No one has hours to scour the papers to keep up with the latest news, so we’ve curated the top news stories in the field of Forensic Science for this week. Here’s what you need to know to get out the door!
California’s Monterey County Cold Case Taskforce Teams with Othram to Identify a 2008 John Doe (DNASolves – 8/15/2024)
In March 2008, the partial remains of an unidentified individual were discovered at the base of the Bixby Bridge in California’s Big Sur region. The Bixby Bridge is located on California Scenic Highway 1, approximately 18 miles south of Monterey and Carmel-by-the-Sea. The bridge, built in 1932, is 714 feet in length and noted as one of the tallest single-span concrete bridges in the world. It was determined that the remains were that of an unknown male. Traditional DNA testing was used to develop an STR profile, which was uploaded to CODIS in hopes that there would be a match to a known individual.
Efforts to identify the man were unsuccessful despite the efforts of law enforcement. Details of the case were entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) as UP99546. With no matches to a known individual and limited information about the partial remains available, the case went cold and the man’s identity was a mystery for nearly a decade. The man became known as Monterey County John Doe.
In 2022, the Monterey County Cold Case Taskforce, which is comprised of the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office, Sheriff-Coroner’s Office, Monterey Police Department, and is assisted by the California DOJ Bureau of Forensic Services, teamed with Othram in The Woodlands, Texas to determine if advanced DNA testing could help identify the man.
Forensic evidence was submitted to Othram’s laboratory, where scientists used Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing® to build a comprehensive DNA profile for the unknown man. Othram’s casework costs for the case were provided by the Roads to Justice (RTJ) program. Othram’s in-house forensic genetic genealogy team then used the profile in a genetic genealogy search to develop new leads in the case. These new leads were provided to investigators with the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office.
Using this new information, a follow-up investigation was conducted leading investigators to potential relatives of the man. A reference DNA sample was collected from a relative and tested using KinSNP® Rapid Familial Relationship Testing, which allows investigators to infer kinship in both closely and distantly related individuals. This comparison led investigators to identify Monterey County John Doe as Daniel S. Pyles, who was born in 1938.
Texas Nursing Student’s Kidnapping, Murder Solved After 44 years: Police (ABCNews – 8/16/2024)
A 78-year-old man has now been charged with a murder committed over 40 years ago after genetic genealogy helped investigators identify him as a suspect.
Deck Brewer Jr., a man already imprisoned in Massachusetts, has been charged with the 1980 murder of 25-year-old Susan Leigh Wolfe, according to the Austin, Texas, Police Department.
Wolfe had just enrolled as a nursing student at the University of Texas at Austin when she was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and killed on Jan. 9, 1980, according to police.
Volunteers Learn to Fingerprint, ID Deceased Migrants (NewsNation – 8/16/2024)
Volunteers with the Eagle Pass Border Vigil Coalition this week have been learning how to take forensic fingerprints to help identify migrants who died trying to cross the border into South Texas.
They are part of a group of forensic specialists who have been in Eagle Pass this week helping to reduce the overflow of bodies at the Maverick County Sheriff Department’s mobile morgue.
There are over 40 unidentified bodies currently in the morgue, the coalition’s co-founder Amerika Garcia Grewal told Border Report on Thursday.
Maverick County does not have a medical examiner and the nearest one — in Webb Count — has told them not to send anymore bodies until the ones that are there are picked up, Garcia Grewal said.
Known As Frog Boy, His Remains Went Unidentified For 50 Years After They Were Found In An Oregon Creek, But Even Now, His Cause Of Death Remains Undetermined (Chip Chick – 8/16/2024)
That’s because, after the 16-year-old arrived in Boise, he heard about how the logging and fishing industries on the Oregon coast were taking off. This pushed Winston to travel to Coos Bay, Oregon, telling Vicky that he was going to look for a job.
It remains unclear how Winston traveled there, but after he left Boise in the summer of 1971, his family lost track of him.
Not long afterward, the remains of a juvenile male were discovered in July of 1971. They were found face-up in Coos Bay’s Snedden Creek.
No identification was located with the body, and authorities could not determine the victim’s official cause of death. Additionally, investigators tried for years to match the unknown remains with missing people.
Still, for five decades, the deceased young man remained unidentified – and he became known as “frog boy.”
It wasn’t until 2017 that the young man’s remains were exhumed by the Coos County Sheriff’s Office in order to get a DNA sample for identification.
Four years later, in May of 2021, the Oregon State Medical Examiner, Dr. Nici Vance, sent a piece of the young man’s bone to a Virginia-based company named Parabon NanoLabs, Inc.
