The judge in the Yexeira case accepts as evidence another piece with blood on it.

by NewsPress articles

To complete the process of authenticating the evidence, the magistrate noted that the other ICF staff member who received the evidence for analysis would also testify.

Judge Francisco Borelli Irizarry of the Carolina court admitted on Friday the black tarpaulin of Roberto Quiñones Rivera’s van, where the blood stains of his girlfriend Yexeira Torres Pacheco would have appeared, as evidence conditioned by the prosecution.

Borelli Irizarry explained that forensic investigator David Betancourt Quiñones of the Forensic Institute (ICF) had not identified his marks on the object and could not explain why the piece was not complete. He also did not identify any other marks contained on the tarpaulin, which he removed from the vehicle on 16 November 2011.

To complete the process of authenticating the coin, the magistrate said that the other ICF official who had received the coin for analysis still had to testify.

In the continuation of the case against Quiñones Rivera for the death and disappearance of the body of Yexeira, choreographer and dancer of the rapper Miguelito, Betancourt Quiñones explained that he examined the defendant’s white Ford Econoline bus on two occasions to identify the blood hidden in the vehicle.

She also examined a construction level occupied by the police in the bus to try to identify fingerprints.

The first assessment was carried out on 16 November at the ICF in Rio Piedras, at the request of investigating officer Lorimel Aquino Fariña.

He explained, in response to questions from prosecutor Alma Mendez Rios, that he had used the chemical “bluestar” to detect the possible presence of blood on the van.

“Bluestar is an improved formulation of luminol. You can use it over and over again and it doesn’t damage the sample,” said the witness, who testified in the afternoon.

He said that spraying the chemical on the bus “produced a bright luminescence at the back, near the front seats of the bus”. “I took the whole tarpaulin because it was very luminescent and I decided to have it analysed by the laboratory,” he said. He added that he did not want the sample to be diluted or fragmented. He then detected small spots of apparent blood on the inside of the passenger door.

These marks, he said, were on the inside frame of the door, at the back where the door locks, at the base of the rear view mirror and in the middle of the door panel. In his theory of the case on the first day of the trial, prosecutor Mendez Rios said the blood that appeared in the vehicle came from the body of a woman who was the daughter of Victor Torres Santiago and Iris Pacheco Calderon, Yexeira’s parents. He also said that analysis of the blood traces found in the bus will show that Yexeira bled to death on the passenger seat and was then dragged into the back of the van.

False number plate

In the morning, Officer Jose Dennis Rivera of the police stolen vehicle division, who removed the fake tag from the defendant’s van on November 10, 2011, testified.

In the morning, Officer Jose Dennis Rivera of the police stolen vehicle division, who removed the fake tag from the defendant’s van on November 10, 2011, testified. The witness explained that there were inconsistencies between the date on the vehicle’s driving licence and the tag that authorized the vehicle to travel on the country’s roads.

The vehicle registration, which was not stamped, indicated that the licence had expired on 31 October 2011, but the label had an effective date of December 2011. “(The licence) was not stamped like when you buy the sticker,” he said. He also noted that the colour of the label was distorted and had an irregular cut in the circle marking the month of December.

After taking the label, he went to an office of the Ministry of Transport and Public Works, where he was told that the label was fake. Jorge Gordon Menendez attempted to challenge the officer’s work by pointing out that he never asked to see the new vehicle registration and insisting that because of the ease with which the witness removed the tag, it could have been affixed to the vehicle’s window shortly before he took it.

Quiñones Rivera is currently serving a 42-month prison sentence for the false tag and the illegal appropriation of a police bullet-proof waistcoat.

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20 years of forensic bloodstain analysis in Ontario

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While University of Windsor students play with spatter at a forensics conference, provincial police mark the 20th anniversary of bloodstain pattern analysis in Ontario.

 (Dax Melmer / The Windsor Star)

Windsor Star : 21.03.2014

Danielle Yardeni raises her bloody hammer after smashing it into someone’s head.

“I swing my hand back, and I do it again,” she announces, once more bringing the weapon down on a hapless imaginary victim. 

“I get blood all over the ceiling and maybe the wall.”

A fourth-year student in the University of Windsor’s forensics program
, Yardeni is demonstrating how a violent act could generate a “cast-off” bloodstain pattern — otherwise known as spatter.

It’s the first workshop session of the day at the university’s Trends in Forensic Sciences conference.

Yardeni’s rampage continues. She trades her hammer for a knife, and swishes the blade in a pan full of sheep’s blood.

“Say I stab somebody,” she explains, approaching lab partner Jeremiah Boateng.

