News and Events
Jury finds Auburn man not guilty of murder in 2019 Walmart parking lot shooting
Date: September 23rd, 2021
by Judy Harrison, Bangor Daily News A Kennebec County jury on Wednesday found an Auburn man not guilty of murder and manslaughter in the shooting death of a father of five in a Walmart parking lot more than two years ago, according to the ...
Lawyers, father seek to show jury that Auburn shooter acted in self-defense
Date: September 21st, 2021
Gage Dalphonse, 23, of Auburn is on trial for murder in the 2019 shooting death of Jean Fournier, 41, of Turner. BY KEITH EDWARDS KENNEBEC JOURNAL Posted September 20, 2021/ Updated September 21, 2021 AUGUSTA ...
DC abruptly disbands crime lab's firearms unit
Date: September 16th, 2021
Jack Moore, WTOP News | jmoore@wtop.com September 16, 2021, 4:00 PM Months after the District’s troubled crime lab lost its accreditation, the city is moving to essentially disband a key unit of the troubled forensic agency, pl...
National forensics board suspends D.C. crime lab's accreditation, halting analysis of evidence, city says
Date: April 8th, 2021
Guns in storage at the D.C. Department of Forensic Sciences. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post) By Keith L. Alexander, The Washington Post April 3, 2021 at 7:43 p.m. EDT The District’s crime lab must ha...
Austin Officially Moves Forensics Lab Out From Under Police Department
Date: February 16th, 2021
KUT 90.5 | By Audrey McGlinchy Published February 4, 2021 at 2:02 PM CST (Jorge Sanhueza-Lyon/KUT) Evidence is on display during an open house of the Texas Department of Public Safety's crime lab in 2014. In ...
Kevin Richardson to Receive Historic Honorary Degree
Date: November 13th, 2020
Syracuse University News Friday, October 16, 2020, By News Staff Syracuse University announced today that Kevin Richardson, a member of the Exonerated Five, will be the recipient of the first honorary undergraduate degree in University history...
DC forensic lab under scrutiny after evidence errors discovered in murder cases
Date: November 9th, 2020
Jack Moore and Megan Cloherty | @ClohertyWTOP November 2, 2020, 4:25 AM The Firearms Examination Unit houses the guns it collects from crimes inside the city’s department of forensics. (WTOP/Megan Cloherty) Federal prosec...
Florida Supreme Court scraps longstanding legal requirement to review death sentences
Date: November 3rd, 2020
JIM SAUNDERS | NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA | 5:55 pm EDT October 29, 2020 TALLAHASSEE — Continuing to make major changes in the state’s death-penalty system, the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday scrapped a longst...
Judge orders release of man convicted of murder three decades ago in wake of state Supreme Court ruling
Date: July 16th, 2020
By DAVID OWENS, HARTFORD COURANT JUL 02, 2019 AT 6:33 PM “It’s a good day,” says Shawn Henning, at right, who leaves Torrington Superior Court on Tuesda...
National institute awards $20 million in renewed funding to forensic science center
Date: May 20th, 2020
UCI researchers contribute expertise in criminology, statistics and computer science May 18, 2020, UCI News Hal Stern (center), UCI interim provost and executive vice chancellor and a Chancellor’s Professor of statistics, leads UC...
Maryland Court of Appeals Reverses Murder Convictions of David Faulkner and Jonathan Smith, Granting Writs of Actual Innocence
Date: May 12th, 2020
The men were convicted in 2001 for a 1987 homicide and burglary with no physical evidence linking them to the crime. By Innocence Staff, Innocence Project (April 30, 2020 – Annapolis, Maryland) The Maryland Court o...
False Memories of Crime Appear Real When Retold to Others
Date: April 13th, 2020
University College London News 8 April 2020 People are no better than chance at identifying when someone else is recounting a false or real memory of a crime, according to a new UCL study. Credit: Weiss & Paarz, Source: Flickr&nbs...
'Old School' Technique Helps Expert ID Remains From 1969
Date: April 10th, 2020
By The Associated Press April 6, 2020 CONCORD, N.H. — Thanks to an old-fashioned fingerprint-matching technique, the remains of a shooting victim found alongside a New Hampshire highway 50 years ago have been identified...