Latest Search for 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Victims Ends with 3 More Found with Gunshot Wounds (ABCNews – 8/17/2024)
The latest search for the remains of 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre victims has ended with three more sets containing gunshot wounds, investigators said.
The three are among 11 sets of remains exhumed during the latest excavation in Oaklawn Cemetery, state archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck said Friday.
“Two of those gunshot victims display evidence of munitions from two different weapons,” Stackelbeck said. “The third individual who is a gunshot victim also displays evidence of burning.”
Forensic anthropologist Phoebe Stubblefield, who will remain on site to examine the remains, said one victim suffered bullet and shotgun wounds while the second was shot with two different caliber bullets.
Searchers are seeking simple wooden caskets because they were described at the time in newspaper articles, death certificates and funeral home records as the type used for burying massacre victims, Stackelbeck has said.
Rockdale County Sheriff’s Office and Othram Team to Identify a 2010 John Doe (DNASolves – 8/17/2024)
In December 2010, the skeletal remains of an unidentified individual were found in Conyers, Georgia near a house that had been vacant for two years. Investigators arrived at the scene and discovered directly above the remains was a hose tied into a noose and beside it was a chair on its side, leading investigators to believe that no foul play was involved. The medical examiner estimated that the remains were that of a male between 15 and 27 years old at the time of death. It was estimated that the man was approximately 5’ 6″ in height. No other identifying information for the remains was available.
With limited information available, the man’s identity remains a mystery and the case went cold despite investigators’ attempts to identify him. The man became known as Rockdale County John Doe (2010). In 2011, details of the case were entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) as UP8689.
In 2023, the Rockdale County Sheriff’s Office submitted forensic evidence to Othram’s laboratory in The Woodlands, Texas, and Othram scientists will work to develop a suitable DNA extract from the remains. This DNA extract will be used in Forensic Grade Genome Sequencing® to produce a comprehensive DNA profile for the man. Othram’s in-house forensic genetic genealogy team will perform records research and use genetic genealogy to develop new leads in the case. A DNASolves crowdfund has been created to raise funds for the casework costs.
DNA Search Prompts Arrest of Idaho Murder Suspect in 51-Year-Old Cold Case, California Police Say (Spectrum News – 8/17/2024)
An Idaho man has been arrested in connection with the shooting death of a woman in California more than 50 years ago, authorities said.
DNA evidence led investigators to identify Michael Eugene Mullen, 75, as a suspect in the death of Nina “Nadine” Fischer in 1973, the Marin County Sheriff’s Office said. Mullen was arrested near Salmon, Idaho, on Wednesday, and he is being held in jail while awaiting extradition to California.
Mullen’s defense attorney, Dan Brown, did not immediately respond to voice and email messages left for him on Saturday.
Fischer lived in San Rafael, California, with her husband and young daughter when the 31-year-old was killed in November 1973, the Marin County Sheriff’s office said in a news release. Both Fischer and her husband were Swedish nationals, and they were preparing to move back to Sweden at the time.
Fischer’s husband found her body when he returned home from work. She had been sexually assaulted and shot three times, and her 2-year-old child was found unharmed in another room.
Law enforcement officials questioned some witnesses — including movers and an assessor who had been at the house that day — but the investigation turned up no leads and the case went cold, according to newspaper articles published after her death.
In 2021, the Marin County Sheriff’s Office sent the case to the California Department of Justice’s Familial Search Program. The program compares DNA from crime scenes to a DNA database in an effort to try to find relatives of a potential suspect. After several months, the DNA resulted in a possible lead, and after three more years of investigation Mullen was identified as the suspect, the sheriff’s office said.
Police Were Searching Victim DNA for one Serial Killer. Instead, They Discovered a Possible New One (Independent – 8/18/2024)
He was a long haul trucker who considered himself a ladies’ man. “The Wild One” was emblazoned on the cab of his truck that he drove back and forth across North Carolina state lines, picking up women – sex workers, mainly – strangling them and dumping their bodies along the interstate.
After a years-long killing spree, Sean Patrick Goble, later dubbed “The Interstate Killer,” was captured in North Carolina in 1995, for at least four murders in four other states in the early 1990s.
He confessed to killing 45-year-old Brenda Kay Hagy of Bloomington, Indiana, at a service station in Tennessee in January 1995. He dumped her body along an access road off Interstate 81 in Bristol, Virginia and ran over her legs as he drove away.
Goble also confessed to killing 36-year-old Alice Rebecca Hanes, a sex worker from Ohio whose body was found in Kingsport, Tennessee.
