Part II of George Schiro’s story about his involvement in unraveling the identity of the notorious Zodiac Killer. What did he find in his examination of the alleged DNA profile of the Zodiac and Gary Stewart? Is Gary Stewart the biological son of the infamous Zodiac?
This is part II! Be sure to listen to Part I first to get the whole story!
To learn more about or to contact the guest, George Schiro, M.S., visit his website.
Links to materials mentioned in this episode:
The Most Dangerous Animal of All, Documentary https://www.hulu.com/series/the-most-dangerous-animal-of-all-9a6e8380-72c4-45c4-b3c9-5bff434d4eb5
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The Zodiac case remains one of the most notorious unsolved murder mysteries in American history, and it continues to capture public interest and speculation. The self-proclaimed Zodiac killer was a serial killer who operated in Northern California, primarily in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 2014 a man named Gary L. Stewart published a book, co-written by journalist Susan Mustafa, The Most Dangerous Animal of All, about how he came to the conclusion that his biological father was the Zodiac killer.
In this episode, Forensic Scientist George Schiro speaks about his involvement - examining the alleged DNA profile of the Zodiac and Gary Stewart. Is Gary Stewart the biological son of the infamous Zodiac?
Mr. Schiro will be presenting on this topic at the Association of Forensic DNA Analysts and Administrators annual meeting, July 27-28, 2023 in San Antonio, Texas. To learn more visit afdaa.org
To learn more about or to contact the guest, George Schiro, M.S., visit his website.
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On this episode I spoke with Det. Zack Kowalske, an expert in bloodstain pattern analysis, crime scene reconstruction, and a pioneer in Space Forensics! We discussed BPA (bloodstain pattern analysis), some concerns in the field (error rates), and Zack's research on bloodstain pattern analysis in microgravity.
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Learn more about topics we discussed in this episode
The "black box study"
Accuracy and reproducibility of conclusions by forensic bloodstain pattern analysts,
Forensic Science International. R. Austin Hicklin, Kevin R. Winer, Paul E. Kish, Connie L. Parks, William Chapman, Kensley Dunagan, Nicole Richetelli, Eric G. Epstein, Madeline A. Ausdemore, Thomas A. Busey. Forensic Science International, Volume 325, 2021,110856,ISSN 0379-0738,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forsciint.2021.110856.
ASB TECHNICAL REPORT 033
Kish, Sutton
https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Bloodstain-Pattern-Analysis-Investigations/dp/0849320143
Bevel, Gardener
https://www.amazon.com/Bloodstain-Introduction-Reconstruction-Practical-Investigations/dp/1420052683
Visit practicalforensics.science/podcast for more information and links.
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"The role of a forensic science defence expert is often referred to by those working for the police/state/government forensic labs as being on the "dark side."
In Joining the Dark Side, author David Schudel outlines the evolution of a fascinating career that starts out in the dark side and looks at what problems can appear in forensic cases. The book delves into the problems inherent to forensic science, in particular cognitive bias and scientific philosophy. It also looks at the emotional impact and specific challenges behind forensic science and provides the reader with some sage advice on giving evidence in Court."
Get the book here: World Scientific
ENJOY 25% OFF WITH PROMO CODE: NEWYEAR25
Enjoy Dr. Schudel's crime fiction:
Saving Lizzie
Compound Murder
Incendiary Man
Listen to more stories from Dave in Secrets from the Crime Lab Season 1, Episode 3.
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In this episode I spoke with Dr. Itiel Dror, a cognitive neuroscientist known in the forensic realm for his contributions to revealing the unconscious implicit biases in forensic decisions and providing tools to minimize them. He recently published several papers examining - for the first time - cognitive bias in forensic pathology.
The Maryland Attorney General has announced an independent audit of in-custody death determinations made by the OCME during the tenure of Dr. David Fowler. Dr. Fowler provided expert testimony for the defense in the trial of Derek Chauvin for death George Floyd. The audit team of forensic pathology experts and behavioral scientists will look to ascertain whether or not the determinations of manner of death were free from implicit biases.
"...it's important to distinguish between what I'm talking about with cognitive bias versus the way people usually talk about bias. So the usual term bias refers to intentional discrimination like racism and sexism and antisemitism, where it's intentional bias and discriminatory. I'm talking about the way the brain actually works, which affects all of us...It developed because of the architecture of the brain, but sometimes it can lead us to make mistakes, and this is where we want to minimize the way it goes off track, and the cognitive bias gives us a mistake, and it's unconscious implicit bias, so people are not aware of it." - Itel Dror
Links for this episode:
Biases in forensic experts. SCIENCE . 20 Apr 2018 Vol 360, Issue 6386 p. 243 https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aat8443
The fallacies and sources of bias: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.analchem.0c00704
Papers of Bias in Forensic Pathology
1) First paper: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1556-4029.14697
2) Second paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589871X22000705
Linear Sequential Unmasking: an approach to minimize bias: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589871X21000310?via%3Dihub
More information and articles about the Guest: http://www.cci-hq.com/forensic-identification.html
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Massively Parallel Sequencing has revolutionized laboratories' ability to harness more and more information from our genetics. This has led to massive improvements in medical diagnostics, public health (think SARs-CoV-2 variant identification), ancestry determinations, and now forensic science has begun adapting this technology to criminal investigations.