Forensic science failures putting justice at risk, says regulator
Date: March 2nd, 2020
System on a ‘knife-edge’ due to skills shortages and funding cuts in England and Wales Vikram Dodd Police and crime correspondent, The Guardian Mon 24 Feb 2020 23.46 ESTLast modified on Tue 25 Feb ...
DNA expert testifies about history of evidence contamination in SDPD crime lab
Date: February 11th, 2020
Plaintiffs argue contamination of evidence led to crime lab worker being accused in 1984 murder at Torrey Pines. Author: David Gotfredson (Investigative Producer) KFMB CBS News 8 - San Diego, CA Published: 12:15 PM PST Fe...
Science course dances to beat of different drummer
Date: February 7th, 2020
By Lana Sweeten-Shults (GCU News Bureau), GCU Today, January 13, 2020 Freshmen biology majors Tabitha Meythaler and Rodrigo Ramírez and junior marketing/advertising student Rafael Zarifa (from left) look at some of the music...
AI could revolutionise DNA evidence - but right now we can't trust the machines
Date: February 6th, 2020
By: Karen Richmond, Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Strathclyde The Conversation, January 29, 2020 6.35am EST DNA evidence often isn’t as watertight as many people think. Sensitive techniques developed over the pas...
FBI, federal prosecutors investigate District's forensic firearms lab
Date: February 3rd, 2020
Guns in storage at the District of Columbia Department of Forensic Sciences. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post) By Keith L. Alexander, The Washington Post Jan. 23, 2020 at 9:31 a.m. EST Federal auth...
Kennedy Assassination Bullets Preserved in Digital Form
Date: January 31st, 2020
NIST scientists used advanced imaging techniques to create digital replicas of these important historical artifacts. December 05, 2019 - National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) In the palm of his hand, Thomas Brian Renegar ...
A Solution to a Hairy Problem in Forensic Science
Date: January 29th, 2020
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) November 05, 2019 Credit: N. Hanacek/NIST Human hair is made up of proteins called keratins that are wound together into a durable structure. &nb...
Firearms expert forged signatures on lab reports, Maryland State Police say
Date: January 24th, 2020
Evidence recovered from a shooting is displayed. The work of a former Maryland State Police firearms expert is under review after authorities learned that he forged initials on documents. (Seth Wenig/AP) By Dan Morse, The Washington Post ...
KES gifted students learn to solve whodunits during forensics activity
Date: January 22nd, 2020
Kingston Elementary School third graders, from left, Kamillah Richardson, Katelyn Carroll and Madison Eubanks test evidence in an attempt to solve a forensics case. RANDY PARKER/THE DAILY TRIBUNE NEWS Posted Saturday,&nbs...
Dead Bodies Keep Moving For More Than a Year After Death, Forensic Scientist Finds
Date: January 21st, 2020
(Kovshutin Denis/iStock) By: MICHELLE STARR, Science Alert, 16 SEP 2019 According to new research, the dead may not always rest in peace... quite literally. For more than a year after death, corpses move around "significantly", an...
Compelling new evidence that your cat might eat your corpse
Date: January 17th, 2020
A recent paper describes how feral cats scavenged two dead human bodies. (iStock) By Karin Brulliard, The Washington Post, Jan. 15, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. EST Left alone, a human corpse will soon be feasted upon by maggots. A...
Physicists now have even better models for blood spatter from gunshot wounds
Date: January 16th, 2020
This latest work may have implications for the famous Phil Spector murder case By JENNIFER OUELLETTE, Ars Technica - 8/29/2019, 3:04 PM Dexter might be a (fictional) serial killer, but he's also a leading expert i...
'Authenticity is the key' - budding crime writers on getting the science right
Date: January 15th, 2020
By Graeme Ogston, BBC Scotland Tayside and Central reporter 5 January 2020 Prof Tracey Wilkinson and Dr Diana Swales hope the course will make the students' work as accurate as possible Whether it is Ian Rankin's world-we...
