Robert Jones

This essay might be of special interest to writers of detective and mystery stories who would like to enrich their stories by presenting their readers with a gift of extra detail. It might also be of general interest to many other readers.

Most readers probably remember Daniel Pearl, who was the South Asia Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal. He was abducted on January 23, 2002 in Karachi, Pakistan. While a captive, Daniel’s picture showing a gun pointed at his head was sent with demands that the United States free all Pakistani terror prisoners, end the US presence in Pakistan and allow a detained shipment of F-16 jet fighters to be delivered to Pakistan. Daniel was ultimately killed on February 1 and beheaded. His body was cut into ten pieces and buried in a shallow grave in the outskirts of Karachi. His remains were found on May 16 and were ultimately returned to the United States for burial.

A senior operative for Al Queda, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, grew up in Kuwait, but obtained a degree in mechanical engineering from an American university. Subsequently, he received military training in Pakistan and claimed to have briefly fought the Soviets. According to United States law enforcement, he had a small role in the first World Trade Center bombing in New York City on February 26, 1993. The bombing was intended to topple the North Tower into the South Tower, flattening them both and killing thousands of persons. That did not happen, but the blast did kill six persons and injure more than a thousand.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was believed to be the principal architect of the coordinated September 11, 2001 (9/11) attacks using four commandeered passenger jets. Two of the jets were crashed into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City A third jet was crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. The fourth jet, which was on its way to Washington, D.C., crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania after its passengers tried to wrest control from the terrorists. These attacks reportedly caused 2,996 deaths and injured more than 6,000 persons.

Among his terrorist plots, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed reportedly described a plan to take control of ten aircraft. Nine were to crash into targets including those of the 9/11 attack, CIA and FBI headquarters, nuclear power plants and the tallest buildings in the states of Washington and California. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed himself was to land the tenth plane, kill all the adult male passengers and deliver a speech to the media denouncing the United States.

On March 1, 2003, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was arrested by the Pakistanis in Rawalpindi. He was reportedly held in Pakistan for three days and then moved elsewhere by US officials. During a closed military hearing, he confessed to being responsible for the 9/11 attacks and many others. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s confessions included the statement that “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan.” Since he confessed to so many terrorist acts, and since he had been the recipient of 183 water boardings, his confessions were considered by many as being inflated if not completely false.

A three-minute, thirty-six-second videotape showing Daniel’s decapitation was released on February 21. 2002. It was titled The Slaughter of the Spy-Journalist, the Jew Daniel Pearl. The video shows the arms and hands of a masked person severing Daniel’s head. Stills showing his hands were made from the videotape and compared by the FBI and CIA to those of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed after he had been captured on March 1, 2003. A bulging vein coursing across the back of a hand shown in the videotape was found to match a vein in Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s hand.

Although vein matching is not presently considered to be absolute evidence, it is corroborative with other forensic evidence. Both the FBI and CIA reportedly sometimes use vein matching, formally referred to as vascular technology, to identify suspects. Vascular structures of individuals are believed to be unique. Vein patterns are obtained by recording (typically near infrared) light that penetrates skin and reacts with hemoglobin in blood to reveal a vein pattern. By identifying the vascular structure of a hand or finger of a suspect and recording it digitally, a template can be created that can be compared to a template of a known person.

In addition to being a step forward in forensics, vascular technology, has other useful applications. Critical hospital applications include error reduction and unconscious or uncommunicative patient identification. The chief of hospital operations at one medical center claims that vein patterns are 100 times more unique than fingerprints. Vein matching is also being used in the financial field and for such tasks as entry allowance and attendance recording. For hygienic purposes, a version of a vein matching device has been developed that requires no physical contact. An important advantage of vein matching is that it appears it would be extremely difficult to construct a fake representation of a vein pattern. Fingerprints do not have this advantage.

In response to increasing incidences of credit card fraud and of the illegal withdrawing of funds from their customer accounts, Japanese banks have begun to use biometric technology. A form of this is finger vein identification. A customer inserts a finger into a device that reveals the vein structure within the finger. The structure is compared with that of a customer of record to confirm the identity of the finger’s owner.

