Forensic Case Files: Jack the Ripper Finally Identified?

Apparently this is debunking science month here at Skeleton Keys. Last week, we looked at the bad science that led archeologists studying the Viking invasions of England to incorrectly identify the sex of buried remains. This week, I want to talk about the recent announcement that Jack the Ripper has been identified more than 125 years after the final murder took place. Several people asked my opinion on this case, and while I’m not an expert on Ripper mythology, I’m happy to tackle the scientific aspect of this announcement.

On September 6^th, a story broke on the Daily Mail naming a Polish hairdresser, Aaron Kosminski, as Jack the Ripper (read the original story here). Russell Edwards, a self-appointed ‘armchair detective’ purchased a shawl supposedly found with the body of Catherine Eddowes, the fourth Ripper victim discovered on September 30, 1888. He approached Dr. Jari Louhelainen, a senior lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University, in hopes of recovering forensic evidence from the scarf to connect the killings to Kosminski. Kosminski had been one of the six main suspects at the time of the murders and Edwards ‘became convinced Kosminski was our man’. (Jen’s note—please keep in mind my opening explanation from last week’s article on the Viking shieldmaidens about how objective science proceeds. Convincing yourself of the end result before you begin is not a good start).

Upon examining the scarf. Louhelainen found traces of blood splatter and semen. Louhelainen extracted DNA from both using a supposedly novel technique called ‘vacuuming’, and, once again, mitochondrial DNA was used to determine the genetic line of the sample. A female descendant of Eddowes provided a DNA sample for comparison and was a perfect match to the blood spatter. A similar descendant of Kosminski (a mysterious, unnamed female whom Edwards claims to be protecting by leaving in anonymity) provided a sample which also resulted in a perfect match to the semen sample.

On this data alone, Edwards declares that Kosminski must be Jack the Ripper.

So where does this claim go off the rails for me?

• The DNA was identified by a novel technique, one that has never been vetted or peer-reviewed in any way (although Louhelainen’s layman’s description of the technique is so basic that there must be more to it than simply soaking the fabric in buffer and sucking it back out again; that hardly seems like a novel technique as it’s fairly close to how we extract cheek swab DNA from filter paper). So where is the proof to the scientific community that this protocol actually does what Edwards claims? Scientific data is rigorously examined through a the process of peer review—a paper is written for an established scientific publication, then that paper is reviewed by fellow scientists in the field who will either accept the paper with revisions (I have yet to see a paper that doesn’t have even a few small comments on aspects to be fixed) or reject the paper. When that paper is published, it has been written with a Materials and Methods section so detailed that anyone reading the paper should be able to exactly replicate the procedure to get the same results given identical starting materials and conditions. But instead of Louhelainen writing a peer-reviewed article on the technique and its results, Edwards has written a layman’s book with no oversight to the scientific process. I can’t believe results only viewed by a privileged few. The entire study cannot be published as ‘data not shown’.

• Assuming this is a legitimate technique, it has tested the DNA found on the shawl of one of the five victims only. This only proves contact with one of the victims and doesn’t scientifically link him to any of the others.

• While the victim’s DNA was extracted from blood, Kosminki’s DNA was extracted from semen. This proves sexual contact of some kind, but in no way actually puts the knife in his hand. For all we know, when Kosminski left Eddowes following that encounter, she was alive and well. The DNA evidence also provides no information about timelines—the sexual encounter could have been minutes, days, weeks, or months before or after Eddowes’ death.

• At the time of Eddowes’ death, Kosminski lived with his two brothers, both of whom would have had identical mitochondrial DNA from their mother. So perhaps it was not Kosminski’s semen, but instead, that of one of his brothers?

• Kosminski’s descendant seems to be shrouded in mystery and apparently Edwards (and the descendant?) wish it to remain that way. As a result, no one else could possibly double check the results of the testing since they have no sample with which to compare the DNA extracted from the semen sample.

• Call me cynical, but I'm suspicious of any science that comes out as a ‘perfect match’. Science almost never works out that way. Yes, mitochondrial DNA only passes down through the female line, but, over time, DNA naturally mutates and drifts and it is unlikely that 125 year old DNA would be identical to a modern sample. Within a 97 – 99% match, absolutely. But a perfect match? And to have two perfect matches, one to Eddowes’ descendant and another to Kosminski’s? Well… you get my drift. Science is simply not that exact. And once again, we can’t see the results ourselves to have a real opinion on it.

• The Daily Mail article shows the scientists at work in the lab. Now, I realize this is an inside baseball kind of point, but I work down the hall from the lab of Dr. Hendrik Poinar, a world famous ancient DNA specialist who not only sequenced the Woolly Mammoth genome, but is currently working on Black Plague deaths in an effort to identify Y. pestis as the causative agent. I know the conditions his people work under—an ultra-clean room under negative pressure and enhanced personal protection (to keep the samples clean vs. protecting the lab worker in this case). Yet Louhelainen and his people are shown unrolling the scarf in a typical biosafety level I wet lab, next to an unrelated specimen and other various pieces of lab equipment and anatomical models. Add to this the fact that the scarf was handled by many people over the years (and supposedly never washed) and I’m not convinced that any starting material they collected was uncontaminated.

• The provenance of the shawl itself has been called into question. Supposedly found at the scene with Eddowes’ body, it was never reported or entered into evidence. Instead, one of the investigating officers removed the bloodstained shawl to give to his wife as a gift. The wife was so horrified by the gift that she put it away and it was then handed down through four or five family generations before being sold to Edwards. But there is no official record of it ever being part of the original murder scene.

My biggest problem with this whole announcement—besides actually naming Kosminski as the Ripper when there is zero proof that he killed even this one woman—is the lack of data. Science works as a transparent system. Show me the DNA gels and then I’ll maybe be on board, but only as far as a DNA match goes. As far as I’m concerned, the identity of Jack the Ripper remains undetermined.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Forensic Case Files: Viking Shieldmaidens, or How Forensic Anthropology Changed Our View of History

Nineth century Viking burial with sword and knife from Memorial Park, Islandbridge; Dublin, Ireland.It’s not very often that I rant about science, but, oh boy, the story that caught my attention this past week totally set me off. As a career scientist, my day job is all about having a hypothesis and then setting out to prove (or disprove) it. Sometimes you don’t get the results you thought you’d get, but, as I tell my grad students, your results are your results. They’re not wrong, they just are. If you included all of the appropriate controls and conducted the experiment properly at least twice, then this is the truth of the science. You don’t convince yourself of something; instead, the data leads the way to the study’s end result. This is how objective science works. Period.

Recently, researchers at the University of Western Australia decided that previous research teams weren’t being specific enough in their study of Viking remains. The research concerned graves found in England dating back to Viking invasions prior to the 10^th century. It was believed that the overwhelming proportion of Vikings migrating to England at the time was male, with only a very few females in the party, often identified as camp followers. But personal and place names from the area as well as modern mitochondrial DNA relating back to that time implied that there must have been more women present than originally thought. Shane McLeod (currently at the University of Sterling) decided to study that disconnect more closely.

Previously, when examining remains within Viking graves, archeologists sexed the occupants simply by their grave goods—the presence of buried weapons indicated male remains, while females were identified by a traditional oval brooch. Some of this research was done before the science of osteology became well-established, but some publications dating into the 21^st century still use grave goods as the only method of sexing remains. Despite having the knowledge at their fingertips to sex the remains based on well-established osteological markers—sex determination from either the skull or the pelvis—they based their conclusions that Viking invaders/warriors were comprised only of males from a superficial examination of the graves.

However, when the University of Western Australia team went back to actually examine the bones themselves, they determined that a full fifty percent of Vikings buried with weapons were actually women. Surprise!

A hundred years ago, it was not possible to use forensic anthropology techniques to determine skeletal age because the science was in its infancy and wasn’t understood to any great extent. But today, there is absolutely no reason to make gender-biased assumptions instead of stating scientific fact because the research team is only looking at part of the picture. Now, to be fair, sometimes remains are degraded because of age and weathering, but for remains with clear osteological markers, there is no excuse for not completing a full examination. In this case, out of the 14 skeletons examined, 6 were determined to be female, 7 were determined to be male, and only 1 was indistinguishable due to degradation of the remains.

Many saw this result as the battle cry of the Viking shieldmaiden. While the fact that some of the women were buried with weapons isn’t conclusive evidence of those same women fighting on the battlefield, the lack of grave weapons is also not conclusive that a particular woman was not a shieldmaiden. That part of the story is yet to be resolved. However, what is clear is that the current overwhelming view of men as the only Viking invaders of England is not correct. Thanks, forensic anthropology, for clearing that up!

Photo credit: Carrie Morgan

State Police Crime Lab Tour: Ballistics

In this final installment of my tour of the Springfield Massachusetts State Police crime lab, we’re going to cover ballistics. Lieutenant John Crane was our guide through the world of ballistics, which was an eye opener for me and my daughters who are all gun control-loving Canadians. In fact, when we told Lieutenant Crane that we’d barely ever seen guns and had certainly never held one, he immediately handed us several different ones. Maybe not a big deal for the Americans in the crowd, some of whom consider guns a daily part of life, but it definitely was a surreal experience for us!

