Replies

We don't know where the brilliant emerald green, red or light blue fibers came from, that were not in DW's environment....there is no source for any of the fibers.

Frustrating isn't it? After reading up on fiber evidence and how it came about as a forensic tool the "no known source" statement COULD be an ambiguous statement capitalized on by the DA.

Fiber evidence in and of itself, without a known source is pretty much useless.
Reason being, the chance that you, Sally, Joe, and I most likely have purchased something made with a particular material blend and dye color is too great. IE towels, blankets, sheets, clothes, all purchased at local stores Wal-Mart Mervyns.

Where fiber evidence becomes important and noteworty is when, as in the Atlanta murders case, the fiber in question can be traced to a verifiable source that for some reason is not available to much of the population.

As mentioned above the green acrylic fiber that was found on victim was found to match a possible suspects home carpeting.
Upon further investigation the carpet was traced to a company that sold carpet by the hundreds of thousands of rolls. However, it just so happened that that particular shade of green dye was a limited or discontinued color.
The company had sold the majority of the rolls to a contractor that had only used it in apts. in the Eastern states, this cut the odds to around tens of thousands of possible odds, still too high.
The clear and convicting evidence was when the next victim was found and had, (if I remember correctly) not only a couple of the green fibers present but new brown acrylic fibers. These brown fibers matched the carpet found in the suspects car as their source.
Odds of that, real slim, especially since he had been seen around the last dumping location of body, loose alibi, etc.
Anyways, the fiber evidence CAN have merit but only in certain cases and only combined with other forensic evidence, forensic bug evidence is very reliable and even standing by itself it establishes and provides us with facts about the crime and crime scene. When it is veiwed with other forensic facts it can be most revealing.

Thanks for your great posts, really learn a lot from them. Now I need to ask you a question, If the LE lifted 125 prints from the DVD home, none matched their guests they had that nite and none matched DW, where are the prints of the guests? Why would'nt they show up?

Great post alexandria!

That is my problem with the fibers at this point in the case...there is no source...for any of them.

There were only 400 pairs of the infamous OJ gloves produced. They weren't sold at Mervyns. The gloves were at the crime scene - that doesn't prove OJ was wearing them, anymore than that the presence of the blood and hair in the MH prove that the MH was a crime scene.