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Capt. Ghissan K. Towman, Police Department forensic examiner in Hillah, and Jessica D. Janisch, Joint Expeditionary Forensics Facility-1 certified latent print examiner, compare fingerprints collected from a CD during a training exercise, April 2, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Bethany L. Little. WASHINGTON — Coalition forces in Iraq are increasingly working to develop the country’s non-military capabilities, such as its criminal justice program. In recent weeks, that has meant training the Iraqis in forensic science. Troops assigned to the Coalition’s Joint Expeditionary Forensics Facility (JEFF )-1 began training Iraqi Police outside Forward Operating Base Kalsu in southern Iraq, April...

A new bullet-tagging technology being developed in the UK could give forensic teams a robust new tool in the fight against gun crime. The breakthrough has been achieved by a multidisciplinary team from Brighton, Brunel, Cranfield, Surrey and York universities, with funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Project partners include the Forensic Science Service, BAE Systems and coatings manufacturer Andura. The tags, which measure 30 microns in diameter, are applied to gun cartridges by being embedded in cartridge coatings made from polylactic acid, sucrose ester and tetrahydrofuran. They then attach themselves to the hands or gloves...

FORENSIC PHOTOGRAPHY BRINGS COLOR BACK TO ANCIENT TEXTILES COLUMBUS , Ohio – Archaeologists are now turning to forensic crime lab techniques to hunt for dyes, paint, and other decoration in prehistoric textiles. Although ancient fabrics can offer clues about prehistoric cultures, often their colors are faded, patterns dissolved, and fibers crumbling. Forensic photography can be used as an inexpensive and non-destructive tool to analyze these artifacts more efficiently, according to new Ohio State University research. Kathryn Jakes Forensic photography helps researchers collect information from fragile artifacts before using expensive chemical tests, which cause damage during material sampling. The forensic method...

Rapist sues police over car damage Niklas Lindgren, the 'Haga Man' rapist sentenced to 14 years imprisonment earlier this year for a series of brutal attacks in Umeå, is demanding compensation from police for damage caused to his car during their investigation. Police forensics experts cut up a seat belt in Lindgren's car as they searched for evidence linking him to the crimes, Västerbottens-kuriren reports. Traces of blood on the seat belt were believed to have come from a woman whom Lindgren attacked and raped. Instead of sending the whole car to the laboratory in Linköping, the police cut off...

Facial reconstruction turns N.B. cold case Canadian press with Quentin Casey Telegraph-Journal Published 2006-12-20 A young man whose remains were found in a rural area north of Toronto nearly 40 years ago has been identified as Richard "Dickie" Hovey of Fredericton. Police say Hovey, who moved to Toronto in 1966 or 1967, was a musician in the city's trendy Yorkville neighbourhood before he vanished in the late spring or early summer of 1967. His body was found in a rural area near Schomberg, Ont., northwest of Toronto, in 1968, but never identified. He was approximately 17 years old at the...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military flew in two forensic specialists Saturday to examine the remains of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi "to see how he actually died" and to reconstruct the last minutes of his life, a spokesman said. The examination comes after U.S. authorities altered their initial account of the al-Qaida leader's death, first saying he died outright in a U.S. airstrike, then saying he survived but died soon after. Also, an Iraqi man raised fresh questions, telling Associated Press Television News that he saw U.S. soldiers beating an injured man resembling al-Zarqawi until blood flowed from his nose. Maj....

5/18/2006 - ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Md. (AFPN) -- For forensic science consultants at the Air Force Office of Special Investigations' 33rd Field Investigations Squadron, criminal investigations in the Air Force begin at the crime scene. The work of Air Force forensic science consultants is similar to that of criminal investigators in the television show “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” said the squadron's Special Agent Tam Reed. “However, unlike CSI, we don’t get lab results back within an hour,” said Agent Reed, an AFOSI agent since joining the Air Force in 2000. The squadron doesn’t have its own lab for processing...

Iraqi police officers using a forklift to move forensic processing equipment received from the 988th Military Police Company, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, to help the Iraqi police track down criminals and terrorists involved in crimes. U.S. Army photo by 988th Military Police Company CSI: Iraq Iraqi Police Receive Forensic Equipment By U.S. Army Pfc. Edgar Reyes2nd Brigade Combat Team4th Infantry Division FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Iraq, April 13, 2006 — The 988th Military Police Company, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, delivered new forensic equipment to the Iraqi Criminal Investigative Service crime lab March 25....

Judicial society announces Greensboro location Michelle Cater Rash The Business Journal of the Greater Triad Area - 3:09 PM EST Monday The American Judicature Society formally announced Monday that its new Institute of Forensic Science and Public Policy will be coming to downtown Greensboro. Close to 100 city leaders, attorneys and judges gathered in the former City Club on the top floor of the Jefferson Pilot building for the announcement. The institute will be a think tank to look at forensic science standards for use by law enforcement agencies, attorneys and courts. The institute will be advised by the society's...

PARIS (AFP) - US astronomers said they had pinpointed the moment and location when one of the most famous landscape pictures in photographic history was taken. "Autumn Moon, the High Sierra from Glacier Point," taken by Ansel Adams in Yosemite National Park, is a thrilling view of the American West, featuring a waxing Moon rising over dark, ice-tinged peaks. But precisely when Adams took the iconic black-and-white picture has never been clear, and dates for it range from the mid to the late 1940s.

