1
00:00:04,120 --> 00:00:07,160
Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

2
00:00:07,200 --> 00:00:13,800
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

3
00:00:13,840 --> 00:00:16,400
Speaker 1: I am your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer

4
00:00:16,440 --> 00:00:18,959
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works in I love all things tech,

5
00:00:19,400 --> 00:00:22,560
Speaker 1: though today we're gonna be talking about a branch of

6
00:00:22,600 --> 00:00:26,560
Speaker 1: technology that gets up. I'm pretty grim and pretty serious. Uh,

7
00:00:26,600 --> 00:00:29,319
Speaker 1: this is a listener request. Listener Hakim asked that I

8
00:00:29,400 --> 00:00:32,520
Speaker 1: do an episode about forensic technology, so I'm actually gonna

9
00:00:32,520 --> 00:00:37,000
Speaker 1: do a pair of episodes. It is fascinating stuff and

10
00:00:37,040 --> 00:00:39,440
Speaker 1: it's definitely not quite the same as what we see

11
00:00:39,680 --> 00:00:43,360
Speaker 1: in depictions on film or in television shows. That's not

12
00:00:43,440 --> 00:00:47,120
Speaker 1: a big surprise. We've covered multiple times how technology in

13
00:00:47,200 --> 00:00:50,120
Speaker 1: pop culture is very different from what we see in reality.

14
00:00:50,320 --> 00:00:53,320
Speaker 1: But in this episode, I'm going to specifically focus on

15
00:00:53,400 --> 00:00:56,920
Speaker 1: the history of forensics, and in the next episode we'll

16
00:00:56,920 --> 00:00:59,320
Speaker 1: talk about some of the cutting edge technologies that are

17
00:00:59,400 --> 00:01:03,560
Speaker 1: used in for psick investigations today. So forensics, first of all,

18
00:01:03,600 --> 00:01:07,080
Speaker 1: has a few different definitions. If you are being very literal,

19
00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:10,200
Speaker 1: it can mean debate or discussion in Latin, but as

20
00:01:10,240 --> 00:01:12,560
Speaker 1: we tend to use it today, we refer to it

21
00:01:12,680 --> 00:01:16,480
Speaker 1: as the science with regard to detecting and solving crimes.

22
00:01:16,880 --> 00:01:20,000
Speaker 1: So not just if a crime has occurred, but how

23
00:01:20,040 --> 00:01:22,919
Speaker 1: did a crime occur, how did it unfold in time,

24
00:01:23,160 --> 00:01:26,679
Speaker 1: who was involved? That sort of stuff. And like all sciences,

25
00:01:26,880 --> 00:01:30,080
Speaker 1: forensics can trace its history back far before the formal

26
00:01:30,200 --> 00:01:34,440
Speaker 1: codification of the scientific method, and this involves lots of

27
00:01:34,480 --> 00:01:39,280
Speaker 1: different ideas and processes for different elements of investigation developing

28
00:01:39,280 --> 00:01:43,520
Speaker 1: at various times throughout history. Like most things, forensics involved

29
00:01:43,640 --> 00:01:49,000
Speaker 1: a lot of different ideas being tested throughout centuries before

30
00:01:49,040 --> 00:01:51,840
Speaker 1: maturing as a collection of practices. So one of the

31
00:01:51,880 --> 00:01:54,160
Speaker 1: easy ideas we can talk about, because there are a

32
00:01:54,200 --> 00:01:59,160
Speaker 1: lot of different independent threads that converge to become forensics.

33
00:02:00,040 --> 00:02:04,120
Speaker 1: On easy entry point is a discussion about fingerprints and

34
00:02:04,200 --> 00:02:07,520
Speaker 1: developing the skills and technology to detect and identify them

35
00:02:07,560 --> 00:02:11,360
Speaker 1: and classify them in the context of criminal investigations. Now,

36
00:02:11,400 --> 00:02:14,359
Speaker 1: I've done a full episode on fingerprinting in the past,

37
00:02:14,800 --> 00:02:17,800
Speaker 1: so I'll give more of a short overview of the

38
00:02:17,800 --> 00:02:21,800
Speaker 1: whole thing here. There are records that actually indicate that

39
00:02:21,960 --> 00:02:26,639
Speaker 1: handprints were used as evidence and investigations for burglary back

40
00:02:26,680 --> 00:02:30,160
Speaker 1: in China more than two thousand years ago, and the

41
00:02:30,200 --> 00:02:34,000
Speaker 1: book with the English title Universal History, which was published

42
00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:36,960
Speaker 1: in Persia in the th hundreds, mentioned the practice of

43
00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:43,000
Speaker 1: identifying people based upon their fingerprints. European anatomists and philosophers

44
00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:47,120
Speaker 1: made observations about fingerprints in the seventeenth century, but those

45
00:02:47,160 --> 00:02:51,120
Speaker 1: observations weren't really connected to the idea that fingerprints themselves

46
00:02:51,120 --> 00:02:53,880
Speaker 1: are unique to specific individuals and that no two people

47
00:02:53,919 --> 00:02:58,320
Speaker 1: would share the same ones. J. C. A. Meyer, a

48
00:02:58,440 --> 00:03:03,919
Speaker 1: German anatomist, published Anatomical Copper Plates with Appropriate Explanations. That's

49
00:03:03,919 --> 00:03:06,320
Speaker 1: the actual title of the book, Anatomical Copper Plates with

50
00:03:06,360 --> 00:03:11,040
Speaker 1: Appropriate Explanations, in sounds like it was a rip roaring

51
00:03:11,160 --> 00:03:15,080
Speaker 1: picture book anyway. He described fingerprints as being unique, but

52
00:03:15,200 --> 00:03:18,600
Speaker 1: also noted that they can appear similar to one another. So,

53
00:03:18,639 --> 00:03:21,840
Speaker 1: in other words, on close examination you will see that

54
00:03:21,919 --> 00:03:24,760
Speaker 1: they are unique, but on casual glance you may not

55
00:03:24,840 --> 00:03:28,320
Speaker 1: be able to make that distinction easily. The nineteenth century

56
00:03:28,360 --> 00:03:30,840
Speaker 1: saw a lot more work to define the qualities of

57
00:03:30,880 --> 00:03:34,359
Speaker 1: fingerprints and how to classify them. How would you describe

58
00:03:34,720 --> 00:03:37,160
Speaker 1: the fingerprints, how would you describe the grooves in such

59
00:03:37,200 --> 00:03:39,240
Speaker 1: a way that it made sense? And then how would

60
00:03:39,240 --> 00:03:42,800
Speaker 1: you classify fingerprints so that you could kind of categorize them,

61
00:03:43,080 --> 00:03:45,640
Speaker 1: and how would you preserve impressions of them. All of

62
00:03:45,680 --> 00:03:49,880
Speaker 1: these were ideas and practices that were developed in the

63
00:03:49,920 --> 00:03:54,080
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds. By the end of that century, Mark Twain

64
00:03:54,320 --> 00:03:57,760
Speaker 1: was incorporating the idea of using fingerprints to identify a

65
00:03:57,880 --> 00:04:00,840
Speaker 1: murderer and a couple of his books, And right at

66
00:04:00,880 --> 00:04:04,960
Speaker 1: the cusp of the twentieth century, just before nineteen hundred,

67
00:04:05,040 --> 00:04:08,400
Speaker 1: you had organizations starting to build out fingerprint files for

68
00:04:08,480 --> 00:04:12,160
Speaker 1: the purposes of identifications. So the idea of using fingerprints

69
00:04:12,200 --> 00:04:16,120
Speaker 1: to uh to ascertain the identity of someone you know

70
00:04:16,120 --> 00:04:19,320
Speaker 1: they've left a fingerprint behind a scene, that had really

71
00:04:19,360 --> 00:04:23,880
Speaker 1: started to take hold by the late nineteenth century, says

72
00:04:23,960 --> 00:04:28,279
Speaker 1: the Sherlock Holmes era. The twentieth century saw a rapid

73
00:04:28,360 --> 00:04:32,599
Speaker 1: development of technology in all different fields. Right, we see

74
00:04:32,600 --> 00:04:36,039
Speaker 1: in the nineteen hundreds crazy amounts of innovation in all

75
00:04:36,080 --> 00:04:41,360
Speaker 1: sorts of industries. But that included eventually things like digitizing

76
00:04:41,440 --> 00:04:45,320
Speaker 1: records of fingerprint files, which would allow law enforcement to

77
00:04:45,360 --> 00:04:49,240
Speaker 1: create the automated fingerprint identification system. And now in the

78
00:04:49,320 --> 00:04:53,120
Speaker 1: United States, the Department of Homeland Security oversees a database

