Ask a Forensic Scientist

[ParadigmShifter]

My mate did an anatomy degree (not even medicine) and they did dissection. I was like LOLWUT.

 

[Masada]

Yeah, don't bury em. We'll find you.

I suppose I should also give myself up to the police and confess my sins crimes. That's all well and dandy. But have you thought about where you would be if that were the case? Without a job. All that time spent on a degree for nothing. There, I said it, you need criminals. Now, if I wanted to hide a half million bodies what would you recommend?

 

[Mathilda]

Congratulations noncon, very good news.

I've been watching a lot of Investigation Discovery recently and what's jumped out at me is how long it takes to get results of DNA tests, it's always months. Why is that?

 

[Fifty]

I assume you're talking about Americans?

Yup

But ya, it's true. For every hour or so of actual practical work you'll do, you'll spend at least the equivalent time, if not more, writing out reports, dotting Is, crossing Ts, and going to court.

And they had claimed that the practical work was often quite boring too, once you get enough experience to have seen all the major "sorts" of situations. According to them, a genuinely intriguing crime scene mystery is something you're LUCKY to see once in a career.... and that is in a country with (I think?) a much higher rate of murder than the UK!

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

What pisses you off the most about shows like CSI?

 

[nonconformist]

I've been watching a lot of Investigation Discovery recently and what's jumped out at me is how long it takes to get results of DNA tests, it's always months. Why is that?

Well, a standard DNA testis actually fairly rapid to produce, less than 24 hours for something that can be matched to sample DNA. I assume it's probably the backlog, since in certain cases, many hundreds of samples may be found.

And they had claimed that the practical work was often quite boring too, once you get enough experience to have seen all the major "sorts" of situations. According to them, a genuinely intriguing crime scene mystery is something you're LUCKY to see once in a career.... and that is in a country with (I think?) a much higher rate of murder than the UK!

To a certain degree yeah, but it depends what you find "boring". For example, I find setting up a scene quite exciting in itself, but if you're going into the business to get adrenaline rush and such, find something else.

However, you will turn up at various fairly distasteful scenes, which is something else altogether.

What pisses you off the most about shows like CSI?

Oh, we have something called the "CSI Effect", where lay-people, especially on juries, have all these preconceived notions about the finality and the strength of forensic evidence, and they get upset when it dosn't match the expectations.

The converse is lay-people, again especially jurors, who think, because they've seen some CSI style show, they are qualified to interpret the DNA themselves, rather than someone who is both under strict legal and evidential orders, and who has trained at least 3 years.

However, from my course, it's the sheer number of lazy people who apply because it looks cool, and you get to wander on crime scenes in jeans and a tee, smoking a cigarette, wearing a pair of sunglasses, just walking through pcking up evidence, then drop out when it's not as glamorous, or as easy as it looks.
I mean, at the end of the day, we *are*qualified scientists, and we usually work like this:

 

[classical_hero]

Do you give evidence the CSI treatment? Meaning getting the view point of the evidence.

Seriously, what would be the worst part of this job?

 

[Whomp]

Cool stuff Noncon. Congrats on your new career!

So I wanted to follow up with this piece that came out yesterday on the Riley Fox case I spoke of in the other thread. I'm stunned, as you were, by the gross incompetence of those who worked on this. Can you answer how and why something like this could go so wrong from the outset?

Within an hour of finding the body of 3-year-old Riley Fox in a Wilmington creek, authorities pulled a pair of shoes from those waters. Written inside each was the last name of the man charged six years later with her murder.

Police placed the shoes in evidence, but never pieced that lead together with other clues -- a call to police from the man's home and signs of a burglary preceding Riley's abduction -- that could have led them to Scott Wayne Eby in the hours and days after her sexual assault and slaying.

Instead, Will County sheriff's detectives focused almost exclusively on Riley's father, Kevin. DNA evidence excluded Kevin Fox after he spent eight months in jail, but authorities didn't declare him innocent until last month, when Eby allegedly confessed to the slaying and the partial DNA sample from the crime scene matched his.

"Looking at all of the information that we now have about Eby, he could have been apprehended the day after the murder, and he probably would have confessed," said attorney Kathleen Zellner, who won an $8 million federal civil court judgment on behalf of Kevin Fox and Riley's mother, Melissa.

Investigators' photos and notes obtained by the Tribune, as well as interviews with people involved in the case, shed light on evidence made public for the first time Tuesday on chicagotribune.com.

During the civil trial, an FBI agent testified that then-Sgt. Edward Hayes, who led the investigation, ordered that DNA testing be stopped after the arrest of Fox, who incriminated himself in a statement made after 14 hours of interrogation. The civil jury found Fox's statement was coerced and held Hayes and Deputy Scott Swearengen mainly responsible.

Zellner, who compared the shoe evidence to "dropping your driver's license at the (crime) scene," also said police failed to search a forest preserve bathroom near the creek. Eby confessed to sexually assaulting Riley in that bathroom and disposing of her underpants in a nearby garbage can, she said.

"There were probably five possibilities where Eby's name could have surfaced very early on during the investigation," she added. "I think it's an example of really shoddy police work."

She also said that Eby, who lived about a mile from Riley at the time of her slaying, in December 2005 was convicted of sexually assaulting a relative. If police investigating Riley's killing had then obtained his DNA and compared it with the partial sample, that would have been key evidence against him, Zellner said.

Pat Barry, spokesman for the Will County sheriff's department, declined comment on specific evidence, but reiterated the apology Sheriff Paul Kaupas gave last month.

