Forensic Science Blog

Thirty-six years ago, on September 11, 1973, Augusto Pinochet ascended to power in Chile in a military coup. Within days, thousands of citizens were arrested, tortured and summarily executed. A Chilean folk singer named Victor Jara, was held prisoner in Santiago’s soccer stadium, a place used as a detention and torture center.

According to the testimony of the army conscript Jose Paredes, a sub-lieutenant fired a bullet into the singer’s head while playing Russian roulette and then he and another soldier were ordered to “finish the job by firing into Jara’s body.

Jara’s wife, British dancer Joan Turner, buried the singer in a hurried, lonely ceremony and later fled to exile with her 2 daughters.

The folksinger’s remains were exhumed last June after Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes re-opened the investigation. A team of Chilean professionals and foreigners performed an autopsy trying to determine the cause of death and who ordered Jara’s murder. The new autopsy report detailed that Jara was beaten and tortured. His hands were crushed and he sustained multiple fractures throughout his body, including a fracture in his skull. There were also more than 40 gunshot wounds in his chest, stomach, arms, and legs, and two bullets pierced his skull. All these injuries caused his death through hemorrhaging from violent homicide.

On December 3, 2009, Victor Jara finally got a proper burial with a three-day long ceremony and festival. His remains in a close casket were honored by thousands and were buried in the same place as he was buried the first time in 1973.

Related info:

Many stories indicate that Victor Jara’s hands were cut off by the soldiers who tormented him during the last hours of his life so he couldn’t play the guitar, but his hands were actually broken.

The 1973-1990 military regime in Chile is blamed for more than 3,000 deaths and some 25,000 documented instances of torture.

Only one high ranking official was indicted in the murder. Pinochet, who died in 2006, never faced a full trial for crimes committed during his regime.

Chile stadium was renamed for Victor Jara in 2003.

Real CSI work

I want to congratulate a number of people who have been responsible for an outstanding job. A group of agents from the Royan Canadian Mounted Police, Toronto Police Services, Belfast Police Department, Maine State Police, and the New York Office of the FBI were able to rescue a couple of girls after a painstaking investigation.
A well deserved thank you for a job well done to all these anonymous people.

Here’s the story, from the FBI website:

TWO SISTERS RESCUED
Through a Unique Set of Clues

The pornographic images spotted online by Canadian authorities in 2007 were new—and they were disturbing. They showed a young girl, perhaps only 6 years old, being sexually abused by an adult male.

But the images also contained clues to the girl’s identity—a beer can and a distinctive pair of eyeglasses. Ultimately, those clues helped a dedicated team of investigators rescue the girl, along with her 4-year-old sister, and send their abusers to prison for a very long time.

Here’s what happened:

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police first noticed the pictures online and compiled them for other law enforcement agencies. Members of the Toronto Police Services analyzing the images discovered a blurry beer can in the background of one picture and, after identifying the brand, learned that it was only manufactured in a handful of states in the northeastern United States. This information was shared with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).

Independent of their Canadian colleagues, officers of the Belfast Police Department in Maine and later the Maine State Police were also studying the images and discovered that the victim had distinctive eyeglasses. This detail was also relayed to NCMEC, and a cooperative effort began among the various law enforcement agencies involved.

As the investigation continued, the eyeglasses were identified by manufacturer and model number, and the beer manufacturer said that the can in question was only distributed in six states, including New York and Maryland.

On August 1, 2008, a special agent from our New York office with our Innocent Images National Initiative program opened a case and began canvassing ophthalmologists in the six-state area to see who sold that brand of eyeglasses. Three weeks later, that painstaking investigative work paid off when a Maryland doctor recognized a picture of the victim.

At this point, events in the case accelerated.

On Monday, August 25, 2008, the Maryland doctor called FBI Agent Michael Sabric in New York to say that not only was the victim his patient, but she had come into his office that very morning—the first day of school—to replace a pair of broken glasses.

Sabric immediately contacted our Baltimore office cyber squad, which handles child pornography cases as part of our Innocent Images program.

A surveillance team was mobilized within hours, and when the girl got home from first grade that afternoon, investigators positively identified her as the online victim.

Around 9 o’clock that night, Special Agent Rachel Corn—a member of the Baltimore cyber squad—had secured a search warrant for the victim’s home. By 10 p.m., a forensic child interviewer, victim assistance representatives, and members of the cyber squad and evidence response team were knocking on the front door of the house.

Soon, the girl identified her two abusers. Forensic evidence later revealed her younger sister had also been abused.

In October, one of the men involved was sentenced to 45 years in prison for sexually exploiting a minor and producing child pornography. His accomplice had already received a 36-year sentence.

“This is the outcome you always hope for,” Agent Corn said. “Rescue the victims and put the abusers away.”