“I stab Jeremiah. I take (the knife) out, I walk with it. It will drip as I walk.”

Yardeni demonstrates the movement and the resulting stain patterns — holding off on the stabbing motion, of course.

 (Dax Melmer / The Windsor Star)

This year is a notable anniversary for bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA) in Ontario. According to OPP, there was no training available in Canada for this particular field of forensics until provincial police decided in 1993 to launch a specialized program.

Two decades later, OPP boast that their BPA program is recognized as being on the leading edge of world research in the discipline.

OPP procedures and advancements in this regard have been published in peer-reviewed journals and emulated by outside agencies.

Provincial police currently have six dedicated bloodstain pattern analysts, all of whom are considered experts.

New OPP Commissioner Vince Hawkes previously distinguished himself as the organization’s first bloodstain pattern analyst.

Article content
Hawkes said he believes provincial investment in BPA has paid “huge dividends within the justice system and in our quest for truth.”

Among the major cases in which BPA has played a significant role is Project Octagon — the investigation of the Shedden massacre of 2006
. Eight men — all connected to the Bandidos biker gang — were found shot to death, their bodies left to rot in vehicles in a rural area near London.

BPA was also important in Project Hatfield — the prosecution of former Canadian Forces base commander Col. Russell Williams for multiple sex crimes and the murder of two women. BPA was also crucial in solving the shooting deaths of Tracy Hannah and her 14-year-old daughter Whitney in their Picton-area home in 2010.

(Crédit: Dax Melmer / The Windsor Star)

“Many times, the bloodstain evidence and testimony have established and supported a first-degree murder conviction,” wrote Staff Sgt. Gord Lefebvre, who manages OPP’s BPA program.

When blood is shed, the resulting stains can generally be classified under three categories: passive, transfer, and projected.

Passive :
Stains occur when blood falls or accumulates due to gravity. This category includes drips, trails, pools, spills, splashes and flows.

Transfer :
stains happen when one bloody surface makes contact with another surface. When there’s motion between the two surfaces, that’s a swipe pattern. When there’s a pre-existing stain and an object moves through it, that’s a wipe pattern. Footprints are also considered transfer stains.

Projected :
stains are the product of dramatic motion. When an object strikes something that’s bloody, it creates an impact pattern. When blood is released from an object due to its rapid movement, it creates a cast-off pattern.

Bloodstain pattern analysis isn’t just about staring at spots on a wall. The practice requires knowledge and skill in math and physics.

As a substance, blood retains certain physical characteristics — such as viscosity and surface tension. Combined with an understanding of directionality and angle of impact, this makes blood patterns predictable and reproducible.

The Ontario Police College’s forensic identification training
includes study of analytical geometry in three dimensions, trigonometry, the laws of motion, the properties of fluids, and work-energy theorem.

 (Dax Melmer / The Windsor Star)

Trivia for the day: In bloodstain pattern analysis, pig blood is commonly used as a substitute for human blood due to their shared physical characteristics.

 (Dax Melmer / The Windsor Star)

Blood on a glove and floor stains are revealed with the help of Bluestar in a demonstration at the University of Windsor on March 21, 2014.

Glow-in-the-dark fun

You know how in those CSI television shows, all that’s needed to make every drop of blood in a room glow blue is a flick of a special flashlight?

That’s a bit of an exaggeration, unfortunately. “They’re trying to sensationalize it,” says retired forensic identification officer Wade Knaap — formerly with Toronto police, and now a sessional instructor in the University of Windsor’s forensics program.

“It’s the ‘CSI effect.’ (These shows) have created an expectation of what can and can’t be done at a crime scene.”

Making blood luminous in real forensics work requires application of a detection reagent — a chemical that will react with latent blood.

The current industry standard is a product called Bluestar. It’s packaged in pre-formulated tablets, which investigators mix with distilled water and spray onto suspected surfaces. Based on the chemical Luminol, Bluestar will react with blood whether its fresh, old, pure or diluted. It does not alter the blood’s DNA in any way. The luminescent effect of Bluestar begins to fade about one minute after application.

Despite Knaap’s annoyance at the many myths perpetuated by television, he appreciates the public’s fascination with forensics. “It’s cool stuff,” he admits. “It’s fun. It’s using science to solve crimes.”

(Crédit: Dax Melmer / The Windsor Star)

Forensics student Danielle Yardeni demonstrates bloodstain pattern analysis. Fellow student Jeremiah Boateng looks on. Photographed March 21, 2014 at the University of Windsor.

