Speaker 1: Mother Knows Death Presents External Exams with Nicole and Jimmy.
Speaker 2: Hi, guys, welcome to this week's episode of Mother Knows
Speaker 2: Death and the External Exam with Doctor Michelle Miranda. A
Speaker 2: few weeks ago a Mother Knows Death, Maria and I
Speaker 2: were discussing a case in the news where there was
Speaker 2: a woman who was killed thirty one years ago and
Speaker 2: she was recently identified by her tattoo. So, of course,
Speaker 2: the first person that I thought of talking to was
Speaker 2: doctor Miranda because she is a forensic scientist who is
Speaker 2: an expert in the identification and the forensics of tattoos. So, Hi, Michelle,
Speaker 2: how are you doing?
Speaker 1: H good? I'm doing right well, how are you great?
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for being here today. I think this
Speaker 2: is going to be an excellent interview and everybody's going
Speaker 2: to love everything that we're talking about today. But before
Speaker 2: we get started with the case that we were discussing
Speaker 2: in the news a few weeks ago, I wanted everyone
Speaker 2: to know a little bit about your background and how
Speaker 2: you became a pioneer in this field.
Speaker 1: You got it. So, I was originally a biopre med
Speaker 1: major in college. I knew pretty much my whole life.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a doctor, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: go into the medical field, so that was like an
Speaker 1: easy kind of path to get me into, you know,
Speaker 1: a program in bio. And it was my senior year
Speaker 1: and I attended a lecture on campus. And I recommend
Speaker 1: anybody like that is in school or has kids in school.
Speaker 1: That's like one of the things you get outside the
Speaker 1: classroom is like attending talks when they have like guest speakers,
Speaker 1: and so that for me was awesome because the guest
Speaker 1: speaker actually was from a medical examiner's office, and she
Speaker 1: came to talk about the eme's office, and she came
Speaker 1: to talk about friends of DNA analysis and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: And I'll preface this by saying this was way before CSI.
Speaker 1: I won't tell you all how old I am, but
Speaker 1: it was before CSI. But so I sat and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, this is like amazing, this
Speaker 1: is so interesting to me. I'm like I love this.
Speaker 1: And I had, you know, taking like genetics and taking
Speaker 1: more bio and so I had a knowledge of this,
Speaker 1: but like when you actually see it outside of a classroom,
Speaker 1: outside of a textbook, like that real world, you know application,
Speaker 1: it just can make so much of a difference, and
Speaker 1: so I ran up to her after and I was like,
Speaker 1: I love this. I want to learn more. Can I
Speaker 1: intern with you? Can I do something? And she was
Speaker 1: like yeah, sure. So my senior year, my last semester,
Speaker 1: while everyone was out partying and having like a great time,
Speaker 1: I was this idiot that decided I was going to
Speaker 1: do internship. I decided I was going to take on
Speaker 1: another minor. So I was already majoring in bio and
Speaker 1: then minoring in chemistry, so I added a minor in
Speaker 1: criminal justice because I wanted to learn about the criminal
Speaker 1: justice aspect because of the forensic realm. And so my
Speaker 1: senior year, I was going from the Bronx where I
Speaker 1: was at Manhattan College, and I was taking the bus
Speaker 1: all the way to the Medical Examiner's office in New
Speaker 1: York City. So I was on the bus for like
Speaker 1: hours to get there to go sit with this individual,
Speaker 1: to learn about the lab, to learn about forensic DNA analysis,
Speaker 1: to help her with her samples. And so it was
Speaker 1: a really awesome experience that drew me into like this
Speaker 1: whole forensic realm, and so I kind of changed my
Speaker 1: course from there instead of you know, taking exams or
Speaker 1: continuing to take MCAT study exams or practice exams. I
Speaker 1: decided that I wanted to get my master's in forensic science.
Speaker 1: And so what I did was I ended up applying
Speaker 1: to John Jay and their master's program and forensic science
Speaker 1: and kind of put my like medical plan on hold,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking that I would go for pathology. So
Speaker 1: now I'm like, Okay, I'll do forensic pathology. And then
Speaker 1: when I started experiencing the master's program and learning about
Speaker 1: trace evidence and traces, you know, like the hares, the fibers,
Speaker 1: glass peed, but also like the microscopy, the spectroscopy, the
Speaker 1: way that like you analyze these things and can get
Speaker 1: so much information from a small sample, I was like,
Speaker 1: this is it. This is for me. And so from
Speaker 1: there I started working at the NYPV as a criminalist,
Speaker 1: and then I decided to go back to my doctorate
Speaker 1: and that kind of led me down the path be tattoos.
Speaker 2: That's that's so great, And I love a couple of
Speaker 2: different things that you said. Number one, you have to
Speaker 2: keep this in mind because you and I are around
Speaker 2: the same age. We won't say, but we I kind
Speaker 2: of started off. I guess this was like in the nineties,
Speaker 2: right when like you started going to college and everything
Speaker 2: the same with me. And it's like we didn't have
Speaker 2: all these things that kids have today, like TV shows
Speaker 2: that talked about these different jobs, especially once that women
Speaker 2: could do. And also we didn't have the Internet to
Speaker 2: find out about it. And it's cool that you had
Speaker 2: this lecture with this lady and then you just I
Speaker 2: think this is really important for anyone, Like just you
Speaker 2: approached her and showed your eagerness and just said I
Speaker 2: love this and like help me figure out how to
Speaker 2: do this with my life kind of thing. And I
Speaker 2: think that's like really important and awesome. And how you
Speaker 2: got that awesome opportunity at the Medical Examiner's Office which
Speaker 2: then kind of shaped where you went on from there.
Speaker 2: So you said that you were working at the for
Speaker 2: the NYPD crime Lab, and I also know that you
Speaker 2: worked for the Medical Examiner's Office too at some point.
Speaker 2: So can you explain to everyone the difference between like
Speaker 2: doing forensics and crime scene stuff at the police department
Speaker 2: versus the Medical Examiner and how the two of those
Speaker 2: different teams work together to help solve crimes.
Speaker 1: Sure, So one of the things I just want to
Speaker 1: add is like it was important to hustle, like I
Speaker 1: did not take like a very traditional route because when
Speaker 1: I went to the NYPD, I stayed there for a
Speaker 1: while and then I decided to go back for my doctorate.
Speaker 1: And then while I was going to my doctorate is
Speaker 1: when I just wanted to see as much as I could,
Speaker 1: and so I took all these opportunities that came to me,
Speaker 1: like working as a medical photographer forensic photographer during autopsies,
Speaker 1: and then also working as like a you know, part
Speaker 1: time death investigator. So that was one of the keys
Speaker 1: to kind of me being a generalist from scientists, which
Speaker 1: is someone who has like this broad knowledge and I
Speaker 1: use like the cool crime scene to the core kind
Speaker 1: of ideal. And it was experiencing all of these different
Speaker 1: things and from doing that, not only did I see where,
Speaker 1: like you're asking, things are interconnected, right and everybody's trying
Speaker 1: to work together to solve a crime or work a case,
Speaker 1: but also where there's disconnects or and forensic science we
Speaker 1: talk about like silos about how like there tends to
Speaker 1: not be a lot of really good communication between say
Speaker 1: law enforcement, the crime lab, the medical examiner, and you know,
Speaker 1: the prosecutor the defense attorney. Right, then everything can be
Speaker 1: kind of segmented, but in the end, we all are
Speaker 1: trying to work together towards a common goal. And so
Speaker 1: at the NYPD working in the crime lab, you're in
Speaker 1: the crime lab. So you're working a full day, eight
Speaker 1: hours in a crime lab. Like a lot of people
Speaker 1: think that they'll be running around at crime scenes in
Speaker 1: you know, and driving hours and carrying a firearm and
Speaker 1: you know, slamming someone up gets a wall and asking
Speaker 1: them to confess. You know, it's not like the TV shows.
Speaker 1: So you have like your crime scene people and in
Speaker 1: New York City, crime scene or sworn detectives, so there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of civilians running around at crime scenes.
Speaker 1: When you look at the way we're structured in New York.
Speaker 1: Then you have the crime lab, which is a mixture
Speaker 1: of civilians and law enforcement depending on where in the
Speaker 1: lab that they work. And so there I was in
Speaker 1: the trace unit. So that was again looking at different
Speaker 1: types of traces from gunshot residue to hairs fibers, glass paint,
Speaker 1: to chemical unknowns. Something was thrown in a person's face.
Speaker 1: We don't know what this is kind of stuff, so
Speaker 1: it was a mixture of everything. And then you have
Speaker 1: other parts of the lab as well, like firearms drug analysis. Right,
Speaker 1: So everybody's kind of structured doing that thing in a
Speaker 1: crime lab, and you pretty much stay confined to the lab.