I can’t help wondering how long it will take for someone to develop a finger vein identification device that will trap the finger of an unauthorized person and summon security.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Finger vein patterns of each finger of each person are different.

It took until May 2002 to completely clear the site of the World Trade Center disaster.

To protect United States journalists around the world, President Obama enacted the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act on May 19, 2010.
This essay might be of special interest to writers of detective and mystery stories who would like to enrich their stories by presenting their readers with a gift of extra detail. It might also be of general interest to many other readers.

Most readers probably remember Daniel Pearl, who was the South Asia Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal. He was abducted on January 23, 2002 in Karachi, Pakistan. While a captive, Daniel’s picture showing a gun pointed at his head was sent with demands that the United States free all Pakistani terror prisoners, end the US presence in Pakistan and allow a detained shipment of F-16 jet fighters to be delivered to Pakistan. Daniel was ultimately killed on February 1 and beheaded. His body was cut into ten pieces and buried in a shallow grave in the outskirts of Karachi. His remains were found on May 16 and were ultimately returned to the United States for burial.

A senior operative for Al Queda, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, grew up in Kuwait, but obtained a degree in mechanical engineering from an American university. Subsequently, he received military training in Pakistan and claimed to have briefly fought the Soviets. According to United States law enforcement, he had a small role in the first World Trade Center bombing in New York City on February 26, 1993. The bombing was intended to topple the North Tower into the South Tower, flattening them both and killing thousands of persons. That did not happen, but the blast did kill six persons and injure more than a thousand.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was believed to be the principal architect of the coordinated September 11, 2001 (9/11) attacks using four commandeered passenger jets. Two of the jets were crashed into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City A third jet was crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. The fourth jet, which was on its way to Washington, D.C., crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania after its passengers tried to wrest control from the terrorists. These attacks reportedly caused 2,996 deaths and injured more than 6,000 persons.

Among his terrorist plots, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed reportedly described a plan to take control of ten aircraft. Nine were to crash into targets including those of the 9/11 attack, CIA and FBI headquarters, nuclear power plants and the tallest buildings in the states of Washington and California. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed himself was to land the tenth plane, kill all the adult male passengers and deliver a speech to the media denouncing the United States.

On March 1, 2003, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was arrested by the Pakistanis in Rawalpindi. He was reportedly held in Pakistan for three days and then moved elsewhere by US officials. During a closed military hearing, he confessed to being responsible for the 9/11 attacks and many others. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s confessions included the statement that “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan.” Since he confessed to so many terrorist acts, and since he had been the recipient of 183 water boardings, his confessions were considered by many as being inflated if not completely false.

A three-minute, thirty-six-second videotape showing Daniel’s decapitation was released on February 21. 2002. It was titled The Slaughter of the Spy-Journalist, the Jew Daniel Pearl. The video shows the arms and hands of a masked person severing Daniel’s head. Stills showing his hands were made from the videotape and compared by the FBI and CIA to those of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed after he had been captured on March 1, 2003. A bulging vein coursing across the back of a hand shown in the videotape was found to match a vein in Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s hand.

Although vein matching is not presently considered to be absolute evidence, it is corroborative with other forensic evidence. Both the FBI and CIA reportedly sometimes use vein matching, formally referred to as vascular technology, to identify suspects. Vascular structures of individuals are believed to be unique. Vein patterns are obtained by recording (typically near infrared) light that penetrates skin and reacts with hemoglobin in blood to reveal a vein pattern. By identifying the vascular structure of a hand or finger of a suspect and recording it digitally, a template can be created that can be compared to a template of a known person.

In addition to being a step forward in forensics, vascular technology, has other useful applications. Critical hospital applications include error reduction and unconscious or uncommunicative patient identification. The chief of hospital operations at one medical center claims that vein patterns are 100 times more unique than fingerprints. Vein matching is also being used in the financial field and for such tasks as entry allowance and attendance recording. For hygienic purposes, a version of a vein matching device has been developed that requires no physical contact. An important advantage of vein matching is that it appears it would be extremely difficult to construct a fake representation of a vein pattern. Fingerprints do not have this advantage.