20 years of forensic bloodstain analysis in Ontario (Audio)

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Chief Warrant Officer Benitez left a bloody trail

by NewsPress articlesReal Cases solved with BLUESTAR® FORENSIC

The clues are accumulating around Chief Warrant Officer Benitez and his involvement in the disappearance of Allison and her mother Marie-Josée on 14 July in Perpignan.

Midi Libre : 27.09.2013

What can you do with eight litres of bleach, if not a major cleaning? In the middle of July, Francisco Benitez obviously had a big cleaning to do, since he bought this large quantity of disinfectant and corrosive product, with properties well known to crime fans, in Perpignan.

 © DR

Bleach degrades DNA and makes it difficult for experts to search for traces of blood that have been erased at the scene of the crime with special products such as Luminol or Bluestar.

Lots of blood

“He had to cut them up. We have the impression that it bled a lot”, explains a Parisian policeman, associated with the investigation led by the SRPJ of Montpellier on the disappearance of Allison and her mother Marie-Josée, on July 14 in Perpignan. Because there is a lot of blood in the elements gathered over the last two months by the investigators. First of all in the clues, taken during the searches in the family flat, as well as in the barracks of the Foreign Legion. “Stains invisible to the naked eye”, revealed at the family home. Allison’s blood, “in the drainpipe” of the family freezer, in “the seal of the window” of the washing machine, but also inside the flat occupied by the legionnaire in the barracks, said a source close to the case. The forensic identification technicians also found some at the foot of his bed in his bedroom: again, it was that of his own daughter.

A witness says

But there is also the blood that several witnesses saw and told the investigators about. Three days after the double disappearance, Francisco Benitez asked one of his comrades to come and help him carry the freezer that he had suddenly decided to donate to the barracks. The man later told the police that he had seen blood in a blocked sink in the Benitez flat.

Missing sheets at the barracks

Dark traces, taken from a tumble dryer used by the soldiers, are still being analysed. The disappearance in July of some thirty bed sheets from the barracks also intrigues the investigators: could they have been used to wrap bodies, or body parts? And then there is this sentence pronounced by the chief warrant officer in front of another soldier, which today takes on a sinister resonance. At the end of July, the latter was surprised to see him hosing down a blood-stained floor mat and sheets in a barracks washing machine. Francisco Benitez replied: “I defrosted some meat. “

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The Flactif case: An investigation solved with Bluestar

by NewsPress articlesReal Cases solved with BLUESTAR® FORENSIC

At a crime scene, he makes the bloodstains talk

“When I entered the Flactif house, I immediately noticed the traces of sponge strokes in the small living room and suspected that the chalet had been cleaned thoroughly. “Warrant Officer Philippe Esperança, 39 years old, will never forget this 18 April 2003.

 A French specialist in the morpho-analysis of bloodstains, he had to wait his turn to go through the house with a fine-tooth comb: “We only intervene when all the other findings are complete. “

The Bluestar, world star

The result was worth it. “Like at every crime scene, I sprayed our usual product, Bluestar. Its great quality is that it leaves the DNA prints intact,” explains Philippe Esperança. Another advantage is that it allows us to work in semi-darkness, whereas previously we had to work in total darkness. In three days in the chalet, the analysis of the few visible traces of blood and the use of this chemical revealed five bleeding sites – as many as there were victims – and one storage site. “The hypothesis of a quintuple murder on the spot was emerging. “From that moment on, my gendarme colleagues stopped looking for the Flactif family elsewhere than in Grand-Bornand. “

DNA analyses showed that among the bloodstains, some of them tiny, there were those of the five members of the Flactif family. But also traces left by employees or visitors to the chalet in recent years. Plus two unknown DNAs. One was David Hotyat’s.

Since helping to solve the Grand-Bornand mystery, Philippe Esperança has lectured around the world and worked with the Americans at the FBI. Trained as an entomologist (study of insects), he was a naturalist at the Jardin des plantes before becoming a gendarme. After three years of training in Canada, he created the blood trace morpho-analysis service at the IRCGN (1) in Rosny-sous-Bois in 1999. And as the previous chemical products did not suit him, he developed Bluestar himself. “This product went around the world in one year. It is so powerful that DNA has been identified on machine-washed clothes and in a high-pressure kitchen. “The oldest blood trace found in France in a criminal case was 17 years ago.

About 100 cases per year

Philippe Esperança can give you a lecture on the difference between the shape of degraded blood traces (when a hand has moved them from one place to another); passive blood traces, due to gravity, and projected blood traces, when a force – that of the aggressor – is added to gravity. “As the blood sprays quite far, these analyses can allow us to calculate the trajectory of the blow, the position of the victim or the aggressor, the nature of the weapon used, the distinction between a blow and a shock, etc. “During a suicide in a cornfield near Toulouse, specialists had found drops of blood carried by insects.