Goble later pled guilty to the murders of both women and then confessed to the murder of Sherry Tew Mansur, 34. Goble picked Mansur up in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and they had sex before he strangled her and left her along Interstate 40 in Guilford County, North Carolina, where her body was found on February 19 1995.
Beyond True Crime: First-Year Forensic Science Student Brings Vision of Compassionate Justice to U of T (University of Toronto – 8/19/2024)
Mapalo Mushoriwa wouldn’t exactly call herself a “true crime girl.” But she’s unafraid to explore the complexities of criminal psychology to advance her vision of compassionate justice.
Mushoriwa, who starts her studies in forensic science at the University of Toronto Mississauga this fall, says her fascination stems from a high school essay on wrongful convictions, which prompted her to delve into the role of mental health in the criminal justice system.
What she found was a prison system that often emphasizes punishment over rehabilitation, which she sees as essential to reducing recidivism and crime.
At U of T Mississauga, Mushoriwa hopes to explore interventions that help inmates receive the comprehensive and compassionate care they need, benefiting both the individuals and society at large.
Knox County Regional Forensic Center Teams with Othram to Identify a 2003 John Doe (DNASolves – 8/19/2024)
In November 2003, partial skeletal remains belonging to an unidentified individual were discovered by a passerby on I-275 in Knoxville, Tennessee. The Knoxville Police Department responded to the scene, with the University of Tennessee assisting in the recovery and examination of the remains. Years later, the Knox County Regional Forensic Center took possession of the remains to conduct an investigation and evaluation, where an anthropologist conducted a full anthropological evaluation, determining that the remains were those of a white male, estimated to be between 5’0″ and 5’2″ in height and approximately 40 to 60 years old.
Details of the case were entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) as UP1545. Despite extensive efforts by law enforcement investigators to identify the man, no matches were found, and the case went cold due to a lack of investigative leads. As part of their efforts to identify the unknown man, the Knox County Regional Forensic Center team with Othram to determine if advanced DNA testing could help identify the man.
Forensic evidence was submitted to Othram’s laboratory in The Woodlands, Texas. Othram scientists successfully developed a DNA extract from the evidence and then used Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing® to build a comprehensive DNA profile for the man. Othram’s in-house forensic genetic genealogy team used the profile in a genetic genealogy search to develop new investigative leads, which were returned to law enforcement.
Using this new information, investigators conducted a follow-up investigation that led them to potential relatives of the man. DNA reference samples were collected from one of these relatives and compared to the DNA profile of the unidentified man. This led to the positive identification of the man, now known as Brian Aleric Sanderson, born on June 24, 1949. Funding for casework cost associated with Othram’s testing was provided by a congressional grant provided by Congressman Tim Burchett’s office.
Cold Case Solved: Serial Rapist Receives Life Sentence in First Genetic Genealogy Trial in Dallas County Historya (Irving Weekly – 8/19/2024)
Dallas County Criminal District Attorney John Creuzot has announced that Christopher Michael Green will spend the rest of his life in prison after a Dallas County jury found him guilty of Aggravated Sexual Assault. The 52-year-old defendant was charged in a 2005 cold case attack on a young mother whom he sexually assaulted at knifepoint. This case marks the first jury trial in Dallas County history to utilize Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG) as an investigative tool to help identify the suspect.
“We have been working this case with the Dallas Police Department since we started the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) almost a decade ago,” said lead prosecutor Leighton D’Antoni. “I remember long-time Dallas Police Department Sex Assaults Detective Todd Haecker telling me this was his ‘white whale.’ We exhausted every investigative tool without success until the DA’s Office and DPD began working with the FBI Dallas Violent Crimes Task Force, which finally cracked this case.”
New Forensics Technique Measures Individual DNA Shedding to Aid Criminal Investigations (Phys Org – 8/20/2024)
A pioneering new DNA forensics technique is looking for a reliable method to measure a suspect’s individual level of natural shedding of skin and other cells to add to, and compare with, evidence collected at crime scenes. Using a novel technique of cell staining developed at Flinders University, forensic science experts have tested 100 people to confirm how people shed varying levels of touch DNA, from very low to very high.
The article, “Shedding more light on shedders,” has been published in Forensic Science International: Genetics.
“Our latest study also shows that males are more prolific at shedding in general, depositing more cells per square millimeter than females,” says Professor Adrian Linacre, from the College of Science and Engineering.
“Also, there was no difference in the deposition of cells between right and left thumbs, so it doesn’t matter if an item is held in someone’s right or left hand.”