In this episode I speak with Professor Megan Foley, Teresa Snyder-Leiby, and Sarah Copeland about the challenges laboratories are facing as they adopt this type of DNA testing and tools that are available not only to labs, but also to law enforcement, prosecutors, and defense - including the Innocence Project.
This episode is in partnership with the Association of Forensic DNA Analysts and Administrators (AFDAA). Visit afdaa.org to learn more about this professional organization.
Are you part of a not for profit organization and would like to have a featured episode promoting your organization or upcoming events, please email hello@secretsfromthecrimelab.
To learn more about the guests, see their bios at https://practicalforensics.science/podcast. Simply scroll down to the post for episode 9.
Megan Foley is a visiting assistant professor in Forensic Molecular Biology at the George Washington University... Her current research focuses on evaluating new products in order to develop recommendations and strategies for laboratories for implementation. Especially focusing on next generation sequencing platforms and analysis software in order to develop analytical parameter recommendations for analysis and probabilistic genotyping.
Sarah Copeland is Senior Biologist SoftGenetics (3+ years) involved in software development, testing and support for forensic fragment CE data analysis and MPS data analysis...
Teresa Snyder- Leiby (one of those older guys with about ½ her career in molecular bio, the last half in forensic DNA analyses). She obtained her degree (BS, MS, PhD) are from Juniata College, North Dakota State Univ. and Penn State. I was a technician at Penn State way back when RFLP was the new DNA fingerprinting method (mid-1980s)….. She joined SoftGenetics in 2008...
Resources
https://softgenetics.com/
Review article about MPS and mitochrondrial MPS https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/wfs2.1431
Norah Rudin and Keith Inman book mentioned in the episode https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Forensic-DNA-Analysis/dp/0849302331
Also visit ISOGG for more information about mitochondrial DNA, haplogroups, etc https://isogg.org/wiki/Wiki_Welcome_Page
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Epigenetics: The clothes of your DNA. While the DNA sequence contains the instructions, your epigenome controls which part of the instructions are read and used. But how do we use this in forensic science? Learn more about biomarkers linked to smoking, age predication, differentiating between identical twins, narrowing the suspect pool, generating investigative leads, and more.
Athina Vidaki, PhD, with Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam Netherlands, is a professor of Applied Epigenomics. Her lab is focused on researching biomarkers and developing technologies to apply epigenetics in forensics.
Learn more about Dr. Vidaki and the research at Erasmus
See a list of Dr. Vidaki's publications
Learn more about Epigenetic discrimination of identical twins from blood under the forensic scenario
Speaking engagements 2022
GRC conference
12th ISABS CONFERENCE on Forensic and Anthropological Genetics and Mayo Clinic Lectures in Individualized Medicine
The 29th Congress of the International Society for Forensic Genetics (abstract submitted)
Join our discussion and let us know your thoughts.
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New Technology is great...but let's use it to catch the right person. In this episode I spoke with Professors Dr. Matthias Wienroth and Dr. Carol McCartney, two of the authors of "Ethics as Lived Practice. Anticipatory Capacity and Ethical Decision-Making in Forensic Genetics". It's a fascinating discussion about forensic genetics and the rapidly evolving technologies from the perspective of a social scientist and law professor.