Speaker 1: I was lucky enough in that my first area of
Speaker 1: expertise was gunshot residue, so I happened to get involved
Speaker 1: in a lot of interesting cases with shootings, with police
Speaker 1: involved shootings, and so I actually was lucky in that
Speaker 1: on a couple occasions, I was able to go to
Speaker 1: crime scenes or I was able to see like if
Speaker 1: there was a vehicle involved. But it's not very typical
Speaker 1: of the criminalist in the crime lab to kind of
Speaker 1: venture out all over the place. Then you have separate
Speaker 1: you know, and again mostly talk about New York. Separate
Speaker 1: is the medical Examiner's office, and so they're doing you have,
Speaker 1: you know, the pathologists in the autopsy suite. You have
Speaker 1: the toxicologists that are getting samples looking at whatever drugs
Speaker 1: there or covering or poisons from the body. And then
Speaker 1: you have the DNA people, right, the criminalists that are
Speaker 1: doing DNA analysis. And again it's very siloaed, it's very separate,
Speaker 1: So like a piece of Eviden and may travel from
Speaker 1: the crime scene to the NYPD lab for trace analysis,
Speaker 1: then over to the OCME for DNA analysis. Right, so
Speaker 1: everybody's kind of working separately but maybe working with the
Speaker 1: same type of evidence. And then usually the detective assigned
Speaker 1: to the case and or you know, the prosecutor are
Speaker 1: the ones that kind of put that picture together and
Speaker 1: kind of work to reconstruct what may have happened based
Speaker 1: upon what they saw along this whole chain.
Speaker 2: I think that's it's important because I do hear a
Speaker 2: lot of people that are now, you know, the kids
Speaker 2: that are growing up now have access to all these
Speaker 2: TV shows, including like Forensic Files and then the fake
Speaker 2: ones like CSI and things like that, but also just
Speaker 2: the Internet and just everything that's going on. And I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people don't know that there is
Speaker 2: a difference between the medical aspect of it and more
Speaker 2: of like the science aspect of it. So if people
Speaker 2: want to want to go to school for forensics, they
Speaker 2: may sign up and think that they're doing autopsies and stuff,
Speaker 2: but that wasn't really part of training for you, right
Speaker 2: as a forensic scientist, right, it was more of like
Speaker 2: the actual looking under a microscope and doing chemical analysis
Speaker 2: and all these like actual lab tists.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so forensic science and even that buzzword forensics is
Speaker 1: very sexy now.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So back when I started, there were like three really
Speaker 1: well known universities that had forensic science programs on the
Speaker 1: East Coast. Now with these they're everywhere, right, So you
Speaker 1: get individuals all walks of life just kind of starting
Speaker 1: these forensics programs all over. And there's a really big
Speaker 1: difference what I recommend when I am asked for my advice,
Speaker 1: I suggest to people to get a science degree, not
Speaker 1: even to get a forensic science degree, because exactly like
Speaker 1: you're saying, you may go for a forensic science education
Speaker 1: and yeah, you may get some science, you know, but
Speaker 1: you're getting like then you get like a Crensen investigation class. Right,
Speaker 1: most people don't go on to you know, do crime
Speaker 1: scene investigation, and most a different story for other day.
Speaker 1: My feelings on crime scene investigation because you're really not
Speaker 1: learning the skills involved in crimes and investigation that help
Speaker 1: you to think properly, you know, critically, think, problem solve, reconstruct.
Speaker 1: You're basically, you know, crimes and investigation classes are like
Speaker 1: here's how you pick things up and wear protective equipment.
Speaker 1: So the problem is if you get like a forensic
Speaker 1: science education is you may and again this is my
Speaker 1: own opinion, depending on the program, depending on the educators,
Speaker 1: you may not get like good science education, right. And also,
Speaker 1: as you're saying too, if I have a degree in biology,
Speaker 1: premit right, and I go work in a crime lab
Speaker 1: and I hate it, I just hate it. I do
Speaker 1: it for a couple of years, I'm like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: thought it was going to be like TV. It's not
Speaker 1: like TV. On miserrabele. If I have that biodegree, I
Speaker 1: can go take that biodegree and work a lot of places,
Speaker 1: or decide to go to medical school, designed to go
Speaker 1: to graduate school, whatever. When you have a forensic science degree,
Speaker 1: you may not have those same opportunities, right, So you
Speaker 1: want to go work in a lab and they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you have a forensic science degree, or looking someone with
Speaker 1: a biodegree or with a chemistry degree, right, especially if
Speaker 1: they look at your coursework and they say, hey, half
Speaker 1: of your forensic science classes are social sciences like forensic
Speaker 1: psychology and brands and investigation. You know, so you may
Speaker 1: not be viewed as having a real degree in the
Speaker 1: natural sciences. And so that's one of the you know,
Speaker 1: sort of weaknesses that I identified, because you know, regulating
Speaker 1: forensic science programs, you know, can be a little iffy.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean it's going to be very difficult
Speaker 1: for someone that graduates with a forensic science degree to
Speaker 1: potentially get into medical school down the line if they
Speaker 1: decide they hate forensic science to the crime lab, whether
Speaker 1: they want to do pathology or something else. And I
Speaker 1: feel like you have more opportunities if you say that
Speaker 1: bio or chemistry degree and then kind of switch your way.
Speaker 1: But definitely they're different, you know, going for forensic science.
Speaker 1: And I've had students ask me this before. They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: how long until I get to do autopsies? How many
Speaker 1: classes do I have to take before I could do autopsis?
Speaker 1: And You're just like, oh my god, Like it breaks
Speaker 1: your heart, you know, because you're like, no, this is
Speaker 1: not that's not what's happening. But yeah, there are distinct
Speaker 1: differences between the career paths, and so I tell people
Speaker 1: take the forensic away from whatever you want to do,
Speaker 1: whether it's pathology, science, psychology, remove the word forensic and
Speaker 1: just what does it take to be a psychologist, a scientist,
Speaker 1: a pathologist, and then you know, look at what these
Speaker 1: jobs entail, look at what the career path entails, because
Speaker 1: the forensic is sort of the application of these sciences
Speaker 1: to criminal justice problems.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with you there, it's a huge disconnect
Speaker 2: between like what the jobs actually are and then what
Speaker 2: kids are going to college for. And that happened in
Speaker 2: my program too, Like I went for a master's and
Speaker 2: as a pathologist assistant, but I knew what the job
Speaker 2: was because I was already working in the hospital, So
Speaker 2: I knew when I graduated, like what I was going
Speaker 2: to be doing. But so many girls that were in
Speaker 2: my program didn't even know what they would really be
Speaker 2: doing as a job, and some of them really don't
Speaker 2: want to do it as a job. But since it's
Speaker 2: so specific, it's like you can't get a job anywhere
Speaker 2: else doing any Like if you get a master's as
Speaker 2: a PA, you can't go be a nurse or anything.
Speaker 2: You'd have to go back to school all over again.
Speaker 2: So sometimes a broader degree works better sometimes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's I mean, I always you know, said
Speaker 1: like this is my opinion. I would rather see you
Speaker 1: go get a degree in biology, get a degree in chemistry,
Speaker 1: and then apply it to forensic science and you know,
Speaker 1: and then I say, if you want to after you
Speaker 1: get the undergraduate degree, then consider a graduate degree in
Speaker 1: forensic science where you could learn better how to apply
Speaker 1: it or use these analytical techniques to analyze traces and
Speaker 1: specific stuff like that. But yeah, if you don't, you know,
Speaker 1: get the proper education, it could screw you all up.
Speaker 1: And I feel terrible when I see like criminal justice majors,
Speaker 1: you know, that come to me in their senior year
Speaker 1: and they're like, I want to be a forensic scientist.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh god, like you're getting a you know,
Speaker 1: a criminal justice degree like that, You're like completely off
Speaker 1: the path. And then they're like, well, I was advised
Speaker 1: by a high school guidance counselor or you know, I
Speaker 1: thought that, uh, you know, and so some of that
Speaker 1: can be really heartbreaking. You don't check what's required, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wish there was a way that they could
Speaker 2: really interview people before they start school, because it's not
Speaker 2: even just a matter of the time that you put
Speaker 2: in and waste towards a degree, but it's so much
Speaker 2: money and I know, like even one of my great friends,
Speaker 2: she doesn't really want to be a PA anymore, and
Speaker 2: she would put the time to go back to school
Speaker 2: to be like a nurse practitioner or something, but she
Speaker 2: just doesn't. She can't afford it. Like to go back
Speaker 2: to school for two years at a graduate program is
Speaker 2: a lot considering it's kind of a lateral move financially, right. So,
Speaker 2: but I think that a lot of people are aren't
Speaker 2: educated enough as to like what they're signing up for.
Speaker 2: And you do hear stories like that all the time
Speaker 2: of people saying these things, and you're like, oh, dude,
Speaker 2: you're like way, you're way off, and then you feel bad,
Speaker 2: you know. So let's get into your work with forensics
Speaker 2: and tattoos. Before you really started all of your research
Speaker 2: and everything, it was really not talked about that much.
Speaker 2: You're the one that is the pioneer in this field,
Speaker 2: so to speak. How did what was it that got
Speaker 2: you interested in this specific niche thing of tattoos and
Speaker 2: how did you think that it would be a really
Speaker 2: good tool to use for a forensic investigations?
Speaker 1: So it was the dock and stormy Night when not
Speaker 1: so I was in my doctoral program. And as part
Speaker 1: of a doctoral program, you take courses and you have
Speaker 1: to do a doctoral dissertation, you have to do original research.
