forensic toxicology

Learn more about Toxicology at the CSI Experience: http://forensics.rice.edu/index.html

1. Enter "Case 1: Rookie Training" (you can play as a guest)
2. Start your training by going to the toxicology lab. Make sure that you choose "Learn About the Lab."
3. Work your way through identifying which 3 fluids do toxicologists typically test, were do they get them from, what they use when a body is too decomposed, why they do more than one test, what machines they use, and most importantly which drug was the victim on when he crashed his car
4. Detail your experiences in a new post in your journal

Forensic Toxicologists usually take 2 mL of vitreous humor, the clear fluid found behind the eyeball that gives the eye its shape. 30 mL of blood for testing and comparative purposes, 30mL of urine to compare to the other two fluids to check for  drugs of any sort, because if one fluid has a positive result then the other two should have the same positive. 

When a body is too badly decomposed, they collect the maggots that eat lunch on the dead body. They collect them because if you open them up, you can get the persons dna in the maggots stomach and they will tell you how long the person has been dead for. 

they use a GC i think it was to detect if there was any blood alcohol in the body, an ELISA test for certain drugs-amphetamine, barbiturates, opiates, and others. The drug was C10H13NO- Methcathinone, also known as 'cat'. 

I like this, it gave me a 'real hands on feel' of what the different machines do and how to collect the evidence to use to get the desired result, in this case the who's and what's, that made this person wreck his car. It was quite interesting!

directionality and angle of impact

Here is some of my blood :) The spot on the paper is at a 90 degree angle, the spot under the paper is at a walking/running angle

The measurement of the 90 degree angle is 7mm long and 7mm wide
the measurement of the other droplet is 5mm long and 6 mm wide

Post smash drop is 9mm wide and 10 mm long

The sin A of 90 degree is
7mm /7mm =1

sin of pre smashed blood is 6mm/5mm=1.2

sin of post smashed is 9mm/10mm=.9

Impact spatter- bloodstain pattern produced when an object makes forceful contact with a source of blood, projecting droplets of blood outward from the source

when you are standing directly up and down, the force of gravity will bring the droplet directly straight down, when you run or walk, the droplets follow the path of gravity. Its like one of the laws of gravity, an object in motion will stay in motion (object in this case being blood), an object at rest will stay at rest (standing perpendicular blood drops)

footprint casting

Footprint near the entry point of the house's crime scene.

Here is the cast drying in my little cast pen :)

The finished evidence of the shoe print. You can see texture and ridges, looks like this person has excessive pressure on the right side of the print which would most likely make this a right shoe print.


This was actually harder than I thought. 1 bag and 3 casts later, I have a decent impression. The first two casts I made dried and I went to get them up, one broke in half and the other broke and crumbled into 100 little pieces. It was pretty interesting making the cast, I find that cotton swabs/q-tips work really well for taking the dirt off, as you can see.

firearms

Some firearms considerations that need to be thought of in firearms investigations are

1)      If the gun is still loaded

2)      Distance from which the weapon was fired

3)      Type of gun used/caliber

4)      Powder patterns

5)      Primer residue on hands/clothes

6)      Check to see if the serial number if ground off

In a firearms investigation, a criminalist will be looking for casings, a gun (if one is there to find), stippling and/or tattooing on the person’s body, to determine range, this one might sound odd, but burnt skin; if the shooter was a novice with a gun and didn’t know how to properly hold the gun, trajectory height (tells the height of the person).

The significance of structural variations and irregularities is important to a case. It is like an individual tool or whatever used, it is like their fingerprints, unique to each tool because some may have more wear on them than others.  For instance, if a crime scene has a tool mark to pry open a door, and the person who owns the tool uses it every day for their job. It is going to have seriously more damage to it than it would if someone had bought one brand new for this “job”. These would be individual characteristics. If tit was brand new, it would be qualified as class characteristics.

Bullet examination, a criminalist will be looking for such things as striations on the bullet, rifling, number of lands and grooves, presence of grit and rust, weight to determine caliber.

