05-16-2005

http://www.healthyplace.com/communities/gender/intersexuals/article_domestic_violence.htm
Intersex Survivors of Domestic Violence
This article is about Intersexes who are survivors. In preliminary data, the Gender, Violence, and Resource Access Survey of trans and intersex individuals found 50% of respondents had been raped or assaulted by a romantic partner, though only 62% of those raped or assaulted (31% of the total sample) identified themselves as survivors of domestic violence when explicitly asked. Clearly, intersex survivors exist. There are many reasons why so few intersex survivors are served by the community that typically aids and advocates for survivors of domestic violence. This early punishment for simply expressing gender identity leaves many scars, but the experiences that lead intersexual domestic violence survivors to believe that it's normal for "people like me" to live with abuse only increase in magnitude as the intersex survivor matures.
Perhaps the most damaging force is the one that teaches intersexual persons that "helping" institutions are often anything but, and may actually harm them. Although these stories' power is anecdotal and not statistical, they and others like them are widely known and retold among intersex individuals. Because of the extreme cruelty and casual indifference of authorities and institutions exemplified in these common stories, an intersex survivor may fear an unknown service institution more than a familiar abuser. A second level of fear intersex survivors face when seeking help is the possibility that their intersex status, if previously hidden, might become known and expose them to more violence, as in the Brandon Teena case. Exposure might also lead to the loss of a job, as very few jurisdictions provide employment discrimination protection to intersexed persons, and stories of job loss or workplace harassment upon exposure are legion. Should a intersex survivor decide to brave these risks and seek help despite them, she or he faces other barriers. Some information suggests that intersex survivors have frequently been multiply abused for years or decades. Often a intersex survivor has a unique body and/or a unique vulnerability to the emotional aftermath of sexual violence; either can make difficult or impossible discussing this abuse with an unfamiliar victims' advocate.
The author wrote this article beacues an intersex or intersexual person has a body with external sexual characteristics typical of both male and female bodies. Nonetheless, in our society, children who are born intersexual are nearly always assigned a male or female gender role, although because of external sexual ambiguities, that assignment may not occur at birth. Intersexual children in the United States typically have their genitals surgically altered before age three to conform to gender assignment. Related to this problem is the shame and self-doubt that is endemic in this community, due to the pressures intersex persons have felt from their earliest years to deny their feelings and conform to others' expectations. Adding to this shame and self-doubt is the widespread perception that intersex individuals are mentally ill. Abusers use this shame and self-doubt against their intersex victims to undermine their victims' perceptions and to convince them that no one else will want them.

05-16-2005

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/jason_massey/index.html
Double Homicide
By Katherine Ramsland
The title of this article is Double Homicide by: Katherine Ramsland. This article happened in Ellis County, Texas, on July 29, 1993. Only those who had to be were outdoors working. A road crew member smoothing the gravel on Cutoff Road that afternoon noticed something white lying about a hundred feet away in the thick foliage not far from the bridge over Smith Creek. Whatever it was, the object was clearly out of place. He and another man climbed over barbed wire and brushed past the brambles and thorns. Soon they smelled an offensive odor and then saw that the form was human, nude and female, lying partially on her back. One of the men watched over the body while the other went to the nearby town of Telico to call the police. What neither had noticed at first but had seen as they'd drawn closer was that she was missing both her head and her hands.
This article is about an autopsy at the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office, which served a number of Texas counties, indicated that the boy had been shot twice in the head with a .22-caliber weapon, and the girl had been shot in the back with a similar weapon and stabbed multiple times. Her head had been removed at the base of the neck with either a hunting knife or an axe, and there was a lot of damage to her remains that indicated that the killer had stayed with the body for quite a while. The medical examiner, Dr. Sheila Spotswood, thought it was among her worst cases. On top of the dismemberment, the female victim had extensive wounds on her abdomen, thighs and genital area, some of which appeared to be intricate carvings. There was a long, deep cut through her stomach that looked almost like an autopsy incision. In fact, it seemed that her killer had reached into the stomach with his knife to stab at other internal organs like the liver. Both of the victim's nipples had been cut off, there were numerous bruises on her body, and where she had been eviscerated, her intestines had been pulled out and exposed. At the place where the hands had been severed, some bruises suggested the use of handcuffs. It seemed to be a sexual crime, since her clothes had been removed, but there were no clear signs of sexual assault, either on the body or at the crime scene. While decomposition prevented a definitive analysis, it looked to Spotswood more like a crime of extreme hatred or anger than rape/murder. There was also an element of fascination with the corpse, otherwise known as necrophilia.
While the possibility of some kind of drug deal retaliation was discussed among the investigators, it became clear after talking with the parents that these were good kids who were usually obedient and did not make a habit of sneaking away. Brian had been bored lately, but there was no evidence that he was hanging out with the wrong crowd. Everyone who knew him liked him.
The author wrote this article because Jason Eric Massey, entering a world where he had no control or security, found what he needed in images of death and destruction. His heroes had done so, too. Thus he is not unique, and there may be others like him, as yet uncaught, who feel a similar need to make their mark. Massey gave out plenty of signals, but those signals were largely ignored or dismissed, and because of that, two children died. James King called him the devil, but he didn't start out that way, he became that way. Jason Massey's case can teach us why we must pay attention to anyone's obsession with harm to others. It may be the first smoke arising from sparks that could eventually become a blazing fire.

05-16-2005

http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/forensics/bill_bass/index.html
The Body Farm
By Katherine Ramsland
In her 1994 novel, The Body Farm, Patricia Cornwell introduced readers to a "decay research facility" at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. It's actually called the Anthropology Research Facility, but Cornwell overheard a nickname that cops had adopted, and called it The Body Farm. "On any given day," she writes, "its several wooded acres held dozens of bodies in varying stages of decomposition." Given such a description, one might think this place is imaginary, but it's not. It's quite real, and Cornwell actually visited it. In the narrative, she goes on to describe what it's like to walk through the "bizarre but necessary kingdom." The first thing she mentions is the pervasive foul odor—the "language of the dead"— and then points out the tall wooden fence surrounding the facility, topped with coiled barbed wire. She directs her main character, medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, to glance at bodies in water-filled pits tethered to cinder blocks, and indicates that Scarpetta is aware that other corpses are decomposing in cars parked around the area. A skeleton is at the wheel of a white Cadillac, and a skull grins up at her from among a pile of fallen leaves. At this facility, the dead are silent helpers for the living. In all, on that day, Scarpetta is surrounded by 44 of them. Cornwell describes the experiments that the researchers at The Farm have done to assist Dr. Scarpetta with a murder investigation in which a corpse bore an unidentifiable mark. They have measured the decomposition rate of a body in a basement versus a body in the same condition outdoors. (Cornwell offers a vivid scenario to readers with strong stomachs as to how the changes differ between these decomposing bodies — a couple who committed suicide in quick succession over the husband's fatal illness.)
The researchers have placed several metal items beneath one of the bodies to try to determine what might have made an unusual mark found on the crime victim. They turn over the corpse to examine the impressions and oxidation residue from nails, an iron drain, bottle caps, and coins, and then compare them with photographs from the victim. Impurities from the coins bear the closest resemblance. That observation, along with the photographs taken at both the distant crime scene and the facility, provides a significant lead. Cornwell learned about this place when she was working in the Virginia medical examiner's office. She attended a slide lecture and heard an FBI fingerprint examiner mention "the Body Farm." She later recalled all this after becoming a strikingly successful novelist. Like Scarpetta, she asked the scientists to conduct an experiment for her, and because her questions were of scientific interest, the facility's founder and director obliged. That person was Dr. Bill Bass, and his innovative service to law enforcement can't be found anywhere else in the world. In some ways, it was serendipitous, the result of his diverse experiences, but as one reviews Dr. Bass's extensive career, it's also clear that his pioneering spirit and desire to learn about stages of death inevitably would have yielded something interesting. Forensic anthropology is the application of physical anthropology to the medico-legal process. That is, forensic anthropologists assist law enforcement investigators and medical examiners to identify human skeletal and decomposing remains, generally working in cooperation with pathologists and odontologists to estimate the age, sex, ancestry, stature, and unique bony features of the deceased. Using their specific expertise, they may furnish clues pointing toward foul play. Once he had his M.A. in this subject, Bass applied to several schools for a Ph.D. program, but he wanted only to attend the University of Pennsylvania to study with Dr. Wilton Krogman, known as "the bone detective." To his delight, he was accepted into that program. He worked alongside Krogman on his forensic cases and in February 1957, they were called to examine the remains of a young boy who had been murdered and dumped in the Fox Chase area of Philadelphia. As disturbing as the case was, no one knew that it would become a famous investigation.
As part of the Forensic Anthropology Center at UT-K, this protected, two-and-a-half-acre field dedicated to the study of decomposing human remains is truly unique. "Before our work, no one had ever established a time line," Bass said. "There are a lot of factors that can affect how a body decomposes, but we found that the major two are climate and insects. When a person dies, the body begins to decay immediately and the enzymes in the digestive system begin to eat the tissue. You putrefy, and this gives off a smell. Up until about two and a half weeks, one of the best ways to tell how long a body is dead is to look at the insect activity. The first of the critters to be attracted to a decaying body are the blowflies. They come along and lay their eggs, which hatch into maggots. The maggots then eat the decaying tissue in a fairly predictable way." Measuring and recording this information, along with climatic variables such as temperature and humidity, gave the facility its raison d'être. Since those early days, the place has evolved. Scientists still use a few unclaimed bodies, but mostly accept those that have been donated to science. There's even a waiting list for people who want to designate the Body Farm as their final destination.
As part of the Forensic Anthropology Center at UT-K, this protected, two-and-a-half-acre field dedicated to the study of decomposing human remains is truly unique. Corpses that arrive at the facility have been placed in all kinds of positions and conditions: locked in a car trunk, lying in direct sunlight, hidden under canvas and plastic, buried in mud, hung from a scaffold, closed into coffins, refrigerated in the dark, zipped into body bags, and submerged in water, to name a few. One body may come in headless, another with wounds. Some are even embalmed, and a few are dismembered. Stages of insect infestation on corpses are examined, along with general exposure to the environment and disturbances by small rodents. When there's an ongoing project, the person assigned to it—often a graduate student in anthropology—makes a precise digital record at regular intervals of various aspects of the disintegration process. He or she may also use an electronic nose with numerous sensors to record changes in the odors. These are fed into a gas chromatograph, which separates and analyzes the distinct parts of compound mixtures. One hope is to develop sprays that can be used to train cadaver dogs. Marks and his colleagues at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are also isolating specific biochemical markers that will provide precise measurements of the postmortem interval during the first two weeks after death. The researchers analyze soil samples as well as bodies and body parts, because byproducts of decomposition generally seep into the ground. That means a scientist can determine how long a body was lying in a particular spot, or whether it was placed somewhere and then moved—and when that occurred. They have more such experiments planned for the future.
The author wrote is article because The 1999 murder trial of 38-year-old Thomas D. Huskey, accused killer of four women. This was the first documented serial killer in Knox County, Tennessee, and prosecutors were seeking the death penalty. The two sides focused not only on the issue of his mental state at the time of the offenses, but also used insect analysis to evaluate the time since death of two of the victims. Prostitutes had dubbed Huskey the "Zoo Man" because he once had worked at the Knoxville Zoo and he liked to take women close by for rough sex. Bass was called in after three of the victims had been discovered in a wooded area. His job was not only to estimate time since death but to determine if the victims had been killed where they lay or if the death scene was in fact elsewhere. He used his knowledge about what happens to bodies in the woods—specifically, the biomarkers in the vegetation and soil--to make the all-important determinations. The Tri-State Crematory scandal in 2002. More than three hundred decaying human bodies sent for cremation had been discovered left out in the open, buried in shallow pits, or crowded into vaults. Countless families were horrified to learn that the "ashes" of their loved ones were not human remains but possibly cardboard or wood ashes, and that the deceased could be among those left in an undignified position. Tri-State's operator, Ray Brent Marsh, was arrested and charged with multiple counts of fraud and abuse of a body. The long process of identifying the remains began, and in many cases relatives filed lawsuits against Marsh and his business. Bill Bass assisted by analyzing the remains and letting people know exactly what they had. The book is filled with the fascinating and educational work of this bone detective, and even includes an introduction penned by Patricia Cornwell. To see photographs of the Body Farm and more information about the book and documentaries, link to www.deathsacre.com.