Ballistics:

• The ballistics division has three primary roles:

1) Respond to shootings, reconstruct the scene, and collect all firearms’ evidence.

2) Test evidentiary firearms.

3) Compare fired items.

• A ballistics officer will go to a victim’s autopsy to retrieve the evidence as it’s removed from the body. This maintains chain of custody.

• The unit responds to all suicides by firearms simply for practice and to learn new ways for bullets to behave inside the human body.

• Springfield has a population of 150,000. There is approximately 1 gun crime/week, and 15 - 20 murders/year are gun related. This number would be higher, but Springfield is home to one of the country’s top trauma hospitals (Bay State) and they save many victims who would likely die in other locations.

• The National Integrated Ballistics Information Network (NIBIN) is the AFIS equivalent for cartridge cases. It helps identify the cartridge, but it doesn’t actually put the gun in any one individual’s hands, so it has limited use.

• There is only a 3% chance of successfully identifying a fingerprint from a gun. It is not possible to pick up a print from the textured grip, only from the barrel or the magazine. But the hot gases produced during firing can destroy the fingerprint and will absolutely destroy any DNA that might be on the firearm.

• The ballistics division has three different ways to test-fire a gun for comparison of either the bullet or casing to the recovered evidence:

1) The snail—a very large metal box with an inner, snail-like curl. The bullet is fired into the box and circles through the curl to fall out, spent, at the end. The bullet gets flattened and is of no use for comparison, but the cartridge pops clear, so this is an excellent method for cartridge matching.

2) The water tank—a ten-foot long metal box filled with water with a firing tube at one end. Bullets up to .50 caliber can be fired into the tank, but hollow points bullets can’t be tested since they break apart only a foot or so into the tank. Otherwise, it’s an excellent firing tool for most handguns. Most bullets only go a few feet into the tank before falling to the bottom. Advice from the ballistics officer, Lieutenant Crane—if you’re being shot at, jump into the nearest body of water because it’s like firing into cement. (Jen’s aside—Mythbusters has confirmed this).

3) The cotton box—an eight-foot long metal box filled with rolled cotton, separated in one-foot dividers of cardboard, and with a firing tube at one end. When a bullet is fired into the box, it spins through the cotton, picking up strands until it becomes enmeshed in a ball of cotton and stops. When the bullet is retrieved, it’s in absolutely pristine condition for direct comparison. This is the only way to test fire hollow point bullets.

• The ballistics officers use a two-headed Olympus microscope with an attached digital readout for performing evidentiary comparisons (see above photo). Lieutenant Crane was kind enough to go through a comparison for us and even showed us the evidence from a fatal shooting just the week before. When comparing evidence, officers like to have two different areas of agreement, but one extremely strong area of agreement will be sufficient if that’s all they can get. A minimum of two people have to check the evidence to agree with the match.
  

All in all it was a fascinating tour and I definitely got some new ideas for upcoming novels. Thank you once again to Detective Lieutenant Holleran, Sergeant Heffernan and Lieutenant Crane for taking the time to introduce us to their real world forensics!

Photo credit: Jack of Spades

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The Seymour Agency’s 1st Literacy Fundraiser:

We at the Seymour Agency are raising money throughout September for #LiteracyMatters. Stop by the agency blog for our auction of great prizes such as signed books, swag, professional editor calls, and manuscript critiques: http://seymouragency.blogspot.ca/; all money raised will go to support the Southwest Florida Literacy Council Gulf Coast. Bidding goes from September 1 – 30, 2014, so don’t miss out on these great prizes. I’m donating signed hardcover copies of DEAD, WITHOUT A STONE TO TELL IT and A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH. And, as an extra bonus, the lucky winner will also get a hot-off-the-presses advanced reading copy of TWO PARTS BLOODY MURDER, which won’t be available to the general public until February of 2015. Want to find out what happens next with Matt and Leigh? Sto by http://seymouragency.blogspot.ca/2014/09/auction-item-36-jen-j-danna-books.html and bid for your chance to find out long before everyone else. So I hope to see you all bidding in September!

State Police Crime Lab Tour: Evidence and Criminalistics

It’s part two of our series based around my tour of Springfield’s Massachusetts State Police crime lab. Today, we’re talking about evidence handling in the lab as well as criminalistics. And stay tuned at the end of the post for some important information on how you can get your hands on an advanced reading copy of TWO PARTS BLOODY MURDER, book five in the Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries, months before it becomes commercially available.

Evidence:

• Most evidence is dropped off by the investigating officer, but some municipal police departments have evidence officers whose job it is to deliver evidence. This can be problematic since the investigating officer is not present if the technician has any questions about the information on the forms accompanying the evidence.

• Once there, new evidence labels are added and detailed to maintain the chain of custody.

• Any drugs that come in are immediately heat-sealed before being stored.

• All evidence is temporarily stored in the evidence room before being sent out to the appropriate lab or testing facility. Case numbers on the box or envelope are in the format of: xx(year)-xxxxxx(case number). Some cases I saw were from ‘80s or ‘90s (cold cases) but most are from 2013 or 2014.

Criminalistics:

• For me, criminalistics was a typical wet lab, and very similar to my own.

• They process clothing, sex assault kits, weapons, all biological samples (i.e. blood, saliva or semen), and gunshot residue. They also carry out blood stain pattern analysis on scene or on evidence brought into the lab.

• 

  The lab contains a separate room with several alternative light sources. These light sources can be used to visualize human biological fluids like saliva, sweat, semen which all fluoresce. Contrary to most TV crime shows, blood does not fluoresce under alternative light sources. In fact, it tends to darken and be less visible.

• The lab has special test cards to indicate the likely sample type of biological fluids. However this can’t be used for confirmation as there are several well known false indicators. For example, the test for semen gives false positives for mold and feces; while saliva can also be found normally in breast milk and feces.

• Blood is tested in situ in the field by swabbing the substance and transferring it to filter paper. Several chemicals are added; if blood is present, the filter paper will immediately turn blue. If there is no immediate reaction, then the substance is not blood.

• All DNA samples are processed only at the Maynard lab location.

Next week will be the final post in this series as we delve into the science of ballistics. See you then!

Photo credit: JustGrimes and University of Michigan

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The Seymour Agency’s 1st Literacy Fundraiser:

We at the Seymour Agency are raising money throughout September for #LiteracyMatters. Stop by the agency blog for our auction of great prizes such as signed books, swag, professional editor calls, and manuscript critiques: http://seymouragency.blogspot.ca/; all money raised will go to support the Southwest Florida Literacy Council Gulf Coast. Bidding goes from September 1 – 30, 2014, so don’t miss out on these great prizes. I’m donating signed hardcover copies of DEAD, WITHOUT A STONE TO TELL IT and A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH. And, as an extra bonus, the lucky winner will also get a hot-off-the-presses advanced reading copy of TWO PARTS BLOODY MURDER, which won’t be available to the general public until February of 2015. Want to find out what happens next with Matt and Leigh? This is your chance. So I hope to see you all bidding in September!

State Police Crime Lab Tour: Fingerprinting and Tread Analysis

Climbing a mountain was pretty neat, but another highlight of my recent trip to Massachusetts was a tour of one of the regional Massachusetts State Police Crime labs. Many, many thanks to Detective Lieutenant Michael Holleran for making this tour of the Springfield lab happen. Detective Lieutenant Holleran was kind enough to be my technical advisor on fingerprinting past and present when we were writing TWO PARTS BLOODY MURDER, and he went to the trouble of setting up the tour, and then drove all the way across the state to meet and stay with us the entire time. Once again, we couldn’t write what we do without the generous help of the officers and staff of the Massachusetts State Police!

I was going to include all the information about the tour in a single blog post. But when the ever-stalwart Ann came back to me this ‘this blog post is toooooooo long’, I decided it needed to be cut into manageable chunks because this is very dense information. So, today, we’re going to cover crime scene services in the lab, primarily fingerprinting and casting. Next week will cover evidence handling and criminalistics. And then in our final week, we’ll cover ballistics, the largest section and truly deserving of a post of its own.

Detective Lieutenant Holleran (Crime Scene Services), Sergeant Ken Heffernan (Crime Scene Services), and Lieutenant John Crane (ballistics) took us through the Springfield crime lab that serves not only the Massachusetts State Police, but also many of the surrounding municipal forces. All three men are troopers who do everything in their area of the lab—they go out to the crime scene, gather evidence, and then return to the lab to analyze it. There are currently eight officers in the Springfield crime lab that are part of fingerprinting and crime scene services, and three officers in ballistics. All biological work in the criminalistics and biologics units, and much of the other testing (drug chemistry, arson, DNA, alcohol testing, and trace evidence) is performed by civilian forensic scientists.

Fingerprinting (part of Crime Scene Services): 

• All fingerprint evidence is handled in a designated fingerprint lab.