Here is a shotgun shell with distinct markings of rust

crime scene fingerprinting

Printed Prints from the Lamp in the Office

if I had put the printing powder on the walls, the next murder to solve would probably been mine! LOLPrinted hand from the bathroom

Homeowner face cream that will be printed

Print lifted from the office lamp

Homeowner hand prints, Left thumb matches print found on the face cream

retrieved from the bathroom wall of the home 

this one is light and hard to see, it is a match to the left thumb of female homeowner, found in bathroom

I compared all the prints that I collected. There were two matches. One set belonged to the female homeowner, the other set, belonged to an unknown contributor, most likely whoever it was that broke into the house and stole a high priced item, and a few smaller items.

The two prints, from the wall and office, were clearly not the homeowner's as she had very small tiny prints. The prints recovered from those two places were relatively much bigger in comparison to hers. 

In comparing the two unknowns, I noticed they were comparatively the same size, and the same pattern, two tented arches. 

In the homeowner's, I noticed they were also comparatively the same size and they had a different pattern they were both loops. 

I could not find more than that, there were clear prints and the other was partial/smudged and or distorted from the object that it was on.

who done it? mystery game!

Your score  is: 12, Champion detective, like a pro!

Champion detective like a Pro!




I have been doing things like this since I was really young, I used to make crime scenes with evidence and actually used my mom's eye shadow and brushes to dust fingerprints on doorknobs (surprisingly orange worked really well for me!)

My impressions of what actually occurs at a crime scene were exactly as this stimulation game had inferred. The dead body, the clues, the witnesses, the detectives, the Forensic technicians..etc. Because all of this is what actually happens at a scene, sometimes you get two, three, four or more dead bodies, which makes for extra work but, basically the same.

I thought this game was pretty easy, if you know where to look for evidence and you know what to do with the evidence that is collected, If I was taking this class as an elective for say, psychology, yes I would find it more difficult because the proper training is not there, and I would not specifically know what to do with it in different scenarios. 

I would be able to solve the crime personally, because like I said earlier in the post and class, this is what I want to do as a career. I also used to read books on ballistics of guns, pathology, fingerprints, examining a crime scene..these are the kinds of books i would buy with gift cards and take out of the library at school and in my town library.

There is always something new to learn at an active crime scene, I learned that there are always many possible explanations when it comes down to which detective was right about the suspect, my first thought was this was a two person job, almost like the female hired the male, but as I was reading the two different scenarios, I realized that only the male mentions the crowbar, a detail that only the murder would be privy to, because they would have had that knowledge, not an angry girlfriend...

I enjoyed this game alot! It gave me a break from doing the other homework that I am supposed to be doing right now, and it was very constructive!!!

http://www.museevirtuel-virtualmuseum.ca/sgc-cms/expositions-exhibitions/detective-investigator/en/index.html

test your knowledge!

Left Hand

Right Hand

Just checking out my fingerprints for this weeks class, and I just noticed I have 2 of the three different types of fingerprints....this is interesting enough!!! Check out your fingers! Are they LOOP, WHORL, or ARCH? I have ARCH and LOOP :)

http://video.pbs.org/video/1774485437


This is a really good clip! It shows weakness in ME reports and also that no one is perfect and if you have one faulty chain/link then the whole ladder will come crashing down and as it is known to "hit the fan"

crime scene activity

 Put together and working on my crime scene. Just finished the rough sketch of my crime scene. Here is the 'background', if you will, of my case.
Case # : 2012-091-4
Location: 1355 Golden Partridge Pkwy
Date: 09/14/2012   2:56pm
BURGLARY
Investigator: J.Miller 
(I know this  is supposed to be on our sketch, it's on mine but it may not be visible, due to scanning properties)
Also my legend is on my rough sketch but due to MPE (machine production error), my legend is as goes:
LEGEND 
O- shoe prints
X- hand prints
[]- knee impressions
A- broken window, apparent point of entry, with bloody shards
B- shoe prints with tracked in dirt
C- Bloody hand print
D- dumped out first aid kit, with 2 band-aids missing
E- empty rifle case, with three hair samples

Rough Sketch of crime scene

I made this crime scene more visually amusing, there are footprints and hand prints everywhere to follow a path, 100% of the time there will be  no white prints like this unless they are cast, which i didn't have time to create.

The 'effected' rooms were the downstairs bathroom, and the office that is connected to the bathroom with a door.