Speaker 1: And I was really jaded. I was in uh, you know,
Speaker 1: like I had been through a forensic science under I
Speaker 1: mean graduate program, I had worked at the police department,
Speaker 1: and I kind of hit this point where I was
Speaker 1: actually really jaded with forensic science. And I still even
Speaker 1: find myself these days like getting like that because you
Speaker 1: started hearing about wellful convictions. You start to hear about
Speaker 1: you know, quote crime lamb scandals, you know, where there
Speaker 1: may be an analyst that's dry labbing or an analyst
Speaker 1: that's you know, taking drugs or stealing drugs. So all
Speaker 1: this stuff started to kind of like compound and I'm
Speaker 1: like what am I doing here? Right on top of that,
Speaker 1: you have CSI, and you have you know, people that
Speaker 1: are like, oh, I can do this, you know I
Speaker 1: you know, I was in high school and I did
Speaker 1: a crime scene you know, like a course, and I
Speaker 1: can be a you know, forensic scientist. And so I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know what I'm doing, and I
Speaker 1: was ready to actually just completely leave the field. And
Speaker 1: actually I really got into art and art conservation, which
Speaker 1: I've written about a little bit with like the intersection
Speaker 1: between art and forensic science. And so my mentor at
Speaker 1: the time came up to me and he was like,
Speaker 1: I'll introduce you to someone, like we'll see if we
Speaker 1: can get you doing like somehow like art fraud or
Speaker 1: investigations and all that kind of fun stuff. And so
Speaker 1: at this time that I was like completely jaded with
Speaker 1: forensic science and trying to figure out what the hell
Speaker 1: to do with myself, there were two cases that I
Speaker 1: was preferring too that happened at the around the same
Speaker 1: time that just really changed the course for me again.
Speaker 1: So I was working with my mentor on a private
Speaker 1: case where he was tired as a consultant. He was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: come work this case with me. And it was a
Speaker 1: man who had claimed to be sexually assaulted by law
Speaker 1: enforcement officers. And so we were looking at the clothing
Speaker 1: of this individual because based on his story, this was
Speaker 1: an assault and so his clothing was damaged during the assault.
Speaker 1: And we looked at his clothing and we're looking at
Speaker 1: it microscopically and we're like, there's some really weird like
Speaker 1: black stains, like some inky weird stains here, and so
Speaker 1: we approached the lawyer and we said, look, we're finding
Speaker 1: this black, inky residue like around this hole, so we'd
Speaker 1: really like to look at it further. We'd like to
Speaker 1: do some analysis on it to see what this ink
Speaker 1: may be, et cetera, et cetera. And so we did
Speaker 1: an analysis. So we're really trying to figure it out,
Speaker 1: and the lawyer comes back and he's like, I want
Speaker 1: to just fill you in. We think that the individual
Speaker 1: who made the complaint, who happens to be a tattoo artist,
Speaker 1: may have made the himself, and is it possible that
Speaker 1: maybe he used like a tattoo machine or something that
Speaker 1: may have had ink on it. And so we were like,
Speaker 1: hmm right. So we were like, this is interesting because
Speaker 1: this material keeps coming up as like some inky substance.
Speaker 1: And so from that, you know, I realized there's really
Speaker 1: no good, solid like database of like tattoo ink, so
Speaker 1: like what they are, what they contain, all that kind
Speaker 1: of fun stuff, and not from the perspective of like
Speaker 1: these things are going to kill you if you inject
Speaker 1: them in your skin as a tattooed individual whatever, but
Speaker 1: more from the approach of like for a forensic database,
Speaker 1: from a forensic perspective, like, how do we know what's
Speaker 1: in these inks? If we find human remains, if there's
Speaker 1: like some discoloration, could we figure out what if it's
Speaker 1: an ink, if it's a pigment. You know, So my
Speaker 1: brain started like swirling. So at the same time, one
Speaker 1: of my colleagues that was a death investigator, she's like, yo,
Speaker 1: She's like, you missed a case today. She is like,
Speaker 1: it was crazy. So the case involved a body was
Speaker 1: found set on fire in a park and so the
Speaker 1: fire was put out, realized it's a body, and now
Speaker 1: it's chored beyond recognition, right, so no fingerprints, no facial features, whatever.
Speaker 1: So the body comes into the autopsy suite and during
Speaker 1: the autopsy there's someone, right, So the investigators are there,
Speaker 1: my friend is there with my colleagues, the pathologist, and
Speaker 1: they're looking at this and someone sees some discoloration, and
Speaker 1: so the pathologist scrapes off the burck short skin and
Speaker 1: a tattoo appears right that had not been destroyed, and
Speaker 1: so they were able to resolve the entirety of the
Speaker 1: tattoo and a name was in it. And so this
Speaker 1: was photographed, and law enforcement was able to use this
Speaker 1: to basically go around say do you recognize this tattoo? Right,
Speaker 1: And so from there they were able to identify who
Speaker 1: the individual was, you know, identify potential suspects linked to
Speaker 1: a bunch of other criminal activity that had been going
Speaker 1: on with the partner, right. And then the case ended
Speaker 1: up being going to court, being adjudicated, and this man
Speaker 1: was found guilty. And so it was perfect timing because
Speaker 1: on this one hand, I'm looking at tattoo inks and
Speaker 1: then on the other hand, I'm looking at this case
Speaker 1: where this tattoo was necessary to identify this investigation forward,
Speaker 1: and I was like, blink, that was it. It was
Speaker 1: like light bulb went off. I'm like, this is where
Speaker 1: I'm meant to be. And so that sort of long
Speaker 1: version of how I ended up going down this strange
Speaker 1: road of tattoos and forensic context.
Speaker 2: That's so cool, And that brings us to the news
Speaker 2: story that we were talking about a few weeks ago.
Speaker 2: And of course when I texted you, you were like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm on top of that, like I heard you know,
Speaker 2: I heard about that. But just briefly, I'm going to
Speaker 2: just explain what happened. There was thirty one years ago
Speaker 2: a British woman was found dead. She was found murdered
Speaker 2: in Belgium and they didn't know who she was all
Speaker 2: of this time, and she was just given the name
Speaker 2: the woman with the flower tattoo. And then there was
Speaker 2: an international campaign was set up to try to identify
Speaker 2: these twenty two women that have been killed over the
Speaker 2: years to see who they were, and a website was
Speaker 2: created and they put a picture of this tattoo that
Speaker 2: was it was a flower tattoo that had the letters
Speaker 2: are and then the name Nick R Nick in it.
Speaker 2: And sure enough, someone saw the photograph and thought they
Speaker 2: sent in a tip and they thought that it was
Speaker 2: one of their family members, and then they were able
Speaker 2: to identify the woman as Rita Rogers and finally give
Speaker 2: some peace to her family because she just went missing
Speaker 2: one day and they never knew what happened to her.
Speaker 2: I just think that that's such a cool story and
Speaker 2: it sounds like almost similar to what happened in your case.
Speaker 2: So besides, we kind of briefly talked about this, but
Speaker 2: maybe we could just go in depth about it a
Speaker 2: little bit more.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: You have the one aspect where you're looking at the
Speaker 2: tattoo itself that could be used as identification, and then
Speaker 2: you're also you also could use tattoos and forensics in
Speaker 2: other cases as far as looking at it under the
Speaker 2: microscope and the pigments and stuff.
Speaker 1: Correct. Yeah, so there's a lot that can be done
Speaker 1: with tattoos, and from my perspective, I feel like not
Speaker 1: enough is being done, because yeah, we can start to
Speaker 1: First of all, identifying or locating the tattoo is like
Speaker 1: a big thing, and so it frustrates me sometimes when
Speaker 1: you know, I'm under the impression from communication with individuals
Speaker 1: in the field that if you don't see the tattoo
Speaker 1: and it's not glaring and right in front of you,
Speaker 1: then you don't change attention to it. Meaning like if
Speaker 1: we do have chore remains, if we do have decomposed remains,
Speaker 1: if we do have a lot of these old cases,
Speaker 1: the tattoos may be overlooked or they may be identified
Speaker 1: but improperly described or labeled. And so that kind of
Speaker 1: drives me crazy because we have these cases where just
Speaker 1: the presence of a tattoo maybe enough. Like we're humans,
Speaker 1: we're visual people, right, so we see something, we remember
Speaker 1: it and then we see it again and we're like, ah,
Speaker 1: we make those connections like we've been learning to do
Speaker 1: that since we were kids. And so this case that
Speaker 1: you mentioned is really bittersweet to me because, on the
Speaker 1: one hand, awesome, like we identified this individual, we have closure,
Speaker 1: and now we have the opening of a murder investigation, right,
Speaker 1: which you know is good. We're making progress here. But
Speaker 1: it annoys me that it's thirty one freaking years that
Speaker 1: have gone by, and now I will give credit in
Speaker 1: this case, thirty one years ago, we didn't have the Internet,
Speaker 1: we didn't have social media, we didn't have these networks
Speaker 1: to communicate, especially like as I mentioned earlier with the
Speaker 1: siloing right even within one organization, forget other organizations. But now,
Speaker 1: like you know, this woman was found in Belgium shoes
Speaker 1: from the UK, right, So we can't keep this stuff
Speaker 1: close to home. You can't just distribute this in like
Speaker 1: the local neighborhood and said, you know, do you recognize
Speaker 1: this because it may be people travel the world now,
Speaker 1: people are all over the place. So for me, the
Speaker 1: fact that we're not doing more with cold cases, we're
Speaker 1: not doing more with current cases, drives meat bananas, like
Speaker 1: we should be putting these tattoos out there. That's why
Speaker 1: whenever I'm contacted by a law enforcement agency, I put
Speaker 1: the tattoo out there and with a little bit of
Speaker 1: a backstory and just kind of like let it sit.
