS, FACFEI, DABFC, DABCIP, Chair, American Board of Forensic Counselors James H. Hutson, DDS, CMI-V, Chair, American Board of Forensic Dentistry Kevin Theriault, BS, FACFEI, CFC, Chair, American Board of Forensic Examiners Ben Venktash, Peng (UK), FSE, DABFET, DABFE, Chair, American Board of Engineering and Technology L. Sue Gabriel, EdD, MSN, RN, CFN, Chair, American Board of Forensic Nursing Douglas E. Fountain, PhD, LCSW, DABFE, DABFSW, Chair, American Board of Forensic Social Workers Raymond H. Hamden, PhD, FACFEI, CFC, CMI-V, Chair, American Board of Psychological Specialties Gregg M. Stuchman, Chair, American Board of Recorded Evidence

CONTINUING EDUCATION ACFEI provides continuing education credits for accountants, nurses, physicians, dentists, psychologists, counselors, social workers, and marriage and family therapists. Approvals for continuing education activities are subject to change. For the most up-to-date status, please check the course catalog on our Web site, www.acfei.com, or contact the Registrar’s office toll-free at (800) 423-9737. ACFEI is an approved provider of Continuing Education by the following: Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education National Association of State Boards of Accountancy National Board for Certified Counselors California Board of Registered Nurses American Psychological Association California Board of Behavioral Sciences Association of Social Work Boards American Dental Association (ADA CERP) The Missouri Sheriff’s Association co-sponsors Police Officer Standards Training (POST) accreditation for the American College of Forensic Examiners Institute’s activities. The American College of Forensic Examiners Institute is a member of the National Certification Commission and the Alliance for Continuing Medical Education. The Ethics exam, Law exam, Evidence exam, Certified Medical Investigator®, CMI exam levels I-V, Certified Forensic Accountant, CrFA® exam levels I-II, Certified Forensic Nurse, CFN exam, and the Certified Forensic Consultant, CFC exam are all approved for G.I. Bill benefits.

ACFEI ADVISORY BOARDS American Board of Forensic Accounting Chair: Robert K. Minniti, CPA, MBA, Cr.FA Vice Chair: Stewart L. Appelrouth, CPA, CFLM, Cr.FA, FACFEI Gary Bloome, CPA, Cr.FA Alexander Lamar Casparis, CPA, CVA, MBA, Cr.FA, FACFEI Hugh M. Christensen, CPA, ABV, CFF, CVA, Cr.FA Suzanne D. Hillman, CPA, CFF, Cr.FA, CITP Michael G. Kessler, Cr.FA, CICA, FACFEI, DABFA Eric A. Kreuter, PhD, CPA, FACFEI, DABFA Robert B. Lechter, CPA, Cr.FA Joshua S. Rader, CPA, Cr.FA J. Bradley Sargent, CPA, CFS, Cr.FA, FACFEI Larry Settles, CPA, Cr.FA American Board of Forensic Counselors Chair: Marilyn J. Nolan, MS, FACFEI, DABFC, DABCIP Chair Emeritus: Dow R. Pursley, EdD, FACFEI, DABFC George Bishop, LPC, LAT, FACFEI, DABFE James B. Clarke, MA, LPC, NCC, MAC Rhiannon Condon, LPC, LCSW, LCDC, CADC Laura W. Kelley, PhD, LPC, DABFC, FACFEI William M. Sloane, JD, LLM, FACFEI, CHS-III American Board of Forensic Dentistry Chair: James H. Hutson, DDS, CMI-V Chair Emeritus: Brian Karasic, DMD, MBA, DABFD, CMI-V Bill B. Akpinar, DDS, CMI-V, FACFEI, DABFD Benjamin Antioquia, DDS Stephanie L. Anton-Bettey, DDS, CMI-V Robert Byrd, DDS Dennis Flanagan, DDS R. Gordon Klockow, DDS Chester B. Kulak, DMD, CMI-V, CFC, DABFD John Petkanas, DDS Kathryn Vitiello, DMD American Board of Forensic Examiners Chair: Kevin Theriault, BS, FACFEI, CFC Jess P. Armine, DC, FACFEI, DABFE, DABFM Ronna F. Dillon, PhD, DABFE, CMI-V, CHS-III Bruce H. Gross, PhD, JD, MBA, FACFEI Darrell C. Hawkins, MS, JD, FACFEI, CMI-V Edward Heyden, EdD, FABFE Michael W. Homick, PhD, DABCHS, CHS-V Michael Fitting Karagiozis, DO, MBA, CFP, CMI-V Anthony Kemmerlin, CMI-IV Ronald G. Lanfranchi, DC, PhD, DABFE, DABFM, DABLEE, CMI-IV John L. Laseter, PhD, FACFEI, CMI-IV, CHS-III Lawrence Lavine, DO, MPH, CHS-V, CMI-V Leonard K. Lucenko, PhD, FACFEI, DABFE, CPSI Marc A. Rabinoff, EdD, FACFEI, DABFE, CFC Luis Rivera, CPA James A Williams, PhD, CFC, DABFE American Board of FORENSIC Engineering and Technology Chair: Ben Venktash, Peng (UK), FSE, DABFET, DABFE Vice Chair: George C. Frank, CFC, FACFEI, DABFE Cam Cope, BS, DABFET, DABFE Robert Durham, PhD, PE Ali Fayad, PE Gregory Harrison, PhD, PE David Albert Hoeltzel, PhD Gary Krueger, PE, CM

Michael Nunez, PhD, PE, DABFET J.W. “Bill” Petrelli Jr., AIA, DABFET, CFC, FACFEI Max L. Porter, PhD, PE, CFC, DABFET John Robbins, PE Frank Stephenson, PhD, PE James P. Waltz, HBA, PE American Board of Forensic Medicine Chair: Cyril H. Wecht, MD, JD, FACFEI, CFP Vice Chair: Matthias I. Okoye, MD, MSc, JD, FRCP Michael Cardwell, MD, JD Zhaoming Chen, MD, PhD, MS, CFP John A. Consalvo, MD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABFM Louis W. Irmisch III, MD, CFP, FACFEI, CMI-V Michael Fitting Karagiozis, DO, MBA, CFP, CMI-V Lawrence Lavine, DO, MPH, CHS-V, CMI-V Kenneth A. Levin, MD, CFP, FACFEI, DABFM E. Franklin Livingstone, MD, CFP, FACFEI, DABFM Manijeh K. Nikakhtar, MD, MPH, CFP, CMI-V John R. Parker, MD, CFP, FACFEI, DABFM Jerald H. Ratner, MD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABFM S. Sandy Sanbar, MD, PhD, JD, FCLM Gere N. Unger, MD, JD, LLM, CMI-V American Board of Forensic Nursing Chair: L. Sue Gabriel, EdD, MSN, RN, CFN Marilyn A. Bello, RNC, MS, CMI-IV, CFN Wanda S. Broner, MSN, RN, FNE, CEN Cynthia J. Curtsinger, RN, CFN Linda J. Doyle, RN, CLNC, CFN, CMI-III Donna Garbacz Bader Diane L. Reboy, MS, RN, CFN, FACFEI Theresa Wyatt, MSFN, RN,CFN, D-ABMDI American Board of Forensic Social Workers Chair: Douglas Fountain, PhD, LCSW, DABFE, DABFSW James Andrews, MSW, LCSW, CMFSW Matthew A. Capezzuto, PhD, LISW, AFC Viola Vaughan-Eden, PhD, LCSW, CMFSW, DAPA Nathalie Hughes, MSW, CMFSW Tina Jaeckle, PhD, LCSW, CFC, CMFSW Shannon C. Lebak, MSW, LSW, CMFSW Michael G. Meacham, PhD, LCSW, DCSW, FACFEI, DABFSW Kathleen Monahan, DSW, MSW, CFC, DABFE Susan P. Robbins, PhD, LCSW, DCSW, DABFSW Christine Routhier, AFSW, LCSW, CMFSW Steven J. Sprengelmeyer, MSW, MA, FACFEI, DABFSW American Board of Psychological Specialties Chair: Rodolfo J. Rosado, PhD VICE Chair: Douglas H. Ruben, PhD, FACFEI, DABPS, DABFE Carol J. Armstrong, PhD, LPC, DABPS Martha Barham, RN, PhD Madeline Daniels, PhD, CMI-V Paul David Etu, PsyD Ronna F. Dillon, PhD, DABPS, CMI-V, CHS-III Raymond H. Hamden, PhD, FACFEI, CFC, CMI-V Raymond F. Hanbury, PhD, FACFEI, DABPS, DABFE Keith Franklin Kennett, PhD, BA, MA, DABFE Paula M. Mackenzie, PsyD Helen D. Pratt, PhD, FACFEI, DABPS Richard M. Skaff, PsyD, DABPS Charles R. Stern, PhD, DABPS, CMI-V Joseph C. Yeager, PhD, DABFE, DABPS, FACFEI Donna M. Zook, PhD, DABPS, CFC

American Board of Recorded Evidence Chair: Gregg M. Stutchman Ernst F. W. (Rick) Alexanderson, BA, MBA, FACFEI, DABRE Eddy B. Brixen, DABFET Stephen C. Buller Marisa Dery Ryan O. Johnson, BA, DABFE, DABRE Michael C. McDermott, JD, DABRE, DABFE, FACFEI Jennifer E. Owen, BA, DABRE, DABFE Thomas J. Owen, BA, FACFEI, DABRE, CHS-V American Board of Certified Criminal Investigators Chair: Robert Boyden, PhD, MS, SCSA Vice Chair: Dennis Chevalier, CPPP, FIPC, CMI-I Joseph Alercia II Dilsher Ali, CAMS, CCI Kenneth E. Blackstone, MS, CFC, DABFE Mark Boutwell, CPPP, FIPC, CMI-I Henry “Scott” Browne Marvin “Gene” Bullington, CFC, FACFEI John Daab, PhD, MA, MBA, MPS, MA, RI Joseph A. Juchniewicz, MA, SSI, CHS-III, RI Eric Lakes, CHS-III, CLWE, MCSE Lt. David Millsap, RI, CMI-III Thomas R. Price, CHS-III, CFC, CCI Harold F. Risk, PhD, DABPS, FACFEI Cyril H. Wecht, MD, JD, CFP, FACFEI Executive Advisory Board of the International College of the Behavioral Sciences CHAIR: Janet M. Schwartz, PhD, FACFEI, DABFE, CHS-V BOARD SECRETARY: Steven Crimando Mike Baer, PhD Duane L. Dobbert, PhD, FACFEI Sue Gabriel, EdD, RN, CFN Mark L. Goldstein, PhD Raymond H. Hamden, PhD, FACFEI, CFC, CMI-V Janice L. Hargrave, MEd, CFC David L. Holmes, EdD Tina Jaeckle, PhD, LCSW, CMFSW, CFC Gary Kesling, PhD, LMFT, LPC, DAPA Lon Kopit, PsyD, LPC, BCPC Carl J. Patrasso, PsyD Katherine Ramsland, PhD, CMI-V Jerald H. Ratner, MD, CFP Doug Ruben, PhD Ronald M. Ruff, PhD Legal Advisory Board CHAIR: S. Sandy Sanbar, MD, PhD, JD, FCLM Vice Chair: Gere N. Unger, MD, JD, LLM, CMI-V C.J. Abraham, PhD, JD, PE Michael S. Cardwell, MD, JD Joseph F. Connolly, II, MMA, MEd, JD, DABCHS Robert Fish, DDS, JD, FAGD James Greenstone Pamela Ann Geyer, RN, CFN, DABFN, JD Robert D. Hall, PhD, JD Cynthia A. Lee, PhD, JD William “Bill” McClure Robert W. Muench, JD, CHS-IV Dan T. Ramsdell, JD Joshua K. Roberts, JD John F. Romano, JD Malcolm H. Skolnick, PhD, JD Cyril H. Wecht, MD, JD, CFP, FACFEI

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

WELCOME New Members New PROVISIONAL Members Sharla Anderson Jennifer L. Antony Molly Arnold-Kuzmich Barbara A. Baker Derrick B. Banks Candice Bennett Darrin C. Bidwell Douglas O. Brown Barry L. Brunstein Tina Callahan Jennifer Cavanaugh Jeffery A. Chance Beverly J. Chisholm Elizabeth Chryczyk Dustin R. Collins Tiff Joseph Cook Randy R. Cowan Dean Crickenberger Nur Dayana Danel Edith Thompson Darden Stephen Terrence Decatur Pamela Dockstader Jamie L. Dolan Chad L. Dolan Akshay Dudani Alva Jonathan Dugger Jacob M. Duncan Yvonne Eisenberg Louisa C. Ellis Caren Ex Nancy Ford Allyson R. Ford John P. Franck Orrin F. Fuelling Raul R. Garcia Judith Ellen Garcia Doug Gardiner Vikas Garg Beverly Geltner Krystal L. Gibbens Giulia Giraudo Rodd Goldman

Douglas Gregory Jessica K. Guillabert Dee Ann Hairgrove Angela D. Halterman Whitney Harrell Robert Harrison Jodi Heflin Jennifer Hey Jay Hill Abigail C. Ho Amanda Hogsten Cody Holman Edward J. Hopkins Diane Horst Yvette Hurd Ashley Huynh Larysa A. Ivanova Kristi J. Jarvis Dorian Joseph Myra Josephberg Melissa F. Kalodner Melissa Kennedy Susan G. Klein Lewinda T. Knowles Robert J. Knudsen Emil J. Kolick Katarzyna Krawczyk Lauren Krist David Landrecht John Laskey Nicole L. Lewandowski Annita List Liberty Olive Macias Jennifer M. Malone Yvonne Martel Carol Matthews Tabitha McCormick J. Kirk McGill Maureen Convey McGinnis Richard L. McQueary Maria Belen Melagrani Javier Meraz Michelle Miller Michael C. Miracle Patricia A. Moore

Jean M. Murray Farrah Nelson Melody Norton Susan Nussell Timothy O Neill Bradley W. Obannon Timothy Oldham Debra Oldham Adedeji Owonibi Andrew M. Park Richard Parrott Andrew J. Pittington Trevor Raimann Tanya Jo Ramsey Brice Rhee Marilia DA Costa Ribas Colleen Rosenfeld Christine Ruggiero John Frederick Sagoe Mark A. Schlemmer Maria T. Schreiber Marjorie D. Schwartz Volha V. Serviroh Sherece Shavel Lucas Shaw Christine Simpson John T. Sloma Roger D. Smith Brianna Snell Joanna Iwona Sobkow Lynne M. Stanley Cameron Strangway Tathiana Massimino Suarez Dave Taylor Rachel Tiede Keri Torretti Loretta M. Trujillo Rina E. Ubalde Anissa Vera April C. Viverette Dennis Walsh Susan Wichrowski Allen Willford Tracy L. Woods

Due to space limitations, degrees and professional designations are not listed.

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER速 Winter 2012/Spring 2013

Reggie Yarbrough Julia B. Ziec Deborah E. Zimmerman Newly credentialed Laura N. Agbiboa Lev Agranovich Sabrina Caballero Allen Julie Arnone Bruneita Battle William M. Blundell Crystal E. Bossard Alison A. Brown Joyce A. Cassens-Marshall Kimberly A. Christensen Dustin R. Collins Edith Thompson Darden Bruce H. Davis Christiane G. de Foisy Teresa J. Devitt-Lynch Sally S. Dowis Dario Dzinic Nancy Ford Kitson Francis Orrin F. Fuelling Shelly Nycole Gill Stephen Goux Rachel A. Herron Marguerita High Mary Ann Hobar Wendy D. Hooker Shun Hsiung Hsu Nan L. Hunt Michael D. Iliescu John R. Janicek Myra Josephberg Ralph Anthony Kemmerlin, Sr. Lynne Kransberg

Karen Lacy Nicole L. Lewandowski Annita List Margaret A. Livesay Scott P. McHone Michael C. Miracle Milos Mitric Andrew M. Park Sylvia D. Neely-Bond Arthur Lee Nixon Anna K. Owusu Ted P. Paddack Richard Parrott Yolande Parson Shilpa Patel Joan C. Perin Ilya Podolskiy Brian Purnell Stardust H. Red Bow Marjorie D. Schwartz Maria T. Schreiber Mary Kathryn Seifert Mei-fu Sheng Megan E. Simms Christine Simpson Adanna N. Smith Rebecca C. Stamat Julia Lynn States Michael B. Stoll Robert C. Taylor Ekwi O. Ukariwe Lara A. Vanderhoof April C. Viverette James A. Wallace Jamie T. Wenzlick Ji Zhuang New Diplomates Kenneth A. De Luca Michael Walter Feinberg Ralph Anthony Kemmerlin, Sr. Manoranjan Mahadeva

New Fellows Mildred L. Armstrong Glenn H. Asaeda Susan H. Barnes Marcia Nelson Baruch Peter H. Bell Richard J. Casserly Faina Chachko Paul J. Dostart Margaret J. Gomez Jay M. Hislop Steven L. Houseworth Murali Mohan Rao Jonnalagadda Barbara A. Mara Sharon M. Maslon Matthew H. Nolton Mitesh B. Patel John R. Peters Victor Phillip Republicano, Jr. Fred A. Sams Alicia Babenco Saunders Jeffrey J. Stern New life members Kelly A. Boyle Rachel Jacquet Nicole L. Lewandowski

ACFEI NEWS and Announcements MEMBER SERVICES

CORRECTIONS FROM PAST ISSUE

Our member services staff is here to help serve you! Please contact a member services representative at 417.881.3818, or toll-free at 800.423.9737 with questions regarding membership as well as certifications. n

The Falsely Accused section of our Summer 2012 issue incorrectly uses the term, “Alfred plea” as opposed to “Alford plea.” We apologize for this mistake. n

STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, AND CIRCULATION 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

Publication Title: The Forensic Examiner Publication Number: 1084-5569 Filing Date: October 9, 2012 Issue Frequency: Quarterly Number of Issues Published Annually: 4 Annual Subscription Price: $29.95 domestic/$54.95 international Complete Mailing Address of Known Office of Publication: 2750 E Sunshine St., Springfield, MO 65804; Contact: Julie Brooks; Phone: (417) 881-3818 Complete Mailing Address of Headquarters of General Business Office of Publisher: 2750 E Sunshine, Springfield, MO 65804 Full Names & Complete Mailing Addresses of Publisher, Editor, & Managing Editor: Publisher: Robert L. O’Block, 2750 E Sunshine, Springfield, MO 65804; Editor: Julie Brooks, 2750 E Sunshine, Springfield, MO 65804; Managing Editor: Julie Brooks, 2750 E Sunshine, Springfield, MO 65804 Owner: The American College of Forensic Examiners International, 2750 E Sunshine, Springfield, MO 65804 Known Bondholders, Mortgages, and Other Security Holders Owning or Holding 1 Percent or More of Total Amount of Bonds, Mortgages, or Other Securities: None Tax Status (For completion by nonprofit organizations authorized to mail at nonprofit rates) The purpose, function, & nonprofit status of this organization & exempt status for federal income tax purposes: Has Not Changed During Preceding 12 Months Publication Title: The Forensic Examiner Issue Date for Circulation Data Below: Fall 2012 *EXTENT AND NATURE OF CIRCULATION>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Publication of Statement of Ownership: Publication required. Will be printed in the Winter 2012/Spring 2013 issue of this publication Signature & Title of Editor: (Signed) Julie Brooks, Editor in Chief (Date) 12-05-12. I certify that all information furnished on this form is true & complete. I understand that anyone who furnishes false or misleading information on this form or who omits material or information requested on the form may be subject to criminal sanctions (including fines and imprisonment) and/or civil sanctions (including civil penalties).

Average No. of copies of each issue during the preceding 12 months

No. of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date

a. Total # of Copies (Net press run) b. Paid Circulation (By Mail and Outside the Mail) 1. Mailed Outside-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541 (Include paid distribution above nominal rate, advertiser’s proof copies, and exchange copies) 2. Mailed In-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541 (Include paid distribution above nominal rate, advertiser’s proof copies, and exchange copies) 3. Paid Distribution Outside the Mails Including Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors, Counter Sales, and Other Paid Distribution Outside USPS® 4. Paid Distribution by Other Classes of Mail Through the USPS (e.g. First-Class Mail®) c. Total Paid Distribtion [Sum of 15b. (1), (2), (3), & (4)] d. Free Distribution by Mail (Samples, complimentary, & other free)

9,749

9,221

6,498

6,277

1. Free or Nominal Rate Outside-County Copies included on PS Form 3541 2. Free or Nominal Rate In-County Copies Included on PS Form 3541 3. Free or Nominal Rate Copies Mailed at Other Classes Through the USPS (e.g. First-Class Mail) 4. Free or Nominal Rate Distribution Outside the Mail (Carriers or other means) e. Total Free or Nominal Rate Distribution (Sum of 15d (1), (2), (3), and (4) f. Total Distribution (Sum of 15c & 15e) g. Copies not Distributed (See Instructions to Publishers #4 (page #3) h. Total (Sum of 15f. and 15g.) i. Percent Paid (15c divided by 15f times 100)

* 15. Extent & Nature of Circulation:

232

233

6,731

6,510

0 0 0

2159

1785

2159 8,890 859 9,749 76%

1785 8,295 926 9,221 78.5%

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

FORENSICS IN THE NEWS

Helping Victims of Crime: Therapy Dog Program a First for the Bureau

Rachel Pierce is a victim specialist in our Office for Victim Assistance. Her partner is an 8-year-old German Shepherd/Siberian Husky mix, and together they form a unique and remarkable team. The FBI uses a variety of working dogs, highly capable canines that can sniff out drugs and bombs, bolster security, and alert their handlers when they pick up the scent of blood. But Dolce, with his shimmering yellow coat and steel blue eyes, is the Bureau’s one and only therapy dog. The job of a victim specialist, or VS, is to ensure that victims receive the rights they are entitled to under federal law and the assistance they need to cope with crime. With his lovable personality, Dolce excels at comforting crime victims and their families. The story of how he became a VS—of the K9 variety—is a story in itself. Pierce, a psychologist who worked for the Department of Defense and law enforcement before joining the Bureau about five years ago, suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic inflammatory disease whose symptoms can be debilitating when they strike. In 2004, she went to a local shelter looking for a puppy she could train to be a service dog. That’s where she found Dolce. “I thought it would be nice to have a dog that did some things around the house for me when my symptoms flared up,” she said. “There are days I can’t move or even lift a sheet.” After extensive service dog training, Dolce learned how to turn light switches on and off, load laundry in the washing machine, and

even retrieve drinks from the refrigerator. “He is a very good service dog,” said Pierce, who is based in our Nashville Resident Agency. “But service dogs are not supposed to interact with the public.” That was a problem, because Dolce loves people. Pierce soon realized that Dolce’s intelligence and temperament would make him a terrific therapy dog. She knew from her military experience that the Army has a successful therapy dog program, and she set out to introduce something similar at the FBI. On her own, Pierce undertook an extensive training regimen with Dolce, and he passed registration exams given by Pet Partners and other organizations. In 2009, after spending many volunteer hours taking Dolce to nursing homes, camps for grieving children, and other places that use therapy dogs, Pierce’s proposal for the K9Assisted Victim Assistance Program was approved by the FBI and adopted as a pilot program.

Since then, she and Dolce have had a very positive impact, comforting victims and their families in murder cases, kidnappings, and bank robberies, where Dolce’s presence is a calming influence on tellers who minutes before may have had a gun pointed in their faces. Studies have shown that the presence of an animal in a stressful situation can produce a calming effect, Pierce said. “It can lower blood pressure and make you feel more relaxed.” In the immediate aftermath of a bank robbery, for example, a calm witness can better relay information about the crime to investigators. “We have worked a lot of cases together,” Pierce said, “helping victims of child pornography and even white-collar crime, where senior citizens lost their life savings to investment scam artists. Dolce has helped a lot of people,” she added. “I am so proud of him for all the lives he has touched in a positive way.” n

Source: http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/april/therapy-dog_042712

The Latest on

Latents 10

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

Latent prints are impressions—usually invisible to the naked eye—often left at crime scenes that are produced by the ridged skin on human fingers, palms, or soles of the feet. The FBI’s IAFIS receives an average of 700 latent search requests per day from authorized law enforcement agencies…with an average response time of one hour.

Looking at You: Face Genes Identified; Five Genes Have Been Found to Determine Human Facial Shapes

ScienceDaily (Sep. 13, 2012) — Five genes have been found to determine human facial shapes, as reported by researchers from the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics. Monozygotic twins have almost identical faces and siblings usually have more similar faces than unrelated people, implying that genes play a major role in the appearance of the human face. However, almost nothing is known about the genes responsible for facial morphology in humans. This study, carried out on behalf of the International Visible Trait Genetics (VisiGen) Consortium, used head magnetic resonance images together with portrait photographs to map facial landmarks, from which facial distances were estimated. The researchers then applied a genome-wide association (GWA) approach, with independent replication, to finding DNA variants involved in facial shapes in almost 10,000 individuals. Three of the five genes identified have been implicated previously by other approaches in vertebrate craniofacial development and disease; of these three, one was reported to be involved in facial morphology in a GWA study on children published earlier this year. The remaining two genes potentially represent completely new players in the molecular networks governing facial development. Professor Manfred Kayser from the Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, the leading author of the study, said: “These are exciting first results that mark the beginning of the genetic understanding of human facial morphology. Perhaps some time it will be possible to draw a phantom portrait of a person solely from his or her DNA left behind, which provides interesting applications such as in forensics. We already can predict from DNA certain eye and hair colors with quite high accuracies.” n Source

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120913173318.htm. Accessed 10.2.12

Our Next Generation Identification system, an incremental replacement of today’s IAFIS, will specifically focus on the latent user community next March when a National Palmprint System (NPPS) is scheduled to be established. The NPPS will create a centralized repository of known palmprints within the FBI’s database, allowing searches of unknown

palmprints against the repository…as well as searches of known palmprints against the Unsolved Latent File. Both types of searches will enhance law enforcement’s ability to identify criminal and terrorist suspects. n

Source

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/september/30year-old-murder-solved. Accessed 9.12.12 http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/october/identitytheft-that-lasted-decades/identity-theft-that-lasteddecades. Accessed 10.2.12

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

About Certification Boards with

THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF FORENSIC EXAMINERS INSTITUTE INTRODUCTION According to its entry in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (2007), forensic science (or forensics) is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to a legal system. The entry explains that this may be in relation to a crime or a civil action. The word forensic, according to this entry, has two modern usages – as a form of legal evidence and as a category of public presentation. The term forensic, therefore, is effectively “a synonym for legal or related to courts.” Founded by Dr. Robert O’Block, The American College of Forensic Examiners Institute (ACFEI) is an association serving the professional needs of forensic examiners worldwide.

Wanted Forensic professionals who are not afraid to work hard, jump into new learning experiences, and reap the benefits of knowing that their efforts are advancing their chosen field of forensics. Anyone holding a current ACFEI designation could be assisting the Association in raising the bar for its certification arm by: • Volunteering as a Subject Matter Expert

ACFEI AS ADMINISTRATOR OF CREDENTIALING PROGRAMS

• Taking a Job Task Survey associated with a Job Analysis Study

Providing an established organizational structure for the development and administration of credentialing programs is another function ACFEI serves.

• Contributing various amounts of time to the completion of concentrated improvement activities as our pursuit of third party accreditation progresses

Professional certification is a unique accomplishment that validates one’s experience and attainment of a particular skill set. It is a voluntary process that exhibits one’s dedication to the betterment of a field and commitment to proficiency and professional enhancement. Obtaining a certification can open avenues for advancement, provide financial incentives, and increase one’s credibility and personal satisfaction.

• Volunteering to serve on committees Any measure of involvement will provide you with a unique learning experience, along with numerous opportunities for professional networking.

ACFEI SERVICES Since its inception, the Association has striven to advance the field of forensics in a number of ways. ACFEI has actively promoted the circulation of forensic-related information through publishing its official journal The Forensic Examiner® and through hosting annual conferences, summits, and many other networking opportunities. The Association has sponsored thousands of continuing education activities delivered as online and face-to-face courses, seminars, conference sessions, and journal learning. Advancing the state of forensic examination and consultation through promoting elevated standards is another endeavor the Association has undertaken.

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

ACFEI sponsors unique credentialing opportunities for various specialties in the field of forensics. As of April 2012, ACFEI sponsors at least 10 credentialing programs. The Association relies on the involvement of subject matter experts (SMEs) to align the scopes of its credentialing programs with particular forensic-related specialties, and the Association awards certified status and designation only to those who meet program requirements.

800.423.9737 • WWW.ACFEI.COM Certification Programs Sponsored by The American COLLEGE OF FORENSIC EXAMINERS INTERNATIONAL (ACFEI) and Its Sub-Boards ACFEI and its sub-boards sponsor certification programs in various forensic-related areas. The goal of each program is to validate the professional knowledge and skills of certified individuals in a particular area related to forensics. This is no small task. The Association employs intricate processes for establishing certification program policy, enforcing ethics, developing tests, and operating continuing education programs. These processes align with industry standards (such as those set forth by the American National Standards Institute and the National Commission for Certifying Agencies) and are driven by Subject Matter Experts. In this way, those who hold certifications from ACFEI can be confident that their credentials are credible and relevant to their specialty area.

WHY GET CERTIFIED? Potential Benefits to the Field:

Potential Benefits to Employers:

• Standardizes practices and/or standards within an industry

• Improves customer satisfaction

• Advances the specialty/field

• Increases competence level of employees

• Increases cooperation between organizations in the same discipline

• Useful in making employment decisions

• Provides a means for an industry to self-regulate Potential Benefits to Those with Current Certification: • Grants recognition of knowledge and skills by a third party • Enhances professional reputation • Provides personal accomplishment • Supports continued professional development • Demonstrates a high level of commitment to the field of practice • Demonstrates a specific level of knowledge and skill • Increases opportunities for career advancement and/or increased earnings • Can validate skills and knowledge • Could communicate credibility • Serves as a differentiator in a competitive job market

• Provides professional development opportunities for employees • Ongoing enhancement of knowledge and skills • Increases confidence in employees’ abilities • Demonstrates employers’ commitment to competence • Could provide means to establish and enforce an ethical code • Can provide compliance with industry regulation/ government requirements • Increases safety Potential Benefits to the public: • Standardizes practice and/or standards within an industry • Advances the specialty/field and increases cooperation between organizations in the same discipline • Provides a means for an industry to self-regulate • Helps in identifying qualified service providers • Increases confidence in service providers • Provides disciplinary process to follow in case of complaints

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

T H E

P R E S E N C E

O F

Absence A n I n v e s i t g at i v e C a s e S t u d y By Dave Pauly and Katherine Ramsland, PhD, CMI-V *Names are changed.

he plot of a popular Sherlock Holmes story relies on a peculiar type of evidence, or rather, on what’s missing. In “Silver Blaze,” a valuable racehorse has been stolen and its trainer murdered. Although Holmes generally spots clues that no one else sees or interprets in quite the way he does, in this tale the primary lead involves something that no one can see or hear—not even him. To an investigator, Holmes mentions “the curious incident of the dog in the night.” The investigator is puzzled, because the dog did nothing. This is precisely Holmes’s point: If a stranger had entered the stable, the dog would have barked. The dog did not bark. Its silence suggests that it was familiar with the midnight visitor. Holmes’s observation helps to narrow the pool of suspects. In actual cases, investigators must view a scene holistically before forming a guiding narrative. This means they must sometimes consider a clue of absence, i.e., something not present that should be. This is not easy to do, because the natural inclination during an investigation is to focus on the concrete: items that can be seen, heard, touched, or smelled. Because of the way human perception functions, looking for something can result in overlooking the significance of nothing. Astute investigators realize that they must think about items that are absent as well as those that are present. The following case presents such an illustration. Marks of a Suicide Around 8:00 in the evening of October 24, 1992, Dan* made an emergency call to report that his twenty-one-year-old wife, Lacy,* had hanged herself in the bathroom. He needed an ambulance. Dan

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

lived in a housing complex on a military base, so Army CID special agents responded as well. When paramedics arrived, Dan said he’d found Lacy hanging from the showerhead, completely nude and facing away from the back wall, with an electrical cord around her neck. He’d heard gurgling sounds, so he’d tried to lift her off the showerhead, but she’d been too heavy, so he’d left her hanging. He’d sent his four-year-old son to get help. Two neighbors had arrived right away to assist Dan to lift Lacy off the shower. One had untied the knot to release the body, and as it dropped, the head hit the side of the tub. Together, Dan and his neighbors had dragged the body out of the small bathroom into the hallway, leaving it face-up on a sheet. The paramedics ensured that Lacy had flat-lined before they left her in place for investigators. They did not perform CPR. Responding officers found that Lacy had ligature marks on her neck, a small bruise over her nose, and a minute amount of blood on her lip. She had tied the ends of the electrical cord together and looped it twice around her neck before putting a loop over the pipe to the showerhead. Her skin was still warm to the touch, and her hair was damp but appeared to have been towel-dried. They noted small petechial hemorrhages on her eyelids and lips.

FEATURE

und fo ’d e h id a s n a ived, D r r a s ic d e m a r a “When p letely p m o c , d a e h r e the show m o r f g in g n a h Lacy ll, with a w k c a b e h t m way fro a g in c fa d n a e nud eck.” n r e h d n u o r a rd an electrical co

Because the house was in general disarray, with clothing, toys and other items lying around, it was not possible to determine if there had been a struggle. Investigators looked around, but did not see anything obvious. As they processed the scene, one officer took Dan outside to hear his full account of events during that day. He noticed that Dan was pale, his eyes were glazed, and he kept muttering, “Why did she do it?” Shattered Family According to Dan, Lacy had been in a bad mood all day. At one point, he asked her if she was going to the birthday party with him and their two sons, ages 2 and 4. She said no. Later, he heard her on the phone with someone and she seemed upset. Dan did not know the identity of the caller. Lacy’s mother had died from a heart attack the year before and since then Lacy had been clinically depressed. Sometimes she acted out aggressively. About two weeks earlier, she had stabbed Dan in the left leg with a knife. At some point during the afternoon, Dan heard their older son yell, “No, I don’t want to be hit.” Dan rushed to his aid and found Lacy using an electrical cord to discipline him. When Dan tried to stop her, she told him she wished he (Dan) was dead, and tried to put the cord around his neck. He struggled with her and took it away. They continued to argue throughout the day. Around 3:00 p.m., Dan escorted the boys to a neighbor’s house for a birthday party. Lacy did not go with them. They returned about two hours later. At 5:45, Dan went outside to play with the children for half an hour. When they came back inside, he heard the shower running. After a while, he saw steam on the bathroom window and it occurred to him that his wife had been showering for an unusually long time. He went to check. This was when he found Lacy hanging, and she had used the same electrical cord she’d been using on their son earlier that day.