Agent Sabric added that this case “is a great example of local, state, and federal authorities working together toward a common goal. Every piece of information along the way was critical to solving the case.”

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Also, we would like to wish everyone who visits the site a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Forensic Science Blog Team.

May everyione enjoy the festivities and have a great time.

Memory, eyewitnesses and facial recognition: the underlying complexity of memory as a cognitive process.

There are many forms of memory and our memory plays tricks on us. Memory is an organism’s ability to store, retain, and recall information. But… how do we remember? What are the major reasons why we forget? How do people recognize faces?

There are three major processes involved in memory: encoding, storage and retrieval. Memory is frequently changed by what people previously knew or experienced. An event or initial perception comes into the sensory memory where it is stored for up to a couple of seconds and then quickly disappears unless it is transferred to another level. This next level is the short-term memory which stores information for up to 30 seconds. Information becomes permanent if you go over it and thus it’s stored at the long-term storage area, lasting as little as a few days or as long as decades.

Memory is crucial for all of us but it isn’t always perfect. We occasionally forget the names and other details of people, we forget to pay our bills and yes, we forget an answer on a quiz! But when we are called upon to testify, our memory becomes an object of suspicion.

Identifications rely on memory, and accurate recollections of a crime can be particularly complex for witnesses. Some studies found that witnesses who viewed conventional lineups and photo displays picked the wrong person about half the time.

Some scholars point out some problems when witnesses try to identify suspects. Sometimes they pick the one who looks most like the person they saw, some can be pushed toward making the right choice.

Are humans better face recognizers than machines? While recognizing someone’s face is a complex process, humans are remarkable capable to distinguish among thousands of faces. In fact monkeys and humans share a specific perceptual mechanism for discerning among the numerous faces they encounter daily. Our faces contain information which help us recognize people and may have implications for improving face recognition software. An FBI expert said that facial recognition does not figure in the FBI’s biometric strategy since “the algorithms just do not exist to deliver the highly reliable verification required” (see full press release here).

Leaving out the machines and going back to our imperfect memories, a Professor at ISU is exploring the thought processes of eyewitnesses when their memory fails as they still try to identify the perpetrator of a crime. His goal is to improve police procedures even further. Here’s the link for the full article:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-11/isu-isp110909.php

Memory failures are common but eyewitness identification still carries great weight with jurors. More research is needed to avoid wrongful identifications by witnesses to crimes.

Just for fun

Try these online tests:

http://www.faceblind.org/facetests/

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/java/facemem2.html

DNA technology is probably one of the most exciting things in forensic science today.  DNA studies have focused on vertebrates, plants and microbes. However, DNA based technologies in the entomological field have become a key area of research in the recent years.

Forensic entomology is the application of insect science to legal and criminal proceedings. Genotyping procedures have been mostly directed to the identification of forensically important specimens, most often used to estimate the time of death (PMI), or in some cases, to determine the general location of a murder. Insects can be also considered a potential source of human DNA for identity testing; DNA from a variety of blood feeding insects has been successfully amplified and analyzed.

Here’s the story of a leech found at a crime scene 8 years ago that led Australian police to a man who confessed robbing a woman in 2001.

This is an excerpt from The Times. For full coverage: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6881995.ece

“Leeches have long been used in alternative medical practices but police have found a new use for the slimy bloodsuckers: catching criminals.

In what is believed to be a world first in forensic science, blood from a leech that was gathered as evidence in a burglary in Tasmania eight years ago has been used to identify a thief who this week pleaded guilty to aggravated armed robbery.

The leech was discovered in the living room of Fay Olson, 71, who had been tied up while being robbed of A$550 (£310) by two men wearing black hoods and armed with sticks in September 2001.

Police uncovered the leech next to the empty safe and bagged it as evidence.

Apart from the leech, the police had no other evidence and no suspects so the case remained unsolved until last year when Peter Cannon, 54, was arrested for alleged drug offences. His DNA was taken and found to match that of the blood taken from the gorged leech in the unsolved robbery. Mr. Johnston said that it was the strangest way he had heard of convicting a criminal in 25 years of working in the police force.

Cannon pleaded guilty to aggravated armed robbery in court on Monday and will be sentenced this week. His accomplice has not been caught.”

Since the February release of the National Acade­my of Sciences report on the state of forensic science, it is well known that forensic labs need better funding, should be accredited, and scientists should be certified. The following article is from NPR News and is a good example of the NAS report. Your comments matter! Thanks to Dave Khey for sending the article.

In Milwaukee, police say a mislabeled DNA sample made it possible for a suspected serial killer to avoid arrest for more than a decade.

The man — now charged with seven murders — might have been arrested before some of the murders occurred if state officials hadn’t lost his DNA sample.

The error revealed a gaping hole in Wisconsin’s DNA data bank and is spurring state officials to gather and verify thousands of DNA samples they thought were already in the system. In all, as many as 12,000 samples may be missing. In addition, other states are searching for similar flaws in their system for collecting and storing DNA.