• Officers use a defined flowchart of test protocols to run on each print, starting at the top and working their way down, stopping after the first successful print development. Multiple tests can be run on the same print as long as the designated order is followed.

• UV light sources can be used to visualize prints on non-porous surfaces. Some prints can only be visualized and photographed this way; when they are chemically developed, no print appears.

• AFIS databases are accessed using MorphoTrak software. Massachusetts is the first state to link directly to the FBI database via third party software. Sergeant Heffernan ran one of his current cases for us—a break and enter with a fingerprint picked up through the mesh of a window screen. It took nine minutes for the resulting multi-point comparison match.

• Even after a positive AFIS result, the print must be confirmed by the human eye. In total, 3 officers must agree on the comparison for it to be considered a positive match.

• In the past, inked fingerprints have been standard, but over the last 10 years, live fingerprint scanning has gradually spread throughout the state. Troopers have live fingerprint scanners out in the field to be able to scan prints in situ instead of having to transfer evidence back to the lab. This kind of mobile fingerprinting also allows for faster identification of any deceased persons on scene.

• Live fingerprint scanners reject bad prints, but a good inked print will always have better resolution than a live scan, so troopers are still taught how to do classic inked prints by the Crime Scene Services officers since most troopers take their own perp prints out in the field.

Tread Analysis (part of Crime Scene Services):

• Casts are used to identify both shoe treads and tire tracks.

• Casts are taken using Denstone^®, a dental stone used for impressions because it has only 0.1% shrinkage with drying. Due to its ability to maintain its shape and size, it can be used for direct comparisons between the cast and the actual shoe or tire.

• Sergeant Heffernan feels that shoeprints are the most overlooked evidence and could be used much more effectively. For instance, the unique wear on shoes as well as any individual markings can be used to conclusively identify footwear present at the scene.

• There is an extensive tire tread database available for comparison. There is also a database for shoes, but it’s expensive because there are so many different types of shoes, and it must be constantly updated.

We’ll be back next week with a trip through the evidence room and the criminalistics lab. See you then!

Photo credit: Jessica Newton Photography

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The Seymour Agency’s 1st Literacy Fundraiser:

Naples, Florida (July 2014) - The Seymour Agency has announced it will be hosting a fundraiser to support the Literacy Council Gulf Coast through a national online auction taking place during the month of September. Industry editors, agents, and authors have donated critiques, phone chats, and goody packages as prizes.

Everyone deserves the time and means for the luxury of reading. Literacy Council Gulf Coast works with underprivileged youth and adults to provide quality literary education needed to function in today’s society.

The online auction will go live in phases on September 1, 2014 and bidding will end on September 30, 2014 at 11:59 p.m. with the largest bid received winning.

If you are not interested in the items up for auction, please consider a cash donation through CrowdRise. CrowdRise is a convenient way to donate money to charities.

Publishing News and the Cover Reveal for TWO PARTS BLOODY MURDER!

We’re going to take a brief break from the recap of my trip to Massachusetts in June as Ann and I have some publishing news we’d like to share with our readers, as well as a new cover to show off. But don’t worry, next week I’ll be back to share what I learned during my crime lab tour.

First of all, I know it’s been a LONG time coming, but our novella, NO ONE SEES ME ‘TIL I FALL, is now available on the Kobo platform. We’ve had requests about this for a while, but we’ve been up to our ears in work. Luckily, my husband stepped in and offered his time to do all the research and formatting for this platform, and we went live over the weekend. So for our Kobo readers, if you’re looking for the novella to read on your Kobo reader, you can find it here:  http://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/no-one-sees-me-til-i-fall.

Last March we were pleased to announce that the mass market paperback rights for DEAD, WITHOUT A STONE TO TELL IT had been contracted by Harlequin Worldwide Mysteries for publication in January 2015. Now we can add that Harlequin Worldwide Mysteries has also contracted the mass market rights for A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH for publication in spring 2015:

Jen Danna with Ann Vanderlaan's A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH, the second novel in the Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries, in which a Massachusetts state police trooper teams with a forensic anthropologist to solve a series of horrific murders, to Laura Barth at HQN Worldwide Mystery, for publication in Spring 2015, by Nicole Resciniti at The Seymour Agency.

Last, but definitely not least, Ann and I are thrilled to be able to show off the hot-off-the-presses cover for TWO PARTS BLOODY MURDER. Once again, ENC’s designers did a great job in capturing the major aspects of the murder very succinctly.

So now, without further ado, here is the cover for TWO PARTS BLOODY MURDER!

Prohibition was a time of clandestine excess—short skirts, drinking, dancing . . . and death. But a murder committed so many years ago still has the power to reverberate decades later with deadly consequences.

It’s a double surprise for Trooper Leigh Abbott as she investigates a cold case and discovers two murder victims in a historic nineteenth-century building. Together with forensic anthropologist Matt Lowell and medical examiner Dr. Edward Rowe, she uncovers the secrets of a long-forgotten, Prohibition-era speakeasy in the same building. But when the two victims are discovered to be relatives—their deaths separated by over eighty years—the case deepens, and suddenly the speakeasy is revealed as ground zero for a cascade of crimes through the decades. When a murder committed nearly forty years ago comes under fresh scrutiny, the team realizes that an innocent man was wrongly imprisoned and the real murderer is still at large. Now they must solve three murders spanning over eighty years if they hope to set a wronged man free.

TWO PARTS BLOODY MURDER, coming in hardcover and eBook, February 18, 2015. Now available for pre-order from Amazon.com!

Setting the Scene for the Climax of Abbott and Lowell Book Five

I’m back from vacation, and we’re back from a blogging hiatus and some time away to write, plan, and figure out some potential future projects (more on that when there is more to tell…).

My daughters and I travelled to Massachusetts at the end of June with two specific book-related research projects in mind—taking a tour of one of the Massachusetts State Police crime labs, and climbing the mountain that will be featured in the climax of our work-in-progress, Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries, Book 5. While the end scene will take place in December—in the middle of a blizzard—I wanted to get the experience of the actual location, even if we were out of season.

Holyoke Range State Park was our destination, just outside of Amherst, Massachusetts. But what we were specifically heading for was Mount Norwottuck, and its 1100 foot peak.

At the lower levels, the terrain mostly looks like every Ontario forest I’ve ever hiked through. I bet this area would be stunning in autumn.

But it fairly quickly got rocky and the incline started.

This picture was taken from about 300 feet up, looking northeast towards Amherst, Massachusetts. The buildings on the left are part of University of Massachusetts Amherst, better known to the locals as UMass. Mt. Orient can be seen in the distance.

This is the kind of terrain we were managing for a lot of the climb—well established hiking trails, but quite rocky and often very steep.

These are the Horse Caves, a geological formation of ledges below the peak of Mount Norwottuck. Local lore tells the story of American soldiers from Shay's Rebellion in 1786 hiding out at this spot from the Massachusetts militia.

My eldest, currently midway through her Bachelor of Arts in Photography, taking advantage of the outing for some great shots of the ledges at the Horse Caves.

Getting close to the top, the tree line suddenly changed to almost all pine trees and the footing looked like this:

Near the peak, a Golden Eagle soared overhead.

The prize at the top of the climb. This is my youngest, standing 1100 feet up, taking in the view. It was pretty incredible, even if it was a lot of work to get there!

Thanks to both of my girls for another great trip to Massachusetts. So far I’ve dragged them through a salt marsh (the body dump site for DEAD, WITHOUT A STONE TO TELL IT), through Witches’ shops and a tour of the Salem Fire Department (both for A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH), and now up a mountain and through a real life crime lab for the as-yet-unnamed Book #5.

Coming up in one of our next blog posts, I’m going to talk about my trip to one of the Massachusetts State Police crime labs. I wasn’t allowed to take many pictures (totally understandable when real cases with real evidence are involved) but I did get a few photos and a ton of really great info. So I’ll be back soon with that fascinating information.

Happy Canada Day and a Summer Hiatus

Hello and a happy Canada Day from beautiful Massachusetts!

I hear you cry—you’re in the the U.S. on Canada Day? Yes, my daughters and I are currently in Massachusetts on a research trip for the fifth book in the Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries. And thus begins my summer hiatus from blogging as we take some time off to travel and research, and then as I launch back into the current manuscript because my end-of-summer deadline is starting to tick rather loudly. So I’ll be taking the month of July off from blogging as I concentrate on my writing. But I’ll be back come the first week of August.

Have a great month and I’ll see you then!

Photo Credit: Jamie McCaffrey

Forensics 101: Digital Investigations and Cybercrime

The last of the forensics panels at Bloody Words XIII led us into the fascinating world of cybercrime. Our guide for the hour was digital forensics investigator Michael Perkin. Michael walked us through a couple of his cases (with all the specifics removed, of course) to give us a taste of how the bad guys were caught.

A case of defamation:

• A string of terrible allegations of was posted in a series of blog entries.

• The perpetrator then created a Gmail account to email the victim’s family, friends and colleagues links to the blog posts.