Dan added that they had been married for about four years. Recently, Lacy had met another man, with whom she had carried on a brief affair, and Dan had confronted her about it. Hoping to save his family, he’d given her an ultimatum: her lover or her family. She chose to stay with the family, but she had remained unhappy. Dan stated that Lacy sometimes talked about suicide and had a family history of depression. The couple had suffered some recent financial problems and Lacy had been caught writing bad checks. Investigators thought that all indicators thus far were consistent with a suicide. They knew that it was not uncommon for wives of military personnel to become lonely and despondent. Military families face unique challenges for which some people are ill-equipped. The stress can precipitate a suicide. However, the investigators had heard only from Dan. There could be more to the story. Something’s Not Right The next morning, the lead investigator gathered the team for a briefing. He went over Dan’s account and agreed that suicide was a strong possibility. Yet despite appearances, he said, “I don’t feel good about this case. Something doesn’t fit. Dan left her hanging, but most people cut their loved ones down. They don’t leave them hanging.” There was also something odd about the scene. When the crime unit processed the bathroom, they had noticed that the tub was dry. Although Lacy’s hair had been damp, there was no evidence that the shower had been running, as Dan had stated. This observation was “the dog in the night.” The absence of water was a clear inconsistency. If Dan’s story was true, there should have been water not just in the tub but also splashed around the room. The team decided to gather more information, starting with interviews with friends and relatives, as well as with Lacy’s psychiatrist. Dan had supplied names and contact information. It was important to assess Lacy’s pre-suicide indicators. Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

t of s li a d a h s r o t The investiga break o t y r t o t h ic h things with w ry:

down Dan’s sto

1. the way he’d left Lacy hanging 2. the lack of water in the tub 3. Dan’s lie about the ruling 4. the grandmother’s description of Lacy’s mood on the day she died. The pathologist who performed the autopsy found that Lacy had died from asphyxiation. The only bruises on her neck were from the electrical cord. She had a few other small bruises, but there was no evidence of a significant struggle. Although the facial petechiae and hemorrhaging in both eyes were atypical for a suicidal hanging, a review of Lacy’s medical records revealed that she had made a prior suicide attempt with an overdose of pills. The pathologist said that out of the thousands of hanging deaths he had examined, only half a dozen had been murders staged to look like suicide. The probability of murder was therefore slim, and he had found nothing physical on the body that was inconsistent with suicide. A review of statistics indicated that with 30,000 suicides per year but just half as many homicides, probability favored a ruling of suicide. Further, Dan had just a small insurance policy on Lacy, so financial gain was ruled out as a motive to kill. Dan had tried to reconcile, he’d said, so it appeared that he had not killed his wife over her affair. However, investigators did learn that the marriage was more troubled than Dan had admitted. They turned up reports that Dan was jealous and controlling, and there had been several instances of assault. Another red flag turned up in Lacy’s grandmother’s account. She was the one who had called Lacy that day, around noon. Contradicting Dan’s recollection, the grandmother said that Lacy had been in good spirits. She had said she was going to take her children to a birthday party. Lacy had mentioned financial problems, but she had offered no specifics. The grandmother added that she did not believe that Lacy had killed herself. The officers were surprised by this comment, because at the time they interviewed this woman, the manner of death had not yet been established. They discovered that Dan had been telling his friends and family that Lacy’s death had been ruled a suicide.

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

Person of Interest The investigators had a list of things with which to try to break down Dan’s story: the way he’d left Lacy hanging, the lack of water in the tub, Dan’s lie about the ruling, and the grandmother’s description of Lacy’s mood on the day she died. About a month after the incident, they advised Dan of his rights and invited him in for questioning. He willingly came and his demeanor was calm. As Dan told his story again, he drew a sketch about how he’d found Lacy hanging. He remembered that her toes were touching the bottom of the tub. He admitted that he felt responsible for her death. The officers deliberately drew out the interview, hoping to move him toward changing his story or contradicting himself. Over four and a half hours had passed when Dan’s head went down. It was a signal of possible remorse. “If I did anything to Lacy,” he said, “I just don’t remember it.” With this partial admission, the officers knew it was just a matter of time before he finally confessed. They kept asking him to repeat his story. At no time did Dan act like an innocent party, shocked or angry that he was being treated as a suspect. After applying several skilled interrogation techniques, the officers noticed that Dan was growing confused. Eventually, he said he’d killed Lacy during a fight. Now Dan offered a new story. He had found Lacy beating their son with the electrical cord. They had struggled, hitting each other, and she’d placed the cord around his neck. He’d grabbed it and, enraged, had choked her with it. As she fell, she’d hit her head and knocked herself unconscious. Still in the grip of anger, he’d spotted an opportunity. She was still breathing when he’d placed the cord around her neck and hung her from the showerhead. Despite the rarity of this type of crime, it was a homicide staged as a suicide. Suppressed Evidence Although there had been numerous factors in support of a ruling of suicide, one item missing from the scene had contradicted the tale. Dan had forgotten to turn on the water to make his story credible. If not for the absence of water on the body, Dan might have gotten away with murder. Out of several inconsistencies, this one had been the most glaring. Because a lead investigator had paid attention to the nagging sense that something didn’t add up – not something he saw but something he did not see – Dan was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to forty years in prison. Crime investigators must have a guiding frame to interpret the right items as evidence and leads. It can be difficult enough to pull together items one can see, but complexities mount when one must also consider what’s missing. It is quite easy, therefore, to commit the fallacy of suppressed evidence, wherein relevant evidence is overlooked or neglected. It’s present but unacknowledged as a factor. The following example illustrates this error of reasoning: A woman inside a building says she heard two shots. She rushed out to see a man shooting her husband. However, the shooter claimed self-defense. The woman denied it. The investigators had to determine if the woman could have seen what she claimed. When the crime was reconstructed, they discovered that it would require four seconds for her to rush from point A (where she was when

she heard the first shot) to point B (the scene). The gun could shoot two bullets in less than a second, so they surmised that if it took longer to run from point A to point B than to shoot two bullets, the woman could not have witnessed the crime. It did take less time to fire two shots than to run from Point A to Point B, so they concluded that the witness was lying. At least, this seems like an obvious, well-calculated deduction. Yet it is based on the assumption that the stated facts are the total sum needed for reconstruction. It fails to include a key possibility. Before the witness account can be dismissed, another scenario must be considered: While the gun can shoot two bullets in less than a second, the shooter might not have done so. He could have hesitated before shooting the second time. According to the same logic, but with the neglected information included, the person running from A to B could have witnessed the shooting. Among the reasons why evidence can be overlooked – especially evidence that involves the lack of something that should be present – is the way human perception works. When perceiving the environment, the brain distinguishes a figure from the background by forming a spotlight of focus. The more intense this focus, the less the eye will see in the area outside the spotlight. (If you focus on a gun barrel pointing at you, you won’t see much else.) An object might be right in front of us, but if the brain is focused firmly on something else, a blind spot can form in the perceptual field. We might visually see an item but not process it as information. If we don’t process it as information, it fails to go into our memory storage. Thus, we won’t recall that we saw it. Psychologists Adrien Mack and Irvin Rock coined the term “inattentional blindness” for this phenomenon. In one experiment, they had subjects watch a cross ( + ) that appeared briefly on a computer screen and report whether the horizontal bar was longer, or the vertical bar. During these trials, the researchers sent another shape onto the screen. Although it appeared briefly, it hovered in plain view. It was also a different color, so it presented a contrast. At the end of the trials, Mack and Rock queried subjects about whether they had noticed this other object. Three out of four subjects had failed to see it. Because they had concentrated on the task, narrowing their spotlight of focus, this had obscured the nonessential object. Psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris performed the most celebrated experiment on inattentional blindness. They had observers watch a video of a basketball exercise and count how many times players who were wearing white passed the ball to one another. The exercise lasted a full minute. During this time, a man dressed in a gorilla suit ambled to the center of the court, faced the camera, and pounded on his chest before exiting. When the viewing was over, the subjects were asked if they had seen the gorilla. Approximately 50% did not. Similar experiments involving a red gorilla produced the same results. As contrary to logic as this result might seem, the human visual system evolved to focus attention. To survive, we need to see important things, much more so than to see everything. So when we deliberately focus, our attentional field narrows. If we’re intent on looking for something, it is quite easy to overlook other items, especially when they are absent.

Summary When observing a potential crime scene, the starting point should be a holistic overview that accounts for evidence that affirms an evolving narrative, as well as evidence that’s missing. The latter can be more difficult to see. However, examining various angles before settling on a dominant narrative can diminish the impact of inattentional blindness and highlight suppressed or missing evidence. When the dog doesn’t bark, this signals something to ponder as much as when the dog does bark. n

Sources Breitmeyer, B. (2010). Blindspots: The many ways we cannot see. Oxford, UK:Oxford University Press. Chabris, C. & Simons, D. (2010). The invisible gorilla. New York, NY: Crown. Conan Doyle, A. (1894, 1999). The memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. London, UK: Wessex Press. Mack. A. and Rock, I. (1998). Inattentional blindness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Walton, D. N. (1995). A pragmatic theory of fallacy. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.

About the authors Dave Pauly directs the program in Applied Forensic Science at Methodist University in Fayetteville, NC. He worked in Army CID for 18 years, graduated from the FBI’s National Academy, and participated in the international exchange for the Major Crimes Course in Ottowa, Canada. Pauly has been a member of American College of Forensic Examiners International since 2011. Katherine Ramsland, PhD, CMI-V has published over 1,000 articles and 46 books, including The Mind of a Murderer and Beating the Devil’s Game: A History of Forensic Science and Criminal Investigation. Dr. Ramsland is a professor of forensic psychology at DeSales University in Pennsylvania and has been a member of the American College of Forensic Examiners International since 1998.

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

SUCCESS FILES

by shelly king

henever I am asked how I became an origin and cause fire investigator, instead of furrowing my brow over the difficulties of having started out with nothing but an idea and an empty bank account, I smile at the delight of it all. My late husband, Charlie King, was our entire stock-in-trade. He was the expert, he was the product, he was the reputation, and he was the heart and soul of our company. With all his assets, however, he had one drawback: Charlie had spent his entire career with the New York City Fire Department. He had been nurtured of, by, and for what he called “the cocoon of civil service.” So, even though he was fearless about running into burning buildings to save lives or walking down dark alleys to catch arsonists, he had great trepidation about starting a business. My idea of security was…um. Well, I didn’t really have one, except to earn enough to pay my meager bills while I pecked away at my typewriter, trying to sell my first book.

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

My father was a self-employed inventor. My Canadian grandfather was a self-employed trucker. My Chicago grandfather was a selfemployed carpenter. Financial security had never been a high priority in our household. I was used to grownups having good years and bad years. Good business or no business. But we always got by. We always had enough to eat. A beautiful home. And, the best thing of all – Independence. Not so my husband. He was used to getting a regular paycheck. He was used to working in a structured environment with an endless demand for his expertise. Every day there were new fires to investigate, new bad guys to catch, new reports to write, and new dragons to slay. Charlie was worried that if we started our own company, he would spend all his time polishing doorknobs and waiting for clients who would never call and checks that would never be put in the mail. Trusting me implicitly, he looked me dead in the eye, and said, “Shelly. If we don’t get any business the first year, can we afford to live on my pension?”

With equal sincerity, I looked right back at him and answered, “Yes. Absolutely. Of course we can live on your pension.” So, accepting life’s dare, we rented an office on Broadway, a block from Chinatown in New York City. Back then there were only a few private fire investigators in the entire country. We had no role models, and we invented ourselves as we went along. We made up procedures, designed formats, and (I think) were the first to include captioned photographs with our fire reports. We had one strict rule: Pay cash for everything. We couldn’t afford a photocopier, so we walked four blocks to get our copies made. We explored Chinatown, made friends with all of the other businesses on our floor, took chances, and had fun. One of our greatest joys occurred our first day at the office, as we proudly watched the sign painter write on the bubble glass top half of our door:

Charles G. King Associates Fire and Arson Investigation

Right from the start, business was good. I went out with Charlie on every fire, and learned how to conduct an origin and cause investigation. By the time we got our second client, I was investigating fires by myself. We may not have made a fortune, but we made enough to buy a photocopy machine and a very, very, very used car. So old and so tired that the heater never came on until five minutes before we reached our destination (usually four hours away in Connecticut). As we were preparing our income tax returns at the end of that first year, I looked up at my husband and smiled. “Guess what,” I said. “What?” Charlie King asked and smiled back. “I lied,” I said, a bit of mischief in my eye. “Lied about what?” Then, happy about the risks we’d taken and success we’d achieved, I grinned, and finally admitted… “We never could have made it on your pension!” n

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Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

iPREDATOR

ipredator

bridge By Michael Nuccitelli, PsyD, CFC Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is an umbrella term including all forms of telecommunication, information technology, broadcast media, audio and video processing, transmission, and network based control and monitoring functions. ICT has rapidly become one of the basic building blocks of modern society and will become increasingly important as the Information Age matures. Information technology experts, sociologists, and psychologists describe ICT as beneficial tools for humanity. Based on this writer’s investigative findings, when chosen for nefarious reasons, ICT are tools that become weapons. iPredators primarily use ICT as weapons in their efforts to offend, dominate, harm, or steal from others. The usage of ICT and cyberspace by the dark side of humanity to harm others inflicting psychological, physical, and/or societal damage is a challenge. The two constructs created by this writer which encapsulate these harmful typologies are as follows:

iPredator: A child, adult, or group

who, directly or indirectly, engages in exploitation, victimization, stalking, theft, or disparagement of others using ICT. iPredators are driven by deviant fantasies, desires for power and control, retribution, religious fanaticism, political reprisal, psychiatric illness, perceptual distortions, peer acceptance, or personal and financial gain. iPredators can be any age, either gender, and are not bound by economic status, race, or national heritage. iPredator is a global term used to distinguish anyone who engages in criminal, deviant, or abusive behaviors using ICT. Whether the offender is a cyberbully, cyberstalker, cyber harasser, cyber criminal, online sexual predator, internet troll, or cyber terrorist, they fall within the scope of iPredator.

iPredator

Bridge: iPredator Bridge is a theoretical tenet of iPredator representing the exploration and study of people motivated by greed, power, control, narcissism, or psychopathology who decide to use Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to harm others. iPredator Bridge investigates why some people drawn to this nefarious and malevolent realm hidden in cyberspace and ICT contemplate their benefits and detriments, decide to proceed, and then continue a trajectory where their cognitive, affective, behavioral, and perceptual states are directly or indirectly harmful to others and society. For those who cross this proverbial bridge, they enter a world where their choices are increasingly governed by criminal, deviant, immoral, and maladaptive processes.

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

Although it is assumed all humanity has the potential for behaving in harmful and malevolent ways residing deep in their psyche, they rarely or never activate it. ICT and cyberspace offer a direct connection and psychological route to the dark side. The iPredator Bridge is a symbolic representation of the approach, route, and initial crossing into the realm of the iPredator. In a rudimentary and abstract way, it is posited that cyberspace, ICT, and all future technological advancements related to information technology are an extension of the mind and the instinctual drives of the collective brain to replicate itself outside a human organism. The concepts of the iPredator and iPredator Bridge constructs assume that ICT has unknown effects upon the mind and influences some to engage in destructive and self-destructive patterns. Within this new region, and presently without explanation, many people enter cyberspace and access ICT with their instinctual drive for self-preservation remaining dormant. Conversely, there are other people who, either quickly or gradually, conclude that ICT and cyberspace offer an environment that allows the pursuit of maladaptive and psychopathological goals undeterred by punishment. It is within this process that the ICT user or groups of ICT users transcend into the world of iPredator. Given this writer’s strong belief that there are neurochemical, neuropsychological, perceptual, and dissociative based changes occurring in all humans who access and interact with ICT and cyberspace, the compilation of all these factors leads to both a new breed of assailant and victim. iPredator

WARNING SIGNS LIST Note: Answering “Yes, I Agree, True” to any of the statements does not confirm the person is a potential iPredator or close to becoming one. Responding to 5 or more statements with “Yes, I Agree, True” are strong indicators the person being queried is engaging in iPredator behaviors.

“The

iPredator

Bridge is a symbolic representation of the approach, route, and initial crossing into the realm of the

iPredator.”

1. The person is a habitual social networking site user and interacts with a select group of online contacts that he/she has never met in person. 2. The person is a habitual social networking site user and has developed private codes or lingo which is regularly communicated to a select group of followers. 3. The person is a habitual social networking site user and has been suspected or confirmed of posting information that is quickly deleted for no apparent reason. 4. The person is a habitual social networking site user and has been suspected or confirmed of posting information that would be considered cryptic or jumbled in content. 5. The person is a habitual social networking site user and has been suspected or confirmed of posting information about other people’s offline activities that is innocuous or trivial in nature. 6. The person is a habitual social networking site user and has been suspected or confirmed of publically posting information that excludes someone from being invited to a social activity. 7. The person has been confirmed to regularly post information about others in chat rooms, forums, or message boards that is trivial and has no social purpose or cause. 8. The person has been confirmed to maintain a blog or public online journal that has a central theme that has minimal social cause merit. 9. The person is a habitual social networking site user and has been suspected or confirmed of posting images or videos about other people’s offline activities and lifestyle.

“Many people may not know why I

Bridge is the connection between the dark aspects of the human mind, ICT, cyberspace, and activation of direct or indirect harm towards others. Based on research and extensive investigation leading to the creation of the iPredator construct, my colleagues and I have compiled a list of warning signs that may suggest the person being queried is approaching the iPredator Bridge, is in transit going across it, or has fully crossed to the realm of iPredator. The list has been compiled and published to be a point of reference to educate and assist anyone who is concerned that they, their children, their business, or their community are in the presence of an iPredator or someone in transit to becoming an iPredator.

started the American College of Forensic Examiners International. The reason is my belief in justice. Justice for all and the safety of Americans. And now that we live in the Information Age, the association

will help educate

Americans on the forensic sciences, justice, and cyber justice.”

Robert O’Block PhD, PsyD, Founder, American College of Forensic Examiners International, (2012)

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

WHO Cyber Bullies Cyber Stalkers Cyber Terrorist Cyber Criminals Sexual Predators

WHAT Cyber Crime Cyber Stalking Cyber Bullying Cyber Terrorism Sexual Predation

WHERE Internet Cyberspace Smart Phones Mobile Devices Digital Devices

WHEN All Seasons Every Holiday 24 Hours a Day 7 Days a Week 365 Days a Year

WHY Control or Domination Personal or Financial Gain Peer or Partner Acceptance Sexual or Criminal Deviance Political or Religious Fanaticism

10. The person is a habitual social networking site user and has been suspected or confirmed of posting messages, images, or videos of other peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s loved ones not known to the person (i.e. husband, wife, children, business, etc.). 11. The person is a habitual social networking site user and has been suspected or confirmed of keeping his/her identity completely private, yet seems to spend an inordinate amount of time online and/or using their ICT. 12. The person maintains a public live journal, blog, or website with a central theme not based in any proactive cause or creative endeavor. 13. The person is a habitual social networking site user and has been suspected or confirmed of impersonating other people and engaging with others or posting information using their felonious identity. 14. The person is a habitual social networking site and/or ICT user and has been suspected of spending more time online than with family, friends, loved ones, or peers offline. 15. The person is a habitual social networking site user and has been suspected or confirmed of encouraging both online and offline contacts to invest time or money in unsubstantiated ventures. 16. The person is a habitual social networking site and/or ICT user and evidence has confirmed they have disseminated information that is felonious about their career, expertise, or academic/professional achievements. 17. The person is a habitual social networking site and/or ICT user and evidence has confirmed they have multiple usernames with different profile descriptions, but these pursuits are not explained by internet safety and cyber security pursuits. 18. The person had been observed turning off, shutting down, or closing their ICT when a person unexpectedly approaches them. 19. The person has been confirmed to frequent websites and social networking sites that have been kept secret, discouraged, or forbidden by loved ones or colleagues. 20. The person spends large amounts of time using their ICT in private without rational reasons. 21. The person spends large amounts of time online using their ICT researching what others have posted about them or publishing and posting information about others. 22. The person has been observed or confirmed exaggerating online about erroneous events and events not crucial to their livelihood. 23. The person has been observed or confirmed to be seemingly obsessed with religious, political, or philosophical societal movements that they express online and when using ICT. 24. The person has been observed or confirmed of being seemingly obsessed with religious, political, or philosophical societal movements and spends large amounts of time in chat rooms, reading and posting information in forums, message boards, and comments all themed with their cause. 25. The person refuses or is hesitant to disclose or discuss their family, career, or any offline information leading to accurate identification. n

About the Author Dr. Michael Nuccitelli, PsyD, CFC, is a New York State licensed psychologist and certified forensic consultant. He completed his doctoral degree in clinical psychology in 1994 from the Adler School in Chicago, Illinois. In 2006, he received the Certified Forensic Consultant designation from the American College of Forensic Examiners Institute. In June 2012, Dr. Nuccitelli launched www.iPredatorInc.com, offering educational and advisory services regarding cyberbullying, cyberstalking, cybercrime, cyber terrorism, online sexual predation, and internet safety.

THE FORENSIC EXAMINERÂŽ Winter 2012/Spring 2013

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Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

CE ARTICLE: 1 CE CREDIT

VISION SCIENCE IDENTIFICATION O V E R V I E W: OCULAR DETAIL and OPHTHALMIC APPLIANCES as POTENTIAL AID in FORENSIC IDENTIFICATION By E. Robert Bertolli OD, Gregory E. Berg PhD, and D. Robert Pannone, OD

Abstract Ophthalmic appliances have been utilized in forensic identification. Additionally, ocular features may be of assistance in identification for live missing individuals and pre-decomposed deceased individuals. This paper discusses some ocular features and ophthalmic appliances potentially useful in identification. Venues of distribution regarding placement of potential identification features are also discussed. Iris biometrics has been discussed in a prior article and will not be addressed in this writing. INTRODUCTION A young girl is missing while vacationing in a foreign country. What are you going to put out to the public to help locate her? What will make her standout from the rest of the population? Her age? Her gender (What if the individual is disguised by dressing in the opposite gender)? The color of her hair (hair could be colored differently)? Her height? One feature that is difficult to obscure is the eyes.

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER速 Winter 2012/Spring 2013

CE AT HOME STUDY COURSE: 1 ce credit To get credit and complete the article, please go to http://www.acfei.com/FESP0113 and look for course code FESP0113 to take the exam and complete the evaluation. If you have special needs that prevent you from taking the exam online, please contact the registrar at 800.423.9737. This article is approved by the following for continuing education credit: (ACFEI) The American College of Forensic Examiners International provides this continuing education credit for Diplomates and certified members. After studying this article, participants should be better able to do the following:

1. List ophthalmic appliances which may aid in identification 2. Compute rarity of ophthalmic prescriptions 3. Analyze information for potential items or features useful in ocular and ophthalmic aids in the identification process 4. Discuss current applications of ophthalmic appliances and ocular features 5. Discuss how professions may use imaging retrieval of ophthalmic prescription information and its usefulness Keywords: ophthalmic prescription, vision science, forensic identification, contact lens, ocular features Target Audience: Those involved in forensic identification, forensic anthropology Disclosure: The author has nothing to disclose Program Level: Intermediate ADVANCED PREPARATION: none FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE: none

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER速

McCann

Madeleine

OCULAR FEATURES Potential identification, whether in locating a live individual or connecting with a John/ Jane Doe, may be aided with ocular features and/or ophthalmic appliances. Ocular features may be divided into categories of detection by casual observation or, more likely, detection by inspection performed by a health care provider. Iridotomy, iridectomy, artificial iris, corneal scars, radial keratotomy, LASIK, corneal graft, cataract surgery, and permanent eye liner are details which are revealed under magnification and examination conditions, therefore more likely to be detected by an eye care professional. Features more likely to be detected by casual observation include heterochromia, sector heterochromia, iris coloboma, and others.

Heterochromia The Madeleine McCann case is an example of capitalizing upon an ocular unique feature, which is apparent under casual observation. Madeleine exhibits sector heterochromia, where an increase of pigment occurs on one area of the iris and is not regularly distributed. Photographic images along with a graphic have been designed to further draw attention to her unique iris pigmentation.

A difference in coloration, usually of the iris but also of hair or skin. Heterochromia is a result of the relative excess or lack of melanin (a pigment). It may be inherited or caused by genetic mosaicism, disease, or injury.

More recently, a police agency from one of the New England states was seeking the identification and location of a young girl. The case was being treated as a missing person’s case and involved criminal international internet child abuse. A blue iris/green iris heterochromia was the unique ocular feature utilized to help identify and locate the girl, along with information about her spectacle frame.

The photographs were appropriately published in a nationally distributed optometric magazine in the hopes that an eye care professional may have encountered the child at an eye examination. The details of the case are not presently available; however, the strategy was successful. Some ocular features are not apparent under macro inspection. These include cataract

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

surgery and refractive surgery. Such features/ surgeries are observable during a thorough biomicroscopic examination. If an ocular feature is thought to be of use in identification, it is the author’s opinion(s) to have an optometrist or ophthalmologist review the eye features/appliances from the examination records or available photographs, and make suggestions in determining what details and what audience to best disseminate the potential identifying information. These questions should be answered: Would the feature be more readily observed in an examination, and therefore disseminate the pertinent information in optometry and ophthalmology publications? Is the feature readily observed, and the information made available for the general public? Is the feature observable by both audiences? OPTOSEARCH and JPAC The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) and its Central Identification Laboratory (CIL) are charged with the mission to achieve the fullest possible accounting of all Americans missing as a result of the nation’s past conflicts. The JPAC is composed of approximately 475 personnel of whom the majority are uniformed military members, and is directed by a two-star general. The CIL has specialized civilian staff, composed of advanced degree-holding anthropologists (around 35 MA and PhDs) and three professional forensic dentists. In pursuit of the mission, the JPAC fields approximately 7080 recovery teams each year across the globe, excavating and recovering missing U.S. service personnel from countries such as Vietnam, Laos, South Korea, Papua New Guinea, Germany, France, etc. There are very few places JPAC teams have not been deployed, and some of the most unusual recoveries have been in Greenland, North Korea, and the mountain heights of Tibet and Irian Jaya. Site types range from WWII bomber crash sites where most of the plane is still intact to isolated grave sites in the middle of a jungle (Figure Xa). At the current time, the total number of missing U.S. service personnel is approximately 200 for the Cold War, 1,800 for the Vietnam War, 8,000 for the Korean War, and 78,000 for WWII. These numbers are approximate and depending on the source, may vary significantly, particularly for WWII. JPAC excavation teams typically are composed of 11 military members and are led by a civilian anthropologist. The average deploy-

Ophthalmic Appliances Numerous examples of utilizing prescription eyewear in forensic identification exist. The earliest found was the connection between a murderer’s unique spectacles discovered at the scene of a murder victim: the 1924 murder of Bobby Franks by Leopold and Loeb.

Figure Xa. Aerial view of a Vietnam era aircraft crash site in Laos. Note different excavation techniques used (steps) due to steepness of the slope. Active excavation is in the center of the photograph, screening stations are to the sides of the excavation. Figure Xb. Dry screening sediments in Palau, while working on an American WWII aircraft crash site.

ment is between 35 and 60 days, and the excavation of any given site may take from three or four days to over 100 days. Frequently, the excavation teams dig approximately 500 square meters at a site per mission, using archaeological techniques and processing all of the site sediments through ¼ in. mesh screens (Figure Xb). Local nationals are employed to help excavate the sites; a large site may employ 200 local nationals, while smaller sites may only utilize 5-10 individuals. The excavation is documented through standard archaeological practices such as daily notes, photographs, line drawings, and section profiles. These efforts are undertaken to ensure that each site is processed in a scientifically sound manner, and all material evidence and human remains are documented in accordance to evidentiary standards. The recovered material evidence and human remains from a site are transported back to the CIL in Hawaii for identification. Once there, the remains and evidence are subjected to multiple analytical tests in order to produce a scientifically accurate identification of a missing person. Multiple lines of evidence are used in this process and include but are not limited to dental analysis via comparisons using antemortem and postmortem x-rays and charting, anthropological analysis that details the biological profile (age, sex, race, stature, trauma, and personally identifying

features of the remains), material evidence analysis that examines all significant personal effects or military gear, mitochondrial DNA, and nuclear DNA analysis. The CIL does not undertake its own DNA analyses; rather those specialty analyses are conducted by the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL). Once the totality of the evidence is assembled and it is judged to be accurate and without question, the Scientific Director of the CIL makes the identification of the remains. The identification process can be lengthy, as each specialty or analysis takes many manhours. Compounding the normal problems surrounding analytical time, cases that are heavily commingled (the human remains are mixed together due to crash dynamics, looting, or intentional burial) take even longer, as efforts are made to segregate out each individual and identify any personal belongings that may be associated with him/her. The quickest identification made by the CIL was approximately three days, though the typical case takes upwards of two or more years. In some instances, cases that were received in the early 1990s are now being completed; the advancement of the science over the last two decades in human genetics, anthropology, and artifact analysis has allowed for previously unidentifiable remains to now be identified and returned to their families.

A more recent example involving ophthalmic eyewear includes a Connecticut eye doctor who was subpoenaed to testify that a robbery suspect did in fact have spectacles prescribed. The suspect was seen on videotape wearing spectacles during the crime, yet the suspect claimed it was not him since he did not have spectacles. Dr. Forkiotis, a Connecticut State Police surgeon, was commonly asked to retrieve spectacle lens powers from lens fragments in order to determine if the findings were consistent with the spectacle prescription of the victim or the alleged offender. Review of Optometry featured information on a Jane Doe’s (UFMA 187) prescription eyewear hoping that a practitioner might match the prescription and the spectacle frame specifications to a patient in their database. The FBI Top Ten Most Wanted “Whitey” Bulger’s image was also featured in Review of Optometry in hopes of locating the fugitive. He sports a rather strong powered pair of spectacles.

Whitey Bulger

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

Members from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command working at remote excavation sites in the Xepon Province, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, in the Fall of 2009. The JPAC mission is to achieve the fullest possible accounting of all Americans missing as a result of our nation’s past conflicts. (JPAC photo’s by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Jesse M. Shipps and U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Rebekah M. Ide.)

“Until They Are Home” 28

Secondary to this mission, the JPAC-CIL participates in humanitarian missions around the world in instances of need when our particular specialties are useful (typically in instances of personal identification/recovery/mass disasters). Anthropologists from the JPAC-CIL have participated in recovery and identifications from 9/11 (Pentagon), Korean Air Lines Flight 801, the 2005 Thailand Tsunami, and, more recently, Agni Air Flight 101 in Tibet. Along with these duties, JPAC anthropologists and odontologists are frequently asked to participate in local and national forensic identification cases for police departments, medical examiners, and court officials. The increasing demand for scientific accuracy and new methods in anthropology and artifact analysis joined again in 2005. An anthropologist from the CIL posed a (supposed) series of simple questions to a military ophthalmologist. The first question of “does this prescription match the antemortem record for this individual?” was answered with a simple “yes.” A follow-up question was asked, for which there was no clear answer. That

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

question, “how strong of a match is it (is the prescription unique, rare, or common)?” led to a joint effort between the anthropologist and the ophthalmologist to quantify the strength of the match between an ophthalmic device prescription and antemortem records for use in court cases and personal identification. This is particularly important in the forensic community, as scientific results need to have known error and accuracy rates, among other issues (vis-à-vis the Daubert ruling). The answer to the second question was found simply by using a statistical approach to eyeglass prescription strengths and their frequencies in modern populations. The resulting findings were published in a few peer-reviewed journals (Berg and Collins 2007, Collins and Berg 2008) and are now available for use in an online tool. This webbased tool, OptoSearch, allows for investigators to calculate the rarity of a prescription using multiple databases that have a combined total of over 380,000 prescriptions. It is therefore an excellent representation of the rarity of prescription data in the U.S. and likely the world (this

The ultimate goal of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, and of the agencies involved in returning America’s heroes home, is to conduct global search, recovery, and laboratory operations in order to support the Department of Defense’s personnel accounting efforts.

tool can be found at: http://bit.ly/cxbZwX). It can also be reached using a simple web search, keyword OptoSearch. A detailed set of instructions is provided in the publications that are listed on the website. In short, a detective, an investigator, an ophthalmologist, optometrist, or just about anyone with knowledge of eyeglass strengths can use this tool to calculate the frequency of a given prescription, and thus determine if it is common, rare, or unique. It can be directly applied to identification cases (or criminal cases) to show the credibility of a conclusion regarding the strength of a match between antemortem records and eyeglasses presented as evidence. A short military case example using this tool and the rarity of the prescription will be described below, followed by its application in a civilian murder trial. In 1967, a U.S. military F-105 pilot crashed while on an armed reconnaissance mission over Southeast Asia. The pilot was declared MIA, and his remains were not recovered. In 1993 and 1997, JPAC-CIL investigative teams went to Lao People’s Democratic Republic to investigate the loss incident. Through the interview process, it was discovered that local witnesses believed that the pilot’s body was buried near the aircraft crash site. In 2002 and 2003, JPACCIL excavation teams dug the purported burial site and recovered skeletonized remains, as well as portions of an anti-gravity flight suit, pilotrelated equipment, and several sunglass lens fragments (Figure Xc). The remains and material evidence was repatriated to the JPAC-CIL immediately following the recovery mission. The four fragments of sunglass lens were analyzed using a three-point laser lensometer, the Humphrey® 350 Lens Analyzer, and two yielded a readable prescription of: sphere = -0.50, cylinder = -0.25, axis = unreadable. These fragments exactly matched the left eye prescription of the missing pilot, an eye exam that was dated approximately one year before he went missing. The left eye prescription was compared against the database provided in OptoSearch and returned an exact match frequency of 0.66, or less than 1% of all prescriptions for a left eye. The pilot’s complete eye

prescription is unique in the database, generating a frequency of 2.66x10-6. The strength of match frequencies indicate that another individual having the exact same left eye prescription (not including axis) is approximately six in one thousand, and a minimum estimated frequency for an exact match to both eyes is approximately two in one hundred thousand. While these frequencies are extremely strong, additional work can be done with this case using other lines of evidence. If two different pieces of data are independent of each other, then their probability inferences (frequencies) can be combined via the product rule via a straight multiplication of their frequencies. Leney and Adams (2004) have applied the product rule in cases with mitochondrial DNA and odontological patterns, with the assumption that the data sets are independent. Optical frequencies are similar to odontological patterns of extraction and restoration. They each have a genetic basis, but are likely affected by disease patterns, environment, trauma, etc. Genetic coding for dental states and the subsequent treatment of the dentition should be independent of underlying genetic coding for eye conditions and the treatment of those refractive errors. If both of these data sets are used together, the probabilities for identification dramatically increase. The dental charting for the pilot was input into a dental search program called Odontosearch (which is also available on the JPAC website). The dental pattern frequency, using a generic search in all databases, yielded a frequency of 2.49x10-5. The frequency indicates that the exact dental pattern is found in only two out of ten thousand persons. Being conservative, the frequency found for the left eye prescription was used here (0.66). Employing the product rule, the dental and optical frequencies were multiplied together to determine the chance that an individual selected from the population at random would have the exact same dental pattern and matching refractive error. Together, the frequency is 1.64x10-7, or worded slightly differently, approximately three per one million persons are estimated to have the same dental pattern and optical correction by chance alone. This is extremely strong evidence for the identification of the pilot, just based on the dental and ophthalmic patterns, let alone any other evidence such as the biological profile from anthropology, mtDNA or nuclear DNA analysis, the correct aircraft, any personal identification media, and so forth.