79
00:04:53,160 --> 00:04:57,760
Speaker 1: containing more than one twenty million people's fingerprints. The FBI

80
00:04:57,839 --> 00:05:01,640
Speaker 1: conducts more than three hundred thousand KORD searches per day

81
00:05:01,680 --> 00:05:06,160
Speaker 1: against more than one forty million computerized fingerprint records. Uh

82
00:05:06,279 --> 00:05:07,960
Speaker 1: some of those are criminals, some of those are civil,

83
00:05:08,560 --> 00:05:13,120
Speaker 1: and so like civil fingerprints, you might have to submit

84
00:05:13,200 --> 00:05:17,120
Speaker 1: for fingerprinting at when getting a a an i D

85
00:05:17,520 --> 00:05:19,280
Speaker 1: like a state issued i D for example in the

86
00:05:19,360 --> 00:05:24,919
Speaker 1: United States. The world's largest database of fingerprint information, not

87
00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:29,520
Speaker 1: just fingerprint but biometric in general, actually belongs to a

88
00:05:29,560 --> 00:05:34,200
Speaker 1: company called the Unique Identification Authority of India. It's really

89
00:05:34,200 --> 00:05:36,440
Speaker 1: more of an organization, I guess I should say so

90
00:05:36,520 --> 00:05:40,640
Speaker 1: that also includes face and biometric records and the goal

91
00:05:40,760 --> 00:05:45,240
Speaker 1: to provide all one point to five billion residents of

92
00:05:45,279 --> 00:05:48,359
Speaker 1: India with the option to record their biometric data for

93
00:05:48,360 --> 00:05:53,120
Speaker 1: the purposes of providing reliable national i D documents. Participation

94
00:05:53,120 --> 00:05:56,480
Speaker 1: in that database, by the way, is voluntary, so they

95
00:05:56,480 --> 00:06:01,359
Speaker 1: aren't forced to submit to this uh In the citizens

96
00:06:01,360 --> 00:06:05,279
Speaker 1: of India can opt into this system for the purposes

97
00:06:05,360 --> 00:06:08,160
Speaker 1: of making it easier to get these kinds of national ideas.

98
00:06:09,120 --> 00:06:13,159
Speaker 1: So that's the idea behind fingerprinting. This this concept of

99
00:06:13,200 --> 00:06:15,120
Speaker 1: being able to look at the loops in the worlds

100
00:06:15,160 --> 00:06:18,680
Speaker 1: and the various ridges and to compare them against a

101
00:06:18,720 --> 00:06:21,680
Speaker 1: large database to see if there's a match. There were

102
00:06:21,760 --> 00:06:23,440
Speaker 1: very familiar with that, and like I said, I did

103
00:06:23,440 --> 00:06:26,559
Speaker 1: a full episode. So if you want to learn way

104
00:06:26,600 --> 00:06:31,600
Speaker 1: more about the process of fingerprinting and identification through fingerprinting,

105
00:06:31,920 --> 00:06:34,680
Speaker 1: go through the text of archives. There's an episode just

106
00:06:34,800 --> 00:06:39,040
Speaker 1: about that. So let's move over to ballistics. Now, technically,

107
00:06:39,839 --> 00:06:44,000
Speaker 1: ballistics is the science of projectiles and firearms. Within the

108
00:06:44,040 --> 00:06:48,360
Speaker 1: context of forensics. We tend to use the term ballistics

109
00:06:48,440 --> 00:06:51,280
Speaker 1: to talk about the various aspects of an investigation into

110
00:06:51,279 --> 00:06:54,720
Speaker 1: a crime that included a gun being fired at least once,

111
00:06:55,160 --> 00:06:58,200
Speaker 1: and a lot can go into that. One person I

112
00:06:58,240 --> 00:07:02,120
Speaker 1: need to mention is a guy named Henry Goddard, and

113
00:07:02,200 --> 00:07:04,480
Speaker 1: there actually were a couple of Henry Goddard's, So I'm

114
00:07:04,520 --> 00:07:08,400
Speaker 1: not talking about the American psychologist who advocated for intelligence

115
00:07:08,400 --> 00:07:12,080
Speaker 1: testing in the early twentieth century. I'm instead talking about

116
00:07:12,120 --> 00:07:16,520
Speaker 1: a nineteenth century member of London's Bow Street Runners. And

117
00:07:16,600 --> 00:07:19,160
Speaker 1: holy cow, this is a group that needs coverage in

118
00:07:19,200 --> 00:07:22,960
Speaker 1: a show like Ridiculous History, not because it's ridiculous, but

119
00:07:23,040 --> 00:07:26,120
Speaker 1: because it is fascinating. This is one of those things

120
00:07:26,160 --> 00:07:28,840
Speaker 1: where I had heard about the Bow Street runners, but

121
00:07:28,920 --> 00:07:31,320
Speaker 1: I hadn't really looked into it. And by the way,

122
00:07:31,560 --> 00:07:33,920
Speaker 1: if someone comes in to tell me that no, it's

123
00:07:33,920 --> 00:07:36,560
Speaker 1: Bow Street in London and Bow Street not Bow Street,

124
00:07:37,080 --> 00:07:41,000
Speaker 1: I apologize. That's my American ignorance showing through. I'm gonna

125
00:07:41,040 --> 00:07:43,280
Speaker 1: go with Bow Street because that's just how I assumed

126
00:07:43,320 --> 00:07:46,040
Speaker 1: it was pronounced, but I fully admit it could be wrong.

127
00:07:46,120 --> 00:07:50,400
Speaker 1: So quick history lesson. Leading up to the late seventeen hundreds,

128
00:07:50,800 --> 00:07:53,520
Speaker 1: it was customary in London that if you happen to

129
00:07:53,520 --> 00:07:56,360
Speaker 1: be a man, you were expected to participate in the

130
00:07:56,400 --> 00:07:59,320
Speaker 1: policing of your own community. So if you saw a

131
00:07:59,320 --> 00:08:02,800
Speaker 1: crime being commit did you were expected to intervene in

132
00:08:02,800 --> 00:08:08,280
Speaker 1: that crime and apprehend the perpetrator and convict that person.

133
00:08:08,880 --> 00:08:11,480
Speaker 1: You were also expected to send serve time in the

134
00:08:11,640 --> 00:08:15,960
Speaker 1: night watch, which meant that between the hours of say

135
00:08:16,120 --> 00:08:19,760
Speaker 1: eight or nine PM and dawn, you would have to

136
00:08:19,800 --> 00:08:23,040
Speaker 1: patrol streets and make sure that that there were no

137
00:08:23,120 --> 00:08:27,880
Speaker 1: suspicious people lurking about, or that if anyone was seen

138
00:08:27,960 --> 00:08:29,760
Speaker 1: on the streets, that they had a valid reason to

139
00:08:29,800 --> 00:08:32,679
Speaker 1: be out there and they weren't up to no good.

140
00:08:33,480 --> 00:08:35,520
Speaker 1: And a lot of people were starting to get a

141
00:08:35,520 --> 00:08:38,280
Speaker 1: little nervous about this because by the seventeen hundreds you

142
00:08:38,320 --> 00:08:41,640
Speaker 1: had a new class that had formed in London. And

143
00:08:41,640 --> 00:08:46,319
Speaker 1: previously you had the commoners and you had the nobility,

144
00:08:46,640 --> 00:08:50,600
Speaker 1: and that was the way of things in the in

145
00:08:50,720 --> 00:08:55,120
Speaker 1: England for quite some time. Uh and then by the

146
00:08:55,160 --> 00:08:57,520
Speaker 1: Renaissance you were starting to see the rise of the

147
00:08:57,559 --> 00:09:00,559
Speaker 1: middle class, and by the seventeen hundreds you the upper

148
00:09:00,600 --> 00:09:04,000
Speaker 1: middle class. You had people who were wealthy. They weren't noble,

149
00:09:04,280 --> 00:09:06,560
Speaker 1: but they owned a lot of wealth, whereas you had

150
00:09:06,640 --> 00:09:10,000
Speaker 1: nobility that were they had noble titles, but some of

151
00:09:10,000 --> 00:09:13,439
Speaker 1: them weren't very wealthy at all. So this really created

152
00:09:13,480 --> 00:09:18,160
Speaker 1: confusion in England, where for the longest time social status

153
00:09:18,240 --> 00:09:22,160
Speaker 1: was based upon nobility, and nobility tended to bring wealth

154
00:09:22,240 --> 00:09:25,960
Speaker 1: along with it. Anyway, you had these upper class folks

155
00:09:25,960 --> 00:09:29,560
Speaker 1: in London, men who were not terribly keen on the

156
00:09:29,640 --> 00:09:33,520
Speaker 1: idea of having to patrol their city streets and getting

157
00:09:33,559 --> 00:09:37,600
Speaker 1: involved in altercations that could involve violent criminals. You think,

158
00:09:37,720 --> 00:09:40,839
Speaker 1: I didn't work so hard to become so successful to

159
00:09:41,720 --> 00:09:46,960
Speaker 1: potentially get my skull caved in by a villain with

160
00:09:47,000 --> 00:09:49,520
Speaker 1: a club. So I'm going to hire someone to go

161
00:09:49,600 --> 00:09:53,960
Speaker 1: in my place, and people started to hire deputies. Well.