The week we met him, Philippe Esparança had three crime reconstructions on his agenda, including one in Guadeloupe, and two testimonies in a criminal court. “Our colleagues in the gendarmerie, and even the investigating judges directly, call us on about a hundred cases a year. “But the gendarmes are not there “only” to serve the prosecution. Warrant Officer Esperança remembers concluding that a drunkard had died in an accident after falling on a bottle of champagne. In March 2005, before the Nantes assizes, his expertise also contributed to the acquittal of Joaquim, a young man accused of the murder of a friend. “For us, it was a suicide. “

Michel TANNEAU.

(1) Criminal Research Institute of the Gendarmerie Nationale.

Jealousy – RTL – 16/09/2003

The scenario of what happened on April 11 at the Flactif’s chalet is being confirmed, written by the investigators according to the confessions of suspect n°1, dissatisfied tenant, shuffled from one flat to another by his landlord. Well decided, his scenario in place, David Hotyat enters alone in the chalet between 18h30 and 21h in the kitchen where Xavier Flactif and two of his children are. He fired his 6.35 revolver. The mother hears the shots and is shot as she goes up the stairs. He shot the last child upstairs in his room, he would have told during his hearing, it is there that the investigators find the most clues: blood, pieces of teeth, and a shell of the revolver. It is on this order of the victims that David Hotyat contradicts himself, suggesting that there are still grey areas. He explained that he then burned the bodies of Xavier Flactif, his wife and their children in a forest in the region, after having loaded them into a vehicle and driven 10 km away. He then returned to Grand Bornand, seemingly out of the blue, making up a story to explain their disappearance.

How David Hotyat was identified

The Gendarmerie’s criminal research institute was dealing with traces of blood in the empty Flactif chalet, traces of blood that had been washed away. In spite of everything, the scientists of the gendarmerie first managed to identify the origin of this blood, it belonged to the five members of the Flactif family, and then very thorough analyses made it possible to establish that the blood of several of the members of the family was mixed with another blood, another genetic trace, it is this genetic trace, this DNA belongs to David Hotyat.

It is because this DNA was found mixed with the blood of several of the victims that the gendarmes, before the arrest, were already convinced that the owner of this genetic trace was the murderer. It was thanks to this DNA that the gendarmes were able to trace the case. Since May, the gendarmes have taken DNA samples from 130 people, business relations, craftsmen and people close to Flactif. This is how the investigators were able to target the main suspect.

France Info – 17/09/03

David Hotyat was confirmed by DNA samples taken from nearly 130 people who had relations with Xavier Flactif and his family, or who lived in the region. David Hotyat’s genetic fingerprint matched the mysterious sixth DNA found in the chalet alongside the fingerprints of the five family members. The property developer, his wife, Graziella Ortolano, and their three children were last seen on 11 April in the late afternoon. Investigations found multiple traces of blood belonging to the family members, a shell casing and splinters of teeth in their cottage. Blood also belonging to the missing persons was found in Xavier Flactif’s vehicle, abandoned near Geneva-Cointrin airport on the Swiss side on 13 May.

According to Alexandra Lefèvre, Hotyat told her that he had first shot two children, alone at the chalet, then their mother, the last child and finally the father. As he was cleaning up the traces of blood, with a flashlight in his mouth, Hotyat, overcome with nausea, was disturbed by the call of a tenant of Flactif and then the arrival of a pizza delivery man…

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Photographer Exposes Crime Scenes, With a Dash of Chemistry

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The view is often unremarkable: A gray, cinder-block apartment building with a bright red awning, perhaps, or a single-level suburban home in yellow brick with a double garage.

Wired : 15.12.2010

Photographer Angela Strassheim has visited dozens of such addresses, knocking at the door and talking her way inside. The people she encounters often have no idea what’s gone on there before she comes around.

Fascinated by crime scenes since childhood, and a former forensic crime lab technician, Strassheim uses techniques usually reserved for police forensics to unveil the hidden residues of violent murder.

“As a child, when I would pass by a house where a violent and newsworthy death had recently occurred, I would stand there, close my eyes and try to imagine what took place,” writes Strassheim in her artist statement. Evidence is the latest of her many well-received portfolios dealing with family, mortality and latent menace. Strassheim was recently awarded the Women in Photography Lightside Individual Project Grant for her work.