05-09-2005

http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/forensics/voiceprints/1.html
The Origin of Voiceprints
By Katherine Ramsland
Voice analysis for the KGB?
This article is about Alexander Solzhenitsyn's fact-based novel, The First Circle, in Stalin’s Russia. While the Russian secret police analyze phone calls in Germany, the technicians are pressed to figure out how to scientifically measure the individuality of the human voice. The novel offers a fascinating glimpse into the early days of this technology, but it was not in 1949 Russia where it all began. The idea that someone could be identified by the sound of his voice had its origins in the work of Alexander Melville Bell (father to Alexander Graham Bell). Over one hundred years ago, he developed a visual representation of what the spoken word would look like. It was based on pronunciation and he showed that there were subtle differences among different people who said the same things. His son later joined him in using the system to help deaf people to speak. Then in 1941, the laboratories of Bell Telephone in New Jersey produced a machine—the sound spectrograph—for mapping a voice onto a graph. It analyzed sound waves and produced a visual record of voice patterns that were based on frequency, intensity, and time.
Voiceprint technology began to get notice for criminal investigations in the early 1960s when the New York City Police Department received numerous bomb threats by phone against major airlines. Stymied, the FBI asked Bell Labs to help. Lawrence G. Kersta, one of their senior engineers, was assigned the task of figuring out a method of identification that would stop the calls and bring the perpetrators to justice. The first case was in military court, United States v. Wright, and that began the judicial controversy. One court ruled the technology admissible, but a dissenting judge wrote a detailed opinion on why it should not be considered scientifically acceptable. The New Jersey Supreme Court was the first non-military court to make an appellate review, in State v. Cary. Courts in New York and California had admitted this type of testimony, so the New Jersey justices remanded the case to check the accuracy of the equipment. Another appeal came their way and they ruled that it was too early to tell whether this method was reliable. After several more times back and forth, with no new scientific support, the voiceprint identification evidence was excluded. The reason for this, and the subsequent case history, are supplied in detail in Section Five.
The author wrote this article because those who do the recordings for analysis must also be competent to operate the recording device, because the quality of the tape has great bearing on the interpreter's results.
The skills involved in aural and visual voice interpretation include:
Critical listening, with an ear for anomalies and the ability to audit foreground information as distinguishable from background
Ability to check for tape tampering
Experience reading magnetic tapes
Ability to operate the spectrograph equipment, both for general results and for zooming in on specific patterns
Ability to work with an investigative team
In all likelihood, voiceprints will continue to play a key role in any investigation that involves voice evidence. As such, they will become part of the evidence brought into court. Like other technologies that once were resisted but are now fully admissible, voiceprints may soon have their day.

05-09-2005

http://www.healthyplace.com/communities/gender/intersexuals/article_native_american.htm
A Native American Perspective
on the Theory of Gender Continuum
by DRK
This article is about a berdache was one who was defined by spirituality, androgyny, women’s work and male/male homosexual relationships (127). The berdache could adopt the clothing of women, associate and be involved with women, do the work normally associated with women, marry a man and take part in many spiritual ceremonies of the tribe. Female versions of the role also occurred, but are less well documented and will not be discussed in this paper. Generosity and spirituality more than homosexuality and gender characterized berdachism. In the traditional tribal sense, these roles have often been ones associated with great respect and spiritual power. Rather than being viewed as an aberration, the role was seen as one, which bridged the gap between the temporal and spirit worlds. The spiritual aspect of the berdache role was emphasized far more than the homosexual or gender variant aspect. Because of this, berdaches were highly valued by the people of the tribe.
Given the choice between discarding or honoring a person, who did not fit neatly into rigid gender compartments, many Native American groups chose to find a productive and venerated place for the berdache. A Crow traditionalist says, "We don’t waste people the way white society does. Every person has their gift ( 57)." According to the Mohave creation story, "Ever since the world began, there have been transvestites, and from the beginning of the world, it was meant that there should be homosexuals. The usual sexual behavior of the berdache is to take the passive role in anal intercourse. At times they may indulge in oral sex or take the active role in anal intercourse, but this is not widely talked about. If a berdache wishes to take an active role, it is usually done only in secret and with a partner who can be trusted not to talk. This is also true of the feelings of the man involved with a berdache. If he wishes to assume the passive role, he will try to keep the activity secret.
The author wrote this article because many of the world’s cultures recognize more than two genders. The notion that there are those of us who do not fit precisely into either a male or female role has historically been accepted by many groups. Among Native Americans, the role of third, fourth, or even fifth genders has been widely documented. Children, who were born physically male or female and yet showed a proclivity for the opposite gender, were encouraged to live out their lives in the gender role, which fit them best. The term used by Europeans to describe this phenomenon is Berdache. "Indians have options not in terms of either/or, opposite categories, but in terms of various degrees along a continuum between masculine and feminine (Williams 80).”
There must be others like him and perhaps rekindling the traditional can help the healing process. In a world where differences are sought out and exaggerated, is this a traditional role that perhaps can embrace and empower those who would otherwise be without definition? Does the spiritual basis of the role give a sense of purpose and of belonging to the universal human family? In the cold and sterile medical world, does the berdache role offer nurturing and being seen and appreciated for being different? In a society that must have people categorized, does the role provide a delicious array of variations? I like to think so.