162
00:09:53,960 --> 00:09:57,120
Speaker 1: Around the same time, royal proclamations had created a reward

163
00:09:57,280 --> 00:10:00,560
Speaker 1: system for people who helped keep the peace by convicting

164
00:10:00,559 --> 00:10:06,120
Speaker 1: criminals of various crimes, including various thefts, so this gave

165
00:10:06,240 --> 00:10:10,840
Speaker 1: rise to an unofficial occupation called thief taker. Thief takers

166
00:10:10,840 --> 00:10:14,800
Speaker 1: would often not just make money by pursuing convictions of criminals,

167
00:10:14,840 --> 00:10:18,600
Speaker 1: but also essentially selling back stolen property to the rightful owners.

168
00:10:18,720 --> 00:10:23,080
Speaker 1: So they would get money by putting the thief behind

169
00:10:23,120 --> 00:10:25,680
Speaker 1: bars and get more money by selling the stolen property

170
00:10:25,720 --> 00:10:27,480
Speaker 1: back to the person who owned in the first place.

171
00:10:28,480 --> 00:10:32,920
Speaker 1: So then you had Henry and John Fielding and they

172
00:10:32,960 --> 00:10:36,280
Speaker 1: had a house on Bow Street. Henry Fielding started to

173
00:10:36,320 --> 00:10:40,120
Speaker 1: pay retainers to men who were either constables or ex

174
00:10:40,200 --> 00:10:45,560
Speaker 1: constables to locate and arrest criminals, particularly violent criminals, and

175
00:10:45,559 --> 00:10:48,000
Speaker 1: if you did that, you were entitled to the reward.

176
00:10:48,320 --> 00:10:49,840
Speaker 1: So if you were one of the members of the

177
00:10:49,840 --> 00:10:53,200
Speaker 1: Bow Street Runners and you apprehended someone, you convicted that

178
00:10:53,280 --> 00:10:55,840
Speaker 1: person of a crime, you would get the reward there

179
00:10:56,080 --> 00:10:57,960
Speaker 1: and the Fieldings hope that what they could do is

180
00:10:58,000 --> 00:11:01,280
Speaker 1: managed this group and rain in any corruption to keep

181
00:11:01,320 --> 00:11:04,160
Speaker 1: things on the level, and they essentially became a private

182
00:11:04,200 --> 00:11:08,320
Speaker 1: police force of sorts, and over time they developed processes

183
00:11:08,320 --> 00:11:11,320
Speaker 1: and procedures that would become the foundation of modern policing

184
00:11:11,320 --> 00:11:15,520
Speaker 1: in many ways. Now, Goddard, who had mentioned before, was

185
00:11:15,559 --> 00:11:18,640
Speaker 1: one of these bow street runners or policemen, and he

186
00:11:18,720 --> 00:11:22,160
Speaker 1: identified a murderer in eighteen thirty five by linking a

187
00:11:22,200 --> 00:11:25,640
Speaker 1: bullet recovered from a victim to the person who made

188
00:11:25,840 --> 00:11:28,959
Speaker 1: the bullet, because in those days most people who owned

189
00:11:29,040 --> 00:11:34,040
Speaker 1: guns made their own bullets. You did this by pouring

190
00:11:34,120 --> 00:11:37,520
Speaker 1: molten lead into a two piece mold, to set it

191
00:11:37,760 --> 00:11:41,040
Speaker 1: into that mold, and then you would, you know, forge

192
00:11:41,080 --> 00:11:44,600
Speaker 1: a bullet. Goddard saw in the bullet, and imperfection that

193
00:11:44,679 --> 00:11:47,960
Speaker 1: he reasoned was from the manufacturing process, which meant the

194
00:11:48,040 --> 00:11:50,920
Speaker 1: mold itself would have evidence of that fault, and if

195
00:11:50,920 --> 00:11:53,480
Speaker 1: you were to mold another bullet with that mold, you

196
00:11:53,480 --> 00:11:56,040
Speaker 1: should be able to replicate the fault in it. So

197
00:11:56,120 --> 00:11:58,840
Speaker 1: Goddard was able to get a confession from the suspect

198
00:11:59,160 --> 00:12:01,480
Speaker 1: and one to convict action. It was only later that

199
00:12:01,480 --> 00:12:04,800
Speaker 1: people pointed out his approach was not necessarily the most scientific,

200
00:12:04,920 --> 00:12:08,320
Speaker 1: as similar molds could have produced a similar looking bullet.

201
00:12:08,720 --> 00:12:11,200
Speaker 1: But it was an early example of ballistics and forensics.

202
00:12:11,200 --> 00:12:14,520
Speaker 1: It's just it wasn't a terribly scientifically solid one. But

203
00:12:14,600 --> 00:12:16,960
Speaker 1: you flash forward a century later and then you have

204
00:12:17,360 --> 00:12:21,040
Speaker 1: Calvin Goddard, but no relation to Henry Goddard, whom I

205
00:12:21,120 --> 00:12:24,719
Speaker 1: just talked about. Calvin Goddard was a scientist, a researcher,

206
00:12:24,720 --> 00:12:28,120
Speaker 1: and a military officer, and in nineteen five he wrote

207
00:12:28,120 --> 00:12:31,960
Speaker 1: an article titled Forensic Ballistics and described using a special

208
00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:36,400
Speaker 1: type of microscope he had created called a comparison microscope

209
00:12:36,400 --> 00:12:40,280
Speaker 1: when examining side by side specimens. Now, essentially a comparison

210
00:12:40,320 --> 00:12:44,720
Speaker 1: microscope is too light. Microscopes connected by an optical bridge.

211
00:12:45,240 --> 00:12:49,880
Speaker 1: So there are two uh ocular lenses, two eye pieces,

212
00:12:50,280 --> 00:12:52,480
Speaker 1: so you look in one with each giant. It looks

213
00:12:52,520 --> 00:12:56,160
Speaker 1: almost like binoculars, excepted some microscope. And it meant that

214
00:12:56,200 --> 00:12:58,440
Speaker 1: you could put a sample under one and a sample

215
00:12:58,520 --> 00:13:00,840
Speaker 1: under the second one, and pair of the two in

216
00:13:00,880 --> 00:13:03,520
Speaker 1: a single view. And he used it to compare bullet

217
00:13:03,559 --> 00:13:07,160
Speaker 1: casings or bullet shells and bullets recovered from crime scenes,

218
00:13:07,679 --> 00:13:10,080
Speaker 1: and by being able to see both a bullet and

219
00:13:10,120 --> 00:13:12,760
Speaker 1: it's casing, he could verify whether or not the bullet

220
00:13:13,120 --> 00:13:16,640
Speaker 1: actually belonged to that casing by the markings. He could

221
00:13:16,679 --> 00:13:21,880
Speaker 1: also if say you had recovered a firearm from a

222
00:13:21,920 --> 00:13:25,640
Speaker 1: suspect and you were wondering if it was the same

223
00:13:25,760 --> 00:13:28,240
Speaker 1: firearm as the one used in a crime, you could

224
00:13:28,280 --> 00:13:32,080
Speaker 1: fire that into a soft target, retrieved the bullets, compare

225
00:13:32,080 --> 00:13:36,280
Speaker 1: them side by side, so uh that would allow you

226
00:13:36,360 --> 00:13:39,200
Speaker 1: to look at them in real time next to each

227
00:13:39,200 --> 00:13:42,320
Speaker 1: other at a microscopic level. Previously, what you would have

228
00:13:42,360 --> 00:13:45,440
Speaker 1: to do is look at one like the actual one

229
00:13:45,480 --> 00:13:47,960
Speaker 1: that was found at the scene of a crime, and

230
00:13:48,280 --> 00:13:52,720
Speaker 1: make note of any indentations or markings on the bullet,

231
00:13:53,040 --> 00:13:55,520
Speaker 1: and then you would look at a second one separately.

