CM8002 FORENSIC SCIENCE

The Auditorium - please keep it clean

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Schedule on edventure “course info.”

Assessment information
Learning outcomes: factual knowledge and understanding
Lecture recording (2009)

Fire safety
 Stall Seats & Stage Emergency Escape Route

Legend:
HR
Fire Extinguisher Manual Call Point Hosereel
Circle Seats Emergency Escape Route

Legend:
HR
Manual Call Point Hosereel
 CM8002 FORENSIC SCIENCE
Roderick Bates and Dragoslav Vidovic
Chemistry and Biological Chemistry
School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences

“Criminalistics” 10th ed. Richard Saferstein

Page numbers given in the slides refer to this text book

“Henry Lee’s Crime Scene Handbook” Henry C Lee (Academic Press)

“Crime Scene to Court” P C White (Ed) (Royal Society of Chemistry)
“The Illustrated Guide to Forensics”
by Zakaria Erzinclioglu (Carlton Books).
CM8002 Forensic Science
Science: Roderick Bates (CBC, Level 4, Room 8)
Dragoslav Vidovic (CBC, Level 6, Room 5)
Forensics:
12th Sept. - Michael Tay Ming Kiong Traffic Accidents
26th Sept. – Tan Wai Fun Forensic DNA Profiling
10th Oct. - Cuthbert Teo Forensic Pathology
17th Oct – Wong Kok Weng A.G.’s chambers
24th Oct – Yang Chiew Yung Questioned Documents
31st Oct - Angeline Yap Tiong Whei Drugs & Narcotics
7th Nov. – Jason Loke SPF

September 19th e-learning

October 31st mid-term
November 27th exam

Discussion Board on Edventure

Dr Michael Tay
Course Warning

Material presented in this course will contain

graphic depiction of injuries to and
dismemberment of the human body. It will also
consist of oral and written depictions of horrific
crime.
 MD
the body

BSc(Hons)
Forensic
Medicine
Forensic
Science
fingerprinting

physical evidence DNA

documents drugs
ballistics
The Forensic Scientist as a Celebrity
Sir Bernard Spilsbury 1877-1947
 Don’t Panic!
Murder rates worldwide/ per 100,000 of population (reported)
Washington DC
U.K. 1.23
23.8
Serbia 2.2

U.S.A. Singapore
4.7 0.51

Honduras
71

Columbia
33
CM8002 Forensic Science

How do they know?

Interpretation of evidence
Reliability of the evidence - scientific principles
What can and cannot be deduced
CM8002 Forensic Science

Why Science?
Observation &
Experiment

Theory
Isaac Newton

Expert Witness in Court

Must convince judge/ jury
CM8002 Forensic Science

prosecution Judge
evidence from
experts
witnesses
police Jury - selected from amongst
defense local citizens
- abolished in some countries,
including Singapore

Innocent until proven guilty

beyond reasonable doubt
CM8002 Forensic Science
Bournemouth, England, May 21st, 1939
Body of Walter Dinivan, 64, found with crushed skull.
Dies in hospital without regaining consciousness.

Police find safe and pockets emptied, rings and watch gone;
crumpled brown paper bag – used to wrap murder weapon
cigarette butts on the floor
enquiries lead the police to Joseph Williams
- recently came into money

saliva on the cigarette butts

indicates blood group AB (3 % of
the population)

What was Williams’ blood group?

CM8002 Forensic Science
From samples gathered in the pub, Williams was found to be AB.
Jury was persuaded to disbelieve the forensic evidence – not guilty

Drunk after celebrating, Williams confesses to a journalist

who cannot publish the story until after Williams’ death in 1951
CM8002 Forensic Science

Singapore 1996

Mdm Jetkor Miang Singh murdered by stabbing in the neck

cigarette butts found at the scene of the crime

2005

DNA from the saliva matches that of Zulkarnain

Kemat, serving time in Changi prison for drug
offences
 The Limits of Forensic Science
Actus Reus
a guilty action

Mens Rea
a guilty mind or intention

“Actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea”

(the act does not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty)
Dick Cheney, former Vice-President of the USA

Shot Frank Whittington

while quail hunting in Texas
 What is Forensic Science?
What is “forensics”?