Kaupas said he's interviewing companies, whose employees include retired FBI agents and chiefs of police, to do an extensive review of the Riley Fox investigation.

"There were some mistakes made in the case," Kaupas conceded. "That's what we're trying to avoid, any of these things (happening) in the future."

He said investigators did swab "anybody and anything" for DNA after Riley's death, but did not specify when; a crime sample was identified in June 2005. But Kaupas also acknowledged that they did not search for people who lived in the Wilmington area at the time of the crime and later became sex offenders, which could have led to Eby. He said the sheriff's department didn't have enough personnel.

Charles Pelkie, spokesman for State's Attorney James Glasgow, also declined comment. Glasgow freed Kevin Fox, who was charged under Glasgow's predecessor, and oversaw the investigation that eventually led to Eby.

Henry Weidling, former volunteer director of the Wilmington Emergency Services and Disaster Agency, said he found a pair of white athletic shoes in the creek fewer than 100 yards from the crime scene and less than an hour after Riley's body was found on June 6, 2004. Weidling said the shoes looked like they hadn't been in the water long.

Photographs of the shoes show "EBY" on the inside of their tongues, according to case documents. Although the name is hard to make out in the photos, handwritten police notes clearly note "EBY" and list the brand.

Eby, who was on parole for burglary when Riley was killed, said during his confession that he discarded the shoes in the water when they became muddy after drowning Riley in a section of Forked Creek, Zellner said.

The morning Riley went missing, Wilmington police were called by Eby's mother to their home for a "wellness check," Eby said during his confession, according to Zellner and Melissa Fox, who were both briefed by the FBI.

Police were visiting Eby's home to see if he had "thoughts of suicide," said Chief Darin Plotts, one of two officers who responded.

When police arrived, Eby, now 38, was agitated and vomiting. He asked police if they had found "that little girl yet," Melissa Fox said.

Barry, of the sheriff's office, said many agencies had pieces of information about Eby, but "nobody put it together."

"We don't have an answer for a lot of this stuff," Barry said. "There were definitely, definitely communication lapses. There were definitely things not done."

Kaupas said his office never had contact with Eby. Wilmington police handled that aspect, he said.

But James Metta, the chief at the time, said once her body was found and her death became a homicide investigation, he turned the case over to the sheriff's office.

"Our part in it ended," said Metta, now living in Florida. "Our case was solved, unfortunately, by finding (Riley)."

During his recorded confession last month, Eby said that before entering the Fox home, he burglarized a home across the street, where he cut a screen to gain entry to a patio door, Zellner said. That screen also was in evidence, but an evidence technician dismissed the cut as storm damage, records show.

Melissa Fox said the shoe evidence, combined with the other details, should have led police straight to Eby, not her husband.

"It's amazing to me," she said, referring to the shoes. "They had the evidence to solve the crime within the first 24 hours. It's all right there."

She said that Swearengen, who testified at trial that he immediately suspected Kevin Fox, often told her the evidence would do justice for Riley.

"The evidence has spoken," Melissa Fox said. "It's too bad that six years ago, he wasn't willing to listen."

 

[Birdjaguar]

I would've started this earlier, but I thought it unfair before I was qualified.

Two days ago, I passed my Forensics degree, and I thought it would be a good chance for people to ask and learn about this misunderstood field.

Congratulations on your degree and I hope it leads to a satisfying career.

 

[Princeps]

Very intriguing profession.

Have you ever vomited or felt sick when you've had to autopsy or otherwise examine corpses in your studies?

 

[nonconformist]

Uh, turns out I'm going back in september to do a research project on ballistics, so I'm not quite out of the stable yet ^^

 

[GoodGame]

Are you fully cross-trained as a Pathologist? edit: I guess not, just saw your reply above.

To what degree do you have to understand Pathology practices? Do you plan to get in on independent research to aid Pathologists or will you be directly working for a Pathologist?

 

[nonconformist]

Well, it certainly helps to understand basic pathology when you're a Scene of crime officer, but it's not the most necessary requirement, as we'd have proper pathologists (i.e Doctors, with a specialisation in it) on hand.
I will be working (hopefully) as a researcher at university, but considering my proficiency in ballsitics, there's always the chance I work in conjunction with a pathologist to aid in the removal of projectiles, and their further analysis.

 

[Abaddon]

What are the chances of you getting a job once you finish academia?

I ask because within zoology there was virtually none!

 

[nonconformist]

Good to excellent, depending on what field you go into.

Only 10% actually go into forensics direct, others become research scientists, analysts, military, government, intelligence services, homeland security, accountants etc.

 

[ParkCungHee]

How much do you hate CSI?

 

[Narz]

So where are you working as a Forensic Scientist now?

 

[nonconformist]

How much do you hate CSI?

With as much strength as I can be arsed to muster.

So where are you working as a Forensic Scientist now?

I'm actually returning to Uni to do a paid research post, and get a masters out of it.

 

[GinandTonic]

Two days ago, I passed my Forensics degree, and I thought it would be a good chance for people to ask and learn about this misunderstood field.

Congrats

Only if you do a case where you solve the murder of an Archbishop who has been killed by a car fired from a car shooting gun.

Cumon even the plods can work out that Clarkson has the only gun-cannon in the UK and a visceral hatred of wishy-washy liberals.

 

[AL_DA_GREAT]

Congrats!

What are the main differences between csi and reality?

Do you use your expertise in everyday life?

What are common mistakes made by criminals?