To make her images, Strassheim closes doors and curtains to reduce light in the rooms and then shoots long exposures of between 10 minutes and an hour. Using color film is a necessity, because the short-lived illumination of blood residues can only be captured on ISO 800 film. The images are then converted to black-and-white in digital post-production.

“All around me I observe a glowing trail of bloodshed as swaths and constellations of light, helping me put together the pieces of a violent puzzle,” writes Strassheim.

The bright spots in Strassheim’s images are temporary chemiluminescence reactions between the chemical reagent BlueStar and the heme molecule of blood still present on the walls. Applied as a fine mist, BlueStar reveals blood patterns on surfaces even after blood has been wiped away. Under ordinary lighting conditions, BlueStar reactions are invisible to the naked eye.

Throughout the project, Calvin Jackson, CEO and owner of BlueStar, along with other CSI specialists offered guidance and advice. Feedback has been positive. "I have had a lot of support on this project," said Strassheim by email.

At more than 140 crimes scenes, Strassheim has negotiated access with new inhabitants of homes, motels and apartments – many of them unaware of the violent histories. Some crimes were as little as two months prior to her visit, and in other cases the crime occurred as far back as 18 years ago. Strassheim’s color exterior shots mimic “boring real-estate photography” and carry deadpan titles informing us of the weapons used in each crime. “Costco kitchen knives,” “Pitchfork” and “12-gauge shotgun” spur the imagination. Is the glowing splatter really all blood? Graham Jackson, visiting professor of forensic science at the University of Abertay in Dundee, Scotland, isn’t so sure.

“One problem,” he says, “may be the time delay between the crime and Angela taking the photographs. What we are seeing in the photographs may not be patterns that were left at the time of the crime. I’m not convinced that all the apparent fluorescence is due to blood-staining. In fact, some of the fluorescence looks like extraneous light, and some of the fluorescent patterns are particularly weird if they are indeed blood.”

It turns out that BlueStar reacts with peroxidase activity, which is not exclusive to blood. It’s exhibited by other materials, such as bleach and, according to Jackson, horseradish sauce.

On the chemistry of Blue Star, Strassheim clarifies that the glow from these other materials fades more quickly than that from DNA, so she waits for their interfering luminance to die out before she starts her exposure.

“Other substrates that react with Blue Star are metals such as light switches, vents, radiators,” says Strassheim by email, “however, when there is blood DNA left on a radiator – as seen in Evidence #1 for example – you can differentiate between the radiator and the DNA that glows brighter.”

Due to the passage of time and the photographer’s unrepeated inspection, Evidence knowingly combines fact with interpretation. They are not presented as official images.

“These photographs are about seeking out the truth,” says Strassheim. “However, I am not giving the stories to complete the process of fully imagining the event, so this body of work does play on the imagination.”

All photos: Angela Strassheim (See her website: click here!)

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Photographer Exposes Crime Scenes, With a Dash of Chemistry (Audio)

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Forensics, how does it work?

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Crime scene, DNA, ballistics, the role and excesses of files

Le Monde : 10.01.2010

Forensic investigators are the new heroes of American series – Les Experts – and French series – RIS Police scientifique.

Since 2003, forensic scientists have been using a new molecule that reacts to iron ions in the blood, Bluestar luminol, which is active in the dark

Every week a DNA analysis makes the headlines, as we saw this autumn with the traces found on the envelope of the Grégory case’s corbel, then during the escape of Jean-Pierre Treiber… But how does the real French scientific policy work? To find out, I went into the laboratories of Marseille and Lyon, interviewed investigators, met researchers who are passionate about police investigation work and are bound by their professional code of ethics – and noted the growing, and worrying, importance of DNA files in solving criminal investigations

REPORTAGE (published in part in Le Monde Magazine, January 2010)

1- WHERE WE ATTEND THE MORNING TOUR OF THE FORENSIC LABORATORY OF MARSEILLE

We have hair traces in 4522, the case of the robbery with kidnapping of elderly people. Hair was found on the adhesives that bound them.

Coffee in hand, the head of the “Biology” section opens the discussion in a small, low room. The eight heads of department of the Marseille forensic laboratory, engineers and former doctoral students, dressed very casually, meet for the morning’s overview – the “demand review”. Philippe Shaad, the director, the only one wearing a tie, looks stern and says: “We have to try to prioritise. “

That morning, 16 files and 58 coded and numbered seals arrived for biology alone, transmitted by police services in a hurry. Most of them are from robberies and burglaries. There are several DNA samples from ‘individuals’ (the police always say ‘individual’), bloodstains and a swab from a telephone cable.