232
00:13:55,840 --> 00:13:57,880
Speaker 1: But that men, you had to rely upon your memory

233
00:13:57,960 --> 00:14:01,240
Speaker 1: in part to make this comparison in and memories are faulty,

234
00:14:01,440 --> 00:14:04,320
Speaker 1: so his technology would end up playing a vital role

235
00:14:04,400 --> 00:14:08,960
Speaker 1: in several early twentieth century investigations, including the investigation into

236
00:14:08,960 --> 00:14:13,160
Speaker 1: the infamous St. Valentine's Day massacre. Goddard was able to

237
00:14:13,200 --> 00:14:15,480
Speaker 1: prove that the bullets that were fired in that crime

238
00:14:15,880 --> 00:14:18,680
Speaker 1: did not come from police guns because the men who

239
00:14:18,679 --> 00:14:22,240
Speaker 1: committed the murders were wearing Chicago police uniforms when they

240
00:14:22,240 --> 00:14:24,880
Speaker 1: did it, but they said, well, no, these didn't come

241
00:14:24,880 --> 00:14:27,960
Speaker 1: from the guns that belonged to police officers. Later on

242
00:14:28,040 --> 00:14:31,280
Speaker 1: they were able to discover a gun that belonged to

243
00:14:31,320 --> 00:14:35,720
Speaker 1: a mobster that did match the bullets that were fired

244
00:14:35,760 --> 00:14:38,000
Speaker 1: during the St. Valentine's Day masacre. So it was one

245
00:14:38,120 --> 00:14:42,280
Speaker 1: of the guns used in that terrible, terrible event. They

246
00:14:42,320 --> 00:14:44,840
Speaker 1: were figured out it wasn't vigilante justice at all, it

247
00:14:44,920 --> 00:14:48,000
Speaker 1: was a mob hit. Based upon the evidence, Godard would

248
00:14:48,040 --> 00:14:50,080
Speaker 1: be asked to become the head of the first independent

249
00:14:50,120 --> 00:14:53,640
Speaker 1: forensics science crime Lab, which was at Northwestern University in

250
00:14:53,760 --> 00:14:56,960
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty nine. The lab later became known as the

251
00:14:57,040 --> 00:15:02,280
Speaker 1: Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory of h AGO. Very influential lab.

252
00:15:02,760 --> 00:15:05,040
Speaker 1: Now get a lot more to say about forensics science

253
00:15:05,040 --> 00:15:07,120
Speaker 1: and its development over the years, but first let's take

254
00:15:07,160 --> 00:15:17,040
Speaker 1: a quick break to thank our sponsor. One of the

255
00:15:17,120 --> 00:15:20,600
Speaker 1: many things a ballistics expert in forensic studies would look

256
00:15:20,600 --> 00:15:22,720
Speaker 1: at would be those marks left on a bullet after

257
00:15:22,760 --> 00:15:25,760
Speaker 1: it has been fired from a gun. Modern guns have

258
00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:30,160
Speaker 1: rifling in the barrels, which refers to grooves that are

259
00:15:30,200 --> 00:15:33,680
Speaker 1: inside the barrel. They're meant to produce torque on a bullet,

260
00:15:33,880 --> 00:15:37,080
Speaker 1: which forces the bullet to spin as it travels down

261
00:15:37,120 --> 00:15:40,040
Speaker 1: the barrel, and it continues spinning when it emerges because

262
00:15:40,040 --> 00:15:42,960
Speaker 1: a spinning projectile has a much more stable flight path

263
00:15:43,360 --> 00:15:46,520
Speaker 1: due to behaving like a gyroscope. I talked about gyroscopes

264
00:15:46,560 --> 00:15:49,880
Speaker 1: in recent episodes of tech Stuff. Essentially because of the

265
00:15:49,920 --> 00:15:53,760
Speaker 1: conservation of angular momentum and objects spinning around an access

266
00:15:53,760 --> 00:15:58,200
Speaker 1: of rotation resists changes in its orientation, so a spinning

267
00:15:58,240 --> 00:16:00,800
Speaker 1: bullet will remain more true to its flight path. And

268
00:16:00,880 --> 00:16:04,120
Speaker 1: a projectile fired from a smooth bore firearm which has

269
00:16:04,120 --> 00:16:06,600
Speaker 1: no rifling on the inside of its gun barrel, but

270
00:16:06,720 --> 00:16:11,760
Speaker 1: passing down this groove path essentially carves a pattern on

271
00:16:11,920 --> 00:16:14,760
Speaker 1: a bullet. A bullets diameter is slightly larger than the

272
00:16:14,760 --> 00:16:17,520
Speaker 1: board diameter of the barrel it is fired through. The

273
00:16:17,640 --> 00:16:21,400
Speaker 1: bullet is of a softer material, so it will end

274
00:16:21,480 --> 00:16:24,600
Speaker 1: up getting a pattern carved into it as it as

275
00:16:24,800 --> 00:16:27,600
Speaker 1: as it's forced on this barrel at high velocity and

276
00:16:27,640 --> 00:16:31,000
Speaker 1: begins to go into the spin. Investigators can actually count

277
00:16:31,000 --> 00:16:34,880
Speaker 1: the number of grooves or impressions around the circumference of

278
00:16:34,880 --> 00:16:37,280
Speaker 1: the bullet, and by looking down the length of a

279
00:16:37,320 --> 00:16:41,360
Speaker 1: bullet from behind, the investigators can determine the twist direction

280
00:16:41,440 --> 00:16:44,320
Speaker 1: of the rifling grooves inside the barrel, and this part

281
00:16:44,360 --> 00:16:48,040
Speaker 1: of a gun barrel can wear down after use. That

282
00:16:48,120 --> 00:16:50,360
Speaker 1: means that the patterns will end up being unique to

283
00:16:50,440 --> 00:16:53,160
Speaker 1: specific guns. Even if you have two guns that are

284
00:16:53,200 --> 00:16:56,560
Speaker 1: the same make and model, the wear pattern is going

285
00:16:56,560 --> 00:16:59,280
Speaker 1: to be different for both of those so you will

286
00:16:59,400 --> 00:17:04,000
Speaker 1: end up have different patterns actually imparted to the bullets

287
00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:07,399
Speaker 1: fired out of those guns. So if investigators can retrieve

288
00:17:07,400 --> 00:17:09,959
Speaker 1: bullets from a scene, they can potentially match those bullets

289
00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:13,119
Speaker 1: to a specific firearm, assuming they also have possession of

290
00:17:13,119 --> 00:17:15,679
Speaker 1: that firearm to compare the two, or they can use

291
00:17:15,720 --> 00:17:19,040
Speaker 1: the patterns to potentially eliminate firearms that could not have

292
00:17:19,160 --> 00:17:22,159
Speaker 1: produced those patterns. So, like I said before, the way

293
00:17:22,160 --> 00:17:25,880
Speaker 1: you would typically do this is you have the suspect firearm,

294
00:17:25,960 --> 00:17:28,600
Speaker 1: you fired it a few times, and you fire it

295
00:17:28,600 --> 00:17:31,520
Speaker 1: into into a target that will preserve the integrity of

296
00:17:31,560 --> 00:17:33,959
Speaker 1: the bullets. It's not designed to have the bullet break apart.

297
00:17:34,480 --> 00:17:36,000
Speaker 1: So that way you have as good a sample as

298
00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:39,719
Speaker 1: you possibly can. You compare the patterns on that bullet

299
00:17:39,840 --> 00:17:42,639
Speaker 1: to the one that you have retrieved from the crime scene,

300
00:17:42,880 --> 00:17:44,679
Speaker 1: and you look and see if they they are in

301
00:17:44,760 --> 00:17:47,840
Speaker 1: fact similar enough to say they were both fired from

302
00:17:47,880 --> 00:17:52,800
Speaker 1: the same weapon. Uh. Firearms also produced marks on cartridge cases,

303
00:17:52,960 --> 00:17:55,880
Speaker 1: and no two firearms will do so exactly the same way.

304
00:17:55,960 --> 00:17:59,840
Speaker 1: So cartridges will bear markings, they're different from rifling markings.