Speaker 1: Or when I see these cases in the news, you know,
Speaker 1: send them out to the public, because it's so closed
Speaker 1: off what we could be doing with tattoos that we don't.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we could do the basic things like the
Speaker 1: visual identification. Just have you seen this tattoo? Do you
Speaker 1: recognize this tattoo all the way up to the potential
Speaker 1: of even which can get a little dicey the interpretation, right,
Speaker 1: And I know, actually that's how you and I started talking.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember. It was the Ann
Speaker 1: Hernandez case, right, So there was a case where you know,
Speaker 1: when I'm talking about the football player, you know, for
Speaker 1: the Patriots at the time, right, who where in court
Speaker 1: they're trying to look at his tattoos. He was alive, right,
Speaker 1: but he was charged with murder and they're trying to
Speaker 1: interpret his tattoos. Right. Does this tattoo have symbolism? Does
Speaker 1: this depiction of a firearm or a cartridge case indicate
Speaker 1: that he had committed murder. Right, So then we see
Speaker 1: that interpretation can be really useful, maybe if we're looking
Speaker 1: for affiliations with gangs, for relationships or for anything like that.
Speaker 1: But we have to be careful when we start trying
Speaker 1: to interpret it and linking it to people, you know,
Speaker 1: being involved in criminal acts. But you know, the interpretation
Speaker 1: of a tattoo can be useful and helped draw connections
Speaker 1: just the characteristics of the tattoo. For example, a lot
Speaker 1: of my grad students I had doing research on temporary tattoos.
Speaker 1: You know, how often do people look for temporary tattoos
Speaker 1: we see now that you know, whether it's like the
Speaker 1: little kid with the sticker or it's the licking stick
Speaker 1: you know, from when we were kids, or even now
Speaker 1: with these more elaborate temporary tattoos for people that don't
Speaker 1: want to commit or afraid of pain. No comment, right,
Speaker 1: but you know, we see like that even identifying the
Speaker 1: tattoo can help us try and figure out where it
Speaker 1: came from or what it is. Is it temporary, is
Speaker 1: it permanent, when was it made? All that kind of
Speaker 1: fun stuff, and then we can start to get into
Speaker 1: the actual analysis of the inks, both the inks you
Speaker 1: know that or in the bottle or the inks that
Speaker 1: may end up being in human skin or in tissue, right,
Speaker 1: and being able to see if we can draw connections
Speaker 1: and say, hey, we can't resolve this tattoo because the
Speaker 1: body's too decomposed or its charred, but we do detect
Speaker 1: yellow pigment, we do detect green pigment, so we think
Speaker 1: this was a yellow and green tattoo located here. Whatever.
Speaker 1: So I think tattoos are underutilized. I think that if
Speaker 1: they're not present, you know, like people should be using
Speaker 1: infrared photography, they should be using alternate light sources. They
Speaker 1: should be scanning these bodies to see, hey, even though
Speaker 1: it's decomposed or its chored or mummified, you know, there
Speaker 1: may still be a tattoo there. And that's like instant, right.
Speaker 1: Everything has to go to the lab for DNA analysis,
Speaker 1: you know, and people forget our databases are only as
Speaker 1: good as what we have in them. So if someone's
Speaker 1: not in a DNA database, right, if someone doesn't have
Speaker 1: their fingerprints on file, someone doesn't have dental records, right,
Speaker 1: they're not in that database to begin with. But with
Speaker 1: a tattoo, you can take a beautiful photo, you can
Speaker 1: put it out there to the public and just start
Speaker 1: to get those investigatory leads that can help you. You
Speaker 1: don't leave a case forward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, they're so identifying and even if you
Speaker 2: go into I mean a lot of old, older cases,
Speaker 2: I would say, especially especially with women and stuff, it's
Speaker 2: like you would walk into a tattoo shop and you
Speaker 2: would pick off of the wall like a flash.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But now as time goes on, it's going to be
Speaker 2: like most most places don't even do that anymore. It's
Speaker 2: like everything's custom drawn and it's just very specific to
Speaker 2: an individual their tattoo, and I think it, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's just like an awesome way to idea. It's probably
Speaker 2: the most significant identifying factor without showing their dead face
Speaker 2: or something, you know what I mean that that might
Speaker 2: not even look like them anyway. Yeah, speaking of like
Speaker 2: the Aaron Hernad is it hernandezk case you were saying
Speaker 2: about the court them talking about it in court? Is
Speaker 2: that something that you've ever done or would you be
Speaker 2: asked to ever testify in court as it pertains to
Speaker 2: a tattoo and a forensic case.
Speaker 1: So I have testified in court as an expert forensic scientist.
Speaker 1: For my time at the police Department, I have not
Speaker 1: testified as a tattoo expert yet. The opportunity just hasn't arisen,
Speaker 1: and you know, I would love to be more involved
Speaker 1: with these cases. A lot of the work that I've
Speaker 1: done in terms of consulting has been more pro bono,
Speaker 1: simplified of whether it's posting something on my Instagram, being
Speaker 1: asked to look at something and just kind of see
Speaker 1: if there's an interpretation, if there's any clues, or just
Speaker 1: ask my opinion about something. So for me, it's not
Speaker 1: about like consulting, making money, testifying in court and you know,
Speaker 1: being this big deal. It's about like helping to identify
Speaker 1: these individuals. I mean. But sure, like you know, I've
Speaker 1: had calls from you know, law enforcement agencies that think
Speaker 1: if they want to hire me, and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, you know, once they you know, find out
Speaker 1: what it entails, you know, and never hear from them again.
Speaker 1: You know. So people also, I think, are not willing
Speaker 1: to invest the time and energy and figure, yeah we'll
Speaker 1: just let it ride, we'll rely on DNA, or we
Speaker 1: have too much other stuff to worry about, you know,
Speaker 1: And so that's a shame, like you know that that
Speaker 1: I'm not cold on more, because it would just be
Speaker 1: really nice to to, you know, work some of these
Speaker 1: cases and solve some of them, or at least get
Speaker 1: some investigatory leads that you know can be worked to
Speaker 1: get these cases going.
Speaker 2: This episode is brought to you by The Grosser Room.
Speaker 2: If you love this podcast and you love my Instagram account,
Speaker 2: you will love the Grosser Room. Every week we have
Speaker 2: lots of cases of articles discussing celebrity deaths and high
Speaker 2: profile deaths. And since we are going on our fourth year,
Speaker 2: you have thousands of photos, videos and articles to catch
Speaker 2: up on. This Friday, December fifteenth, for only five days,
Speaker 2: the gross Room is going on sale for only twenty
Speaker 2: dollars for the year. Treat yourself this holiday season to gross.
Speaker 1: In two.
Speaker 2: I know, back in twenty and fifteen you wrote a
Speaker 2: book about all of all of your findings and your
Speaker 2: research on forensics and tattoos. And it is this a
Speaker 2: book that's specifically geared towards forensic scientists or is this
Speaker 2: a book that I could buy for one of my
Speaker 2: friends who's a tattoo artist and just is really interested
Speaker 2: in tattoos.
Speaker 1: So when I wrote the book, I did it's a mix, right,
Speaker 1: So I wanted to include some of the chemistry and
Speaker 1: some of the information from my doctoral work so that
Speaker 1: it was somewhere right so someone can look at this
Speaker 1: if they're say a pathologist, can flip open a book
Speaker 1: and see my images, you know, my from the microscope
Speaker 1: of what these tattooings look like under the microscope to
Speaker 1: what they look like when they're analyzed chemically. So there
Speaker 1: is that certain like forensic element that's geared towards forensic
Speaker 1: scientist pathologists. But I also wanted to make it readable
Speaker 1: and usable for the average individual or you know, a
Speaker 1: tattoo artist or a tattoo of fictionado, a lawyer or whatever.
Speaker 1: And so there are elements there where I start talking
Speaker 1: about the history, and I go through the history of inks,
Speaker 1: and I go through you know, court cases where tattoos
Speaker 1: have been used. So in my mind, you know, I
Speaker 1: tried to make it as draad as I could. But
Speaker 1: I know some people may look at it and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I see chemistry, I see chemical structures, like you're just
Speaker 1: you know, that's too much. But there's a little bit
Speaker 1: in there for everyone to hopefully see where I'm trying
Speaker 1: to go with the importance of tattoos in a forensic context.
Speaker 2: I think discussing the tattoos is a really important thing
Speaker 2: that's not discussed enough as you would as you're saying,
Speaker 2: especially because so many people in the population now have
Speaker 2: one or multiple tattoos. It's like it's a really high number.
Speaker 2: Last time I checked, it was like seventy percent of
Speaker 2: the population has at least one tattoo or something. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's a lot. And recently on Instagram, I had done
Speaker 2: two different mystery diagnosis that involved tattoos. One was a
Speaker 2: person that had the tattoo pigment in their lymph nodes
Speaker 2: and was presenting with lymph anopathy. And the other one
Speaker 2: was a woman that had her tattoos eyebrowed or her
Speaker 2: eyebrow tattooed in another country and she ended up getting
Speaker 2: an infection because they think that the water in that
Speaker 2: country was mixed with some of the tattoo anchor pigment
Speaker 2: and then it was tattooed in her and that's how
Speaker 2: she got that weird bacteria in her body. But I'll
Speaker 2: never forget I was doing. I was working in pathology.