05-09-2005

http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/forensics/art/1.html
The Artist and the Murderer
By Katherine Ramsland
Kill and get away with it? This article is titled The Artist and the Murder by Katherine Ramsland. This article is about John Emil List. It takes place in New Jersey. This article talks about When John Emil List closed the door on his New Jersey home in November of 1971, he believed he'd closed the door on that chapter of his life. Inside, his mother lay dead in her apartment, while his wife and three children bled from their fatal wounds onto sleeping bags in the ballroom. He'd shot them all that morning and then driven to the airport, abandoning his car and his identity. Little did he know that nearly two decades later forensic artists would help to bring him to justice. When authorities discovered the five corpses, there was no doubt who had done it. List left lengthy notes for his minister about why he had to free the souls of his family. But where was List? Because he'd left lights on and music playing, it was a few weeks before neighbors suspected that something was amiss. By the time police entered the home, List had quite a head start. Over the years, the trail went cold, although detectives made several attempts to keep the file current. By the mid-eighties, they needed to update List's photo to indicate what he would look like that many years later. In 1987, they used a hand-drawn sketch by a police artist, and in 1988, the FBI prepared a more sophisticated computerized photo enhancement. They published these renditions in nationwide tabloids like World Weekly, certain that somewhere in the country, someone would recognize this man. In fact, Wanda Flannery, a neighbor of Bob and Delores Clark, spotted the resemblance. Then she read the article that accompanied the image and realized that her friend Delores might be married to a dangerous man. Surreptitiously she brought this to Delores' attention, but she dismissed it. Soon Delores and her husband moved back east, an indication that List believed he was home free. Then in 1988, the television show America's Most Wanted decided to take on the unsolved case. They hired forensic sculptor Frank Bender to make a three-dimensional clay bust of the fugitive to display on the show. Bender had done several such busts of missing persons and of fugitives, so he was acquainted with what needed to be done.
However, updating the appearance of a man by 17 years would require some deep study. It would take more than adding wrinkles. Bender knew that he'd have to work up an entire psychological profile to be able to accurately depict the way the aging process would show on List's face. For that, he teamed up with criminal psychologist Richard Walter. They looked over what was known of List's past habits, what he had written in the murder notes, and what others had to say about the man. Then they decided which of his traits would remain intact, despite his attempt to take on a new identity. They figured he'd still wear the same type of glasses, work as an accountant, go to church, and would likely be remarried. He'd be paunchier, with drooping skin around the jowls, deep worry lines, and a receding hairline. He'd not have opted for plastic surgery. Most notably, he had a pronounced scar behind his right ear that would still be there, and he'd probably still have financial difficulties. They also had to think about what would drive a man who was reportedly so religious and conservative to kill his entire family. Bender and Walter spent several days pondering the buildup of anger and despair, as well as how List would have planned his escape. Bender went to work on the bust, carefully crafting the facial appearance that he believed List would now have. It had its intended effect. After the show aired in 1989, Wanda Flannery called in to insist that someone check out Bob Clark. She had his new address. She felt sure this was the man they were seeking. FBI agents descended on the office where Bob Clark worked and arrested him. Although he insisted they'd made a mistake, fingerprints affirmed his identity as John Emil List, and he was convicted of five counts of first-degree murder. Thus, three separate methods were used for fugitive identification and one of them ultimately brought a cold-hearted mass murderer to justice. Let's have a quick look at the various methods known as forensic art, and then see how some of them have applied to criminal cases. Forensic art is the utilization of artistic methods and techniques to aid legal procedures. It's a way to present visual information that aids with missing-person cases and with the identification and apprehension of criminals. For example, a composite portrait taken from several eyewitnesses at a crime scene can provide law enforcement with a fairly good portrait of the person they're looking for.
It may also be the case that an artist is asked to alter a photo to accommodate the progression of age, to show what someone might look like with a disguise, or indicate changes like weight gain or plastic surgery.
According to Karen T. Taylor, Forensic Art and Illustration, there are four categories of forensic art:
Composite imagery (faces or evidence from descriptions)
Image modification and image identification (enhancement and comparisons)
Demonstrative Evidence (for court)
Reconstruction and postmortem aids (identifications)
We'll look at specific cases in the following sections, but first let's examine what's involved in the blending of art and science.
For starters, artists need to know the specific scientific angles that will be used to investigate a case, such as how anthropologists work with bones to estimate such things as the height, weight, gender, and race of a set of bones found in a ditch. They may also have to know a bit of psychology in order to figure out what modifications need to be made for updating photographs. If working on drawings from skulls, they'll be familiar with postmortem changes, and they may also need to find out what lawyers require for using visual representations in court. If they're asked to draw teeth, for example, they need knowledge of odontology. Some artists specialize while others offer a range of skills. Some are on staff in larger police departments with constant need, while others are hired on a freelance basis as things come up.
Some of the ways artists join the legal process include:
Courtroom sketches for illustration of cases
Wanted poster sketches
Visual demonstrations of investigative techniques
Drafting a properly measured sketch of a murder scene
Portraying suspects for publication in newspapers
Three-dimensional and two-dimensional facial reconstruction
Photo enhancement for age progression
Missing person posters
Medical drawings from autopsies
Developing computerized renderings for facial and body positions
Superimposition techniques
Enhancement or clean-up of videos
By the 1970s, police artists were moving away from using the kits and back toward composite drawings, based on interviewing witnesses and/or victims. Yet Identi-KIT held on, and the Identi-Kit 2000 is a computerized version of the composite approach to suspect identification. In this version, witnesses are shown a whole face within the basic group that matches their description, not separate images of facial parts. They then point out the features that aren't quite right, and the artist can make adjustments from the extensive feature database. With the computer edit program, the artist can move, scale, shade, paint, draw, erase, and add or remove any feature. Once finished, the composite can be sent to other agencies via computer. Even with all the computer sophistication available, there are still forensic artists who trust to the sketch. Jeanne Boylan claims to have a very specific way of rendering the faces of criminals from eyewitness reports. Polly Klaas invited two girlfriends over for a pajama party. It was a pretty evening on October 1, 1993 in Petaluma, California, where she lived. The three girls played quietly in Polly's room, aware that her mother had already gone to bed. Then around 10:00 p.m., a large man who smelled of alcohol suddenly came in through an open window and threatened them with a knife. He quickly bound Polly's two friends and then carried her off into the night. The girls were utterly terrified, but they managed to free themselves and call 911. They described the man to the operator and said that he'd worn a yellow bandanna tied around his head. Then they alerted Polly's mother. The crime scene investigation revealed that the abductor had left a palm print in the room. That would help, but they needed a good description from the girls. These two frightened girls did their best to supply police sketch artist Ralph Pata with enough details for a composite drawing, so that a "wanted" poster could be made and distributed throughout the state. Pata's method was standard. Using an array of images from a police book with over 900 faces, the victims were to match them to their memories. From eyes to noses to hairlines, they kept picking until Pata had enough to sketch a whole face. He also included the bandanna.
Unfortunately, despite a massive effort, Polly's abductor was not immediately caught. A week or so went by, so Jeanne Boylan came into the case. She specialized in getting victims of high trauma to recall details. She herself had once been the victim of violence and she never forgot how hard it was to get investigators to listen to what she was saying. She also felt that their suggestions and questions had been intrusive. Because of that experience, she developed a technique that is different from many other sketch artists, in part because it's not a composite technique and in part because she works from a psychological angle. That means she asks questions that other artists might not think to ask, she attends to the victim's or witness's needs, and she stays away from specific feature identification, preferring to work with general shapes. (It should be noted that there are other artists who also pay attention to victim psychology, but it's not the norm.) Her technique is to engage crime victims like Polly's friends in unrelated conversation about their lives and then mix questions about their traumatic experience throughout. That "protects" the memory's vividness, allowing the person to feel safe while bringing it forth. Less anxiety for the victim means more useful information for Boylan. She also avoids direct and obvious questions about the shape of some facial feature, because it's a rare person who can recall specific features—even on someone they know. Direct suggestion also has the power to reshape a memory, and those initial memories of the event need to be guarded the way police guard a fingerprint or DNA evidence. While Boylan's approach is time-consuming and requires patience, she gets results: She says that her portraits are more specific than generic renderings, which means a better chance for identification.
"The work that forensic artists do is complex," she says, "and it's easy to underestimate, particularly composite drawing. Interviewing the victim of a traumatic event and trying to retrieve the memory that's associated with the trauma is quite difficult. It must be done with great care. You have to know how to handle a person who's been through something like that, so artists need to be trained in how to do this. A face gets encoded and stored in someone's mind, and ideally we perform the retrieval in a way that corresponds to the encoding process." First, she gathers information. Before talking with the witness, Taylor wants to know from the police if he or she was a victim rather than just an observer, and if so, the nature and degree of the trauma. Also, was the suspect a member of the witnesses' own racial group (which can make a difference in how well they discern certain features)? And is the witness apprehensive about making an identification? In short, each interview is situation-specific, and Taylor carefully evaluates the types of questions she will ask the witness for their balance of intrusiveness and effectiveness. First, she uses a cognitive style of interviewing which allows the witnesses to describe the event in their own words, and then with carefully crafted questions, she gains additional information, such as:
How long did the witness see the subject?
What were the lighting conditions?
How far away was the witness from the subject or incident?
How long ago did the witness observe the incident or subject?
What was the witness's vantage point?
Were there any obstacles to the witness's view?
Piece by piece, she draws a composite.
While there are software programs that purport to accurately duplicate this process, eliminating the need to draw, Taylor is skeptical. "It doesn't work well," she states, "when software is designed to pull up a whole screen of pairs of eyes, noses or mouths to choose from. People don't relate to that. They need to see the parts in context. One thing that's often underestimated is the importance of proportion. I know of a high-profile case in which a computer program for facial composites was used, and it was far off from the suspect's actual appearance, because the system's user had no knowledge of facial anatomy and the spatial arrangement of facial features. I refer to this as the gestalt of the face or the holistic grasp of the features. That's what gets encoded about a face in our minds and that's what we want to retrieve to document that likeness. We have to ask the right questions to get the right proportions."
The types of cases in which these drawings are used include:
Suicides and homicides
Trauma fatalities
Drowning or boating accidents
Since the actual morgue photos are inappropriate for media distribution, drawings help to bridge the gap, allowing publication of a good likeness of the deceased as he or she might have been in life. If someone sees the drawing and feels that there's a sufficiently close resemblance, then the missing person's medical records and dental records can be compared to the dead person, along with fingerprints and/or DNA. One of the advantages of drawings over morgue photos is that the artist can add facial expression. It's often the case that the deceased lacks similarity to the living person because the face is missing its characteristic vitality, but adding "the look of life" is complicated. "Postmortem drawings pose a particular challenge," Taylor explains, "in that so much of what we recognize in the faces of people we know in life is associated not only with the arrangement of the facial features themselves but with the animation of the face. The real challenge is to reanimate the face. It's perhaps, for me, the most difficult type of forensic art."
Another task that a forensic artist might accept is to work with the photo of someone who's been missing for a long time. That's called age progression, which may involve either the developmental stages of facial-cranial growth in a child or the adult aging process. So, let's take a look at how that's done. The cases in which a photo is used to create an image of a person years hence are most often those of missing children and fugitives from the law. For example, images of John List were drawn sixteen years after he slaughtered his family, and the artist had to determine what someone like him might look like after so many years. Some fugitives change their identities with facial hair, weight gain, weight loss, a disguise or hair dye. To cover all bases, the artist may develop multiple appearances. John List turned out to be predictable, because he was a rigid, conservative man, so he didn't do much to change himself. To get the features of an older person right, artists need to know how faces age, jowls develop, lips thin out, hairlines recede and hair color changes. While a person's basic "look" holds true throughout life—most noticeable in the eyes---some changes are inevitable, and they're fairly predictable from one decade to the next. However, there are individual factors in aging, so it helps to have access to photos of family members around the person's target age. Some knowledge of his or her personal habits, such as smoking or eating, also helps, and as people age, they often end up wearing glasses. The type of personality they have affects tension lines in the face, and something in their medical history may affect how they look. Yet in some ways, the image of a child who's been missing for years is the more challenging task, because the shape of the face changes, and the artist has to rely on a number of factors to get it right. The artist takes into account the way most humans develop, with reference to specific family characteristics, such as weight and wrinkle formation. Mary H. Manhein, author of The Bone Lady, directs the Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services Laboratory (F.A.C.E.S.) at Louisiana State University. For the first decade of its existence, they did the typical work of forensic anthropology, which meant using three-dimensional sculpture with skulls. In 1990 they added another feature: "We have a computer enhancement component," Manhein says, "where we do age progression. My assistant was trained at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, yet we also do computer enhancement on missing felons and missing adults."
Age regression on the photo of a child involves:
The use of a photo, generally after the age of two
Having access to photos of siblings during different stages of their development
Having full frontal facial photos of the parents and other relatives
Having photos of parents at the age to which the child will be progressed
Collecting information about medical conditions that can affect appearance
Using information from tables about quantifiable growth data
Using a computer program that can work with the images of age progression, the photos are scanned in. The software then uses quantifiable growth data to predict the structural changes that the face would undergo during specific ages, and it recreates the photo according to those specifications. Using grids, the artist can manipulate different parts of the image and refine the facial nuances.
The author wrote this article because the Forensic art has been used in many cases, from the postmortem drawings of one of Jack the Ripper's victims to courtroom sketches of Lizzie Borden to identifying the remains of Joseph Mengele. The most familiar activity for the forensic artist is the composite drawing; so let's see how that has evolved. At first, forensic artists mostly just did courtroom drawings of criminals to be published in newspapers for reader titillation. Then they helped with diagrams of crime scenes, to aid in reconstructing what happened. Soon they were offering a way to render a suspect's appearance from eyewitness descriptions. A detailed history can be found in Forensic Art and Illustration.

