Analysis of Forensic Evidence - Essay Example

? Forensic Evidence Essay First Forensic Evidence Essay Part This crime scene record is lacking in a lot of very important information. To start with, it has no indication of the time when this crime scene inspection was done1. It has a date but that does not make it very clear at all when the suspected incident, which it reports as burglary and assault was reported and when the subsequent crimes scene inspection took place. It makes no reference to the person who reported the crime. Was it phoned in? Was it something that police on patrol or some other duty came upon? Was it reported at the police station and thus police officers we sent to inspect? How was the crime incident reported? Who made the report to the police and when and how? All of this information is unavailable and unrecorded. This information is important as the time between when a crime took place and when the crime scene was secured and inspected is important since it has a bearing on any contamination of the crime scene that may have taken place. It also has bearing on the veracity of the crime report. Could this be a staged crime? Or did the crime actually take place as reported? These are the first most glaring deficiencies of this crime report. The report is also lacking in the information about the complainant. It is even lacking in the full name of the complainant – a Mr D. Young. David? Daniel? This sort of ambiguity on the name is further compounded by the fact that there is no mention of whether this complainant recorded any type of written statement. One would expect that a signed statement from the complainant would be part of the crime scene report. There are no details of what the complainant reported or where even Mr Young was when the alleged crime took place. In addition there is no descriptive information about Mr Young. How tall is he? What race is he? Does he live at that address? What is his phone, email or any other kind of contact? In the absence of all these details and any reference to any statement given by Mr Young how do we even know that he exists? The reports talks of Mr Young having been injured in the bedroom during the “complex incident”. What is a complex incident? What actually happened? If Mr Young was injured, what kind of injury was it? There is not even a description of the injury that Mr Young is said to have suffered or how it was reported to have been sustained. Was he treated for the injury? If so, where was the treatment done. The report mentions that a witness claims to have seen someone running away from the premises at 1030 pm on the 20th. There is no mention of even a rough description of what this person who was seen running away looked like. It is also unclear who the witness was, was it Mr Young? Did the witness record a statement? What role did the witness play in the crime scene and what does he look like? The report is alleged to be that of burglary but makes no mention of what was taken away or what was missing or whether this was an unsuccessful burglary or whether the burglar was intercepted before or while committing the crime. The report says that the burglary may have happened at 1030pm at night yet there is no description of the lighting in the room and how much light was available at that time. Is there a landing light? Did the events take place in the dark or were the lights on when they happened? The scene report claims this is an examination of the bedroom. It makes no mention of what type of house this crime allegedly took place in. Was it a bungalow? Was it a flat? Was it a mansion? Is it a multi-floored building? If not, how many floors? Where is the bedroom relative to the rest of the house? Are there any other houses besides it? The report makes no mention of how many bedrooms there are in the house and who resides in the house – we can only assume that it is Mr Young but it hasn’t been stated. Who else lives there? The report makes no mention of whether the house was a wooden house, concrete house or even a tent. The report offers no physical description of the outside area of the house, the approach to the house and what kinds of entrances the house has. The report says that this is a burglary and injury report. Was there a break in? Was there a door broken? The report has no description of the number of entrances that the building has and if any of them were used or disturbed during the commission of the alleged crime. The report does not report about the existence or the state of any locks on the door or the bedroom or any other doors in the rest of the building. The evidence collected includes a broken bottle but there is no description of the bottle. Was it a beer bottle? Was it a milk bottle? What size was it? Did the complainant or witness know where it came from? Was the complainant questioned about it? There is no mention if the evidence collected included a sample of the complainant’s blood for further testing or investigation. There is no mention of the complainant’s fingerprints were collected for comparison with the prints that were found on the chest of drawers. There is no description of the chest of the drawers. How many drawers were there? How high was this chest of drawers? What are the contents of the drawers? There is no indication of what role, if any, the evidence may have had in the incident. Could the bottle have been used in the infliction of injuries on Mr Young? What role was played by the cigarette butt and the package of suspected drugs? Did they belong to Mr Young? Was he questioned about them? The report makes no mention of what was reported to have taken place in the bedroom and who may have witnessed it and what, if anything was disturbed in the bedroom or any other part of the house. The sketch made of the crime scene is also woefully deficient. No measurements of any kind were made so it gives no indications of the dimensions of the room. There is no even estimation of the distances – for example how far is the bedside table from the bed. There is no indication of how high the window is and also how high the ceiling was – this is important as it was where the blood stains were found and an indication of this would show how far the blood had travelled to get to the ceiling. The sketch is supposed to assist in clarifying the scene of a crime and to give a realistic view of the place where the crime took place as well as provide a pictorial aid in the reconstruction of the scene2. It is meant to add clarity to the events that may