Application of Science to Law

Application of Science to Criminal Justice

The analysis of physical, chemical and biological

evidence

Forensic Medicine deals with crimes involving

a human body (murder, rape, assault)

Saferstein page 4
CM8002 Forensic Science

Forensic Science can enable us to reconstruct

the past sequence of events

Forensic Science can link a suspect to a crime scene

forensic
evidence

fibres broken glass

hair fibres
blood paint
fingerprints
shoe print
What is the Charge?
Murder or suicide?

April 1972: Body of boy run over by a train in Bukit Merah

Injuries inconsistent
with suicide or accident

Blood spatter indicates that

the boy was already dead
 Murder or suicide?

Forensic evidence can (usually) distinguish between murder and suicide

Roberto Calvi
Banco Ambrosiano US$1.2 billion missing
“God’s Banker”

disappeared from Milan June 11th 1982;

found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge,
London, June 19th
Roberto Calvi

Police:
Bricks in his suit Pathology:
US$14,000 in his wallet neck not broken
false passport no drugs
bags packed no signs of a struggle
marks consistent with hanging
no water in his lungs
watch stopped at 1:52 am
Forensics:
no paint from the scaffolding
 Roberto Calvi
Questions?

Why bricks and rope?

Where did he get the rope?
How did he climb down the
scaffolding…..without getting paint
flakes?
Why not commit suicide in the hotel?
Why in a cold river?
How did he get from his hotel to the
bridge?

acquittals: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6726353.stm
CM8002 Forensic Science

A role beyond crime?

Art
1818 – 1840
Archaeology Shakespeare died in 1616

Sport

International Politics
Bosnia
Disasters
CM8002 Forensic Science
Fiction before fact?

You know who this is Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle

Saferstein page 5
 Locard Exchange Principle
"Wherever he steps, whatever he touches, whatever he
leaves, even unconsciously, will serve as a silent witness
against him. Not only his fingerprints or his footprints,
but his hair, the fibers from his clothes, the glass he
breaks, the tool mark he leaves, the paint he scratches,
the blood or semen he deposits or collects. All of these
and more, bear mute witness against him. This is
evidence that does not forget. It is not confused by
the excitement of the moment. It is not absent because
human witnesses are. It is factual evidence. Physical
evidence cannot be wrong, it cannot perjure itself, it
cannot be wholly absent. Only human failure to find it,
study and understand it, can diminish its value."
Professor Edmond Locard (1877-1966)

or “every contact leaves a trace”

Saferstein page 8
Some traces are more obvious than others…..
More than one way to leave your fingerprints behind
Severed finger points to burglar

By Rachel Hine
A burglar who severed a finger while breaking into a builders' yard was caught by police when he went to
hospital for treatment. Stewart Broughton, 42, broke into Elliott’s Builders Merchants in Newgate Lane,
Fareham, on two occasions.

But while making his getaway over a fence on the second occasion he severed his finger on razor wire,
leaving it at the scene.

Police immediately contacted hospitals in the hope the fingerless crook would seek medical help.

And soon after the raid he was seen at Queen Alexandra Hospital. A police officer spoke with him at the
hospital and he was taken to Fareham police station and charged.

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/latest/Severed-finger-points-to-burglar.3435122.jp
The trace can even be left in cyberspace

Christopher Paul Neil 2007

Buck Ruxton and the Jigsaw Murders
 Moffat, Scotland, 1935

Numerous body parts found in the river

How many bodies and who were they?

Moffat
Newspaper wrapping some parts is local
from Morecombe in England Morecombe
Morecombe police report two women
missing: “Mrs” Ruxton and her maid,
Mary
Two bodies;
all distinguishing
features removed
Identification
Face mutilated; ends of fingers removed; birth marks etc
removed

Find photographs of the women’s heads

Photograph skulls from the same angles
superimpose
 April 1943: how one pathologist was asked to fool another

German Controlled or Allied Europe

.
Huelva

Allied Occupied North Africa

Planned invasion of Sicily
Italy (German Ally)
“Operation Husky”
Spain (Neutral, Imaginary Invasions
but sympathetic to Germany) (Greece, Sardinia)
Operation Mincemeat

How to persuade the Germans that Sardinia and

Greece would be the targets?

Find a suitable body, dress it as an officer, give it the

plans for imaginary invasions, leave it where the Germans
would know about it - Huelva in Spain.