05-09-2005

http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/forensics/anthropology/1.html
The Bones of 29 Young Men
By Katherine Ramsland
Dead man walking. The title of this article is The Bones of 29 Young Men by Katherine Ramsland. This article is about John Wayne Gacy in Des Plaines, Illinois. This article is about someone that first they dug up an arm bone. Then in another corner of the crawl space, they found a kneecap. They called the medical examiner to confirm that they'd unearthed human remains. He gave the go-ahead, and in December 1978, a team of police officers began the excavation that marked all of their careers as the most sensational apprehension of a murderer they'd ever experienced. From the ground around and under the house at 8213 Summerdale Avenue in Des Plaines, Illinois, they would bring up twenty-nine separate bodies of young men in all different states of decomposition. Several more were dredged up from the river, and John Wayne Gacy was charged with first-degree murder. The final official total of his victims was 33. To put together a solid case and to bring closure to families who had been waiting as long as six years for news of a missing relative, investigators had to begin the painstaking task of identifying the bodies. Some families came forward with photos, X-rays and dental records, and in other cases, driver's licenses and other forms of identification belonging to the victims were found in Gacy's home. Because few parents of missing boys could believe that their sons would engage in the kind of homosexual activity that Gacy claimed happened, it became clear that some would offer no assistance. Detectives had to use dental records, fingerprints, and X-rays of missing persons and assumed victims to get leads on the identities of many of the corpses. When after six weeks they had succeeded with less than half of the bodies, they turned to a specialist in bones, forensic anthropologists Charles P. Warren and Clyde C. Snow. Since Gacy had piled some bodies on top of others, their first task was to sort and separate individual bones. In the end, it turned out that the typical victim was a Caucasian male in his teens or early twenties---and one had even been married. Warren made charts for each body and examined the bones for unusual osteological features. Forensic odontologists helped with the identification of teeth.
Anthropology is the study of humans and it consists of several sub-fields:
Physical anthropology – the study of the primate order, past and present, such as primate biology, skeletal biology, and human adaptation
Cultural and linguistic anthropology – the study of the aspects of human society and language, past and present
Archaeology – the study of past cultures via material remains and artifacts
To some degree, forensic anthropologists draw on each of these fields, but generally rely on knowledge from physical anthropology to apply their expertise to skeletal remains. According to the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, "Forensic anthropology is the application of the science of physical anthropology to the legal process. The identification of skeletal, badly decomposed, or otherwise unidentified human remains is important for both legal and humanitarian reasons. Much of what occurs in forensic anthropology comes from the area of osteology, or the study of bones, although some forensic anthropologists may also specialize in body decomposition and entomology (the study of insects). Forensic anthropologists generally work with forensic pathologists, odontologists, and homicide investigators to point out evidence of foul play and assist with time of death estimates. The human body has 206 bones. They weigh about twelve pounds for the average male and ten pounds for females. To calculate factors about the bones, they're laid out on an ostiometric board, which allows measurements to be made with calipers. For comparison purposes, they had few records of the living Mengele. There were no dental x-rays, and while the number of fillings had been noted in his files, no other characteristics were included. Snow and Helmer decided to use a technique called "video skull-face superimposition," which was Helmer's expertise. Piecing together the shattered skull, they marked it with pins at thirty points of comparison. They did the same with photographs of Mengele, and set the skull and photo side-by-side for cameras. If all thirty points lined up, then they could say they had a positive identification of the Nazi fiend. The cameras recorded and then superimposed the images, and the experts carefully examined the matching areas. Finally, they pronounced the exhumed skull as that of war criminal Josef Mengele. Some time later, Mengele's dental X-rays were located and compared to the teeth in the skull. They proved a match, supporting the video superimposition. Then a DNA analysis confirmed once again that the methods of anthropology had proven reliable and accurate. From two dimensions to three, let's have a look at forensics culture. It's controversial as to who actually made the first successful facial reconstruction, but it's often credited to the German anatomist, W. His, who published the results of his studies in 1895. He had acquired a skull said to be that of the late composer Johann Sebastian Bach, and from it, he sculpted what turned out to be a very good facial likeness. To find out the general depth of the skin and muscles over the skull, His had plunged oiled needles into the faces of corpses.
At the top of each needle, he attached a cork. Once the needle hit bone, the cork rested at the skin's surface. He then pulled the needles out, measured them and made drawings based on the measurements. That way he managed to compose a depth map, which would aid anthropologists of succeeding generations in making portraits from skulls. (Modern researches now use ultrasound, not corpses, for tissue-depth studies.) Another sculpture was made by a police anatomist in 1916 when a skeleton was recovered in Brooklyn. He placed the skull on some rolled newspaper, put some fake eyes into the sockets, and covered the bones with flesh-colored plastic. A sculptor added sufficient details for the accurate identification of a missing woman. It was in Russia, however, where the technique of forensic sculpture was more fully developed. Mikhail Gerasimov headed the department of archaeology at a museum and he experimented with the skulls in his care. By 1935, he had become fairly adept at taking a skull and reforming it into a face that people recognized. Four years later, he helped to solve a murder. In 1950, the USSR established the Laboratory for Plastic Reconstruction, and for years they were the renowned experts in the field. Perhaps the most famous sculpture was the one that American sculptor Frank Bender did of the missing John List. In 1971 in New Jersey, List had murdered his wife, three children, and aged mother, and then fled. Detectives on the case failed again and again to find productive leads. They did some photographic enhancements to try to replicate a likeness of how List might have aged, but it was the sculpture that Bender did that finally turned the tide. For a television show, America's Most Wanted, he created a three-dimensional face based on a number of factors that helped him to imagine what List would look like in 1989—almost two decades after the murders. When this was shown on TV, a former neighbor of "Bob Clark" in Colorado called in what she knew. Through fingerprints, Clark was identified as List, and he was charged and convicted. Briefly, the technique involves first making a cast of the skull (or sometimes using the skull itself). Where there's no skull, the artist must rely on computer-enhanced photos to replicate a skull clay bust. Using the skull or replica, small holes are made for thin wooden or vinyl pegs to be inserted for measuring the skin depth. Then modeling clay fills in the muscles and features around the nose, mouth, cheeks, and eyes, and a thin layer of plastic or clay goes over the skull. Facial features are molded to capture the person's basic look, and a wig and artificial eyes are added, along with make-up similar to what an embalmer might use for cosmetic enhancement. Another technique is to set the skull on a turntable. As it turns, information is fed into a computer via a laser beam and assembled into a likeness, based on information from other faces with similar measurements and racial origins.
"Most frequently the forensic entomologist is asked to estimate the postmortem interval based on insect activity," Goff points out. "This is actually an estimate of the period of insect activity, not the actual postmortem interval. The two are often quite close, as the insects arrive and begin their activity shortly following death. In some instances, there may be factors that serve to delay the onset of insect activity, and these must be considered."
Other contributions include:
Determining if the body has been moved following death
Assessing wounds in terms of before, during, or after the death took place
Individualizing a crime scene
Serving as alternate specimens for toxicological analysis
Providing DNA materials from the gut contents of parasitic insects
Documenting periods of abuse and/or neglect in children or the elderly
Supporting or contradicting an alibi
That was a lesson about the limitations of databases: Any given case may have distinct characteristics that throw the data off.
As time passes, different groups of insects come and go in the process of assisting corpse decomposition. As each feeds on the body, it changes the body for the next group, which is attracted to those particular changes. Entomologists agree that there are four main types of direct relationships: The necrophagous species (flies and beetles) that feed directly on the corpse, and their stages of development over about two weeks helps to indicate how long the person has been dead. Predators and parasites of the flies and beetles (other types of beetles that prey on eggs and maggots). One type of blow fly can feed on either body tissue or maggots. Wasps are also parasitic on the maggots, and since they tend to specialize, it's easy to tell what kinds of flies had been on the body. Wasps, ants, and beetles that feed on both the body and the maggots. (Wasps that capture too many flies can actually delay decomposition). Spiders that use the body as a habitat to prey on other insects. "The relationships of the insects to the body, in terms of how they make a living," Goff explains, "are determined by the biology of the insect. Parasites remain parasites, although in some cases the tissue-eaters have been known to switch to predation as the body is consumed. Yet habitat and climatic factors can alter their periods of activity on the body. If the particular insect feeds on dried tissues, it may appear earlier in a hot, arid habitat and possibly not appear at all in a moist habitat. These changes may affect the pattern of succession, but the roles of the individual insects are set by their evolution."
The job of the forensic entomologist is to interpret these various relationships in order to offer information to law enforcement officers that will assist in leads. "At present," says Goff, "entomology is relatively well accepted by crime scene investigators. When I first began, we were regarded as having limited value. Over the years, with educational outreach and careful work, we have become a recognized discipline."
The author wrote this article because In 1984, he and several other forensic entomologists began meeting informally, and eventually they decided to form a certifying board. "We modeled ourselves after similar boards in anthropology, odontology and pathology. It was finally incorporated in the State of Nevada in 1996 as the American Board of Forensic Entomology." In the future, Goff believes that advances in technology will make a significant contribution to the discipline. "For example," he says, "the use of DNA technology to identify immature specimens and extract material from gut contents to allow for individualization of both suspects and victims. Also, we need to focus on standardizing techniques for determining basic life cycles. At present, the data are quite varied, leaving gaps when cases come to trial. Yet even within the relatively new area of drug detection, there have been improvements that allow for more precise analyses. I think it's going to get even more exciting in the relatively near future." Forensic anthropologists appear to have a considerable range of skills for assisting in death investigations. From art to bugs to bones, they make their mark.

You Know You're Drinking Too Much Coffee When....

1. You get a speeding ticket even when you're parked.
2. You lick your coffeepot clean.
3. You're the employee of the month at the
Espresso 4 U coffeehouse and you don't even work there.
4. Your T-shirt says: Decaffeinated coffee is the devil's blend.
5. You've worn out the handle on your favorite mug.
6. You go to AA meetings just for the free coffee.
7. When someone says: How are you? You say: Good to the last drop.
8. You're offended when people use the word brew to mean beer.
9. You have a conniption over spilled milk.
10. You think being called a drip is a compliment.
11. You don't get mad, you get steamed.
12. You help your dog chase its tail.
13. You think CPR stands for Coffee Provides Resuscitation.
14. Your first-aid kit contains two pints of coffee with an I.V. hookup.

If men got pregnant...

1. Morning sickness would rank as the nations number one health problem

2. Maternity leave would last for two years with full pay.

3. Children would be kept in the hospital until toilet trained.

4. Natural childbirth would become obsolete.

5. All methods of birth control would become 100% effective.

6. Men would be eager to talk about commitment.

7. There would be a cure for stretch marks.

8. They would serve beer instead of coffee at antenatal classes.

9. Men wouldn't think twins were so cute.

10. Sons would have to come home from dates by 9 pm.

Hehehe! Wouldn't it be nice?

50 Rules For Women...This is a list of rules that guys wished women knew...

1. Learn to work the toilet seat: if it's up put it down.

2. Don't cut your hair. Ever.

3. Don't make us guess.

4. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect an answer you don't want to hear.

5. Sometimes, he's not thinking about you. Live with it.

6. He's never thinking about "The Relationship."

7. Get rid of your cat. And no, it's not different, it's just like every other cat.

8. Dogs are better than cats.

9. Sunday = Sports. It's like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.

10. Shopping is not everybody's idea of a good time.

11. Anything you wear is fine. Really.

12. You have enough clothes.

13. You have too many shoes.

14. Crying is blackmail. Use it if you must, but don't expect us to like it.

15. Your brother is an idiot.

16. Ask for what you want. Subtle hints don't work.

17. No, he doesn't know what day it is. He never will. Mark anniversaries on a calendar.

18. Share the bathroom

19. Share the closet.

20. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers.

21. A headache that lasts for 17 months is a problem. See a doctor.

22. Nothing says 'I love you' like sex in the morning.

23. Foreign films are best left to foreigners.

24. Check your oil.

25. Anything we said 6 or 8 months ago is inadmissible in an argument.

26. Christopher Columbus didn't need directions, and neither do we.

27. If you think you're fat, you probably are. Don't ask us.

28. Yes, pissing standing up is more difficult than peeing from point blank range. We're bound to miss sometimes.

29. Don't fake it. We'd rather be ineffective than deceived.

30. If you don't dress like the Victoria's Secret girls, don't expect us to act like soap opera guys.

31. Let us ogle. If we don't look at other women, how can we know how pretty you are?

32. Don't rub the lamp if you don't want the genie to come out.

33. You can either ask us to do something OR tell us how you want it done-not both.

34. Women wearing Wonder bras and low-cut blouses lose their right to complain about having their boobs stared at.

35. Don't make 50 rules when 35 will do.

25 Phrases Of Wisdom

1. If you're too open minded, your brains will fall out.

2. Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

3. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you a mechanic.

4. Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

5. If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you've never tried before.

6. My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.

7. Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.
8. It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.

9. For every action, there is an equal and opposite government program.

10. If you look like your passport picture, you probably need the trip.

11. Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.