-The other emergency is 4777, the homicide with a presumption of rape,” continued the Biology Officer. We have 21 stab wounds, blood. The body has been moved, we should see if we can find any plants. He was outside for a long time, and as it has rained a lot, I’m afraid that the DNA won’t tell us anything. We should do some more tests, and concentrate on the car, seal it up… maybe we’ll find some usable traces.

-Well, I’ll call the Commissioner,” says the director. He’s feeling the pressure. Speeding up the result is his job – “I have to streamline” he says.

INPS Marseille handles 500 cases per month, thousands of seals

Since the Sarkozy law of 2003 on “Internal Security” and the methodical collection of DNA by the police, requests to the forensic police have soared. “We are moving from the craft to the industry,” explains Philippe Shaad.

The floor is given to the “Fire-explosions”. Big suspense. Because that morning, a heavy gun battle once again made the headlines in Marseille. Machine-gunned in front of the Velodrome stadium” headlines La Provence. What happened?

At around midday, two individuals wearing black helmets fired automatic pistols and Kalashnikovs at a man who was leaving a gym. Ten bullets, head and chest. The man, a former released bank robber, was suspected of having shot a known gangster in September 2007. Revenge, no doubt. Before fleeing, the two assailants set fire to their car. The men of the “fire and explosion” unit are trying to identify the explosive used. If it was a grenade, they will be able to cross-check. If it was a Molotov cocktail, they will analyse the fuses and the petrol.

Why did the killers set the car on fire? To remove traces of DNA. It’s become commonplace,” a sergeant explained. Banditry, large and small, as Vidocq well recounted in his memoirs (1828), has always adapted to advances in police expertise. Today, to eliminate DNA, they “blow up the stuff” as Chéri Bibi used to say.

Now it is the turn of “ballistics” to intervene. The technicians analyse the cartridge cases discovered after the Vélodrome shooting. Each weapon has a “fingerprint”. In Marseille, the police are used to the use of Kalashnikovs by the milieu. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, it has become the favourite weapon of the small-time crooks of the French Riviera.

New case of the day, toxicology expert causes a stir:

We have a drug rape, with blood on cotton wool. The sample is insufficient. It is not suitable for our analysis.

Director’s ticking. Slowdown in sight. What’s the difference between “narcotics” and “tox” experts? The former deal with seizures of hard drugs that have not been consumed – the port of Marseille was the port of the “French connection” – but also with hashish from Morocco, sold by the small-time kings of the cities – at war with each other. They try to identify the drugs, the cut products, and then compare them with the substances seized in several cases to trace the networks.

The “tox” people confuse drunk drivers, stoned people responsible for an accident, or process substances found in dead people: carbon monoxide, drugs, chemicals, etc. They do forensic work. They do forensic work. What else did the ‘tox’ do on 25 September 2009? Three roadside alcohol tests. The usual.

2- WHERE WE LEARN THAT FORENSIC SCIENTISTS ARE NOT POLICEMEN AND DISCOVER THE HISTORY OF "CRIMINALISTICS

In France, police experts are not multi-skilled super-cops capable of detecting a micro-trace of blood, conducting a profiling interview of a serial killer and then drawing their weapon faster than Agent Catherine Willows in “CSI Las Vegas”. In fact, the jobs of police investigation, evidence collection and forensics remain separate – unlike in the series “RIS. Police Scientifique”.

When a crime occurs and the investigation begins, the forensic identification officers, the “ijists”, “freeze” the “crime scene” on the spot. Trained for this, gloved, masked, protected, they put up barriers, make sure that no one, journalist or neighbour, comes to pollute the place by spitting or with their shoes. Then they take photographs, make sketches, record clues and DNA samples, which are then placed under seal by the judicial police officer. The investigators then call in the services of the forensic laboratories.

In France, three-quarters of the ‘experts’ are not police officers, but former doctoral students from science faculties, engineers and technicians working for the magistrates and the judicial police. These researchers are also civil servants of a public establishment, the Institut National de la Police Scientifique (INPS), which groups together all the technical and scientific police services: biology, ballistics, trace documents, fingerprints, fire-explosions, physical chemistry, narcotics, toxicology, technological traces, all the ‘forensics’.