 I have found the point of entry, a broken window. Along with the beginning of the footprints, which had tracked in dirt, presumably from outside.

 point of entry

the initial foot prints with

tracked in dirt

I noticed blood on one of the cabinet doors under the sink, presumably the perpetrator's blood, and an empty first aid kit strewn all over the floor, with two empty band-aid wrappers entangled in the mess.

 bloody hand print on door

Empty first aid kit with band aid wrappers

I noticed the door to the next room was open and found a hand print on the wall where the perp used it to balance himself/herself when the door was being opened. I found more dirt and footprints leading into the office as well.

hand print on bathroom wall

footprints leading into the office in the next room

Another hand print was found on a lamp in this room, assuming the perp turned on the lights to see better, according to the homeowners, this room is very dark with no light s on.

hand print on lamp 

The trail of footprints led to the corner of the room, where there was an open rifle case but no rifle. I had spoken with the male homeowner he says it contained his hunting rifle and he took it out of the closet and put it in the corner of the room to make sure it was clean and ready to use. He stated the type of rifle was a Thompson/ Center  Triumph Muzzle loading rifle, along with a box of .50 caliber ammunition. There were some hairs that were not the homeowners. They were black in color as the homeowners have grey hairs. I noted this and collected them, as evidence. Also, in front of the empty rifle case, I noticed some deep impressions in the rug, possibly where the perp knelt to open the rifle case.

Empty rifle case with possible knee impressions

I had asked the homeowners if anyone had known that the rifle was going to be coming out of 'hiding', and that he would be cleaning it. The male homeowner stated the only people that knew were his hunting buddies. He stated that it could be possible if someone saw it or over heard him talking to one of his buddies about getting ready to go hunting.

I have, in my investigation, retrieved samples of hair and finger prints from both the male and female homeowners. I have found fingerprints, blood and hair that I am sending to the lab to be tested. Just by visual  purpose, the hair is not a match. But the lab will determine that further.

I have included evidence photos as well. I have taken fingerprints, glass shards, hair, and dirt samples. Some are easier to see then others. I have included how they are packaged (specifically for the dirt, because it is invisible to the naked eye).

The first item are the homeowner's fingerprints, since their fingerprints are on everything in the house, this is to exclude their fingerprints from those of the perp's.

Homeowner fingerprints

This is hard to see but I tried to make it easy but it still didn't work. Here are some white hairs collected from the homeowner.

Next, I will go from one room to the other. I will start with the evidence that I collected in the bathroom, and then I will show the evidence that was collected in the home office.

Evidence of dirt from shoes with a druggist fold

Glass shards with blood from the broken window

Next, in the home office, I processed and collected fingerprints, hair, and more dirt. Here are some evidence from that room.

Fingerprint from lamp in home office

Black hairs, which clearly did not match homeowners but waiting for final determination from the lab, by the rifle case.

(Some of the evidence is hard to see, but if you look closely at the bottom of the bag, you will see outlines of black hairs, not so much as in the homeowner's hairs.)

Outline the 6 steps in crime scene sketching.

            The six steps to sketching a crime scene are:

1) The rough sketch
     
                - the rudimentary first sketch created at the crime scene with care for accuracy in depicting
                   dimensions and locations but no concern for aesthetic appearance.
                - required tools: graph/drawing paper, 2 measuring tapes, clipboard/drawing surface, pencils,
                  straightedge ruler, erasers, compass/GPS device, optional tools: drawing compass, protractors
                  architect scales, French curves, drafting triangles, rolling measurement devices
                - all sketches must include the following features
                                       - title block with case #, agency #, name/title of artist, location of scene, date, time,
                                          victim's name, name of suspects, type of crime
                                       -  must appear in lower right hand corner
                                       -  legend which contains the key to identity and dimensions of objects or evidence
                                          may be represented by symbols, letters or numbers
                                       -  compass that includes an arrow that determines North in relation to the scene
                                       -  body of the sketch contains the drawing itself and all dimensions and objects
                                           located within it

Example of a rough sketch:

2)   Creating the sketch

                      A) Define the boundaries of the sketch. These may be walls for an indoor sketch. Make sure    

                           that the area within these boundaries includes all the pertinent objects and evidence.