Read the full text article: Ethics as Lived Practice. Anticipatory Capacity and Ethical Decision-Making in Forensic Genetics
Works/News mentioned in the episode:
Nuffield Report. The forensic use of bioinformation: ethical issues
Marper Case - European court rules DNA database breaches human rights
The effectiveness of the UK national DNA database
The murder of Rachel Nickell
Phantom of Heilbron
Dr Carole McCartney is a Professor in the School of Law, Northumbria University. Previously senior lecturer in criminal law and criminal justice at the University of Leeds, and Bond University, Queensland, Australia. Carole has written on Australian justice, Innocence Projects, miscarriages of justice, policing cooperation, and DNA, forensic science and criminal justice more widely. She established an Innocence Project at the University of Leeds in 2005...Learn More about Dr. McCartney
Dr. Matthias Wienroth has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, he is a founding member of the of the interdisciplinary scientific initiative on new and emerging forensic genetics technologies WIE-DNA (Germany) ...He is a member of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) and the European Association for Studies of Science and Technology (EASST). Since 2015, he has been building an interdisciplinary and international network for the Social Studies of Forensic Science..." Learn More about Dr. Weinroth
Additional works by Dr. Wienroth:
EUROFORGEN and Sense About Science booklet on forensic genetics
https://senseaboutscience.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/making-sense-of-forensic-genetics.pdf
Others articles:
- Value beyond scientific validity: let’s RULE (Reliability, Utility, LEgitimacy)
- Governing anticipatory technology practices. Forensic DNA phenotyping and the forensic genetics community in Europe
Misuse of Romani genetic data:
- https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03416-3
- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/17/science/genetics-ethics-roma.html
To learn more about the host visit
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DNA as the "Biological Witness". Forensic DNA Phenotyping predicts the externally visible characteristics - i.e. what a person may look like - from their biological material. It has applications in criminal investigations when other leads have failed, missing persons identification, and anthropological research.
To learn more about the host visit https://practicalforensics.science/
Join our discussion and let us know your thoughts. E: hello@secretsfromthecrimelab.com
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Comments? Feedback? Suggestions? Or if you would like to be a guest?
Get in touch on the Contact Page
Please consider Supporting the show: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/SecretsCrimeLab
Links to material discussed in this episode and other links of interest:
King Richard III Identification
Double-murder case example
Missing Person Identification
ACLU Opinion on FDP
Walsh Laboratory
HIrisplex at Erasmus University
Kayser M. Forensic DNA Phenotyping: Predicting human appearance from crime scene material for investigative purposes. Forensic Sci Int Genet. 2015 Sep;18:33-48. doi: 10.1016/j.fsigen.2015.02.003. Epub 2015 Feb 16. PMID: 25716572.
Chaitanya L, Breslin K, Zuñiga S, Wirken L, Pośpiech E, Kukla-Bartoszek M, Sijen T, Knijff P, Liu F, Branicki W, Kayser M, Walsh S. The HIrisPlex-S system for eye, hair and skin colour prediction from DNA: Introduction and forensic developmental validation. Forensic Sci Int Genet. 2018 Jul;35:123-135. doi: 10.1016/j.fsigen.2018.04.004. Epub 2018 Apr 12. PMID: 29753263.
Liu F, van Duijn K, Vingerling JR, Hofman A, Uitterlinden AG, Janssens AC, Kayser M. Eye color and the prediction of complex phenotypes from genotypes. Curr Biol. 2009 Mar 10;19(5):R192-3. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.01.027. PMID: 19278628.
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This week's discussion is all about consent and ethical use of genetic information, including DNA databases. I define and discuss what is meant by consent and informed consent and how it's related to the treatment of Henrietta Lacks and how her story triggered the development of ethical practices in medical science. What are the responsibilities of the forensic geneticist? The law enforcement investigator? What should you think about before volunteering a DNA sample...It's a big topic, and this is only the start if the discussion.
To learn more about the host visit https://practicalforensics.science/
Join our discussion and let us know your thoughts. E: hello@secretsfromthecrimelab.com
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Join our Facebook Page! https://www.facebook.com/SecretsfromtheCrimeLab
Comments? Feedback? Suggestions? Or if you would like to be a guest?
Get in touch on the Contact Page
Helpful links and to learn more about the topics covered in this episode:
- Genetic papers containing data from China’s ethnic minorities draw fire
- FBI Quality Assurance Standards
- ANAB guidance for professional responsibility
- Stats on sexual assaults – lack of reporting
- https://www.csofs.org/
- https://www.aafs.org/
- https://nij.ojp.gov/funding/informed-consent-requirements
- https://nij.ojp.gov/funding/common-rule
- https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree
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This episode is the first in a series (non-sequential) providing overviews of different fields of forensic science.
Meredith Dekalb Miller is an FBI trained expert in Forensic Document Examination with almost twenty years experience in both criminal and civil matters. Her work revolves around determining the authenticity and sometimes reconstruction of documents.
To get in touch with our guest: https://dekalbmiller.com/
To learn more about the host, Angela Tanzillo-Swarts, MBE: https://practicalforensics.science/
Join our Facebook Page! https://www.facebook.com/SecretsfromtheCrimeLab
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Following on from episode 2...this time our discussion focuses on the experiences of David Schudel, PhD as an expert in the UK. He is an expert in Forensic Chemistry, Fire Analysis, and Cell site analysis (to name a few) and over the years has become that guy who catches all the weird cases. Join us as we explore how the forensic scientist fits into the criminal justice system in England and Wales and hear about a few of those extra weird ones...