WATANABE MURDER CASE, HAWAII A second example illustrates the use of ophthalmic corrections in the judicial system. On April 12, 2007, a 21year-old Japanese visitor to Hawaii went missing while walking along Pupukea Road on the North Shore of Oahu. The inhumanity of her story, and that of her now convicted killer, is difficult to comprehend. Ms. Watanabe was the youngest of five siblings (all brothers), very socially withdrawn, and highly dependent on her mother. She rarely looked people in the eye, and rarely spoke to people outside of her immediate family. Due to these difficulties, her family devised a strategy to bring her out of her shell that entailed multiple trips to a relative’s house on Oahu lasting for several months in hopes that she would establish more self-reliance and become more social. On her final trip, Ms. Watanabe developed a daily regimen of being up early, cleaning the house, and then departing for Sunset Elementary School where she volunteered during the morning shift. When she was finished, a school employee or friend would drive her to the base of the hill where she lived and she would walk up the hill (Pupukea Road) for exercise. All of this was typically completed by 10 a.m. each day. When she had not returned by 10 a.m. on April 12th, her caretaker went looking for her, and reported her missing to Honolulu Police Department (HPD) at 11:42 a.m. The missing persons report triggered a series of actions and reactions by the HPD, including canvassing the area, interviewing citizens, alerting Crimestoppers and other media, and searching the area with other departments (medical, fire). Over the course of several days, citizens reported seeing a Japanese girl on the morning of April 12th walking along Pupukea Road. One individual reported seeing her talking to an individual in a Hauoli Pest Control truck and indicated that she eventually entered the truck. A tip, but on a completely separate matter, was reported to HPD by phone—a man was seen digging a hole by flashlight at the Kahana Bay Fishpond near midnight on the 12th of April. The man was using a new shovel and gloves, and when approached, gave his name as “Matt Ford.” The man soon fled the scene and the witness had the clarity of mind to scratch the license plate number into the road stripping with a rock. This report led to a follow-up on the plate number; it was licensed to a Hauoli Pest Control fleet vehicle driven by Kirk Mathew Lankford. Police subsequently interviewed

Figure Xc. Sunglass fragments recovered from the crash site. Note the small size of the lens pieces, yet they still yielded viable prescription data. Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

CONTACT LENSES Contact lenses are typically worn in lieu of spectacles, or worn for cosmetic purposes as enhancing or changing apparent eye color. Tinted and colored contact lenses may give the observer the impression that the wearer’s eye color is different than the natural hue. In that case, using eye color as an aid in identification may be counterproductive.

Colored contact vs Natural Iris

Regarding live identification, some colored contact lenses may obscure iris detail and interfere with iris biometric scans (ref-author’s experience). Contact lenses may be found on an unidentified corpse or at a crime scene. They may be buried in soil for years and typically will not deteriorate (author’s experience with contacts buried seven years retain power parameters). Experienced eye care practitioners may retrieve prescription information. Power, type, manufacturer, specialty such as toric designs for astigmatism, soft material, rigid material, diameter, base curve(s), color, and any other information should be measured and recorded.

Contact lens identification

Mr. Lankford on Saturday, April 14th, where he denied all knowledge of Ms. Watanabe, or having ever seen her. During an interview on the following Monday, HPD secured both Mr. Lankford’s private truck, as well as the Hauoli Pest Control truck for searches, only to find a new windshield installed on the pest control truck on April 12th due to a reported “bird strike.” A luminol search of the pest control truck showed bloodstains on the passenger side seat and door. In addition, a pair of silver wire-rimmed glasses was found in the truck. The glasses, as well as antemortem prescriptions for Ms. Watanabe, were sent to the CIL for analysis. The glasses were initially analyzed to determine prescription strength by an optometry technician at the 15th Airwing Optometry Clinic on Hickam Airforce. The resulting prescription data, R eye -5.50 x -3.50 x 178, L eye -4.25 x -2 x 180, was within ANSI standards of being a match to antemortem prescription data for Ms. Watanabe. Using the aforementioned strength of match tool, the prescription was determined to be unique, and was calculated to have an estimated frequency of 2.57x10-6 or 0.0003% in the population at large. In other words, 2.5 people out of one million might have a similar prescription. Given the fact that Oahu has a population fewer than one million individuals, the likelihood of another individual having this prescription was nearly zero. The match of the eyeglasses placed Ms. Watanabe in or near Mr. Lankford’s pest control truck. On the strength of this evidence, in conjunction with the luminol test for blood staining, Mr. Lankford was placed under arrest, and the investigation was continued in earnest. Other evidence recovered by HPD included a GPS unit in the Hauoli Pest Control truck. The unit showed several “unscheduled” stops occurred on April 12th outside of the normal work calls. One of these stops was shown to be at a Foodland near Pupukea Road, where Hefty bags, Clorox spray, paper towels, and a can of “Full Throttle Fury” energy drink were purchased at 11:20 a.m. Evidence from Mr. Lankford’s personal truck included the packaging for a pair of work gloves purchased from a local Home Depot store. The gloves were purchased on April 12th at 10:15 p.m., along with a shovel, more Hefty bags, duct tape, and a flashlight with batteries. Over the course of the next 10 months, police searched for the body of Ms. Watanabe, now believed to be deceased. At least three areas on Oahu were rigorously searched with

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

the aid of professional anthropologists from the CIL while police and local volunteers investigated numerous other areas. Her body was never found, nor was any additional evidence of a burial location unearthed. The blood evidence in the Hauoli Pest Control truck was eventually found to match Ms. Watanabe, with the likelihood of it matching another individual being approximately 1:304 trillion. Prosecutors brought Mr. Lankford to trial on second-degree murder charges without a body in February 2008. On April 15, 2008, Kirk Lankford was found guilty of second-degree murder; his defense was that in fear of losing his job, he disposed of Ms. Watanabe’s body in the ocean after she died in a freak accident involving his pest control truck. He claimed to have accidentally hit her and was driving her home when she became agitated and leapt from the moving truck, striking her head on a large boulder on the side of the road, killing her. The jury rejected his claim and found him guilty of second-degree murder with the possibility of parole. In August 2008, the parole board determined his minimum sentence to be 150 years before being eligible for parole. Mr. Lankford is currently moving through the appeals process while incarcerated. TECHNICAL NOTES, OPHTHALMIC APPLIANCES, and OCULAR FEATURES Spectacle frame information and lens prescriptions may be retrieved from eye doctors’ examination/spectacle order records. Conversely, spectacle frames have retrievable information such as the temple size, eyewear size, bridge size, frame color, manufacturer, and model. The lens prescription may be retrieved using an instrument commonly called a lensmeter, vertexometer, or lensometer. These may be manually operated or automated. An experienced eye care provider should be utilized in measuring these parameters. By convention, the right lens is measured first (a lens fragment may be sufficient in measuring lens power). The spherical powers, astigmatic powers, and axis or position of the astigmatism power and bifocal/multifocal powers are all noted if applicable. The optical centers of the lenses are determined on each lens and the pupillary distance is measured as the distance between the centers. Bifocal heights are also measured. The type of bifocal or multifocal are noted if applicable, and any other lens features or coatings/tints are noted. These include photochromic lenses (change darkness depending upon illumination), tints such as solid, gradient, mirrored,

Ocular feature list, a sampling of some ocular features of interest Eye color ** Heterochromia ** Sector Heterochromia ** Ocular prosthetic* Iris implant * Intra ocular implant and type* Refractive surgery and type* Aniridia** Anisocoria Iridotomy/ iridectomy* Corneal graft* Corneal scars* Iris nevus(i)* Pterygium Permanent make-up/eyeliner

Frame manufactuer, color, temple size

Automated Lensometer

polarized, etc. Surface treatments such as anti-reflective coating and ultraviolet filter should be noted. Spectacles are typically worn most moments while awake. Lens material should be determined such as glass, plastic, and type of plastic if possible. Glass lenses should be tested with a polarimeter to determine if they were heat tempered. Edge treatment should be noted: grooved, polished, safety bevel. They are exposed to the environment the wearer experiences. Sometimes debris on the lenses, fingerprints, or wearerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cells may be found. Glass lenses

Eyewire/Bridge size

may have pits if the wearer was in the presence of grinding sparks. An experienced eye care practitioner will typically recognize the fore-mentioned aspects. Ocular prosthesis Ophthalmic appliances (eyeglass frames, eyeglass lenses, contact lenses, Intra Ocular Lenses, iris implants, corneal implants, ocular prosthetics etc.) might remain years after body decomposition. A careful inspection of the remains and surrounding site is necessary to discover the items or their fragments.

OTHER OPHTHALMIC APPLIANCES Individuals may employ ocular prosthetics, intraocular lens implants, or iris implants. Custom ocular prosOcular prosthetics thetics are typically made to match the existing eye, or matched from a photograph if both natural eyes are in need of replacement. Stock prosthetics are not made specifically to the individual as custom prosthetics are, yet both require professional fitting and matching, typically by an ocularist or specially trained eye care practitioner. Iris prosthetics may be removed for routine cleaning. Intra Ocular Implants are used to replace the natural lens removed surgically when cataracts impair vision. There are many IOL designs. These are typically found in older individuals, but younger patients can have IOLs with early cataract formation or in a type of refractive surgery termed clear lens implant. Iris implants are allowed by compassionate use by the Food and Drug Administration where the natural iris is missing (aniridia) or damaged. These may be fashioned to match the existing iris and may be textured or have a flat surface. The devices are surgically implanted in the eye. Currently, two iris prosthetics are implanted in the United States. Healthcare providers are allowed through the Health Insurance Portability Privacy Act (HIPPA) to aid law enforcement in investigations of crime and protection of victims.

* denotes more likely detected via professional observation. **May be obscured by cosmetic or colored contacts

SPECTACLE FRAME INFORMATION Bridge size Eyewire size Temple size Color Manufacturer

SPECTACLE LENS INFORMATION Lens power: sphere, astigmatism, axis, bifocal/ multifocal add, prism Pupillary distance Material Coatings Ultraviolet protection Tint Photochromic Special purpose: vocational, golfing, shooting, industrial safety * requires professionally operated ophthalmic equipment

CONTACT LENSES Rigid or soft Powers Base curve if retrievable Diameter Specialty, bifocal, astigmatic, colored, tinted, special cosmetic *requires professionally operated ophthalmic equipment

IMPLANTABLE DEVICES Intra ocular lenses Iris implant Corneal implant *professional observation

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINERÂŽ

EXAMPLE SEEKING AID IN IDENTIFICATION The following is an example of seeking aid from the professional eye care community in a currently unsolved pair of related murder cases. This was disseminated by professional e-mail list-serves across North America and in states involving the likely geographical areas. Dear Colleagues, In 1995, Massachusetts State Police Detectives canvassed North East optical establishments including my optometric office. They were attempting to match prescription eyewear of Jane Doe 187UFMA found in Tolland, Massachusetts, near the Connecticut

border. The spectacle information and the prescription were retrieved. The investigators asked to have us manually sift through our records to find someone with that particular prescription/ spectacle combination—back then most records were on paper, and not computerized. The information was also sent out to Review of Optometry over the years, without any response. Prescription eyewear has been used in forensic identification in many cases. Apparently the earliest example was in 1920 in the murder investigation of Bobby Franks. Prescription eyewear is currently utilized by the Joint Prisoner of War/ Missing in Action Accounting Command (JPAC) in tentative identification of our lost War Dead.

Jane Doe 187 UFMA, Spectacles On October 6, 1995, a camper filling his trailer with drinking water found the partially decomposed Jane Doe 187UFMA in Tolland State Forest, Massachusetts. Authorities believe she was killed in the vicinity of a station where campers dispose of trash and sewage. No sleeping gear was found with the victim.

Estimated Date of Death: 4-8 days prior Cause of death: homicide Estimated age: 30-45 years old Approximate Height and Weight: 5’2-5’4”; 120-140 lbs Distinguishing Characteristics: She is a light-skinned female of unknown race. Possibly Black or Hispanic, or perhaps of the Native American community. Brown hair with some graying. Medium build. Dentals: X-Rays available. Upper and lower bridge work with only a few of her own natural teeth left. The dentures appear to be inexpensively made. DNA: Available: nucDNA at Massachusetts Police Forensics & Technology Center and mtDNA at New Jersey State Police Office of Forensic Sciences. Fingerprints: Available, although no matches in the FBI database. Eyeglasses with a prescription of –4.25 –0.50 x 180 O.D., –3.50 –0.25 x 170, in size 52/16-135 maroon/gold frames from the Metaline Collection (#7) line from Value Eyewear Inc., of Clifton, N.J., manufactured in China.

Clothing: She was wearing the clothes that appear in the pictures below. A unique drawstring hooded sweatshirt with the word Trends in a diamond on the left chest (sold in and around upstate NY). The sweatshirt also had a red and black Aztec print on the hood, sleeves, and pouch pockets. Bill Blass pleated jeans size 8, size 40B bra, a maroon, long-sleeved, Sarah Morgan velour shirt and navy blue Passport shoes with gold studs (size 7 1/2). JEWELRY: She was wearing several silver rings, a plastic ring on her left index finger and a metal ring on her right index finger, dangling silver earrings, and had a gold watch with a black face on her left wrist. She was not wearing socks and her toenails were painted red.

She was wearing a style of sweatshirt that was only sold in three stores in this part of the country: all three of those stores were in the Capital (Albany) Region. The sweatshirt could only have been purchased in 1994 at a now defunct store called The Stockroom. The Stockroom had locations at either the Rotterdam Square Mall, Wilton Mall, or the Northway Mall. The victim also had a pack of Carlton cigarettes that had a New York state tax stamp. The stamp itself was used by a company in Latham, which distributed cigarettes throughout the Capital Region.

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

YOU MAY BE INSTRUMENTAL IN IDENTIFYING TWO UN-IDENTIFED MURDER VICTIMS WITH FORENSIC VISION SCIENCE More recently, investigators have linked another Jane Doe (175UFCT) to Jane Doe 187UFMA found a few days prior in nearby New Britain, Connecticut. DNA has recently revealed that the two are closely related with a very high probability they are mother and daughter. Unlike Jane Doe 187UFMA, there were no spectacle or contact lenses found with the daughter. Perhaps matching Jane Doe’s prescription eyewear to an exam record or an optician’s patient record may aid in establishing the identities of these two ladies. No reports of missing persons resembling the two Jane Does have been filed. This fact makes the case more difficult. Some speculation

for this lack of missing persons reports include the possibility that the two are possible migrant workers or from a Native American community where travel over a large region may expected and may not be thought to be missing. If you or any of your colleagues have served migrant or Native American communities, please search your memories and if possible, your patient records in hope of a tentative identification. Eye care professionals serving the Albany area in the mid-nineties may be instrumental in the identification process, although the two have traversed a large geographical area, as discovered by assessment of isotopes in tooth and hair.

Jane 175UFCT (reconstruction by Charles E Holt, NCMEC and NCMEC) Located on September 28, 1995, near a shopping center in New Britain, Hartford County, Connecticut. She was wrapped in two sleeping bags, likely killed elsewhere with a single gunshot to the head.

Estimated Date of Death: Recent Estimated age: 17-20 years old Approximate Height and Weight: 5’3”-5’5”; 116 lbs. Distinguishing Characteristics: Dark brown/black hair. Her hair was styled up and held in place with bobby pins and an elastic ponytail holder. Brown eyes. Light complexion. She had a pierced navel with a silver navel ring and pierced ears. Clothing: She was wearing a brown/beige Croquet brand striped pullover shirt, size small; white Union Bay brand bibbed overalls, size small; white athletic socks; tan LA Gear brand shoes, size 6 1/2; a maroon bra. Jewelry: A Gitano brand wristwatch, worn with the face on the inside of her wrist rather than the outside, a gold herringbone necklace, and a ring with a pink stone. Dentals: Available. Good dental work.

With the development of the two Jane Does having a high probability of being mother and daughter, and the fact of refractive error often having a hereditary component, the daughter may have needed eye care. Perhaps someone will remember one or both of the two ladies visiting their eye care establishment or ordering spectacles. The unidentified ladies have apparently been associated with a large geographic area. Forensic isotope testing demonstrates that Jane Doe 187UFMA has been in the Northeast for several years and in the Albany, New York area, and additionally north and west of the area. She was also determined to have been along the East coast.

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

If you have any information on the two unidentified individuals, please contact: Lt. James Wardwell at New Britain Police Department, 860.826.3065, email james.wardwell@newbritainct.gov, New York State Police Troop G, Major Crimes Investigator Gloria Coppola 518.783.3210 ; Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit, Hampden County, 413.747.4810* Mon-Fri 8:30a.m.–5:00p.m.; Massachusetts State Police Russell Barracks, 413.862.3312. Sincerely, E R Bertolli OD, Private Practice, Adjunct Speaker Connecticut Police Academy, Director of the Forensic Optometry Division of the ACFEI, Connecticut Division International Association for Identification n Information provided by the Doe Network, Massachusetts Investigators, and Connecticut Investigators

References: “Have You Seen My Daughter?” March 17 2008, the Nation, Headlines http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2008/03/07/ headlines http://www.findmadeleine.com/updates/index.html AOA News July 2008 pg 8 Famous American Trials Illinois v Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, http://law?wmkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/leoploeb/leopold.htm accessed 5/16/2011 http://doenetwork.org/cases/187ufma.html accessed 5/16/2011 http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/james.-bulger Berg, Gregory E and Randall S Collins Personal identification based on prescription eyewear. Journal of Forensic Sciences 52:406-411. Collins, Randall S and Gregory E Berg 2008 Forensic Application of Optical Correction. Optometry Leney, Mark D and Bradley J Adams 2004 The use of non-unique dental characters and non-unique DNA types to estimate probability of identity. Proceedings of the 56th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences; 2004 Feb. 16-21, Dallas, TX. Colorado Springs, CO: American Academy of Forensic Sciences: 314-15. Bertolli E Forkiotis C Pannone D Ophthalmic Appliances in Identification: Information Retrieved from Spectacle Lenses Journal of Forensic Idnetification p 540-548 Vol56#4 www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/summary/privacysummary.pdf see page 7 accessed 5/16/2011

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The authors would like to thank the optometry staff of Lackland and Hickam Air Force Bases, Mr. Howard Hardy and CDR Penny Walter of the Naval Ophthalmic Support and Training Activity, Mr. Patrick Frankle, Ms. Rene Lisjak, Ms. Chris Bayot, and Ms. Cheryl Shigeta for database and web-building applications at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command.

About the authors E. Robert Bertolli, OD, an optometric physician, is a Life Fellow of the American College of Forensic Examiners and director of its forensic optometry division. He is an Adjunct Speaker at the Connecticut Police Training Academy (Police Officers Standards and Training) for medical aspects of horizontal gaze nystagmus and vision science for impaired driving enforcement. Dr. Bertolli is also on several boards, including the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Association of Optometrists; editorial board of The Forensic Examiner®; and former vice chair of the American Board of Forensic Examiners. Dr. Bertolli’s articles have been in many publications, including but not limited to the Review of Optometry, The Forensic Examiner®, The Tactical Edge (of the National Tactical Officers Association), Black Belt, Journal of Forensic Identification, and the Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security International. He is the first recipient of the “Distinguished Member” award of the American College of Forensic Examiners. Dr. Gregory E. Berg, PhD, earned his BA in anthropology from the University of Arizona in 1993 and his MA from the bioarchaeology program from Arizona State University in 1999. He completed his PhD at the University of Tennessee in 2008. He is currently a forensic anthropologist and laboratory manager at the JPAC-Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii, where he works on the recovery and identification of missing U.S. service personnel. He has over seventeen years of field experience in archaeology and physical anthropology and has presented or published numerous articles and papers in the Journal of Forensic Sciences, Journal of Archaeological Science, Military Medicine, Journal of Forensic Identification, and at various annual meetings. His recent research has concentrated on trauma analysis, aging techniques, human identification from eyewear, and intra- and inter-observer error studies. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Dr. Pannone, OD, CMI-V is a behavioral optometrist who has been practicing in Norwich Ct. since 1960. He received his BS from U.R.I.1953, and his BS OD from Mass. College of Optometry 1958 (Beta Sigma Kappa). Dr. Pannone also studied at Gesell Institute of Child Development 1969, and today he deals with children’s vision and learning problems. He is a member of American Optometric Association, and for 35 years has been a part of the Optometric Extension Program. He established the vision care and health section for the Haitian Health Foundation, Jeremie, Haiti in 1989 and still serves as a consultant. In 1990 he became a Connecticut State Police Surgeon, and today is an adjunct lecturer at the Connecticut Police Academy on Vision, Drugs and Alcohol and their effects on driving. He is a member of the American College of Forensic Examiners International. He has been a co- author on many peer reviewed articles. Dr. Pannone is a member of the DRE section of the IACP.

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

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♦ Henry Lee Dr. Henry Lee, one of the top forensic experts in the country, was one of our keynote speakers. He teamed up with Dr. Cyril Wecht, another renowned forensic expert, to discuss the topic of Pitfalls in Forensic Science: Lessons Learned in High Profile Cases. The information shared in this session was based on the personal experiences of both Dr. Lee and Dr. Wecht. During the two-hour session they gave behind the scenes information on cases involving political figures, as well as celebrities, such as John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Elvis Presley, Tammy Wynette, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and many others. They discussed inadequate post-mortem examination by non-forensic pathologists, the failure to have an autopsy performed, and the incompetent handling of complex cases by attorneys who are not familiar with the complex medical and forensic aspects of homicide cases and how these errors can impact a case. The grim details of their presentation were tempered by their wit as they exchanged comments with one another. This session was truly one of the highlights of our 2012 Executive Summit.

♣ Cyril Wecht Dr. Cyril Wecht, one of the top forensic experts in the country, was another of our keynote speakers. As he paired up with Dr. Henry Lee, another renowned forensic expert, he explored the topic of Pitfalls in Forensic Science: Lessons Learned in High Profile Cases. Dr. Wecht shared information that he had garnered first hand in high profile cases throughout his career, such as John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Elvis Presley, Tammy Wynette, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and many others. He discussed inadequate post-mortem examination by non-forensic pathologists, the failure to have an autopsy performed, and the incompetent handling of complex cases by attorneys who are not familiar with the complex medical and forensic aspects of homicide cases and how these errors can impact a case. Dr. Wecht’s astuteness was evident as he exchanged comments with Dr. Lee. This session, with two of the most renowned men in forensic science, was an exceptional event at our 2012 Executive Summit.

♥ Jan Hargrave Jan Hargrave, renowned author and expert on reading body language, was our opening keynote speaker at ES-21. Ms. Hargrave taught her audience about the ways in which our bodies communicate to the world around us. By taking the information she presented, audience members learned how to “read” their clients, family, prospects, and associates. She revealed how to find the “hidden messages” used in everyday life and showed how to uncover the truth in any conversation or situation. Working with thousands in the field of personal growth and self-expression through seminars and workshops for the past 15 years, Ms. Hargrave’s articulate and expressive delivery kept her audience captivated. Ms. Hargrave inspires and trains leaders in many of today’s leading corporations, such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Merrill Lynch, Starbucks, Rockwell, ESPN, Mars Chocolate, Oracle, Apple, ExxonMobil, Chase Manhattan Bank, NASA, El Paso Energy, Bank of America, and at the USA MWR Training and Development Center in Heidelberg, Germany. She was a distinguished addition to our ES-21 lineup. n

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CE ARTICLE: 1 CE CREDIT BY John Daab, PhD, MBA, MPS, MA

Processing Questionable Ancient Ceramic Greek Pottery (1200 BCE–1CE) for Authenticity/Fakery

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

Abstract

Ceramic pottery has a long history of manufacture dating back to 18000 BCE. Clay fired and glazed pottery, from the ancient Greek world, are sold in the auction market for over $100,000 (Christie’s 2007). The decorative art market is unregulated and uncontrolled to the extent that fakes and forgeries are advertised and sold easily and repeatedly. This article provides the steps and processes to challenge buying the overvalued fake. Art forensics through scientific and non-scientific analysis of the material make-up of the pottery, its provenance or history of documented ownership, and tell tales of period and style enables the would be buyer to take the necessary precautions to vet the garbage from the authentic.

CE AT HOME STUDY COURSE: 1 ce credit To get credit and complete the article, please go to http://www.acfei. com/FESP0213 and look for course code FESP0213 to take the exam and complete the evaluation. If you have special needs that prevent you from taking the exam online, please contact the registrar at 800.423.9737. This article is approved by the following for continuing education credit: (ACFEI) The American College of Forensic Examiners International provides this continuing education credit for Diplomates and certified members. After studying this article, participants should be better able to do the following: 1. Identify how clay fired pots are made. 2. Identify the scientific and non-scientific processes used to vet the fake from the real. 3. Recite the historical styles and shapes of clay works so as to be able to identify the time periods of manufacture. Keywords: Pottery, Greek vases, Ceramics, Terracotta, Ancient clay works Target Audience: Collectors/ Consumers/ Academics interested in ascertaining how art is authenticated Disclosure: The author has nothing to disclose

Introduction In the early 20th century the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET), through their European purchasing agent John Marshall, purchased 3 Etruscan terracotta works. Giselle Richter, the curator of Greek and Roman art for the MET authenticated the works and placed them in the lobby entrance so the public could view them as they entered the museum. Fifty years later, Joseph Noble, hired in the 1950s with only a taste for artifacts and little experience, thought differently about the pieces guarding the museum entrance. Noble investigated the works and found that instead of being made in antiquity, the works were actually made sometime after the 19th century (Gross, 2009). Noble had a laboratory evaluate the glaze on the works and it was found that the glaze was made with chemical compounds made in the 1850s. After 50 years of being exhibited, the MET removed the pieces in 1960. In 2006, Collector Antiquities reported a similar case whereby a 2,500-year-old Greek Amphora vase was sold for $3,200 and represented as genuine. It was examined by Christie’s and other experts and found to be a fake. The seller was notified by Ebay and Paypal with a request to return the buyer’s money. The seller did return the money but listed the same fake a few days later as being a genuine work (Collector Antiquities, 2006).

Program Level: Basic ADVANCED PREPARATION: none FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE: none

The Specialist’s Guide to Chinese Antiques reported in 2010 that the supply of Chinese ceramics is “…totally out of control.” On any given day where there were 20 items for sale in the late 1990s there are now 300 selling for a total of $250,000. Most of the sellers are located in China, making the items for sale questionable in terms of authenticity. China has strict export rules regarding national treasure and at the same time weak laws as they apply to the creation of fakes (Gluckman, 2002). This article focuses on the plenitude of fake pottery and porcelain being presented as genuine and how to apply basic forensic principles to vet the bogus from the real. The article will begin with definitions of art forensics and ceramics.

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Art Forensics Forensics consists of many fields all related to the science of establishing a match between an exemplar or authentic standard and sample (Oracle, n.d.). The forensic examiner looks for a match between fingerprints, documents, handwriting, bullet trajectory markings, and trace evidence, to name a few. In the field of Art Forensics, the examiner looks for a match between a work from the hand of the artist and another questionable work from the same artist. Paintings, sculptures, ceramics, furniture, and glass, are some of the artworks found in the field of art. Art forensic experts examine the materials used to make a questionable work—paint pigment, clay, and metal—and attempt to match the materials with the exemplar. The approach is built upon the three columns of art authentication: scientific and perceptual analysis, historical records (provenance), and connoisseurship (Daab, 2008). The weakest member in the analysis is connoisseurship, which is no more than a subjective call for a match between exemplar and sample primarily based on an individual’s experience, which may be poor or extensive. The call for authentic by the connoisseur may be based on objective criteria, but the criteria is not reliable since even the most experienced connoisseur has his conclusions refuted by a consensus of experts following rigorous empirical approaches. Connoisseurship is, however, being slowly shoved out of the way and replaced by a more empirical perspective grounded in research and quantitative analysis. The days of Berenson-type rush to judgments because of a feeling in the stomach or that the art sings to you are coming to a close (Peterson, 2002). It is expected that as the smoke of empiricism wafts its way through museums, galleries, and research entities, conclusions about style will be logical and scientific rather than idiosyncratic. Overview of Pottery Authentication The images below represent the various points of information related to those connoisseurial aspects of a work, which combined with provenance or documentation and scientific methodology help the forensic examiner separate the real from the bogus. In point, authentication consists of science, documentation, and knowledge of styles, periods, technology (materials manufacturing date, and technology used to create), artist signature, subject matter, use, and historical background. Some processes such as provenance are less expensive than science, and relate to the examiner’s pick up of immediate information that may allow him or her to reach a conclusion. If the bottom of the 2,500-year-old vase says, “made in Brooklyn, NY” no further research would be necessary since the manufacture of the work does not match the claimed period. If money was not involved in the research the first step would be scientific analysis, followed by documentation, and then connoisseurship. Science would be able to ascertain age through various methods and determine if it was not authentic. Science does not authenticate. Its results are combined with provenance and connoisseurship research. The three vehicles are combined to reach a final result or conclusion (Daab, J. 2008). Ceramics The history of ceramic pottery works begins in 18000 BCE in China (Miller, 2009). Greek pottery is said to begin circa 1500 BCE emerging on the heels of bronze-making. The problem of making bronze artifacts and then having to melt the works down for weapons probably provided the impetus to make items out of clay rather

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

Clay pots in punjab pakistan Credit: Wikipedia

than bronze. Ceramics is broken down into the categories of pottery and porcelain (Roberts 2011). Porcelain is further broken down into hard paste/soft paste and hybrid-hard past and bone china. Pottery is bifurcated into stoneware and earthenware. Pottery is further identified by glaze-lead or tin and a multitude of wares-Redware, Slipware, Pearlware, etc. The focus of this investigation is Greek earthenware or clay pottery emanating from early 1200 BCE. Characteristics of Clay Pottery Construction Methods Clay pottery can be made by molds, thrown, curls, or poured in place slip clays. Mold construction is merely using an existing piece of earthenware and taking strips of clay and laying it over the existing piece and removing it when the clay has covered the mold completely and is no longer malleable. With the curl process clay is formed into large strings and built upon one another. Here the strands are smoothed out as the piece is built vertically. The smoothing out process consists of clay slip—a wet paste applied to the joints of the strands. Wheel constructed pottery starts with a lump of clay placed on a flat round surface, which is spun while removing the inside clay matter as the shaping material for the vertical construction of the work. While the flat surface is spinning, water is applied to the work allowing the pottery maker to manipulate the clay. Poured place pottery is created with a slip clay (liquid) being poured into a form similar to bronze manufacturing, the form is loosened and removed, and the clay item is ready to be fired (Krueger, n.d.). Firing Firing of earthenware pertains to the placing of a given clay product into a kiln (oven) and baking it into a dried state. This biscuit first stage is fired at 750-1050 C. The earthenware pottery at this stage is porous, does not ring but thuds when hit with a fingernail, is opaque, and has poor heat resistant qualities. The second stage consists of applying glazes or slips for decoration. If enamel is applied, the third firing is at a lower temperature. When glazing is applied, the work is no longer porous.

Cizhou ware Northern Song 11th 12th century China Credit: PHGCOM, Wikipedia

Cizhou ware Northern Song 11th 12th century China Credit: Marie-Lan Nguyen, Wikipedia

Ancient Greek Earthenware Decoration and Period Styles The forensic examiner must know about the different styles of pottery and their changes through time to be able to know when a given piece was created. Knowing the style of a piece allows the investigator to ascertain age. Note that style periods are not etched in stone but represent an approximation. For example, if the tan-colored Hellenistic piece below was allegedly being passed off as from the Protogeometric period, the examiner would take issue with the claim by stating that the style does not match the age. The style of the work is clearly from a much later era, and as such could not be made in the 1050-900 BCE period. Style alone does not establish age but is one factor among many. The images below represent the various points of information related to those connoisseurial aspects of a work, which combined with provenance or documentation and scientific methodology help the forensic examiner match the real from the bogus. In point, authentication consists of science, documentation, and knowledge of styles, periods, technology (materials manufacturing date, and technology used to create), artist signature, subject matter, use, and historical background.

As we moved into the Geometric (900-800 BCE), the horizontal waving decorations moved into stripes chevrons, diamonds, and swastikas (Jones, n.d.).

Protogeometric (1050-900 BCE) The Protogeometric is one of the earliest ceramic styles. The piece has two handles used for storage of liquids. Circles, triangles, arcs, and lines waving wrap themselves around the pot. It is believed that a compass and brushes were used to create the lines. (Protogeometric, 2011).

Red Figure (520-400 BCE) Black figure decoration became so poor in quality that Red Figure decoration gradually became the accepted style. Also the vase makers had enough of black, so they decided to go in the opposite direction and use the black as the background and just leave the red clay as is, or use a brush in the non-black areas (Moore, 2007). Pottery

Orientalizing/Archaic (700-600 BCE) The running friezes (horizontal decorative band) of animals show early Orientalizing influences: grazing gazelle (below rim), recumbent gazelle (on shoulder), birds (probably cranes) near base (Wiki, 2011). The important new development after 300 years is that during this period the creation of animal figure decorations begin to appear on the pottery and the neck begins to disappear along with simple lines. Black Figure (620-480 BCE) Black figure decoration focused on human and animal figures, narrations, and incising the work with the figures. These were battle scenes, stories, and myths. The use of the black color resulted from a new method of oven heating that was done using the triple firing method whereby a work was heated, cooled, and then heated again brought about the black color (Rice, 1987).