Speaker 2: Now this was back like fifteen years ago, but we
Speaker 2: got lymph nodes on a patient with breast cancer and
Speaker 2: the pathologist was looking under the microscope to see if
Speaker 2: she had metastatic tumor, and then he was just like,
Speaker 2: this is really weird. There's like all this black stuff
Speaker 2: in her lymph node and I wonder what this is
Speaker 2: and so and so, and then he called the surgeon
Speaker 2: during the surgery and was like, is there a reason
Speaker 2: that you could think that she would have like all
Speaker 2: this weird black stuff. And then the surgeon was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: her whole entire arm is tattooed, and the pathal just
Speaker 2: like kind of had never seen them, which it was.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was fifteen years ago, and this is
Speaker 2: going to increase as time goes on, just because more
Speaker 2: people are getting tattooed. But it was interesting to me
Speaker 2: that I'm like, oh, this was nothing that you ever
Speaker 2: learned or heard of until today right now, Like you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, It's kinds.
Speaker 1: Which is crazy because there are pathologists that were writing
Speaker 1: about this in the eighteen hundreds. So I did this
Speaker 1: you know, great? Well, I mean just ask me. I
Speaker 1: think it was great. This entry for a French Medical
Speaker 1: Legal Forensic Pathology text. And that's one of the things
Speaker 1: I talk about is you know how a lot of
Speaker 1: these pathologists, especially in Europe, in the eighteen hundreds, right
Speaker 1: when we're starting to think about the idea of forensic
Speaker 1: science really gaining steam. Which is another thing that drives
Speaker 1: me crazy because the younger generation, I don't know if
Speaker 1: they're being taught this or they just think this, but
Speaker 1: they believe forensic science started like during the OJ case,
Speaker 1: you know, and and with the introduction of you know,
Speaker 1: DNA analysis, so a lot of people seem to think
Speaker 1: like forensic science science was like invented in the eighties
Speaker 1: or the nineties, right wow, But yeah, people were talking
Speaker 1: about this and the eighteen hundreds, you find these references
Speaker 1: to you know, being able to detect you know, these
Speaker 1: pigments in the lymp notes. So this is something that's
Speaker 1: been around for a very long time. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean people are just not aware of the history. And
Speaker 1: that was another reason for you know, the reason why
Speaker 1: I wanted to do this book was because I wanted
Speaker 1: to trace the history of these inks.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And you know how these inks have evolved all it
Speaker 1: over time, uh, you know, which is important too, because
Speaker 1: everyone says, ah, you know you're going to get a
Speaker 1: tattoo and you know you're going to die. But all right,
Speaker 1: I'm a little dramatic there, Let me be, Let me be.
Speaker 1: But you know, you see these individuals that like, oh see,
Speaker 1: you know tattoo you know so long ago, you know,
Speaker 1: and you know, these things stick around and they're such
Speaker 1: great traces and they can definitely be used for so
Speaker 1: many important things. Uh, you know, but it's not new,
Speaker 1: and that's you know, something important as well is that
Speaker 1: I knew when I was doing my research that yeah,
Speaker 1: there were maybe a day database here of tattoos and
Speaker 1: meanings or maybe someone had studied inks mostly for the
Speaker 1: medical you know, dermatological whatever. But to put it all
Speaker 1: together and kind of isolate it was what was really
Speaker 1: important for me when I did my research. And also,
Speaker 1: you know, came up with the book. You know, so
Speaker 1: people know these things are you know they exist?
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, it's it's really great. Speaking of tattoo meanings,
Speaker 2: I think that I have a forensic book. I feel
Speaker 2: like I sent you a picture of this once that
Speaker 2: it's from the fifties. It's like an old forensic book
Speaker 2: and it has a picture of a guy's hand with
Speaker 2: a sparrow, and it just says, oh, this indicates that
Speaker 2: this person is homosexual. And and then like I have
Speaker 2: tattoos of spiderwebs on my elbows, which in the past
Speaker 2: used to mean that you did time in jail or something,
Speaker 2: and of people getting a tear drop a tattoo on
Speaker 2: their face under their eye, and all these things that
Speaker 2: sometimes things used to have a certain meaning and now
Speaker 2: they don't, or sometimes like I got it just because
Speaker 2: I was kind of like, oh, I'm like a cute
Speaker 2: How old was I seventeen or eighteen when I got it?
Speaker 2: Like I'm a cute little girl, and getting like this
Speaker 2: is so ironic and cool, you know whatever. But it's
Speaker 2: interesting that people, like like scholarly people sit there and
Speaker 2: write about like what certain tattoos mean and stuff. I
Speaker 2: just always thought that was interesting. All right, So let's
Speaker 2: talk about a couple of weeks ago. I texted you
Speaker 2: and asked you if you wanted to be on the show,
Speaker 2: obviously to talk about this stuff. And you told me
Speaker 2: that you were in Australia, which was so cool. So
Speaker 2: why were you there?
Speaker 1: So I was in Australia for the International Association of
Speaker 1: Forensic Sciences International Conference, which was awesome, and my purpose
Speaker 1: for being there was profecional purpose for being there was twofold.
Speaker 1: So first it was to promote what my colleagues and
Speaker 1: I have come up with called the Sydney Declaration. And
Speaker 1: it really is kind of like trying to reclaim forensic science, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, from the perspective of the scientists, because it's
Speaker 1: gotten so off, you know, off track. There's so much
Speaker 1: forensic science everywhere. It's saturated. Uh, you know, and who
Speaker 1: dictates or science, right? Is it lawyers? Is it judges?
Speaker 1: Is it you know, law enforcement agencies? And so one
Speaker 1: of the big things was to talk and promote about
Speaker 1: to talk about and promote the declaration.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And the other one, which is something that's very important
Speaker 1: to me, is I gave a plenary talk on sexual
Speaker 1: and gender based violence, especially in regions of conflict. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so one other things that really interests me is
Speaker 1: the quality of international investigations and the quality of forensic science.
Speaker 1: Uh that's being done when we look at you know,
Speaker 1: world events, uh, you know, mass chaos and and all
Speaker 1: this kind of crazy stuff where there's sexual and gender
Speaker 1: based violence. Uh. You know, why is it such that
Speaker 1: there are not a lot of cases that are prosecuted
Speaker 1: in international courts? Why is there are not necessarily justice?
Speaker 1: And you know, can we do better as forensic scientists
Speaker 1: in collecting traces and preserving traces that can be used
Speaker 1: you know, because generally speaking, a lot of these investigations
Speaker 1: are kind of based on eyewitness testimony or based on
Speaker 1: statements from the victim or survivor of these events, which
Speaker 1: can be very traumatic. And so is there a way
Speaker 1: to improve the quality of forensic investigations and forensic science
Speaker 1: in that respect of dealing with you know, sexual and
Speaker 1: gender based violence and regions of conflict.
Speaker 2: While you were in Australia, this is this will be
Speaker 2: my favorite part of the interview. While you were there,
Speaker 2: you learned some interesting facts about koalas and chlamydia. Can
Speaker 2: you please explain what you learned there?
Speaker 1: Okay, so let me Christmas by saying I know I'm
Speaker 1: going to say this, and I was so super excited,
Speaker 1: and there's gonna be people out there that I'm gonna be like,
Speaker 1: am I not?
Speaker 2: I had?
Speaker 1: I do not know this. Look, I did not know this.
Speaker 2: At all, but apparently I never heard it.
Speaker 1: Apparently everyone was like, oh, yeah, you didn't know, and
Speaker 1: I was like, what kind of education did I get? So,
Speaker 1: for those of you who just died, no, So koalas
Speaker 1: have rampant chamydia. Right, I had no idea, not a clue.
Speaker 1: Everyone's like, well, be careful, don't touch the koala, you know,
Speaker 1: and they're telling me like a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: like koalas, which I learned that too, because you look
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, they're adorable, and people like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're so disgusting, and the hints that's where the chlamydia
Speaker 1: came up. But yeah, so I learned koala's have never.
Speaker 2: Heard of that. You never heard of that either, absolutely
Speaker 2: never heard of that.
Speaker 1: Everyone looked at me like I was a box of
Speaker 1: rocks because I did not know that, and like, and
Speaker 1: I will tell you all out there if you are
Speaker 1: interested in forensic science, it is okay to say you
Speaker 1: don't know something. Uh you know, But yeah, I had
Speaker 1: no clue. And so that was the focus on our conversation. Right,
Speaker 1: So we started talking about tattoos and doing this podcast,
Speaker 1: and then once I dropped the chlamydia bomb on you,
Speaker 1: which could mean so many things out of context, yeah,
Speaker 1: So that's what I learned about koalas and chlamydia. So
Speaker 1: they apparently just eat, sleep and do that thing.