have taken place and in this case it clearly did not. There is no description of what may have happened in the room to contribute to Mr Young’s injuries. Was there a scuffle in the bedroom? Was he attacked and if so by whom? Part 2 In November, 2000, Leanne Tiernan, a 16 year old British schoolgirl went missing near her home in Leeds. Despite an extensive effort by the police including a house-by-house search of over 700 houses, Leanne was never found. Nine months later, in August 2001, her body was found by a man who stumbled across her body in Lindley Woods, about 16 miles from her home. The body was covered in a floral duvet cover and buried in a shallow grave. Leanne’s body was bundled up in green bin-liners held in place with twine while a leather dog collar was tied around her neck. Her hands were bound with plastic cables. She also has a scarf around her neck. The investigation that was conducted to discover what had happened to her centred on the forensic evidence that was uncovered with the body – the dog collar, the twine, scarf and the green plastic bin-liners3. The police interviewed all the people who frequented the wooded area where the body was discovered and one of those interviewed was a John Taylor who was known to go poaching for rabbits in that area. One of the first items that were investigated was the dog collar and it was discovered that a local pet store had sold three such dog collars and that one of them had been bought by John Taylor, who worked for a local subsidiary of Royal Mail. Mr Taylor had had a dog that died earlier on. Mr Taylor lived about 1300 yards from Leanne’s home. The twine that was used to tie up the body was found to have been sold to the public for rabbit catching. Further investigation at Mr Taylor’s house found a lot of links to the crimes scene where Leanne Tiernan’s body was found. Twine from the exact same batch was found at this house, as were the same green plastic bin liners matching those that were used to cover the body. Further investigation of the fibres from the scarf also found similar fibres in the house. Carpet fibres found on the body also matched similar fibres that found under the floorboards of Mr Taylor’s house, even though he had destroyed the carpet in an unsuccessful attempt to conceal the evidence. In addition, pollen found on Leanne’s body was also found in Mr Taylor’s garden proving beyond doubt that Leanne had been in the garden. All this forensic evidence that was painstakingly gathered by the diligent West Yorkshire Police was enough to conclusively link Mr Taylor to the murder and he eventually admitted to having abducted the girl. He was found guilty and sentenced to two life sentences. In August 2002, two ten year old girls, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, from Soham in Cambridgeshire were murdered by Ian Huntley, a caretaker at a nearby school at his home. 13 days later, their bodies were discovered near RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk. During the subsequent investigation, forensic evidence discovered at the crime scene was instrumental in establishing Mr Huntley’s guilt and in accurately mapping out his role in the girls’ disappearance and death4. The evidence included the remains of the partially burnt clothing – Manchester United tops, tracksuit bottoms and their underwear – that were found in a bin at the Soham Village College where Huntley worked. Mr Huntley’s prints were found on the bin-liner that the clothes were discovered in. Surface debris, such as hair fibres were also found in the bin and on its outside surface. The fibre evidence that was collected from the crime scene was also particularly damning for Mr Huntley. Fibres from Huntley’s carpets were found on the girls’ clothing in addition to the 49 fibres matching the girls’ clothing that were found on his clothes, proving scientifically that there had been a two way link between the clothes and Mr Huntley’s house. This was further collaborated by the presence of fibres from Huntley’s house and car that were found on the girls’ clothing. The detailed matching and cross matching of the fibres proved beyond doubt that the two girls had been in both Mr Huntley’s house and his car as there was no other way of explaining all the matches and the sheer numbers of the fibres that were discovered from the forensic examination. The other forensic evidence that successfully and accurately linked Ian Huntley to the dead girls was from forensic ecology. The trial’s expert witness, Patricia Wiltshire was able to establish the dates of the disturbance of ecological fauna at the place where the bodies were found which were in line with 13-14 days that had passed since the girls had been murdered. She was also able to match the soil samples from that location to soil samples that were discovered on Mr Huntley’s car. In addition she was able to match 64 different types of pollen that had been present in the crime scene to those found on his shoes, the foot pedals of his car and petrol can he had used. All this evidence was viewed together with the timeline of the girls’ disappearance and death and they all confirmed the prosecution’s case. Despite the fact that he had replaced the floor and boot mats in the car, as well as vacuumed and cleaned the car and even replaced all the tyres in order to destroy any evidence contained in them, traces of chalk, brick dust and concrete that were found on the car’s underside also further confirmed that he had been at the area where the bodies were discovered. Confronted with all this forensic evidence Mr Huntley had no option but to admit to having had the girls in his house and to confirm that they had died in his house and that he had indeed transported the bodies in his car to the crime scene where they were found. References Bertino, A. J. (2011). Forensic Science: Fundamentals and Investigations 2012 Update. Dixon, D. (2004, September). The Case of the Soham Badgers - Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr. Retrieved July 30, 2013, from http://www.justjustice.org/index.html Elvidge, S. (2013, April 21). Crime Scene Investigation: A Guide for Law Enforcement. Retrieved July 30, 2013, from http://www.exploreforensics.co.uk/forensic-cases-murder-leanne-tiernan.html US Department of Justice. (2000, January). Crime Scene Investigation: A Guide for Law Enforcement. Retrieved July 30, 2013, from http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/lab/forensic-science-communications/fsc/april2000/twgcsi.pdf Read More