How to fool a Spanish pathologist?

Someone who died from a kind of pneumonia

that causes the lungs to flood

X post-war cover story

 A vagrant who died from phosphorus
poisoning: Glyndwr Michael

“to detect that this young man had not been lost
after an aircraft had been lost at sea would need a
pathologist of my experience - and there aren’t any
in Spain”

Body taken to near Huelva by submarine, dropped in the sea,

found by a fisherman, examined by local pathologist

H.M.S. Seraph
Pathologist (largely) deceived
German Intelligence (Abwehr) fooled
German High Command fooled
Adolf Hitler fooled
 Forensic Science Laboratories
1910 Lyon, France (Locard)
1915 Germany
1923 Austria, USA (LAPD)
1925 Holland, Finland, Sweden
1932 USA (FBI)
1935 UK (Scotland Yard)

Singapore:
1960’s Prof Chao Tzee Cheng (Pathology)
1929 Chemical analysis services available to Straits Settlement Police

Now part of Health Sciences Authority

Saferstein page 8-9

Forensic Science Laboratories
What might we find in a Forensic Science Lab?
Physical Science Unit: identification and comparison of evidence
chemical tests, spectroscopy, microscopy…
drugs, glass, paint, explosives, soil…
Biology Unit: hair, plants

DNA Lab: DNA

Firearms Unit: guns, bullets, cartridge cases, firearm damage

Saferstein page 12-13

Documents Unit: handwriting, printing, paper, ink
Photography Unit: record of evidence, presentation

Saferstein page 12-13

Forensic Science Laboratories
Toxicology – drugs and poisons in body fluids and organs
Someone is found dead on their bed with
an empty bottle of sleeping pills
Will this be a murder investigation or a
suicide case: how many sleeping pills
did they take?

Latent Fingerprints – making them visible

Not all fingerprints are visible to the naked eye
– chemical means to make them show up

Polygraph – or lie detector

Can we scientifically detect a lie?

Saferstein page 12-13

Forensic Science Laboratories
Voiceprint – analysis of voices

Psychiatric profiling
What can we tell about the
criminal from the way they commit
the crime?

Computer Forensics and Electronic Forensics

What can be learnt from deleted data?
How can other electronic trails be followed?

Saferstein page 12-13, 21

Forensic Science Laboratories

Forensic Engineering
Why did the I35 bridge in Minneapolis
collapse?

Forensic Entomology
Using insects to provide information

Forensic Geology
soil analysis: mineral content and chemistry

Saferstein page 12-13

Forensic Science Laboratories
Forensic Anthropology
examination of skeletal remains
Joseph Schexnider
disappeared 1984; found 2011

Facial Reconstruction:
If you have the skull, can you tell what the face looked like?

originally with modelling clay, now by computer

Saferstein page 77
Forensic Science Laboratories
Ted Bundy: identified by
Forensic Odontology
a bite mark on a victim
Using teeth to provide information:
(comparison to a mould of
identification of victims remains or
his teeth)
identification of a criminal

executed January 24th 1989

Saferstein page 2, 21
Gordon Hay, Scotland 1968

Body of Linda Peacock found in a cemetery. Bite mark.

300 people interviewed
29 shortlisted
5 had similar dentistry after taking impressions
1 remained after second and third set of impressions

Ronald Benell, Manchester 1970

Linda Stewart’s body found in old lady’s front garden
Numerous clues: piece of paper, shoe print, a steel ring, fingerprint,
Bite marks on body and a meat pie

Wayne Boden, Montreal and Calgary, Canada 1971

Convicted of four rape-murders
Arrested based on description of his car
Linked to bodies by bite marks
Acid Bath Haigh (1949)

Olive Durand-Deacon
- one of 9 victims
Identified by her false teeth

J.G.Haigh - believed that

there could be no murder
trial without a body - so
dissolved the bodies in
sulfuric acid

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/weird/haigh/index_1.html
Disposing of the body
 CM8002 Forensic Science
Identification: what is it?