12. A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

13. Eat well, stay fit, die anyway.

14. Men are from earth. Women are from earth. Deal with it.

15. No husband has ever been shot while doing the dishes.

16. A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.

17. Middle age is when broadness of the mind and narrowness of the waist change places.

18. Opportunities always look bigger going than coming.

19. Junk is something you've kept for years and throw away three weeks before you need it.

20. There is always one more imbecile than you counted on.

21. Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

22. By the time you can make ends meet, they move the ends.

23. Thou shalt not weigh more than thy refrigerator.

24. Someone who thinks logically provides a nice contrast to the real world.

25. Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they shall never cease to be amused.

How a "real" man bathes a cat:

1. Scrub toilet and flush several times. (You may consider this step to be optional).

2. Fill toilet with warm water and add a squirt of pet shampoo.

3. Drop cat in toilet and slam lid shut.

4. Sit on lid - cat's efforts to free itself will generate a good deal of sudsing and washing motions.

5. Flush toilet a couple of times to rinse cat. Note: Hold securely to leash attached to cat in toilet.

6. Leap off toilet seat, dash out door, and slam it shut - securely shut, because kitty will erupt from the bowl as if jet propelled.

7. Leave kitty to sulk and dry itself.

8. Bask in self-congratulatory haze.

Deep Thought Questions

When cheese gets it's picture taken, what does it say?
What would a chair look like, if your knees bent the other way?
What do you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?
What do little birdies see, when they get knocked unconscious?
Is there another word for synonym?
If a turtle doesn't have a shell, is he homeless or naked?
If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?
If a parsley farmer is sued, can they garnish his wages?
If quitters never win and winners never quit, what fool came up with, "Quit while your ahead"?!
If vegetable oil comes from vegetables, where does baby oil come from?
If a tin whistle is made out of tin, what exactly is a fog horn made out of?
What do they call a coffee break at the Lipton Tea Company?
If a man is standing in the middle of the forest speaking and there is no woman around to hear him - Is he still wrong?
How much deeper would the oceans be without sponges?
If FED EX and UPS were to merge, would they call it FED UP?

Ten Best Things To Say If You Get Caught Sleeping At Work:

10. "They told me at the blood bank this might happen."

9. "This is just a 15 minute power-nap like they raved about in that time management course you sent me to."

8. "Whew! Guess I left the top off the White-Out. You probably got here just in time!"

7. "I wasn't sleeping! I was meditating on the mission statement and envisioning a new paradigm."

6. "I was testing my keyboard for drool resistance."

5. "I was doing a highly specific Yoga exercise to relieve work-related stress. Are you discriminatory toward people who practice Yoga?"

4. "Why did you interrupt me? I had almost figured out a solution to our biggest problem."

3. "The coffee machine is broken..."

2. "Someone must've put decaf in the wrong pot..."

And the #1 best thing to say if you get caught sleeping at your desk...

1. " ... in Jesus' name. Amen."

Actual bumper stickers found on actual cars:

* Horn broken. Watch for finger.

* Your kid may be an honors student, but you're still an idiot.

* All generalizations are false.

* Cover me. I'm changing lanes.

* I brake for no apparent reason.

* Out of my mind. Back in five minutes.

* I'm not as think as you drunk I am.

* Forget about World Peace...Visualize using your turn signal.

* We have enough youth, how about a fountain of Smart?

* He who laughs last thinks slowest.

* Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.

* It IS as bad as you think, and they ARE out to get you.

* Auntie Em, Hate you, hate Kansas, taking the dog. Dorothy.

* Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

* Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.

Chinese Proverbs

Man who run in front of car get tired.

Man who run behind car get exhausted.

Man with one chopstick go hungry.

Man who scratch bum should not bite fingernails.

Man who eat many prunes get good run for money.

War does not determine who is right, war determine who is left.

Man who drive like hell, bound to get there.

Man who stand on toilet is high on pot.

Man who live in glass house should change clothes in basement.

Man who fart in church sit in own pew.

Crowded elevator smell different to midget.

05-02-2005

"HUMAN SEX-ATTRACTANT PHEROMONES: DISCOVERY, RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND APPLICATION IN SEX THERAPY."
By: Winnifred B. Cutler
http://www.athenainstitute.com/psycha.html

This article is called Human Sex-Attractant Pheromones: Discovery, Research, Development, and Application in Sex Therapy by Winnifred B. Cutler. This article was published in 1991. This takes place in the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University. This article is about Winnifred B. Cutler and colleagues. Some of the topics that was discussed are physical attraction is the fundamental precondition for the sexual dance between a man and a woman. Although appearance, self-confidence, and social behavior all contribute to sexual attractiveness, the reproductive endocrine system appears to play an independent role. Recent discoveries of invisible, odorless, sex attractants, called pheromones, offer biologic ways to use cosmetics for improving the romantic lives of men and women. As an adjunct to existing therapies, human pheromones may serve to catalyze the therapeutic process.
Investigated relationships between the timing of women's sexual behavior and aspects of their reproductive endocrinology. investigated similar relationships among pre-menopausal women. Each of the studies demonstrated health benefits from intimate connections with another person, provided the timing was appropriate. conducted two double-blind, placebo-controlled experiments of sexual responses to pheromones that have been reported to the scientific community. Our first study of women used the data collected in the Cutler and Preti experiments... these data were analyzed according to sexual behavior patterns. The first study of men added a man's proprietary pheromone formula to each man's usual aftershave fragrances and tested for changes in sexual behavior. Both studies found that human pheromones, but not placebo, produced significant increases over baseline in sexual behavior involving a partner. A patient adds pheromone to his or her own fragrance to increase his or her partner's sexual interest. In conjunction with psychotherapy, this change in the partner's response is incorporated into the healthy emotional functioning of the patient. Patients with infertility problems -- with or without known pathology -- need a romantic life.
Studies reviewed above have shown that couples trying to conceive a viable pregnancy benefit from regular weekly sexual intercourse because the behavior increases the likelihood of a fertile-type cycle in the woman. Intrusive infertility treatments usually compromise some of the romance between the couple. Because cosmetic pheromones can promote or restore romance, they may serve as a useful adjunct to both the psychological and the reproductive endocrine treatments. Sex-attractant type pheromone cosmetics can be incorporated into the user's daily routines to increase the chances for therapeutic benefits. This article was written because in this prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, human pheromones caused a statistically significant and distinct increase in those romantic behaviors in which a woman plays a major role... These findings suggest an increased sexual attractiveness of the men without an influence on the men's sexual motivation, further supporting the hypothesis of the pheromone nature of apocrine secretions in humans. When I read this article I never knew some of the things that was discussed in this article.

05-02-2005

Ethics: To Tell or Not to Tell—A Case Study
By: Lee J. Zook, Ph.D.
http://www.socialworker.com/home/Feature_Articles/Ethics/Ethics%3A_To_Tell_or_Not_to_Tell%97A_Case_Study/

I’m telling! This article is called Ethics: To Tell or Not to Tell—A Case Study. Its by Lee J. Zook. This article was published in the winter of 2001. This article is about Lee J. Zook and a person she calls “Mary Jones”. Some of the topics that was discussed are some years ago, prior to teaching in undergraduate social work, I was working with families and children in an outpatient psychiatric setting, Children’s Agency. In the previous year, I had completed my MSW, having practiced social work several years with an undergraduate degree. The Director of Social Services at the Children’s Agency was my supervisor. We used a team model in our work, with any particular team consisting of at least a social worker, a psychologist, and a psychiatrist. Sometimes other professionals, such as educational specialists, early childhood development specialists, and social group workers were also on the teams.
While I was at Children’s Agency, Mary Jones (a fictitious name) applied for a job as a social worker. Four years earlier, I had seen Mary as a client while working for an emergency service at Adult Hospital, a psychiatric facility for adults. She came to be admitted to the hospital as her psychiatric condition was deteriorating. Mary told me she was a social worker with an MSW and had been in and out of psychiatric hospitals for many years. I located her chart, noted that she was previously diagnosed with schizophrenia, undifferentiated type, did the basic paperwork that social workers did on admission, consulted with the admitting psychiatrist, and took her to the hospital ward. It was a rather simple, routine admission; there were no police or court documents, and she was a voluntary client. However, the situation was a bit unsettling.
My feelings had to do with the fact that I was leaving my position in the near future to pursue an MSW, and here I was, a young, rather inexperienced, “untrained” social worker, admitting an older, more experienced social worker with an MSW to a psychiatric hospital. So now, three years later, I had my MSW, and Mary came for a job interview at Children’s Agency where I was employed. I had no responsibility for employment decisions. My supervisor, who was the Director of Social Services, and the psychiatrist, who was also the Executive Director, made these decisions. On one hand, I was concerned about whether Mary would function as a competent professional colleague. Was her illness in remission? If so, would it remain in remission? If not, what would the impact be on clients? Would she be able to function adequately to work with clients who came to the agency? If she would not, would harm come to clients?
On the other hand, my knowledge of her illness was unquestionably confidential. There was also the possibility that I could speak to Mary and verbalize my concerns to her. In summary, there seemed to be no ideal course of action in this situation. I did not know how to predict what would happen if I talked with Mary. It is conceivable that I would have a colleague who was less than happy with my reminding her of her illness. If I did intervene by reporting to persons responsible for hiring, confidential information would be divulged. I could be identified as practicing discrimination toward persons with a mental illness. If I did not intervene, and she was hired, harm could come to clients. There seemed to be no ideal answer and no way to avoid the situation. There may have been other options, but none seemed apparent to me at the time.
Zook wrote this article because there are times in social work practice when professionals are placed in situations, through no wrongdoing on anybody’s part, in which dilemmas occur because of a conflict in values or ethical principles within the situation itself. In those situations, it is not a matter of choosing good versus evil, or choosing right versus wrong. It is a matter of choosing between the better of two goods or, possibly more often, the lesser of two evils. Making those decisions is often not pleasant. In fact, it can be quite anxiety provoking. But it is also impossible to side step the issue when doing nothing will predictably yield a certain outcome. When I read this article I was amazed about the dilemma the author had to face.