• Enter Michael. The first step in any digital investigation is the forensic acquisition of data. Never work from the original but make a full copy of all drives onto brand new, blank drives. Then the analysis can begin.

• Michael was able to analyze the email headers and trace the emails back to a specific internet provider. This is turn led back to the perpetrator, someone known to the victim.

• A judge  issued an ‘Anton Piller’ order—the search and seizure order from the civil side of law (as opposed to a standard criminal law order).

• The perpetrator had 30 minutes as the law allows to consult with his lawyer before the search could begin. He spent that entire time on his computer. When the computer was recovered, the desktop and documents folders on the hard drive were all blank. Except they really weren’t.

• Michael then drew the analogy of a hard drive being like a book (it was a writing conference after all!). The book has a table of contents and information on every page.

• The table of contents is what the computer considers the ‘master file table’—this keeps track of all the files on the computer.

• When the perpetrator deleted all the files, all he really did was remove the table of contents—the file index—leaving the information still in place.

• All Michael had to do was read through all the information on the drive and all the data required to convict the perpetrator was right there.

The complicated bounce:

• A computer at a company was suddenly locked out by a remote user.

• Michael came in to investigate, copied all the files, and analyzed the data.

• He discovered that the computer was accessed from another computer within the organization, which was accessed through another computer within the organization… rinse and repeat through numerous bounces.

• Michael was finally able to access the high value computer that was the actual target and discovered that data had been copied from it. But to where?

• In the end, it was the perpetrator’s printer that gave him up. No matter where he had bounced, each connection mapped back to his networked printer. So the final link in the chain could be mapped back to the perpetrator’s printer and, from there, to his computer and to him.

Bitcoin and its potential for cybercrime:

• Bitcoin is essentially a protocol. Just like email is a protocol to send messages over the Internet, Bitcoin is a protocol to send money over the Internet.

• Bitcoin has an address and a key, just like email has an address and a password. Both are an extremely long alphanumeric string.

• Bitcoin information can be stored on a computer, on a USB key, in a barcode, on a printout, or in your memory. This last is important as border crossings have a $10,000 limit to cross without reporting. But your Bitcoin account could contain millions of dollars and if you cross the border with the account and key memorized, you can circumvent reporting the money you ‘carry with you’.

• You can access your money from anywhere in the world. You can also send any amount of money to anywhere in the world.

• You could keep your printed Bitcoin key in a safety deposit box. Every time you deposit money into your Bitcoin account, you are essentially beaming it straight into that safety deposit box since it can’t be accessed without that key.

• People have accessed funds when in trouble simply by finding a public access—like television—and broadcasting their Bitcoin address in a 2D barcode with ‘Send Money’.

• Previous ID theft required a victim’s name, birthday, and social insurance number to steal your money. Now all that is required is your Bitcoin key.

Nifty facts about digital forensics:

• There are three types of space on a hard drive:

• Allocated space—sections of the drive used to hold files; these sections are listed in the table of contents/master file table.

• Unallocated space—sections of the drive that aren’t in use; these sections are not listed in the table of contents/master file table, but still may hold information.

• Slack space—Back to the book analogy: Suppose that a full page of information is deleted from the table of contents. That space is now considered unallocated. If half of that page is overwritten with new information (listed in the table of contents) the remaining half page of old information—the portion of the allocated space that is not used—is considered ‘slack space’.

• The only way to truly destroy data on a drive is to overwrite it multiple times. Data destruction software does this by simply writing 1’s and 0’s to the drive. Military protocol demands the drive be written over 10 times to consider the previous information truly ‘deleted’.

• If you truly need to secure your computer, take it off the internet and lock it in a room where only limited people have access through physical keys.

• Computers silently record everything we do through printer mapping, file edits, program usage and your browsing history (yes, even when you delete the cache). A skilled investigator can trace you through any of these pathways.

Photo credit: Benjamin Doe/Wikimedia Commons

Forensics 101: Fingerprinting Techniques

Today I’m continuing with my series of session reviews from Bloody Words XIII earlier this month in Toronto. I was interested in a session called CSI: Toronto, but when retired forensic identification specialist Wade Knaap arrived (with his graduate student apprentice) and started pulling out bottles of chemicals, I knew we were in for a treat. Sidenote—as a practicing scientist, I couldn’t help but wince every time Wade picked up his Tim Horton’s coffee in his gloved hand to take a sip. Just…no.

A Detective Constable for many years with the Toronto Police Service, Wade is now retired and teaching forensic identification at the University of Toronto. He spent an hour teaching us some of the tools of the trade when it came to fingerprint identification, specifically with latent prints—prints that are invisible to the naked eye until something is used to develop them.

First he dealt with fingerprints on a porous surface, i.e. paper, thermal cash register bills, currency.

Black magnetic powder: Investigators use a magnetic wand to pick up the fine magnetic powder (the powder comes in many shades, so there is always a contrasting shade available no matter what the background colour). The powder is gently swiped in a ciruclar motion over the latent print. The moisture in the print attracts the powder and the latent print is revealed. Unfortunately, any moisture will attract the powder in the same way, so if there is a latent print on a bottle with beer splashed over it, the powder will stick to the entire bottle. If a latent print is successfully detected and isolated, it can be lifted with tape to be photographed and entered into evidence.

Ninhydrin: This chemical reacts with the amino acids in fingerprints to produce a purple colour. A paper with a potential print is soaked in ninhydrin and allowed to air dry. Then the paper is exposed to steam. Any prints present will turn purple. These prints can then be further enhanced with a light source and photographed.

Wade then moved on to non-porous surfaces like a wall or solid object.

Cyanoacrylate (superglue): This is a popular one with the current forensics shows. You see them put an object with a potential print into a airtight box with a small tray of water and some superglue on a heated plate. As the plate temperature rises, the superglue vapourizes and the gaseous glue particles bind to the protein and amino acids in the fingerprint, polymerizing and plasticizing the print, creating a three dimensional permenant version. This procedure is very useful on handguns, where the gun oil required for regular maintenance would produce an extremely high background with most fingerprinting powders. If a dye is added to the superglue, a forensic light can be used to reveal the fingerprint. If the sample is in the field and can’t be moved into the lab, a portable cyanoacrylate torch can be used at the scene. However, great care must be taken as the temperature to vaporize the superglue is only somewhat below the temperature to produce deadly cyanide gas.

Amido black: This chemical is used solely for blood impressions that are too faint to see clearly or use for identifcation purposes. Faint impressions are sprayed with amido black and then the reaction is chemcially stopped. After a final rinse with water, the formerly faint impressions are a vivid permenant black.

Some fun facts about fingerprinting:

• Luminol is simply a blood locator that enhances small amounts of blood. It does not give big glowing prints like you commonly see in crime shows.

• Light sources can be very useful in finding bodily fluids. But unlike how this technique is fictiously used in crime shows, while it does light up semen or vaginal fluids, it will never light up blood spatter.

• None of the above tools are able to pull a reliable fingerprint from a live person without transferring that print first; there’s simply too much moisture. However you can do this from a cadaver using either magnetic powder or a process of iodine fuming and silver plate.

• Canada’s fingerprint database is run by the RCMP nationwide allowing for countrywide comparison. However, each state in the United States runs its own system, so to search outside an individual state, investigators must apply for national searches. A reciprocal agreement exists between Canada and the U.S to allow for open access for print searches between the two countries. Outside of Canada and the U.S., application must be made to Interpol for further searches.

• There are three types of prints: a deposited print (like a latent print from oily fingers), a takeaway impression (where, for instance, a dusty surface is touched and the dust is removed only from the point of contact), or a molded impression (if fingertips touch wet paint, leaving a 3D impression of the print behind).

• Canada recently issued new dollar bills made of polymer instead of paper. Porous techniques no longer apply to these new bills; instead, the superglue fuming technique must be used to develop latent prints.

• Unlike in CSI, overlapping prints cannot be taken apart and put back together to make a full print with multiple points of comparison. When prints overlap, the only parts of the print that are usable are the sections that are completely isolated and not in contact with any other print. This greatly decresases the chances of successfully identifying the print.

Next week, I’ll be back with my final forensics session review when I’m going to talk about cybercrime and the new threat presented by Bitcoin.

Forensics 101: A Primer on Blood

I’m recently back from the final Bloody Words crime writer’s conference, so, over the next few weeks, I’m going to share some of the fascinating information I learned at some of the panels I attended. This is the third time I’ve attended this conference, and while they always excelled at having lots of sessions pertaining to writing, they also had multiple sessions on forensics and procedure, taught by in-the-field professionals.

The first session of the conference was forensic hematology, presented by Margo French, a medical lab technologist. Margot has worked in the field of hematology (the study of blood, its cells and organs and blood-oriented diseases) for decades. She has been called as a trial witness on many occasions, so she’s familiar with lab techniques in criminal investigations.

Blood basics:

Blood can be broken down into two components—liquid and cellular. The liquid component, the plasma, makes up 55% of the total blood volume, with the combined cells making up the remaining 45%. 

Red blood cells (RBC):

• RBCs are the overwhelming cellular component in blood, making up about 60% of the total cellular volume. A single drop of blood has approximately 3.4 million RBCs.