305
00:17:59,880 --> 00:18:03,400
Speaker 1: They they might have something like a firing pin, Ambrussians,

306
00:18:03,600 --> 00:18:09,520
Speaker 1: breach marks, extractor marks, and dejector marks. Depending upon the

307
00:18:09,520 --> 00:18:13,560
Speaker 1: type of firearm you're talking about, surface characteristics created on

308
00:18:13,600 --> 00:18:16,600
Speaker 1: the firearm itself from use will give it a uniqueness

309
00:18:16,960 --> 00:18:19,440
Speaker 1: that other firearms won't reproduce. That's that where in Taro

310
00:18:19,560 --> 00:18:23,280
Speaker 1: is telling you about um. But firearms also don't change

311
00:18:23,400 --> 00:18:26,359
Speaker 1: super quickly, right. They do wear down over time, but

312
00:18:26,400 --> 00:18:29,359
Speaker 1: it's not super super fast. Even if two are the

313
00:18:29,400 --> 00:18:32,520
Speaker 1: same make and model, you're gonna have slight differences, like

314
00:18:32,560 --> 00:18:35,879
Speaker 1: I said before, But they don't change so fast that

315
00:18:35,920 --> 00:18:39,000
Speaker 1: you have to worry about identifying a gun. Well after

316
00:18:39,560 --> 00:18:42,640
Speaker 1: a crime is committed, let's say that you have retrieved

317
00:18:42,640 --> 00:18:46,159
Speaker 1: a bullet from the case of the crime scene, and

318
00:18:46,200 --> 00:18:48,440
Speaker 1: let's say it's a cold case, like it's the case

319
00:18:48,520 --> 00:18:52,000
Speaker 1: has gone cold and it's essentially shelved. And then later

320
00:18:52,040 --> 00:18:54,399
Speaker 1: on you come across somebody and you're like I like

321
00:18:54,520 --> 00:18:57,080
Speaker 1: this guy for that crime we never solved, you know,

322
00:18:57,160 --> 00:19:01,080
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago, and this guy even had a gun

323
00:19:01,840 --> 00:19:04,600
Speaker 1: that would have fired the bullets. It's the same style

324
00:19:04,640 --> 00:19:07,000
Speaker 1: of gun that we suspect fired the bullets that we

325
00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:10,840
Speaker 1: retrieved at that scene. Even though fifteen years have passed.

326
00:19:11,440 --> 00:19:14,960
Speaker 1: You can fire that suspects gun and you can compare

327
00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:17,800
Speaker 1: it against the bullet you retreat from the crime scene,

328
00:19:18,280 --> 00:19:20,960
Speaker 1: and chances are there won't be so much wear and tear.

329
00:19:21,040 --> 00:19:23,080
Speaker 1: Assuming it is the same gun, that you would be

330
00:19:23,119 --> 00:19:26,439
Speaker 1: able to say, oh, it's the exact same firearm. So

331
00:19:26,520 --> 00:19:29,800
Speaker 1: if you fire a gun once and you retreat the bullet,

332
00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:32,280
Speaker 1: then you fire at ninety nine more times and you

333
00:19:32,400 --> 00:19:36,120
Speaker 1: treat the one bullet, there should still be enough similarities

334
00:19:36,160 --> 00:19:38,600
Speaker 1: between bullets one and one hundred for you to say

335
00:19:38,640 --> 00:19:41,199
Speaker 1: they both definitely came from the same gun. In addition

336
00:19:41,200 --> 00:19:43,720
Speaker 1: to studying bullets to determine if they were fired from

337
00:19:43,720 --> 00:19:47,760
Speaker 1: a specific firearm, forensic investigators also examined bullet holes left

338
00:19:47,760 --> 00:19:50,439
Speaker 1: it scenes to figure out where the person firing the

339
00:19:50,440 --> 00:19:53,840
Speaker 1: gun was standing and how tall he or she was.

340
00:19:53,960 --> 00:19:56,480
Speaker 1: Based on the evidence, the shape of a bullet hole

341
00:19:56,560 --> 00:20:00,080
Speaker 1: gives us a lot of information. So some people might say, go,

342
00:20:00,200 --> 00:20:02,200
Speaker 1: bullet holes are gonna be around, Well, that's not true

343
00:20:02,320 --> 00:20:06,680
Speaker 1: unless the person firing the gun is firing at perfectly

344
00:20:06,800 --> 00:20:10,919
Speaker 1: level at a ninety degree angle to whatever the surfaces

345
00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:13,920
Speaker 1: that that ends up being hit by the bullet. Otherwise

346
00:20:13,920 --> 00:20:17,160
Speaker 1: you're gonna get an elliptical shape from the bullet hole,

347
00:20:17,480 --> 00:20:19,720
Speaker 1: and that elliptical shape will tell you a lot. It's

348
00:20:19,840 --> 00:20:22,000
Speaker 1: it's angled, it will show that the bullet hit the

349
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:25,360
Speaker 1: wallet to bias. So you can determine the angle from

350
00:20:25,359 --> 00:20:27,439
Speaker 1: which the bullet entered the wall, and if you have

351
00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:30,800
Speaker 1: a suspect, you can use geometry to determine if that

352
00:20:30,920 --> 00:20:35,160
Speaker 1: suspect could have been responsible. Not necessarily if they did

353
00:20:35,240 --> 00:20:37,240
Speaker 1: or didn't do it, but you can at least say, well,

354
00:20:37,400 --> 00:20:40,000
Speaker 1: is it possible that they did it. This is where

355
00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:42,399
Speaker 1: you look at, say, bullet holes in the wall. You

356
00:20:42,480 --> 00:20:45,480
Speaker 1: determine the angle from where the bullet entered the wall.

357
00:20:45,520 --> 00:20:48,639
Speaker 1: You've figured out where what distance from the wall the

358
00:20:48,640 --> 00:20:51,480
Speaker 1: shooter was, and you say, well, if the shooter was

359
00:20:51,600 --> 00:20:54,400
Speaker 1: five ft ten, this makes sense. But if you start

360
00:20:54,440 --> 00:20:58,320
Speaker 1: getting too short or too tall from that, then it wouldn't.

361
00:20:58,520 --> 00:21:01,399
Speaker 1: The angle doesn't make any that's based upon what we know.

362
00:21:01,960 --> 00:21:04,680
Speaker 1: So let's say that you've got a four ft three

363
00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:07,600
Speaker 1: inch tall suspect. You might say, well, there's no way

364
00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:11,119
Speaker 1: this person is too short for that to have worked

365
00:21:11,160 --> 00:21:14,440
Speaker 1: out the way we believe it did. So that those

366
00:21:14,480 --> 00:21:18,080
Speaker 1: bullet holes can tell you a lot of information, but

367
00:21:18,200 --> 00:21:20,160
Speaker 1: you have to use geometry in order to do it,

368
00:21:21,240 --> 00:21:23,639
Speaker 1: which means I would be really bad at it. I

369
00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:27,160
Speaker 1: was terrible at geometry. It's great at trigonometry, but not

370
00:21:27,240 --> 00:21:31,719
Speaker 1: so much at geometry. Anyway, these days, investigators may use

371
00:21:31,760 --> 00:21:35,840
Speaker 1: advanced technologies like laser scanners to get really precise information

372
00:21:35,880 --> 00:21:39,600
Speaker 1: from a crime scene in order to create a simulation

373
00:21:39,720 --> 00:21:43,960
Speaker 1: to to view things like the angle of fire and

374
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:46,280
Speaker 1: the distance and that sort of stuff. I'll talk more

375
00:21:46,320 --> 00:21:50,000
Speaker 1: about that in the next episode. However, other science and

376
00:21:50,080 --> 00:21:52,399
Speaker 1: technology that relates to crimes in which a gun was

377
00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:56,560
Speaker 1: fired might include detecting residue from gunshots. By the nineteen seventies,

378
00:21:56,720 --> 00:22:00,680
Speaker 1: scientists started using scanning electron microscopes to do at I

379
00:22:00,720 --> 00:22:04,160
Speaker 1: also talk about scanning electron microscopes in the next episode

380
00:22:04,160 --> 00:22:06,719
Speaker 1: and talk about how those work. It's pretty fascinating stuff.

381
00:22:07,240 --> 00:22:11,800
Speaker 1: But forensics goes beyond fingerprints and ballistics in the eighteen thirties,

382
00:22:12,119 --> 00:22:15,280
Speaker 1: there was a chemist named James Marsh who developed a

383
00:22:15,359 --> 00:22:18,080
Speaker 1: chemical test we called the Marsh test and it was

384
00:22:18,119 --> 00:22:21,840
Speaker 1: specifically to detect the presence of arsenic and he developed

385
00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:25,879
Speaker 1: the test after he determined the prevailing methodology was inferior

386
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:32,520
Speaker 1: after a pretty upsetting incident in his life and all

387
00:22:32,600 --> 00:22:35,760
Speaker 1: had to do with a murder trial. In two there

388
00:22:35,800 --> 00:22:38,280
Speaker 1: was a man who stood accused of having murdered his

389
00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:42,879
Speaker 1: grandfather by poisoning his granddad's coffee with arsenic and James

390
00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:47,040
Speaker 1: Marsh was called upon to do an investigation and present

391
00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:50,040
Speaker 1: his findings to court, and he was meant to test

392
00:22:50,160 --> 00:22:53,440
Speaker 1: the coffee for arsenic. Now, the standard at the time

393
00:22:53,920 --> 00:22:58,800
Speaker 1: was that you would pass hydrogen sulfide through a sample

394
00:22:58,880 --> 00:23:03,439
Speaker 1: fluid and that would create a reaction that would release hydrogen.