French forensic science has a long history. Some historians trace it back to the investigation of the “poisoners of Versailles”, conducted by La Reynie under Louis XIV. But the pioneer was Edmond Locard, Alphonse Bertillon’s colleague, who founded the first technical police laboratory in Lyon in 1910…

We are in the Third Republic, Jules Ferry is educating the countryside, and a republican and positivist impulse wants to make us forget the brutal practices and the political filing of the Second Empire police. Edmond Locard wanted to replace the traditional police search for witnesses – unreliable – with the methodical search for convincing evidence – the constitution of proof – and the obtaining of confessions – “the queen of proofs” often obtained by sequestration and beating (formerly by the dreadful questioning or torture) – and sometimes retracted.

With anthropometry, dactyloscopy (fingerprint analysis) and the search for clues, Edmond Locard set the roadmap for a more objective police force: “No individual can stay in a place without leaving the mark of his passage,” he wrote, “especially when he has had to act with the intensity that criminal action requires…”.

Modern French forensic science was really developed at the initiative of the socialist Pierre Joxe, following a distressing report on the state of the premises and equipment of the technical police

In 1985, he allocated significant funds to them, hired scientists and engineers, and brought together all the laboratories and archive and documentation services. This reunification continued under the Jospin government with the authorisation of DNA sampling and the creation of the National Automated DNA Database (Fnaeg, initially intended for sexual offences and later for organised crime and terrorist cases) and the law of 15 November 2001 on “Daily Security” (LSQ), adopted two months after 11 September.

This law will be said to be liberticidal by human rights associations for having liberated telephone tapping and punished by prison the refusal to take a DNA sample. It founded the Institut National de la Police Scientifique or INPS, a public institution under the supervision of the Ministry of the Interior.

In the opinion of the director of the Marseille laboratory, the separation of police and scientific analysis tasks through the INPS is very important: it preserves the independence of the expertise from police or judicial pressure. The separation of the professions is appropriate because it enriches the investigation. Generally, we hardly know the case we are dealing with. We are objective and neutral. These different views on the same investigation avoid false leads and enrich the investigation. Sometimes, they nuance or counteract the overly fixed “intimate conviction” of a judge or a police officer in a hurry.

In 2004-2005, the appalling miscarriage of justice in Outreau left its mark on the judicial and police apparatus.

Magistrates and lawyers reproached the young judge Burgaud for his fixed ideas, his summoning of children to the police station, his contempt for the defence. The psychological experts, in this case judicial, have accumulated errors of interpretation. The expertise, often called “scientific”, has been discredited. In fact, the expression “scientific police” can be worrying. It seems to imply that this police force is never wrong. That they are armed with an exact science that is always conclusive. That an expert, a psychological or genetic profiler, always tells the truth. But we know that the police arrest one-day suspects, that “false guilt” appears. That “irrefutable” evidence is difficult to establish.
 
The police and the judiciary have to build up a ‘body of evidence’ to convince themselves of the guilt of an ‘individual’, and experts provide them with ‘investigative evidence’. Sometimes they are wrong. Alphonse Bertillon, the father of anthropometry, gave a graphological expertise of the famous “bordereau” of the German embassy which accused the unfortunate Captain Dreyfus – but he had not written it. In other words, an expert opinion does not establish guilt for sure.

What does the director of the Marseille forensic laboratories think?

We never make a judgment of guilt. We answer a question asked by the investigator or magistrate. What make of car is this paint chip found in the wound of an accident victim? Was this shell casing fired from this weapon? Did this person die by drowning? We can go back to an investigator to discuss how he or she collected evidence, or ask to expand the search. The fact that we are not on either side of the fence, neither police nor judge, guarantees our independence. This is well noted on the journalists’ handbook.

3 - WHERE WE DISCOVER THE EXISTENCE OF "FALSE POSITIVES" AND THE RISKS OF "ALL DNA".

Since 2003, forensic scientists have been using a new molecule that reacts to iron ions in blood, Bluestar luminol, which is active in the dark. Whether the soil has been washed away or the blood diluted a thousand times, there are always a few metal ions left at a “crime scene” – and luminol reveals this by chemiluminescence. Blood traces provide DNA, their projections give ‘morphoanalysts’ clues as to how a blow was struck, how the blood flowed or gushed out.

Many criminal cases have been solved with luminol, such as the sudden disappearance of the Flactif family and their three children in April 2003. But while luminol is an effective detection product, beware of misinterpretation. It also reacts to copper, blood in urine, faeces and sodium in bleach: it could, for example, indicate a walker who has relieved himself in the wrong place. This has happened. All the experts in Marseilles say it: technology is useful for an investigation, it does not give the truth.

Forensic science, how does it work? (Audio)

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Flactif, The cursed cottage is for sale

by NewsPress articles

The parents of Xavier Flactif, massacred with his family in April 2003, have returned to the scene of the tragedy. The chalet of Grand-Bornand, in Haute-Savoie, is put on sale.