05-02-2005

Ego-State Therapy: An Overview
Helen H. Watkins
http://clinicalsocialwork.com/overview.html

Multiple personality disorder. The title of this article is Ego-State Therapy. By Helen H. Watkins. This article takes place in the University of Montana. This happened in the 1970’s and now. The who in this article is John G. Watkins also know as Jack, Weiss, Berne and Paul Federn. Helen H. Watkins wrote this article because Ego-state therapy is a psychodynamic approach in which techniques of group and family therapy are employed to resolve conflicts between various "ego states" that constitute a "family of self" within a single individual. Although covert ego states do not normally become overt except in true multiple personality, they are hypnotically activated and made accessible for contact and communication with the therapist. Any of the behavioral, cognitive, analytic, or humanistic techniques may then be employed in a kind of internal diplomacy. Some 20 years experience with this approach has demonstrated that complex psychodynamic problems can often be resolved in a relatively short time compared to more analytic therapies. Some of the things that was discussed are in approaching the theoretical concepts of ego-state therapy, it is worthwhile to underscore two processes that are cogent in the development of the human personality: integration and differentiation.
Through integration a child learns to put concepts together, such as dog and cat, and thus to build more complex units called animals. By differentiation the child separates general concepts into specific meaning, such as discriminating between "good doggies" and "bad doggies." Both processes are normal and adaptive. When this separating process become excessive and maladaptive, it is usually called "dissociation." Psychological processes do not exist on a rigid either/or basis. Anxiety, depression, and other affects lie on a continuum with lesser or greater degrees of intensity. So it is with differentiation-dissociation. Multiple personality disorder (MPD) represents that extreme and maladaptive end of the continuum that begins with normal differentiation. First, he believed that whether a physical or mental process was experienced as apart of the self (I or me) or as an object (he, she, or it) was determined by the nature of the energy (ego or object) that activated it. Second, Federn believed that the personality was not simply a collections of perceptions, cognitions, and affects, but that these organized into clusters or patterns, which he called ego states. An ego state may be defined as an organized system of behavior and experience whose elements are bound together by some common principle.
Hypnosis is both a focusing and dissociate process. Through hypnosis we can focus on one segment of personality and temporarily ablate or dissociate away other parts. Although multiple personalities are usually studied through hypnosis, they should be so diagnosed only when the ego states (also know as alters) can become overt spontaneously and when the main personality is generally amnesic to what occurs when the alter is overt and "executive." The relationship between the multiple personalities and ego states as found in normal individuals was demonstrated to us through post therapy reactions given by successfully treated patients with MPD. In these cases, functioning normally, dissociated entities no longer appeared spontaneously. Ego states that are cognitively dissociated from one another or have contradictory goals often develop conflicts with each other.
When they are highly energized and have rigid, impermeable boundaries, multiple personalities develop. However, many such conflicts appear between ego states that are only covert. These may be manifested by anxiety, depression, or any number of neurotic or somatic symptoms and maladaptive behaviors. Because the contending ego states do not appear spontaneously and overtly, they must generally be activated through hypnosis. We call this "ego-state therapy." The greatest need in psychotherapy today is to find ways of constructively changing maladaptive behavior more efficiently and in a shorter period of time. Ego-state therapy shows great promise in moving to that goal, where we can provide significant psychological help to more people with modest expenditures of time and cost.
When I read this article I was amazed that therapist can do some of the things they mentioned in this article.

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04-25-2005

http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/forensics/cyril_wecht/index.html
Advocate for Truth
By Katherine Ramsland
This article is about In 1965, Dr. Wecht undertook an analysis of the Warren Report for the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Then in 1972, he was the first non-government forensic pathologist permitted to observe and study the Kennedy autopsy materials that were preserved in the National Archives. To his mind, the way the entire incident had been handled was appalling: the autopsy had been superficial and the investigation incomplete. He concluded that the Warren Commission's "lone assassin, single bullet" theory could not be supported. Further, Wecht was dismayed to discover that certain key items were missing: photographs of Kennedy's internal chest wounds, glass slides of his skin wound, and most importantly, President Kennedy's brain. How could something so significant to the case be missing? That August, Wecht helped The New York Times break this news.
Three years later, he was invited to testify as part of a medical expert panel before the Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States, also known as the Rockefeller Commission.
Then in 1978, he served on a nine-person panel of eminent forensic pathologists, appointed by the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, who reviewed the case together to determine if there had been governmental involvement. He stood firm against all the others in insisting that there was no way one bullet had caused all the wounds to both Kennedy and Texas governor John Connally, who were riding together in an open-top car. In fact, he believed that Kennedy was struck twice in a synchronized fashion, from the rear and the right front side. In years to come, he supported writers and researchers who believed there had been a cover-up.
By 1991, Dr. Wecht's reputation was such that Oliver Stone invited him to consult on the medical evidence for his conspiracy-heavy film, JFK. Wecht's insistence that all of the evidence needs to be made public has never flagged, and in November 2003, he was instrumental in organizing a conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: "Solving the Great American Murder Mystery: A National Symposium on the 40th Anniversary of the JFK Assassination." For three and a half days, the Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law, in conjunction with the Duquesne University Law School, offered an impressive panel of scholars, scientists, authors, attorneys, and pathologists from around the world. It was clear from the number in attendance and the intensity of debates that the mystery is still significant for many Americans.
At least two bullets hit Kennedy that fateful day, and one wounded Governor Connally. Kennedy was rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, but when he was pronounced dead, he was illegally transported to Bethesda Naval Hospital in Washington, where a botched autopsy and quickly classified reports soon inspired theories about an assassination conspiracy and/or a governmental cover-up. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the shooting, but his version of events was soon silenced by Jack Ruby, who shot and killed Oswald during a jail transfer. Did he do it to shut up the "patsy" or simply because he desired to kill the man who had killed the president? Wecht points out that before Oswald died he was interrogated for those two days by top experts, none of whom had kept any notes or recorded the proceedings. Not a single piece of written documentation of one of the most important interrogations in American history has been presented. Understandably, Wecht finds that suspicious, if not downright duplicitous. It also bothers him that the government is still withholding information on the case. If Oswald acted alone, and there is no cover-up, why the need for secrecy so many years later?
In collaboration with the University's A.J. Palumbo School of Business Administration, the Wecht Institute will also deliver part of the curriculum in the forensic track of the new Master's of Accountancy program, which begins in the summer of 2004.
And in its first off-campus academic partnership, the Institute is now collaborating with Pittsburgh's Carlow College to offer Forensic Medical and Legal Investigations: The Post-Mortem Examination, a program that combines a BS degree in biology with certification as an autopsy specialist.
The author wrote this article because among the Institute's strengths are its annual conferences, to which experts from a wide variety of disciplines are invited in an effort to shed light upon a particular set of issues. Past conferences have covered such topics as forensic DNA analysis and familial violence, as well as the afore-mentioned assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The fifth annual conference will take on the science and law of combating terrorism. While the proceedings of some of these conferences will be published, the Wecht Institute is also developing a graduate-level textbook, Foundations in Forensic Science and Law: Investigative Evidence in Criminal, Civil and Family Law. And speaking of books, Cyril Wecht will continue to produce more collections of cases like those that have made him popular with the true crime audience.

04-25-2005

http://www.healthyplace.com/communities/gender/intersexuals/article_sex_police.htm
The sex police
The biology of sex is being hotly debated, as parents, doctors and researchers reevaluate what it means to be male and female.
By Sally Lehrman, 1999
This article is about Patrick took a long time in coming -- two weeks in the birth canal -- but the moment he arrived, nurses bundled him up and rushed him out of the delivery room. The Jacksonville, Fla., hospital cloistered the eight-pound, 20 1/2-inch baby in a back section of the intensive care unit and drew the curtains. One doctor after another went to visit. The infant had a well-defined penis, but with an opening at the base, not the tip. There was just one testicle, though it was producing plenty of testosterone. In most of his cells, the baby had no Y chromosome, the one that contains the genetic instructions for the body to develop as a male. The doctors assured the adoptive mother, Helena Harmon-Smith, that Patrick was a girl. They would remove the offending appendages right away. But Harmon-Smith had seen Patrick have an erection. Actually, several. "You're not cutting off anything that's working," she protested. The authorities checked the infant's internal organs and still insisted this baby would be better off as a girl. His mother refused. More tests. After 11 days, 20 doctors filed into a hospital conference room and solemnly announced that they would allow the family to raise Patrick as a boy. "We put him in a little tux and took him home," Harmon-Smith says.
Two and a half months later, Patrick's doctor warned his mother that the boy's testicle, really an ovotestis that also contained some ovarian tissue, was probably malignant. It should be removed -- like the one already taken from his abdomen. His mother finally agreed to a biopsy, just in case. When the surgeon returned from the operating room, he said the gonad was diseased. He had cut it off.
Harmon-Smith pestered the doctor for the pathology report for more than a month. Once she got it, "the first thing I read was 'normal, healthy testicle.' My heart stopped. I just cried," she says. Five years old March 24 and in the first grade, Patrick will never be able to produce semen. Katherine Rossiter, the pediatric nurse practitioner who wrote the article in the January-February 1998 nursing journal, argues that intersex activists represent only a minority, albeit a vocal one, and that allowing a baby with a tiny penis and no testicles to grow up as a boy, rather than surgically reassigning him as a girl, might harm him beyond repair. But she admits that "listening to what real people say and their arguments" has broken down some of her conviction. "I've become muddy mishmash in my thinking," she says.
The medical literature and the opinions of specialists are increasingly divided. "In some cases it's led to a human tragedy -- it might have been better not to reassign the sex of this particular child. But there are cases where it's clearly right to reassign," says Raymond Hintz, an endocrinologist and professor of pediatrics at Stanford University. "It's sometimes justified, but it's not something you do lightly."
William Cromie, a Chicago pediatric urologist who serves as secretary and treasurer of the Society for Pediatric Urology, stresses that proper treatment relies on the carefully considered opinions of parents along with ethicists, endocrinologists, pediatricians and other specialists. As many as 30 conditions may lead to a child being considered intersexed. "It's not an arbitrary, capricious decision by one person," he says. "You try to make the very best decision -- it's usually ground over by a lot of people who are very thoughtful. This is an area that's immensely complex. And lay people just plain and simple don't understand it." For a boy to be a boy, he ought to have two testicles just below a straight penis, and only one opening down there. If the genitals fall short, a pediatric urologist will almost always assign the infant a female gender, remove anything protruding too far and prescribe estrogen at puberty. A talented surgeon can construct a vagina using a piece of the bowel, although the woman who owns it will never experience any sensation inside.
The author wrote this article because the Intersex Society doesn't oppose assigning gender at birth. Instead it -- and now some medical specialists -- urges parents and doctors to refrain from surgery and be open to a change in sex identity later.
But Chase, for one, isn't waiting for culture to come to terms with biology. "I'm focused on practical changes that come quickly, not pie in the sky," Chase says. "I would much rather keep my clitoris and have orgasms than have a box to check off." Helena Harmon-Smith, Patrick's mother, says she wants children like her son to be allowed their own decisions -- and more than anything, to be recognized as real. "My son was one of the lucky few -- because he is technically both. He can be boy or girl," she says. She will never forgive Patrick's doctor for making the choice for him.

