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In The News

2015-10-27 | In 42-year-old cold case, suspected murder victim turns up alive
Authorities never found out who Jane Doe was, but, over the years, kept one name close: Betsy Langjahr. Now, four decades later, the news media has helped police learn Langjahr is very much alive.

2015-10-27 | Which Standards Are Standard? Differences between ISO/IEC 17025 and 17020 for forensic agencies
To become accredited, the forensic agency must apply to an accreditation body and complete the necessary requirements of the accreditation process. But there are two standards: ISO/IEC 17020 and ISO/IEC 17025. So the agency quickly needs to consider which requirements are most appropriate for them.

2015-10-27 | Five Case Studies in Forensic Toxicology
So, now that we’ve established the stakes, let’s take a look at five case studies that illustrate the most common errors forensic pathologists make related to toxicology.

2015-10-27 | Evidence Tampering Probe Widens at Oregon Crime Lab
"Investigators assigned to this case have discovered that evidence assigned to at least one analyst other than our suspect has been tampered with, Hummel wrote. "The working assumption is that the suspect in this case tampered with the evidence assigned to the other analyst.

2015-10-27 | DNA issue frees Lakeville man from Texas jail, but '83 murder charge remains
Last month, the Texas Department of Public Safety notified prosecutors about the new standard being needed in the analysis of “mixed DNA.” That refers to when more than one person’s DNA is found on evidence. That means a re-examination is needed of the “mixed DNA” in Otteson’s case, Beck said.

2015-10-27 | Third man charged in fatal shooting of St. Paul woman
Police later examined Wierstad’s apartment and noticed items that looked out of place. Officers also found a kitchen window screen had been cut. Fingerprints found on the window matched those of Bell, and surveillance video later showed him using her credit card at a gas station, according to the complaints.

2015-10-23 | Steaming out some of luminol’s wrinkles
Luminol gets trotted out pretty frequently on TV crime shows, but a new technique might someday compete with the storied forensics tool as a police procedural plot device and, perhaps more importantly, as a means of solving real crimes. Recently published work from the University of South Carolina is showing that what the researchers term “steam thermography” has the ability to spot blood spots in all kinds of spots—even in spots where luminol can’t.

2015-10-22 | Which Standards Are Standard? Differences between ISO/IEC 17025 and 17020 for forensic agencies
ISO/IEC 17025 is the standard for testing and calibration laboratories and ISO/IEC 17020 is the standard for inspection agencies. Both standards have equal weight as international standards and neither one is better than the other. Each standard is designed to meet certain criteria, and depending upon the situation, one maybe more appropriate than the other. Since many agencies and companies have labs as well as crime scene units, these entities achieve accreditation to both standards. This can be done within a singular assessment thereby eliminating the overlapping requirements. ISO/IEC 17025 and ISO/IEC 17020 both include very similar management system requirements based on ISO 9001:2008 (section 4 in ISO/IEC 17025 and clause 8 in ISO/IEC 17020). Beyond these ISO 9001-based requirements, the standards diverge significantly. ISO/IEC 17025 requirements are heavy with regard to measurement uncertainty, traceability, and analytical validation. ISO/IEC 17020 requirements, in contrast, focus more strongly on impartiality, independence, and confidentiality.

2015-10-22 | CSI: ISU? University gets millions for forensics center
Approved by the Iowa Board of Regents during its Thursday meeting, the Center for Statistics and Application in Forensic Evidence will be the only federally funded forensic sciences center in the nation. Its primary goal will be to build a statistical and scientific foundation under two branches of forensics: pattern evidence (everything from fingerprints and blood splatter to tool marks and shoe prints) and cyber forensics (things such as figuring out who put what data on cell phones and computers).

2015-10-20 | DNA by the Numbers
Nowadays increasing numbers of evidentiary traces are collected at crime scenes and submitted for DNA analysis at the forensic laboratories. However, almost 50% of the analyzed DNA samples do not result in valuable DNA typing information (1) and a few studies show that the possibility to actually obtain usable DNA profiles can depend on the trace type (2,3). Evaluating the DNA results obtained for various sampled traces can provide us information on which traces are most promising to select for DNA analysis. Such information can guide crime scene investigators in decision-making.