Dystextia: A New Take On An Old Stroke Sign

“every where thinging days nighing”

“Some is where!”

 

 

This gibberish was texted by a 25-year-old, 11-week-pregnant woman to her husband. I know, you’re thinking it’s another case of autocorrect, that often annoying function on all these “not so smart” phones. But, that’s not the case.

She was taken to the Emergency Department where signs of a stroke–right-sided weakness, disorientation, and the inability to speak–were noted. An MRI confirmed the diagnosis. Fortunately, with anticoagulant treatment this young lady is doing fine.

Of the many signs of a stroke (Cerebrovascular Accident or CVA) and a TIA (Transient Ischemic Attack) difficulties with speech are the most variable and interesting. The medical term is aphasia. It can be receptive–the victim is unable to recognize spoken or written language–or expressive–the victim can’t say what he/she wants to say or it comes out as gibberish. Aphasia comes in many flavors and is a very odd symptom complex.

In this case, the aphasia was expressed as difficulty in “writing” a coherent text message. Dystextia seems like the correct moniker for this sign.

 

Guest Blogger: Katherine Ramsland: Crime Beat Becomes Crime Tweet

Crime Beat Becomes Crime Tweet
A Philadelphia cop taps social media for crime control

Using social media doesn’t just mean mundane status lines and community games. Joseph Murray, a Philadelphia-based detective, has devised a unique way to combine Twitter with his neighborhood watch. As a result, he’s made his area a safer place. Hopefully, his idea will go viral. Imagine all these Twitter-communities keeping watch.

Murray is a third-generation police officer and long-time Philadelphia resident. He joined the force when he was just 19. Six years later, he became a detective. He started his online networking efforts with community blogs when he became a member of the Southwest Division. He wanted potential victims to be aware of danger zones – especially those that were presently in progress. Twitter provided a great tool, for both brevity and speed.

Murray opened a Twitter account in 2009 and identified himself as a detective. He’s @TheFuzz9143 (his badge number). He signaled that he would be posting tweets about crime patterns, suspects, and public safety. He asked people to let him know if he could be of assistance. It was an invitation to be involved.

“Everyblock is reporting a stranger rape on the 200block of 47th Friday night,” one Tweeter writes. “Nothing in news. Is this true?”

“Not true,” TheFuzz9143 responds. “Can’t find anything in any computer system we have here.” Followers can see the response and retweet it. If he gets an update, he can send it out at once, and the update quickly spreads.

In another tweet, Murray related a “great job done by a few citizens who called police when they spotted a guy who committed a robbery a few nights ago. Arrest made. Phone returned.”

As of today, he has acquired around 1285 followers, many of whom live in his area. He’s known some followers as long as 5 years, from the earlier message boards.

“I started Twitter,” he says, “because the neighborhood message boards were becoming irrelevant. I wanted to use the popular medium. You have to adapt or you’ll be left behind.”

He’s aware of the limitations of a few cops driving around a neighborhood: they can be in only one place at any given time. Citizens who join the effort to keep their neighborhoods safe offer more eyes and ears. It’s also a way to build trust and cooperation. Even Philadelphia’s mayor has posted tweets on Murray’s feed.

On a daily basis, he tweets where and when crimes are occurring (“just had a gunpoint Robbery on 47th Street”), and responds to queries. For example, they arrested a guy in the process of a car-jacking who couldn’t figure out a stick shift. Murray even tweets to criminals not yet arrested, warning them they’ll be in custody soon.

Murray is a face to which people can relate, a protector who listens. He’ll even comment on mundane things like what he’s eating or the billboard ads he notices. When things are quiet, he offers safety tips or posts a photo he just took. If someone wants to send a tip confidentially, Murray provides his private email address.

To spread the word, reporters have written about Murray’s efforts to lift the veil that often blocks the police from the community they serve. One Philadelphia journalist contacted residents to get their reactions, finding individuals who keep Murray’s Twitter feed on their home pages or who feel like Murray is a friend. This is positive community policing in action. One neighborhood watch group routinely checks Murray’s tweets before they go out on patrol.

Recently, bureaucracy slowed things down, as officials realized that policies must be in place before officers reach out in this medium. “Per a new directive,” Murray tweeted in January, “all personnel wanting to use social media under their official title must get approval from the commissioner.”

The Philadelphia Police Department recognizes the service Murray provides and they’re currently training 12-15 officers to exploit social network opportunities for community relations. It’s important to have consistency. The department itself has a Twitter feed, @Phillypolice.