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER速

Protocorinthian skyphos with winged genius and animals, ca. 625–600 BC. Credit: Jastrow, Wikipedia

Boeotian hydria with birds, ca. 700 BC–675 BC (Boeotian Geometric). Credit: Jastrow, Wikipedia

was also signed, and more than one individual worked on a given work. Again, the point here is to keep in mind how pottery changes through time. White Ground (480-330 BCE) The White Ground period used a slip of white clay applied over the terracotta and then painted rather than incised. It was thought that the white clay/ground appeared as marble. Note that the figures are partially outlined and filled in as opposed to earlier vases where they colored in their entirety. Hellenistic (330-30 BCE) In the last period of Greek pottery, tan colored slip and white paint on black glaze background are the tour de force of the period. This period is the end era of Greek prosperity and art creation superimposed by Rome as the dominant controller of the area. The above pottery images represent the various styles of Greek works commonly accepted by scholars and museums (Hixenbaugh, 2011). The time periods are relative in that beginning and ending years are more of a dialectical process moving from and between geographical areas. In point, merely because a time period is accepted by scholars does not mean the style was not created earlier or lasted later. New finds often blur the boundary lines. Further, some scholarly entities will provide different names for the periods, break

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

down the categories into subcategories, or take the subcategories and combine them into lesser categories. These considerations represent issues for the forensic examiner in that works are not easily placed into convenient time periods to ascertain age. One, however, should not seek intellectual comfort, but recognize that pinpointing is not the game. Just as we have 1920 autos driving around, we recognize that these are not the autos of 2011. What we do recognize is that the 1920 auto was made of certain parts identifiable via analysis. These parts provide the substratum delineated by present day chemical and material composition analysis. Let us examine a composite case study to bring into proper relief those scientific and non-scientific approaches to ascertain the period of a piece of “ancient pottery.” Composite Case Study Frank Bright, an art forensics examiner, is visited by a local collector of Greek pottery named Erik. It seems that art dealer Sam Flax recently sold a piece to Erik alleging that the work is genuine circa 800 BCE. The dealer provided a certificate of authenticity from Ajax Helos Gallery in Greece where Sam purportedly purchased it. Frank has been asked to determine if it is a genuine piece of Greek pottery from the period. The dealer also supplied documentation of past ownership spanning about 150 years. The work is made from clay, is glazed, tan colored, and has geometric figures adorning the exterior of the piece. The vase has areas of glaze wear and tear on the exterior except the foot, and is very clean on the inside. The vase stands about 16 inches high and 8 inches wide. The handles are one-half inch thick. The Process of Investigation The chart on page 45 lists the significant approaches involved in conducting a forensic investigation of questionably authentic art. This is a model and the steps may vary as a result of cost and mitigating factors. Scientific or laboratory examination is costly and may not produce a benefit in a cost/benefit analysis. In a work of high value science will drop the remaining steps if it is found that the material make-up of the work does not match the alleged date of creation. If the pigment in the paint on the piece was not made until 2001 and

Achilles (left) and Penthesileia (right). Attic black-figured amphora. Credit: Marie-Lan Nguyen, Wikipedia

A courtesan ties up her himation (long garment) again while her middle-aged client watches up. Interior from an Attic red-figured kylix, ca. 490. From Vulci. Credit: Jastrow, Wikipedia

the piece was allegedly made in 2500 BCE, the work is not authentic. There is no reason to continue the examination since provenance and connoisseurship cannot add any authenticity to the work. Any additional monies spent would be a waste (Philips, 2007). The overall point is that the investigation process will depend on the examiner and how he or she wants to conduct it. The chart represents the main hits, which will depend on how much the various processes will cost. The complete approach will carry the highest level of probablility of authenticity. Please note that the bottom chart is representative of a real case. The point of the chart is that the client went the way of provenance/documentation/connoisseurship first resulting in a total cost prior to scientific analysis/X-ray of $55,000. If scientific analysis was undertaken first, the client would have saved $55,000, since it was found that the work was forged by a digital methodology (Philips, 2007). This investigation was instructive in that the person conducting the investigation had no training in forensics. The Players and the Documents Supporting Authenticity The Dealer Sam Flax operates a small antique business a few towns over from the office of Frank Bright. A criminal background check indicates that Sam was arrested for selling fake lithographs. The prosecutor dropped the Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

case due to weak evidence. Samâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s antique business was not listed as a corporate entity in the state of New Jersey. The Collector Frank also does a background check on Erik and finds that Erik is from a wealthy New Jersey family. Erik has no criminal background and is the owner of 3 preschool franchises. The Ajax Helos Gallery The phone number and email address provided by the dealer resulted in no responses. Further investigation via Mapquest and directories of galleries in the area resulted in the Ajax gallery as a non-existent entity. No information was found from the examination of incorporation and tax records. The Certificate of Authenticity (COA) The COA provided, along with various provenance documents, was signed by A. Helos. Since Helos seems non-existent, the documents are of questionable authenticity. Further, sellers offering COAs signed by the seller represent a conflict of interest since the COA is merely a mechanism provided to enhance the sale for the benefit of the seller. One may reasonably argue that such attestations of authenticity are worthless. Jun

July

Aug

Scientific analysis

4 wks. @ $1000 per wk. = $4,000

X-Ray

4 wks. @ $1000 per wk. = $4,000

Provenance analysis

6 wks. @ $2000 per wk. = $12,000

Sales slip documents

6 wks. @ $2000 per wk. = $12,000

Connoisseurship

11 wks. @ $3000 per wk. = $33,000 Total cost = $55,000

Daab (2008) Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINERÂŽ

Apollo wearing a laurel or myrtle wreath, a white peplos and a red himation and sandals, seating on a lion-pawed diphros; he holds a kithara in his left hand and pours a libation with his right hand. Facing him, a black bird identified as a pigeon, a jackdaw, a crow, or a raven. Tondo of an Attic white-ground kylix attributed to the Pistoxenos Painter (or the Berlin Painter, or Onesimos). Credit: Fingalo, Wikipedia

Lagynos with music instruments, ca. 150–100 BC. From Cyrenaica. Credit: Jastrow, Wikipedia

Provenance Documents Samples of written and typewritten documents were examined for accuracy of time and handwriting. The handwritten document of one Mark Snider, a previous owner of work alleging that the original owner was Baroness La Salle, matches the handwriting in the COA provided by Ajax Helos in terms of signature, slant, cursive lettering, line and letter paralleling (the letters do not rise above the line or run below it), size, and use of vocabulary. Further, the typewriter used for the text was made 20 years after the date found in the typewritten letter (Daab, 2008).

devices such as long and short wave black light flashlights and pins or small scale picking devices to uncover repairs made to the object. The forensic examiner takes a pin and runs it along the surface of the work to pick up differences in surface elevation. Such differences may reveal repairs made (Roberts, 2011).

The Examination of the Sample: Non-Scientific Non-scientific examination uses the investigator’s perceptual and cognitive skills, along with educational and experiential training in the arts to “read” a given work (Hirsh, 2011). Hirsh notes that by looking at the contour lines, icons, colors, perspective, symmetry, composition, style, and so on, one is able to identify the style, artist, and period. This is by no means to state that the resulting conclusion is objective or scientific. Historical periodization, style, ornament, and so on are subjective, and even more so when dependent on idiosyncratic perception. This connoisseurial arena has been noted earlier as problematic. In terms of provenance analysis, or recorded document examination, the arena shifts somewhat toward lesser subjectivity and greater scientific methodology. Visual and Mechanical Examination of the Sample The initial examination relies on the investigator’s knowledge of the type of art and using the five senses, supplemented with mechanical

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

Style The vase appears to be from the Geometric period of 800-725 BCE. The geometric details covering the vase in its entirety are sharply indicative of artist ability. Colors also match the period along with the double handle and size. Glazing was quite thick for the piece, with bubbling in various areas. Thick glazing was not the norm for the period, and bubbling is indicative of poor firing of the glaze. (Hirsh, 2011) Restoration Visually, the vase seems to have no cracks. Black light revealed that various areas have been restored. Pin examination noted elevation changes on the plane of the vase both vertically and horizontally. The pin also picked up cracks noted in the black light examination. Some areas underneath an apparent paint fix were not fired clay but plaster. The finger also was able to detect changes in elevations as well. Pottery that is 3,000 years old seldom arrives in one piece (Roberts, 2011) Smell A water mist spray did not confirm cracks or repairs, nor did the water sprayed on unglazed areas unleash any earthy odors indicative of being in the ground for approximately 3,000 years (Collector Antiquities, 2006)

Sound When slightly hit with a fingernail the sound of the hit was “pinglike” rather than “thud-like.” Greek earthenware is fired at a low temperature compared to later periods and should result in a thud sound rather than a ping sound (Collector Antiquities, 2006). Telltales of Age The foot or bottom of ceramic pottery should present as worn and unglazed. The foot is the area of the pottery which is constantly being picked up and set down in addition to being shoved to and fro, which results in a scraping away of the glaze and an appearance of the clay underneath. Three thousand year old pottery should also have the remains of the root system of trees and watermarks from being in the soil for so long. Encrustations and fungi should also be present. The sample piece did not have worn marks, and no evidence was present indicating that it had been in the ground (Mattes, 2011). Scientific Methodology There are many scientific tests applicable to establish the age of a given work. There is no overall scientific methodology. Provenance could be headed toward the scientific method, but as Drewe and Myatt demonstrated in Provenance the tools to catch the forger are present but do not constitute an art protocol. Questioned document examiners are not part of the curatorial staff of a museum. As far as connoisseurship is concerned, it has been noted that the field really has no structure to even exist on the level of science. Scientific Tools Ceramic pottery is usually examined via Thermoluminescence (Wiki 2011), Carbon 14 dating (Higham 2002), and chemical analysis of glaze (SLAC, 2010). These are expensive procedures which can only establish whether a piece is matched with the time of its creation. Present methodologies cannot establish authenticity, only inauthenticity. In the present case Erik wanted a scientific finding. Recent sales at Christie’s indicated that such pottery may be worth in the thousands of dollars. Erik was interested in authenticity rather than value. He directed the forensic examiner to proceed even though the costs may potentially outweigh the benefits. What are the scientific approaches in identifying materials and the time they were used? Thermoluminescence “The amount of luminescence is proportional to the original dose of radiation received. In thermo luminescence dating, this can be used to date buried objects that have been heated in the past, since the ionizing dose received from radioactive elements in the soil or from cosmic rays is proportional to age. This phenomenon has been applied in the thermo luminescent dosimeter, a device to measure the radiation dose received by a chip of suitable material that is carried by a person or placed with an object” (Wiki, 2011). The date derived from the analysis is 1900. Carbon 14 dating “All living organic materials contain Carbon-14 atoms in a constant number. After the ‘death’ of these organic materials the Carbon-14 atoms decay. After 5,730 years half of them have decayed. Therefore, it is possible to measure the number of these atoms in organic materials to obtain quantified information on the date of an item. The

Late Geometric Attic amphora, ca. 725 CA–700 CA. Credit: Jastrow, Wikipedia

method has a margin of accuracy of several hundred years and it is not useful to fix dates in historic periods, but very useful for prehistory (in Egypt before 3000 BC). C-14 dates are often published as dates ‘before present’ (the ‘present’ was fixed for analytical reasons at a single point, and the year AD 1950 was chosen for this) with the indication of the inaccuracy” (Higham, 2002). The lab dating confirms the date of post 20th century, give or take a few hundred years. It was not 800 BCE. Chemical Analysis A chemical analysis was performed in relation to color pigments of the geometric inscriptions and the make-up of the glaze. The findings were that the color pigment used was small, indicating that it was made by modern manufacturing methods. Pigments made prior to the industrial revolution were much larger than modern ones. It was also found that the chemicals in the glaze contained titanium, which was used as a replacement to lead in paint in the 20th century (SLAC, 2010).

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

Analysis Fingerprint examination is a process comparing a sample to an exemplar utilizing a set of descriptors for determination of a match. A match results when the descriptors of the sample match those of the exemplar. Matching a sample work of art with an exemplar follows the same process. The exemplar criteria or descriptors developed as standards over time by a body of scholarship create a match with a sample when the descriptors of the sample match those of the exemplar. In the present investigation of the ceramic Greek vase, the sample vase did not match the exemplar’s match factors. Although the style and appearance of the vase was correct, the tests of smell, sound, water absorption, water rings, rooting, and glaze application did not match the descriptors of an authentic vase of the time period. The piece was also heavily restored, painted over, and contained an under material made up of plaster in the restored areas. The most significant telltales indicating that the piece was not of the age specified were the scientific findings of thermoluminescence, Carbon14, and chemical analysis forcing a conclusion that the piece was not made between 1200 BCE1 CE, but closer to the 20th century. Further confirmatory evidence that the piece had questionable authenticity was that provenance documentation was specious. Probability of Authenticity Normally the establishment of “authentic” or “inauthentic” arises following the analysis of a work of art for fakery or forgery. The consequence of such conclusions has created a fear for those rendering such an opinion as a high risk endeavor culminating in litigation based on “product disparagement” or making false statements about a product or service causing a loss to the holder. This risk has led many experts to no longer offer any opinion. One would agree that the risk of such opinions is real, but unnecessary. I would argue that rather than offer an opinion one should let the process provide the conclusion. In the above investigation there is no necessity of providing an opinion; the fact that elements, descriptors, and factors lead to a particular conclusion allows the investigator to render an assertion quantitatively. That is, the conclusion emerges from the mathematical process forged by probability. Conceptually, authenticity is established by the number of matching factors between the sample and exemplar, or the logic of science and material testing. Material testing of the sample mandates that the sample cannot be of the age specified since the materials were made after the date of creation. If material testing was not available the probability function would look to a numeric match of the factors of the exemplar with the sample. In the above case sound, smell, water absorption, rooting, encrustation, water rings, fungi, documentation fakery, glazing, lack of bottom wear and tear and style, if all were present, could lead to 10/10 hits and a high degree of probability of authenticity. Since only one style was present out of the ten -1/10-the level of probability equals 10%. Thus, quantitative analysis leads to the assertion that there is a 10% probability of authenticity or match with the exemplar and as such a very low level of authenticity. n References Bryant, V. (2002). Ancient Greek Ceramics. Retrieved from http://www.ceramicstudies.me.uk/histx106.html Ancient Greek, (n.d.). Ancient Greek Thesaurus. Retrieved August 31, 2011 from http://www.greek-thesaurus.gr/

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Christies (2007). Christies Auction House Auction Results. Retrieved on August, 31,2011 from http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?pos=8&intObjectID=49 74346&sid= Gross, M. (2009). Rogues’ Gallery. New York: Broadway Books Collector Antiquities,(2006). Fake Classical Pottery. Retrieved on August, 31 2011 from http://www.collector-antiquities.com/198/ Daab, J. (2008). Fine Art Authentication Management. Retrieved on August 31, 2011 from http://www.fineartregistry.com/articles/daab_john/fine-art-authentication.php Daab, J. (2009). Art Forensics #2 - Forensic Science and Provenance Research. Retrieved on September 2, 2011, from http://www.fineartregistry.com/articles/fine-art-forensics/ art-forensic-science-and-provenance-research.php Gluckman, R. (2002). Remade in China. Retrieved on August, 31 2011 from http:// www.gluckman.com/ChinaFraud.html Hirsh, S.,(2011). How to Look at and Understand Great Art. Virginia: Teaching Company Hixenbaugh, R., (2011). Hellenistic Art. Retreieved from http://www.hixenbaugh.net/ gallery/gallery.cfm?category=Greek%20Art&subcategory=Hellenistic%20Pottery Higham, T., (2002). Radio Carbon Web info. Retrieved on September 5, 2011 from http://www.c14dating.com/int.html Jones, S.(n,d,). Ceramics Today. Retrieved on August 31, 2011 from http://www.ceramicstoday.com/articles/ancient_greek_ceramics.htm Krueger, D. (n.d.). Why on Earth do they Call it Throwing? Retrieved on August 31, 2011 from http://www.ceramicstoday.com/articles/why_throwing.htm Mattes, G., (2011). Copies and Fakes. Retrieved on September 4, 2011, from http:// www.copiesandfakesinart.com/ Miller, D. (2009).Chinese pottery may be earliest discovered.http://www.cleveland.com/ world/index.ssf/2009/06/chinese_pottery_may_be_earlies.html Moore, M.,(2007). The Princeton Painter in New York. Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 42 Oracle Thinkquest, (n.d.).What is Forensics? Retrieved on August 31, 2011, from http:// library.thinkquest.org/TQ0312020/whatisforens.html Peterson, B.(2002). Pennsylvania Impressionism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press Philips, D. (2007).What Price Forensics? http://www.fineartregistry.com/articles/phillips_david/art_forensics.php SLAC, (2010). Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource. Retrieved on September 5, 2011 from http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/category/tags/greek-pottery Wiki,(2011). Thermoluminescence. Retrieved on September, 5 2011 from http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoluminescence

ABOUT THE AUTHOR John Daab, PhD, MBA, MPS, MA, is a former NYCTP police officer and NYU Professor. John holds the following designations: Certified Forensic Consultant, Certified Criminal Investigator, Certified Instructor, Diplomate American Board of Forensic Examiners, Certified in Homeland Security Level 1, and Certified Intelligence Analyst. He is a certified member of the ACFEI and ABCHS. John has lectured at the University of Pennsylvania 3rd year law class, Princeton University Art Museum, Grounds for Sculpture, and the Princeton Senior Center. John has also completed studies in Art Appraisal at NYU. In 2011, he received his certification in Appraisal Studies from NYU, and completed the Princeton University Art Museum 2 year docent training program. He has published over 100 articles and authored books as well, including Forensic Applications in Detecting Fine, Decorative, and Collectible Art Fakes.

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FEATURE

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER速 Winter 2012/Spring 2013

B e n e a t h

t h e

Canvas: A Conversation with Forensic Artist Stephen Mancusi Julie: What is yo

ur academic ba

ckground? Stephen: Tradit ionally, forensic artists came from ground and that an artistic back ’s what I did. I went to school freelance illustr for illustration. ation and com I do mercial artwor much of my pr k. This is where ofessional artist I got ic skill. Now, yo be a forensic ar u generally lear tist once you ge n to t into a forensic apprentice, at le art unit as sort ast back when I of an started. Julie: What mad e you decide th at you wanted to artist? become a forens ic Stephen: I wen t to FIT (Fashion Institute of Tech tion when I grad nology) for illus uated from SUN traY college. I was traditional art ca looking for a m reer, but you kn ore ow it’s not easy. tive field and th Art is a very com ere are an awful pe tilot of artists out college, I had ta there. While I w ken some civil se as in rvice tests includ And they had ca ing the NYPD lled me a few tim te st . es but I had cont About a year af inued my studie ter I was out of s. school I hadn’t art career going, been able to ge so I decided to t my take the NYPD police force with ’s offer and ente the hope that I r the would be able to unit. At that tim get into the artis e it wasn’t called t forensic art, it w art or composite as just called po art or something lice like that. I was for a couple of on the police fo years as a street rce patrol cop, and get into the artis I tried a few tim t unit without an es to y luck.

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

Finally they had to replace a guy that was retiring, a guy named Bill McCormick, and I interviewed for the position. I hit it off well with the senior artist at that time named Frank Domingo. By the time I got that interview, I had already been doing book jacket illustrations and commercial artwork. So my portfolio of artwork had a very professional quality, which helped me impress Detective Domingo. I think my time as a street cop also gave me the people skills and the interviewing skills of witnesses and victims. I got appointed to the artist unit in 1984 and I have been a forensic artist for the past 28 years. Julie: What does a forensic artist typically do on a day-to-day basis? Stephen: With the NYPD my main job was to be their artist. I mentored under Frank Domingo for a couple of years as his apprentice. When you get into the artist unit at NYPD or at any large police agency, generally, you specialize in these kinds of forensic disciplines and that becomes your job. Since I was now the forensic artist and I had specialty skills in art I was promoted to detective, eventually rising to the highest 1st grade detective designation. The artist unit was part of the detective bureau…It’s kind of a career path in the NYPD. Now, early on when you first get into a unit like that, there’s a lot of training involved, an apprentice type-training situation. Back in 1984 there weren’t many forensic art training programs. In fact, there were none. Most artists had to train on the job within their department. So, certainly, being part of a bigger department with an established unit gave me a slight advantage because I was able to learn from the experienced artists that were there before me. However, in the past 15 years or so the training opportunities for forensic artists throughout the country have improved greatly. So in the beginning as the new artist, most of my time was spent drawing and practicing. The typical day of a forensic artist is really determined by the department you are in. In NYPD, like I just mentioned, forensic art is a full-time job. So, 99% of my work was forensic art related, such as conducting composite sessions with victims and witnesses,

composite sketch STAGES

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

DOA facial reconstructions, and age progressions. There is some administrative work also such as creating wanted posters, maintaining cases files, and lecturing to other detectives. Now with smaller departments that don’t have the workload for full-time forensic artists–those artists will only be working as a part-time forensic artist, so they may be an investigator or they may do other kinds of forensic science type work. They may even work as a patrol officer when they are not doing artwork. However, even with a big department you’re still a detective, so occasionally you are required to help in other investigative or other police matters. Julie: Can you briefly go over how you go from taking a body that’s been greatly decomposed to finding an identification? Where do you begin? Stephen: First of all, a forensic artist does several different disciplines. You alluded to one in your question. There is composite art that is sketching composite drawings of the suspects from a victim or

witness descriptions. That is one of the disciplines, and probably the biggest. There is also age progression and image modification. This is the enhancement of photographs of subjects. Then there is what you just mentioned, which would be facial reconstruction from either a skull or a badly decomposed body, or even someone who is not that decomposed but is unidentified. I did do a lot of what we called DOA reconstructions– this was to determine what an unidentified dead subject looked like when he/she was alive for identification purposes. So, in those cases, you are generally working from morgue photographs or photographs from the crime scene. Most of the time you will get front views and side views of the head. However, the clearer the picture is the better. And you’ll get a medical examiner’s report that will list some specific human pedigree information about the DOA and hopefully other information such as clothing, hair, and jewelry found with the body at the scene. Now if the DOA is just a skull and bones, I require the same kinds of photographs and information to do a facial reconstruction from the skull. However, the photographs of the skull are required to be positioned in a very particular front and side view format. The camera perspective is very important, and these images are generally taken by a forensic photographer. This is to minimize any photographic distortions. Plus for facial reconstructions from skulls an anthropologist report is required. Honestly I am an artist and not a bone specialist, and that is why the forensic anthropologist’s report is important. They are bone people. That report will tell you information such as the skull belongs to a female, white, about 25 years old, which of course is very helpful. My reconstructions are done as pencil sketches or digital reconstructions, but in 2 dimensional images. However, some forensic artists specialize in 3D reconstructions in clay or 3D computer software. But I can tell you this, that whatever technique you use, the skull offers only information about the subject’s facial proportions and some minor information about the shapes of some facial characteristics. All of this is very important information, but a little hair fiber, some facial tissue, and clothing can offer quite a bit of information about the DOA as well. So you combine all the information about the skull or the DOA you are given in order to create the sketch or image. Generally, getting the facial proportions from the skull or DOA photographs, delineating the shapes of the facial characteristics using as much of the supplied information that is available which is clothing, ME reports, crime scene photographs, hair, and any soft tissue. Yet, you may have to fill the face in a little with what would be average and normal for a particular race and age. And hopefully the forensic image will resemble the unknown subject. Keep in mind that forensic art is exactly that…it’s forensic art. It’s not a forensic science. And because of this, the forensic image can live in a world of “almost.” The artist works in this grey world of art, not the black and white world of science. “Almost” in terms of a likeness to a subject can be good enough. Ultimately, what we are trying to do is to create an image to generate leads; so a facial reconstruction should illustrate all the available information about the unknown DOA into a visual image. Then hopefully when it is released to the public, it will generate the lead to identify the unknown person.

the police composite sketch The police composite sketch, one of the most crucial investigative tools in law enforcement, is developed during a composite session in an intense display of communication and art in which the words of a witness are transformed into the features of a suspect. Despite the incredible technological leaps made in investigative work, the forensic art of composite sketching still relies on the basic elements of drawing skill, interviewing ability, and the spoken word. The Police Composite Sketch is a comprehensive manual on how to conduct a complete composite session. Through an array of case studies, it details several disciplines that comprise this specialized forensic art of composite sketching. It also addresses image modification, age progression, facial comparison analysis, demonstrative evidence, and post mortem/skull reconstruction. It explores how to intuit insights that are often inadvertently revealed by witnesses, victims, and the perpetrator’s characteristics during the composite session. In addition, this book discusses other relevant topics, such as the three stage drawing technique, witness and victim types, descriptive terminologies, managing composite sessions. Complete with numerous illustrations and drawing tips, this seminal work offers a general composite session philosophy and specific session strategies to both experienced and aspiring forensic artists as well as any lay reader intrigued by this fascinating skill.

Julie: Can you tell me about some of the higher profile cases you have worked? Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

LEFT: The original composite sketch of the San Francisco serial killer called the “The Zodiac” was released in 1969. He was described to be a male, white about 35 years of age. The Zodiac Killer was never caught. He would be in his seventies today, if still alive. ABOVE: This was an age progression based on the original composite sketch. Since this is a very cold case, this unique age progression composite technique seemed appropriate. You can see the full Zodiac story on History Channel’s “MysteryQuest.”

Stephen: I have worked on quite a few high profile cases. One that comes to mind is the Sty Town Rapist. It was not the biggest case, but it is just a perfect example of how a composite sketch does its job. He was a serial rapist. He was committing these rapes in a particular Manhattan neighborhood. The composite session was conducted with one of his female victims. The sketch was printed on a wanted poster and ultimately displayed in a police station in the area. As luck has it, an Assistant District Attorney (ADA) sees the wanted poster and she recognizes the sketch as her half brother, Anthony. She knew her half brother was once locked up for rape in Florida. She gives this crucial lead to the Sex Crime Squad. The assigned detectives were able to arrest him down there in Florida and bring him back to New York. He was identified by many of the victims. This guy was real arrogant about his crime spree and was easily convicted and got forty years in prison. The sketch didn’t look exactly like the suspect, but it was just enough that somebody recognized the suspect and gave us the good lead. Exactly what a composite sketch is suppose to do. A more recent case is also interesting. Not because the sketch immediately indentified the suspect, though it helped. It was the subtlety of the composite session interview with a possible witness that makes this case interesting to me. This was a very high profile homicide that happened in the middle of the day. A few years back there was a shooting of a dentist right outside a park in Queens in the middle of the day. The victim was walking

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

out of the park with his young daughter. Some unknown guy walked right up to the dentist and shot him. The victim was recently divorced. The estranged wife quickly became a suspect. It was a very big case. There were a lot of news stories about the wife and connections to organized crime. At first there appeared to be no witnesses to the shooting. All we knew was the victim was murdered in a “hit” style shooting. However, one possible witness surfaced. A woman had been walking her dog very close to the incident. A composite sketch appointment was made for this witness. Unfortunately, the witness upon arriving at my office was now stating to me that she really did not see the suspect. This was an important case. I knew. I still needed to continue with the composite session and interview. During the session interview the witness continued to say she really did not see the suspect. Yet I had determined during the initial interview with her that the circumstances surrounding her involvement suggested otherwise. She was acting very hesitant and it looked as if a sketch could not be done. I decided to utilize an interview redirection technique. Generally to have an unrelated conversation with the witness and this proved to work. She mentioned something that had happened a few days after the incident as she was walking her dog. An unknown male approached her. He asked about her dog and told her she should take care of him, so that nothing would happen to him.

At that time, much of the speculation was directed at the estranged wife and her family. There were stories of connections to organized crime and foreign hit men. Because of this and the dog story, I determined that this was a fearful witness. My interview with this witness quickly took a new track to defuse this obstacle. It didn’t take long before she divulged her concerns. She was afraid someone would harm her. I was able to put her concerns to rest. She was now eager to help. As expected, she did get a very good look at the suspect. It was a profile view. The sketch was completed and released to the press. It was only a couple of days later that the case broke; a lead came in on a suspect. He was an acquaintance of the estranged wife’s family. He bore a remarkable resemblance in profile to the witness’s composite sketch. The detective later told me they had been zeroing in on this guy already because of it. This was just a good example of managing a difficult composite session. I guess this is why I found it rewarding. Julie: What do you feel is the most rewarding part of being a forensic artist? Stephen: I can tell you right away what that is. I am an artist and that’s how I see myself, an artist using my skills to perform a useful function such as catching the bad guy or just helping a victim participate in the investigation. When I teach or lecture to other artists or other forensic artists, I’m always pushing the concept don’t lose your art, because I think that’s what makes us special, that’s what makes us unique. There are plenty of forensic sciences out there that have strict black and white rules and guidelines. I understand this is a necessity of science, and because of it the forensic scientist can positively identify a subject. But the fact is forensic art is an art. So when the structured world of forensic sciences such as DNA and fingerprints comes up short during an investigation, the detective can turn to the grayish world of art and maybe the artist can pull a proverbial rabbit out of the hat. So for me, this is a rewarding aspect, I am taking my love for art and marrying it with something very tangible, something very real. It is exciting to be an artist in this field. n

MADELEINE McCANN Age Progression

For more information on the work of Stephen Mancusi, go to his website www.forartist.com, or purchase his book The Police Composite Sketch, available at www.amazon.com.

“If Madeleine McCann has been abducted, most likely her appearance has changed. First of all, this tragic ordeal would have taken her brightness away. Now that a year has past, I think that sunny little girl illustrated in so many of her pictures would have faded. We are looking for a child, which may be showing a little more age then four years old. She most likely will look tired and un-kept.” Forensic Artist Stephen Mancusi, 2008

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

Co-Author of the

Pendergast Series

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER速 Winter 2012/Spring 2013

INTERVIEW

A Dialogue wih Distinguished Author

Douglas Preston Interview by Julie Brooks & Tanja O’Block

Julie: A lot of the locations in your stories come from personal knowledge and experience, but where do you get the inspiration for your plots? How do two authors come up with story after story that is so intricately woven together? Doug: A lot of the ideas came out of a book that I wrote – my first book—called Dinosaurs in the Attic, which is a non-fiction book about the American Museum of Natural History. The editor for that book was Lincoln Child, and that’s how we met. When I finished that book, Lincoln said to me, “This museum has got to be the scariest building in the world. Let’s write a thriller set in this museum.” And that’s how Relic was born. Since that time, an awful lot of our novels have spun out of true stories first recounted in Dinosaurs in the Attic. The history of the museum is fascinating and in some ways bizarre. So I would have to credit that book and the museum behind it, as the largest inspiration for our novel ideas. More ideas came from my work with the New Yorker magazine, where I wrote articles on archaeology and physical anthropology. That’s where I learned a lot of the technical stuff—the forensic stuff—that goes into our novels. I learned about how archaeologists look at bones, how they can tell how the person died, what kind of injuries the person might have sustained, whether there was cannibalism, for example. Lincoln also brings many rich ideas to the table, which come from his background, his broad reading, and his interests. We are always in the market for ideas, and we’ve found the best ones often come to us out of left field. Julie: I love how the point of views of the characters move back and forth, as it allows the reader to get to know Pendergast without really getting too far inside his head. I noticed that you tend to avoid his thoughts even though you share the thoughts of the other characters. What made you decide to use alternating point of views instead of simply focusing on Agent Pendergast, and how does that add to the mystery as he’s solving each case?

Doug: Another excellent question. Pendergast is a cipher – he’s an odd character—he’s strange—he’s eccentric—his thought processes are very complex and he’s a bit of a mystery even to us. We feel we know him well. But who he is really, in his core, is a mystery, and we feel that if we were to sort of open his mind up for the reader to rummage around as we do with other characters, we would dispel that mystery. It would not do justice to the great complexity and depth of his mind. Some of his thought processes are highly obscure. For these reasons we don’t get into his head. We’re looking at him from the outside. Unlike our other characters, where we’re right inside their heads. We like complicated, braided plots. Our Pendergast books are not linear—they don’t go from point A to point B. We want to bring the reader on a twisty, convoluted, serpentine journey. Sometimes that involves a wild ride from the point of view of another character—many other characters—so that our books often have two or three major subplots intertwining with the main plot, with minor characters on the side, odd characters, strange characters, even boring characters. Like real life. Tanja: Agent Pendergast is such an awesome character. I would like to know how you came up with such a crazy character, and is there a person you model him after in real life? Doug: Lincoln had said to me we’ve got to write this book set in the museum, a thriller. We came up with a plot and I started writing the first chapters. I sent them to Lincoln and he called me up and said, “You know, these are wonderful chapters, but you’ve got these two characters. One’s an Italian American cop with a working class background, and the other is Irish American, again with a working class background.” Lincoln said, “Look, these two characters are the same. So why don’t we merge them together. And then let’s come up with a detective who has never been seen before, someone unique, unusual.” I responded sarcastically, because there are so many weird detectives out there, I said “Oh, yeah, like an Albino from New Orleans?” There was this silence and Lincoln said, “You know, we could work with that.” Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

We started talking, and all of a sudden this character just appeared in front of us, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus, and introduced himself and said my name is Pendergast and I’m going to be your detective. We don’t even know where his name came from. He was just there. This is very different from how we’ve created our other characters. We talk about the name, we discuss the back story, we write up a whole document on who they are, where they went to school, what kind of music they listen to, what kind of family life they had growing up. But with Pendergast we didn’t do any of that. He just was there and we knew who he was and how he would react but we didn’t know anything more than that. Ever since then he’s remained a mysterious character who is more familiar, more real to me than many of the real people I know. Julie: I’ve read that you and Lincoln do all of your own research to ensure accuracy to the forensic side of your novels. Is there a certain approach you take to doing that? How much time do you typically put into the research, and is there a particular field of forensics that you are especially fond of? Doug: We do all our own research. I know other writers farm out their research, but we’ve found that when you’re doing the research yourself, you come across all kinds of unbelievably interesting tidbits that a hired researcher would overlook, not thinking they’re relevant. But in our case, we think: “Oh, my God, we can do something with that.” The forensics side comes from both of us, but I’d say more comes from me than Lincoln. Both of us come from families of archaeologists. Lincoln’s grandmother was an archaeologist, and my aunt and other members of my family were archaeologists. My father studied anthropology at Harvard with Clyde Kluckhohn. So both of us are steeped in anthropology. In particular I’ve been fascinated with physical anthropology, which is sort of an old-fashioned term. When I worked at the Museum of Natural History I became close to a physical anthropologist there named Harry Shapiro, who is long gone. He was in his 80s when I knew him and I was just a kid. But he was fascinating and he used to tell me stories about the early days of physical anthropology in New York City. Back then, the New York City Police Department didn’t have any forensic specialists. So when they found bones from a homicide victim, for example, they would bring them to the museum and ask, “Can you help us?” And Harry Shapiro was the physical anthropologist there who would look at these bones and tell them what he could see—male or female, age, perimortem damage or trauma, that sort of stuff. So I became fascinated with physical anthropology, and then I started writing about it for the New Yorker. I did a story on the physical anthropologist, Christy Turner. He’s absolutely brilliant, and he is the one who studied bones from prehistoric Native American remains from the Southwest, and determined that many of these bones were cannibalized. They showed signs of cooking and consumption. And this caused a fury of controversy. He wrote a major book called Man Corn, Cannibalism and Violence in the Prehistoric American Southwest, which detailed his work. I did a story about him for the New Yorker. He showed me, for example, a microscopic characteristic of some cooked bones called pot polish. These human bones had been broken up, the marrow had been scraped out, and they showed some signs of heat damage. On top of that, the sharp ends of the bone showed microscopic signs of abrasion or polishing from being boiled in a ceramic pot, as they turned around and around in the cooking process. And so Turner was able to piece together a picture of what happened to these people by examining the bones: they were brutally beaten to death, their bones

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

were broken up, boiled to extract the fat, the crania were roasted, the brains scraped out. There was another scientist (not an anthropologist) who examined—now we are getting into some really strong stuff –one of these cannibal sites where 12 people had been killed and eaten. He found a human coprolite and was able to show it contained human protein—proof that actual cannibalism had taken place. By linking all these discoveries, archaeologists were able to show that cannibalism was extremely widespread over the Southwest at a certain period of time in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Something like twelve percent of all the human remains in museums in the country from this time showed signs of cannibalism. There appears to have been an enormous outbreak of cannibalism and mass starvation during this period, along with drought, warfare, and all kinds of violence. I did a story about that for the New Yorker, but all that information also became the basis for our novel, Thunderhead, which is full of forensic science. Julie: I’ve read that Lincoln typically writes the outline and you write the initial rough drafts, but are there certain characters that you enjoy writing and portraying more than others? Where do you get the ideas? Are there forensic experts, real or fictional, that have inspired you to create these characters? Doug: There are some characters that are largely my creation and some that are largely Linc’s creation. Pendergast is both of us. I would say Corrie Swanson is largely my creation. Wren, that very eccentric fellow who labors in the bowels of the New York Public Library, is almost entirely Linc’s creation. And then there are other characters that are kind of more mine or more Linc’s. Constance is more Linc’s and maybe Vincent D’Agosta is a little bit more of me. Our writing practice has evolved to the point where now Lincoln is doing a lot more of writing the first draft and I’m doing a lot more of the outlining and plotting. We’ve evolved in that direction. Lincoln used to have a phobia of the blank computer screen, so I would do the first draft and then he would do a lot of the outlining and rewriting. But he’s overcome that phobia very nicely and he does some really fantastic work. Whenever we need to get into the head of one of our serial killers, something really twisted, Lincoln writes that. He’s got a strange mind…a brilliant and strange mind. Julie: How did you get involved in the Monster of Florence case? What piqued your interest, and what was it like to work with Mario Spezi? How do Italian police methods differ from U.S. ones? Doug: The Monster of Florence case was an accident. I went to Italy to write a novel set in Italy—a murder mystery. I was doing some research on what the police do when they find a dead body in Italy, and I spoke to Mario Spezi, who is the crime correspondent for La Nazione. As we were chatting, he told me that the olive grove in front of the villa we had rented had been the scene of a horrific double murder, one of the killings of a serial killer known as the Monster of Florence. When he started describing the case to me, I was absolutely fascinated. It may be the strangest and most horrifying story in all the annals of world crime. I got totally sidetracked by that story and never wrote my novel. Instead, Mario and I wrote The Monster of Florence. Police methods in Italy are very different from the United States. The police have two domestic police forces. One is called the Polizia, which is just like our police, a civilian police force. The other is something we don’t have called the Carabinieri, which are a branch

of the Italian military in charge of domestic law enforcement. These two organizations are in direct competition with each other. And so they rush to the scene of a crime, they sometimes argue over who’s going to get the evidence, who’s going to take the case, and there have even been instances where they have gotten into physical confrontations over the evidence. There’s a famous incident where they showed up at the scene of a bank robbery and they both chased down the suspects, captured them, and then there was a big fight about who was going to get custody. They finally arranged it so that one branch got the suspects and one branch got the car and the money. It’s totally nuts and it’s very, very debilitating. It does not lend itself to good police work. Julie: I have heard rumors that George Clooney had signed to play you in The Monster of Florence movie. Has there been any word to when that’s coming out or when it’s going to be in production?