The study stems from a pilot study three years ago, and aims to develop a new avenue to track down criminals—including evidence from people who might be “poor shedders.”
NJ Attorney General Updates How Forensic Evidence is Processed in Sexual Assault Cases (Forensic – 8/21/2024)
Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin today announced amendments to Law Enforcement Directive 2023-1 to ensure that sexual assault survivors have access to the medical, investigative, and supportive services they need and deserve, and that evidence collected in sexual assault cases is preserved and processed in a victim-centered and efficient manner that helps law enforcement identify and hold accountable serial offenders.
The amendments to the Directive establish a new mandate to test all SAFE Kits submitted to law enforcement. Previously, pursuant to Attorney General Directive 2023-1, the Director of the Division of Criminal Justice or a County Prosecutor could determine that a SAFE kit need not be tested in certain instances where the results would have no bearing on the outcome of the case. The amended directive (Attorney General Directive 2023-1, v2.0) issued today removes that discretion and provides that all SAFE kits, where the victim consents to release to law enforcement, are to be submitted to the forensic laboratory for testing. This Directive also requires the forensic laboratory to notify the Director of the Division of Criminal Justice and the New Jersey State Police Regional Operations & Intelligence Center (NJ ROIC) within seven (7) business days when SAFE Kit test results that have been uploaded to the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) result in a match to more than one crime of sexual violence. Both changes to the Directive will facilitate New Jersey’s investigation and identification of serial offenders.
Can AI Make Crime Scene Investigations Less Biased? (New Scientist – 8/21/2024)
Any scientific process used as part of a criminal investigation is considered forensic science, and many of the methods involved are visual, meaning they rely on the interpretation and expertise of the observer. This introduces cognitive biases into the investigative process, potentially affecting the overall decisions made. Sherry Nakhaeizadeh and her colleagues at the UCL Centre for the Forensic Sciences, UK, are currently working on the development and application of new artificial intelligence technologies and approaches for improving forensic anthropology methods.
These technologies are being used in complex visual tasks, such as employing eye-trackers to study gaze pattern strategies and decision-making processes involved in the assessment of skeletal remains and crime scene examinations. “If we get the human and machine to work together, we can address some of the challenges that forensic science is currently facing,” says Nakhaeizadeh.
Washington County Sheriff’s Office & District 14 Medical Examiner’s Office Team with Othram to Identify a 2022 John Doe (DNASolves – 8/21/2024)
In August 2022, the remains of an unidentified individual were discovered hanging from a post by a park ranger in the Florida Forestry Service camping area in Ebro, Florida. This small town is part of the Florida Panhandle and is 120 miles from Tallahassee. The Washington County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene and found a few pieces of camping equipment surrounding the remains. The investigators determined that they were that of an adult white male with brown hair and brown eyes who weighed 133 pounds and stood at 5’9” tall. An autopsy report revealed that no foul play was involved and that the remains were discovered two to four days postmortem, but no one could identify the man.
After the remains were recovered, details of the case were entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) as UP101666. Despite investigator’s work to identify the man, his identity remains a mystery.
In 2023, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office partnered with Othram to determine whether advanced DNA testing could help identify the man. Othram scientists will work to develop a suitable DNA extract, which will be used with Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing® to create a comprehensive DNA profile for the man. Othram’s in-house forensic genetic genealogy team will perform records research and use genetic genealogy to develop new leads in the case.
Nearly a Century After the “Torso Killer” Terrorized Cleveland, DNA Testing is Underway to Identify Victims
(CBS News – 8/22/2024)
Almost a century after a serial killer known as the “Torso Killer” stalked Cleveland, Ohio, authorities are using DNA testing to identify his victims.
The killer, who was also known as the “Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run,” murdered and dismembered at least 12 people between 1935 and 1938, according to the Cleveland Police Museum. Many of the bodies were decapitated and the heads never found, making identification difficult. Bodies were rarely found whole, and just two of the victims were ever identified.
The killer was never formally identified or arrested, but police believe it was a surgeon named Francis E. Sweeney, who would have had access to facilities to dismember bodies and known how to do so. Sweeney was interrogated by police for a week, but he never confessed to the crimes, according to the Cleveland Police Museum. However, after he committed himself to a sanitorium, the murders stopped.
The DNA Doe Project, a non-profit organization, is now working with the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office to try to identify some of the 10 unidentified victims. Two bodies have been exhumed. One, known as the “Tattooed Man,” is the “most famous victim” of the killer, according to CBS affiliate WOIO-TV.