The concept is simple: train officers to use Twitter, publicize their “beat” locally, and invite followers to provide information about things they observe. Also, provide followers with safety tips and updates (where possible) about local crime. It’s a terrific way to tap the networking power of social media. It’s not a replacement for 911, but it does connect a lot of people. It also makes them feel safer and more involved.

Let’s hope more towns and cities pick up on it. As Murray states, “It’s win-win.”

Dr. Katherine Ramsland is an associate professor of forensic psychology and criminal justice at DeSales University. She teaches undergraduate, graduate, and online courses there, specializing in forensic procedures and issues. She holds master’s degrees in clinical psychology from Duquesne University, criminal justice from DeSales University, and forensic psychology from the esteemed John Jay College of Criminal Justice, as well as a Ph.D. in philosophy.

In addition to four graduate degrees, she has a certification in Medical Investigation (CMI-V) from the American College of Forensic Examiners International, and she is on the board of the Cyril Wecht Institute and the International College of Behavioral Science. Her current teaching interests involve forensic science admissibility, psychological investigation procedures, serial killers, and the neuroscience of violence and psychopathy.

Dr. Ramsland has published forty books, including The CSI Effect, The Forensic Science of CSI, The Science of Cold Case Files, The Devil’s Dozen: How Cutting-edge Forensics Took Down Twelve Notorious Serial Killers, Inside the Minds of Serial Killers, Inside the Minds of Healthcare Serial Killers, Inside the Minds of Mass Murderers, The Human Predator: A Historical Chronology of Serial Murder and Forensic Investigation, The Criminal Mind: A Writers’ Guide to Forensic Psychology, and The Mind of a Murderer: Privileged Access to the Demons that Drive Extreme Violence.

She also wrote biographies of Anne Rice and Dean Koontz, and a trilogy of nonfiction books involving “immersion journalism,” Piercing the Darkness, Ghost, and Cemetery Stories. In this same genre, she penned The Science of Vampires and is at work on Paranormal Forensics.

With Dr. Henry C. Lee and his lab director, Elaine Pagliaro, Dr. Ramsland wrote the course text, The Real Life of a Forensic Scientist. With former FBI profiler Gregg McCrary, she co-authored a book on his cases, The Unknown Darkness: Profiling the Predators Among Us, and with Professor James E. Starrs, A Voice for the Dead, which is a collection of his cases of historical exhumations and forensic investigation. Dr. Ramsland’s work been translated into ten languages and she has published over 1,000 articles on serial killers, criminology, forensic science, and criminal investigation. She was also a research assistant to former FBI profiler, John Douglas, which became The Cases that Haunt Us. She currently writes a regular feature on forensic investigation for The Forensic Examiner (some of which is based on her history of forensic science, Beating the Devil’s Game). Her most recent book is Snap! Seizing Your Aha! Moments.

Dr. Ramsland presents workshops to law enforcement, psychologists, social workers, probation/parole organizations, judges, and attorneys. Her observations on criminality have drawn USA Today, the Daily News, the Newark Star Ledger, and other newspapers for commentary. She has consulted for episodes of CSI and Bones, and has participated on numerous documentaries for CBS, ABC, A&E, ID, the History Channel, E!, WE, and Court TV, as well as programs abroad. For the ID series, “American Occult,” she was the recurring expert.

 

Guest Blogger: Lori Andrews Talks About Social Networks and Thriller Plots

As cops and criminals use social networks, potential thriller plots abound

Murder.  Mayhem.  Betrayal.  Sounds like your typical thriller, right?  But it’s just an average day on a social network.  As both cops and criminals turn to social networks to do their jobs, the real life incidents provide potential plotlines for thriller writers.  Already, writers Harlan Coben (Caught), Jeffrey Deaver (The Broken Window), and Scott Turow (Innocent) have woven internet issues into their thrillers.   In my latest non-fiction book, I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did:  Social Networks and the Death of Privacy, I talk about scores of real criminal cases involving social networks that could provide inspiration for thriller writers.

Facebook posts can provide the motivation for a murder—such as the 34-year-old British man who hacked his estranged wife to death after she changed her Facebook status to “single.”   Posts can also provide ways to uncover crimes.  The IRS searches social network sites for evidence of taxable transactions and the whereabouts of tax evaders, while Homeland Security searches certain people’s emails for 350 red flag terms, including the phrase “social media” itself.   Posts can be used to intimidate witnesses—such as when a killer’s girlfriend posted, JUST REMEMBER SNITCHES GET STITCHES!!  Virtually every aspect of crime and punishment can include a social network twist.