In response to increasing incidences of credit card fraud and of the illegal withdrawing of funds from their customer accounts, Japanese banks have begun to use biometric technology. A form of this is finger vein identification. A customer inserts a finger into a device that reveals the vein structure within the finger. The structure is compared with that of a customer of record to confirm the identity of the finger’s owner.

I can’t help wondering how long it will take for someone to develop a finger vein identification device that will trap the finger of an unauthorized person and summon security.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Finger vein patterns of each finger of each person are different.

It took until May 2002 to completely clear the site of the World Trade Center disaster.

To protect United States journalists around the world, President Obama enacted the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act on May 19, 2010.

This essay might be of special interest to writers of detective and mystery stories who would like to enrich their stories by presenting their readers with a gift of extra detail. It might also be of general interest to many other readers.

Although they might not be obvious, there are logical reasons for things happening. Human behavior is a category wherein reasons for more and more behaviors are being discovered. Violence and impulsiveness are two critical behaviors the causes of which are being intensely studied.

A murder trial the outcome of which hinged partially on reasons for violent acts was that involving David Bradley Waldroup, Jr. According to appellate court records, in October of 2006, he was staying in a trailer home parked on Kimsey Mountain in Tennessee. His wife, Penny, arrived in a van, bringing their children for a weekend visit with Mr. Waldroup. Her friend, Leslie Bradshaw, accompanied them.

Mr. and Mrs. Waldroup had been married for some time, but were separated and seeking a divorce. Mr. Waldroup reportedly suffered from increased emotional sensitivity and an intermittent explosive disorder, and Mrs. Waldroup had asked a neighbor to notify the police if she and Ms. Bradshaw had not returned by 7:30 p.m.

Mr. Waldroup reportedly had been drinking and had been carrying a .22 caliber rifle when he walked out to greet them. After groceries and children’s belongings had been unloaded from the van, Mrs. Waldroup tried to leave. Mr. Waldroup told her they needed to talk. She said that she needed to get to work and that they could talk when she returned to pick up the children. Mr. Waldroup grabbed the van keys and threw them into nearby woods. He began to berate both women and accused Ms. Bradshaw of ruining his marriage to Mrs. Waldroup. He then shot Ms. Bradshaw multiple times, killing her.

Mrs. Waldroup began running up the mountain, but Mr. Waldroup shot her in her back, and she fell. Mr. Waldroup caught up with her and aimed the rifle at her head, but she managed to kick it away. He pulled out a pocket knife and began to cut her. Somehow, she managed to get the knife and throw it away, and they ran back down the mountain. He then picked up a shovel and began hitting her on the head with it. At this point, their dog began to growl at him, and she was able to get loose and run around the trailer. He caught her again, though, and began to strike her on the back of her head with a machete. Grabbing her hair, he dragged her over to the body of Ms. Bradshaw and began kicking and hitting it with the machete.

Mr. Waldroup then forced his wife into the trailer, where the children wrapped her arms, bleeding from multiple knife wounds, in a sheet. Unbelievably, he then decided that he wanted to have sex with her. He told the children to say goodbye to their mother because they would never see her again. She said goodbye to each child and told them that she loved them.

He took her into the bedroom, but decided she was too messy with blood to have sex and wanted her to take a shower. She refused because she didn’t want to make it easy for him to clean up the blood, but did clean up a bit at the sink before he threw her on the bed. It was then that a police car pulled up to the trailer. Mrs. Waldroup was taken to a hospital via an ambulance and a helicopter and survived. Mr. Waldroup was taken to jail. By way of a behavioral genetics study described by the following, he also managed to survive.

Prosecutors were convinced that Mr. Wardroup’s actions were intentional and premeditated, and they charged him with the felony murder of Ms. Bradshaw, which carries a death penalty. Mr. Waldroup was also charged with attempted first-degree murder of his wife.

Genetic research has indicated that, in addition to other issues, a rare mutation in a neurotransmitter metabolizing enzyme (specifically, monoamine oxidase A) links a gene to a syndrome including violence, sexual aggression and impulsivity in humans. This, in combination with a history of early traumatic life events such as child abuse and lack of parental warmth, in high-provocation situations, can significantly increase the vulnerability of males to committing impulsive and violent acts. The gene involved is often referred to as the “warrior gene.”

