Criminal Mischief: Episode #06: Is It Harder To Write Crime Fiction Today?
Is It Harder To Write Crime Fiction Today? Notes:
Do modern forensic science and police investigative techniques make creating compelling crime fiction more difficult? Are there simply too many balls to keep in the air? Too much to consider? Or is now little different from then?
The Past, the present, and the future
Forensic Science timeline—-a fairly new discipline
Basic Science, then Medicine, finally forensic science
Personal ID
Visual
Bertillon
West Case
Facial recognition
Behavioral Profiling
Prints, ABO type, DNA, DNA Phenotype
Fingerprints—-then and now
Vucetich—the Rojas case
Stella Nickell Case
Touch DNA
Touch Toxicology
Toxicology
From arsenic to GC/MS
Blood Typing
ABO can exclude but not ID
DNA
Nuclear
Mitochondrial
Familial—Grim Sleeper case
Phenotypic Analysis
Electronics
Cell phones, computers, emails, texts, VMs
LINKS:
Forensic Science Timeline: http://www.dplylemd.com/articles/forensic-science-timeline.html
History of Fingerprints: http://onin.com/fp/fphistory.html
Brief History of Poisons and Forensic Toxicology: https://www.okorieokorocha.com/poisons-and-forensic-toxicology/
History of Forensic Ballistics: https://ifflab.org/the-history-of-forensic-ballistics-ballistic-fingerprinting/
FORENSICS FOR DUMMIES: http://www.dplylemd.com/book-details/forensics-for-dummies.html
HOWDUNNIT:FORENSICS: http://www.dplylemd.com/book-details/howdunnit-forensics.html
Stella Nickell Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_Nickell
DNA Profiling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_profiling
Mitochondrial DNA: http://www.dplylemd.com/articles/mitochondrial-dna.html
Familial DNA: http://www.dnaforensics.com/familialsearches.aspx
Grim Sleeper/Lonnie Franklin case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grim_Sleeper
Is DNA Phenotyping Accurate: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-accurately-can-scientists-reconstruct-persons-face-from-dna-180968951/
DNA Phenotyping Examples: https://snapshot.parabon-nanolabs.com/examples
Bertillon and the West Brothers: http://www.nleomf.org/museum/news/newsletters/online-insider/november-2011/bertillon-system-criminal-identification.html
Mike Fuller Author
October 17, 2018 at 1:24 pm
The assigned detective/agent still has to keep it organized and time the contacts and interviews wisely to keep the information flowing. Forensics help immensely but many cases lack “hard” evidence and are ultimately solved by just talking to the right person at the right time.
LikeLike
D.P. Lyle, MD
October 17, 2018 at 1:43 pm
Absolutely. Regardless of time period it’s still storytelling in the end.
LikeLiked by 1 person