A DNA sample from a crime scene can be a double-edged sword. If it’s matched correctly to a murderer, justice can be done. But if it’s lost or mislabeled, an innocent man may end up in prison.

In 2000, when Wisconsin began collecting DNA samples from all convicted felons, Walter Ellis was serving time for beating his girlfriend with a hammer. He managed to avoid having his sample taken by bribing another inmate to have his mouth swabbed instead and claim to be Ellis.

By the time the fraud was discovered, Ellis had left prison and the state did not have his DNA on file. Milwaukee prosecutors now say Ellis went on to murder at least seven women over the next decade.

Years Of Error

Wisconsin Department of Corrections Secretary Rick Raemisch says the deadly error resulted from a breakdown in communications between the two agencies responsible for handling DNA samples.

“Within a very short period it was discovered that a sample was given under another individual’s name,” said Raemisch. “Unfortunately that information was not given back to us by the Department of Justice — so it basically sat there, frankly, for years.”

This September, Milwaukee police linked an unknown DNA sample to nine different murders in the same Milwaukee neighborhood over the past 20 years. Ellis’ name kept coming up in the investigations, so his DNA sample was taken.

It matched DNA found on the bodies of nine women.

Ellis is now charged in seven of the murders. Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle says the fatal glitch was the result of too few people trying to gather too much DNA.

“There were large sweeps of the prison system. In one month they took 19,000 samples,” said Ellis. “DNA [examiners] don’t just go and take a little sample and throw it in a machine and have a number — it’s a process that I think back in the early 2000s took several months to do.”
Link to the full NPR article

For link to previous posts about Forensics Under Fire click here and here

I wanted to share this information to those reading this blog as I thought this is quite important.

Computer Forensics is still a rather new discipline in computer security and is a rapidly growing subject. The need to develop standards, frameworks, and curricula for degree programs based on actual needs of criminal investigation is underlined here.

ASTM International

Release date: September 25, 2009

W. CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa., September 25, 2009-While the use of digital evidence is fairly common in contemporary criminal investigation, there are still relatively few degree programs in computer forensics. A new standard developed by ASTM International Committee E30 on Forensic Sciences provides a road map for post-secondary institutions to develop degree programs in computer forensics.

The new standard, ASTM E2678, Guide for Education and Training in Computer Forensics, is under the jurisdiction of Subcommittee E30.12 on Digital and Multimedia Evidence.

“ASTM E2678 attempts to improve and advance computer forensics through the development of model curricula consistent with other forensic science programs,” says Rhesa G. Gilliland, laboratory director, Digital Evidence Laboratory, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

“Considering the amount of interest generated after the release of the National Academy of Sciences report, ‘Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward,’ the development of standards in the relatively new forensic discipline of digital and multimedia evidence is extremely important,” says Gilliland, who is co-chair of E30.12.

Gilliland says that ASTM E2678 was based on a research report funded by the National Institute of Justice through a grant to the West Virginia University Forensic Science Initiative and submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Topics covered in the new standard include alternative paths by which students may arrive at and move through professional training; formal educational programs of increasing length from associate degrees through graduate work; a framework for academic certificate programs offered by educational institutions; and model criteria and implementation approaches for training and continuing education opportunities provided by professional organizations, vendors and academic institutions.

All interested parties, particularly individuals working in the digital and multimedia evidence examination field, are welcome to participate in the ongoing activities of E30.12. The subcommittee is working with the Scientific Working Groups on Digital Evidence and Imaging Technology to develop proposed new standards.

ASTM International standards can be purchased from Customer Service (phone: 610-832-9585; service@astm.org) or at www.astm.org. For technical information, contact Rhesa G. Gilliland, Drug Enforcement Administration, Lorton, Va. (phone: 703-495-6578; rhesa.g.gilliland@usdoj.gov). Committee E30 will meet Feb. 20-21, 2010, in conjunction with the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in Seattle, Wash.

ASTM International welcomes and encourages participation in the development of its standards. ASTM’s open consensus process, using advanced Internet-based standards development tools, ensures worldwide access for all interested individuals. For more information on becoming an ASTM member, please contact Timothy Brooke, ASTM International (phone: 610-832-9729; tbrooke@astm.org).

Established in 1898, ASTM International is one of the largest international standards development and delivery systems in the world. ASTM International meets the World Trade Organization (WTO) principles for the development of international standards: coherence, consensus, development dimension, effectiveness, impartiality, openness, relevance and transparency. ASTM standards are accepted and used in research and development, product testing, quality systems and commercial transactions around the globe.

Links to related journals:

The International Journal of Forensic Computer Science: http://www.ijofcs.org/webjournal/index.php/ijofcs/index

Digital Investigation: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/702130/description#description

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