Mr. Waldroup was tested and found to have the warrior gene. He had also been abused as a child. Mr. Waldroup was initially charged with first degree murder, two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, and attempted first degree murder. Despite vigorous objections raised by the prosecution, the defense was allowed to present descriptions of research findings about the links between warrior genes, child abuse and violence to the jury. Mr. Waldroup was ultimately found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, especially aggravated kidnapping, aggravated kidnapping and attempted second degree murder. As a result of the reduced charges, rather than the death penalty, he received a 32-year sentence.

The described research has provided some answers, but it has raised a huge question. In view of the fact that most persons having an unfortunate genetic makeup and an abused childhood background that predisposes them to violent behavior do not commit violent acts, how should courts dispense punishments that are fair to those guilty of violent acts and to the general population. If you, the reader, were a judge overseeing a violence case as described, what sentence would you impose?

Additional Facts:

In addition to violence and impulsivity, the warrior gene has been linked to crime, alcoholism and higher amounts of credit card debt.

As is the case for a number of genotypes, statistical frequency of the warrior gene varies with ethnicity.

MRI analysis has shown that brain activities of those with the warrior gene differ from those who do not have it.

There is an even rarer form of the warrior gene that has been linked to extreme aggression and extreme violence in men.

Defenses similar to that of Mr. Waldroup have also been used in Britain and Italy.

It was believed that this was the first reported case in the United States where such evidence had been introduced in the guilt phase rather than in the sentencing phase of a trial.

It is not surprising that a correlation has also been found between the playing of violent video games and behavioral effects on the brains of young children.

This essay might be of special interest to writers of detective and mystery stories who would like to enrich their stories by presenting their readers with a gift of some extra detail. It might also be of general interest to many other readers.

By January 7, 1984, Julie Helton had lived for some 25 years. She had lived in Marceline, Missouri and had worked for a publishing company. James Grinder, a woodcutter, allegedly put an end to her life on that date by assaulting, beating and stabbing her, leaving her body to be found several days later near a railroad track in Macon, Missouri.

In 1993, Grinder and another suspect, a former Macon policeman, had court-ordered blood samples taken. At that time however, there was insufficient evidence to support an indictment for murder. Grinder subsequently served a sentence for an unrelated crime, but he was arrested upon his release in 1998 He confessed his involvement in the Helton murder, but offered conflicting versions. He subsequently confessed to having been involved in the murders of three other young women.

Macon County sheriff Robert Dawson had spent more than 10,000 man-hours investigating the Helton murder and was determined to prove or disprove the involvement of Grinder in it. To help ensure success, Dawson turned to Dr. Lawrence Farwell, who had developed a system, referred to by its registered trademark as “brain fingerprinting,” for detecting, amplifying, digitizing, recording, analyzing and displaying electrical activity in portions of a person’s brain. Electrical brain activity in response to specific visual and/or auditory stimuli is sensed by a number of electrodes fastened to a flexible headband placed around a subject’s head. The electrodes are positioned to sense electrical activities of the frontal, central and parietal portions of the subject’s brain. The electrodes are connected through an amplifier to a computer, where electrical signals representing brain activities undergo a data analysis by a mathematical algorithm to determine if suspected information is or is not retained in the brain. Results can be recorded, displayed on a monitor and/or printed. An electrical activity detected when a subject is presented with specific crime-related words, phrases and/or pictures results in the creation of a specific pattern displayed in an EEG (electroencephalograph). The pattern represents what is referred to as a MERMER, that is, a Memory and Encoding Related Multifaceted Electroencephalographic Response. (That last bit of information will not be on the next exam.)

The presence of such activity indicates that specific memories have been retained within the brain
portions and are being recalled. For example, someone who has stabbed another person to death and buried his or her body would have memories associated with the stabbing and burial. Electrical activity would be initiated when the stabber is shown a picture, for example, of the murder weapon and when shown words and phrases describing details of the murder, the murder scene, the transportation of the victim, the burial scene, etc. Innocent suspects would not have memories of the crime, and there would be no similar electrical activity when shown such items. The system thus indicates not only when a suspect has memories of a specific crime, but also when s/he does not. The latter advantage could save innocent persons from undergoing unpleasant experiences attending investigations and interrogations and, even worse, undeserved convictions, prison sentences and executions.