395
00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:07,000
Speaker 1: The hydrogen would carry particles of arsenic as it bubbled

396
00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:10,480
Speaker 1: up through the sample. And it's in gas form, so

397
00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:13,400
Speaker 1: it passes through you know it'll it would just dissipate

398
00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:15,040
Speaker 1: if you didn't have anything else attached to it. But

399
00:23:15,080 --> 00:23:18,320
Speaker 1: you would have your your device set up so that

400
00:23:18,800 --> 00:23:22,199
Speaker 1: the gas is passing through a line like a glass

401
00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:26,359
Speaker 1: tube for example, and you would heat the tube, and

402
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:29,480
Speaker 1: you would also burn off the hydrogen as it came

403
00:23:29,480 --> 00:23:32,480
Speaker 1: out the other end of the two and traces of

404
00:23:32,640 --> 00:23:36,720
Speaker 1: arsenic would remain as a precipitate that would be collected

405
00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:39,120
Speaker 1: and you could use it what they would call an

406
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:43,400
Speaker 1: arsenic mirror and create the sort of blackish uh finish

407
00:23:43,760 --> 00:23:47,640
Speaker 1: on a surface. But the problem was it wouldn't keep indefinitely.

408
00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 1: So Marsh conducts this test. He detects arsenic in the coffee,

409
00:23:53,119 --> 00:23:55,240
Speaker 1: but by the time he was called to present to

410
00:23:55,280 --> 00:24:00,080
Speaker 1: the jury, the evidence he had collected had deteriorated, and

411
00:24:00,280 --> 00:24:03,480
Speaker 1: it deterior to the point where the jury didn't see

412
00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:07,080
Speaker 1: the evidence, so they suspect was ultimately released of charges,

413
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:09,280
Speaker 1: and Marsh figured there had to be a better way,

414
00:24:09,320 --> 00:24:11,359
Speaker 1: so he developed what we now call the Marsh test,

415
00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:15,560
Speaker 1: and he stuck with a chemical reaction approach. He experimented,

416
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:19,040
Speaker 1: and he found that if he combined a sample that

417
00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:23,199
Speaker 1: had arsenic in it and he put that in with

418
00:24:23,359 --> 00:24:25,960
Speaker 1: some zinc that had no arsenic in it at all,

419
00:24:26,160 --> 00:24:30,359
Speaker 1: arsenic free zinc, and then added sulfuric acid, it would

420
00:24:30,359 --> 00:24:34,240
Speaker 1: create arsene gas, and burning off that gas would produce

421
00:24:34,359 --> 00:24:37,639
Speaker 1: pure metallic arsenic and if that were to come in

422
00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:40,000
Speaker 1: contact with a cold surface, it would leave behind a

423
00:24:40,080 --> 00:24:43,920
Speaker 1: silvery black coating. And it was a sensitive enough test

424
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:46,960
Speaker 1: that could detect quantities of arsenic as small as one

425
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:50,080
Speaker 1: of a milligram, which is pretty nifty. Now, if there

426
00:24:50,119 --> 00:24:53,040
Speaker 1: were no arsenic in the sample, you wouldn't produce this gas,

427
00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:58,320
Speaker 1: so you wouldn't have that silvery residue. So chemical analysis

428
00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:01,720
Speaker 1: is another important part of ensics science, and arsenic is

429
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:05,000
Speaker 1: just one of dozens of different chemicals investigators might have

430
00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:08,920
Speaker 1: to search for at a crime scene. Another important element

431
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:12,520
Speaker 1: in forensics has to do with blood. Clearly, that becomes

432
00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:17,480
Speaker 1: a very important element in investigations. During the nineteenth century,

433
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 1: Dr Ludwig Carl Tichman developed a test to determine if

434
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 1: a stain actually was dried blood or maybe it's mud

435
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:29,959
Speaker 1: or something else. And this is a test we call

436
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:32,840
Speaker 1: the Tychman test. Tend to name things after the people

437
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:37,360
Speaker 1: who proposed them. So Dr Tychman researched how organic compounds

438
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:41,679
Speaker 1: contained in human blood could crystallize. One of those compounds

439
00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:46,119
Speaker 1: is called human and so Tychman developed a test in

440
00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:50,120
Speaker 1: which he used a strong acetic acid, which is present

441
00:25:50,359 --> 00:25:54,359
Speaker 1: in stuff like vinegar, for example, and you combine that

442
00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:57,720
Speaker 1: with dried blood, and that would form human crystals. The

443
00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:02,240
Speaker 1: reaction between the to acid and the blood would make

444
00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:05,200
Speaker 1: these Heman crystals form. So if you're investigating a crime

445
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 1: and you see some stains that could be dried blood,

446
00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:10,760
Speaker 1: but you're not sure, you could use the Tykeman test

447
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:14,600
Speaker 1: and confirm that suspicion. It doesn't tell you what type

448
00:26:14,600 --> 00:26:17,040
Speaker 1: of blood it is, it doesn't let you classify it

449
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:18,800
Speaker 1: in any way, but it would let you at least

450
00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:21,879
Speaker 1: verify that in fact, the stain you're looking at is

451
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:25,439
Speaker 1: composed at least in part by blood. So if no

452
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:28,080
Speaker 1: Heman crystals formed as a result, you could disregard the

453
00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:30,000
Speaker 1: stain and just say, well, I don't know what it is,

454
00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:32,520
Speaker 1: but it sure ain't blood. In nineteen o one, and

455
00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 1: Austrian scientists named Carl Lnsteiner was studying blood and why

456
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:41,200
Speaker 1: sometimes when blood from one individual would be given to

457
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:45,360
Speaker 1: another individual, the blood would clump together in a process

458
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:51,000
Speaker 1: called a glutination. The clumping could create toxic reactions, which

459
00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:55,160
Speaker 1: made transfusions really dangerous, and physicians have been practicing transfusions

460
00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:58,240
Speaker 1: for quite some time, but no one was really sure

461
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:01,960
Speaker 1: up to that point why some transfusions seem to work

462
00:27:02,400 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 1: and other transfusions would lead to pretty nasty outcomes, sometimes death.

463
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:12,520
Speaker 1: Landstein Are discovered that the clumping was an immunological reaction,

464
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 1: and it was when the receiver of a blood transfusion

465
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:22,119
Speaker 1: has antibodies against components inside the donor blood, and that

466
00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 1: led to the discovery of different protein molecules within different

467
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 1: types of blood and ultimately lead to classifying blood into

468
00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:35,360
Speaker 1: groups such as A, B, A B, and OH. So,

469
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 1: if you have type A blood, you have A antigens

470
00:27:39,800 --> 00:27:43,119
Speaker 1: and BE antibodies, meaning you can accept A blood, but

471
00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:47,640
Speaker 1: you cannot accept BE blood because you would react very

472
00:27:47,680 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 1: poorly to that. Um BE blood is the opposite. You

473
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 1: have BE antigens and A antibodies, and then A B.

474
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:58,480
Speaker 1: You have both A and B engines and antibodies. You're

475
00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:02,040
Speaker 1: You're the universal received You can receive blood from any donor,

476
00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:06,520
Speaker 1: and then type OH you lack the antigens and antibodies.

477
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:09,639
Speaker 1: You're the universal donor. Or. You really you don't have

478
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:12,040
Speaker 1: the antigen so you don't have to worry about uh. Like,

479
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:15,119
Speaker 1: if you're an donor, you can donate blood to anyone.