04-25-2005

http://www.athenainstitute.com/mediaarticles/nytimes.html
"Sex Without Estrogen: Remedies for the Midlife Mind And Body"
By: Robin Marantz Henig

No sex for some women after menopause. This article is called "Sex Without Estrogen: Remedies for the Midlife Mind And Body." By: Robin Marantz Henig and it was published on June 6, 2004. This article is about women who went through menopause, Dr. Comfort, Dr. Steven J. Sondheimer, Dr. Wood , Dr. Barbara Bartlik, Dr. Leonore Tiefer, and Dr. Winnifred Cutler. This article was written because Pheromones might help a woman get more affection, more hugging and kissing and holding. And for some women at this stage of life, romance and affection — feeling attractive and loved — are what they most need” and “SEX life for women doesn't end with the menopause," wrote Dr. Alex Comfort in "The Joy of Sex," his landmark self-help book from the 1970's, "unless they have been convinced that it should." The things that stop you having sex with age are exactly the same as those that stop you riding a bicycle (bad health, thinking it looks silly, no bicycle). This article was written in New York but the people Henig interviewed came for Pennsylvania State University, New York University School of Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania Some of the things that were discussed are Although 10 percent of a group of women in midlife who were tracked by researchers at Pennsylvania State University said they were having better sex than when they were young, about 60 percent reported a loss of sexual desire, responsiveness or frequency.
But the future is not necessarily grim for aging women, specialists say. The problems these women encounter are varied, and have a range of solutions having nothing to do with hormone replacement. The first, "bad health," need not even have a direct effect on hormones or genitals in order to put a damper on a woman's sex drive. "Any sort of health issue," Dr. Wood said, "arthritis, diabetes, even a partner having an illness, interferes with a woman's sexual response." Now that fewer women are taking hormone replacement therapy because of fears about long-term side effects, the worry is that legions of estrogen-deficient baby boomers will be forced to endure those symptoms with no relief in sight, their lives a vast sexual wasteland. But it turns out that pulling back on hormone therapy might be the best thing that ever happened to middle-aged sex. Hormone therapy was considered good for sex. But what it mostly does is relieve some of the symptoms associated with menopause, like vaginal dryness and night sweats, that lower a woman's libido by making intercourse unpleasant.
Dr. Comfort's second explanation for a loss of interest in sex — thinking it looks silly — can be even more pernicious than ill health. Almost every middle-aged woman, even those who are objectively gorgeous, is self-conscious about her lumps and wattles and other dreary imperfections. No matter how sexy she feels inside, she is aging on the outside — and sometimes a glance in the mirror with unflattering overhead light is all it takes to make her feel not so sexy after all. Then there is the problem of the "bicycle" — a willing, able and sensitive partner. The nation's high divorce rate means that many women in midlife are alone, especially since when divorced men remarry, they tend to find younger wives. And a husband or partner might have age-related problems: concerns about his health, self-consciousness about his looks, the inability to get or maintain an erection or to reach orgasm. While Viagra has revolutionized the sexual performance of men in midlife, it cannot fix everything. It especially cannot help repair a relationship that might have foundered after decades of resentment, inattention or routine. A third approach involves the natural chemicals known as pheromones. Humans make pheromones as efficiently as do animals — and they respond to them as effectively, but usually below the level of consciousness. That is why using pheromones can seem, in a way, like applying a magic love potion.
An apostrophe used is Are things bound to get worse? After all, the number of women reaching midlife is rising, just as hormone replacement therapy — formerly the first-line remedy for the sexual difficulties associated with menopause — has become less popular. Some of the alliterations that was in the article are “reported, responsiveness, reaching, replacement and relationship.” The allusion used was when the author mentioned “The Joy of Sex”. An analogy used is "bicycle" — a willing, able and sensitive partner. An antithesis used is “SEX life for women doesn't end with the menopause," wrote Dr. Alex Comfort in "The Joy of Sex," his landmark self-help book from the 1970's, "unless they have been convinced that it should."

04-25-2005

http://www.psa.org.nz/library/psa/09%20psa%20journal/social%20worker%20registration%20-%20psa%20journal%20article%20-%2006-2003.asp
Social Worker Registration
What do social workers go through to become a social worker? This article is about the Social Worker Registration and Steve Maharey. This takes place in New Zealand. The author wrote this article because Social workers will be taking a keen interest in who is selected for the new Social Workers Registration Board as those people will influence the future of social work and what it means to be a social worker. Some of the things that was discussed was that they will set the tone for the board and make critical decisions on just about everything to do with registration, including what level of qualification you need. The ten-member board, of whom six must be practicing social workers, will be appointed by the Minister of Social Development from a list of nominations. The appointment of the board will be the first step taken under the new Social Workers Registration Act to establish, for the first time in New Zealand, a system of registration for social workers. Registration is also generally seen as one of the hallmarks of a profession, enabling the profession to take responsibility for maintaining its own standards.
However those standards are not spelled out in the Act except in general terms. To be registered, says the Act, a social worker must have practical experience, have a recognized New Zealand qualification, be a "fit and proper person", and be competent to practice social work, including with Maori and different ethnic and cultural groups. It will be the task of the newly-formed board to set the bar for registration and decide on the type and level of educational qualification that is a prerequisite for registration, what is a "fit and proper person", and how competence will be determined. The decisions the board makes will have implications for the employment and careers of social workers. If the bar is set too high, many will be effectively excluded from registration because they lack the necessary qualification; too low and the whole notion of registration is compromised. The board will also decide on the fees for registration.
Some of the alliterations used in the article is “practice, proper, premium, and practicing.” “However, given the dearth of social workers-not enough are in training to meet the current demand-we are unlikely to see a gung-ho approach among employers, at least in the immediate future.” is an appositive used in this article. Some assonances used in this article are “tone, board, on, to, do, of, and board.” The climax for the article is “To be registered, says the Act, a social worker must have practical experience, have a recognized New Zealand qualification, be a "fit and proper person", and be competent to practice social work, including with Maori and different ethnic and cultural groups.” The antithesis is “These have now been called for but it is surprising that, when setting up a brand-new board, only three weeks were allowed before the closing date of 13 June.” An epithet used is “Registration is also generally seen as one of the hallmarks of a profession, enabling the profession to take responsibility for maintaining its own standards.” An apostrophe used is However, given the dearth of social workers - not enough are in training to meet even current demand - we are unlikely to see a gung-ho approach among employers, at least in the immediate future.
Registration to be a social worker is not as tedious as meeting the new qualifications. The organization of Big Brother and Big Sister gives back to the community and helps children, which is what a social worker does. Registration for social work is easy, but qualifying is hard. Obtaining new qualifications can be an expensive, time-consuming, which raises the question of who pays. The Social Worker Registration has to set standards but also be responsible for maintaining them. Social workers will be required under the ACT to re-register and demonstrate their competence every five years.

04-18-2005

http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/forensics/bill_bass/index.html
The Body Farm
By Katherine Ramsland
In her 1994 novel, The Body Farm, Patricia Cornwell introduced readers to a "decay research facility" at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. It's actually called the Anthropology Research Facility, but Cornwell overheard a nickname that cops had adopted, and called it The Body Farm. "On any given day," she writes, "its several wooded acres held dozens of bodies in varying stages of decomposition." Given such a description, one might think this place is imaginary, but it's not. It's quite real, and Cornwell actually visited it. In the narrative, she goes on to describe what it's like to walk through the "bizarre but necessary kingdom." The first thing she mentions is the pervasive foul odor—the "language of the dead"— and then points out the tall wooden fence surrounding the facility, topped with coiled barbed wire. She directs her main character, medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, to glance at bodies in water-filled pits tethered to cinder blocks, and indicates that Scarpetta is aware that other corpses are decomposing in cars parked around the area. A skeleton is at the wheel of a white Cadillac, and a skull grins up at her from among a pile of fallen leaves. At this facility, the dead are silent helpers for the living. In all, on that day, Scarpetta is surrounded by 44 of them. Cornwell describes the experiments that the researchers at The Farm have done to assist Dr. Scarpetta with a murder investigation in which a corpse bore an unidentifiable mark. They have measured the decomposition rate of a body in a basement versus a body in the same condition outdoors. (Cornwell offers a vivid scenario to readers with strong stomachs as to how the changes differ between these decomposing bodies — a couple who committed suicide in quick succession over the husband's fatal illness.)
The researchers have placed several metal items beneath one of the bodies to try to determine what might have made an unusual mark found on the crime victim. They turn over the corpse to examine the impressions and oxidation residue from nails, an iron drain, bottle caps, and coins, and then compare them with photographs from the victim. Impurities from the coins bear the closest resemblance. That observation, along with the photographs taken at both the distant crime scene and the facility, provides a significant lead. Cornwell learned about this place when she was working in the Virginia medical examiner's office. She attended a slide lecture and heard an FBI fingerprint examiner mention "the Body Farm." She later recalled all this after becoming a strikingly successful novelist. Like Scarpetta, she asked the scientists to conduct an experiment for her, and because her questions were of scientific interest, the facility's founder and director obliged. That person was Dr. Bill Bass, and his innovative service to law enforcement can't be found anywhere else in the world. In some ways, it was serendipitous, the result of his diverse experiences, but as one reviews Dr. Bass's extensive career, it's also clear that his pioneering spirit and desire to learn about stages of death inevitably would have yielded something interesting. Forensic anthropology is the application of physical anthropology to the medico-legal process. That is, forensic anthropologists assist law enforcement investigators and medical examiners to identify human skeletal and decomposing remains, generally working in cooperation with pathologists and odontologists to estimate the age, sex, ancestry, stature, and unique bony features of the deceased. Using their specific expertise, they may furnish clues pointing toward foul play. Once he had his M.A. in this subject, Bass applied to several schools for a Ph.D. program, but he wanted only to attend the University of Pennsylvania to study with Dr. Wilton Krogman, known as "the bone detective." To his delight, he was accepted into that program. He worked alongside Krogman on his forensic cases and in February 1957, they were called to examine the remains of a young boy who had been murdered and dumped in the Fox Chase area of Philadelphia. As disturbing as the case was, no one knew that it would become a famous investigation.
As part of the Forensic Anthropology Center at UT-K, this protected, two-and-a-half-acre field dedicated to the study of decomposing human remains is truly unique. "Before our work, no one had ever established a time line," Bass said. "There are a lot of factors that can affect how a body decomposes, but we found that the major two are climate and insects. When a person dies, the body begins to decay immediately and the enzymes in the digestive system begin to eat the tissue. You putrefy, and this gives off a smell. Up until about two and a half weeks, one of the best ways to tell how long a body is dead is to look at the insect activity. The first of the critters to be attracted to a decaying body are the blowflies. They come along and lay their eggs, which hatch into maggots. The maggots then eat the decaying tissue in a fairly predictable way." Measuring and recording this information, along with climatic variables such as temperature and humidity, gave the facility its raison d'être. Since those early days, the place has evolved. Scientists still use a few unclaimed bodies, but mostly accept those that have been donated to science. There's even a waiting list for people who want to designate the Body Farm as their final destination.
As part of the Forensic Anthropology Center at UT-K, this protected, two-and-a-half-acre field dedicated to the study of decomposing human remains is truly unique. Corpses that arrive at the facility have been placed in all kinds of positions and conditions: locked in a car trunk, lying in direct sunlight, hidden under canvas and plastic, buried in mud, hung from a scaffold, closed into coffins, refrigerated in the dark, zipped into body bags, and submerged in water, to name a few. One body may come in headless, another with wounds. Some are even embalmed, and a few are dismembered. Stages of insect infestation on corpses are examined, along with general exposure to the environment and disturbances by small rodents. When there's an ongoing project, the person assigned to it—often a graduate student in anthropology—makes a precise digital record at regular intervals of various aspects of the disintegration process. He or she may also use an electronic nose with numerous sensors to record changes in the odors. These are fed into a gas chromatograph, which separates and analyzes the distinct parts of compound mixtures. One hope is to develop sprays that can be used to train cadaver dogs. Marks and his colleagues at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are also isolating specific biochemical markers that will provide precise measurements of the postmortem interval during the first two weeks after death. The researchers analyze soil samples as well as bodies and body parts, because byproducts of decomposition generally seep into the ground. That means a scientist can determine how long a body was lying in a particular spot, or whether it was placed somewhere and then moved—and when that occurred. They have more such experiments planned for the future.
The author wrote is article because The 1999 murder trial of 38-year-old Thomas D. Huskey, accused killer of four women. This was the first documented serial killer in Knox County, Tennessee, and prosecutors were seeking the death penalty. The two sides focused not only on the issue of his mental state at the time of the offenses, but also used insect analysis to evaluate the time since death of two of the victims. Prostitutes had dubbed Huskey the "Zoo Man" because he once had worked at the Knoxville Zoo and he liked to take women close by for rough sex. Bass was called in after three of the victims had been discovered in a wooded area. His job was not only to estimate time since death but to determine if the victims had been killed where they lay or if the death scene was in fact elsewhere. He used his knowledge about what happens to bodies in the woods—specifically, the biomarkers in the vegetation and soil--to make the all-important determinations. The Tri-State Crematory scandal in 2002. More than three hundred decaying human bodies sent for cremation had been discovered left out in the open, buried in shallow pits, or crowded into vaults. Countless families were horrified to learn that the "ashes" of their loved ones were not human remains but possibly cardboard or wood ashes, and that the deceased could be among those left in an undignified position. Tri-State's operator, Ray Brent Marsh, was arrested and charged with multiple counts of fraud and abuse of a body. The long process of identifying the remains began, and in many cases relatives filed lawsuits against Marsh and his business. Bill Bass assisted by analyzing the remains and letting people know exactly what they had. The book is filled with the fascinating and educational work of this bone detective, and even includes an introduction penned by Patricia Cornwell. To see photographs of the Body Farm and more information about the book and documentaries, link to www.deathsacre.com.

