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Colorado has launched a criminal probe into its star forensic analyst Yvonne 'Missy' Woods after 'anomalies' were found in her DNA testing work. Woods, 60, is under investigation for allegedly performing shoddy DNA testing and altering data. Her work and testimonies have sent hundreds of people to jail over her three-decade career - and now thousands of cases may have to be reopened. She has worked in her trade for 29 years, and was considered the state's 'gold standard' by colleagues for helping to put infamous murderers behind bars. The shocking discovery was made in November, when the Colorado Bureau...

Forensic pathologists, including Israeli staffers as well as volunteers from abroad, were visibly disturbed by the evidence before them. Stifling the urge to retch became a difficult task as I walked through the lower levels of Israel’s National Center of Forensic Medicine (Abu Kabir) in Tel Aviv. The smell of rotting human remains, much of which was completely unrecognizable as human due to the brutality of the attack, was at times too much to bear. In light of the growing international interest in (and denials of) the Palestinian terror group Hamas’ October 7 massacre in southern Israel, representatives of the...

On Jan. 26, 2023, detectives assigned to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) Robbery/Homicide – Cold Case Unit arrested 55-year-old Michael Lapniewski, Jr., for a murder that occurred in 1987. Detectives conducted an extensive investigation over a period of several years. A suspect was developed after advancements in DNA testing. According to detectives, on Feb. 9, 1987, deputies responded to a residence in unincorporated St. Petersburg for a deceased person. The victim, 82-year-old Opal Weil was located deceased by her sister-in-law after not answering her telephone. Weil had obvious and visible signs of trauma. Deputies discovered the suspect fled the...

Suitcases Arranged In Outdoor Experiment Suitcases in the decomposition experiment. (Paola Magni) A crime scene can present itself in any form and size. In recent weeks, an Aotearoa New Zealand family who'd purchased abandoned goods from a storage locker made the harrowing discovery of two sets of human remains hidden inside two suitcases. Sadly, this is not a unique case – bodies of murder victims are found in suitcases with astonishing regularity. But they present a particular challenge for police investigating the crime, which is where forensic science comes in. Why suitcases? Forensic case history and crime news are sadly...

“The case could have been solved decades earlier. [Investigators] claim that Washington state’s DNA database policies, laws and procedures are out of date and prevent police from using DNA to protect victims of violent crimes.” – Tim Schellberg, President, Gordon Thomas Honeywell Governmental Affairs “Sarah’s case could have been solved decades earlier if Washington state had stronger DNA policies in place. Why aren’t they in place? Shouldn’t the state do what they can to utilize the full potential of DNA to solve crime, prevent crime and exonerate the innocent?” - Rockne Harmon, Ret. Senior Deputy DA, Alameda County DA’s Office...

The jacket worn by the assailant that, once illuminated by UV light, showed he had been sprayed with SmartTag. Credit: West Yorkshire Police. In a first-of-its-kind arrest, a man in the UK has been convicted and jailed for domestic violence and failure to adhere to a non-molestation order after the victim sprayed him with SmartTag, a unique forensic liquid UK police have been piloting. SmartTag was designed by the SmartWater Group following consultation with multiple UK police forces and legal professionals. SmartTag uses a pressurized canister to deploy a stream of SmartWater forensic liquid to tag an offender with a...

On Oct. 12, 2018, 16-year-old Karlie Gusé attended a party near her home in Chalfant Valley, a dessert town near Bishop, Calif. According to her boyfriend and others at the party, Karlie smoked marijuana—which may or may not have been laced with another drug—and immediately fell ill. She began to experience intense fear and paranoia, eventually calling her stepmother to ask for a ride home. But, at 9 p.m., Melissa Gusé found Karlie running down a street, away from the party. No one knew it then, but that was only the first of two times Karlie would run scared down...

Dr. Cyril Wecht distrusts the US government. And he’s proud of it. The forensic pathologist — who declared in 1978 that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy — is now 90 and still sticking to his story. Wecht’s latest book, “The JFK Assassination Dissected” (Exposit Books), summarizes his six decades of research into the subject, and pokes holes in the conclusion made by the seven-man Warren Commission that Oswald, without any help, shot and killed Kennedy when his motorcade drove past the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. “Young...

Hollie Marie Clouse would now be 41 years old. The Florida infant was barely a year old in 1980 when her parents, newlyweds Harold Dean Clouse Jr. and Tina Gail Linn, uprooted their small family and headed to Houston for a job opportunity. A few months later, the couple’s families stopped hearing from them. They never saw them again. Now, with the help of genetic genealogists, authorities have identified a murdered couple found in a wooded area of Harris County the following January as Clouse and Linn. There remains one problem, however. “The closure of these cases has led to...

A man who died in 1999 has been identified as a suspect in the 1980 killing of an Irvine mother in Newport Beach, thanks to advances in DNA technology and investigative genetic genealogy, police announced Monday. Kenneth Elwin Marks is believed to be the person responsible for killing 42-year-old Judith “Judy” Nesbitt on Nov. 26, 1980, while she was showing her family’s boat to a man she thought was a potential buyer, Newport Beach Police Department officials said in a news release. That afternoon, Marks followed Nesbitt into the boat’s sleeping quarters and, after a violent struggle, shot the mother...

