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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...