Doug: The screenplay is just being finished. Clooney’s company is producing it, along with several other producers. When my Hollywood agent called me up and said George Clooney’s company is going to produce the film and Clooney’s going to star in it, I was surprised. I said, “Oh, well, that’s strange, I can’t imagine Clooney as a serial killer.” My agent said, “Serial killer? He’s not going to play the serial killer, you dope. He’s playing you.” Tanja: Is it true that the police in Italy focused on you for a while too? Doug: Yes, they did. The police in Italy are corrupt—not just corrupt in criminal terms, but Italy is sort of a police state in a certain sense. They have not significantly changed their criminal justice system from the time of Mussolini, even though the constitution was changed. As a result, police and judges and prosecutors have enormous power, much more than in the United States. It’s not an adversarial Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

system; if you’re accused of a crime everything is stacked against you. If you criticize the police in Italy, you’re in trouble. Now our Monster investigation showed that the police were way off base—that they were on a dead-end investigation. They were focused on a crazy theory that a satanic sect that was killing people to get their body parts for black masses. There’s no evidence of this, but the fantasy had taken over the investigation. In our book, Mario Spezi and I said, no, this is a lone serial killer, all the evidence points to a single perpetrator. The police did not like us disagreeing with their investigation and doing so publically – so they took me in, they interrogated me in Italian, no attorney present and no interpreter. They indicted me for a bunch of trumped up crimes and suggested I leave Italy. Then they arrested Mario and they accused him of being the Monster of Florence himself – totally ridiculous. There was an international uproar because Mario is a well-known journalist and he was released after three weeks, but only after being brutally treated in Italian prison. It was awful what they did to him. Later the prosecutor and the police official who were responsible for this were indicted for abuse of office and all charges were dropped against us. In the end it came around, but it was a horrible experience.

“This is not like Michael Crichton where only the bad guys die.”

Julie: I just finished the second book in the Helen trilogy, and I can’t wait to read the next one. What can you tell us about the final book of the trilogy, Two Graves, which just came out in December? Also, what type of research have you done or have you been doing to prepare for it? Doug: The book is done. Let me just say that everything will be wrapped up, all the loose ends will be tied together. We realize that we left our readers hanging after Cold Vengeance, but we did have a big story to tell and it took three books to tell it. We publish a newsletter called The Pendergast File. It only comes out about once a month. We’ve begun publishing the first eleven chapters of Two Graves in our newsletter, a couple of chapters a month. So for anyone who wants to start reading it ahead of time, you are able to do so, completely free. Just go to our website and subscribe. I’ll just give you a warning: What happens at the end of this sequence of chapters is so terrible that we may lose half our readers. In our books, no one is safe. We’ve killed off some major characters. This is not like Michael Crichton where only the bad guys die. So, that’s just a warning. Julie: You’ve written quite a bit of non-fiction as well as techno thrillers, but is there any genre you have wanted to cover but have not yet had the chance, or do you plan on sticking with forensics?

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Doug: Well, I’m fascinated by forensic science and especially forensic anthropology. That is definitely going to be a part of our books. The Pendergast book we are writing now, which has a tentative title of Bane, focuses very heavily on forensic science. It involves a historic cemetery in Colorado that is being moved because of development. All the skeletons have been exhumed and stored in a warehouse, in a ski shed, basically, and a forensic anthropologist comes in to study these skeletons. She discovers that a number of these skeletons show signs of being victims of what appears to be a serial killing, cannibalistic gang. So the question is, what the heck happened 150 years ago that these people were brutally killed, dismembered, and eaten raw? That’s a novel that focuses, more than almost any other novel we have written, on the science of forensic anthropology. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about the latest techniques for analyzing of perimortem trauma and how to distinguish that from antemortem and postmortem. It’ll be published in a few years. n

BOOK REVIEW

Forensics By the Numbers: A Jewel Conner Mystery

By Carolyn Chambers Clark and Anthony Auriemma (Smashwords.com; downloadable e-book, $3.99)

Forensics By the Numbers: A Jewel Conner Mystery is based on the science and investigative practices of our nation’s forensic experts. Drawing on their experiences as a forensic nurse examiner and weapons renovation specialist, Carolyn Chambers Clark and Anthony Auriemma weave a tale of intrigue that gives readers an inside peek into the world of forensic investigation. Written from the perspective of forensic nurse, Jewel Conner, Forensics By the Numbers provides a realistic story grounded in the experiences of someone from the field of forensics. As a New York City forensic nurse examiner, Jewel Conner understands all too well why New York is known as “the city that never sleeps.” On her way home from yet another late night shift collecting evidence and examining a domestic violence victim, Jewel gets a call from her boss. Paramedics had brought in another victim. Alive, but barely. Back-to-back shifts are common in Jewel’s line of work, but this case is different. The victim is her best friend—District Attorney, Sara Jenkins. In her fifteen years as a forensic nurse examiner, Jewel has examined women of all types, but she has never before been faced with examining a friend. However, being a professional, Jewel collects evidence and questions Sara until, to Jewel’s horror, Sara goes into cardiac arrest. When Sara dies on the operating table, Jewel vows to find her friend’s killer. Before Jewel can even begin her investigation, another victim is found attacked in the same manner as Sara. Then another one of Jewel’s friends goes missing. When clues begin to point to a convicted serial killer Jewel helped put away, she begins to fear that the killer will be coming after her next. In order to focus on her work and solve the case, Jewel is forced to fight back some haunting memories from her past. The lead detective of the investigation agrees to give Jewel protection, but refuses to give her access to information or make her a part of the official case.

Not one to give up, Jewel seeks help from her husband, Burk, the millionaire software developer with a mysterious past he refuses to talk about. The pair of newlywed sleuths and their loyal German Shepherd uncover a tangled web of facts that casts suspicion on some unexpected people. Burk is able to track down some clues to the case through sources he won’t divulge, which raises a few questions in Jewel’s mind about the man she married. While Burk consults a network of inscrutable informants, Jewel uses the science of forensics to find the killer before he can kill again. Between the threatening messages and enigmatic clues they’ve uncovered, Jewel and Burk realize they can’t trust anyone to help them. They soon find themselves running not only from the killer but the police as well. Jewel and Burk are in a race for survival. Will they be able to find the killer before he finds them? This book provides a suspenseful conclusion that few readers will see coming. Veteran authors Carolyn Chambers Clark and Anthony Auriemma have created a fast-paced story full of surprising plot twists. The authors deftly interweave the main thread of the story with the underlying issues of everyday life. The characters are well thoughtout and complex. Jewel is a tenacious investigator who really cares for the victims she is trying to help. Her husband Burk provides the anchor of support Jewel needs to remain grounded and optimistic in the face of often depressing circumstances. The authors do leave some unanswered questions about the main characters, which adds to the suspense and begs the question: Will there be a sequel? Clark and Auriemma can be commended for providing a book that offers a real understanding of the work of forensic examiners while providing an entertaining storyline and dashes of humor. With forensics filling the media, movies, and TV, there is a certain fascination with forensic science and how it aids in criminal investigations. Clark and Auriemma describe the culture and tactics of this world vividly and with an attention to detail that gives readers a better understanding of this captivating field. Gripping from page one, this book will keep you guessing until the very end. Forensics By the Numbers: A Jewel Conner Mystery is available for instant download in a variety of formats at the Smashwords website (http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/86285). It is also available at www.amazon.com for Kindle readers and at www.barnesandnoble. com for Nook readers. n

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Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

wih Kathy Reichs Interview

How did you first become interested in anthropology? How did forensics eventually factor into that, and how do you define your role as a forensic anthropologist? I’ve always found forensic anthropology fascinating. Since I was a young girl, I’ve loved both scientific experimentation and solving puzzles. In this job, I get to do both. I enjoy forensic work because I’m responsible for determining the identity of a deceased person, and perhaps their manner or time of death. In a way, I’m responsible for giving answers to the family members left behind, to help them better understand what happened to their loved one and perhaps make it slightly easier for them to deal with their loss. I take that very seriously. Between writing and working on cases, I’m sure you stay very busy. Can you tell us what you are working on right now? Currently I am working on my sixteenth Temperance Brennan novel. The story will draw on experiences I had while in Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan with a USO tour in the fall of 2011. You can bet Tempe will be swooping through mountain passes in Blackhawk helicopters, knuckles white on her harness and body armor. My son and I are beginning to storyboard the fourth Virals novel. And Bones is on its’ eighth season on FOX. I plan to write another episode. Which case has been your most memorable? In the early 1990s I was asked to consult on the case of a serial killer operating in Montreal. By studying the bones of one victim, I was able to help the authorities develop a profile of the murderer, who was later caught. It occurred to me that the case would make a great story. That experience formed the basis of my first novel, Deja Dead. The rest is history! As far as using forensics in your novels, do you tend to borrow more from your own experiences or from research? Do you spend a lot of time researching for your novels, or does a lot of it come naturally at this point?

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

INTERVIEW

of the hit TV Series

BONES

“As we move into our eighth season, I still review each script to make sure that the series stays grounded in its scientific principles, and that the techniques we employ are realistic, or at least possible.”

The answer is both. Most of the stories I’ve written were at least loosely based on actual cases I have worked, so I usually have a bit of knowledge going in. However, each time I write about one of those experiences I discover how much more there is to know about any particular set of circumstances. So constant research is always important. Thriller readers are savvy. Get the slightest detail wrong, I’ll hear about it. Are there still areas of forensic anthropology that you would like to study more in-depth? It has been a few years (read decades!) since I sat for my board certification exam by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology (Now there’s a plot for a thriller. Killer exam, terrified candidate, demanding evaluators). I try to keep up with developments in my field through attendance at professional meetings, especially the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and through scientific journals such as the Journal of Forensic Science. Still, it would be nice to have time for a workshop or two, especially on skeletal trauma and postmortem body treatment.

Bones is a very popular, well-written T.V. show. I’ve heard that you still read over every script. Do you check the forensics in the show yourself, or is there a team that helps out as well? Do you often give them ideas for the forensics in the show? From the very beginning I was able to map out how the series would appear on television by working with the showrunner, Hart Hanson. For example, I provided input on how the set should look and feel (OK, the Jeffersonian is not exactly like most forensic anthropology labs, but it’s television). As we move into our eighth season, I still review each script to make sure that the series stays grounded in its scientific principles, and that the techniques we employ are realistic, or at least possible. I also review every episode to ensure that the cases remain plausible, even if we do stray into the fantastic now and again. After seven years our writers and on-camera talent know as much about forensic anthropology as many graduate students. At least they’re fluent with the jargon. You are highly skilled in many different areas. In the future do you see yourself focusing more on teaching at the university,

writing more about the Brennan family, or working on cases? I think my teaching days are over, but I’d like to keep writing about the Brennan girls for as long as people will let me. And I haven’t run out of ideas yet. As to casework, I’ve become a bit more choosey about what I become involved with, but I can’t fully quit the active practice of working in the lab. I need to stay sharp so that my writing stays sharp. What can you tell us about your latest book, Bones are Forever? Are there any exciting new characters in Tempe’s future? Bones Are Forever released on August 28, 2012. Tempe visits a diamond mine in Yellowknife, in the far north of Canada, and things get a little out of hand. The story idea grew out of a trip I made to The Northwest Territories in the spring of 2011 for the NorthWords Literary Festival. Also, at the time, I was working on three child homicide cases, and the idea of the death of innocents was very much on my mind. No spoilers, but a hot RCMP sergeant from Tempe’s past will appear on the scene. Do you have any other upcoming books or projects you’d like to tell us about? In the Virals series, the third book, Code, will release in March 2013. As Tory and her pack continue to deal with their evolving abilities, they unearth something that sucks them into a deadly game. Forced to dance to the tune of a madman, the Virals must rush around Charleston to prevent a deadly cataclysm. And others are beginning to wonder about the four island kids with such amazing skills. I think this one might be the best book yet! n

MARCH 2013

producer

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER速 Winter 2012/Spring 2013

PROFILE

The MAN OF

1,000 faces: Paul Ekman and the Science of Facial Analysis By Katherine Ramsland, PhD, CMI-V

et’s say that you’re talking to someone, perhaps as an interviewer with a person of interest. The subject responds appropriately, but you have the vague sense that he’s hiding something. It’s just a quick impression, but you think something flitted across his face that contradicts his cooperative response. Was it contempt? Disgust? Anger? You can’t really tell. Or can you? The ability to read facial expressions is a natural part of human communication. We use it all the time, but we can easily misunderstand or even be tricked… unless we’re trained in how to spot and interpret an emotion’s most subtle manifestations. Psychologist Paul Ekman, the author and editor of 15 books and countless articles, has been the leading researcher in this effort. A professor of psychology in the University of California at San Francisco’s Department of Psychiatry for thirty-two years, Ekman is considered the world’s foremost expert on facial expressions, particularly the subcategory of micro expressions. He considers Emotions Revealed to be his most accessible book, which was written as he was retiring, but he has also published Telling Lies, What the Face Reveals, Why Kids Lie, and Emotional Awareness (with the Dalai Lama). In addition, he offers online training to help improve our ability to read subtle expressions and to enhance emotional awareness. It’s no surprise that the American Psychological Association included him on its list of the 100 most influential psychologists of the 20th century. Time magazine also honored him in 2009 by selecting him as one of the 100 most influential people. Ekman consults with government agencies, here and abroad, on detecting deception and expressions of deadly intent. His work inspired the television series, Lie to Me. He also offers trainings online that anyone can use. He is truly the man of 1,000 faces.

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

METT Advanced training tool

Early Influences Now in his seventies, Paul Ekman spent his childhood in Newark, New Jersey, as the son of a pediatrician. After his father joined the military, Ekman’s family moved to the West Coast. He was just fifteen when he entered a special program at the University of Chicago, eventually gravitating toward the field of psychology. During the 1960s, several key influences led to Ekman’s research on the behavior of the human face. In a humanities course, he read Sigmund Freud’s Introductory Lectures and enjoyed Freud’s pre-emptive style of addressing potential questions and criticisms. Ekman became an avid student, able to quote Freud on any topic. Initially, he accepted Freud’s notion that subconscious intent is easily discerned in external signals. “In my first paper on deception,” Ekman said, “I quoted Freud saying that things will always ooze out of every pore.” However, his own work would show that people can be quite secretive. Reading Freud inspired an interest in becoming a psychotherapist. As Ekman trained for this, he watched people closely and was impressed by evidence that there was more going on than their words indicated. But his life would take a much different route than he anticipated. Just after Ekman received his PhD in 1958, he was drafted. Returning to New Jersey by way of Fort Dix, he became the chief psychologist there. With plenty of subjects at hand, he devised projects that convinced him that solid research could inspire change that

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

would improve quality of life. To his delight, the military implemented several of his suggestions. Soon, Ekman experienced a fortuitous meeting of the minds. He submitted a paper on body movements to a journal that had also received a paper on facial expressions from a psychologist named Silvan Tomkins. The editor suggested to each that they should meet. Ekman went to see Tomkins, the man who had developed Affect Theory, and Tomkins became a mentor. “Silvan had a big influence on me,” Ekman affirmed. “He was trained as a psychoanalyst and he was a real wizard on being able to show you the information in the face. It was Silvan who persuaded me to do research on the face, because I thought it was a graveyard for research. So many famous scientists had tried and failed to develop a method for extracting the information. It’s so complicated and so fast. Sylvan showed me on a screen or in a photograph where he was getting the information. It was not intuitive. It was very explicit. So I figured, if it’s there, I can develop a method so that anyone can measure it and get that information.” Tomkins also believed Darwin’s notion that basic human expressions are universal and innate. Psychologists during this period thought otherwise, but there was little empirical research to support either position. In 1966, Ekman received a grant from the Advanced Research Project Agency to learn about what was universal vs. what was culturally specific about gestures and expressions.

The METT t one point, Ekman filmed 40 confined psychiatric patients. Among them was a depressed, mid-forties housewife who had attempted suicide several times. She deceived her therapists by acting as if she was feeling better so she could leave the hospital for a brief family visit. She had intended to try again to kill herself. Then she admitted the lie. This case inspired Ekman to study deception, which in turn led to his research and training on micro-expressions. Ekman studied tapes of this woman’s clinical interviews, going over and over them until he finally saw the faint glimpse of her despair. It was fleeting but it was there. Everyone can make the universal expressions voluntarily, but the face also has an involuntary system. Sometimes these systems work together, but when a person feels something that contradicts the emotion she wishes to present, the unconscious system can still leak through. These micro expressions, lasting about 1/25 of a second, generally require a trained eye to see. Ekman believed that, with practice, people could become adept detectors of micro expressions. For recognizing emotional signals, Ekman developed the Facial Recognizing Suite, including the METT, or Micro Expression Training Tool. He turned this into an interactive video system, which is now available on his website. METT spends a lot of time teaching about emotions that can be confused with each other, such as fear and surprise. After viewing 30 or 40 examples of micro expressions in less than an hour, a person taking the training can develop a basic ability to spot these quick flashes. (There is also a Mini Expression Training Tool, or SETT Original.) The training demonstrates just how easy it is to miss them. If you blink, you won’t see it.

He contacted Carlton Gajdusek, a neurologist who had been studying a disease called kuru in a Stone Age culture living in a remote area of New Guinea. Gajdusek had taken numerous films of the natives and he generously shared the extensive footage. Ekman realized that these people were free of media contamination, so their expressions should be completely natural to their culture. They offered the perfect subjects. He spent a year watching the facial closeups and realized that the subjects’ expressions were familiar. He had seen them all before. This seemed to confirm Darwin’s notion of universal emotions. Developing a Scientific Tool Ekman decided to visit other cultures to learn how people extracted meaning from facial expressions. He traveled to Asia, South America, and Europe, taking photographs of faces that bore recognizable expressions, such as happiness, fear, and surprise, and asked research subjects to identify them. He found substantial agreement on how people interpreted certain basic expressions.

Few people are even aware of noticing a micro expression, although their brain picks up the information. If we see a happy expression, and no micro expression preceded it, we sense the person is happy. However, if a negative micro expression preceded the smile, we would sense the expression as sinister or manipulative. The inconsistency in the latter example gives us an uneasy feeling, no matter how broadly or how long the person smiles. However, to develop lasting expertise takes not just practice but also feedback. “When we train a serious crime or counterterrorism person,” Ekman explained, “it takes us approximately 35 hours of instruction. You have to practice. I use the example of tennis. You can’t even watch tennis on TV unless you know the rules. You need to have the knowledge. But just having the knowledge, you can’t get the ball over the net. You need a coach and feedback and practice. So we give the knowledge, such as in my book, Telling Lies, but the main thing we give is practice and feedback, again and again, and again, with case examples. “It gets to the point where you don’t have to think about it. You recognize what we call hot spots – places where for some unknown reason, you’re not getting a full account, and yet something’s going on that’s very important. When you see a hot spot – it can be in the face, in the voice, in the words themselves, in the posture, in the gaze—you have to try to figure out why by the questioning you do. But don’t immediately assume that’s proof of a lie. That’s the last explanation, after you’ve ruled out other reasons why you’re seeing a hotspot. Maybe they have to go to the bathroom and they don’t know how to ask you. That will appear as a hotspot, too.” To date, over 70,000 people have taken the METT training. A very few people apparently don’t need it.

To make a more definitive finding that avoided cultural cross-contamination like that found in developed countries, Ekman also went into the jungles of Papua New Guinea, where Gajdusek had worked. These people had never even seen a photograph before, and yet they made sense of the emotional expressions depicted. He recorded face after face until he had an enormous videotape library. His aim was to catalogue every expression of which the face was capable, but also to note those that were clearly universal. Ekman believed he could then devise a way to teach people who would then become adept face readers. Within a decade, Ekman and his colleague, Wally Friesen, had compiled a comprehensive taxonomy of more than 10,000 combinations of facial muscles. Only about 3,000 combinations have some meaning, and a limited number are regularly useful. Some expressions are controllable, others involuntary. Some are easy to identify, others are subtle. The expansion and contraction of muscle movements involved in each expression became the basis for the Ekman Facial Action Coding System (FACS), first published as a 500-page, self-teaching manual with co-researcher Wallace Friesen in 1978.

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

you’re ashamed? Perhaps we did not develop a signal, because it was not useful for the person experiencing shame or guilt to have others know it. I don’t know if it’s true, but it fits as a finding, and for now, it’ll stand. If I look sad and cover my face and turn away, this suggests there might be shame, but people who feel remorse or despair do exactly the same thing.” Confirming what he had noticed from his early interest in psychotherapy, Ekman can demonstrate that “words cannot adequately express emotional states. You have to be a poet to really convey the nuances of emotion that the face and voice convey in ordinary emotional conversation. A word like ‘anger’ is a representation; it’s not the emotion. I can say ‘anger’ in an angry fashion, and then you get the emotion, but anger is a shorthand term for a family of related states. I might be frustrated, or exasperated, or self-righteous. I think we have fourteen different names for types of anger in the English language. “There are emotions that everyone experiences, but you might not have a name for it in your language. Schadenfreude, for example. The Germans have a name for the enjoyment of an enemy’s suffering, but we don’t. Does this mean we can’t feel it, because we don’t have a name for it? That’s ridiculous.” Once the emotions were systematized, the next step was a training tool. It’s easy to see overt expressions, but what about the emotional states we try to hide? They do manifest, but so quickly that few can see them. Ekman found that Freud was wrong about our unconscious issues oozing from every pore, but he discovered that suppressed feelings will find expression, if only for a fraction of a second.

This collection of four black and white photographs show members of a stone age tribe from New Guinea posing expressions of happiness, anger, disgust and sadness. These images were first used by Paul Ekman in the Afterward which appeared in his edited edition of Darwin’s Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals. These photos are often used to illustrate the universality of emotional expression.

According to FACS, true expressions follow a natural flow onto and off of the face. Each has a moment of gathering, a peak, and a breaking point. Ekman and Friesen categorized each movement as an Action Unit (AU), finding 43 distinct AUs. All facial expressions can be dissected into AUs, according to how long they last, how intense they are, and whether or not they shape the face symmetrically. AU 9, for example, is a wrinkled nose. A lip corner pull is AU 12, while a jaw drop is 26. The intensity scale ranges from A (a trace) to E (maximum). When two muscles are used, there are 300 possible combinations; with three, there are over 4,000. With painstaking work, Ekman and Friesen identified 23 combinations that were related to seven emotions with universal facial manifestations: disgust, anger, sadness, happiness, fear, contempt, and surprise. Happiness combines AU 6 and 12 (raised cheek and lip corner), while fear uses six AUs. By learning to read AUs, we can distinguish between, for example, a sincere and insincere smile. Oddly, neither shame nor guilt, both of which are universal human experiences, is on this list. “I can speculate about the reason,” Ekman said. “Think: how often might you want people to know

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

Naturals Ekman teamed up with Maureen O’Sullivan at the University of San Francisco. As they worked with FACS, they found that a select few people are “naturals,” i.e., they are highly accurate at instinctively spotting a liar. When the stakes are high, such as during a threat assessment, they proved to be even better at spotting micro expressions, because they were more vigilant. They “heard” the gesture’s intent more clearly than the spoken words. Ekman and O’Sullivan formed the Diogenes Project to further study these “wizards.” They found that this talented elite often described other people in a complex fashion and displayed a nuanced grasp of social, racial, and individual differences. The wizards also showed a higher level of imagination and more comprehensive attribution schemata. Such people are a perfect fit for security positions and law enforcement. Ekman had plans to take this research further, hoping to identify more wizards, but with the death of his research partner, the Wizard Project came to a premature end. Nevertheless, with enough training and feedback, others can master this skill to the same degree of accuracy. To become an expert, a person must be highly motivated, because developing an internal database is a long, slow process that involves a lot of practice and plenty of accurate feedback. Also, they must avoid books or training programs that promise a quick or simple set of rules, because these shortcuts can interfere with their ability to acquire more reliable information. In addition, the would-be expert must become aware of his or her own need for closure. Those who need closure tend to make judgments sooner that those who can remain open-minded. They like the idea that “some truth is better than no truth” but this is antithetical to developing real skill in this area. In other words, expert face readers would be less likely to act like the lead character in the television series that Ekman inspired.

In 2009, Lie to Me aired its first of three seasons. Creator Samuel Baum had learned about Ekman’s work and was keen to develop a series around the notion of scientifically detecting deception. It had so CANNES, FRANCE - MAY 17: Tim Roth many applications, but (star of the hit show Lie to Me) attends the most notably for na‘De Rouille et D’os’ Premiere during the 65th Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals tional security. For the on May 17, 2012 in Cannes, France. Photo show, Baum created The Credit: cinemafestival / Shutterstock.com Lightman Group, a private consulting company, and Tim Roth was cast as Dr. Cal Lightman. At its peak, the award-winning show attracted more than 12 million viewers. Lightman made sharp, specific, and lightning-speed judgments about micro expressions he spotted, which he usually interpreted as lies.

Recognizing Deception Lies are best identified in context, when compared over a period of time to other deceptive behaviors or narratives. Veracity is usually assessed with two or more systems of cues (e.g., rich detail, with a confident manner). It’s easier to catch a liar when paying attention to both speech and bodily expressions. “It would be simpler for the person trying to spot a lie,” said Ekman, “if behaviors that betray one person’s deceit are also evident when another person lies; but the signs of deceit might be peculiar to each person.” He claims that there is no single sign of deceit in itself, no telltale Pinocchio’s nose. If there were, people would lie less than they do. To predict the behaviors that distinguish a deceptive person, the lie catcher must learn a lot about that individual’s emotional base. Critical principles for recognizing when someone is lying include establishing his or her behavioral “constants,” which become default or reference points. From there, we can look for deviations. Those deviating behaviors that appear in clusters are more likely to signal deception. Even so, there are a limited number of emotions that offer clues: fear or anxiety, guilt that manifests in avoidance behaviors, or the excited delight in manipulation, known as duping delight. To test lie detection abilities, Ekman and his colleagues designed a study in which some participating nurses were shown a beautiful film about nature, while others saw a disturbing film about burn victims and amputations. All participants were told to say they had been viewing the nature film (so some were instructed to lie). Those who had seen the disturbing film were told to conceal their negative

To enhance drama, the series strayed from what the research showed, so Ekman posted a blog to provide information about specific expressions and gestures, as well as to correct errors and avoid misperception. “There’s an upside and a downside to having social science as the primary focus of an entertainment television show,” he observed. “This is the first time it’s all been based on the work of one scientist. It made the issue more salient for a lot of people. I opened my blogs by saying that catching a liar is never as easy or as certain or as fast as Dr. Lightman is, but this is entertainment and he has only 44 minutes. Nevertheless, of the people who saw the show, only 10 percent went to my blog. It’s a big readership for a scientist to get, but the negative effect is that viewers may have gotten the impression that this is easy to do and that it always works. Some day, someone may sit on a jury and misjudge a person. That’s why I started writing the blog.” The show, which often used items from Ekman’s actual research, did raise awareness about the fact that deception detection has attracted an abundance of research in recent years.

emotions so that they could convince an interviewer that they had seen the nature film. Then all were filmed describing their viewing experience. Subjects who viewed the films answered numerous questions about the nurses, although the only judgment being monitored was their ability to spot dishonest statements. Participants included law enforcement officers, judges, federal agents, trial attorneys, and psychotherapists, all of whom had expressed confidence in their ability to spot a liar. Those who saw only the film-seers’ faces or heard only their words performed the worst, but very few performed above chance. In another version in which the evaluators were told to decide whether the nurses were honest or deceptive, they fared no better in the accuracy of their assessments. A few nurses were poor liars and easy to spot, but most of the amateur liars misled the judges. Confidence in one’s lie detection ability was clearly no predictor of actual skill. A natural extension of deception detection is learning to lie better. Some people, such as those who employ spies or run for a political office, might view such training as beneficial to their ambitions. However, Ekman would resist any such request. “In the past,” he said, “I’ve been approached by political candidates, but the word has gotten out that I won’t do it. I don’t run a school for liars, only for lie-catchers.” He’s uninterested in being part of any approach that puts more lies out there. In fact, Ekman has published a book specifically to assist parents to train their children to be truth-tellers. In Why Kids Lie, he explains the motivations behind the lies that kids tell, how they prepare to lie, and how their lies change as they mature. He offers parents some tips for encouraging honesty. Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

A GUIDE FOR

PARENTS Tip number one Ekman offered, “is to be truthful yourself. Your kids watch you; you’re a model. If they see you engage in even a trivial lie – for example, they see you say, ‘I’m sorry I can’t talk to you right now, I’m cooking,’ but you’re not – then you’re teaching them that you can avoid an awkward social situation by lying. When my daughter was born, I decided to see if I could live my life never lying. It was quite a bit of work at first, but I found that, with few exceptions, I could deal with things in honest ways.

Tip number two Explain what the rules of disclosure are: what your children need to tell you and what they have the right to keep private. Teens have the right to privacy, for example, about who they have a crush on. Make clear what their obligations are for revealing. As they get older, you have to give them more autonomy and privacy. If you don’t, they’ll lie to get it.

Tip number three Don’t be the policeman, be the teacher. Your job is not to catch the lie. Your job is to teach them why lying is a bad strategy. If you lie as a strategy, nobody will trust you, so it’s hard to maintain relationships.” Ekman is particularly interested in devoting himself to helping others to improve their emotional awareness and responsiveness. “Almost everyone I’ve ever encountered,” he said, “would like to have a choice about two things: 1) what they become emotional about, and 2) how they behave when they are emotional. Individuals differ to the extent to which they can learn to change, but the first step is to be aware. You have to use training techniques that will increase your awareness of what triggers your emotions. The next step is hard. It’s about change. The paradox is that the people who most need to make change, because they’re most abrasive, will have the hardest time doing it. It’s not impossible, but I believe that nature did not design emotions to be very changeable. And yet, although we all get angry or afraid, we don’t do it in the same ways. You have to keep practicing. “The Dalai Lama told me that when he’s on a trip and he doesn’t get a chance to meditate, he starts getting short-tempered. That’s a man who spends most of his life meditating three or four hours a day. He slips. But so do concert pianists if they don’t practice. Change is possible if you work at it and if you set realistic goals.” With this in mind, Ekman has already designed several more online tools.

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

Future Projects “Currently, we have contracts with two major British law enforcement groups. We’re negotiating with a group in Southeast Asia and a Scandinavian country. In the U.S., we’ve had a contract with the TSA for 3 years. We also have a continuing relationship with the NYPD counter-terrorism unit.” Among his newly designed tool is the METT-Plus and the METTProfile, which provide more training, tests, and feedback, as well as practice in seeing micro expressions in profile. Another tool is the RE3, which involves learning to respond effectively to emotional expression (i.e., raising the level of one’s emotional intelligence). “It’s the next step,” Ekman said, “Suppose you tell your teenager that they have to babysit their little sister because the babysitter canceled. They respond with a sad or angry or contemptuous expression. What’s the best thing for you to say? For each of four potential emotions, we offer seven different responses, and for each response you pick you get feedback from me about the pros and cons. “Before you do this, you’ve already checked off that you have a close or a strained relationship, so how you respond differs, depending on the nature of the relationship. And once you’ve gone through all the emotions and responses for a strained relationship, let’s say, we ask you to do it all over again for a close one. You don’t have to, but it’s free, and you can take as long as you want to go through it all, and come back as many times as you want. “That’s just one scenario. Scenario 2 is a manager telling an employee they didn’t get the promotion. They’ve already made the commitment. Number 1, they hope the employee will take this as a hint to quit, or number 2, they can’t afford to lose their employee. In the scenario, the employee responds with different emotions, and the respondent has several response choices, and whenever they make a choice, I pop up on the screen giving them feedback. It’s the same structure as Scenario 1, but a different situation. Instead of focusing on the quality of the relationship in this one, it’s their goal for the future. “Then there’s a third scenario. This one is useful for law enforcement. You’re interrogating a suspect, and you know he committed a felony, but none of the evidence you have can be introduced in court, so unless you get a confession, he’ll walk. Or, you don’t need a confession.” One more tool is Charting Your Anger Profile. “You do this with another person with whom you have a close relationship in which disagreements arise,” Ekman explained. “Let’s use the example of a spouse. You move things graphically for how you see yourself and for how you see the other person. And they do it for how they see themselves and how they see you. And you get to see where the discrepancies are. Individuals can use this tool, and it’s also useful for therapists.” Most ambitious for the future is the threat detector, “a tool which will back you up in being able to spot potential threats from people who are on the verge of violence.” He’s not sure if he’ll succeed, but he’s going to try. Ekman’s sustained, innovative research offers a legacy of improved emotional awareness and lie detection. He has proven certain assumptions wrong and opened up areas of research that will have endless and beneficial applications in many areas of life. n ABOUT THE AUTHOR Katherine Ramsland, PhD, CMI-V has published over 1,000 articles and 46 books, including The Mind of a Murderer and Beating the Devil’s Game: A History of Forensic Science and Criminal Investigation. Dr. Ramsland is a professor of forensic psychology at DeSales University in Pennsylvania and has been a member of the American College of Forensic Examiners International since 1998.