Machine learning can help maggots solve crimes Trained algorithms can identify maggots and read clues like time of deathMaggots don’t have fingers, but they do produce chemical “fingerprints” — a blend of chemicals unique to their species. Different maggot species feed on corpses at particular stages of decay. Forensics teams actually use this information to estimate a person’s time of death. The problem is that maggots, which are immature flies, are tricky to identify and rearing them to flyhood is time-consuming and expensive. University of Albany researchers developed a machine learning technique to rapidly distinguish maggot species by their chemical...

Interesting admission in Crowdstrike CEO Shaun Henry's testimony. Henry is asked when "the Russians" exfiltrated the data from DNC. Henry: "We did not have concrete evidence that the data was exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have indicators that it was exfiltrated." More from Crowdstrike's Shaun Henry: "There are times when we can see data exfiltrated, and we can say conclusively. But in this case it appears it was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don’t have the evidence that says it actually left." This takes me back to the qualified, ambiguous Mueller language I highlighted in my...

Longtime Criminalist Uses ‘Old-School’ Technique to ID Victim in 50-Year-Old Murder Wednesday, April 8, 2020 Michelle Taylor Editor-in-Chief Share Email Longtime Criminalist Uses ‘Old-School’ Technique to ID Victim in 50-Year-Old Murder Want to know the key to fingerprinting and identifying human remains buried 51 years ago? Perseverance, Ivory dish soap and old-school techniques. Luckily, criminalist and fingerprinting expert Timothy Jackson at the New Hampshire State Police Forensic Lab had all of that when he identified the body of Winston “Skip” Morris by manually plotting the victim’s minutiae to generate a more defined fingerprint that finally lead to a hit. The...

Lately we've been hearing on the news about the many Americans falling ill and/or dying in the Dominican Republic, namely in resort hotels. I've seen that there are daily flights to Punta Cana from Europe & Russia -- three a week from Dusseldorf, three a week from Moscow, daily direct flights from Heathrow and Gatwick in England, a few direct from Toronto and Montréal in Canada -- the list goes on and on. Question: Have there been any reports of ill or dead Europeans or foreigners in the Dominican Republic? Very suspect that the only victims are Americans. Conspiracy theory:...

I invited my dear friend Garry Rodgers — retired homicide detective with a second career as a forensic coroner — to share a fascinating post about the real cause of Elvis Presley’s death. Prepare to be wowed. Welcome to TKZ, Garry! Elvis Presley suddenly dropped in the bathroom of his Graceland mansion on the afternoon of August 16, 1977. Elvis was rushed to Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was pronounced dead, then shipped to the morgue and autopsied the same afternoon. Three days later, the Memphis County coroner issued Elvis Presley’s death certificate stating the cause as...

Washington — Although the Federal Emergency Management Agency denied Puerto Rico's request to dispatch forensic units to Puerto Rico to help process a mounting backlog of bodies, the island's government has received a much-need reprieve. The fiscal board which controls spending in the U.S. territory will allow Gov. Ricardo Rosselló to use $1.5 million in funding to curtail the backlog in the island's morgue. …(snip) ...he FEMA official said these issues could be not be "attributed" to the natural disasters that struck the island, which triggered the first DMORT deployment. "These and the other courses of action ... address systemic...

Bloodstains found on the shroud of Turin burial cloth, believed by many to have once wrapped the body of Jesus Christ, are likely fake, according to new research reported in the Journal of Forensic Sciences. In June 2017, researchers at the Institute of Crystallography found traces of blood on the 14-foot-long relic, with initial analysis of the particles discovering "a scenario of great suffering, whose victim was wrapped up in the funeral cloth." The nanoparticles uncovered were found to not be typical of the blood of a healthy person. The Journal of Forensic Sciences report on July 10 revealed that...

Known for his insightful take on politics, journalist and author Thomas Wictor believes Judge Roy Moore’s signature in Gloria Allred accuser Beverly Young Nelson’s yearbook is a forgery. The sevens in 1977 to the right of “Christmas,” are very different from the sevens in the date (12-22-77) above “Old Hickory House.” “Look at the two versions of the number “7,” tweeted Wictor. “”12-22-77” and “Olde Hickory House” were written by a different person,” he added. Next, Wictor points out “the “R” and “y” in “Roy,”” are not written the same way.

Junk science endangers lives. Forensic junk science in the hands of overzealous prosecutors, ignorant police detectives and reckless experts threatens liberty. There is a crisis in America's government-run crime labs -- and it's not just the result of a few rogue operators. The problem is long-festering and systemic. In April, Massachusetts state crime lab chemist Annie Dookhan made national headlines after investigations and lawsuits over her misconduct prompted the state's Supreme Judicial Court to order the largest dismissal of criminal convictions in U.S. history. Prosecutors were forced to dismiss a stunning 21,000-plus drug cases after Dookhan admitted to forging signatures,...

When it comes to lying, the brain may be our Achilles’ heel, rather than physiological indices like blood pressure, pulse, respiration and skin conductivity. A new study from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania suggests functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is significantly more effective at spotting lies than a traditional polygraph test. In the study, neuroscience experts with no experience in lie detection were 24 percent more likely to spot falsehoods than professional polygraph examiners reviewing polygraph recordings. An fMRI is a functional neuroimaging procedure using MRI technology that measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. The...