Briefly, a typical brain fingerprinting test would include a preliminary investigation to collect information associated with a crime. Such information includes that which a perpetrator would gather while committing the crime in question. Examples would be: the victim was knitting when the suspect broke into her home, the victim was wearing fuzzy pink slippers, there was only one light on, a popular game show was on the victim’s television set, a half-eaten pickle was on a small table next to where the victim was knitting, and the suspect had skinned his knee while breaking in. Such details would be known only by the suspect and perhaps by the police. Ordinary citizens would not likely be aware of any of them and would certainly not be aware of all of them. Of course, relevant information divulged during interrogations and court proceedings must be avoided.

Following an investigation, suitable words, phrases and/or pictures are divided into three stimulus categories: IRRELEVENT, TARGET and PROBE. Irrelevant stimuli, having no relation to the crime, will not elicit a MERMER from a subject. Target stimuli have a relation to the crime and are revealed to the subject prior to the test. They will elicit a comparison-standard MERMER. Probe stimuli to which the subject has not been exposed (unless s/he was, for example, present at or more closely involved in the crime) will not elicit a MERMER. Comparisons of resulting patterns displayed on an electroencephalograph (EEG) will reveal whether or not the subject had details of the crime retained within his or her brain.

Significant details of such an act as a murder are retained in one’s brain for some time. Grinder was tested some 15 years after the murder. Another suspected murderer, Terry Harrington, was tested to confirm or deny his involvement in a murder committed 23 years prior to the test. In 1997, retired Police Captain John Schweer, while working as a night watchman in Council Bluffs, Iowa, was shot to death. A few months later, sixteen-year-old Terry Harrington was arrested. Although Harrington had what was apparently a solid alibi that placed him, at the time of the murder, in Omaha, 20 miles away from the murder scene, he was subsequently convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Following a string of failed appeals, Harrington contacted Dr. Farwell and was given his brain fingerprinting test.

According to Farwell, it was determined with a 99.99 percent confidence that test information related to the murder was not being retained in Harrington’s brain. Farwell further claimed that, again with a 99.99 percent confidence, information related to his alibi was retained in his brain. Subsequently, the Iowa Supreme Court found that police had failed to provide Harrington’s defense attorney with a total of eight reports that could have cast doubt on testimony linking him to the night watchman’s murder. Additionally, the witness who had put Harrington at the scene of the murder recanted. The Iowa Supreme Court reversed Harrington’s conviction and ordered a new trial. The State of Iowa decided not to try Harrington again, and he was once again, after nearly a quarter of a century, a free man.

Readers should realize that brain fingerprinting does not determine guilt or innocence. It is evidence akin to standard fingerprint and DNA evidence that is submitted to a judge or jury whose duty it is to decide guilt.

ADDITIONAL FACTS:

Dr. Farwell has a PhD in biological psychology from the University of Illinois and has done research at Harvard University. In addition to the Brain Fingerprinting system, he has invented a device that enables paralyzed persons to control a computer so that they can communicate and control other devices. Farwell is Chairman and Chief Scientist of Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories, Inc.

Estimates put the number of crime suspects apprehended in the United States at about fourteen million. Estimates of the number of innocent persons serving long-term prison sentences ranges from a few thousand to more than a hundred thousand. Estimates of the fraction of the five thousand or so persons being held on death row that are innocent range between a few and forty percent.

Brain fingerprinting also finds application in additional areas. These include medical diagnostics such as the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease, security testing, military intelligence matters, terrorism, fraud and computer-hacking detection and measuring the effectiveness of campaigns and advertising.

This essay might be of special interest to writers of detective and mystery stories who would like to enrich their stories by providing their readers with a gift of some extra bits of detail. It might also be of general interest to many other readers.

In keeping with a Storytellers Unplugged tradition during the Halloween month of October, the following essay includes a few words about hauntings.

Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary was known for many reasons. Unique among the reasons was that it became home to at least one ghost that was not that of a previous inmate. The ghost was that of another that an inmate brought with him.