• RBCs are the only cells in the body that are non-nucleated (have no DNA in the form of chromosomes). Cells develop in the bone marrow and start off having nuclei, but when they leave the marrow 7 days later, they are non-nucleated. Nucleated RBCs in the blood stream are destroyed by the spleen.

• RBCs live for approximately 120 days.

• The main purpose of RBCs is to carry oxygen to the tissues and carbon dioxide from the tissue. To accomplish this task, RBCs contain hemoglobin to bind the compounds for transfer within the body.

• The key to gas transport is the iron ions that are an integral part of the hemoglobin molecule. The iron you’re born with can stay with you for life, and is constantly recycled during your lifetime. When RBCs are destroyed, a type of white blood cell called a macrophage uptakes the iron and transports it back to the storage pool for reuse.

White blood cells (WBC):

• WBCs make up approximately 20% of the total cellular volume. A single drop of blood normally contains between 3,500 and 8,000 WBCs.

• The WBC complement is part of the human immune system and is made up of lymphocytes (including natural killer cells, T cells and B cells), basophils and eosinophils.

• WBCs vary in size based on cell type, but are generally about twice the size of a RBC.

• The life span of different WBCs also vary, but lymphocytes can live for years. Lymphocytes are the cells that recognize specific pathogens and, in the presence of a pathogen, will signal and then mount an immune response against it.

Platelets:

• Platelets are not intact cells. They are actually tiny pieces of cytoplasm from bone marrow cells called megakaryocytes.

• Platelets are approximately 1/4 the size of a RBC and 1/8 the size of a WBC.

• Platelets make up approximately 20% of the total cellular volume. Because of their size, a single drop of blood contains 150 – 400 million platelets.

• Platelets work with coagulation factors to stop bleeding. When the skin is cut, RBCs rushing to the site form a mesh. Platelets arrive at the site, swell, and become sticky. They then enter the mesh, filling the holes and creating a solid barrier, stopping the outward flow of blood.

Plasma:

• Composed of 95% water, plasma also contains proteins, clotting factors, hormones, electrolytes and glucose.

• Its main function is as the medium that holds the blood cells in suspension, and allows the flow and transport of cells, nutrients, and waste products around the body.

Some interesting facts about blood in criminal investigations:

• While thought to be a modern investigative tool, the chemical locator ‘Luminol’ dates back to 1901.

• The first time blood analysis was used as part of an investigation was in 1937.

• Blood and fingerprinting used to be an investigator’s primary identification tools. But both techniques have been eclipsed in recent years by DNA, as this is the only technique which can completely exclude a suspect (all other tests have a certain percentage of false negatives).

• Information carried in the blood can denote blood type to include or exclude suspect. DNA obtained from white blood cells can be used for definitive identification.

• The difference between many species and human blood is not easily discernable, so serology—the study of human plasma—is used to identify human blood.

• Blood is also used for chemical testing, i.e. blood alcohol and bloody glucose analysis.

• While not covered in this blog post, blood at a crime scene can indicate the mechanics of the crime, i.e. bloody carrying or spatter.

 Next week, we’re going to look at fingerprinting techniques, especially when investigators are faced with latent (invisible) prints.

Forensic Case Files: How Shakespeare Changed History (or The Continuing Story of Richard III)

A 3D approximation of the articulated skeleton of Richard IIIIt’s a story we’ve been following for a while. In October of 2012, we covered the discovery of historic human remains under a parking lot in Leicester. Because of the physical characteristics of those remains—primarily an extremely curved spinal column—it was suggested that they were the remains of King Richard III, killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field, during the War of the Roses against Henry Tudor (later Henry VII and the beginning of the Tudor line that would include Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I). In February of 2013, it was confirmed that those remains were indeed those of Richard III when scientists successfully matched his mitochondrial DNA—DNA consistently passed only through the female line of a family—to the mitochondrial DNA of relatives through Richard’s sister’s line.

Just last week, the University of Leicester announced that it had completed its studies on Richard’s spinal column and determined that the king’s spine showed 65 to 85 degrees of scoliosis, curving the spine to his right. A modern day patient with that degree of scoliosis would be an excellent candidate for surgery; in the fifteenth century, this was not yet an option. However, with the skilled help of both a tailor and master armorer, the deformity could have been minimized or even completely camouflaged (minus one shoulder sitting slightly higher than the other). Richard’s skeletal remains also show no evidence of a withered arm or a limp, both part of the Richard III legend. In fact, one needs to keep in mind that Richard was a skilled soldier, able to fight on horseback with both sword and shield—an act someone with a major deformity might not be able accomplish.

It is clear now that Richard, while having a spinal deformity, was never a hunchback. So where did that picture of the king come from? No mention is made of Richard the hunchback until 1598 by Shakespeare: First in Henry VI: “an envious mountain on my back, / Where sits deformity to mock my body” (Act 3, scene ii) and later in Richard III, where Queen Elizabeth describes him as “that foule hunch-backt toade” (Act 4, scene iv). But considering that Shakespeare wasn’t a contemporary of Richard III, and was, in fact, born nearly 100 years after Richard’s death, where did this information come from? From the men who were writing the history of the time—the Tudors—who had a vested interest in showing Richard in the most negative light possible.

History is written by the victors. In this case, the Tudors used The Bard to smear a predecessor so successfully that over 400 years later, that unsupported history still lingers and, for many, the view of Richard as a hunchbacked monster responsible for the death of his two nephews, The Princes in the Tower, remains to this day.

Photo credit: The University of Leicester

Forensic Case Files: 13,000 Year Old Skeleton Shines Light on the Geographic Origins of North American Peoples

An article last week in the journal Science revealed the discovery of a 12,000 year old skeleton in Mexico, one of the oldest human remains discovered in North America. The article made a big splash on campus at McMaster University as one of the researchers, Ed Reinhardt, is a Geography and Earth Sciences professor here.

Twelve thousand years ago, much of North America was covered by glaciers. But Mexico was free of the glaciers’ icy hold, making it a suitable habitat for some of North America’s indigenous people. One particular group settled on the coast of what is now known as the Yucatan peninsula.

What happened that one day so many millennia is clear; CSI couldn’t have put it together better. A teenaged girl of 15 or 16 years of age was exploring a subterranean cave, perhaps with only the light of a torch, probably searching for fresh water. When the ground suddenly fell away beneath her feet, she fell more than 160 feet to her death. It was an all-too-common mistake—her remains were found mixed with those of a saber tooth tiger, a giant ground sloth, a bobcat, a coyote, and a gomphothere (an elephant-like creature, extinct for approximately 9,000 years).

As the glaciers receded, and the sea levels rose, the cave system filled with salt water, entombing those lost in the dark below. But science recently discovered the cave systems and experienced divers, Dr. Reinhardt among them, retrieved the girl’s remains. The girl, christened Naia by the team, was determined to have lived between 12,600 and 12,900 years ago not only by her own remains, but also by the rocks and sediment recovered around her.

The most fascinating data to come from the study of this young woman concerns her heritage. Researchers extracted ancient tooth pulp from one of her molars (in a similar method as used to identify the plague from Black Death victims) to profile her mitochondrial DNA. Researchers discovered that Naia was not only related to modern North American aboriginal peoples, but also to the Siberian-based population from which is it believed that all indigenous North Americans arose.

The shape of Naia’s skull is distinctly different from modern North American aboriginals, indicating that while the their common ancestors crossed the narrow land bridge to North America, traveling between North America’s dual glaciers to settled in Central America, genetically, the two peoples evolved different phenotypic characteristics afterward.

Scientists are now attempting to sequence Naia’s entire genome to discover what other genetic connections this long lost girl might reveal to modern man.

Photo credit: Roberto Chavez Arce and Science

Forensic Case Files: 9/11 Victims' Final Resting Place

Last year, we did a series of blog posts on 9/11—mass fatality accidents, identifying human remains, the challenges in naming the victims, and the ongoing evidence still being uncovered around the site. A little over a week ago, on May 10^th, one of the final chapters of the 9/11 story was written as the final unidentified victims were moved back to Ground Zero to become part of the September 11^th Memorial Museum, a permanent part of the Ground Zero site.

Thirteen years after the tragedy, 1,115 or 41% of the 2,753 lost souls have yet to be positively identified by DNA, despite the fact the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York held 7,930 fragmentary samples of unmatched human remains. Due to the condition of these samples—many were badly degraded by the heat of the fire or ground to less than a 1/16” in size during the building collapses—DNA testing was either impossible or inconclusive, despite the samples given by family members for comparison.

Enclosed in three caskets, these final unidentified remains were escorted in the early morning hours through the streets of New York City by an honour guard made up from members of the New York Fire Department, the New York Police Department, and the New York Port Authority. Upon arriving at Ground Zero, they were transferred to a repository at bedrock level in the museum, 70 feet below the street. Walled off from the exhibition space, only staff of the medical examiner’s office and family members will be allowed access to the facility.