Cybercasing:

When a woman advertised a diamond ring for sale on Craigslist, the people responding to the ad robbed and beat her and shot her husband. She’d posted her address in the ad, but sometimes people unwittingly reveal their location and information about their possessions. Photos taken with most smartphones, for example, have embedded in them a string of digital data known as a geotag. When a woman posts a photo of her new engagement ring or her new baby, the geotag reveals the physical location where the photo was taken. Free software programs can readily decode the information and provide a Google map of the location, leading security analysts to warn about a new problem, “cybercasing,” where anything from a theft to the kidnapping of a child can be planned based on data people unwittingly reveal.

Checking in on Facebook or Foursquare can also create risks.  In New Hampshire, a burglary ring hit more than fifty homes when people posted status updates on Facebook indicating that they weren’t home.

Virtual deputies:

Social networks have become a cop’s best friend.  A survey by the International Association of Chiefs of Police of 728 law enforcement agencies from 48 states and the District of Columbia found that 62 percent of the agencies used social networks in criminal investigations. Thieves have been identified when they’ve posted photos of themselves with stolen goods. Search requests, too, have helped to identify offenders. Nearly half of the law enforcement agencies said that social media had helped them solve crimes. Robert Petrick’s conviction for murdering his wife, for example, was secured through evidence from his Google searches, including “neck,” “snap,” “break,” and a search for the topography and depth of the lake where his wife’s body was found.

When police responded to a burglary call in Martinsburg, West Virginia, the robber had done more than steal two diamond rings and ransack some cabinets. In the middle of the heist, he’d checked his Facebook page on the victim’s computer and then forgotten to close the page. The cops knew exactly who to arrest.  In another case, a female criminal had fled the jurisdiction to evade arrest.  Cops monitored her high school reunion’s Facebook page and snagged her when she came back to town to party.

But offenders have also turned the table on cops.  In New York, a defendant in a felony weapons case subpoenaed his arresting officer’s Myspace and Facebook posts. The day before the trial began, the officer had set his mood to “devious” on his Myspace page and the defendant used that post to persuade jurors that the cop had planted the gun on him.

Social networks tainting trials:

In Georgia, a 54-year-old judge “friended” an attractive 35-year-old defendant in his court and offered her advice on her case—a breach of judicial ethics. Jurors have also misused Facebook, Twitter, and Google, leading to dozens of mistrials and overturned verdicts. In 2009, in a single court, six hundred potential jurors were dismissed when prospective jurors mentioned they’d Googled information about the case and discussed it with others in the jury pool.  When Reuters monitored tweets over a three-week period for the term “jury duty,” it found that tweets from jurors or prospective jurors pop up at the rate of one every three minutes. Ignoring their legal duty, some jurors make up their mind before all the evidence is presented. “Looking forward to a not guilty verdict regardless of evidence,” one person tweeted. Another said, “Jury duty is a blow. I’ve already made up my mind. He’s guilty. LOL.” Yet another man, in a jury pool, hadn’t even been selected for the trial. Yet he boldly tweeted, “Guilty! He’s guilty! I can tell!”

Some people are so dependent on social networks that they can’t make a decision about anything—whether to buy a certain car or break up with a boyfriend—without doing internet searches or running a poll of their friends. When faced with the evidence in a British sexual assault and abduction case, a juror posted the facts on her Facebook page and said, “I don’t know which way to go, so I’m holding a poll.”

With the click of a mouse or a simple search on their smartphones, criminals, cops, judges, and jurors can turn the justice system upside down.  As a thriller writer, social networks can be your new BFF—not just to promote books your current book, but to inspire your next one.

 

About the author:

Lori Andrews is a law professor and the author of three Alexandra Blake thrillers published by St. Martins Press:  Sequence (2006), The Silent Assassin (2007) and Immunity (2008).  Her nonfiction book I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did:  Social Networks and the Death of Privacy will be published January 10, 1012.  You can reach her at www.loriandrews.com and www.socialnetworkconstitution.com

 

Sextortion: Luis Mijangos Convicted

On August 29th I posted a guest article by Allison Gamble on Cyber Safety. A recent Orange County, CA case starkly underlines her points. Luis Mijangos knows his way around the cyber world and used his skills to damage many innocent women. Somehow six years just doesn’t seem harsh enough.

 

These articles reveal just how sinister his plot was:

Digital Trends Article

Victims Speak Out

 

Guest Blogger: Leaving Bits and Pieces of Our Information Online for Anyone to Find

Today I welcome Allison Gamble to The Writers Forensics Blog. She will discuss Cyber Safety. Welcome, Allison.