Hampikian lab helps free Georgia man wrongly imprisoned for rape
Date: January 14th, 2020
Boise State News, January 8, 2020 Kerry Robinson and his sister Miranda Taylor after his release on Jan. 8. Photo provided by the Georgia Innocence Project. On Wednesday, authorities released Kerry Robinson, 44, from Coffee Correction...
DNA Tests Could Clear an Executed Man. Why a Judge Said No.
Date: January 13th, 2020
Sedley Alley went to his death based on scant physical evidence and a confession he said had been coerced. His daughter wants to know if he really was guilty. April Alley sought DNA tests to determine whether her father committed a 1...
Bed bug probe turns to forensic science, surveillance video
Date: January 10th, 2020
By Keith Gushard, Meadville Tribune, Jan 7, 2020 Associated Press file photo WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, Erie County — Forensic science and store surveillance video are being used in an effort to determi...
Forensic Justice Project helps lawyers become more scientifically literate
Date: January 9th, 2020
by Jake Thomas, Oregon Capital Bureau, Wednesday, December 18th 2019 When Janis Puracal began reviewing evidence used to convict Nicholas McGuffin of killing his girlfriend, she recalled how it didn’t ad...
Tackling the forensic unknowns of 3-D-printed firearms
Date: January 8th, 2020
by Shea Stewart, University of Mississippi James Cizdziel (right), UM associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and recent doctoral graduate Oscar ‘Beau’ Black have spent two years researching 3D-printed firearms throug...
Ballistics tests prove Illinois man innocent in murder case
Date: January 8th, 2020
By IVAN MORENO January 16, 2019 In this May 15, 2017 photo Patrick Pursley speaks in his apartment in Rockford, Ill. After being imprisoned nearly 24 years for the shooting death of Andy Ascher, Pursley h...
How Vulnerable is Your Car to Cyber Attacks?
Date: January 7th, 2020
By Caroline Brooks and Thomas Holt via MSU Today The emergence of smart cars has opened the door to limitless possibilities for technology and innovation – but also to threats beyond the car itself. New research from Michigan State Un...
Bullet shape, velocity determine blood spatter patterns
Date: January 7th, 2020
Summary: Blood spatters are hydrodynamic signatures of violent crimes, often revealing when an event occurred and where the perpetrator and victim were located, and researchers have worked toward better understanding the fluid dynamics at play durin...
CSI: current research into the impact of bias on crime scene forensics is limited - but psychologists can help
Date: January 6th, 2020
When a jury decides the fate of a person, they do so based on the evidence presented to them in the courtroom. Evidence obtained from forensic analysis, such as DNA analysis, is often interpreted as strong evidence by jurors. This perception of...
Infamous Buffalo Cave Torso Identified, One of the Oldest Cases Resolved Using Forensic Genealogy
Date: January 2nd, 2020
Known as the Civil Defense Caves in Dubois, Idaho, the ancient lava tubes, once a valuable resource during the Cold War, have become a family excursion for exploring the easily accessible caves. In August of 1979, one family hunting for arrowheads ...
AG's Review Process in Weare Police-Involved Shooting Criticized
Date: December 23rd, 2019
Diagram of the Weare home where the officer-involved shooting occurred on Aug. 1. Jeffrey Clough-Garvin committed suicide after being shot by Weare Sgt. Austin Maguire. By NANCY WEST, InDepthNH.org, December 23, 2019 CONCORD – ...
The Case of a Man With Two Sets of DNA Raises More Questions
Date: December 12th, 2019
A crime lab studied a patient’s response to a bone marrow transplant. Readers requested more information about the perplexing findings. Three months after his bone marrow transplant, Chris Long learn...
When a DNA Test Says You're a Younger Man, Who Lives 5,000 Miles Away
Date: December 7th, 2019
After a bone marrow transplant, a man with leukemia found that his donor’s DNA traveled to unexpected parts of his body. A crime lab is now studying the case. The DNA analysis laboratory at the Washoe County Sheri...
DNA evidence withheld, manslaughter conviction overturned
Date: December 2nd, 2019
By ANDREW SELSKY, December 2, 2019 SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon State Police failed to reveal DNA evidence that could have exonerated a man who has spent nine years in prison for the killing of his girlfriend, a judge ruled in overturning th...