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Delivery 604-942-3081 • Friday, June 21, 2013
Fire Chief Shaun Redmond calls it quits
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A PHD IN DECOMPOSITION
Jordan wants papers
Delving into death H
er field is called forensic taphonomy, the study and interpretation of the changes that occur to human remains from the point of death to discovery at crime scenes, and Sgt. Diane Cockle is the world’s first to earn a PhD examining the progression of human decomposition in Canada. Cockle started as an archaeologist and now works with the RCMP’s National Forensic Identification Support Services. She recently graduated ON MY BEAT from SFU, with a PhD Jennifer Moreau in forensic anthropology from the department of archaeology. Her thesis project was on forensic taphonomy. Question: So, tell me a bit about what you do? Answer: I work as a special crime scene investigator for the National Forensic Identification Support Services section in Vancouver B.C. For the most part, I help police agencies in B.C. and the Yukon with homicide scenes where there’s a need to analyze and interpret the blood stains at a homicide scene, or with the recovery of human remains from an outdoor scene. As a bloodstain pattern analyst, I examine the two-dimensional bloodstains created by the trauma inflicted on a victim by a suspect, in order to reconstruct what happened. Q: What kind of things can you figure out by analyzing a body? A: A body will look different depending on whether it decomposed, inside, outside, in water or in a burial. Now that this research has been completed, we can say for the first time whether or not a body has been moved from one scene to another. This Death Page 8
Stefania Seccia staff reporter
Larry Wright/burnaby now
Death and decay: Sgt. Diane Cockle works with the RCMP’s
For more National Forensic Identification Support Services, studying crime photos and a scenes, decomposing bodies and blood splatter patterns. She brought video, scan with in some human and animal bones to show the reporter.
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Burnaby Coun. Colleen Jordan said it’s been five years of back and forth letter writing with the province, and she’s still no closer to solving the mystery of the missing breakdown costs associated with the 2006 business case for the Evergreen Line. In 2008, city staff raised the alarm over the stark differences between TransLink’s 2006, The Case for the Evergreen Line, report and a business case published only two years later – not only were the numbers different, but the earlier case called for Light Rail Transit technology over a SkyTrain line. The 2006 case from TransLink recommended light rail and projected the cost at $0.97 billion. But following that report, the Evergreen Line went under the provincial government’s jurisdiction, and in 2008, the province and TransLink came up with a report recommending a SkyTrain line into Coquitlam connecting at Lougheed Town Centre – then the price estimate went up to $1.25 billion. The 29 per cent cost escalation was never given an explanation, so council wrote to the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure for one in 2011. When council asked about the breakdown costs for the light rail technology from the 2006 case, the response was surprising. “They lost it,” she said. Evergreen Line Page 10
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