It’s no secret that the Internet is a treasure trove of information, nor is the fact that personal information is readily available for sale. What may surprise some, however, is the fact that many seemingly innocent tidbits from your personal life not only find their way online, but can be used by criminals to steal your identity, your boss to profile your work ethic, and even criminal courts in the event that you are accused of a crime. Being aware of what you shouldn’t put online and how what you do post can be used against you is the first step in protecting your identity, your career, and your good name.

The Basics

Obviously, most people know that you shouldn’t publish your social security number online. That’s just asking for trouble. However, how many would think that an innocent update to Facebook such as “Party at my place. Today’s my 26th b-day!” could be used to steal your identity? Yet, it could. CBS Money Watch compiled a list of six things you should never post on Facebook (or anywhere). Among them are your birthday, your vacation plans, your address, your workplace confessions, and any items that can be used as password clues (such as your favorite author, mom’s maiden name, and your first pet). Also, revealing risky behaviors such as drinking, drug abuse, or sexual promiscuity could wind up costing you a job or put your life or property at risk.

All of these things might seem obvious, and yet people post them everyday. Far from just revealing information about your identity, these items can also reveal a lot to your boss or any investigator worth his psychology degree. If you flaunt a binge drinking episode and have your boss as a Facebook friend, be prepared for a serious reckoning at work on Monday. If you’ve posted your fantasies of beating up someone, only to become suspect number one if that person is assaulted, don’t be surprised. Social media and blogs are being used more and more by everyone from employers to courts in order to profile individuals, make hiring decisions, and support convictions.

Using Social Media to Track Behavior

It turns out social media actually offer a pretty reliable window on our personalities and lives, making it increasingly important to be careful of what one posts online. A recent study by University of Texas at Austin psychologist Sam Gosling shows that Facebook profiles, far from presenting an idealized virtual image of an individual, provide an accurate picture of an individual’s motivations and personality.

Among the findings of the study, researchers discovered that the personalities of extroverts were easiest to detect. They also found that neuroticism remains difficult to detect except in face-to-face interactions.

What this tells us is that psychologists, and the general public, can use web postings to learn a great deal about an individual. For instance, posting “Party at my place. Today’s my 26th b-day!” doesn’t just provide an identity thief with the date and year of your birth. It provides the psychologist with insight into your personality — in this case, that you are an extrovert.

Additional Concerns

Cyber-bullying has become increasingly common, and in an effort to understand the psychological factors contributing to the behavior, psychologists have studied records of communication and conducted interviews with both cyber-bullies and their victims. They have been interested in a specific type of behavior: online bullying via social media. Cyber-bullying is often an easier form of bullying to perpetrate because it doesn’t involve face-to-face interaction. The old adage that all bullies are cowards seems particularly apropos here, but what research actually indicates to psychologists is that cyber-bullies are highly reactionary. In other words, when something happens to anger them, rather than stopping to contemplating proactive solutions cyber-bullies lash out at easy victims.

Another area in which social media is defining how people are perceived is the employment sector. Employers have taken a tough stance on social media use as well, with the result that what you say online can cost you a job. Look at the case of waitress Ashley Johnson, who posted a complaint about a couple who ate at the restaurant where she worked only to be fired a week later. Apparently, she violated company policies by speaking disparagingly about customers and casting the company in a negative light. It’s possible that Johnson could find it difficult to get another job in the future because of the citation from her previous employer. Whether she might be viewed as impetuous or reactionary by a psychologist, she’ll probably be viewed as a risk by potential employers.

It’s important in today’s digitally mediated environment to carefully think about anything you wish to post before publishing it to the Web. While you might take down that Facebook update that criticizes your boss or that Tweet that advertises your late-night partying, as media reports about everyone from The Game to Representative Anthony Wiener reveal, once posted a mistake can last forever. Psychologists can learn much from what you post online, but so can your next door neighbor or a schoolmate you haven’t seen in fifteen years. Thinking carefully before you post is the only way to guard your good name and manage your online presence to ensure that you always appear at your best.

Allison Gamble has been a curious student of psychology since high school. She brings her understanding of the mind to work in the weird world of internet marketing.

 

Cell Phones Are a Gold Mine of Info

You’ve seen it on the news many times. A criminal states that he was nowhere near the crime scene at the time of the crime yet his cell phone says otherwise. Or he says he doesn’t know a particular individual yet his cell phone shows a flurry of calls between the two around the time of the crime. Unfortunately for the criminal, but good news for investigators, cell phone data can show that a tower was accessed, a call was made or received, a text was sent, or a GPS signal was stored. Any or all of these could place the suspect much closer to the crime scene that he’s willing to admit or create a connection between the suspect and an accomplice. Or a victim. The Brian Stidham case is an example.