The decision to make this the victims’ final resting place raises mixed emotions in family members of those lost. Many feel the final remains of their loved ones have become part of a ‘dog-and-pony show’ tourist attraction, and have also raised concerns about the possibilities of flooding in the subterranean location. But many others feel that Ground Zero is an appropriate resting place for the victims that lost their lives there, that the museum is a place of reflection, respect and education, and the victims are a crucial part of the 9/11 experience.

Forensic scientists remain hopeful that these remains may yet be identified. New scientific techniques are constantly being developed, and many samples that would have been impossible to identify in 2001 are now excellent candidates for matching. The hope is, given time and scientific advances, many more of the remaining fragments will be identified and the victims finally returned to their families.

As an aside, for those who are interested, The New York Times has an excellent interactive tour of the museum here: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/05/14/arts/design/September-11-Memorial-Museum.html. It's well worth the time to read.

Photo credit: Peter Foley/European Pressphoto Agency

The Launch of A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH

Last Friday, May 9^th, I held the launch party for A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH at A Different Drummer Books in Burlington, a bookshop near Toronto that has been a local landmark for over forty years.

As a thank you to our friends, family and readers who came out to the event, I’d prepared a book lovers’ gift basket to raffle off with everything you might want for an evening with your favourite new book—a bottle of wine, chocolate, gourmet cookies, tea, hot chocolate, scented candles, and chocolate covered coffee beans for those nights you absolutely have to stay up to finish! Also, Ian Elliot, the very kind owner of A Different Drummer Books and an all-around great sport, donated a gift certificate to the book store so the lucky winner could pick up more literary goodies.

It was a nice kick to walk into the bookstore to see a stack of our titles:

With the help of family and some very generous friends, there were some lovely refreshments:

I read an except from the beginning of the novel as the team discovers the body that starts this case. Because the main floor of the bookstore was crowded, I got to read from the landing. I felt like Juliet…

After that, we did the signing and mingling. For a while, the bookstore was at full capacity, but later in the evening, the crowd thinned out a bit so you could move around.

(That’s my youngest with her phone glued to her hand…)

Can I just say how surreal it is to have your kindergarten teacher come out to your book launch? She was thrilled to reconnect with one of her students and it was lovely to see her (in black, in the foreground of this photo):

Thanks to Ian at A Different Drummer Books for being such a great host for us that evening, and thanks to everyone who took the time out of their busy evenings to come out and share in the launch. We all had a great time!

How Readers Can Support Their Favourite Authors

Before we start into this week’s blog post, for friends and readers in the Southern Ontario area, you are cordially invited to the launch party for A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH. Please join me at A Different Drummer Books (513 Locust Street in Burlington) on Friday May 9^th at 7pm. Hope to see you there!

And to celebrate the launch of A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH, the preceding novella, NO ONE SEES ME ‘TIL I FALL, will be available for FREE on Amazon starting tomorrow. So if you missed it and want to catch up, don’t wait—this offer ends on May 11^th!

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It’s a question we’ve heard a lot lately from friends and readers—how can I help with your new book? As authors, we’re very grateful for help when we’re promoting a new release. Many of us are already neck deep in our next manuscript (or the next one after that, if you’re us) and time is a precious commodity. Many hands make for light work, so we’re very appreciative for any and all assistance. Especially right now when A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH is newly available everywhere!

How can readers support the authors they love (and not only at release time)?

• Buy their books: On behalf of authors everywhere, thank you for buying our books! If you pre-order an author’s book, that confirms with bookstores that they should stock it. And once you’ve found an author you like, buying from their back catalogue is another great way to support them.

• Donate a book to your local library: Maybe it’s an author you love, but their latest release isn’t a genre you enjoy. Donate your copy of their book to a library where other readers will enjoy it.

• Request your local library to purchase the book to add to their catalogue: If you’ve already blown your book budget for the month, request new books from your library. Especially for authors who are just starting out, this is a great way to be discovered by new readers. Authors love libraries and this is a great, free way to lend your support. The more requests a library gets, the more copies they might buy.

• Give their books as gifts: This not only supports authors, but also booksellers as well.

• Review the book: Word of mouth is one of the strongest ways to promote a book these days, so write a review for Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Chapters/Indigo.

• Join the author’s street team: I had a kick ass street team for A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH. This team of fantastic readers got access to the book four or five months early and have been instrumental in talking up our books early and through the opening weeks.

• Use social media: If you’re looking forward to a book, or you’ve just read a book you love, tweet or Facebook or blog about that book. Social media sites are a great way to promote both the author and their books.

• Let the author know you enjoyed the book: Either with a tweet, a FB message or an email, a quick word from a happy reader can give an author the kick they need to pound out another 1,000 words on their latest manuscript, or even just put a spring in their step for the day.

 On behalf of Ann and myself (and, really, authors everywhere), a huge thank you to all our readers for all they do for us. We really, really couldn’t do it without you!

Photo Credit: Kate Ter Haar

How to Survive a Public Reading

This past Thursday, I took part in an event sponsored by the Crime Writers of Canada. Twelve local crime writers read from their novels at a large Indigo bookstore in Toronto as part of the Arthur Ellis Shortlist Events, celebrating the best in Canadian crime writing.

For many authors, the thought of doing a public reading makes them weak in the knees. Confession—I’m definitely one of these authors. I prefer to hide behind my keyboard rather than actually come out and talk about my work. But part of modern life as an author is interacting with readers, so we go out and do just that. And, honestly, meeting new readers is really fun. It’s just a matter of getting over the nerves of putting yourself out there.

So what can authors do to have a successful reading?

Don’t take yourself too seriously: If you stumble over a word or two, or flip one page too far, world peace isn’t at risk. Just laugh at yourself and move on.

Practice, practice, practice: Entertaining readers know how to work the text by adding intonation and pacing as they read, so practice what you’ll be reading ahead of time. Author Melodie Campbell, who read from her hilarious new novella, The Goddaughter’s Revenge, is a master at keeping the audience enthralled (and in stiches).

Make eye contact with members of the audience: Audiences prefer interaction with an author who doesn’t bury her nose in her book while she reads. Lisa De Nikolits, reading from The Witchdoctor’s Bones, connected wonderfully with the audience, drawing us into both her story and her love of Africa. Now, this doesn’t mean you have to memorize your material, but it is where the previous point comes in handy, allowing the time to look up occasionally because you already know where your sentence is going. If looking up to a room of strangers gives you the willies, ask someone you know to come along to be the safe person in the room and just read to them.

Try to use humour whenever possible: Following their reading, each author was asked why they write crime fiction. The often irreverent Rick Blechta, author of The Boom Room, replied that he wrote crime because he just wasn’t any good at romance, and whenever he wrote sex scenes, his wife laughed at them.

Use the opportunity to whet the audience’s appetite: A number of different authors used different methods to accomplish this goal. Gina Buonaguro, author of The Wolves of St. Peter’s, started at the very beginning of the story so the audience discovered the body of a drowned girl alongside the protagonist.

Cathy Astolfo used passages from Sweet Karoline to touch specifically on sections illustrating fascinating points of the protagonist’s psyche. From the moment Cathy started with ‘I met Ethan on the day that I killed Karoline’, the audience was hooked.

I always like to use an early turning point from Dead, Without a Stone to Tell It in my readings—what happens when you go looking for a murder victim and find a different one instead?

Leave the audience wanting more: If you want the audience to be intrigued enough to scoop up your latest release, leave them on a cliff-hanger. Rosemary McCracken wisely left the audience hanging with her excerpt from Black Water.

Thanks to all the immensely talented authors reading with me that night, as well as for the audience members who attended the event. A very good time was had by all!

I’m at Onmimytery News this week, talking about why I write crime fiction. Stop by to see why TV shows like Bones, CSI and NCIS inspired me to write forensics in the real world: Why Write Forensic Crime Fiction

Photo credit: Bradford Dunlop, Rob Brunet, and Tanis Mallow.

The eBook of A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH Is Out!

Amazon has the hardcover version of A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH listed for May 9^th release, but we’re happy to announce that the ebook version is now available! So for those who are looking for instant gratification, you can find the Kindle version of book 3 of the Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries for a cheap and cheerful $3.19: A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH. If you'd like to wait for the hardcover version, Amazon currently has it for pre-order at nearly 40% off here. For Canadian readers, Chapters/Indigo is carrying the book online and in store. And if you’re thinking ‘Book 3? What happened to book 2?’, our series novella, NO ONE SEES ME ‘TIL I FALL, is available for Kindle here. There's still time to catch up if you've only read DEAD, WITHOUT A STONE TO TELL IT so far!

For those who are wondering if they’d like to try the novel Kirkus called ‘A tricky mystery rich in intriguing suspects and forensic detail’, here’s a sneak peek at the first chapter. Enjoy!

CHAPTER ONE:

      FIRE POINT

Fire Point: the temperature at which a fuel produces enough vapor so it continues to burn after ignition.