480
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:18,880
Speaker 1: Anyone can accept oh blood, though you can only accept

481
00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:22,719
Speaker 1: OH blood in return fun times. Lensteiner would win a

482
00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:26,600
Speaker 1: Nobel Prize in nineteen thirty for his work, and forensic

483
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:29,760
Speaker 1: scientists had a new way to examine blood to help

484
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 1: them narrow down suspects or differentiate between a victim's blood

485
00:28:33,359 --> 00:28:36,200
Speaker 1: and the blood of a suspect. Up to that point,

486
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 1: you couldn't be sure. You might come up on a

487
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:40,840
Speaker 1: crime scene and it might be blood on the crime scene,

488
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 1: but you don't know how much of that belonged to

489
00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 1: the victim, and and if what if any of it

490
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 1: belonged to someone else. This allowed for testing of different proteins,

491
00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 1: which would tell you, oh, this is a type A

492
00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:57,080
Speaker 1: versus type B, and would tell you if more than

493
00:28:57,120 --> 00:28:59,760
Speaker 1: one person's blood were present at a crime scene. So

494
00:28:59,840 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 1: very a useful, especially later on when you are looking

495
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 1: up potentially identifying someone, although keep in mind the percentages

496
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 1: of people with specific types of blood are such that

497
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:15,680
Speaker 1: you can't narrow it down to a specific individual. Just

498
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:19,200
Speaker 1: because a person might have the same blood type as

499
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:22,360
Speaker 1: blood found at the scene of a crime doesn't necessarily

500
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:26,360
Speaker 1: mean that the blood came from that person, because lots

501
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 1: of people have those blood types it would take more

502
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:32,680
Speaker 1: specific evidence to be able to narrow that down. I'll

503
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 1: talk more about that in a second, but first let's

504
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:46,360
Speaker 1: take another quick break to thank our sponsor. In h

505
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:50,480
Speaker 1: o Albrecht was experimenting with a chemical called luminol, a

506
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 1: luminescent chemical, and he was experimenting with it in a

507
00:29:54,440 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: solution of hydrogen peroxide, and he discovered that blood would

508
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 1: increase the luminescence of luminol, which means it would it

509
00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:05,520
Speaker 1: would cause the luminol to glow brighter. Later, other scientists

510
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:10,240
Speaker 1: determined that hematin, a pigment in blood that contains iron

511
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:14,320
Speaker 1: in it, was reacting with this luminol chemically and that

512
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:18,120
Speaker 1: chemical reaction was creating this brighter luminescence, and that became

513
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 1: useful in forensic investigations when investigators were looking for trace

514
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 1: amounts of blood at a scene it may not be

515
00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:28,719
Speaker 1: easily visible, or maybe that someone tried to clean it up,

516
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:33,680
Speaker 1: because luminol can actually detect those trace evidence leavings of

517
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:36,760
Speaker 1: blood even if someone tried to clean stuff up. It

518
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:39,600
Speaker 1: does require making the crime scene as dark as possible

519
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:42,320
Speaker 1: so you can detect the luminescence and the glow lasts

520
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 1: for less than a minute. But if you do a

521
00:30:44,840 --> 00:30:48,640
Speaker 1: quick spritzing of luminol and hydrogen peroxide as a solution

522
00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:52,840
Speaker 1: against the same spot, it will glow again. It doesn't

523
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:57,920
Speaker 1: exhaust the supply of iron necessarily on one spritzing, so uh,

524
00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:00,920
Speaker 1: if you see a glow, you can reapply LIE. By

525
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:04,520
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, scientists were starting to develop practical tests

526
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:08,040
Speaker 1: that could analyze DNA for the purposes of forensic tests.

527
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:12,640
Speaker 1: And DNA is d ox a ribonucleic acid, which is

528
00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:15,080
Speaker 1: the carrier of genetic information. I'm pretty sure you all

529
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:17,680
Speaker 1: are familiar with that, but it always is good to

530
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:21,360
Speaker 1: just kind of jump on that again. DNA contains the

531
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 1: fundamental genetic identifiers that can be of crucial importance in

532
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:28,840
Speaker 1: an investigation. Now, most of your DNA matches my DNA,

533
00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 1: or the person in closest proximity to you, or the

534
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:37,840
Speaker 1: person most far away from you possible. We share an

535
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:45,080
Speaker 1: enormous amount of common DNA. The differences between individuals between

536
00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:49,360
Speaker 1: humans are carried by about three million bases in our DNA.

537
00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 1: That that's equivalent to about one tenth of one per

538
00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:57,480
Speaker 1: cent of all our DNA. So the vast majority of

539
00:31:57,520 --> 00:32:00,080
Speaker 1: our DNA is identical to each other. It's only that

540
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:02,800
Speaker 1: one tenth of one percent that makes you you, which

541
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:07,040
Speaker 1: is kind of cool and and interesting. Those differences can

542
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 1: help eliminate a suspect from an investigation, or it can

543
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:12,800
Speaker 1: help support a case for investigating the matter further if

544
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:17,000
Speaker 1: there's a match. DNA comes from organic material like blood

545
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:21,320
Speaker 1: or body fluids, from skin, from hair, stuff like that.

546
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 1: The development of polymerase chain reaction or PCR techniques helped

547
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:31,960
Speaker 1: with DNA investigations a lot. PCR is a method for

548
00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:35,840
Speaker 1: copying specific DNA regions in vitro that means in a

549
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:39,480
Speaker 1: test too, as opposed to in an organism. PCR is

550
00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:43,400
Speaker 1: used for lots of different stuff, not just forensic investigations

551
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 1: because it allows you to copy and duplicate DNA, but

552
00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:49,320
Speaker 1: in forensics it can be used to make copies of

553
00:32:49,320 --> 00:32:52,600
Speaker 1: sample DNA for analysis to compare DNA gathered at a

554
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:57,200
Speaker 1: crime scene with DNA from like a suspect. Some crime

555
00:32:57,240 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 1: scenes may only have small samples of DNA that you

556
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:02,040
Speaker 1: can work with, so it's important to be able to

557
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:04,640
Speaker 1: duplicate that DNA in order for you to have enough

558
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 1: of a sample size to run your various analyzes. In

559
00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 1: nineteen nine, DNA evidence was used to exonerate a man

560
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:16,040
Speaker 1: named Gary Dotson who had been convicted of rape in

561
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:21,400
Speaker 1: the late nineteen seventies. Kathleen Crowell, who was the presumed

562
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:24,640
Speaker 1: victim of this crime, ended up later saying she had

563
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:27,960
Speaker 1: actually made up a story about being raped. What had

564
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:31,240
Speaker 1: happened was that she and her boyfriend had engaged in

565
00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 1: consensual sex, but she was worried that she might end

566
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:37,240
Speaker 1: up pregnant, and she was terrified of what that would mean.

567
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 1: She was a teenager at the time. She was scared

568
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:44,480
Speaker 1: about how her parents and community would react, and preemptively

569
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:47,880
Speaker 1: she made the claim that she had been assaulted by

570
00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 1: a group of three men and raped by one of them,

571
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 1: and she just made it up entirely. Uh. She was

572
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:57,560
Speaker 1: brought in to the police station to talk to police

573
00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: officers who wanted to get a sketch artist there to

574
00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:06,200
Speaker 1: get a sketch of her, her presumed attacker, and so

575
00:34:06,280 --> 00:34:10,680
Speaker 1: she started making up a description. The description she made

576
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:14,960
Speaker 1: up happened to kind of resemble someone who was in

577
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 1: a collection of mug shots at that police station, and

578
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 1: it was a guy named Gary Dotson who had run

579
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:24,080
Speaker 1: a follow the law previously, but she had made this

580
00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:26,320
Speaker 1: whole story up. It's just so happened that the person

581
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:30,480
Speaker 1: that she was describing happened to look like this guy now.

582
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:34,080
Speaker 1: According to Crowell, the police pressured her into identifying Dotson

583
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:37,200
Speaker 1: as her rapist, and she was still scared of telling

584
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:39,839
Speaker 1: the truth to anyone, so she went along with it.

585
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:43,440
Speaker 1: Dotson would end up being tried and convicted of rape

586
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:48,080
Speaker 1: and sent to prison, and Krowell would later recant her accusation.

587
00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:51,720
Speaker 1: In five she said she was overcome with guilt about

588
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:54,480
Speaker 1: what she had done to him and that she had

589
00:34:54,520 --> 00:34:56,960
Speaker 1: decided that it was enough was enough, she had to

590
00:34:57,000 --> 00:35:01,359
Speaker 1: come forward and tell the truth. And prosecutors weren't too

591
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:05,720
Speaker 1: eager to do that. They I guess partly were worried

592
00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:08,759
Speaker 1: that it was going to reflect really poorly on them.