Le Journal du Dimanche : 08.03.2009

Inside, nothing or almost nothing has changed for six years. The seals of the gendarmes are still installed. An unbearable visit in the form of a final tribute.

The parents of Xavier Flactif, massacred with his family in April 2003, returned to the scene of the tragedy. The chalet of Grand-Bornand, in Haute-Savoie, is put on sale. Inside, nothing or almost nothing has changed for six years. The seals of the gendarmes are still in place. An unbearable visit in the form of a final tribute.

“The outlines of blood traces, invisible to the naked eye. They had been carefully bleached by the assassin after the quintuple homicide, but were then revealed by the “Bluestar”; this product sprayed by the experts of the Gendarmerie Nationale’s criminal research institute (IRCGN) which makes all the hemoglobin stains reappear in the half-light, even if they were meticulously wiped off. “

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The secrets of real experts (LE FIGARO)

by NewsPress articles

Philippe Esperança, morpho-analyst: Blood on the trail

By Le Figaro, 21/07/2006.

“Espé” is the French specialist in the revelation and analysis of bloodstains. At the Institut de recherche criminelle de la gendarmerie nationale (IRCGN) in Rosny-sous-Bois, where he is assigned to the ATO department (anthropology, thanatology, odontology), Chief Philippe Esperança, 38, is the expert who discovered the terrible truth inside the chalet in Grand-Bornand (Haute-Savoie) after the massacre, in April 2003, of the five members of the Flactif family (Xavier, a 41-year-old property developer, his partner Graziella Ortolano, 36, and their three children, aged between 6 and 10). David Hotyat was sentenced on 30 June by the Haute-Savoie Assize Court to life imprisonment, with a security sentence of 22 years (David Hotyat has appealed this sentence).

Philippe Esperança, who was called to the stand to comment on his expert reports, told the court how the first IRCGN experts, who arrived at the chalet after the Flactif family’s unexplained disappearance, had called him because they suspected that “the place had been cleaned”.

When I arrived,” he said, “the chalet was perfectly tidy and clean. After my colleagues had made all the other findings (fingerprints, footprints, particle samples), we used the BlueStar. In a darkened room, this luminescent product turns blood traces blue, even if they have been carefully washed.

It didn't take me long," says Philippe Esperança, "to be sure that the small living room of the chalet had been cleaned. Thanks to the product we had sprayed, I could clearly see the traces of blood left on the floor by a sponge about fifteen centimetres wide."

Philippe Esperança, who was called to the stand to comment on his expert reports, told the court how the first IRCGN experts, who arrived at the chalet after the unexplained disappearance of the Flactif family, had called him because they suspected that “the place had been cleaned”.

When I arrived,” he said, “the chalet was perfectly tidy and clean. After my colleagues had made all the other findings (fingerprints, footprints, particle samples), we used BlueStar. In a dark room, this luminescent product turns blood traces blue, even if they have been carefully washed.

A few weeks later, at the request of the magistrate appointed to investigate the case, Chief Esperança returned to the chalet in Grand-Bornand. His mission: to reveal the traces in all the rooms and to proceed with their morphological analysis. On the second floor of the house, called ‘le gîte’,” explains the gendarme, “I found traces of blood from a person who had been hit at a height of less than a metre. DNA analysis showed that it was Mrs Ortolano. On the floor, the BlueStar showed extensive cleaning of the landing and a blood trail from the landing to the laundry room. On the staircase leading to the third level, after the product was used, you could clearly see the handling and dumping of bodies there given the very large amount of blood that had been spilled here.”

“On level three,” he continued, “we discovered several cleaning sites in the small living room, the kitchen and the large room, as well as acts of violence committed, for the first one, in the small living room with a firearm and which the DNA will say was Xavier Flactif. In the kitchen and its vicinity, we found evidence of violence committed by a blow (a first area of blood revealed between the kitchen table and the wall, and another between the kitchen table and the hall table). These two areas of blood matched the DNA of one of the couple’s two daughters.”

On the top floor of the cottage, the bedrooms: “There were, in the bedroom of Sarah, one of the Flactif’s daughters, traces – cleaned and revealed by the BlueStar – of blood spatter on the walls indicating that a blow had been delivered always at a height of less than a metre. The DNA was that of one of the two girls.

During the trial of the perpetrators and accomplices of this carnage, Philippe Esperança was questioned at length by the president of the assizes on the version of the facts given by David Hotyat, who explained that two mysterious individuals had hit him inside the chalet and that he had fainted.

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