04-18-2005

http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/forensics/ballistics/1.html
The Pressure Is On
By Katherine Ramsland
This article is titled The Pressure is On by Katherine Ramsland. This article takes place in Massachusetts on April 15 in 1920. The who in this article is two men and a couple of security guards. This article talks about two men approached a couple of security guards delivering the payroll money for the Slater and Morrill Shoe Factory, and without warning, they opened fire. One of the men shot both guards, and the other pumped several more bullets into them. They then took the payroll boxes containing nearly $16,000 and sped off in a black Buick with three other men. Eyewitnesses described them as "Italian-looking" and one had a handlebar mustache. Investigators recovered six ejected shell casings from the sidewalk around the dead men and traced them back to three manufacturers: Remington, Winchester and Peters. They also found the getaway car, abandoned, and they soon linked it with an earlier robbery. Police surmised that the mastermind was an Italian thug named Mike Boda, but when they located his hideout, he had already fled to Italy.
However, two of his associates were arrested, some sources say at Boda's hideout, some say on a streetcar. They were ordinary Italian laborers who fit the general descriptions: Nicola Sacco, 29, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, 32,. While they denied owning guns, they had illegal pistols on their person and Sacco's was the same caliber—a .32 Colt automatic—as the murder weapon. Sacco also sported a handlebar mustache and had two dozen bullets on him made by the three manufacturers matched to the shells. Both men were also members of a radical anarchist group that supported violence to resolve injustice. They were promptly arrested.
Sacco was tried for robbery in the earlier case and found guilty. He was later tried with his partner, Vanzetti, for the murder of Alessandro Berardelli, one of the shoe company security guards. The trial began on May 31, 1921, and public opinion was clearly against them. Regardless of their guilt or innocence in the murders, they were perceived as dangerous men. Yet there were many foreigners, feeling the burn of xenophobia, who sided with them and the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee called the whole ordeal a witch-hunt, with these men serving as scapegoats for America's fear of the political beliefs of other countries. Four bullets had been removed from the murdered payroll guards. Experts were brought in to testify as to whether Sacco's .32 pistol was indeed the murder weapon, and on the prosecution side, opinions were mixed. The experts for the defense were more confident in their opinion, although no one had based what they offered on scientific techniques. All were self-taught. Firearms evidence identification matching bullets to guns was born in 1835 in England when the unique ridge on a bullet taken from a victim was linked with a bullet mold in the suspect's home, exposing a burglary as a fake. Confronted, the suspect confessed. While that's not a very precise method of matching, it was a start.
When smoothbore pistols and muskets were replaced in the late 18th century by rifled weapons, spent bullets acquired a distinct signature. The process of making grooves in rifles for more accurate projectiles meant that they would leave a mark on the softer metal of the bullet as it spun through the barrel. Because of the wearing of the machines that made them, any bullet fired from a specific weapon will bear the same distinct markings. When bullets were then encased in cartridges, even more marks were made, helping investigators make a match between a bullet and a gun. Firearms evidence identification matching bullets to guns was born in 1835 in England when the unique ridge on a bullet taken from a victim was linked with a bullet mold in the suspect's home, exposing a burglary as a fake. Confronted, the suspect confessed.
While that's not a very precise method of matching, it was a start. The first time an expert proved in court that a specific gun was used for a murder was in America in 1902. Oliver Wendell Holmes, says Brian Innes in Bodies of Evidence, had read a book about firearm identification, so he called a gunsmith to test-fire the alleged murder weapon into a wad of cotton wool. He then used a magnifying lens to match marks on the bullet from the victim to the test-fired bullet, and these he showed to the jury. It was a firearms case, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre on a snow-blown February 14, 1929, that led to the opening of the first independent scientific crime detection laboratory in America. Seven men were waiting that morning around 10:30 a.m. in a red brick warehouse for the S-M-C Cartage Company on Chicago's North Side, at 2122 North Clark Street. Three men wearing police uniforms and two dressed as civilians arrived in a police car and went inside. Witnesses in the neighborhood heard multiple gunshots made by machine guns. Then the police left, and a dog inside left alive the building began to bark and howl. Neighbors checked and found a bloody scene: the seven unarmed men lay on the floor, all shot in the back multiple times. The wall against which they had been lined up for the assassination was a gory mess.
The victims, according to the History Channels' Forensic Firsts, were known associates of mobster George "Bugs" Moran. He pointed the finger at Al Capone, while Capone, down in Florida, pointed it back at him. However, many people thought the police had killed a gang in cold blood, so it was left to firearms comparisons to unearth the true story.
The shooters had left behind 70 cartridge casings and the weapons were identified as .45-caliber Thomson submachine guns.
The person who would make all the difference in this case was a cardiologist named Calvin Goddard—the same person who had confirmed the ballistics evidence in the Sacco and Vanzetti case two years earlier. With Charles Waite, who had test-fired the Stielow gun for proof that the immigrant had not committed the double homicide for which he'd been convicted, he began to acquire data from all known gun manufacturers to develop a comprehensive database. Together they catalogued the results of the test fires from each type of gun. At the time, there were 12 known handgun manufacturers, and they started what would become one of the most comprehensive collections of crime-solving information about guns. Waite died in 1925, but Goddard took over the work, and he was responsible, with his scientific procedures, for bringing the science of ballistics into its own. With the invention of the comparison microscope by Goddard's partner, two objects could be laid side-by-side for high-powered comparative examination using a series of reflective mirrors and lenses. Bullets could be laid out in such a way as to show whether there was a match in the markings that a gun would leave on them after they were fired from that gun. That made for a controlled examination, which was needed as a defensive weapon against the increase in crime during the 1920s. Thus, when the seven bullet-ridden bodies were found in the Chicago warehouse on St. Valentine's Day in 1929, it was just a matter of finding the murder weapon. Goddard came in from New York as an independent investigator and fired each of the eight machine guns owned by the Chicago police. He then compared the results to evidence collected at the scene. No casings matched, which cleared the police. That meant that someone had impersonated police officers to commit the murders. Ten months later, the police raided the home of a hit man for Al Capone. They found two machine guns, which they gave to Goddard. He test-fired them and proved they were the weapons used in the massacre. That sent at least one of the killers to prison. The infamous incident turned out to have been part of a gang war between Capone and Moran. Evidently the men had been lured there—and Moran was supposed to have been among them—by a call from Detroit indicating that a truck full of hijacked whiskey was coming in. Moran himself was late, and he just missed being victim number eight. In fact, he had spotted the police car outside the warehouse and left.
Goddard's work inspired two businessmen who had been on the coroner's jury to set him up at Northwestern University in Chicago in the first independent crime lab in the country. Ballistics, fingerprinting, blood analysis and trace evidence were brought under one roof and the lab became a prototype. Science and the police were united, and according to Nickell and Fischer, Goddard then advised the FBI in 1932 when they set up a similar criminological laboratory. Their first piece of equipment was a comparison microscope.
To develop the science of firearms comparison, the most important tool was the microscope. The earliest crude microscopes were invented in the 1600s, allowing a magnification of ten to twenty times, but images were still blurred. The invention of the compound microscope that relied on multiple lenses fused together improved the situation, as optics magnification and clarity increased exponentially. From years of data collection and experiments, firearms identification specialists can: Compare bullets and match them to a specific firearm Accurately estimate the distance of a shooting Detect gunpowder residue around wounds and on shooters Restore obliterated serial numbers.
The author wrote this article because It was February 27, 1991. Jim went to see Artie and they got into a bad argument. Even as Artie's girlfriend was screaming to a 911 operator, gunshots could be heard. Officers came and found Jim walking around in a daze and carrying a .22 rifle and a .38 Smith and Wesson Special. Inside Artie's house, they found Artie in the bedroom. He had been shot through the eye, abdomen and right arm by a .22, and he was dead. Eight spent cartridges were picked up in the room. While Jim was charged with premeditated murder, he claimed it had been the result of an argument and a struggle while trying to get his brother to get help. He had never intended to kill him. However, there were those who said that Jim had a motive: he wanted to sell the business and Artie was not about to let that happen. A lot of money was at stake. The 911 recording was brought into evidence, and Dr. Harry Hollien, an expert in acoustics, said that he had isolated the shots. He used a room in his own home that was about the same size and came up with recordings of his test shots. From his experiments, he concluded how many seconds there were between each of five shots recorded on the tape. Between the third and fourth shot, there had been a significant gap of about half a minute. The prosecution viewed that as evidence of a clear and deliberate act, not something done in the heat of the moment or by mistake.
Then expert Lucien Haag showed a video of his devising of a computer simulation of the incident. Artie was shown as being shot twice on his way into the hallway and then shot in the head in the hallway. Haag included all eight shots as he believed they would have occurred, although there were only five recorded on the 911 call. The way he did this was to trace the paths of the bullets by calculating in room angles and impact points from the point at which Jim Mitchell was standing when he fired. Haag represented these trajectories with dramatic red lasers. When the defense, who had stridently opposed having this tape admitted into evidence, asked Haag if there were other possibilities besides the ones he had mapped, he was forced to admit that there were quite a few other possibilities. It was not an exact science, but an interpretation based on speculation. That was a blow to the prosecution, and it made a difference in how the jury voted. On February 18, 1992, they found Mitchell guilty only of manslaughter. He was sentenced to six years but served only three.
From the time a bullet was first matched to a weapon until now, the technology of projectile behavior in motion and firearms evaluations has only gotten better, but it still depends to some extent on interpretation. Bullets do not always behave as expected.