Expert Witness in the Legal System: A Scientist’s Search for Justice

Dr. Morris S. Zedeck, a pharmacologist, served as an expert witness in 191 trials involving murder, rape, drunk driving, medical malpractice, personal injury, product liability and other criminal and civil matters. In this book he describes his experiences and observations of a justice system that is not always just. Dr. Zedeck discusses incorrectly written cocaine statutes, the causes of wrongful convictions and the use of DNA evidence to exonerate innocent people, and provides examples of dishonesty of expert witnesses, prosecutors, police, attorneys, and judges. Dr. Zedeck provides recommendations such as a more transparent discovery process, better scientific training for judges, the use of animal data in civil trials, and increased resources for the indigent and more comprehensive studying of the forensic disciplines.

Morris s. zedeck, phd Dr. Zedeck received his PhD in pharmacology from the University of Michigan and has held appointments in the departments of pharmacology at Yale University and at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, as well as in the Department of Sciences at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He is the co-author of Forensic Pharmacology.

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Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

CE ARTICLE: 1 CE CREDIT

V I R T U A L

Autopsy ABSTRACT

Forensic pathologists have long been aware of the value of radiography in performing post-mortem examinations. In some instances, it would be extremely difficult and time-consuming to locate and identify various kinds of foreign objects, soft tissue injuries, and bony fractures without such ancillary diagnostic input. The recent development of highly sophisticated radiologic equipment and techniques has led to a new kind of study in some death cases, namely, the virtual autopsy. Through the use of post-mortem computed tomography and magnetic resonance, experienced forensic pathologists are now able to significantly enhance their primary objective, namely, the determination of cause and manner of death. The virtopsy can also be utilized in cases where families have strong religious and emotional objections to a traditional autopsy. The non-invasive nature of this new procedure could also lead to a reversal of the dramatic decrease in hospital autopsies that has occurred over the last three decades, thereby contributing to the advancement of medical knowledge and the resolution of various civil and criminal legal matters. This article highlights the numerous advantages and benefits of the virtual autopsy, while also pointing out some limitations and disadvantages.

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER速 Winter 2012/Spring 2013

BY: Cyril H. Wecht, MD, JD Half a century ago, autopsies were routinely performed on about 50% of all patients who died in hospitals. In past years, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals (JCAH), now JCAHO (Healthcare Organizations), required teaching hospitals to have a 30% autopsy rate, and all others a 20% rate in order to be accredited. Regrettably, and quite inexplicably, such requirements no longer exist. Not only is it a powerful tool for quality improvement in patient care, the autopsy also generates accurate vital statistics, provides a better understanding of diseases, helps in the detection of new kinds of infections and other pathogenic processes, and stimulates overall progress in medical care. Despite these many benefits, the hospital autopsy has fallen out of favor and is now used primarily in forensic investigations (http:// blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/07/30/wanted-forensic-pathologists/?mod=dj). However, although the traditional non-forensic autopsies are no longer being avidly pursued by private physicians and hospitals (costs, medical-intellectual arrogance, fear of malpractice lawsuits, etc.), a new form of post-mortem examination is developing that may take its place, namely, imaging methods such as computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging

CE AT HOME STUDY COURSE: 1 ce credit To get credit and complete the article, please go to http:// www.acfei.com/FESP0313 and look for course code FESP0313 to take the exam and complete the evaluation.

The American College of Forensic Examiners International provides this continuing education credit for Diplomates and certified members.

If you have special needs that prevent you from taking the exam online, please contact the registrar at 800.423.9737.

After studying this article, participants should be better able to do the following: 1. Describe the new technology in post-mortem examinations 2. Discuss the advantages and limitations of virtual autopsy 3. Explain complex and subtle pathological processes in forensic cases 4. Analyze the societal, medical, and legal ramifications of virtual autopsy

This article is approved by the following for continuing education credit: The American College of Forensic Examiners International is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians. The American College of Forensic Examiners International designates this self study activity for a maximum of 1.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)TM. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Keywords: Virtual Autopsy, Radiography, Forensic Imaging Target Audience: hospital pathologists, forensic pathologists, coroners, medical examiners, forensic science investigators, homicide detectives, radiologists, and criminalists. Disclosure: The author has nothing to disclose

Program Level: Advanced FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE: none This educational activity is planned in accordance to the ACFEI policies and procedures for commercial support or promotional conflict of interest. Persons in control of the educational activities up to and including the Founder/ Publisher, Registrar, Continuing Education Committee Members, planners, staff, volunteers, and authors have signed disclosure forms. The following members of the Continuing Education Committee filed the requisite disclosure forms in accordance with the ACFEI policies and procedures for commercial support or promotional conflict of interest: Dr. Robert O’Block, Founder and Publisher Tanja O’Block, Office Manager Pam Arnold, Registrar Karen Hope, Committee Member Maica Perez, Committee Member Judilyn Simpson, Committee Member Melissa Schroeder, Committee Member

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

(MRI). Radiography has long been an indispensable supplemental tool for the forensic pathologist. The plain film radiographs used by most forensic pathologists have changed little over the years. Until recently, there was little reason to believe that radiographic techniques would supplant all or part of the traditional autopsy. Over the past decade, imaging techniques began gaining traction in the forensics field to complement the traditional autopsy. In such cases, before the autopsy is performed, the body undergoes a CT scan and sometimes an MRI scan. The postmortem scan of the body—called the virtual autopsy or imaging autopsy—can reveal abnormalities that either can’t be seen or might be overlooked in a conventional autopsy. Scanning is better than the traditional autopsy at finding bone fractures and gas in tissues, as well as detecting the trajectory of a bullet through the body. Postmortem imaging is extremely helpful in establishing cause of death in cases of blunt accidental trauma. It is also useful in cases of suspected drowning and deaths from burns when the entire body is charred. It also can be used in the investigation of elder or child abuse to identify fractures or intracranial bleeding. History During the mid-1990s, while working on the revision of a high profile case, Dr. Walter Bruschweiler (City Police, Zurich) and Prof. Richard Dirnhofer, (former Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, Bern, Switzerland) decided to apply photogrammetric methods to document patterned soft tissue injuries in order to obtain a more accurate and objective documentation of findings than was possible with photogra-

phy. Based on the experience in this case, Prof. Dirnhofer and his team, including Prof. Michael Thali (current Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, Bern), continued to develop and improve the three-dimensional (3D) documentation of patterned injuries to the body surface. Around the turn of the new millennium, Prof. Dirnhofer and Prof. Thali coined the term “Virtopsy,” combining the terms “virtual” and “autopsy.” Virtopsy is intended to be an objective documentation and analysis process of physical features and evidence. Today, Virtopsy encompasses a variety of scientific tools and methods, ranging from 3D photogrammetry-based optical surface scanning, to robotics, PMCT, and PMMR. The Virtopsy team headed by Prof. Thali at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Bern, Switzerland, consists of an international group of researchers in the fields of forensic pathology, radiology, computer science, engineering, graphic design, and anthropology. Virtopsy itself is neither a specific technique nor a single technology. It is an approach that combines a variety of modalities, including multislice compute tomography (MSCT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound, spectroscopy, high-resolution micro-CT and micro-MRI, photogrammetry, surface scanning, image-guided percutaneous biopsy, and postmortem angiography. Advantages to such an approach include observer-independence, objective data archiving, minimal (or no) invasion, size documentation, three-dimensional (3D) visualization, imaging of difficult areas (face, neck, pelvis), imaging of contaminated bodies, data transfer for teleradiology/pathology, and overcoming religious/cultural objections. Disadvantages at present include the cost of such an approach (two to three times the cost of tra-

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

ditional autopsy) and limited tissue resolution. The Virtopsy process or workflow is straightforward. When cases from judicial authorities are referred to the Institute, a forensic pathologist visits the scene and performs an external inspection of the corpse. After the body is transferred to the Institute, the Virtopsy team arranges for postmortem imaging, which is performed exclusively in cases with patterned injuries or traffic accidents with an unclear sequence of events. CT scans are routinely performed in all cases involving uncertain identifications; complex cases, such as drowning, suspected malpractice, or exhumation; cases with high media attention (e.g., homicides, large-scale accidents, or military accidents), and all cases involving the death of children. Experience has shown that cases of childhood death are frequently reexamined years later based on questions from the parents of the deceased child. These questions may often be answered in a more conclusive way using the information from both the autopsy and imaging. Currently, magnetic resonance (MR) scans are performed for research purposes only. The results from the scans are submitted to the forensic pathologists prior to autopsy, transmitted in a written report. After the autopsy, the radiologists and the pathologists review the key findings from imaging and from the autopsy in the autopsy suite. In addition, all cases are discussed in a daily morning report. The best possible results are achieved when there is a tight collaboration between the two disciplines. Therefore, the pathologists have unimpeded access to all radiologic studies, and the radiologists have access to all case-related documents. Based on the experience at the Institute, 7090% of all forensic cases can be solved without

traditional autopsy when external inspection and a virtual autopsy are performed. In nearly all of the Instituteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cases, however, a virtual autopsy will be performed as an adjunct to the traditional autopsy, as this best serves the needs of most investigations and the research interests of the Virtopsy group. In a small percentage of cases, an autopsy is not performed when it has not been approved by a judicial authority. The fundamental goal of Virtopsy has remained unchanged since the 3D photogrammetric methods were first used to document patterned injuries in the 1990s. That goal is to establish an observer-independent, objective, and reproducible method for the assessment of forensically relevant evidence. Forensic imaging techniques yield permanent documentation of forensic findings, creating a still frame of that moment in time that will persist, even as healing in the living and decay in the dead progress and crime scenes become contaminated. Forensic imaging is non-destructive and does not preclude other modalities in the event that further investigation is required. Importantly, no specific social or religious objections to forensic imaging exist, as they do for traditional autopsy. Furthermore, the results of forensic imaging examinations can be stored indefinitely, transferred digitally, and reexamined at any time almost anywhere in the world. Remote viewing and interpretation (a.k.a. teleradiology) is commonplace in clinical radiology and could readily be applied in forensics as one method to compensate for the dearth of radiologists who have special forensic experience. Adjunctive or alternate techniques that can capture some of the pathologic correlations that are otherwise lost in this era of declining autopsy rates would be of exceptional value. Additional benefits are achieved when such methods can be utilized as an acceptable substitute when the decedentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s family objects to a traditional invasive autopsy (non-medicolegal) for religious or personal reasons. Forensic imaging techniques offer several additional advantages to the investigator. Imaging is non-invasive and non-destructive, which not only allows for further investigation of the corpse, but is also better tolerated by relatives of the deceased. The evidence generated by forensic imaging is objective and can be re-evaluated in unaltered form at any time should the need arise. Finally, sophisticated rendering techniques can be applied to the data to produce intuitive, three dimensional (3D) images that are well suited for use in the courtroom and viewing

by laypersons. In simplest terms, computed tomography (CT) scanners measure the X-ray density of the material scanned, in a manner that preserves the three dimensional (3D) relationships of the structures. To better visualize vascular pathology on PCT, intravascular contrast agents can be administered. This technique differs significantly from clinical angiography. As vessels are filled by displacement, an external pump is required, and the contrast agent must be chosen carefully in order to avoid excessive tissue edema. Access to the vessel system is achieved via unilateral cannulation of the femoral vessels, to which a modified heart-lung machine is attached. CT angiography can be used to display the venous and/or arterial systems. Since extravasation of contrast agent is clearly visible in the resulting images, hemorrhage and organ laceration can be easily localized. This technique, however, cannot be applied to bodies in an advanced state of decay, when the vessel walls have become too fragile to effectively hold the contrast material. Specific pathologic diagnosis often requires histological and toxicological analysis. At autopsy, these tissue and fluid samples can be obtained by direct aspiration of fluid and by cutting away sample tissues during the autopsy. The opening of body cavities, however, can lead to contamination of the samples. One way to overcome this problem is the use of minimally invasive needle biopsy. In needle biopsies, a hollow introducer needle acts as a guide through which the actual biopsy needle is placed. A special biopsy gun then activates the biopsy needle, cutting free a small cylinder of sample tissue. Introducer needles can also be used to retrieve liquid samples as required. Needle biopsy allows for retrieval of uncontaminated tissue samples with minimal destruction to the body, while also reducing the risk of contact with bodies contaminated by toxic substances, infections, radionuclides, or other hazardous substances. In forensic medicine, photography with exact measurements has been the standard for the documentation of injuries. Photography reduces a 3D structure of interest, e.g., a skin wound, to a two-dimensional (2D) level. For reconstruction purposes, it is necessary to create 3D data of the structure of interest. Although body surface reconstruction using CT or MR imaging datasets is possible, the resolution is limited. Additionally, because of a lack of color information, it is not possible to adequately depict patterned injuries, such

"In simplest terms, computed tomography (CT) scanners measure the X-ray density of the material scanned, in a manner that preserves the three dimensional (3D) relationships of the structures."

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINERÂŽ

as imprints from shoes, weapons, or bites. To overcome these limitations, photogrammetry-supported 3D surface scanning can be utilized. Photogrammetry and 3D optical surface scanning yield highly precise 3D documentation of body surfaces with all outer findings as well as for the documentation of suspected injury-causing instruments. These data can then be used to perform computeraided 3D reconstructions of accidents and homicides. For the 3D reconstruction of an accident or homicide, it might be necessary also to obtain 3D images from the incident site. 3D laser scanners can be used by the police or other support personnel for surveying the site. It is essential to record the traces on site, especially for gunshot reconstructions or blood pattern analyses. Post-mortem computed tomography (PMCT) and post-mortem magnetic resonance (PMMR) datasets represent a scanned three-dimensional (3D) volume. Unlike twodimensional (2D) images, which are com-

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER速 Winter 2012/Spring 2013

posed of an array of picture elements (pixels) with different colors or gray scale values, volume data sets are composed of 3D elements called volume pixels or voxels. To present volume datasets to laypersons, a 3D image presentation is often the best choice. The standard PMCT visualization method for medical datasets is called volume rendering. Similar to windowing, each voxel receives a different color and transparency depending on its Hounsfield value. The function defining which value is mapped to which color and transparency is called a transfer function. Additionally, different shaders allow for the calculation of different lighting conditions and shadows to increase 3D perception. In order to highlight specific properties of a dataset, the way the final image is calculated can be altered. Knowledge of normal postmortem changes, appropriate forensic protocols, and the specific forensic questions to be answered are essential to interpreting forensic radiology studies. According to some researchers, antemortem

clinical computed tomography (CT) reports have poor correlation with autopsy results. For all the preceding reasons, it is advisable that radiologists with specific training and experience in forensic imaging be consulted to direct and interpret forensic studies as well as to reinterpret clinical and antemortem imaging that will be admitted into evidence. General Considerations for Post-Mortem Magnetic Resonance (PMMR) CT is a superior tool for two-dimensional (2D) and 3D documentation and analysis of fractures, foreign bodies, pathologic gas collections, and bullet wounds. It is also a useful tool to demonstrate gross soft tissue injury, although with lower sensitivity and specificity than magnetic resonance (MR) or autopsy. The accuracy of CT for such parenchymal and vascular pathology can be significantly improved if angiographic techniques are employed. Since CT scanning is routinely used in clinical radiology, PMCT scans can be readily correlated to clinical antemortem datasets for comparison. Volume estimation of air collections, fluid collections, and organs and weight estimation of organs in PMCT datasets is also possible. It is well known in clinical radiology that demonstration of soft tissue pathology (including musculoskeletal pathology) and neurologic pathology is often best performed by MR imaging rather than CT, due to MRâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s generally higher sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy. Hemorrhage age can also be more precisely determined by MR, based on the breakdown products of hemoglobin and their varied appearance over time on T1 and T2 weighted sequences. This appearance is unaltered by the process of decomposition for quite some time after death. Regular use of MR in the clinical setting also allows for comparison to antemortem imaging data. In cases of patterned injuries, the shape of the wound can be compared with the shape of the suspected injury-causing object, which might be a hammer, a shoe sole, or teeth. In cases of muzzle imprints, for example, it is possible to determine if a particular pistol could have created the imprint, which is useful in helping to exclude or include it as the potential murder weapon. Crime Reconstruction In cases involving the discharge of a firearm, computer models of the deceased and the suspect are created based on body scanning and combined with the virtual crime scene.

The computer models are fitted exactly to the physiques of the persons who were involved. By taking into consideration all the spoors, as well as forensic and police knowledge, the course of events can be reconstructed, step-bystep. The victim-perpetrator configuration at the time of the shooting can be determined and visualized. Statements of the accused and/or witnesses can thus be confirmed or refuted. The results of the investigation are then presented as situation plans, graphics, and animations. Traffic Accident Reconstruction The basis for a 3D geometric accident reconstruction are the created, true-color 3D models of the deceased as well as the suspected injury-causing object or accident vehicle. With computer support, the 3D models of the injuries and damages are combined geometrically and verified as to positioning, size, and form. By comparison of the injuries to the injurycausing vehicle structures, the course of the collision events can be reconstructed. In clinical radiology, the utility and accuracy of image-guided aspiration and biopsy is undisputed. Postmortem techniques may conceivably prove to be more accurate, given the lack of patient motion that can complicate a clinical biopsy. In the postmortem setting, the effectiveness of percutaneous core needle biopsy has been demonstrated using blind techniques, ultrasonographic (US) guided techniques, CT guided techniques, and navigated techniques in all major organs. Fluid aspiration (e.g., blood or urine samples) is also easily and reliably performed. Samples can be used for cytology and histology, as well as for chemical, toxicological, and microbiological analyses. Combination techniques employing angiography and biopsy are accurate and appropriate in certain scenarios, such as sudden death fatalities with a report of antemortem chest pain. Identification Positive identification of a corpse generally requires fingerprint, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), or dental evaluation. Fingerprint and DNA analysis are not within the scope of the forensic imaging methods described herein. Dental identification, however, is regularly performed at the Bern institution. It is possible to create 3D dental images from PMCT data that match the exact orientation of antemortem dental radiographs.

"In clinical radiology, the utility and accuracy of image guided aspiration and biopsy is undisputed."

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINERÂŽ

Decomposition Due to excellent depiction of gas collections, PMCT is well suited for demonstrating patterns of decomposition. The full spectrum of early to advanced decomposition, including cranial settling, intravascular gas, subcutaneous gas, cavity fluid, gas collections in solid organs, adipocere, and mummification, are all well seen on PMCT. It is also known that useful structural information about the brain persists on PMMR images well past the point that softening and liquefaction render the autopsy less effective, suggesting the use of routine brain PMMR in decomposed bodies. At this time, imaging cannot reliably estimate the postmortem interval. PMCT and PMMR can be applied to cases of both fatal strangulation and survived strangulation. PMCT of the neck soft tissues displays excellent hyoid bone and laryngeal cartilage detail, although surrounding soft tissue is less well displayed. PMMR of the neck soft tissues cannot exclude attempted strangulation or a life-threatening strangulation attempt, but it can reveal additional pathology in victims that cannot be seen by PMCT, and therefore provides additional documentary evidence of both the occurrence and severity

of the event. It may be particularly useful to consider the use of PMMR in complicated or confusing cases, or for use in dark skinned individuals where typical bruising patterns are harder to discern. For more than a decade, fetal MR has been used with reasonable success as an adjunct to conventional fetal autopsy. Neuropathology is well demonstrated by such examinations, although other organ systems—in particular, the heart—are not as confidently assessed by postmortem fetal MR. More recent investigations using ultra high field MR in fetuses of less than 22 weeks gestational age show promising results with much better overall imaging and autopsy concordance. The contribution of radiology to the workup of suspected, non-fatal child abuse is well documented. This includes radiographs, skeletal surveys, bone scintigraphy, and head CT, although ultrasound and MR may also play a role for problem solving, or when suggestive findings are noted in clinical examinations performed for other indications. Follow-up examinations play a crucial role in documenting subtle injuries and temporal separation of injuries and must not be forgotten. Postmortem standards beyond the use of skeletal surveys

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

have not yet been defined, but should at a minimum mirror the antemortem examinations that have been performed (i.e., modality, orientation, field of view, protocol, etc.) to enable accurate comparison. If antemortem images are not available, the selection of examinations should follow the community standard by including at least those exams that are considered standard for child abuse in a living patient, assuming local standards do not fall below published guidelines. Several additional specific scenarios are well suited for forensic imaging. In fact, it is difficult to state a time when imaging is definitely not useful. In bodies that are severely traumatized, such as suicide by train, imaging can provide a fast overview of injuries that would otherwise be extremely tedious and time-consuming to document by using traditional methods. When a source for internal hemorrhage is sought or significant solid organ injury is suspected, post-mortem computed tomography angiography (PMCTA) should be considered. In severely burned, mutilated, or decomposed bodies, imaging can quickly assist with identification of foreign bodies and/or debris. It offers a convenient method to inventory all body parts. Additionally, in malpractice cases, high profile cases, and homicide cases, imaging may provide additional data and confirmation of findings and can enhance the confidence of investigators in arriving at their conclusions. Finally, even in otherwise straightforward suicide cases, imaging can provide additional assurance that no inconsistent injuries are present. A potential benefit of forensic imaging that has received little rigorous evaluation is its potential impact in the courtroom. Recognition of the important features in three-dimensional (3D), fused, integrated images is intuitive; they are easily understood by laypersons. It has often been stated that, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” This statement is certainly true for advanced forensic imaging. Tremendous detail regarding trajectories, body orientation, internal and external injury, and surface coloration can be presented in a single image or small series of images. Simple animation can quickly demonstrate possible crime and accident scene sequences, locations, and orientations. Furthermore, forensic imaging is relatively benign (it is less shocking and gory than photographs), and thus there is no need for redaction. Finally, jurors are generally considered to be influenced by the “CSI-effect,” in that their expectation of the technological capabilities and widespread use of advanced forensic techniques is remarkably

high, as is their confidence in the accuracy of these advanced techniques. Advanced forensic imaging can provide imaging that satisfies these sentiments in an evidence-based manner. Forensic imaging has become an integral part of the local forensic investigation protocol. In Switzerland such evidence is not only accepted by the courts, it is regularly specifically requested by them. Some controversies exist regarding the proper place of advanced forensic imaging and whether or not it will replace the traditional autopsy in the future. Based on current research, forensic imaging is an important adjunct to the traditional autopsy and may obviate the need for an intensive autopsy in occasional, carefully selected cases. What is truly important and must be kept in mind is the goal of these advanced forensic imaging techniques, namely, to increase the overall accuracy of forensic investigations, whatever form those investigations may ultimately take. BEYOND FORENSICS A recent study on a series of 285 patients who died in the intensive care unit compared findings from imaging autopsy with traditional autopsy findings in 47 of them. Imaging autopsy confirmed most clinical diagnoses and detected some problems that may have contributed to death but which were missed by conventional autopsy—for example, pneumothorax and fractures. Experts in postmortem imaging are working toward improving this technology. One recent advance is a virtual autopsy table that consists of a large, touch-sensitive LCD screen that displays images of the body. It is designed to manage and visualize the enormous data sets produced by the medical imaging modalities. It has been described as a huge iPad, where the imaging data are reconstructed into 3D images of bone and tissues. With the swipe of a finger, users can navigate through the body in real time, peeling back layers of muscle, zooming in and out of organs, rotating tissue and “cutting” through it with a virtual knife—almost all the functions of a traditional autopsy. This technology also would be a great addition to medical education. Postmortem imaging is also being used to make imaging safer for living patients. Virtual autopsy researchers are working on a project to study various levels of radiation dosing from CT scans in cadavers in a hospital setting, trying to identify the lowest dose that still provides an accurate diagnosis. Another objective of their research is to create a teach-

ing module that compares premortem and postmortem imaging studies with photographs from gross and microscopic autopsy examinations. The ultimate objective is to enhance the understanding of radiological and pathological correlates of different disease processes that have led to a patient’s death. The latest versions of imaging devices could play a part in autopsy, but costs may ultimately limit their acceptance in the general health care community. Pathologists have traditionally used x-ray imaging before autopsy to focus their explorations. But lately researchers have published findings suggesting that “virtual autopsy” using multidetector computed tomography (MSCT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may be an even better tool to help determine death. Recently, researchers associated with the U.S. Armed Forces Medical Examiner’s Office published a study supporting the use of MSCT to determine death by drowning. Since 2004, the Armed Forces Medical Examiner’s Office has used MSCT on all remains passing through the military’s mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The remains are scanned primarily to detect metal objects such as shrapnel. This routine imaging has created a unique database, which the Armed Forces Medical Examiner’s Office and its Institute of Pathology is now using to determine the effectiveness of adding MSCT to autopsy. The researchers compared MSCT images from 28 consecutive male subjects who died of drowning and 12 consecutive male subjects with atherosclerotic coronary artery disease. The images from the drowning subjects detected frothy airway fluid experienced sudden death from and high-attenuation airway sediment highly suggestive of drowning. Drowning is a difficult cause of death to determine. Usually it is a diagnosis of exclusion (heart attack, drug intoxication, etc.) with subtle anatomic signs that require an extensive autopsy. CT is noninvasive and can be of great diagnostic assistance in such cases. MSCT can be useful in helping to determine the cause of death from traumatic events, and MRI studies are useful in identifying soft tissue damage. MSCT could also be used as a pre-autopsy triage tool to assist in mass casualty scenarios such as the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans several years ago. Routine imaging may reduce the need for conventional autopsies. However, weaknesses in imaging modalities prevent their wide-

spread use in replacing the traditional autopsy. Imaging can be used as a pre-autopsy screening technique to prevent unnecessary autopsies. A recent study in Great Britain by a group of Oxford radiologists indicated that the autopsy was unnecessary to confirm the cause of death in almost half of cases. The major discrepancy rate between consensus imaging and autopsy in the group for whom autopsy was deemed not to be necessary to confirm the cause of death could be acceptable for medicolegal purposes because it is similar to the error rate of clinical death certificates on which most registered causes of deaths are based. The study included 182 cases. Major discrepancies were most commonly observed in the diagnosis of coronary heart disease, pulmonary embolism, pneumonia, and intestinal infarction. In a linked commentary, Sir James Underwood, MD, from the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, cautions that postmortem imaging cannot replace the conventional autopsy at this time. “Post-mortem imaging cannot yet be regarded as a universal substitute for autopsy; it is one of several methods available for determining the cause of death,” Dr. Underwood states. “In some cases, post-mortem imaging might be better than autopsy; in others, imaging augments the autopsy. Whichever method is chosen, all death investigations should begin with a thorough review of the decedent’s clinical history and meticulous external examination of the body.” Some relatively common entities presenting as sudden death cannot yet be adequately evaluated by virtopsy (pulmonary emboli, asthma). Other pathological processes have not yet been evaluated (e.g. cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, neurodegenerative diseases) via the virtopsy approach. The Virtopsy as a multi-tool approach presents a number of ways that photogrammetry and 3D surface scanning allow comparison of patterned injuries, including shoe tread impressions, blunt injuries, sharp force injuries, firearm muzzle imprints, and bite marks. Reconstructions of motor vehicle injuries and fatalities, integrating studies of the victims with 3D modeling of bicycles, motorcycles, cars, tire tracks, and roadways can be accomplished via virtual autopsy. Over the last decade, computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance (MR) imaging have been introduced to forensic radiology, and the field has evolved significantly. The development of postmortem CT

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

THE FUTURE of the

VIRTUAL AUTOPSY The virtual autopsy could prove especially useful for families who decline to have an autopsy performed on a relative because of religious restrictions or other reasons. If they don’t want an autopsy, imaging could take its place. However, words of caution regarding the acceptance of virtual autopsy must be noted. In the vast majority of uses, determining the cause of death using imaging depends on the body being given a contrast agent which requires circulating blood—something that doesn’t happen in people who are dead. Even if imaging does not replace the traditional autopsy, it could augment these dissections, especially when there is a need to look at the deep structures of the neck and to identify subtle injuries. Personal opinions about the value of virtual autopsy will likely slow its adoption. Many older and experienced pathologists still question its usefulness. Turf battles between the pathologists who perform autopsies and the radiologists who would conduct the imaging studies is another impediment. Intensive effort will be required to make professional groups complement each other and not compete—the radiologist interprets the images and then works with the pathologist. But the main limiting factor may be cost, at least until the costs for such procedures decrease significantly.

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

angiography (PMCTA) has made postmortem imaging more robust, particularly in regard to vascular pathology and solid organ laceration. MR provides more detailed soft tissue information than CT, and the use of postmortem MR has increased in recent years. A combination of the soft tissue detail provided by MR and the information afforded by angiography could prove to be very useful. A preliminary technical study by Swiss radiology groups has demonstrated the feasibility of whole body PMMRA based on methods developed and tested for PMCTA. The technical quality of PMMRA was found to be equal to PMCTA with the majority of the vessels that they evaluated. PMMRA of the head and the chest showed the best results. Satisfactory PMMRA results were also achieved in the abdomen, although overall, the abdominal vessels were not depicted as well as vessels in the head and chest. This study demonstrated the technical feasibility of whole body MR angiography in the postmortem setting. PMMRA images could be generated with a cost-effective contrast mixture, using a straight-forward technique, and virtually without the need for MR safe equipment. PMMRA combines the soft tissue detail provided by MR and the information afforded by angiography. This technique may extend the radiological tools available for postmortem investigations, whether they are performed in the course of forensic investigation, or during hospital-based morbidity/mortality review. n References Friedrich, M. (2012, April 11). Can imaging help revive the autopsy? The Journal of the American Medical Association, 307(14). Laskey, A. L., Haberkorn, K. L., Applegate, K. E., & Catellier, M. J. (2008, November 21). Postmortem skeletal survey practice in pediatric forensic autopsies: A national survey. Journal of Forensic Science, 54(1). Love, J. C., & Sanchez, L. A. (2009, November). Recognition of skeletal fractures in infants: An autopsy technique. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 54(6). Mitka, M. (2007, July 25). CT, MRI scans offer new tools for autopsy. The Journal of the American Medical Association, 298(4). Palazzolo, J. (2012, July 30). Wanted: Forensic pathologists. In The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved July 31, 2012, from http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/07/30/ wanted-forensic-pathologists/?mod=dj8 Rattue, P. (2011, November 22). Routine imaging could reduce the need for standard autopsies (linked comment by Professor James Underwood). In Medical

News Today. Retrieved from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/238078.php Thali, M. J., Viner, M. D., & Brogdon, B. (Eds.). (2010). Brogdon’s Forensic Radiology (2nd ed.). N.p.: CRC Press. Thall, M., Dirnhofer, R., & Vock, P. (Eds.). (2009). The Virtopsy Approach:3D Optical and Radiological Scanning and Reconstruction in Forensic Medicine. N.p.: CRC Press. Uhrenholt, L., Nielsen, E., Charles, A. V., Hauge, E., & Gregersen, M. (2009, June). Imaging occult lesions in the cervical spine facet joints. The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, 30(2).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Cyril H. Wecht, MD, JD, received his MD degree from the University of Pittsburgh and his JD degree from the University of Maryland. He is certified by the American Board of Pathology in Anatomic, Clinical, and Forensic Pathology, the American Board of Disaster Medicine, and the American Board of Legal Medicine. Dr. Wecht is actively involved as a medical-legal and forensic science consultant, author, and lecturer, and was the elected coroner of Allegheny County for 20 years. He has performed approximately 18,000 autopsies and reviewed or consulted on approximately 38,000 additional post-mortem examinations, including cases in several foreign countries. He holds several professorial faculty positions at the University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne University, and Carlow University. He is the author or co-author of 575 professional publications, and editor or co-editor of 46 books. Dr. Wecht is a past president of both the American College of Legal Medicine and the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and currently serves as the Chair of the ACFEI Executive Advisory Board and the American Board of Forensic Medicine. Dr. Wecht has appeared as a frequent guest on numerous national TV and radio shows discussing famous cases, many of which are mentioned in his books: Cause of Death, Grave Secrets, Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey?, Mortal Evidence, Tales From the Morgue, A Question of Murder, and From Crime Scene to Courtroom.

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Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

FEATURE

h t a B

Salts Emerging and Dangerous Products

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER速 Winter 2012/Spring 2013

LETTER FROM THE NIDA

“Doctors and clinicians at U.S. poison centers have indicated that ingesting or snorting ‘bath salts’ containing synthetic stimulants can cause chest pains, increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, agitation, hallucinations, extreme paranoia, and delusions.”

“Bath Salts,” the newest fad to hit the shelves (virtual and real), is the latest addition to a growing list of items that young people can obtain to get high. The synthetic powder is sold legally online and in drug paraphernalia stores under a variety of names, such as “Ivory Wave,” “Purple Wave,” “Red Dove,” “Blue Silk,” “Zoom,” “Bloom,” “Cloud Nine,” “Ocean Snow,” “Lunar Wave,” “Vanilla Sky,” “White Lightning,” “Scarface,” and “Hurricane Charlie.” Because these products are relatively new to the drug abuse scene, our knowledge about their precise chemical composition and short- and long-term effects is limited, yet the information we do have is worrisome and warrants a proactive stance to understand and minimize any potential dangers to the health of the public. We know, for example, that these products often contain various amphetaminelike chemicals, such as methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MPDV), mephedrone, and pyrovalerone. These drugs are typically administered orally, by inhalation, or by injection, with the worst outcomes apparently associated with snorting or intravenous administration. Mephedrone is of particular concern because, according to the United Kingdom experience, it presents a high risk for overdose. These chemicals act in the brain like stimulant drugs (indeed they are sometimes touted as cocaine substitutes); thus they present a high abuse and addiction liability. Consistent with this notion, these products have been reported to trigger intense cravings not unlike those experienced by methamphetamine users, and clinical reports from other countries appear to corroborate their addictiveness. They can also confer a high risk for other medical adverse effects. Some of these may be linked to the fact that, beyond their

known psychoactive ingredients, the contents of “bath salts” are largely unknown, which makes the practice of abusing them, by any route, that much more dangerous. Unfortunately, “bath salts” have already been linked to an alarming number of ER visits across the country. Doctors and clinicians at U.S. poison centers have indicated that ingesting or snorting “bath salts” containing synthetic stimulants can cause chest pains, increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, agitation, hallucinations, extreme paranoia, and delusions. It is noteworthy that, even though we are barely two months into 2011, there have been 251 calls related to “bath salts” to poison control centers so far this year. This number already exceeds the 236 calls received by poison control centers for all of 2010. In response to this emerging threat, several states, including Hawaii, Michigan, Louisiana, Kentucky, and North Dakota, have introduced legislation to ban these products, which are incidentally labeled as “not fit for human consumption.” In addition, several counties, cities, and local municipalities have also taken action to ban these products. We will continue to monitor the situation and promote research on the extent, pharmacology, and consequences of “bath salts” abuse. In the meantime, I would like to urge parents, teachers, and the public at large to be aware of the potential dangers associated with the use of these drugs and to exercise a judicious level of vigilance that will help us deal with this problem most effectively. n Sincerely, Nora D. Volkow, M.D. Director National Institute on Drug Abuse

Business was brisk at The Last Place on Earth in Duluth, Minnesota, June 29, 2011, before the ban on synthetic drugs went into effect at midnight. These are some of the Bath Salts that are included in the ban. (Brian Peterson/Minneapolis Star Tribune/MCT)

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

Bath

Salts C O N TI N U E D

Interview with

Glen Hanson Glen Hanson, PHD, DDS, is a researcher funded by the National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA) of NIH. He was the acting director of that institute from 2001 to 2003. Currently, Dr. Hanson is a tenured professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Utah. He is also the director of the Utah Addiction Center at the University of Utah as well as a senior advisor for NIH.