Sunday, 1:24 p.m.
Harborview Restaurant
Boston, Massachusetts

Sunlight sparkled in lightning-quick flashes on the open ocean as a lone black-backed gull soared on outstretched wings, motionless on the breeze. In the harbor, sailboats unfurled yards of canvas to the cool fall winds, while high above the water, the historic Customs House Tower stood watch over the busy port below.

Inside the restaurant, wide panels of sunlight fell across linen-draped tables set with china and silver. The air was fragrant with garlic and peppercorn as a low buzz of conversation filled the room, punctuated by bursts of laughter and the clatter of dishes.

“And then he jammed his gun in his pants to make a run for it. But while he was wedging it under his belt, it went off and he shot himself in the foot.” Leigh Abbott paused to sip her mimosa. “After that, the foot chase was pretty much a technicality, what with all the limping and whimpering.”

Matt Lowell chuckled as he set his knife and fork on the edge of his empty plate. “I shouldn’t be laughing, should I?”

“Because he’s a murder suspect?” One corner of her mouth tipped up in an almost reluctant smile. “Welcome to cop humor; it’s how we survive the job. This guy was a mistake waiting to happen from the second it occurred to him he could have the family business all to himself after his father died. He just needed to kill his brother to get it. He left a trail of clues a blindfolded rookie could follow.”

Matt’s smile slowly melted away, his face growing serious. “You deserve an easy case. After the last few weeks . . .”

His voice trailed off, but Leigh understood, even without words.

A Trooper First Class with the Massachusetts State Police, Leigh was a member of the Essex County Detective Unit, headquartered in Salem. When a single human bone was found in a coastal salt marsh the previous month, she’d approached Dr. Matthew Lowell in his capacity as a forensic anthropologist at Boston University to help identify the victim. What began with a single set of remains rapidly spiraled into ten murder victims, all dead at the hands of a man determined to see how far he could twist the human mind. Their teamwork solved the puzzle, but the case nearly cost them their lives. Mere weeks later, they’d joined forces again for their second case together, a chilling tale of trust gone horribly wrong.

“This case couldn’t have been more different,” Leigh stated. “You’re right—it was a welcome change of pace after Bradford. Still, I’m sorry I had to cancel dinner last week. Between court and this case—” She broke off as Matt covered her hand with his.

“Don’t worry about it. I understand the job takes priority sometimes. Besides, we traded dinner for Sunday brunch, so it all worked out.”

With a quick flick of his head, he shook his untrimmed dark hair out of his eyes, briefly exposing the thick ridge of scar tissue running into his hair from his temple.

At a sudden shriek, Leigh jerked her hand free, reaching for the weapon that normally rode her hip. But even as her fingers touched soft wool instead of hard metal, her body relaxed as she quickly assessed the harmless scene across the room where a young woman had knocked over a glass of red wine.

Leigh’s gaze drifted back to Matt to find his eyes fixed on her. “What?”

He sat with his elbows braced on the table, watching her over his steepled hands. “You can’t turn it off, can you? You can’t just go out socially and let it all go. Even when a case is closed.”

Embarrassed heat flushed her cheeks at his continued examination. “It’s not like it’s a switch you throw when the clock hits five. Cops are always on duty.” Stubbornness stiffened her spine and she met his gaze head on. “Apparently you can’t turn it off either. You’re studying me like I’m one of your bones.”

“Just trying to figure you out, that’s all.” Reaching out, Matt tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. As his hand pulled away, he ran his fingertips along the curve of her jaw in a subtle caress. “You’re an intriguing puzzle.”

Her eyes locked with his and her stomach gave a slow, sexy roll of anticipation at the heat in his expression. “No one’s ever called me ‘intriguing’ before.”

“I like to think of you as a gift that needs to be unwrapped one layer at a—” Matt frowned as a muffled ring came from the suit jacket draped over the back of his chair. “Sorry, I need to see who’s calling.”

Leigh’s senses instantly went on alert when he froze, his gaze fixed on the name of the caller displayed on-screen. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I think I have to take this.”

The edge in his voice made the back of her neck prickle in alarm. “Is it one of your students?”

“No, it’s the Massachusetts State Police.”

“Calling you?” The words burst out, cutting through the buzz of conversation around them. Leigh purposely lowered her voice when several heads turned in their direction. “Why are they calling you?”

“I’m as baffled as you are.” He answered the call. “Lowell.”

Leigh leaned forward, trying to catch any trace of the other end of the conversation.

Maddeningly, Matt relaxed back in his chair even as he cocked an eyebrow at her. “Sergeant Kepler, what a surprise,” he said into the phone.

Only her white-knuckled stranglehold on the edge of the table kept Leigh from leaping to her feet to listen in on why her superior officer was calling Matt. If it was something to do with the Bradford case, he’d have surely gone through her instead.

Matt was silent for a long time as he listened, his hazel eyes fixed on her. “This request comes straight from Dr. Rowe?”

Rowe? Someone had to be dead for the medical examiner to be involved, but the remains must be in bad shape if Rowe was personally requesting Matt’s expertise.

“Whose case is it?” Matt’s eyes suddenly went arctic-cold as his casual air of relaxation dropped away. “No.” The single word was whiplash sharp. “That’s exactly what I mean. I’m not working with him. If you and Rowe want me on this case, you need to transfer it to Trooper Abbott.”

Leigh recognized that stubborn tone; she’d run headlong into it several times—Matt was digging in his heels and wasn’t about to budge.

“Actually my request is quite logical,” he continued. “Trooper Abbott and I had a rough start, but we learned how to work together. She’s familiar now with how my lab operates, and she knows my students and how we process evidence. It would waste my time to have to train a new officer.” There was a pause, and Matt’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Those are my terms, Sergeant. If you want my help on the case, have Trooper Abbott call me with the details.” He abruptly ended the call, his expression grim.

“What was that about?” Leigh demanded.

“Kepler wants me to consult on another case. There’s been a fire in Salem in one of the historical shopping districts. You probably know it—Wharf Street? The body recovered is so badly burned that Rowe needs a forensic anthropologist. He asked for me specifically.”

“That’s no surprise—you work well together. But why do you need me?”

“It’s Morrison’s case,” Matt said shortly. His open palm slapped down on the table hard enough to rattle silver and crystal. “I’ve got the right guy, don’t I? Isn’t he the Neanderthal who gives you a hard time at the detective unit?”

Leigh let out a resigned sigh. “Yes. That’s him.” She met his eyes to be sure he understood without question. “Don’t interfere, Matt. I can handle him on my own.”

“I’m sure you can. But I’m not working with him. And that’s my call to make.”

“Look, you don’t have to—”

Her phone rang.

Matt crossed his arms over his chest, his eyebrows raised in challenge. “Better get that.”

Leigh pointed an accusing finger at him. “You stay quiet. Kepler doesn’t know we’re seeing each other. He wouldn’t approve of me—”

“Fraternizing with your consultant? Too damned bad.” When her glare threatened frostbite to delicate parts of his anatomy, he mimed locking his lips and tossing the imaginary key over his shoulder.

She rolled her eyes and answered the call. “Abbott. Yes, sir.” She slipped a hand into the breast pocket of her jacket, pulled out a notepad and pen, and scribbled quickly. “Yes, I know where that is. I’ll let him know and meet him there.” She clicked off and gestured to the waitress for the check. “Kepler’s pissed.”

“He’s used to giving orders, but he’s not used to someone refusing them.” Matt pulled his jacket off the chair and shrugged into it. “Look, I understand they need help, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to work shoulder-to-shoulder with Morrison. You and I, we’ve developed a rhythm. On top of that, you value my students. If I’m going to bring them into another case, I need to know they’ll be treated well. And I know you’ll work as hard as me to keep them safe.”

“You’re still thinking about the salt marsh.”

He bristled, his shoulders pulling tight and his mouth flattening into a thin line. “I took them into the field and they were shot at. They could have been killed.”

She lightly brushed her fingertips over the back of his hand. “We’ll keep them safe. Are you bringing them in now? Or do you want to see the site on your own first?”

“I’ll bring them in now. My students are familiar with the concepts of burned remains from class, but this will take them from theory to practice. To do that properly, they need to see the remains in situ. And the extra eyes will help.” He met her gaze. “Have you ever dealt with remains like this before?”

“No.”

“Then you need to be prepared. They can be horrific, both by sight and smell.”

She grimaced. “Thanks for the warning. Are your students going to be able to handle it?”

“They’ll be fine. They held up before, didn’t they?”

“They were great.” Leigh looked out over the harbor. Suddenly the day seemed so much darker than ten minutes ago. “I was really looking forward to getting out on the Charles this afternoon,” she said. “It’s the perfect fall day for it—not too cool and not so breezy that the water would be rough and I’d tip us.”

“If I can’t keep the boat upright, then I need to put in a lot more time at the oars. I promise I’ll take you out in the scull first chance we get.” The waitress approached but before Leigh could reach for the bill, Matt slid the young woman his credit card. When Leigh objected, he simply held up a silencing finger. “My treat. You’re not going to insist on splitting everything down the middle, are you?”

“No. But you shouldn’t have to pick up the check every time we go out. You paid the last time.”