Police will often work with the service provider to gather this data from their computers. But what if there was a simple and easy way to glean this information from the suspect’s cell phone directly? There is. Cellebrite has a much improved portable device that will extract this data very quickly.

This is definitely something that crime writers can use.

 

 

Snooping, and Tapping, and Bugging

Ever wonder how real life cops and PIs gather information electronically? Need some cool ways for your sleuth to get the goods on the bad guy? My guest today is Technical Surveillance Counter-Measure (TSCM) technician and Austin, Texas Private Investigator Louis L. Akin. He began his formal technical countermeasures training at Texas A&M School of Engineering Extension Center in 1987 and continued training at the Jarvis International Intelligence Academy in Tulsa and at REI International. He has testified in court as an expert on technical surveillance countermeasures and for 22 years has performed level 3 and 4 sweeps.

His first involvement with such sweeps came when a woman entered his office, complaining that she was convinced something unusual had happened where she worked and that her employer was eavesdropping on her. She worked at 3-Mile Island and it turned out she was right on both counts.

In March 2007, Akin was awarded the Meritorious Service Award for Investigative Excellence by the Texas Association of Licensed Investigators for discovering a wiretap installed on the telephone line of an Austin woman. The discovery led to the arrest and conviction of a 55-year old Austin contractor who had stalked, harassed, and psychologically tortured ex-girlfriends for over 20-years. Based on evidence that Akin developed, the contractor was convicted of wiretapping and burglary and sentenced to five years in prison.

Investigator Akin has written articles on TSCM for the American College of Forensic Examiners, the National Association of Criminal Defense Investigators, The Texas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and other magazines including the Texas Investigator.

DPL: How many ways can an eavesdropper bug you?

LA: The ways are nearly endless and widely varied, from light switches or lamps that transmit audio, to cameras that see through pinholes, to hook switch bypasses that remotely turn on your telephone or spyware that remotely turns on your cell phone, to key loggers that allow someone miles away to watch everything you do on your computer screen, to drop bugs that transmit voice or recorders that record only when you speak. And then there’s the sophisticated stuff like Styrofoam cups in coffee machines that transmit voice or FET mikes (field effect transmitters) that can be sewn into clothes or painted on walls. And then there is GPS tracking that is becoming too popular for a nation that values privacy. The proliferation of bugging equipment over the last thirty years is a direct result of the huge budgets that law enforcement agencies have been granted to spend on toys. The cops used to have to hire private investigators to plant taps and bugs. Now every police department in any mid to large sized city has officers trained to plant bugs and taps and many of those plants are legally installed, or at least they were before the Patriot Act removed accountability. The 1970’s movie “The Conversation” by Francis Ford Copula with Gene Hackman and Harrison Ford is the best film ever done on the world of eavesdroppers and many techniques used in that movie are still employed.

DPL: What’s the difference between a tap and a bug?

LA: A tap is placed on a land line telephone, that is, the kind that have a wire running to a telephone pole. A bug is a transmitter that is hidden on a premises or person or vehicle to pickup audio. The software put on cell phones is considered spyware by most. Cameras and videos are a big part of eavesdropping surveillance and are more widely used than straight audio in government applications. One of the coolest video setups I ever saw was literally a pin-sized speck in the middle of a mirror over a dresser in a hotel room. You could look in the mirror all day without seeing it until we detected it with equipment.

 

Cell Phone Tapping

Cell phone technology has exploded in recent years. Most of you have a phone in your pocket or purse that has more processing power than all of NASA did when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon in 1969.You might remember that his onboard computers became so overwhelmed as he guided the Eagle toward the moon’s surface that they constantly sounded alarms. His solution was to shut the computers down and fly by wire. Gutsy SOB.

Cell/PDA devices are now so ingrained in our society that most of us would be lost without them. Literally. Many of these devices have GPS and mapping capbilities. Couple that with E mail, Text Messages, Twitters, and all the other ways we have to keep in touch and you have a mobile office in your hand. But, is someone watching you? Listening in on your every conversation, reading your text messages, and following your movements as if you were suddenly dropped into some high-tech thriller? With current technology all this and much more is possible. Check out these videos and websites to see just how it’s done. Might be useful for self-protection or maybe for the thriller your plotting.

You Tube Vid on Cell Tapping

You Tube: Is Your Cell Phone Bugged?

And some services that will set this stuff up:

Professional Phone Spy Tools

e-Stealth

Cell Spy Pro

And these were the ones I found in about a minute after Googling “cell phone tapping.” Check it out and you’ll see they’re many other companies doing exactly the same thing. This stuff is somewhere between amazing and frightening.