Scheduled speaker for the July 26 membership luncheon at the Harborview Center is Jon R. Thogmartin, M.D., District Medical Examiner for District 6, Pinellas and Pasco Counties, since December 2000. Dr. Thogmartin was born in Wellington, Texas, and received his doctorate in medicine in 1990 from University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, and his bachelor of science in biology from Southern Methodist University in Dallas in 1986, magna cum laude. Dr. Thogmartin was Associate Medical Examiner in Broward County and Dade County before becoming District 15 Medical Examiner in Palm Beach County in April 1999, a position...

Rome, Feb. 11, 2005 (CNA) - Forensic scientists in Italy are working on a different kind of investigation—one that dates back 2000 years. In an astounding announcement, the scientists think they may have re-created an image of Jesus Christ when He was a 12-year old boy.Using the Shroud of Turin, a centuries-old linen cloth, which many believe bears the face of the crucified Christ, the investigators first created a computer-modeled, composite picture of the Christ’s face.Dr. Carlo Bui, one of the scientists said that, “the face of the man on the shroud is the face of a suffering man. He...

They're known as "the team that sleeps with the dead" -- a group of [Israeli] forensic workers who have matched body parts to identities after countless scenes of carnage in Israel. Now in Thailand, they have only one way to describe the aftermath of the tsunami: a disaster, literally, of biblical proportions. ...[The Israeli team] Zaka came with Israeli dental, fingerprint and DNA experts to resort areas in southern Thailand to help find and identify missing Israelis. But they have ended up working on as many victims as they can, of all nationalities. "Everything we know in Israel, all the...

Don't look now, but camera is watching Privacy: The video eye is almost everywhere these days, but the view isn't like they portray on crime shows By Bob Mims The Salt Lake Tribune Salt Lake Tribune 2004-08-13 00:25:49.959 On a plane, train or bus, strolling a mall or park, using an ATM, riding an elevator, pumping gas, feeding coins into a tollbooth, in class or even your doctor's examining room - someone could be watching.     Are you a store clerk? Your cash register may be the star attraction of a security cam. So may be the hallways at...

March 2: Luz Aida Cuevas never believed the official conclusion that her daughter died in a house fire. Six years later she was proven correct. Woman Accused of Kidnap, Arson Turns Herself In She allegedly set fire to cover up theft of infant. PHILADELPHIA - A woman who police believe snatched her friend’s newborn daughter in 1997 and then torched the family’s house to cover her tracks has surrendered to authorities. /snip Suspicion fell on Correa after the biological mother of the now-6-year-old girl ran into the child at a party in January and instantly knew she was gazing at...

It is a tantalizing tape recording, full of static hiss, popping sounds, and eerie faraway voices. And for years, there has been debate over whether it proves there was a plot to kill President Kennedy. Now, a new analysis of the tape recorded by a Dallas police officer on the day Kennedy was assassinated casts further doubt on the lingering conspiracy theories. Although some previous studies have suggested that one of the sounds on the tape is a gunshot from the infamous "grassy knoll," forensic acoustics expert Bob Berkovitz said it was extremely unlikely that the sound was gunfire. "The...

A Vancouver man in Canada has gone to court to have an 11-year-old winning lottery ticket dusted for fingerprints, hoping forensic tests will prove he is due the $US7.3 million prize that was awarded to his former neighbour over a decade ago. Michael Ufnal filed a petition this week asking British Columbia Lotteries Corp to hand over the ticket to determine whether his fingerprints are still on it and allow him to claim the prize. He said he bought the ticket at a local convenience store on the afternoon of May 12, 1992, placed it in his wallet along with...

<p>Prosecutors say a pet cockatoo that was killed while trying to protect its owner from an attacker produced evidence crucial in convicting the man's murderer.</p> <p>Kevin Butler's 18-inch white-crested cockatoo, named Bird, flew at the Daniel Torres during the Christmas Eve 2001 attack and pecked him in the head, drawing blood. Torres wiped the blood and then touched a light switch, leaving his DNA at the crime scene, authorities said.</p>

Pathologist helps clear N.J. cop in wife's death Thursday, December 05, 2002 By JOHN CURRAN Associated Press MAYS LANDING - A police officer accused of suffocating his wife was cleared Wednesday after prosecutors acknowledged she died of coronary artery failure. A medical examiner had called her death a homicide and listed the cause of death as asphyxiation. "It was the most disgraceful thing," said Officer James Andros III. "I can't imagine how it ever happened." Andros, 34, was charged with murder in the March 31, 2001, death of his wife, Ellen, who was found dead by her husband after he...

Indexing Evil Michael Welner, M.D., talks to PT News Editor Kaja Perina about forensic psychiatry in the courtroom. How depraved is the act of defiling a corpse? What about bombing a building at the time of maximum occupancy? Such unsavory questions constitute the Depravity Scale, an attempt to define “heinous, depraved, atrocious and cruel” behavior. Michael Welner, M.D., is the scale’s architect. Welner is also chairman of the Forensic Panel, editor in chief of The Forensic Echo and associate professor of psychiatry at New York University. Kaja Perina: How do you define depravity? Michael Welner: It’s an intentional act that...