A Conversation On: Crime Scene Forensics
If only the real world worked like it does on CSI.
THE LAZARUS FILE
by Matthew McGough | The Atlantic | June 2011
In 1986, a young nurse named Sherri Rasmussen was murdered in Los Angeles. Police pinned down no suspects, and the case gradually went cold. It took 23 years—and revolutionary breakthroughs in forensic science—before LAPD detectives could finally assemble the pieces of the puzzle. When they did, they found themselves facing one of the unlikeliest murder suspects in the city’s history.
BEYOND C.S.I.: THE RISE OF COMPUTATIONAL FORENSICS
by Sargur Srihari | IEEE Spectrum | December 2010
On 6 May 2004, a Portland, Oregon, lawyer named Brandon Mayfield was arrested for his alleged involvement in the terrorist bombings of four commuter trains in Madrid. The attacks killed 191 people and injured 2000 others. But Mayfield had never been to Spain, and his passport at the time was expired. The sole evidence against him was a partial fingerprint found on a plastic bag in a van used by the bombers. The FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System had identified Mayfield as a possible match, and three FBI fingerprint experts as well as an outside analyst confirmed the identification.