Why do you think there has been a trend in bath salts and other designer drugs? The concept of designer drugs has been around for a long time; the term was originally used in the 1980s. It referred to an opium narcotic-type of drugs related to a substance called fentanyl that was a very powerful analgesic. Today we still use fentanyl clinically, and it’s easy to modify chemically (creating an analogue molecule) and thereby change some of its pharmacological properties. There existed several fentanyl analogues, which became known as designer drugs. We know that the amphetamines can also be easily changed or doctored chemically in order to produce a variety of pharmacological effects. For example, the drug known as ecstasy (chemically referred to as methylene dioxymethamphetamine or MDMA) is actually a designer drug spin-off of methamphetamine. Ecstasy actually became

popular in the mid-1980s around the same time that the fentanyl drugs became available and was also referred to as a “designer” drug. Because the amphetamines are so easily modified, people have played around with these analogues for a long time in order to understand how they function and if their pharmacological properties can be improved for clinical use. At the same time it was observed that the changes in the amphetamine chemistry could also affect the drugs’ adverse and addictive properties. The concept of a cannabinoid designer drug, a drug that works at the same targets in the brain like marijuana or THC in marijuana, is a more recent phenomenon. While cannabinoid analogue compounds have existed for a while, they haven’t been available in the streets until recently. Now we are being inundated with designer cannabinoid analogues that are being included in products called Spice. At the same time, there has been “marketing” of designer amphetamine analogues in products referred to as bath salts. While these designer compounds have chemical similarities to THC from marijuana and the amphetamines, their effects on people are unknown and potentially dangerous. How are bath salts packaged? Are they packaged to look like store-bought bath salts? More or less. They have a granular or powdery texture. The original products were marketed with the intent to convince law enforcement

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

that they were to be added to one’s bath and not for human consumption. I think the people who have purchased this stuff always understood that these bath salts were to be ingested in some fashion, and were interested in the product’s pharmacology and not its soaking properties. This material does not penetrate the skin so it’s not going to have much of a pharmacological effect if you just sit in water that it has been dissolved in. How are they taken? These products can be smoked, injected, or even taken orally. Probably smoking and injecting are more likely. You can also snort it, put it into the nasal passages, and let it penetrate through the mucosal lining in the nose. Most of the cases we hear about, are they mostly injected or smoked? Probably smoking, but many of the people who really like this stuff have a history of doing other amphetamine-related drugs, whether its methamphetamines or ecstasy, and if they are hardcore users then they either are going to smoke it or inject it intravenously for maximal effects. Although there is a concern even if you are a hardcore addict that the products can be contaminated with an adulterated chemical that could do serious harm. What type of drug user abuses bath salts? Is it typically the same type of person who is addicted to other drugs?

INTERVIEW I would say the majority are experienced drug abusers. You may have some young kids, adolescents, or young adults who are just curious and want to experiment with it and see what it’s like and then they move on. These are persons who are relatively naive to the general drug scene. Although if a person is messing around with bath salts then he/she is probably messing around with other drugs as well, and probably has a history of marijuana use and maybe some amphetamine use as well. Maybe abuse of Ritalin or some kind of prescription stimulant. Most of them have a history, with a previous interest. In many cases when persons use the bath salts they also have other drugs in their body at the same time. So most emergency cases involve not only bath salts but drug combinations.

and they contain different combinations of drugs. Some of them are amphetamine-like, some of them may be cocaine-like, and while there are similarities in these two categories of stimulants, there are also some differences. Then some of them just have other stuff, they may throw in caffeine or they add another kind of stimulant, or just throw in some garbage. Typically, you find a fairly significant stimulant effect that causes euphoria that is perceived as rewarding by the consumer.

Why do you think people are doing these drugs that they know are harmful to them? There could be several explanations. One, if they are a hardcore drug user they don’t really care. They are not trying to kill themselves but they are looking for an experience and someone says, “Wow yeah these bath salts are really great” (or some other product that is related), “I used them and had a fantastic experience. You really should go and do it,” and so they do. If you asked them, “Would you be surprised to know that there are adulterants in this stuff and there isn’t really reliable quality or safety control that goes along with these products?” they would look at you and go “Duh, we know that.” So this issue doesn’t seem to be particularly important. As I said, they aren’t trying to kill themselves, but they are willing to take a risk in order to have a good time. In all honestly, these people typically are not the best decision-makers in the world, and they do things that really don’t make a lot of sense to the rest of us so we just kind of scratch our heads. Many of them are kids who often don’t make logical decisions anyway.

You hear stories about people who have been tripped out for days and then found in random locations. Is that the result of multiple doses? I would guess that they are on a run, but I would be surprised if these are traditional bath salts. Although they are not well studied in humans, we don’t know precisely how long it takes for many of the drugs included in bath salts to be cleared from the body. As I mentioned before, many of these drugs are amphetamine-related and they tend to be similarly metabolized so the half-life is usually in the two and three hour range.

How do bath salts affect the brain? It depends on what active ingredients are present in the product. This is a major concern with bath salts and related products: They are not patented, they have not filed a patented with the U.S. government, there is no control because different groups manufacture them,

How long does the high last? It would depend on what the ingredients are. Some of them are shorter, some of them are longer, but you’re probably going to see effects in the hour, two hour, three hour ranges. Not much longer than that.

What are the short-term and long-term side effects of using these drugs? The short- and long-term effects likely resemble those of amphetamines and methamphetamines. Short-term, like I mentioned, are stimulation, you are alert and depending on how much and how often you use it, psychosis can occur. You can develop paranoid features and maybe even have some hallucinations and a psychotic reaction that appears similar to schizophrenia. We actually had a publication not too long ago looking at one of the ingredients in a compound called mephedrone and its long-term effects. We observed that it caused long-term damage to serotonin systems in the brain, similar to that caused by ecstasy, but it also seemed to be very addicting and looked like methamphetamine in terms of its addictive potential. These findings suggest

that mephedrone is a cross between methamphetamine and ecstasy as far as its long-term actions are concerned. What are patterns of abuse once someone becomes addicted? Or can they? Well if they truly do become addicted, and I’m not sure how valid the claims are you would have to really look at, I think you can get addicted probably much the same way as with a methamphetamine. These products are a little on the pricey side, so if someone were trying to go out and get addicted to something it probably wouldn’t be this, it would be kind of expensive. You would probably be more inclined to buy cheap methamphetamines that are made at home or made by a snerfer or somebody like that, it’s going to be a lot less expensive. What drugs are bath salts most similar to: meth, ecstasy, or cocaine? Depending on the ingredients added, bath salts may have effects that appear like any of these drugs or a combination of all of them. I have heard that there have been problems with making it illegal because they do change the ingredients so much. So I guess what we are working on now would be to get some of the main ingredients banned? This is a two-fold struggle: when a new compound shows up or when an old compound we previously ignored because it wasn’t being abused shows up again. We know so little about the ingredients and there just isn’t the literature, there is no research that has been done, so we don’t know what they look like in a human. For example, the compound that I mentioned a minute ago, mephedrone, had not been studied until we reported our research. Even though mephedrone has been abused literally all over the world and Asia, Great Britain, and Australia are having really big problems with abuse, there was no scientific biomedical literature to identify this drug’s pharmacology. So we did the experiments, wrote it up, and published a paper. But for most of the new compounds, there isn’t a literature. Thus, if the federal or local government wants to make a new drug illegal, the manufacturer can come back and say, “On what basis? Do you have anything to demon-

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

Light shines through a beaker in the mobile home that Rodger Seratt, of Fairdealing, Missouri, used to house the laboratory where he mixes synthetic drugs that include bath salts and herbal incense, August 11, 2011. (Jim Gehrz/Minneapolis Star Tribune/MCT)

strate that it is harmful or that it is a threat to health of the user?” Then the federal government replies, “No we don’t, but we think that it might be.” As you can appreciate that discussion gets a little dicey when law enforcement tries to defend these assumptions in court, so that’s one of the problems. The second problem is that law enforcement can use what is known as an analogue law, which basically says that if a new substance is created then included in these products and sold OTC and it is chemically related to another drug that is illegal, then the DEA has right to temporally schedule it and make it a controlled substance. But the DEA in all honesty doesn’t like this approach if it can avoid it. They would rather the local government deal with it, but the local authorities often kick and scream and say, “Look, this is a national phenomenon, and in order to stop this process we have to do it at the federal level,” so in effect they wait for the feds and congress to take the lead. Consequently, the problems slip between the cracks and the manufacturers take advantage of the indecision and market their products without effective resistance by law enforcement. What

has happened with bath salts is that many local governments take the initiative and try to outlaw these products, thereby giving law enforcement the authority to confiscate and arrest those who are manufacturing it or selling it. They are attempting to respond according to specific ingredients, but you don’t always know what the ingredients are. In fact, often our forensic laboratory doesn’t even know what to look for. Until the actual ingredients are identified, it is hard to make a law against it. The process may take months before newly revised products are accurately characterized and before the state is able to make a law to remove the substance, so we are always behind the manufactures. As soon as the ingredient is made illegal manufacturers will remove it from their product and replace it with another, buying a 1 to 2 year grace period to sell the merchandise until the law catches up with them again. Frankly, there are literally hundreds of these designer compounds they can substitute in the future. You had mentioned that bath salts are typically used by people who already abuse drugs, but for the adolescents that

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are trying drugs for the first time, do you think that right now there is enough evidence to prove that bath salts could possibly be a gateway drug? I have to admit I’m a little uncomfortable with the concept of the gateway [drug]. It sort of implies that the use of a drug sets you up and sends you down a road that leads to dependence and addiction, and while that technically can happen, usually it’s a much more complicated issue than that. You know maybe the drug serves as a trigger, but there are some underlying vulnerabilities that are already in place, be it neurobiological, environmental, or genetic. So to say that it’s all the drugs’ fault is really grossly simplifying the process. Having said that, could using these drugs get somebody interested in other drugs? Yes certainly, just as much as messing around with any amphetamine could, although it’s probably not the most likely place to start. You’re most likely to start with alcohol or tobacco or marijuana; something that’s readily available, fairly inexpensive, and broadly used, and then kind of move on from there. n

INTERVIEW

Bath

Salts C O N TI N U E D

Interview with

Matthew howard Matthew O. Howard, MS, MSW, PhD, CMFSW, is currently Daniels Distinguished Professor at the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Howard has published more than 200 scientific and professional articles, received three grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and conducted research on substance abuse, delinquency, and psychiatric disorders for the past 25 years. Dr. Howard is currently Editor-in-Chief of Social Work Research, past Editor of the Journal of Social Service Research, North American Editor of the British Journal of Social Work, and serves on the editorial boards of many other journals in the biomedical and psychosocial research areas. myocardial infarction, and death. Serious psychiatric consequences, in addition to those listed above, can include violent behavior, self-mutilation, depression, and panic attacks.

What makes bath salts so dangerous? A variety of psychoactive compounds are sold as “bath salts,” “plant food,” and other apparently innocuous commercial products not for human consumption. In reality, these products contain drugs such as MDPV (3,4-Methylenedioxypyrovalerone), mephedrone (4-methylmethcathinone), flephedrone (4-fluoromethcathinone), and methylone (2-methylamino-1-(3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl) propan-1-pan). These agents are similar in their stimulant effects to methamphetamine and MDMA (i.e., “ecstasy”) and can produce a wide range of physical and psychological toxicities. These adverse consequences can include paranoid psychotic reactions, episodes of hallucinatory delirium, severe delusions, agitation, necrotizing fasciitis (i.e., “flesh-eating” disease) following IV injection of bath salts, kidney disease, and other serious consequences such as strokes, seizures,

Are bath salts addictive? Relatively little research has specifically explored the addictive properties of “bath salts” in human studies. That said, they are almost certainly highly addictive. Although the specifics of their neurobiological actions are complex, it is clear these agents produce strong stimulant effects on the central nervous system through a variety of neurobiological processes that promote release and inhibit reuptake of neurohormones such as dopamine and norepinephrine. These effects in specific brain circuits (i.e., midbrain “reward” pathways) are known to be associated with the subjective experience of euphoria and often lead to recurrent and escalating drug use with associated physical and psychological adversities. Are bath salt users typically people who do other drugs as well? If so, what type of drugs typically lead to bath salt abuse? “Bath salt” abuse often occurs in the context of polysubstance use. That is, bath salt users are typically also users of other psychoactive agents. There are also reports on the internet and in the scientific and clinical literatures of bath salt users using other psychoactive drugs to enhance the perceived positive effects of bath salts and/or to attenuate the

negative consequences of bath salt use. This phenomenon has long been recognized in the substance abuse field, as it is known that methamphetamine users, for example, often drink alcohol or use other depressants to “come down” after a prolonged “run” (i.e. binge) of meth use. Recent emergency department data from Michigan indicated that almost 70% of persons visiting emergency departments for episodes of care related to bath salts use reported a history of drug abuse. Nearly half of the bath salts users also reported a history of mental illness. Although polydrug use might be the norm, there are undoubtedly some bath salt users who encounter the drugs in the absence of any significant prior drug use. It is not clear to me that there is any current evidence suggesting that early drug use of a specific kind of psychoactive drug predisposes directly to bath salt use. What do you believe compels people to abuse this drug, even though many of its ingredients are largely unknown, and nobody knows what the short-term and long-term effects will be? People differ in their basic temperaments in ways relevant to personal decisions to try drugs. Individuals with high “sensation seeking” or “novelty seeking” temperaments, who are relatively impulsive and low in fearfulness, are at highest risk for use of all drugs including bath salts. It is also likely that many persons are unaware of the seriously deleterious con-

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

sequences of bath salt use. Substance users and youth also tend to discount the damaging long-term consequences of drug use. Education can help in this regard, as we have seen for example in the case of cigarette use, where the prevalence of use has dramatically declined in response to nationwide efforts to publicize the long-term consequences of tobacco use. Have you had experience with patients abusing bath salts? What do you think causes their strange and violent behavior? I have had no personal experience working clinically with bath salts users, given that I am currently primarily involved in teaching and clinical and epidemiological research in the addictions. Locally, we have had tragic

reports of bath salts deaths in central North Carolina among youth and reports of increasing hospital emergency department visits associated with bath salts and similar agents. I have worked, over the course of my career, with many methamphetamine and cocaine users, and they evidence most of the behaviors and suffer from the same kinds of problems as bath salts users. In fact, it would probably be useful for the general public and professionals to view bath salt use as a form of stimulant abuse similar to methamphetamine use. Is there anything else you would like to add? Yes. Although several of the agents found in bath salts have been outlawed, many are

THE FORENSIC EXAMINERÂŽ Winter 2012/Spring 2013

still available illegally on the internet and via other outlets. Further, there are always new psychoactive stimulants being developed by underground chemists who create â&#x20AC;&#x153;designerâ&#x20AC;? stimulants that have not yet been outlawed. Thus, practitioners and law enforcement personnel need to become informed as to the general features of stimulant abuse, because they are likely to encounter stimulant users recurrently over the course of their careers. That is, it is likely that stimulant abuse will remain a problem for our society for the foreseeable future in all of its diverse manifestations, including the recent outbreak of bath salts abuse. n

LEGAL

By: Joshua K. Roberts, JD

Deadly Force and the Right of

self-defense

STAND Your

ground laws Pictured Above: George Zimmerman’s mugshot taken the night of the conflict. Pictured Left: Zimmerman appears during his second bond hearing in Seminole circuit court in Sanford, Florida, Friday, June 29, 2012. (Joe Burbank/ Orlando Sentinel/MCT)

He circled his car around in the mist as he barked into his cell phone to the police dispatcher, telling her of the suspicious character he had seen walking behind the townhomes in his gated community. Ignoring the dispatcher’s instruction not to follow the man and to wait for the police, the head of the neighborhood watch got out of his car and pursued the suspicious character. A confrontation ensued. Cries for help were heard by neighbors. And when the dust settled, George Zimmerman had a broken nose and was bleeding from the back of his head, while Trayvon Martin lay dead from a single gunshot wound to the chest. The legal battle that ensued brought the age-old question of the use of deadly force in self-defense back into the public eye. Most civilized societies place a high value on human life. Rules and codes of conduct have been in place since the dawn of time to protect the sanctity of life and to guard against the unwarranted taking of human life. Almost all societies both present and in antiquity have considered the unjustified taking of human life a most serious crime worthy of the harshest of punishment. The first known prohibition against murder was handed down over 6,000 years ago to Moses, by way of the Ten Commandments, as recorded in the Bible in Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17. Today, all fifty states have statutes that prohibit murder. Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

Murder Therefore, any analysis of the use of deadly force in self-defense has to necessarily start with an examination of the concept of murder. Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human. Put another way, murder is the (1) intentional and (2) unjustified killing of another human being. Note that both elements are required for the act to be considered murder. Not all intentional killings constitute murder. A police officer gunning down a violent assailant in the line of duty, the killing of enemy soldiers during war or the lethal injection of a death row inmate are entirely intentional, but since they are justified under the law, it is not murder. Likewise, if one accidentally kills another person, while the act may still be criminal, as in a negligent homicide or manslaughter, it will not rise to the level of murder unless there is an intention to kill or at least a reckless disregard for human life. Today many jurisdictions divide murder by degrees. The most common divisions are between first and second-degree murder. Generally, first-degree murder is one that occurs after “premeditation, cool deliberation and planning,” while second-degree murder is committed at the spur of the moment in the “heat of passion.” Self-Defense - Generally The right to defend oneself against an unwarranted attack is also an almost universally accepted concept. A person is always justified in the use of reasonable, non-deadly force to ward off an unwarranted attack. Typically, deadly force is only considered justified in cases where “the actor reasonably fears imminent peril of death or serious bodily harm to himself or another.” From a legal perspective, the right to defend oneself provides a justification for an act of violence that would otherwise be criminal in and of itself. Thus, the right of self-defense is the right to use physical force to defend one’s own life or the lives of others, including the use of deadly force. This is distinguished from the right to defend one’s property, which includes the right to use reasonable physical force, but excludes the right to use deadly force. Deadly force is generally defined as that degree of force that would be reasonably calculated to lead to death or serious bodily harm. Interestingly, early theories made no distinction between the defense of the person and the defense of property. This was true in ancient Rome and in Old England where deadly force was allowed to protect mere property. All modern societies now recognize some

Castle Doctrine:

an e xception to the dut y to retreat

The castle doctrine states that one is justified in using deadly force in self-defense within his own home. Most, but not all states, have a “castle law,” which is an exception to the duty to retreat and which holds that one cannot be expected to retreat from his own home. The term originally derives from the Latin “et domus sua cuique est tutissimum refugium” or “one’s home is the safest refuge.” This was adopted in English common law by 17th century jurist Sir Edward Coke in his The Institutes of the Laws of England with the statement that “an Englishman’s home is his castle.” The dictum was carried by colonists to the New World who later removed “English” from the phrase, making it “a man’s home is his castle.” The Supreme Court first articulated this rule into American jurisprudence in Beard v. U.S. (158 U.S. 550 (1895)) holding that a man who was “on his premises” when he came under attack and who “...did not provoke the assault, and had at the time reasonable grounds to believe, and in good faith believed, that the deceased intended to take his life, or do him great bodily harm...was not obliged to retreat...”

distinction between defending property and defending life, namely that deadly force can not be used to defend property. To illustrate this distinction, imagine you are sleeping in a hotel when your car alarm wakes you in the night. As you pull open the curtains, you see that an assailant has broken into your vehicle and is stealing items from within. Despite the violation of personal property, since you are not in any physical danger, you are not legally allowed to pull open the window, draw a weapon and shoot the assailant (deadly force). You are allowed to confront the assailant and use reasonable force to stop the theft and/or to pursue and retrieve your personal property. If in doing so, the assailant draws a knife, the situation would then have escalated such that deadly force might be appropriate, depending upon whether you had a duty to retreat.

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Today, states differ in the way they incorporate the castle doctrine into their laws, what premises are covered (abode only or other places), and to what degree retreat or non-deadly resistance is required before deadly force can be used. Typical exceptions to the castle doctrine laws include: law enforcement officers acting in their legal capacity, situations of provocation by homeowner, or illegal activity of a homeowner. Stand-Your-Ground Laws expanded Castle Doctrine In some states in the United States, one can use deadly force in any location one is legally allowed to be without first attempting to retreat. Such laws remove the requirement that the threat must occur on one’s own property. Stand-yourground laws state that a person may use force in self-defense when there is reasonable belief of a threat without an obligation to retreat first. In some cases, this allows a person to use deadly force in public areas without any duty to retreat. Under these legal concepts, a person is justified in using force in any location he

The Duty to Retreat In many states there is a duty to retreat that must be observed before deadly force can be employed. It is usually articulated that, “deadly force may only be used if the person is unable to safely retreat from the confrontation.” The duty to retreat is an additional component, which must be addressed if a defendant is to prove that his or her conduct in using deadly force was justified. In those jurisdictions where the requirement exists, the burden of proof is on the defendant to show that he was acting reasonably and could not have safely retreated from the confrontation, before eventually using deadly force. The duty to retreat is not universal, however. For example, police officers are not required to retreat when acting in the line of duty. Similarly, some courts have found no duty to retreat exists when a victim is assaulted

is entitled to be and the stand-your-ground law would be a defense or immunity to criminal charges and civil suit. The first known United States case to articulate this concept was Runyan v. State (1877) 57 Ind. 80, 20 Am.Rep. 52, and is one of the earliest cases to establish in America an individual’s right to initiate self-defense actions up to and including the justifiable use of lethal force against an aggressor anywhere he may rightfully be. In Runyan, the court stated “[w]hen a person, being without fault, is in a place where he has a right to be, is violently assaulted, he may, without retreating, repel by force, and if, in the reasonable exercise of his right of self-defense, his assailant is killed, he is [justified].” This concept was furthered by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. who declared in Brown v. United States (256 U.S. 335, 343 (16 May 1921)), a case that upheld the “no duty to retreat” maxim, that “detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife.” Today, while most states have adopted some form of a castle doctrine, only a handful of states have extended this a step further by passing stand-your-ground laws.

in his own home or in a place where he or she has a right to be. A Representative Statute Each state differs in regard to its self-defense laws. By way of example, the Florida statutes dealing with the justifiable use of force are summarized below. These laws incorporate all of the concepts discussed above in a succinct codified statute. 776.012 & .013 Use of force in defense of person.—A person is justified in using force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force. 776.013 Use of Deadly Force.—A person is

justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if: 1. He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony; or 2. The person against whom the defensive force was used was in the process of unlawfully and forcefully entering, or had unlawfully and forcibly entered, a dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle (note: there are exceptions to this rule for other residents, tenants and law enforcement officers entering homes in the line of duty).

Thousands gather at the Klipsch Amphitheater in Bayfront Park in rally in support for Trayvon Martin, April 1, 2012. (Carl Juste/Miami Herald/MCT)

776.013 Stand Your Ground.—A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

Tracy Martin, left, and Sybrina Fulton, parents to Trayvon Martin, sit in a Seminole County courtroom during the bond hearing for George Zimmerman, Friday, June 29, 2012 in Sanford, Florida. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/MCT)

she has a right to be, has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force, if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony. 776.041 Use of force by aggressor. —The justification described in the preceding sections of this chapter is not available to a person who: 1. is engaged in criminal activity or 2. initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself, unless he or she then exhausts every reasonable means to escape such danger. Popular Culture & Effects on Crime Rates The concepts of the castle doctrine and standyour-ground laws have been blended together in popular culture under the term “Make My Day Laws” which is a reference to the line “Go ahead, make my day,” uttered by actor Clint Eastwood’s character Harry Callahan in the 1983 film Sudden Impact, inviting a suspect to make himself liable to deadly retaliation by attacking Callahan. The film, as well as current events, have rekindled the debate as to whether the underlying purpose of these laws is being met. The laws’ effect on crime rates is disputed between supporters and critics of the laws. The third edition of More Guns, Less Crime (University of Chicago Press, 2010) by John Lott provides the most recent academic study

on these laws. The research shows that states adopting “stand-your-ground” or “castle doctrine” laws saw murder rates reduced by 9 percent and overall violent crime by 11 percent. Florida State Representative Dennis Baxley, an author of the law in Florida, notes that crime rates in that state dropped significantly between 2005, when the law was passed, and 2012. These laws do have their critics. In a 2007 National District Attorneys Association symposium, numerous concerns were voiced that the law could increase crime, would allow criminals to use the law as a defense to their crimes, would result in more people carrying guns, could involve the misinterpretation of clues that could result in the use of deadly force when there was, in fact, no danger, and that racial and ethnic minorities would be at greater risk because of negative stereotypes. The George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case is a perfect example of the legitimacy of arguments on both sides of the issue. Conclusion Ultimately, whether you are a proponent of these laws or not, it is apparent that they have very deep roots in global jurisprudence, including here in the United States. The stateby-state application of the laws makes every case hinge on the specific facts to determine whether circumstances exist that allow for the use of deadly force. With every state having a different set of laws on the books, and each with various caveats and exceptions, it makes it impossible to opine any universal rule as to self-defense. Therefore, the best rule of thumb

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is that you can always use reasonable nondeadly force to defend yourself, your property and others, and you can use deadly force to protect yourself in your own home, but once outside the confines of your residence, one should seek all avenues to avoid any seriously escalated confrontation and only use deadly force if absolutely necessary. n ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joshua K. Roberts has been a partner with the law firm of Hazelrigg, Roberts & Easley, P.C. since 1998. The firm is headquartered in Springfield, Missouri with a satellite office in Ozark, Missouri. His principle practice areas include civil litigation and criminal defense. Josh is a member of the Missouri, Springfield Metropolitan and Christian County Bar Associations and a featured speaker on Law Talk, KWTO 560 AM. His largest recent verdict or judgment was $1.9 million in the case of Warner v. Greenleaf. Away from law, Josh is an Elder and Deacon in his church, enjoys teaching Sunday School and playing bass guitar in the praise band. In his spare time he enjoys spending time with his family and coaching his son’s football and basketball teams.

INTERVIEW

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER速

Julie: Can you tell me a little bit about your background as a latent fingerprint expert and how that led you to study ape prints? Jimmy: Actually, I’m a retired crime scene investigator and latent fingerprint examiner, and back in the 1990s I was doing a research project. I was trying to determine race and gender through fingerprints, and I needed a database of primate fingerprints because primates don’t interbreed like humans do. So I got a chance to go to Emory University to Yerkes Primate Center in Atlanta, and I spent a week there fingerprinting gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, and monkeys—a lot of monkeys —and I collected a database of primate fingerprints. And so, while I was doing my research project I became a primate fingerprint expert. And one day I saw a documentary on Discovery Channel with Dr. Jeff Meldrum displaying some Bigfoot footprint castings, and he claimed that there were some dermal ridges on the casting. So I called him and I told him about my background and expertise in primates, and he invited me to Idaho State University at Pocatello, Idaho to examine his castings. I went up there one spring and examined approximately 100 castings, and I found around three to four castings that actually had non-human primate dermal ridges. So some documentary film makers got a hold of me and I started appearing in documentaries discussing my findings. Now, the most significant casting that I examined was a casting from Walla Walla, Washington. It was cast in 1985, I believe. The reason that casting stood out is because it had scars on the bottom of the foot. Now most people don’t know that when you cut your finger, the palm of your hand or the bottom of your foot and the skin starts to heal, the friction ridges don’t come back together straight. They curl towards the scar, towards the cut. That’s a biological function that happens. So, when I examined that casting and I saw the scars, I looked close and saw that the friction ridges were curling inward towards the scar, which indicates a biological occurrence, and that’s not going to be fake because there’s very few people that even know about that, much less try to fake one on a casting.

sent to me from all over the world to examine, and I’ve had people send me castings that they were trying to pass off some – like glove prints, that evidently they put a glove on and then pressed it down into the casting and then poured it, trying to fool you. But the reason I knew that [is] because I’ve gone to a lot of crime scenes where the suspect is wearing gloves and especially cotton gloves, and you can tell they are not fingerprints. Julie: So you’re still getting Bigfoot prints sent to you? Jimmy: Not as much as I used to. This was 12 years ago, around 1999 when I first started doing this, and every once and a while I get invited to guest lectures at one of the Bigfoot meetings. I get a lot of calls, probably, a dozen calls a year from people wanting to know things, ask me questions. A lot of people who make sightings, they’ve seen me on TV so they want to call and just chat and talk about it. Which, I’m not a Bigfoot researcher. I don’t go out in the field and try to discover evidence, I just look at the evidence people send me and make a determination with it. Julie: Have you ever done any comparison between the Bigfoot prints you’ve found and the prints of the evolutionary ancestors of humans or apes?

Jimmy: You know, I had never really thought about it. Being a crime scene investigator, when I go into a crime scene, I have to have a very open mind. I let the evidence speak for itself and I don’t try to sway it one way or the other—just whatever the evidence tells—that’s the facts. Regarding Bigfoot, I never had an opinion one way or the other, since I had never had any course of occurrence or any sightings or any up close and personal events. So, I was neutral.

Jimmy: No, because on the Bigfoot prints on the castings you never got a full set of prints that were all intact. They were always all partial. So you really can’t do that kind of comparison. Now, if I had another – if I had two Bigfoot castings from the same animal [from] exactly the same area – I could match those two. Because the primates are just like us. There’s no two that are alike and every fingerprint is individual and unique, and that includes the primate world. When you talk about evolution, the change, the lemurs were some of the first prosimians that evolved, and the lemur’s print is quite different from non-human primates and primates and you can kind of see the evolution process from the lemur to where you know that’s the living fossil of primates. You can see the difference between that and when you start getting into non-human primates. Gorillas and chimpanzees have basically the same patterns we do. The orangutans, the ones I’ve examined, have just a little bit different pattern, they have the same type of pattern that humans have, but all of the orangutans seem to have the same tendered arch pattern. There are only three types of patterns: arches, loops, and whorls. We have those and so do the primates. The lemurs do not, and monkeys have a completely different palm structure than we do also. The easiest to tell is the difference between a monkey and a great ape.

Julie: And did you discover anything else during the investigation? You found some that were faked and some that weren’t, correct?

Julie: And what was the difference between the Bigfoot print and the prints of a human or an ape?

Jimmy: I remember that there was a man named Wallace. He was faking a lot of castings and had some wooden feet that he was stomping around on and making castings, and I had seen some of those and they were so obviously fake, there was no question about it. I get castings

Jimmy: The dermal ridges on humans, they come around laterally across the bottom of the foot and they come up and disappear. The primates come up and then go laterally up and down the foot, and that’s the big difference. You can tell immediately that it’s non-human.

Julie: Did you believe in Bigfoot before you studied the castings? Or were you skeptical?

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This is the cast that was taken from Walla-WallaWashington in 1985. Notice the ridges curling inward towards the cut line. The gorilla foot print shows the friction ridges running along the side of the foot. Humans do not do that.

So when you get those prints right as the ridges start coming up from the bottom of the foot, they’ll start going laterally on the non-human primates. With humans it just kind of fades out.

Jimmy: And a skeptic is not going to do that and I don’t blame them. So there’s no need in me trying to convince somebody because it doesn’t matter. It is what it is. If there is something out there, it’s out there whether you believe it or not. n

Julie: Is there anything you want to say to the skeptics out there? Jimmy: No, there is no reason to because the skeptics – and I’m in agreement with them – you better show me some proof in order for me not to be a skeptic. Bring me the body. I’m hoping one of these days that somebody will do a live capture and even maybe find one that has died or something like that so that we can actually examine the body. I believe there’s something out there. I don’t know what it is. The good castings that I’ve examined, I can tell you that in my opinion, they are non-human primate prints. Now, what the animal looks like, I have no idea. I’ve seen the Patterson film and I’ve seen all the sketches and I’ve talked to people who’ve had eye witness accounts and so, you either believe it or you don’t. And I’m saying from my experience and from my education, the prints that I’ve examined, I believe to be some type of non-human primate. Now me telling a skeptic that, he’s either going to believe it or not, but since he doesn’t know and doesn’t have the knowledge that I have on primates or dermal ridges, then he [is] just going to have to accept my word for it, right? Julie: Right.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jimmy Chilcutt has a Master Police Officer Certification from the State of Texas. He is a fingerprint expert witness, and is retired from the Conroe Police Department, Texas, where he worked for over 18 years as a crime scene investigator and latent fingerprint examiner. Jimmy has over 1,000 classroom hours in a variety of forensic subjects, including crime scene investigation, latent fingerprints, and general police tactics. Chilcutt became a primate fingerprint expert after collecting a database of primate fingerprints and footprints from chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and monkeys from the Yerkes primate center on the campus of Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.

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FICTION

“I did not feel good. I did not feel bad. I didn’t feel much of anything at all, except flat. As if I were a one-dimensional character in a threedimensional movie.” Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

I was thirty-five years old. I had just coordinated the evidence for my sixth…no, I mean my seventh…civil trial. I liked what I was doing, and I was good at it. The case in question was complicated because Sunhee Gulati was well on her way to convincing the jury that she was an innocent immigrant, ignorant of the language and being victimized by an evil capitalist insurance company. Meaning that she was three bases towards a home run. Until Louisa Abramson testified. It wasn’t all that hard to find people in Mrs. Gulati’s adult English class who were more or less acquainted with her language skills, but the clincher had been her teacher, who stated under oath that not only was Gulati fluent in English, she was also Mrs. Abramson’s best (although clearly not her favorite) student. Later, in private, I asked Mrs. Abramson why she so clearly disliked the woman. “Because she cheated on her final exam,” the teacher said indignantly. “Sunhee knew the material quite well. She cheated because she thought that she could get away with it. Because she thought that she was smarter than the rest of us.” Arrogance. You see it often in insurance fraud cases. Arrogance was what brought down Sunhee Gulati, and arrogance is what trips up most people who think that they can outsmart us. Gulati claimed that a faulty electric wire had started a fire that caused her dry cleaning business to burn down. Our Special Investigation Unit determined that the fire was arson, and we developed solid evidence to tie her to the arsonist. We put together a case, and we denied the claim. She sued us. She lost. My co-workers must have shouted, “great job,” “good work,” and “way to go” at least a dozen times on the day after the trial, and by Saturday, I should have been floating on a pink cloud of self-congratulations. But I wasn’t. I did not feel good. I did not feel bad. I didn’t feel much of anything at all, except flat. As if I were a one-dimensional character in a threedimensional movie. First thing that morning, I went to the deli across the street for a jelly doughnut and coffee to go. It was damp and dead outside. Like a grainy old movie that had slipped off its sprockets and was projecting flickering images of torn black and white film. I came home. I have a nice apartment. More than nice. A first-floor one-bedroom with my own private garden. I won a case. I was in good health, and I had pretty much everything that I wanted out of life. I should have been happy. I was not. In the middle of my desk sat a business card, the very existence of which perplexed me. Every time I looked at it, I felt a sense of disconnection with my own life. I sipped my coffee. It was bitter. I took a bite out of my doughnut.