                      B) Establish known points from which to measure the locations of objects and evidence. 

                           These points should be fixed. These can be walls or doors in indoor scenes. Trees, 

                           telephone poles, street signs, or natural features (i.e. boulders) can be used for outdoor 

                           scenes. 

                      C) The walls or boundaries should be drawn first, leaving as much room as possible for the 

                           contents. If walls are used, their dimensions should be recorded. 

                      D)  Measurements should be taken from the fixed points to pieces of evidence first. There are 

                            3 methods of measurement from the two points of reference. 

                                                         - rectangular method measures two distances to an object that make a 

                                                           right angle with each other and to two fixed, flat surfaces. These 

                                                           surfaces are usually walls

                                                         - triangulation method measures the distance of the object from two 

                                                           fixed points of known distance from each other. This makes a triangle

                                                           In an indoor scene, these points are usually the corners of a room.

                                                         - baseline method is especially useful for outdoor scenes. First, two 

                                                            fixed objects on opposite sides of the scene are located. A line is 

                                                            then made between them and measured. Each object or piece of 

                                                            evidence has a line from it to the baseline to make a 90 degree angle

                                                            with the baseline. The distance of the line from the object to the

                                                            baseline is then measured, along with the point of intersection with 

                                                            the baseline. 

                                                          - polar coordinates method uses only one reference point. The sketch

                                                            should show the distance and angle at which an object is located in 

                                                            the scene relative to the reference point. 

3)  The Finished Sketch

                     - The perfected final sketch that is constructed with care and concern for aesthetic appearance 

                        and drawn to scale 

                     -  legend must contain the scale

                     -  must reflect information contained within the rough sketch to be admissible evidence in court

                     -  indoor sketch shows  the floor of one or more rooms, doors and windows, and any 

                        evidence or objects on the floor

                     -  outdoor sketch shows  almost an aerial view of the small or outdoor scene

                     -  can be done by a hired professional, by hand in pen or by computer (with CAD)

Here are some sketches: Two are final sketches

                     

Samples and characteristics

            A standard/reference sample is physical evidence whose origin is known, such as blood or hair from a suspect, which can be compared to crime scene evidence. Class characteristics are properties of evidence that can be associated with a group and not with a single source. An individual characteristic are properties of evidence that can be attributed to a particular source with an extremely high degree of certainty.

            Using the Charles Lindbergh baby kidnapping, Individual and Class characteristics can be found. Some examples of each are:

Individual Characteristics:

Tool marks

Handwriting from ransom letters that were typed to belong the suspect, Bruno Hauptmann

Sketch of “John”

Infant’s thumb guard and sleeping suit*

“Nellie” boat

Class Characteristics:

Marked gold certificate bills

Infant’s thumb guard and sleeping suit*

Dodge sedan automobile

            The Infant’s sleeping suit and thumb guard could be under both categories. Unless it had specific ‘markings’ on it, for example a patch over the knee, then it would belong to an individual child, but if it was ‘new’ and it came from a certain place where multiples could be bought or the such, then it could be generalized in the class category, because it cannot be pinpointed to a certain child, the same with the thumb guard, unless that was prescribed by a doctor or specially made for this certain child.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/famous-cases/the-lindbergh-kidnapping

http://jimfisher.edinboro.edu/lindbergh/intro.html

    Interesting case and the 'early beginnings' of basic forensics. They went on matching tool marks and locating certain numbered monies to catch the kidnapper and electrocute him. Interesting comparison for today to see how much we have evolved in this field!

Chain of custody

Chain of custody, by definition, is a list of all people that came in contact/posession of an item of evidence. Chain of custody is like a ladder. The bottom tier of the ladder is the crime scene/ collection site. The top tier of the ladder is the trial/courtroom. All the rungs from the bottom to the top are the people who collected it until the second to top tier when it gets into the lawyers hands for the last tier.  A chain of custody is needed because is any link was kinked, they would know who kinked it, and because if there is no chain, there is a strong possibility it would become contaminated an then would prove futile. i believe it is a good idea to have a standard practice concerning evidence collection. I would not want to lose my job for someone else's mistake. Also, if there is no proper chain of custody, you would have no idea where the original evidence is. Say if you were the investigator and you needed to take another look at the bloody smith and wesson revolver and bullet to see if you missed something that might be a vital aspect of the case. But when you get to the locker to check it out, the person says its not here someone checked it out but there is no details of who checked it out, when it was really in the firearms/ballistics lab, your first thought might be it's ins someone's hands here or it could possibly be loose on the streets again which would make that gun even hotter and possibly with a higher body count attatched to it....you would just never know. And it is of vital importance to a trial, if you cant say who has had the evidence the whole time, who is to say you really ever had what you said you had?