Speaker 2: So there's and and there's human transmission. Is that that's
Speaker 2: the That's why they're saying that you shouldn't be holding
Speaker 2: them and stuff, like there's a way somehow, I mean,
Speaker 2: because I'm not one hundred percent sure about the transmission
Speaker 2: of it. I feel like it would have to be
Speaker 2: some kind of contact with an infected fluid into your
Speaker 2: body this like the same way you would get it sexually, right,
Speaker 2: So is that is that the concern? Like, you know
Speaker 2: how they say you shouldn't handle reptiles because they carry
Speaker 2: salmonella and a child could like touch their butt by
Speaker 2: accident and put their hand in their mouth and then
Speaker 2: all of a sudden. I mean, I guess in theory,
Speaker 2: if if it, if the chlamydia somehow gets on your
Speaker 2: hand and then you rub that finger in your eye,
Speaker 2: you could transmit it or I mean, I guess, I
Speaker 2: don't know. Now I really want to look into this
Speaker 2: because I'm really interesting because I just look at them
Speaker 2: as like, oh I want one as a pet. They
Speaker 2: look like cut a little bit of stuffed animals.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but cute little buggers. But yeah, I honestly don't know,
Speaker 1: and I probably should have looked into this since I
Speaker 1: knew we were going to go down this chlamydia road.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't know. But you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to make out with the damn Koala, like, you know,
Speaker 1: let's let let's not make it weird. I guess maybe
Speaker 1: also because they have like those long little kloi things,
Speaker 1: like maybe potentially they can scratch. But I don't know
Speaker 1: anything about Koala to human transmission or if we can
Speaker 1: transmit to them and make their lives worse. I have
Speaker 1: no clue, but you know, because I was just so
Speaker 1: overwhelmed with the fact that Koalas have commydia that I
Speaker 1: just I still can't get past it.
Speaker 2: I know I can't either. It's so crazy. Okay, So,
Speaker 2: for those of you that don't know, you have an
Speaker 2: excellent Instagram account that's Forensic Underscore Tattoo and you have
Speaker 2: close to one hundred thousand followers, So like a lot
Speaker 2: of people are already into it, but can you explain
Speaker 2: to us, like what made you start this Instagram account
Speaker 2: and what your experience has been with it?
Speaker 1: So I was actually started to pick up, you know,
Speaker 1: doing a lot of interviews, and one of the individuals
Speaker 1: that interviewed me was like, watch on Instagram, and I
Speaker 1: was like, social media all for this shit? Sorry, but yeah,
Speaker 1: So I created the Instagram account. And then I have
Speaker 1: to thank you because you know, I'm just kind of
Speaker 1: waiting out there, just wait, trying to navigate, you know,
Speaker 1: social media as an adult is difficult, you know. And
Speaker 1: so then you and I connected and that certainly helped,
Speaker 1: and so I actually really love it. I have not
Speaker 1: put in a very long time, and it's partly because
Speaker 1: I've been so busy. I when I create my post,
Speaker 1: when I curate them, I am a fat checker, Like
Speaker 1: I don't like giving I like giving the most accurate
Speaker 1: information I can, considering a lot of them come from
Speaker 1: news sources and are very limited. So for me, it's
Speaker 1: a lot of involvement to create a post right to
Speaker 1: actually because I will check multiple sources. I like to
Speaker 1: have more than three sources where they're at least consistently
Speaker 1: consistently saying the same thing. But I can also use
Speaker 1: that to my advantage because when someone says a tattoo
Speaker 1: on the left shoulder, a tattoo on the right shoulder.
Speaker 1: Then I'm like, look, even the media can't get it straight.
Speaker 1: Or it's a tattoo of a dog, No it's a wolf, No,
Speaker 1: it's this no, you know, so I can use that
Speaker 1: to my advantage to say, look, I've checked all these things.
Speaker 1: Here's the consistent story. But notice that there's variation even
Speaker 1: with the location or the description, which drives me crazy too,
Speaker 1: because just post the damn pick sure of the tattoo, right,
Speaker 1: don't give me like this like novella about your description
Speaker 1: of it, because you heard it from a cop who
Speaker 1: heard it from a detective who was at Autosi. Right.
Speaker 1: So you get all these different, you know, accounts of
Speaker 1: the tattoo, and sometimes it's difficult to even get the
Speaker 1: photograph of the tattoo. But so I put a lot
Speaker 1: of time into my posts, and you know how it is,
Speaker 1: you know, you write this nice, beautiful thing, and then
Speaker 1: people are annoyed at you because you didn't explain one
Speaker 1: thing and they don't realize you have a word count,
Speaker 1: you know. And then you know, most people are really
Speaker 1: receptive and really interested, uh, you know, and then you
Speaker 1: get people that just are like so sucky and you're
Speaker 1: just like, come on, you know, like I'm doing the
Speaker 1: best I can here. We're getting this information out, you know,
Speaker 1: see the value of uh, you know, promoting the purpose
Speaker 1: of tattoos or helping to disseminate this information so that
Speaker 1: maybe this individual can be identified. So I do love Instagram,
Speaker 1: you know, social media aspect of it, although I haven't
Speaker 1: used it in a while. Maybe I'll be inspired, like
Speaker 1: I'm looking, I guess for inspiration to make sure people
Speaker 1: still want to hear my voice, you know, because sometimes
Speaker 1: I feel like it's the echo chamber where I'm just like,
Speaker 1: tattoos are so great, let's use them. And then you know,
Speaker 1: then I see like my followers decreased and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: all right, no problem. So you know that's a little frustrating,
Speaker 1: but you know, hopefully the message is out there.
Speaker 2: I could I understand that because I feel the same
Speaker 2: exact way. But I think that there's been over the
Speaker 2: past couple of years, there's been like a change in
Speaker 2: Instagram that everybody can agree with. And it is like
Speaker 2: I'm in the same boat, Like I put hours of
Speaker 2: time into writing posts and stuff, and then it's like
Speaker 2: they'll get posted nobody will see it, it'll get deleted
Speaker 2: because it violates something that it doesn't really violate. It's
Speaker 2: and it's it is stressful to the point where I mean,
Speaker 2: in the past couple of years, I've just been like
Speaker 2: not anywhere near on the level I used to be
Speaker 2: on it because it's just like it's like a beat
Speaker 2: down all the time. There's only so much you want
Speaker 2: to deal with that, you know. But I do think
Speaker 2: that you should because I don't I even think like
Speaker 2: you're saying the followers going down and stuff, that's like
Speaker 2: all an Instagram problem. That's not like your content problem,
Speaker 2: I personally feel because I've just I just saw a change,
Speaker 2: and talking to other influencers and stuff, I think that
Speaker 2: they see it as well across the board. So it's
Speaker 2: it's not I think you should keep doing what you're doing,
Speaker 2: because it's not that it's just I just think it's
Speaker 2: like an Instagram problem, not a not a you problem.
Speaker 2: So I know, right, and I agree with you too.
Speaker 2: With the negative experiences, it's always somebody's like number one,
Speaker 2: you and I are humans, so it's like you will
Speaker 2: make mistakes from time to time, even if it's just
Speaker 2: like a simple spelling error or something, and then obviously,
Speaker 2: like you'll spend hours writing up this whole thing, and
Speaker 2: then some jark has to call you out and be like, yo,
Speaker 2: but you didn't mention this, and you're like, yeah, I have,
Speaker 2: like I don't even know what it is on Instagram
Speaker 2: how many characters you're allowed to have now? But every
Speaker 2: single time I write something, I have to like water
Speaker 2: it down because, yeah, because you can't put everything, it's
Speaker 2: not possible. And if you really like put the text
Speaker 2: that's in an Instagram post in a word document, it's
Speaker 2: like it's a small little paragraph, so you only could
Speaker 2: fit so much stuff, yeah, in a post. So do
Speaker 2: you have so you said you're not really posting on Instagram,
Speaker 2: do you have any other social media that you're on
Speaker 2: or you just kind of are like, I mean I
Speaker 2: get it, because I'm over it too, but do you
Speaker 2: do do stuff on like Twitter or anything?
Speaker 1: I have a Twitter account, but you know, again, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, you put that stuff out in the ether,
Speaker 1: and it just kind of like, I don't you know
Speaker 1: what it is. I feel weird. I'm one of those
Speaker 1: people that's like Twitter is like that person that opens
Speaker 1: up their window and just yells something out to the world,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like I always that always
Speaker 1: stuck with me because I feel like it's just like,
Speaker 1: you know, you just say something and are people listening?
Speaker 1: Are they not? Are they liking? Are they retweeting? Like
Speaker 1: like it's just I don't know. I'm like, so, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm not that kind of person that believe
Speaker 1: it or not. Although I spent like half this time
Speaker 1: talking about myself, I'm not that kind of person that
Speaker 1: like just really likes to talk about myself or try
Speaker 1: to bring extra attention to myself, you know when I
Speaker 1: you know, you don't see me doing makeup tutorials and
Speaker 1: then going I look at sims. Yeah, you know. So
Speaker 1: it's not my jam to really be like that. So
Speaker 1: I do. Don't you love my extra long answers for everything?
Speaker 1: So No, I don't have a Twitter.
Speaker 2: They're good, They're good.