Physical objects
Biological properties
Chemical properties/ constituents

Class characteristics: characteristics that put an object

in a certain class or group but not a single source:
Brand of shoe; type of fibre; type of bullet

Saferstein page 64
CM8002 Forensic Science

Individualisation
Narrowing the class to one

Physical objects: manufacturer, serial number,

fingerprints

Chemicals: trace elements and impurities

Biological samples: blood type, DNA analysis

CM8002 Forensic Science

Comparison leading to Association

evidence

fibres, hair
blood fingerprints broken glass
shoe print fibres
paint
Reconstruction and Reenactment

Reconstruction

Understanding the sequence of past events

Reenactment

May be a part of reconstruction

The 2005 London Bombings

July 7th four bombs explode

– three on the tube, one on a bus

52 people killed

July 21st four bombs fail to explode properly

– three on the tube, one on a bus

July 23rd a fifth device discovered (abandoned?) in West London

detonator

home made explosive

 The July 21st Bombers

Numerous links to the bombs

Defense: bombs were hoaxes

to protest against
Government policy

Mens rea?

So, build an identical bomb

and test it……..
Reenactment of the “Brides in the Bath”
December 1914
Margaret Lloyd drowns in her bath
(insurance £700)
Same thing had happened to Alice Smith in 1913
And to Bessie Williams in 1912

George Joseph Smith had married seven women; three died; most robbed

Did the three drown accidentally or were they drowned?

 Gareth Williams, 2010

Occupation: cryptographer for British

Intelligence

Found: August 16th, 2010 in his apartment

Dead - for about nine days…heating on
No sign of struggle - poisoning or asphyxiation

In a sports bag, padlocked, in the bath

No fingerprints on the bath
Faint DNA traces on the bag

81 x 48 cm
Can you lock yourself in a bag?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb6YKX_Hy40
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9286711/MI6-spy-Gareth-Williams-may-have-locked-himself-in-bag-pathologist-suggests.html
Richard and Helle Crafts

Richard Crafts - airline pilot Helle Crafts – stewardess

met 1969, married 1975

Collected guns, machinery, traveled a lot,
difficulties about money, volunteer police officer
Hired private detective
 The Woodchipper Murder
November 18th 1986 Helle dropped off after work (5 inches of snow!)
November 19th only Richard answers the telephone
Early morning – takes children and nanny to sisters house
December 1st the private detective contacts the police

Richard Crafts claims that his wife had disappeared. Passes lie
detector test!
Discarded carpet fragments test negative for blood
Unusual purchases, including a chainsaw, a freezer and renting a
wood chipper

witness places wood chipper at Lake Zoar

The Woodchipper Murder

House searched Christmas Day

blood stain found on mattress, matches Helle’s blood type (O+)

Search of river bank: hair, letters

Search of the lake
(after lowering water level)
What they found in the Lake
Chain saw (human tissue, hair, blue fibres)
serial number matches Crafts’
2660 strands of human hair (bleached),
69 slivers of human bone (type O+),
5 droplets of human blood,
2 teeth (one proved to be Helle’s),
a truncated piece of human skull,
3 oz of human tissue,
a portion of a human finger,
1 fingernail
and 1 portion of human toe nail.
The Woodchipper Murder

January 11, Richard Crafts arrested with bail posted at $750,000

Reconstruction: how Crafts killed his wife.

Drops of blood were found in her bedroom: she was

bludgeoned at the foot of her bed during the early morning
hours of November 19th
Police speculated that Crafts then carried his wife's body
to the basement where he placed her inside the freezer.
The Woodchipper Murder Lake
Zoar
Tells the nanny to go to his sister's
house in Westport because Newtown
had suffered a power failure.

Drops off the kids and the nanny at

Westport, Richard returns to Newtown.

Took Helle's frozen body to a secluded

piece of property near Newtown.

He used the chainsaw to make several smaller parcels of her remains and
returned them to the freezer. Under the cover of darkness, Crafts then took
these packages to Lake Zoar where he ran them through the powerful wood
chipper.

But what is the effect of a wood

chipper on a human body?
The Woodchipper Murder
Reenactment
The Woodchipper Murder
hair
tissue
fibres (rug) rental

(serial number restored)

hair, tissue rental

body parts,
tooth

witness

Richard Crafts was sentenced to 50 years in prison

CM8002 Forensic Science

Types of forensic work

Comparison and Association

Reconstruction and reenactment

Locard’s principle: Every Contact Leaves a Trace