To Learn more about the host:
Angela Tanzillo-Swarts, MBE
To get in touch with the guest:
David Schudel, PhD
Please remember to rate, review, and share! And please consider supporting this podcast through a donation at the link below.
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Teaser trailer of episode 3 of Secrets from the Crime Lab. A peak into how the criminal justice system and crime laboratories intersect in England and Wales. Dr. Schudel discusses his experiences working as a forensic expert for both the prosecution and the defence conducting a wide variety of forensic analyses including forensic chemistry and cell site analysis.
Support the Podcast
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Ensuring the validity of the crime laboratory’s test result is paramount. Ensuring that the lab is impartial, competent, and committed to confidentiality is an integral part of that assurance.
PLAN - DO - CHECK - ACT
Laboratory Accreditation demonstrates conformance with international standards, giving the customer of a crime laboratory confidence in the test results.
In this episode we explore the ISO/IEC standards specific to forensic testing and calibration laboratories. These standards apply to labs performing a wide-range of forensic tests: biology/DNA, bloodstain pattern analysis, drug chemistry/ controlled substances, toxicology, firearms, blood alcohol, friction ridge, fire debris and explosives, digital evidence, and many more.
This episode sets foundational knowledge for future episodes that will explore the issues, challenges, and scandals facing many laboratories and how having a robust quality assurance program is essential for driving improvements.
Comments? Feedback? Suggestions? Or if you would like to be a guest?
Email: hello@secretsfromthecrimelab.com
To learn more about the host, Angela Swarts, visit:
practicalforensics.science
Helpful Links:
https://www.coursera.org/learn/challenging-forensic-science
International Organization for Standardization
ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB)
American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA)
United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS)
The National Registry of Exonerations
Ways listeners can support the show
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What happens when the crime laboratory gets it wrong? In this episode we discuss the issues with relying solely on laboratory accreditation to determine if a forensic science laboratory is doing the testing correctly, what happens when a lab fails as it did in Washington, D.C., and how other laboratories manage to recover and regain customer confidence. We explore how organizations like the Texas Forensic Science Commission work to ensure quality forensic science work by taking action and the better way for laboratories to respond and improve after a complaint.
Comments? Feedback? Suggestions? Or if you would like to be a guest?
Email: hello@secretsfromthecrimelab.com
To learn more about the host, Angela Swarts, visit:
practicalforensics.science
Helpful Links:
Forensic Aid, LLC
Tiffany Roy, MSFS, JD
Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC)
SNA International Audit Report
DC Lab Criminal Case Filing
Texas Forensic Science Commission
Ways listeners can support the show
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PART II - Case Solved? Unraveling a DNA thread in the Zodiac killer enigma. Featuring Forensic Scientist George Schiro
36:37
Case Solved? Unraveling a DNA thread in the Zodiac killer enigma. Featuring Forensic Scientist George Schiro.
39:42
S2E3: Space Forensics! Bloodstain Pattern Analysis in Microgravity with Detective Zack Kowalske
51:57
S2EP2: Joining the Dark Side.The Role of the Forensic Science Defence Expert. Dr. David Schudel
1:07:32
S2Ep1 - Cognitive bias in forensic pathology decisions with Dr. Itiel Dror
1:31:15
Ep. 9 (Season 1 Bonus) Massively Parallel Sequencing - Tools for forensic laboratories learning to handle terabytes of genetic data, how it improves investigations, and a free workshop.
51:48
Ep. 8 Identical Twins, drugs, smoking, and crime. Applied Epigenetics with Dr. Athina Vidaki, Erasmus MC, Netherlands
52:19
Episode 7: Ethics as Lived Practice. Anticipatory Capacity and Ethical Decision-Making in Forensic Genetics with Dr. Matthias Wienroth and Dr. Carole McCartney, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne
1:04:27
Ep. 6 Science SNiP: Forensic DNA Phenotyping, Predicting Human Appearance
29:06
Ep. 5 Consent, DNA databases, and misuse of a San Francisco rape victim's DNA.
44:44
Ep. 4 Document Authentication, handwriting analysis, mailbox bombings, and snipers. Forensic Document Examination with Meredith Dekalb Miller.
44:21
Ep. 3 The English Chemist: Cell site analysis, drugs, weird fingerprints, and egg fraud. With forensic science expert Dr. David Schudel (Full episode)
58:46
Ep. 3 Teaser -The English Chemist: forensic science expert Dr. David Schudel
4:39
EP.1 How do you know the crime lab did it right?
1:12:36
EP.2 When it all goes wrong. Featuring forensic expert Tiffany Roy, MSFS, JD
1:16:16