Speaker 1: I do have a Twitter account, but I don't really
Speaker 1: use it because I like whatever I'm TikTok. I can't
Speaker 1: so as a forensic scientist, as someone who is in
Speaker 1: a program, you know that is big on digital forensics
Speaker 1: and digital forensic investigations, I'm like very personally wary of TikTok,
Speaker 1: and I'm also like, I'm very cautious with you so
Speaker 1: of computers and technologies anyway, you know, I don't want
Speaker 1: all my information out there in general. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: just can't be like dancing around be like, oh, let
Speaker 1: me tell you about death today on TikTok. Yeah, I know, right,
Speaker 1: it's so weird. I can't make it Google like I
Speaker 1: can beat goofy or I could be you know, my
Speaker 1: formal you know, doctor Miranda is talking about stuff. But
Speaker 1: I mean, like to mix those two together and doing
Speaker 1: the running ban while I'm talking about you know, like
Speaker 1: a crime scene investigation is just like weird to me.
Speaker 1: You know. So I haven't gone on the TikTok bandwig
Speaker 1: and I pretty much just stick to Instagram and you know,
Speaker 1: let it ride.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I feel the same way. It's it's really gimmick,
Speaker 2: like gimmicky. I can't. I can't do it either. I mean,
Speaker 2: my daughter like made to TikTok for us, and she
Speaker 2: deals with it. I don't even know how to log
Speaker 2: into I don't know how to log into it. I
Speaker 2: don't understand what it is, and I have no interest.
Speaker 2: I'm just too old. But all right, So you are
Speaker 2: an associate professor in the Center for Criminal Justice Studies
Speaker 2: farming Dale State College or College State University of New York.
Speaker 2: When did you When did you start working there?
Speaker 1: So I think I've been there for like twelve years
Speaker 1: now roughly.
Speaker 2: Well that's that's impressive.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And and so you you're a professor of students. What what's this?
Speaker 2: Do you have students from all different majors or what
Speaker 2: what is the typical major of a person that you're
Speaker 2: teaching at the school.
Speaker 1: So most of my students are criminal justice. A lot
Speaker 1: of them want to go into law enforcement. But you know,
Speaker 1: as we see the changing tide with criminal justice and policing,
Speaker 1: we've seen a lot more students that are interested in
Speaker 1: something else other than policing or law enforcement. You know,
Speaker 1: they say, you know, I know, criminal justice is where
Speaker 1: I want to be, I just don't know where. And
Speaker 1: so some of them may want to go into law,
Speaker 1: some of them may want to go into like victim
Speaker 1: services working with victims or survivors, juvenile delinquency, or even
Speaker 1: you know, probation parole, like the back end. So we're seeing, like,
Speaker 1: you know, this changing tide of the criminal justice student landscape,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of cool. At first, I was like, ah,
Speaker 1: I'm like a forensic scientist. I should be in a
Speaker 1: lab and doing science and have my little microscopes and
Speaker 1: my spectrometers, and I should be just analyzing evidence with
Speaker 1: students all day. So when I went into a criminal
Speaker 1: justice program, I was like, but I actually really enjoy
Speaker 1: it because I can teach the criminal justice students, like
Speaker 1: I mentioned before the Sydney Declaration, and I mentioned before
Speaker 1: like my thoughts on crime scene investigation, which again is
Speaker 1: a whole other topic, but I can teach them the
Speaker 1: importance of like critical thinking and problem solving and how
Speaker 1: important that can be to the work that they do
Speaker 1: if they become a detective. Right, So what is criminal
Speaker 1: investigation entail? What is crime scene investigation and reconstruction tail?
Speaker 1: When should you say, I don't know, I need to
Speaker 1: call in a forensic expert, whether it be a scientist
Speaker 1: or a pathologist, or even a more specialized expert, whether
Speaker 1: it's an entomologist or anthropologist. But giving these individuals the
Speaker 1: opportunity to like be or go into law enforcement, possibly
Speaker 1: be detectives one day, possibly be bosses, and for them
Speaker 1: to be a little bit more cautious with how they
Speaker 1: address the crime scene, you know, is something that I
Speaker 1: really enjoy teaching, and I hope that they take that
Speaker 1: with them and then remember like Maranda told me not
Speaker 1: to touch this, you know, like Marenna told me to
Speaker 1: call in the expert.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: So hopefully, you know, they'll take those lessons away with them,
Speaker 1: you know. And so that's been pretty cool to work
Speaker 1: with criminal justice students.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's important to have a teacher like
Speaker 2: you in college because you you also, like when I
Speaker 2: remember when I was in school and I first started
Speaker 2: seeing that I was interested in the microscope and stuff.
Speaker 2: It's like you have some biology teachers that went to
Speaker 2: school for biology and then they just became professors and then.
Speaker 2: But my one teacher was a microbiologist that worked in
Speaker 2: a hospital, and she was the most She was like
Speaker 2: a pivotal person in my life and my career because
Speaker 2: she had so much experience, like working in the real
Speaker 2: world and kind of guiding me towards towards like what
Speaker 2: I wanted to do based upon like what I was
Speaker 2: telling her I liked. So it's awesome to have a
Speaker 2: teacher like you because you have so much experience from
Speaker 2: so many different areas of the field, and I think
Speaker 2: you're making like a huge impact on their life. You probably, like,
Speaker 2: are just sit back and say whatever. I don't think
Speaker 2: I do, but they they probably just think that you're awesome.
Speaker 2: I'm sure because I would love to have a teacher
Speaker 2: like you obviously. So I know that I know you're
Speaker 2: an expert in tattoos. But do you have any tattoos yourself?
Speaker 1: Yes, So of my tattoos you cannot see when I'm
Speaker 1: wearing clothes. Most of my tattoos are on my neck
Speaker 1: and my back, you know, all the rest of the
Speaker 1: song goes, I'm just yeah, that's me with like a
Speaker 1: you know, my my good old dad joke. So yeah,
Speaker 1: most of my tattoos are located on my back, my side,
Speaker 1: and a couple on my wrists. Yeah, so I am.
Speaker 1: I am officially tattooed.
Speaker 2: Did you have them before you started all of this
Speaker 2: research in this field or you you've gotten them more recently?
Speaker 1: Uh? So I did. I was tattooed before I started
Speaker 1: my research, and then from there I started to I
Speaker 1: did get a tattoo for my research. So I got
Speaker 1: a tattoo on my wrist that was specifically designed based
Speaker 1: upon the the ice Maiden found mummified remains of a
Speaker 1: female that was believed to be high ranking in her society.
Speaker 1: So I did get her tattoo on my wrist, and
Speaker 1: I added color to it so that I could actually
Speaker 1: look at it under the microscope with the instrumentation I
Speaker 1: wanted to see, yeah, if I could blast it with
Speaker 1: the laser and actually detect the pigments in my skin.
Speaker 1: So I did get that for my research, and then
Speaker 1: the other ones have kind of been linked. When I
Speaker 1: got my book, you know, I tattooed something very large
Speaker 1: for when my book came out, when I finished my PhD.
Speaker 1: And then I've gotten sort of things that are linked
Speaker 1: to some of the other publications and work that I've done,
Speaker 1: so a lot of them. Again, we were talking about
Speaker 1: like meaning and interpretation. You know, I believe sometimes that
Speaker 1: tattoo is just a tattoo, right, Sometimes you just pick
Speaker 1: something out, You're like, that's cool, I just want it.
Speaker 1: But for me, my tattoos, a lot of them have
Speaker 1: you know, meaning to me that other people may not
Speaker 1: get and probably would think, you know, sociopath, I guess
Speaker 1: because if you have like skill or weird things on
Speaker 1: your body, you know, something wrong with you, according to
Speaker 1: you know, some society people. But yeah, so I do
Speaker 1: have a lot of tattoos, and they've kind of been little,
Speaker 1: you know, milestones in my career that have been important
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's cool. I have like a combination of both.
Speaker 2: And another thing too, is like what you would pick
Speaker 2: at some age, because I got my first tattoo when
Speaker 2: I was fifteen, I think fifteen or sixteen, and then
Speaker 2: started getting most of my tattoos when I was in
Speaker 2: my late teens and early twenties, which I probably wouldn't
Speaker 2: get the same things today. But I have a mixture
Speaker 2: of like, Okay, I just think butterflies are cool and
Speaker 2: I have a lot of them, and then I have
Speaker 2: other ones that are super meaningful, So I get that
Speaker 2: that's cool.
Speaker 1: And you did did you do? I'm sorry, I'm totally
Speaker 1: cutting you off. Now I'm going to interview you. Now
Speaker 1: you did some blacking now too.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it's just a whole It was just the
Speaker 2: only reason that I did it is because my leg
Speaker 2: tattoos have just started when I was seventeen and just
Speaker 2: tried to fix it and tried to fix it and
Speaker 2: just made it progressively worse. So then I started, I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, I'll just black out my whole leg,
Speaker 2: and I got half of it done and then I
Speaker 2: never finished it, and instead I should have probably just
Speaker 2: attempted to get it lasered. Maybe I don't know. And
Speaker 2: now it's I don't even want to think about lasering
Speaker 2: that much skin, so I just kind of leave it alone. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm just over it. I had three kids natural childbirth.
Speaker 2: I'm just like, I'm old and I'm over being in
Speaker 2: pain anymore. Like I just don't I just need a
Speaker 2: break for right now. I haven't gotten tattooed in a while.
