http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_science
-Consists of:
Physiological
-Forensic anthropology
-Forensic Archaeology
-Forensic Dentistry
-Forensic Entomology
-Forensic Pathology
-Forensic Botany
Social
-Forensic Psychology
-Forensic Psychiatry
Forensic Criminalistics
-Ballistics
-Ballistic Fingerprinting
-DNA Profiling
-Fingerprint Analysis
-Body Identification
-Forensic Toxicology
-Questioned documents
Digital
-Computer forensics
-Forensic video
Related issues
-Fire investigation
-Detection of fire accelerants
-Forensic linguistics
-Vehicular accident reconstruction
Related articles
-Crime Scene
-Skid mark
-Trace evidence
-Use of DNA in forensic entomology
-Forensic science is basically using science and applying it to a crime scene to solve a crime. It analyzes evidence, such as fingerprints, DNA, firearms(ballistics), trace evidence(i.e. hair, fibers, fibrous materials, etc.)
Case Studies
-http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/00206/text_casestudies.htm
Lindy Chamberlain, "The Dingo Baby".
-On August 17, 1980, Lindy Chamberlain and her family were camping out in Uluru National Park, when they heard a cry from a tent where her son and infant daughter Azaria were staying. They seen a dingo lingering near the tent and they had realized, with horror, that a dingo had quite possibly eaten her daughter
-Later on, Azaria's jumpsuit was found in the dirt near a dingo lair and there were no bite marks on her outfit. This looked suspicious on Lindy, who claimed a dingo took her baby. Later on, when scientists investigated the baby's clothing, they found a bloody handprint in the shape of a woman's hand, which further concluded that Lindy Chamberlain had killed her infant daughter Azaria.
Jack the Ripper
-In 1888, it was not safe to walk the streets of London at night, especially in the lower end of it, Whitechapel and especially if you were a prostitute. Between late August and early November, 'Jack the Ripper' began murdering prostitutes, 5 to begin with. He stalked them and murdered them. He would go on to kill a total of 7 women, murdering them before dissecting them and leaving their corpses to the mercy of passing people. The first person to notice the neatness of the dissections was George B. Phillips. He was a police surgeon who noticed that the dissections were made with such precision that they could only be done by someone in the medical field or butchery field.
OJ Simpson
-June 12, 1994: OJ Simpson's ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman were foudn stabbed to death outside their Beverly Hills home. When the police arrived, they found Nicole's body highlighted by the porch light. She had been severely attacked, almost decapitated. At the scene, a bloodied left hand glove, a hat was found. And fast asleep inside the house were Nicole's 2 sons. When they went to nearby Brentwood to talk to Simpson, they found blood all over his Ford Bronco parked outside. When he was at trial, he had trouble wearing a key piece of evidence and it was also pointed out that one of the officers at the scene was racist against black people and had time to set up Simpson. He was cleared of all charged when he had problems wearing a key piece of evidence.
Hitler's Diaries
-At the end of WWII, a plane carrying all the private archives of Adolf Hitler crashed into the forest, destroying the archives forever. Although, it was never proven they were destroyed. This is what lured Gerd Heidemann to buy the first volume of Hitler's diary. He claimed that he got them from an East German general trying to smuggle Nazi artifacts out. And o make matters worse, Heidemann had an unhealthy obsession with all things Nazi. His boss told him to buy them for what would now be $3.7 million. They were published in the German magazine Stern and were considered a massive sensation.
-Questions began to arise about the actual authenticity of them, such as:
- The labels supposedly being written in 1943, but actually being written 9 years earlier
- The diary bindings contained polyester, which was not manufactured until 1953
- The paper contained blankophor, which is a synthetic highlighter that was not invented until 1954.
-Jeffrey Dahmer is one of the most well known murders in all of history. He was a serial killer and sex offender who had a certain affinity for black, Asian, and Hispanic boys and men. He murdered 17 boys and men between 1978-1991. When he murdered, it involved rape, dismemberment, necrophilia and cannibalim. On Nov. 28, 1994, he was killed by Christopher Scarver, a black delusional schizophrenic. He crushed Dahmer's head with a broom handle.
Ted Bundy
-When he was arrested in 1975, there was little or no evidence to link im to 30+ murders. While in Florida to stand trial, he killed 3 people in 1978. The case that finally jailed him was the murder of a little girl named Lisa Levy. There was a bite mark on her buttock that matched his crooked, chipped teeth.
The Atlanta Child Murders
-Wayne Williams was an American serial killer who was charged with 22 murders of young boys and men between 1979-1981. He killed 29 people, almost all children and also strangled. When the bodies were found, they all had a coarse yellow-green fiber on them and it was a fiber for a coarse carper fiber for cars. To get rid of the suspicious fiber, Williams then began stripping his victims naked to get rid of evidence.
Alton Coleman
-American serial killer who was executed in 1984 for the murder of 44 year old Marlene Walters of Norwood, Ohio.
-In May 1984, he met Debra Brown and they went on a frenzied spree of rape and murder. That same year, Coleman was busy befriending a single mother in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He was busy befriending the mother of 9 year old Vernita Wheat. On May 29, 1984, he convinced her mother to let him take Vernita out to buy a used stereo as a Mother's Day gift. They never returned. 3 weeks later, Vernita's fly blown body was found in a derelict building in Waukeegan, Illinois.
Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker
-Between June 1984 and August 1985, southern California was haunted by a serial killer known as the Night Stalker. He broke in to people's houses while they slept, murdering 13 and assaulting various others.
The Green River Killer
-Gary Ridgway was responsible for a rash of murders- at least 48 but more close to 90. His kill ground was along the Green River in Washington State.
BTK Killer
-Stands for Bind, Torture, Kill.
-Dennis Rader terrorized the Wichita, Kansas area between 1974-1991, murdering 10 people over the years.
Harold Shipman, Family Doctor
-Harold Shipman was a kindly family doctor wit a deadly passion. He enjoyed playing God, the giver of life and death. He was responsible for more killings in the Manchester area. One day he was caught by greed, forging a patients will to profit. On the death certificates, he wrote seemingly harmless causes.