Journal entry 2 for pod 1

           The scientific method is a process that uses strict guidelines to ensure careful and systematic collection, organization, and analysis of information. The scientific method begins by formulating a question worthy of investigation, such as who committed a particular crime. The investigator next formulates a hypothesis, a reasonable explanation proposed to answer the question. the next phase of scientific inquiry is the testing of the hypothesis through experimentation. the testing process must be thorough and recognized by other scientists as valid. Scientists and investigators must accept the experimental findings even when they wish they were different. Finally, when the hypothesis is validated by experimentation, it becomes suitable as scientific evidence, appropriate for use in criminal investigation and, ultimately, available for admission in a court of law.
            Because the results of their work may be a factor in determining a person's ultimate guilt or innocence, forensic scientists may be required to testify about their methods and conclusions at a trial or hearing. Trial courts have broad discretion on accepting an individual as an expert witness, an individual whom the court determines to possess knowledge relevant to the trial that is not expected of the average layperson.
            The evidence technicians are specifically trained in collecting and preserving techniques.they are trained by the laboratory staff to recognize and gather pertinent physical evidence at a crime scene. They are assigned to the laboratory full time for continued exposure to forensic techniques and procedures. They have at their disposal all the proper tools and supplies for proper collection and packaging of evidence for future scientific examination.
           The Daubert criteria for admissibility is
               1 whether the scientific technique or theory can be and has been tested
               2 whether the technique or theory has been subject to peer review and publication
               3 the technique's potential rate of error
               4 the existence and maintenance of standards controlling the technique's operation
               5 whether scientific theory or method has attracted widespread acceptance within a relevant scientific community
           The Frye standard is that in order to be admissible at trial the principles must be 'generally accepted' by the scientific community. This approach requires the proponent of a scientific test to present to the court a collection of experts who can testify that the scientific issue before the court is generally accepted by the relevant members of the scientific community.

crime scene search assignment

                A ‘walk-through’ is the initial survey of the crime scene carried out by the lead investigator to gain an overview of the scene in order to formulate a plan for processing the scene.  You would perform a ‘walk-through’ to get a sense of ‘feeling’ for what you need to look for and gives a ‘starting point’ to collecting the evidence.  A command center is a secure site outside the boundaries of a crime scene where equipment is stored, tasks are assigned, and communication occurs. It is good to have one because the lead investigator assigns tasks after the initial ‘walk through’. The tasks include locating possible evidence, assessing the evidence, processing the evidence (fingerprints, foot impressions, ore tire impressions..) and photographing the scene. The command center is like the brain of an investigation and it is the center for activities that need doing.  The basic reason/necessity to search the crime scene is to locate evidence and process the evidence that is acquired. There are five types of search patterns discussed in our books. They are strip/line search, grid search, spiral search, wheel/ray search, and quadrant/zone search.  There are patterns that are better than others, but some depend on the size of the crime scene. If you have a large area to cover like a body of water or the Florida everglades an aerial search would be most adequate. The strip search pattern is best used in scenes where the boundaries are well established because the boundaries indicate the beginning and end of the search lines. If the boundary is incorrectly chosen, important evidence may remain undiscovered outside the search area. The grid search pattern is very thorough, but needs to have well established boundaries. The spiral pattern is often a difficult one because a searcher may not always make a perfect spiral and important evidence may tend to be missed. The wheel/ray search pattern is not preferred because the areas between the rays are not searched and evidence will likely be missed. The quadrant search is best suited to cover a large area. I believe you can do more than one type because if you have blood inside a house that has a huge farm and there are blood trails that lead outside to say a barn, you must perform an inside search, which will most likely be a line or strip search pattern, and then a quadrant search outside for more evidence.  A visual ‘sweep’ is conducted at the end of the investigation and that is like ‘re-searching’ what has already been searched by teams just to make sure nothing was missed. 