THE FORENSIC EXAMINER® Winter 2012/Spring 2013

It was stale. Other than disquietude, I felt zero. Zero times a thousand, times ten. I don’t like to feel nothing. I forget that I’m alive, and I begin to indulge in melancholy musings more appropriate to pimply adolescent girls. Why am I here? Does life have a purpose? Is happiness possible? I wished that I were tired. Or bored. Or miserable. Or jealous. But I wasn’t. I was a vacuum in a pair of blue jeans, sitting at a desk, staring at a stale doughnut, and wondering why no Great White (or Black) Hunter had led me on a safari to search for sparkle in the Dark Continent of my Soul. I thought about sparkle. Was sparkle at risk of perishing, like an endangered species? Was it being herded into sparkle reserves and bred to keep its numbers down? Were there export bans on sparkle? Had a successful black market in sparkle sprung up? Was bogus sparkle being manufactured by counterfeiters and sold on the Internet? I took a sip of bitter coffee and began to rummage through my desk. Even before I started to work with the arson and fraud unit at Precaution Property and Liability Insurance, I was reading crime novels. I like Sherlock Holmes and Wilkie Collins. I love Agatha Christie. But my favorite, which I considered to be an instruction manual for forensic investigators, is Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I found a copy of the book in the top right drawer of my desk, pulled it out, and flipped it open. Maybe, I thought, if I read a few paragraphs of Porfiry Petrovitch’s brilliant psychological meanderings through Raskolnikov’s soul, my brain would engage, and I’d snap out of it. I read: The heat in the street was terrible: and the airlessness, the bustle and the plaster, scaffolding, bricks, and dust all about him, and that special Petersburg stench, so familiar to all who are unable to get out of town in the summer – all worked painfully upon the young man’s already overwrought nerves. I closed the book. Screw Raskolnikov. I threw Crime and Punishment at my desk. It hit a corner and fell to the floor. I picked it up and was about to toss it back when I noticed my old black address book inside the drawer. The one that I’d bought after I left home. When I was eighteen years old. All these years later, it was funny to see it staring up at me. Like a forgotten friend viewed from a distance. Still recognizable, but a little shopworn around the edges. Old friends are familiar unknowns as potentially dangerous as un-detonated bombs. First they’re glad to see you. Next they want to borrow money, and then they can’t resist reminding you of what a loser you were in high school. Is it ever worth the risk to renew such old acquaintances? Or is the price too steep for a quick stroll down memory lane? I shut the drawer, and continued to poke around on my desk.

I put all of my ballpoint pens into one pen cup, all of my pencils into another, and my magnifying glass, ruler, letter opener, and scissors into a third. I organized my paperclips by size. I picked up the business card that I didn’t want to look at, and I looked at it. I returned it to the middle of my desk. I bit off a hangnail. I decided to learn how to cook and threw out all of my Take-Out menus. Then I dove into my wastebasket and retrieved the ones for the Panda Garden and Pepperoni Pizza Cafe. I thought about my open cases at Precaution Property and Liability. There was a garage fire in Ronkonkoma, a car theft in Queens, a trip and fall in Bridgeport, and… My hand crept toward the drawer. Within seconds, the address book, with twelve years of my life from eighteen to thirty was open on my lap. Which was when something odd happened. Have you ever looked through an old address book? They smell of vintage reality. The joys and pains of friendship in motion. Photographs evoke memories, but the incidents that they immortalize are frozen in time. A single dot in the infinity of dots that start when you are born and end when you die. But an address book is a continuum. It smells of the 500 times you called Pete, or wrote postcards to Mary and Lou, or sat lonely by the phone waiting to hear from Bill. It recalls the names of friends you scratched out in anger, and the letters you wrote to borrow money or repay a loan. It sings of cards conveying congratulations, and it weeps of letters sent in sorrow to those experiencing grief. An address book is the White Pages of your life. The time chart of your wheres and whens. The Manhattan Blue Book of your heart. Okay. Now I’m getting carried away. As I did that day when I flipped to “M” to find my old addresses and phone numbers on the page headed “Me.” I stared. There, spread out before me, was a memory, a clarity, a sense and a smell for each of my past homes. I winced. The past carries a hell of a wallop. More so for someone like me who hasn’t given it a moment’s thought in thirty-five years. I am the kind of a person who throws out old love letters, expensive jewelry from suitors whom the Queen no longer favors, and faded roses from days gone by. But I had not thrown out the address book. My first listing was for 1456 Mt. Joy Road, Yonkers, New York. Eighteen years old, and right out of Cleveland, I had rented the attic room in a nice old house that smelled of furniture polish, sheet music, and short bread. As I sat at my desk and stared at the address, the sheer magnitude of the years between now and then seemed centuries. Eons. Impossibilities. And as I contemplated my eighteen-year-old self, I had a curious desire…no…more than a desire. A passion…to talk to her and to find out who she was and what she was like.

“And as I contemplated my eighteen-year-old self, I had a curious desire… no… more than a desire. A passion…to talk to her and to find out who she was and what she was like.”

Winter 2012/Spring 2013 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER®

“Finally, eighteen-yearold me said, “All my life, I’ve been waiting to be a grown up. To be marching at the front of my very own parade. You’re sure that you don’t remember?”

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That was the point at which common sense flew out the window, and the oddness flew in. I looked at the telephone number. Area code 914 followed by seven familiar digits. I dialed. “Hello,” I said. The voice that answered was alert. Wary. “Who is this?” she asked. “Well,” I began. “You’re not going to believe this.” My eighteen-year-old self laughed. “That sounds like something I would say. No one ever believes me, either.” She paused. Then she commanded, “Say something.” “What do you want me to say?” Again, a pause. This one longer. Finally, eighteen-year-old me said, “I always wondered if you’d call.” Now it was my turn to pause. I had never remembered any telephone calls from my older self. And I would have remembered. Or would I? But before I could finish the thought, her energetic young voice sang out, “What’s it like out there? Exhilarating, I bet. And challenging. And…and…just plain wonderful. Oh, my God. I can’t wait to be old!” This was me. So fresh. So enthusiastic. So…noisy. I couldn’t believe it. And I could. I did not answer her question. Instead, I asked, “How are things going in your life?” “Oh,” she gasped. “You don’t remember?” “Not really.” “Well, I’m…I guess the best way to describe it is that I’m mobile.” “What does that mean?” I heard a progression of taps, like fingernails against a tabletop. I looked down at my own long, tapered nails. I had always been a friend of manicures. I had always tapped my nails against a tabletop when I was thinking. Finally, eighteen-year-old me said, “All my life, I’ve been waiting to be a grown up. To be marching at the front of my very own parade. You’re sure that you don’t remember?” “I’m positive.” Eighteen-year-old me hesitated. Then her voice solemn, she asked, “Will I like myself when I’m old?” “Why are you asking?” “You know why.” “You want to know if I betrayed you?” “Yes. I do.” I didn’t answer. During the pause that followed, the seventeen years between us witnessed a battle of wills. The pause lasted a good sixty seconds before I heard myself sigh. My younger self, that is. “Okay,” she finally conceded. “I get it. You can poke into my life like a tourist on a shopping spree, but I’m not allowed to reciprocate because I could screw up the future if…blah…blah…blah.” “Something like that.” “But you want to know all about me.” “Passionately.” “That’s completely unfair.” “True.”

“But somewhat reassuring.” “How so?” “At least I know I’m still passionate.” Again, I heard fingernails on a tabletop. “Okay, Miss Busybody,” she said, her voice suddenly perky. “I’ll tell you about my apartment. My very first apartment. I am renting from Mr. and Mrs. Bloom. He’s a piano teacher, and she’s a motherly gnome. My bedroom has cabbage rose wallpaper, a slanted ceiling, a miniscule refrigerator, and a hot plate. I love living here, because I can buy a banana cream pie, and eat the whole thing myself. I can watch the same movie four times, or go to four different movies on the same day. I can stay up all night reading without anyone shouting that I’ll ruin my eyes. Last week, I opened a bank account with my first paycheck, and tomorrow I’m going to my first Broadway matinee. I’m teaching myself to get around in Manhattan. I know where all the good bookstores are and where not to walk in Central Park. The city excites me because it’s vibrant, it’s accessible, and it’s all laid like pages in a book, but better than a book. Better than a movie. It’s…” She hesitated, as if groping for words. “What is it?” I urged. “It’s destiny. Doing, daring, planning, hoping, and being. Every day, I see people streaming into Grand Central Station, and they’re all just like me, with eyes as big as pie plates and dreams so high voltage that you can scrape them off the sky.” Then, suddenly, my once and future self stopped talking. If feet can shuffle over a distance of seventeen years, I swear that I could hear hers doing exactly that as she lowered her voice and added, “You still think that I want to be an actress, don’t you?” I grunted. “A writer…a movie producer. Something in the arts.” I grunted again. “Well…” This was it. This was why I had picked up the phone. Why I was calling her…me. Why, in fact, I was. Unconsciously, but knowing that I was on the cusp of something important, my fingernails began their characteristic tabletop dance. “But you’re wrong,” she continued, her voice tremulous. “I don’t want to become the next Cecil B. DeMille, and I don’t want to produce plays. I never thought this would happen, because I never knew what it would be like, but the minute I moved here, it was love at first sight. Now I am madly and passionately in love with Manhattan, and I want to spend the rest of my life here. I want to protect the city, and I want to protect the people who live here.” She paused for a few seconds. Then, in a firmer voice, she added, “I am going to enroll in the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and then I’m going to law school. After I graduate, I’ll become a prosecuting attorney and work in whichever of the five boroughs in the city that will have me.” I said nothing. At least, not at first. When I sensed that my younger self was interpreting my silence as disapproval, though, I hurriedly said, “Great. Terrific. You’ll make a fantastic district attorney!” Her sigh of relief was Tusnamic. “Oh, thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” Then she started to talk. No. Not to talk, to spew out words. To gush. To effuse. To effervesce. She did. Or, rather, I did. That wonder-

ful creature who, at eighteen, was me. God, she was young. I was young. Fearless. Idealistic. And absolutely gorgeous inside. Her energy and innocence…her passion for justice… her belief in the power of truth. My passion for justice and truth. I had forgotten. I love you, Kid, I said to myself. I half-expected her enthusiasm to go on forever; it did not. Instead, a note of caution crept into her voice. “But I’ve never been very good at academics,” she said, tiptoeing around a precipice of self-doubt. “What if I don’t have what it takes to write legal briefs? What if every time I talk to a judge, I sound like a babbling idiot? What if I take the bar exam, flunk it, take it again, flunk it again, and instead of becoming a lawyer, I land up selling exercise equipment at the Staten Island Mall?” I heard her shrug. How was it possible to hear a shrug? “It’s probably just a pipedream,” she said morosely. Then I sensed a sly smile steal onto her face, and she asked, “Is it a pipedream?” But an eighteen-year-old with that kind of smarts doesn’t turn into an idiot at thirty-five. “You aren’t going to wheedle the future out of me,” I told her. Then I grinned. “I have got to go now.” She sighed. “Thank you, though,” I added. “Thank me for what?” “For the kick in the head.” “So!” My eighteen-year-old self laughed. “When I’m your age, I’m still going to need a kick in the head!” And the receiver went dead. I took a sip of coffee. Cold, but not as bitter as it had been. I looked out the window. Some of the grays were taking on a sepia hue. I shut my address book, lifted it to my lips, and kissed it. I reopened it to the page headed “Me.” Six years after moving to Yonkers, I was living in a seven-flight walk-up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. It had concrete floors, a bathtub in the kitchen, and a fire station across the street. I moved there after graduating from law school and before I could afford high speed Internet or cable TV. When I finally got a telephone, I was given a 212 area code. I dialed the number. “Hello,” I said to twenty-four-year-old me. “Hi,” she shot back. Then her voice slid into a long “aaaah,” and she added, “So it’s you again.” “It’s me.” “Long time. No see.” She paused. I didn’t say anything, so she added, “It’s hot here today. Ninety-eight degrees in Central Park. It’s got to be at least a hundred and ninety-eight degrees in my apartment.” I nodded. I remembered how hot that tenement flat had been. No air conditioner. No cross breeze. I didn’t even have a window fan. “How are the concrete floors?” I asked.

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“I painted them bright red.” “How do they look?” “Bright red.” We both laughed. “So, how’s the future?” She asked. “From my point of view or yours?” “Mine.” “Well,” I began. “The only thing I can promise is that someday, you will have an air conditioner.” Twenty-four-year-old me sighed. In her sigh, I could hear the screech of sirens, the discomfort of dried sweat, and the feel of red paint sticking to the bottoms of my feet. I gazed gratefully at my beautiful garden apartment, blew a silent kiss at the cool, cool air, and said to my young, hot, faraway self, “Tell me about work.” “Okay,” she said. And she did. Her first job out of law school – the one where she’d been working for over a year – was as an assistant district attorney at the Criminal Court Building in Manhattan. “My boss,” she said, “has ‘Wonder Boy’ embroidered across the butt of his boxer shorts.” I remembered Edward Nygh. “Tell me about him,” I said. “Well,” she complied, “He has fat hands. Fat hands are problematical. A man can have the face of Adonis, the body of a Gladiator, and Einstein’s brain, but if he has fat hands, one feels compelled to question the validity of his soul.” I laughed. Of course, I felt the same way. “Edward Nygh has a ratty face, a scrawny neck, twitchy lips, and his eyes are too close together. He’s no Adonis,” she continued. “ He is clever, though.” “How so?” “He only prosecutes cases that he knows he can win, which means that his win record is astronomical. Justice never enters into his calculations.” “So why are you working for him?” “Because the little weasel hired me. And he trusts me. I don’t know why he trusts me, since I seem to thrive on betraying his trust.” “How? When?” “Last week. In Criminal Court. I was prosecuting Alfredo Herrera.” “For what?” “First-degree criminal trespass. First-degree robbery.” “Refresh my mind,” I said. “Sure,” my younger self responded. “Alfredo goes into grocery store. Alfredo waves gun at grocer. Grocer surrenders fifty-seven dollars to Alfredo. Alfredo flees. Grocer goes to police station to look at mug shots. Grocer identifies Tomás Sosa as assailant. Alfredo Herrera is arrested with fifty-seven dollars in his pocket. Alfredo is indicted. Case goes to trial.” “What about Tomás Sosa?” “My boss, a.k.a. the weasel, neglected to inform the defense attorney that the grocer had fingered Sosa instead of Herrera.” “How do you know that?” “I saw a photocopy of Sosa’s mug shot in the file, with the grocer’s

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signature identifying him scrawled under Sosa’s name.” “Did you bring that to Edward Nygh attention?” “Yes.” “And what did he say?” “He lifted a fat finger to his weasel lips and whispered, ‘Shush.’” “Shush?” “That’s right. And then he smiled. Some people, Edward among them, should be constitutionally prohibited from smiling.” “What next?” “Next, the case went to trial, the grocer testified, and I casually let it slip that he had identified Tomás Sosa as the bad guy instead of the accussed.” “And?” “Alfredo’s lawyer honed in on the discrepancy, and that was all he needed with the jury to create reasonable doubt.” “So you lost the case?” “We lost the case.” “Which is what you had intended to do all along.” “Exactly. I am not a big fan of withholding evidence.” I nodded in understanding. Then my mind drifted back to that first year I had worked as an assistant district attorney. The cast of characters. The rewards. The frustrations. The challenges. I hadn’t been a dewy eyed romantic even then but… But what? What had I been feeling? What had I been thinking? I returned my attention to the phone. “So,” I asked skeptically. “Your boss is a jerk, you lost an important case, and…and what? What comes next? What are you going to do now?” Over the span of the intervening years, I could feel my oh-so-much younger-self smile. It was a big, brave, bite-the-world-in-the-ass smile. Then twenty-four year old me answered my question. With implacable resolve, she said, “I am going to do my job.” And the receiver went dead. I looked out the window. The sky was still gray, but crazy blobs of sunlight splattered the sidewalk like slabs of melting butter, and the awning on the flower shop across the street glowed as red as the paint on the concrete floors of the apartment where I had lived so many years ago. I looked down again at my address book. I had stayed on the Lower East Side for three more years. Then I moved to a large studio apartment on the Upper East Side. The neighborhood was too far uptown to be fashionable, but the street was lined with silver linden trees, and if you craned your head out one window, you could see a smidgen of Central Park. That was my first truly nice apartment. It had a fully functioning fireplace and a cute but useless wrought-iron balcony, wide enough for a few flowerpots, but nothing else. The studio itself was enormous, with a high ceiling and a beautiful oak parquet floor. The previous tenant had renovated the bathroom, and it was sheer joy to luxuriate in a new bathtub in an old building without having to look at moldy grout. Other than the basics, my furniture consisted of a brown corduroy sofa bed with a matching armchair (which I kept beside my desk), and a thick burgundy carpet on which I could lie in front of the fireplace and daydream as I stared at the flames.

From the minute that I took possession, I felt as if I were living the movie version of my own life. I was in heaven. Oh. And one more thing. On my desk, I had a telephone. Same number as at my old address, but the area code had been changed to 347. I dialed. The phone rang five times before my twenty-seven year old self picked up. “Hello! Hello!” A breathless voice rang out. “Hello yourself,” I sang back. “Oh,” she stopped. “It’s you.” “It’s me.” “Wait a second. I have to take off my coat.” I waited. “I’m back. So how are you, you decrepit old thing?” I grinned. “Not all that old and not all that decrepit. The big question is how are you?” I heard the armchair being dragged over to the desk. Then, a soft, cushiony plop as she threw herself inside. “Don’t you remember?” I shook my head. It was a few seconds before I realized that she couldn’t see me, so I said, “I just remember bits and pieces. I need a refresher course.” “Okay,” she practically grunted. “Other than being a mess, a catastrophe, and a nervous wreck, I am perfectly fine.” “I think you need a cup of coffee,” I suggested soothingly. “No. I do not need a cup of coffee. Nor do I need your condescending attitude. What I need is for life to be different. Specifically, I need my life to be different.” “Your personal life or your professional life?” “I have no personal life, thanks to you. All I have is my professional life, which is a living nightmare.” I modified my tone. “Does this have anything to do with your boss?” “Yes,” she snarled. “It has everything to do with Edward the weasel Nygh.” She added with a borderline hysterical laugh, “When Nygh is nigh, nightmares are nigh.” I heard her inhale deeply. And exhale. Then, she began to talk. The story that she told had too much of everything. Too many victims. Too many arsonists. A villain. A bureaucracy. Some lawyers. And a hero. The hero’s name was Macmillan Hughes. She started by telling me about the fire. It occurred on May 19th at Futterman Fine Apparel on West 23rd Street in Manhattan. An insomniac walking his dog during the wee hours of a Sunday morning saw flames shooting from the roof of the one-story brick building at 3:17 a.m. He called 911 on his cell phone. The department store, approximately 100 feet by 120 feet, had display windows running along the sidewalk and a heavy timber bowstring arch roof – whatever that is.

“Okay,” she practically grunted. “Other than being a mess, a catastrophe, and a nervous wreck, I am perfectly fine.”

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“Flames, first seen at the rear of the structure, raced through the building and rapidly escalated from all-hands to a three alarm and directly to a fivealarm fire.”

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Flames, first seen at the rear of the structure, raced through the building and rapidly escalated from all-hands to a three alarm and directly to a five-alarm fire. Twelve firemen and one emergency medical technician were injured while trying to put it out. Forty minutes after the alarm was called in, five firemen were fighting the fire on the roof when it collapsed. Three firemen fell through the hole in the roof and plunged into the flames below. All three of them died. Supervising Fire Marshal Macmillan Hughes of the Bureau of Fire Investigation was assigned to investigate the origin and cause of the fire. In his report, he stated that the fire had started in the southwest corner of the men’s bathroom, where a pipe chase extended up the wall and through the ceiling to the cockloft under the roof. Burn patterns indicated that flammable liquid was poured on the floor at the base of the pipe chase. An empty gasoline container and the residue of gasoline soaked rags were found at the scene, photo-documented, and logged into evidence. In the narrative section of his report, Fire Marshal Hughes stated that the cause of the fire was arson. This conclusion had serious implications for the firemen who died when the roof collapsed. No longer line-of-duty fatalities, their deaths would be reclassified as homicides. Prosecuting the crime of arson in New York City is the job of the Manhattan District Attorney. Three dead firemen meant three dead heroes, and dead heroes are always headline news. Edward the weasel Nygh, addicted to media attention, elbowed himself forward and got assigned to the case. “How did that affect you?” I asked my twenty-seven year old self. “I helped him to prepare for the trial.” “What trial?” “The one for Levon Williams.” “Who is Levon Williams?” “Levon was an arsonist, but he was not the arsonist.” “Huh?” “Ask Fire Marshal Hughes. It practically destroyed his career.” “Why?” I asked. “Because he arrested the wrong man?” “No,” my younger self answered. “Because he didn’t arrest the wrong man.” Then she hung up. I put my telephone back in its cradle, dropped my elbows to the desktop, and buried my fingers in my hair. It was all coming back to me. The tumult. The pressure. The anxiety. And Fire Marshal Macmillan Hughes. Mac Hughes. Mac. Square jaw, high forehead, and aquiline nose, which I later learned had been broken as a kid during his one attempt to duke it out in the ring. Mac also had impossibly light blue rectangular eyes and blond hair. Real blond, like men in Scandinavian movies. I would say that he was the strong silent type, except that he was anything but silent the day that I met him in Criminal Court. He was angry. Clenched-jaw angry. Righteously indignant angry. Lethal angry. With jury selection less than a month away, our office was making

gladiatorial leaps toward preparing the case for trial. My boss had been alerted to Fire Marshal Hughes’ negative opinion of the Levon William’s arrest, so the weasel decided to depose the fire marshal himself. He brought me along, he said, to take notes, but I was really window dressing. Right from the get-go, Mac was uncooperative. He called Edward “Eddie” instead of Mr. Nygh, he blurted out answers to questions that the weasel didn’t ask, he interrupted, and he scoffed. His contempt was as palpable as a knee to the groin. “Levon Williams set the Futterman fire,” my boss snarled, his mouth a nasty slit. “No,” Fire Marshal Hughes replied with deadly calm. “He did not.” “HE. WAS. CAUGHT. RED. HANDED,” Edward pounded his fist against the table five times, once for each word. “I know. I’m the one who caught him. Behind Alnut’s Coffee Shop on West 12th Street. That was May 17th, two days before and eleven blocks south of the Futterman fire.” “We have his confession!” My boss shouted in fury. “Not to the Futterman fire. Levon confessed to throwing three purses into a dumpster behind Alnut’s and setting them on fire. He’d stolen the purses earlier in the day and was trying to destroy the evidence.” “His shoes were soaked with gasoline!” The weasel kept shouting. “Analysis of the residue on the soles of his shoes indicates that Levon stepped into cooking fat from the coffee shop’s trash barrel. His sneakers were coated with kitchen grease, not with gasoline.” “Levon Williams is an arsonist!” “Levon Williams is a sex offender, a car thief, a career criminal, a drug user, a punk, and a Class A scumbag. He set fire to a dumpster, but he did not kill three firemen.” Throughout the deposition, Fire Marshal Hughes continued to relate facts about the fire. Throughout the deposition, the weasel continued to ignore them. The following morning, Nygh got a judge to issue a gag order against Hughes, prohibiting him from discussing the case with the press. Two days after that, the fire marshal was detained by investigators working for the Office of the District Attorney and “interviewed” about the credibility of his evidence. His origin and cause report was called into question, and his integrity was attacked. It was a terrible time for a lot of people. Terrible, but exciting. I lifted my head, stood up, and walked across the living room to the window; it was banked on both sides by long lavender curtains. I drew them open and gazed outside. The sky was cerulean blue and dotted with puffy white clouds. A woman in a fuchsia trench coat was walking across the street holding the hand of an orange-haired boy wearing a red and blue Superman T-shirt. Trees fluttered fat green leaves under a brilliant yellow sun, and on the corner, a traffic light changed from red to orange to green, and then back again to red. I yanked open my window. The city smelled like energy, exaltation, and exhaust fumes. There was an enormous lilac bush right outside my window, so it smelled like lilacs, too.

I inhaled deeply, threw back my shoulders, and strode to my desk. Two weeks after the trial, I had put my possessions into storage, given up my apartment, and flown home. My mother was getting out of the hospital after back surgery. She and Dad needed my help, and I needed the break. I stayed in Cleveland for two months. I picked up my old address book. I dialed the 216 area code. The telephone rang once. It rang four more times before I heard the receiver click and my own voice expel a hurried, single-syllable, “Hi.” “Hi back to you,” I said pleasantly. “Oh,” twenty-eight year old me responded. “You couldn’t have called at a worse time.” “Why?” “Because Dad’s driving me to the airport in,” I could feel her looking at her watch, “ten minutes.” “Then we have ten minutes,” I said. “Sit down.” She hesitated. “A one-buttock sit? Or two?” I laughed. She laughed, too. “Tell me about the trial,” I said. “You know,” she sounded annoyed…but not really annoyed. “You’re getting to be a real pain in the butt.” “A one-butt pain?” I shot back, “Or two?” We laughed again. Then she said, “Okay. Abridged version. Levon Williams went to trial. The jury found him guilty. He was sentenced to life in prison. He is in prison now.” “What about Fire Marshal Hughes?” “What about him?” “Did he testify in court?” “Yes. As a prosecution witness. But Nygh didn’t trust him, so he only asked one question.” “What question?” “‘Fire Marshal Hughes, after you conducted the origin and cause investigation of the fire at Futterman’s Fine Apparel, did you determine that the cause of the fire was arson?’ Of course, Hughes had to answer, ‘yes’.” “What about cross examination?” “The defense never got a copy of Hughes’ deposition, so the defense lawyer didn’t know that the fire marshal had arrested Levon Williams for setting a different fire on a different date.” “But he…the defense attorney…he must have noticed the discrepancy when he read the confession.” “The defense attorney was not given a copy of Levon’s confession.” I shook my head in disbelief, as disgusted again at the extent of the weasel’s skullduggery as I had been when I first realized what he had done seven years before. “Now, I really do have to go,” my younger self said. “Back to New York?” I asked. “Absolutely.” “Back to the Office of the Manhattan D.A.?” “Absolutely not!” She said emphatically. I grinned. “You’re a good kid,” I said.

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At first, she didn’t respond. After a few seconds, though, she said, “Do me a favor, will you?” “Name it,” I answered back. “If, sometime in the faraway future, Fire Marshal Hughes…Mac… if Mac should look you up and not be married at the time, and if he should maybe ask you out to dinner…” “Yes,” I said, trying to sound encouraging. “If ever that should happen, would you please, please, please accept his invitation?” Without waiting for my answer, she hung up. I hung up the telephone, too. I crossed my arms behind my head, leaned back in my chair, and stared at the ceiling. Then I smiled. “Oh, my dear girl,” I said aloud, as if my younger self could still hear me, “I have kept track of former Fire Marshal Macmillan Hughes.” And I had. From a discrete distance. Less than a month after the trial, Mac left the New York City Fire Department and started his own fire investigation business. Most of his clients were major corporations and law firms that wanted him to determine whether or not their products had caused fires. But prosecuting attorneys hired him on criminal cases, too, and he also did work for insurance companies like mine. Only in his own city had Mac been considered a pariah, and that stopped when Edward Nygh was arrested for molesting a seven-yearold girl. The details of the charge were never disclosed, but after a plea deal (the details of that were never disclosed either), the weasel disappeared. Literally. But that’s beside the point. The point is that Macmillan Hughes had already been a private sector fire investigator for seven years before a friend told me that his wife had left him for a plastic surgeon, and…well, I guess that was all I needed to know to get me back to thinking about Mac’s square jaw, broken nose, and impossibly light blue eyes. So I called him up, reintroduced myself, and asked if he would be willing to investigate a fire for Precaution Property and Liability at a Queen Anne house in the Bronx. Mac asked me a few questions about the case. I gave him a few answers. Then he said that sure, even though the last time he’d seen me, I had been a water-carrier for the enemy, he would be happy to work for me. I suggested that we meet at the fire scene, so that he could explain the burn patterns to me while we went through the house. We did and he did. We went out to lunch afterwards. Initially we just talked about the fire. Then we got to talking about everything from my job to his job to my ex-boss to Levon Williams. Levon’s conviction, Mac told me, was being appealed. “But this time,” he said, “I’ll be testifying for the defense.” Then he reiterated what he had said so loud and so often during his

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deposition all those years before, “Levon Williams is a scumbag, but he isn’t a scumbag who killed three firemen.” Before we retreated to our respective cars, Mac stopped me and took my hand. He didn’t shake it. He engulfed it. Then he looked down at me. Oh, boy. “That was fun,” he said. “Let’s do it again.” I didn’t answer. “Dinner?” He asked. I didn’t answer. I still haven’t answered. That was three weeks ago. Three weeks of apprehension and indecision. Macmillan Hughes is the real thing. The original what-you-see-iswhat-you-get guy. An unsullied soul, with eyes that could drill through thirty-five years of defense mechanisms to unclench a soul as tightly clenched as a fist. He was probably…it’s a cliché, but aren’t clichés just truths made mundane by repetition?…the man that I had been waiting for my entire life. The mere thought of it scared me half to death. Or rather. It had scared me. Until I called someone younger, braver, and more clear sighted than I. Someone who knew what I needed better than I did myself. I leaned across my desk and picked up my old address book. I looked one last time at the page headed “Me,” murmured, “Thanks, Kid,” and threw it back in the drawer. Then I dropped my eyes to the business card Mac had given me. The one that, for the past three weeks, had been staring at me so insistently from the center of my desk. On the back of the card, he had scrawled his home phone number. Underneath the number, he’d written in big block letters: CALL ME. My hand was reaching for the telephone to do exactly that when a loud abrasive trill shook me out of my womb of self-absorption and, frankly, pissed me off. I reached for the phone and snapped it up. “What?” I barked into the receiver. “And hello to you, too!” An instantly recognizable voice goodnaturedly answered back. My irritation disappeared. My fingernails unconsciously began to tap against the tabletop. I relaxed in my chair. “Oh,” I said. I smiled. “It’s you.” n Copyright © 2012 Shelly Reuben ABOUT THE AUTHOR SHELLY REUBEN is an author, newspaper columnist, private detective, and certified fire investigator. Her novels have been nominated for Edgar, Prometheus, and Falcon awards. For more information about her work, visit www.shellyreuben.com.

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FALSELY ACCUSED By Jenny Leigh Davis

The Englewood Four On Friday, September 14, 2012, Michael Saunders, Harold Richardson, Terrill Swift, and Vincent Thames, the Englewood Four, were issued certificates of innocence for the 1994 rape and strangulation murder of Nina Glover, for which they were convicted and served 17 years of a 30year prison sentence. “The order by Chief Criminal Court Judge Paul Biebel was the final step of exoneration for the men, who [repeatedly claimed] that their confessions were coerced by the police” (Meisner, 2012). The Englewood Four were exonerated in January 2012 after DNA evidence linked Johnny Douglas, a convicted murderer with a history of sexual assault, to the brutal crime. The DNA that was recovered from the victim at the time of the crime was recently run through CODIS and excluded the men, prompting the judge to overturn their convictions. On November 7, 1994, Nina Glover, a prostitute, was found naked and brutalized in a dumpster in Englewood, a southside Chicago neighborhood. During the initial investigation, 18-year-old Jerry Fincher “walked into the precinct to voluntarily provide information about Glover’s murder to help gain ‘some consideration’ for a friend of his who was in custody on a drug charge. According to the police, after two days of interrogation, Fincher confessed to the murder, also implicating Saunders, Richardson, Swift and Thames. Police arrested and interrogated the other four, securing confessions, which were wildly inconsistent with each other.” Fincher was initially charged, but released and not prosecuted after the judge in his case suppressed his confession on the grounds that it was coerced (The Innocence Project, 2012). While each man provided police with descriptive and graphic accounts of the crime, the details the men provided differed greatly. After their initial confessions, each man recanted and maintained their innocence throughout the subsequent years. The tragic consequences stemming from this case are two-fold: not only did these four young men spend 17 years in prison for a crime they did not commit, the community also suffered, as the real killer was left on the streets to continue murdering and threatening women. Douglas was convicted and sentence to 20 years in prison for the 1997 rape and murder of Gytonne Marsh, a prostitute who was also found strangled on the southside of Chicago. In addition, Douglas was suspected in other violent assaults against prostitutes between 1993 and 1997. Defense lawyers claim these factors are “more than enough to raise reasonable doubt in the minds of jurors and meet the standard for a conviction to be vacated” (Goode, 2012). Douglas was shot and killed shortly after his release from prison in 2008.

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However, the Cook County states attorney’s office is not ready to admit the men are innocent. The states attorney’s office argues that because Johnny Douglas was known to associate with prostitutes, his DNA may have been present due to consensual sex prior to the murder. Statistics on the post-conviction DNA evidence suggests that the majority of prosecutors support efforts to vacate unjust convictions. “An examination of 194 DNA exonerations found that 88 percent of the prosecutors joined defense lawyers in moving to vacate the convictions. But in 12 percent of the cases, the prosecutors opposed the motions, and in 4 percent, they did so even after a DNA match to another suspect…many of the cases in which prosecutors dispute the significance of DNA evidence involve defendants who initially confessed to the crimes” (Goode, 2012). In January 2012, at the time of the men’s exoneration, Josh Tepfer of the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth expressed concern on what he senses is a developing pattern: “Tragically, today’s exonerations follow on the heels of the exonerations of four Dixmoor men and Juan Rivera in Lake County, all of which involved police induced false confessions of teenagers” (The Innocence Project, 2012). Representatives from the Innocence Project seem to agree and are calling for an audit of Cook County convictions to determine if any other innocent men have been falsely accused. They feel this action is necessary to restore public confidence in the criminal justice system (The Innocence Project, 2012). Currently, the Englewood Four are out of prison, and “the certificates, which the Cook County states attorney’s office opposed, will make it easier for the men to apply for jobs and allow them to recoup as much as $200,000 each from the state for wrongful imprisonment” (Meisner, 2012). n References

Goode, Erica. When DNA Evidence Suggests ‘Innocent,’ Some Prosecutors Cling to ‘Maybe’. The New York Times. Retrieved September 14, 2012, from http://www.nytimes. com/2011/11/16/us/dna-evidence-of-innocence-rejected-by-some-prosecutors. html?_r=1&pagewanted=print. Meisner, Jason. Englewood 4 get certificates of innocence: Last step in clearing men of 1994 murder. The Chicago Tribune. Retrieved September 16, 2012, from http:// articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-09-16/news/ct-met-englewood-four-innocence-0916-20120916_1_terrill-swift-nina-glover-vincent-thames. The Innocence Project Press Release. State’s Attorney’s Office Dismisses Indictment Following Ruling by Cook County Judge Overturning Their Convictions. Retrieved September 10, 2012, from http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Four_Chicago_ Men_Exonerated_of_1994_Murder_and_Rape_by_New_DNA_Evidence_Linking_the_Crime_to_a_Convicted_Murderer.php#.

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