Speaker 2: It's just and I don't know if I ever told
Speaker 2: you know, I have like that weird skin thing that
Speaker 2: I end up getting with the sun exposure. And I
Speaker 2: also from time to time get asthma attacks when I
Speaker 2: get tattooed, and I don't know, I don't know what
Speaker 2: that's about. But that's another concern, Like do I really
Speaker 2: need to be I mean, whatever if I have to
Speaker 2: take the nebula. But like there was a couple of
Speaker 2: times I had to go to the emergency room because
Speaker 2: I just I couldn't. I couldn't make it go away
Speaker 2: by myself. And I thought that that was kind of
Speaker 2: a little ridiculous to be going having to go to
Speaker 2: the emergency room for asthma because I'm getting tattooed. It's
Speaker 2: I have kids and stuff. It's just like it's not
Speaker 2: it's not worth it to me. I know, right, It's
Speaker 2: just and I'm just I'm just over it. It's like
Speaker 2: it's just been all my life. I'm just over it.
Speaker 2: Since we're both women that work in this this kind
Speaker 2: of creepy field of death, and I personally think that
Speaker 2: we're both very normal people, but people think that we're
Speaker 2: weird because we like to be around dead people or whatever.
Speaker 2: So what are what Obviously you're a person and everybody
Speaker 2: thinks that you should you know, you should wear black
Speaker 2: all the time and and just you're always into death
Speaker 2: and skulls and everything. But like, what are some things
Speaker 2: that you like to do outside of forensic set that
Speaker 2: maybe could be a little bit more relatable to the
Speaker 2: average woman.
Speaker 1: All Right, so I will I will check those boxes
Speaker 1: of Yeah, I love to wear black. As you can see,
Speaker 1: I'm dressed very brightly right now, where gray, But yeah,
Speaker 1: I do like uh, you know, long walks in the cemetery.
Speaker 1: But uh, I love to travel. Travel is like really
Speaker 1: important to me, especially since COVID. I love uh seeing
Speaker 1: the world, and I do actually love visiting cemeteries in
Speaker 1: other countries to see like you know, how people treat
Speaker 1: the dead. Uh, you know how people decorate and the
Speaker 1: symbolism of like, you know, tombstone. So I do have
Speaker 1: that little creepy side of me. You know that's added
Speaker 1: to my travel. Uh. I like to travel. I like
Speaker 1: to shop. I'm fipping girl, No, I like the older
Speaker 1: I get. Like I keep going through these phases where
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, instead of having more of like cheaper stuff,
Speaker 1: I want less of more expensive stuff. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I find myself, you know, treating myself more
Speaker 1: than I probably should. But like if I do a
Speaker 1: little you know, if I do some good work, I'm like,
Speaker 1: let me go to channel. I do really like that.
Speaker 1: I like, you know, I'm like an art nerd. I'm
Speaker 1: like a fashion nerd. I know it sounds like super
Speaker 1: bizarre because like I would not wear like half the
Speaker 1: things that I like, love and see, but like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's a very weird quirky things. Uh, but uh,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of something I would do that's
Speaker 1: very What's some girly What's a girlly thing I do?
Speaker 2: Just like you don't knit every night or so just
Speaker 2: I don't even mean that, Like I don't. I don't
Speaker 2: really do. I don't do anything like that either, but
Speaker 2: just like I like gardening and I like taking care
Speaker 2: of my plants, just like other stuff that. But obviously
Speaker 2: I feel the same way. Like we we travel, not
Speaker 2: not internationally, but we take road trips a lot. And
Speaker 2: every single time I go on a road trip, I'm
Speaker 2: always like, Okay, what who got murdered here? And like
Speaker 2: what could I write about this? You know? So I
Speaker 2: mean there's definitely that. And then I bring my kids
Speaker 2: and my husband along too because they're on the trip
Speaker 2: with me. So I'm like, we have to we have
Speaker 2: to go on this haunted tour dinners. Yeah, exactly. Are
Speaker 2: you working on any other projects right now? I know
Speaker 2: you just got done doing this big lecture, so you're
Speaker 2: probably just like trying to chill after that big trip
Speaker 2: and everything.
Speaker 1: I am always I'm one of those people that's always on,
Speaker 1: like I always am and am writing or looking at
Speaker 1: stuff like I am that, like I like fusing like
Speaker 1: forensic science and pop culture and like I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: like forensic science at art. So I'm like one of
Speaker 1: those people that, like I watch a movie or a
Speaker 1: new TV show like Okay, they just came out like
Speaker 1: the full of the House of Usher, right, So I'm
Speaker 1: like watching that show and I always am constantly like
Speaker 1: trying to break it down, see like the elements of it, horror,
Speaker 1: forensic sign you know, where does it all tie in
Speaker 1: and stuff. So for projects right now now, I'm doing
Speaker 1: some more you know, wacky pop culture stuff and always
Speaker 1: tattoo stuff is always something that's just gonna be with
Speaker 1: me forever. You know, I have some grad students doing
Speaker 1: research and I guess, h you know, you've inspired me.
Speaker 1: So maybe I should start making some more Instagram posts
Speaker 1: and get back into that gig, because you know, I
Speaker 1: do like sharing that knowledge. But yeah, I am trying
Speaker 1: to take a little bit of a breather for like
Speaker 1: the holiday, and then once like January hits, I'll be
Speaker 1: back hitting the ground running with some crazy wacky ideas
Speaker 1: of I don't know whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this the social media thing is like one thing
Speaker 2: like a tip I could give to you that I
Speaker 2: find useful is like I do a thing called Mystery
Speaker 2: Diagnosis and I call it like Mystery Monday, and it
Speaker 2: forces me to do it every single Monday, because I'm like,
Speaker 2: I can't push this off till tomorrow. It's not Monday.
Speaker 2: It has to be done on Monday. And I'm pretty
Speaker 2: I take off a couple of times a year, like
Speaker 2: for Chris Smith or something, but for the most part,
Speaker 2: it's like, all right, I'm gonna make this commitment that
Speaker 2: every single Monday I'm posting, and it just it works
Speaker 2: because it's there's no there's no procrastination allowed with it
Speaker 2: because it is. It is annoying, trust me. But all right,
Speaker 2: So we could find you and we're gonna push people
Speaker 2: there because we and that's going to force you to
Speaker 2: start posting more at Forensic Underscore Tattoo. And also, I
Speaker 2: just got your book. I don't know why I don't
Speaker 2: have it yet, but I don't, but I just got it.
Speaker 2: It's on the way. So then I'm gonna have to
Speaker 2: be forced to actually meet you in person, and so
Speaker 2: you could sign it for me. But it's called Forensic
Speaker 2: Analysis of Tattoos and Tattoo Incs. And it was on
Speaker 2: Amazon and it was on eBay and stuff. So I
Speaker 2: think any person that's interested in forensics should get it.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm really excited to see it because obviously I'm
Speaker 2: into tattoos and I'm into forensic so I think it'll
Speaker 2: be awesome. I can't wait. Is there anything else you
Speaker 2: want to tell anybody or not.
Speaker 1: It's been great spending time with you. It's always a
Speaker 1: good time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks so much for being here today. It was
Speaker 2: It was really great, and I hope that we get
Speaker 2: to hear more from you because I think that you
Speaker 2: have so much to offer women in forensics and it's
Speaker 2: just it's just really great what you're doing.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, there's there's layers here, but you know,
Speaker 1: I think I think that women should be you know,
Speaker 1: pushing it a little bit and you know, get out
Speaker 1: there and you know, do and you know, it doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily have to be a DNA like we find a
Speaker 1: lot of females in the DNA field, but go into traces,
Speaker 1: go into microscopy, go into investigations, you know, and crimecy reconstructions,
Speaker 1: and push push the envelope there a little bit, you know,
Speaker 1: when you google a lot of forensic science heroes, you know,
Speaker 1: you see a lot of the traditional, you know, white
Speaker 1: male faces come back at you, you know, so would
Speaker 1: like it would be good to see some more women
Speaker 1: really pushing it with forensic science in the field and
Speaker 1: with research, and so that's what I'd really love to see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's hard because it's just it's just people.
Speaker 2: People don't know. And that's and interviews like this are
Speaker 2: great because it's just like another job you could learn
Speaker 2: about that you can do if you have interest in it.
Speaker 2: So thank you again so much for being here today.
Speaker 1: All welcome. It was great to see you.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Mother nos Death. As a reminder,
Speaker 2: my training is as a pathologists assistant. I have a
Speaker 2: master's level education and specialize in anatomy and pathology education.
Speaker 2: I am not a doctor and I have not diagnosed
Speaker 2: or treated anyone dead or alive without the assistance of
Speaker 2: a licensed medical doctor. This show, my website, and social
Speaker 2: media accounts are designed to educate and inform people based
Speaker 2: on my experience working in pathology, so they can make
Speaker 2: healthier decisions regarding their life and well being. Always remember
Speaker 2: that science is changing every day, and the opinions expressed
Speaker 2: in this episode are based on my knowledge of those
Speaker 2: subjects at the time of publication. If you are having
Speaker 2: a medical problem, have a medical question, or having a
Speaker 2: medical emergency, please contact your physician or visit an urgent
Speaker 2: care center, emergency room, or hospital. Please rate, review, and
Speaker 2: subscribe to Mother Knows Death on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or
Speaker 2: anywhere you get podcasts. Thanks