Anderson cooper on the CSI effect

CSI EFFECT ON COURTROOMS

'Blaming CSI Is Too Simplistic'

Donald Shelton, the chief judge of Washtenaw County, Mich., is skeptical. He began to notice that reports about the CSI Effect were long on anecdote, and short on data.

"One of the things that surprised me when I started looking into the CSI Effect was that there was no empirical research. Even the so-called studies that were out there were simply surveys of lawyers' opinions," he says.

Courtesy of Judge Shelton

Judge Donald Shelton, chief judge in Washtenaw County, Mich., studied the influence of CSI on potential jurors.

So Shelton and his colleagues came up with their own study.

"What we decided to do was survey people called for jury service before they were actually selected," he says.

More than 2,000 jurors divulged details of their TV-watching habits and how they got their information about the criminal justice system. Then they revealed their expectations for scientific evidence in a variety of scenarios in criminal trials.

"The final thing we did was to compare what demands they had with what television programs they watched with their demands for scientific evidence. What we found did not support that prosecutor's version," Shelton says.

Jurors do expect to see scientific evidence in murder cases, but their expectations have nothing to do with the TV shows they watch.

STUDY: Perceptions And Reality About 'The CSI Effect' Myth

"Blaming CSI or any television show is just too simplistic. It's much bigger than that," Shelton says.

Jurors don't need to watch CSI to be aware of advances in technology. They're more likely to be affected by the technology in their own pocket. Shelton's study showed that owning the latest BlackBerry has a much bigger impact on how jurors evaluate scientific evidence.

"The more sophisticated technological devices that jurors had, the higher their expectations for the prosecutors to present evidence," Shelton says.

Reality Of The CSI Effect

Despite the lack of empirical evidence, the belief that shows like CSI make it harder to get convictions persists.

John Grossman, the undersecretary of forensic science and technology for Massachusetts, worries the CSI Effect raises the bar for forensic pathologists testifying in court.

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FULL SERIES: Death Investigation In America

"I think it makes it much harder for the experts. Juries now expect high-level science to be done on lots of cases where again we don't have the resources to do them and in many cases, the science doesn't exist to do them."

Whatever the substance of the connection, lawyers, judges, and death investigators are acting as if the CSI Effect is real.

Some states now allow lawyers to strike potential jurors based on their TV habits. Judges are issuing instructions that warn juries about expecting too much scientific evidence based on what they see on TV.

In the field, Shelton says death investigators sometimes run useless tests, just to show they went the extra CSI mile.

"They will perform scientific tests and present evidence of that to the jury. Even if the results don't show guilt or innocence either way, just to show the jury that they did it."

This is coming at a time when death investigators in America have no resources to spare. An investigation by NPR, PBS Frontlineand ProPublica shows some states have already opted not to do autopsies on suicides, others don't autopsy people who die in traffic accidents, and many don't autopsy people who die over the age of 60.

But Murphy, the Clark County coroner, expects things to get worse.

"You know, we're in budget cuts right now. Everybody's in budget cuts. Las Vegas is no different than anybody else. We're hurting. We're going to feel that same crunch as everybody else," he says.

One of Zuiker's great disappointments is that, for all its popularity, his fictional Las Vegas crime lab didn't generate more political support to fund death investigation.

"I've done my job. You know, we've launched three shows that cater to 73.8 million people a week and is a global phenomenon and the largest television franchise in history. We hoped that the show would raise awareness and get more funding into crime labs so people felt safe in their communities. And we're still hoping that the government will catch up."

A committee assembled by the National Academy of Sciences looked at what it would cost to bring America up to speed. It included Vincent Di Maio, who has been a medical examiner for 40 years.

"It's going to cost you. It's going to cost you about $2.25 to $2.50 a person in your community per year, which is probably less than what you pay for a Coca-Cola in a movie theater," he says.

Whether legislators around the country have the political will to make it happen is an entirely different matter.

Arun Rath is a reporter for PBS Frontline.