593
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:13,719
Speaker 1: The trial had included testimony from various forensics experts, and

594
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:17,680
Speaker 1: it would mean that they were either fabricating evidence or

595
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:22,440
Speaker 1: very much misidentifying things, and that it was going to

596
00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:25,400
Speaker 1: look terrible to them. So anyway, a judge ended up

597
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:28,880
Speaker 1: releasing Dotson on a one hundred thousand dollar bond, but

598
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: Dotson wasn't truly exonerated until DNA tests in nineteen nine

599
00:35:35,080 --> 00:35:38,719
Speaker 1: proved that he wasn't involved. So, in other words, his

600
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:42,160
Speaker 1: accuser had come back up and said, I made it

601
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:45,720
Speaker 1: all up. He didn't do anything to me. I was scared,

602
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:48,120
Speaker 1: and I came up with this story that I thought

603
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:50,160
Speaker 1: was going to help things. I did not intend for

604
00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:56,040
Speaker 1: this to happen. And some of the legal community dismissed

605
00:35:56,080 --> 00:36:00,319
Speaker 1: her statement. They said, oh, she's unstable, she's you can't

606
00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:03,160
Speaker 1: rely upon her statements. And it wasn't until the DNA

607
00:36:03,239 --> 00:36:06,000
Speaker 1: evidence came out that said Dodson could not have been

608
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 1: the person that was accused of this crime because his

609
00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:13,080
Speaker 1: DNA did not match the DNA that was gathered in

610
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:16,879
Speaker 1: the wake of her accusation. The whole story, by the way,

611
00:36:17,040 --> 00:36:20,520
Speaker 1: goes into way more crazy detail and and there are

612
00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:22,520
Speaker 1: a lot more twists and turns and a lot of

613
00:36:23,080 --> 00:36:25,799
Speaker 1: tragedy involved in it as well. It's sad, it's an

614
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:29,399
Speaker 1: infuriating story. There's an excellent treatment of the story over

615
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:34,040
Speaker 1: at Northwestern University's Prints Care School of Law website. It

616
00:36:34,080 --> 00:36:37,239
Speaker 1: has the title first DNA Exoneration. So if you want

617
00:36:37,239 --> 00:36:41,319
Speaker 1: to read all about it, and it is an exhaustive account, uh,

618
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:43,920
Speaker 1: you should check that out, because it is fascinating as

619
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:47,000
Speaker 1: well as upsetting. The emergence of DNA led to the

620
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:51,200
Speaker 1: development of quality control guidelines for DNA labs and forensic investigators.

621
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:54,799
Speaker 1: It became clear that in order to make effective use

622
00:36:54,960 --> 00:36:58,839
Speaker 1: of this information, of this knowledge of DNA, they had

623
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:05,120
Speaker 1: to make sure they created very straightforward, very uh standardized

624
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:12,080
Speaker 1: approaches to to reduce the possibility of destroying or altering evidence,

625
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:15,240
Speaker 1: either by accident or on purpose. You know, do something

626
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:17,440
Speaker 1: where you can document it step by step by steps

627
00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:19,960
Speaker 1: so people can make certain that you did everything correctly,

628
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:23,440
Speaker 1: so that your conclusions can be seen as valid. Now,

629
00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 1: while these sciences, sciences and processes were developing, police forces

630
00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:31,520
Speaker 1: and other law enforcement agencies were actually working to formalize

631
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:35,680
Speaker 1: the development and deployment of investigations. How do you teach

632
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 1: investigators these these processes, Because a lot of them were

633
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:45,040
Speaker 1: developed independently, they are being made use in specific police forces,

634
00:37:45,080 --> 00:37:48,800
Speaker 1: but they weren't necessarily shared. How did that come about? Well,

635
00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:51,160
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century, if you were in the eighteen

636
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 1: hundreds and you were a forensic researcher, you were connected

637
00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:59,120
Speaker 1: to some sort of law enforcement group, whether private or public.

638
00:37:59,480 --> 00:38:02,080
Speaker 1: You were a auntly self taught. You got hold of

639
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:06,239
Speaker 1: whatever information you could find and you would study it

640
00:38:06,520 --> 00:38:09,640
Speaker 1: or you would develop your own ideas in your own processes.

641
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:14,200
Speaker 1: It was very informal. One of the earliest formal schools

642
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:17,880
Speaker 1: in forensics was created by a guy named Rudolph Archibald Rice.

643
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:21,279
Speaker 1: He was a professor at the University of a Lausan, Switzerland.

644
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:25,040
Speaker 1: He had studied chemistry. At that university, he earned a

645
00:38:25,080 --> 00:38:28,040
Speaker 1: doctorate in the field, and he began turning his scientific

646
00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:32,880
Speaker 1: mind towards criminal investigation. He studied the discoveries of other criminologists,

647
00:38:32,920 --> 00:38:36,160
Speaker 1: and in nineteen o nine he founded the Institute of

648
00:38:36,239 --> 00:38:40,120
Speaker 1: Scientific Police. Other universities in Europe began to found their

649
00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:43,799
Speaker 1: own forensic studies curricula, but then you had World War

650
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:45,960
Speaker 1: One and World War Two, and that wiped out a

651
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:50,400
Speaker 1: lot of those efforts. The Institute of Scientific Police survived

652
00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 1: the two World Wars because Switzerland was neutral in both

653
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:57,960
Speaker 1: of those. Today this school has a different name. It's

654
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:01,719
Speaker 1: called the School of Criminal Sciences. The same organization, new name,

655
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:06,120
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously updated with the more modern approaches. Rice

656
00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:09,439
Speaker 1: in his time would actually publish a book about investigative

657
00:39:09,600 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 1: techniques used in the event of burglaries and homicides, and

658
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:16,160
Speaker 1: he had planned future volumes to cover other types of

659
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:19,560
Speaker 1: crimes like counterfeiting, as well as other police matters like

660
00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:23,239
Speaker 1: organizing a police force, but he ended up putting all

661
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:27,000
Speaker 1: of that on hold. The Serbian government requested his assistance

662
00:39:27,040 --> 00:39:30,080
Speaker 1: to investigate war crimes committed by the armies of Austria

663
00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:33,920
Speaker 1: Hungary during the Serbian War, and so he never finished

664
00:39:33,920 --> 00:39:38,840
Speaker 1: those books. In An American named August Volmer, who was

665
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:41,719
Speaker 1: chief of police in Los Angeles, California, founded the first

666
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:46,320
Speaker 1: American police crime laboratory, which actually predated the FBI's crime

667
00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:49,440
Speaker 1: lab by eight years. The FBI was formed in nineteen

668
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:51,839
Speaker 1: o eight, but it would not have its own crime

669
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:55,120
Speaker 1: lab till nineteen thirty two. It was the early nineteen

670
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:58,880
Speaker 1: thirties when colleges and universities began offering degrees in police

671
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:02,960
Speaker 1: sciences and minalistics, and in nineteen fifty the University of

672
00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:07,839
Speaker 1: California at Berkeley created an early department of Criminology over

673
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:11,760
Speaker 1: in Chicago. Around that same time, academics founded the American

674
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:15,560
Speaker 1: Academy of Forensic Science, and today there are numerous colleges

675
00:40:15,600 --> 00:40:18,960
Speaker 1: that offer coursework and forensic science. There are labs dedicated

676
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:21,759
Speaker 1: to the purpose of applying the scientific method when it

677
00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:24,320
Speaker 1: comes to the investigation of crime, and there are companies

678
00:40:24,480 --> 00:40:27,600
Speaker 1: that produce technology with the primary purpose of aiding in

679
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:31,279
Speaker 1: criminal investigations. And in our next episode, I will take

680
00:40:31,320 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 1: a closer look at some of those actual technologies, some

681
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:37,799
Speaker 1: really cool ones, though they may not be exactly the

682
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:41,960
Speaker 1: same as what we see in television and film. That's

683
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 1: it for this episode. If you guys have suggestions for

684
00:40:44,200 --> 00:40:46,960
Speaker 1: future episodes of tech Stuff, maybe it's a technology, maybe

685
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:49,120
Speaker 1: it's a person or a company you want me to cover,

686
00:40:49,520 --> 00:40:53,319
Speaker 1: send me a message emails great. The email address you

687
00:40:53,360 --> 00:40:56,600
Speaker 1: can use as tech stuff at how stuff works dot com.

688
00:40:56,719 --> 00:40:59,720
Speaker 1: You can drop me a line on Twitter or Facebook

689
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:01,920
Speaker 1: handle for both of those is tech Stuff hs W.

690
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:05,120
Speaker 1: Don't forget we have a merchandise store. It's at T

691
00:41:05,480 --> 00:41:09,200
Speaker 1: public dot com. That's T E E public dot com.

692
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:12,239
Speaker 1: Maybe you've always wanted a tech stuff tote bag or

693
00:41:12,360 --> 00:41:15,480
Speaker 1: a phone case or a coffee mug, Well you can

694
00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:19,280
Speaker 1: get those and more at t public dot com slash

695
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:21,600
Speaker 1: tech stuff. We have a lot of different designs up there.

696
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:25,160
Speaker 1: Every purchase you make goes to help the show, and

697
00:41:25,200 --> 00:41:27,799
Speaker 1: you get something cool and return so we really appreciate it,

698
00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:33,080
Speaker 1: and don't forget Follow us on Instagram please, and I'll

699
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:41,279
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. For more on this

700
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:43,959
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff works

701
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:54,279
Speaker 1: dot com