“We’ve only been out a few times, so your representative sample is too small to be statistically significant. I chose this place and it’s not cheap, so I should pick up the tab. Also, I suspect a professor’s salary beats a cop’s, so it’s not fair to stick you with the check when I picked the expensive restaurant.”

She glared at him, but remained silent.

“As I thought. You get the next one, okay?” He tucked his card back into his wallet and stood. “Rowe must be using this as another demonstration. Will he still be there when we arrive?”

Leigh rose from her chair. “I’m not sure, but I’ll find out. He may not be able to stick around that long.”

“It’s a good thing we came in two cars. You head back now; I’ll go pick up my students. We’ll be there by two-fifteen or two-thirty at the latest. They’ll hold the scene until then?”

“Yes. When remains are found in a fire, it’s officially designated a crime scene and nothing gets moved until the crime scene techs and the ME get there. The techs are probably on their way right now.”

“Then let’s go.” He circled the table to lay his hand at the small of her back as they headed for the exit. “We’ve got a scene to process.”

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For those in the Toronto area, please join me and eleven other authors from the Crime Writers of Canada for a reading at the Manulife Indigo (55 Bloor Street West) at 7pm as part of the Arthur Ellis Awards shortlist event. More details can be found on MC Nate Hendley’s blog: http://crimestory.wordpress.com/2014/04/14/crime-writers-read-at-april-24-event-in-toronto/ Hope to see you there!

Human Remains in a Fire Scene

When human remains are found in a fire scene, the most important question is if the victim died of natural causes before the fire, was killed prior to the fire, or died as a result of the fire. Depending on the extent of damage to the body’s soft tissues, a coroner or medical examiner may be able to advise investigators. In some cases, a forensic anthropologist will need to be called in as a consultant.

When considering how to handle burned remains, the Crow-Glassman Scale (CGS) is a standardized sliding scale to describe the extent of burn injury:

• CGS-1: a typical smoke inhalation death, including some burning and blistering of the skin. Visual identification is possible.

• CGS-2: significant charring to the body, potentially including loss of the small bones of the hands and feet. Identification can be made by dental records and antemortem features of the deceased.

• CGS-3: increased destruction of the body, although the skull is still intact. Visual identification is impossible at this stage and even large bones of the body may be disarticulated (larger arm or leg bones). Possible identification by dental records and/or DNA. A forensic anthropologist may be required to determine age, race and gender based on the skeleton.

• CGS-4: total fragmentation of the skull and additional disarticulation of arm and leg bones from the body. A forensic anthropologist is required for any possible identification.

• CGS-5: completely cremated remains. There is no remaining soft tissue and any remaining skeletal components are fragmentary. Identification based on the remains themselves is highly problematic.

In A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH, it is the discovery of a CGS-3 body that requires the expertise of Boston University’s Dr. Matt Lowell. When Matt finds out that Trooper Leigh Abbott is not on the case, he balks until she is assigned and the team is brought together once again.

If a body falls into the first two CGS categories, a medical examiner should be able to determine based on soft tissue if the victim was alive at the time of the fire:

1. If the victim was alive and breathing during the fire, he or she would inhale carbon monoxide produced as a by-product of the fire. Carbon monoxide binds to the hemoglobin in the blood producing the stable complex carboxyhemoglobin, displacing oxygen and leading to chemical suffocation because of insufficient oxygen delivery to the tissues of the body. Carboyxhemoglobin can be measured in blood; any level above 50% is considered lethal, although death has been shown to occur anywhere in the range of 20 – 80%, depending on the age and health of the victim.
2. If the victim was alive and breathing in hot gases from the fire, the soft tissues in the throat will show a) soot deposits, and b) evidence of searing from the hot combustion gases. Soot can also be inhaled to such an extent as to cause mechanical suffocation.

If the victim does not show signs of fire-related death, then it falls to the medical examiner or a forensic anthropologist, depending on the extent of the burn injuries, to determine probable cause of death. In CGS-1 and most CGS-2 cases, a regular autopsy will suffice. But CGS-3 and CGS-4 cases require the knowledge and skills of a forensic anthropologist.

One of the biggest difficulties in determining cause of death in burned bodies is the fact that bones fracture in the intense heat of a fire. So differentiating perimortem (at the time of death) vs. post-mortem (after death) injuries is crucial. In the following lab scene from A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH, Matt explains the difference to Leigh:

“First, you need to understand the difference between fractures in wet and dry bone so you can tell perimortem fractures from postmortem fractures. I know you’re familiar with kerf marks and how a solid object passing through bone leaves an imprint behind. In the same way, heat-induced fractures leave their own microscopic and macroscopic signatures. Using these signatures, we can reconstruct both what happened and the order in which the injuries occurred. The challenge in this case is the conformational changes that occur in bone exposed to extreme heat—it changes shape so you can’t simply fit the pieces back together cleanly. But the crucial point is that once there is an existing first fracture in a bone, a second break can’t cross it. That’s how you can map the order of injury.”

“Handy,” Leigh said. “But can you tell if a break was there before the fire?”

“Yes. Heat fractures are only formed under specific circumstances—the bone dehydrates causing it to warp and shrink. When that stress becomes excessive, it results in an abrupt break similar to a sharp force trauma fracture.”

“Doesn’t that cause problems, then? How can you tell between fire damage and sharp force trauma?”

“It’s a challenge,” Matt agreed. “But wet bone behaves differently. First, heat-induced fractures only happen in dry bone—bone that’s charred black or calcined. Normal bone doesn’t fracture from heat stress because the moisture content gives it too much resilience.”

Leigh swiveled to stare at the bones on the gurney. “So if there’s a fracture in uncharred bone, it happened before the fire.”

“Exactly.”

It is this analysis, confirmed by electron microscopy to corroborate fracture speed that helps the team determine the method of the victim’s death.

We hope you’ve all enjoyed this series of posts on fire investigations. It’s a fascinating subject and it certainly added an extra level of complexity to the case for our team!

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A reminder to our readers that A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH releases April 18th and be available shortly thereafter. This is the third installment in the Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries, following DEAD, WITHOUT A STONE TO TELL IT, and the e-novella, NO ONE SEES ME ‘TIL I FALL.

Photo credit: p.Gordon

Challenges of Evidence Collection After A Fire

After a fire, a criminal investigation is officially launched if arson is suspected or when suspicious human remains are found. The biggest challenge in such an investigation is the scene itself, and the fact that much of the evidence is likely destroyed. But, sometimes surprisingly, robust evidence can still be recovered.

• Fingerprints: Fingerprints are an organic slurry of amino acids and fats mixed with inorganic compounds. As with most organic compounds, they are at high risk of damage or destruction from both radiant and direct heat, water from hoses, and the soot and ash accompanying the smoke plume and the actual fire. Patent impressions (prints visible to the naked eye, often a transfer from a substance like ink or blood) can sometimes survive, even when the surface on which they are found is scorched or charred but still intact. In fact, some prints become even more ‘set’ with the fire’s heat. Modern detection methods—like chemical developers and lasers—are so superior to previous forensic tools that they can expose even heat-denatured prints. In some cases, the heat will bake the print, causing the oils in it to darken, turning it from a latent print (invisible to the naked eye without some form of detection method) to a patent print.

• Tool impressions: Materials melt at different temperatures during a fire. So, while wood will ignite in the presence of flame at 350^oC, aluminum won’t melt until 660^oC, steel at 1430^oC, and iron at 1535^oC. Tool impressions made in higher melting temperature metals may very well survive the fire completely intact.

• Fragment matches: In non-fire scenarios, the physical matching of fragments—rope, tape, fabric, concrete or glass—can connect a killer to his victim, or can assist in establishing a sequence of events. Even fire-damaged materials, if the edges are not badly disintegrated, can assist with this aspect of the investigation. Most glass in a fire is shattered by force or thermal shock, but as long as the majority of the fragments can be recovered, reconstruction of the original structure and matching of adjacent fragments can still be achieved.

• Trace Evidence: This type of evidence, depending on the type, is the most frequently lost as a result of fire. Nevertheless much trace evidence can still exist, based on protected areas on a body or in the scene. Fiber, hair, paint samples, and soil can all be recovered from fire scenes, given the right circumstances.

• Blood/DNA: Unless the body is nearly or completely charred to ash, the opportunity exists to extract blood from one of the cardiac chambers as they are well protected by the torso during the fire. An alternative strategy is to harvest tissue from deep within the quadriceps muscle of the thigh for DNA extraction. In A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH, Massachusetts Medical Examiner Dr. Edward Rowe suggests both of these methods while the team is trying to identify burned remains. 

Next week, we’ll look more deeply into the damage fire does to the human body. When a victim is found in a fire, how can investigators identify the remains and determine the cause of death? We’ll be back next week with more…

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A reminder to our readers that A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH releases April 18th and be available shortly thereafter. This is the third installment in the Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries, following DEAD, WITHOUT A STONE TO TELL IT, and the e-novella, NO ONE SEES ME ‘TIL I FALL.

Photo credit: Public Domain Photos