At the time of its opening in 1829, Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary, referred to by some as the Alcatraz of the East, was the largest public building in the United States; and, at a cost of some $800,000, was probably the most expensive. Its design had the unique feature of comprising a series of cellblocks extending outwardly like spokes from a central hub. Walls enclosing the entire structure were 12 feet thick at their bases, were 30 feet high and included castellations at their corners. Inmates were kept in constant isolation in individual cells that were eight feet wide and not much longer. A bit of light filtered down from a small skylight referred to as “the eye of God.”

The penitentiary’s popular design was copied some 300 times in Europe, Latin America and even Japan. When Charles Dickens visited the United States in 1842, there were two specific places he wanted to see. One was Niagara Falls, and the other was the Eastern State Penitentiary.

Eventually replacing extreme physical abuse in the prison, and for a large part of its use as a prison, was solitary confinement that forbade speaking, whistling, singing, humming and even mumbling. This allowed no verbal or even visual contact between prisoners or between prisoners and any visitors. Prisoners even wore hoods or masks when being moved to or from a cell. Meals were taken within the cells, and reading was limited to the Bible. The theory behind such isolation was to destroy the criminals’ stubborn spirits,” force prisoners’ thoughts constantly inwardly and thus make them penitent (hence the term penitentiary). The actual result was reportedly to drive a substantial number of prisoners insane and cause many others to have psychological problems. The penitentiary came to be one of the most feared by criminals.

The standard system of solitary confinement was finally abandoned in 1913. Thereafter, short periods of solitary confinement were used as a punishment for prisoner misbehavior.

A well-known resident who called the Eastern State Penitentiary home for a time was Chicago crime boss, Alphonse Gabriel Capone. Shortly after having reportedly ordered, or at least approved, the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of five rival gang members and two “citizens” in a Chicago garage, he had been arrested in Philadelphia for carrying a concealed, deadly weapon. He was sentenced to serve a year in prison. The Eastern State Penitentiary provided his first jail cell, and he stepped into it in 1929. Being located in what was referred to as Park Avenue, his cell was a bit different than those of other prisoners. A reporter described Capone’s cell by writing , “The whole room was suffused in the glow of a desk lamp, which stood on a polished desk. On the once-grim walls of the penal chamber hung tasteful paintings, and the strains of a waltz were being emitted by a powerful cabinet receiver of handsome design and fine finish.” A picture of the cell also shows carpets, a lounge chair, a secretary and a bed. The cell also differed just a bit from others in that, reportedly, the cell door was not always locked. Capone was reportedly also granted the use of the warden’s telephone so that he could tend to his outside interests.

In spite of his relatively comfy accommodations, Capone’s stay was not very pleasant. One of seven of the persons murdered during the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was James Clark (born Albert Kachellek), brother-in-law of George “Bugs” Moran. Supposedly, Clark’s ghost visited Capone in his cell. Other inmates reported hearing Capone screaming and begging Clark to leave him alone. Later, when Capone was living in Chicago’s Lexington Hotel, the number of ghostly visitations increased. His men often heard him, still begging Clark to leave him alone. He spent his last years at his home on Palm Island in Miami, slowly wasting away with syphilis. The Dade County Medical Examiner attributed his death in 1947 to ‘numerous complications including renal, hepatic, and congestive heart failure due to end-stage syphilitic complications. Capone had insisted that Clark’s ghost would follow him to his grave.

ADDITIONAL FACTS:

From his early days in New York, the nickname by which close friends and family referred to Capone was “Snorkey.”

The Chicago garage where the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre took place was leveled in 1967, and some of the bullet-pocked bricks of its rear wall were sold. One of the bricks now resides in the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The Eastern State Penitentiary served as a prison for 142 years, during which it had been the home of nearly 80,000 men and women. Just as it had been a favorite attraction for many tourists during the 1830s and 1840s, it now serves as a tourist attraction and movie set. Tradition has it that not all the inmates have “left” and those that did not now haunt the prison. The location where most spooky sightings have been reported is in the showers of cell block 12, and they embody a female dressed in white. She is appropriately referred to as the “soap lady.”

Among the noteworthy prisoners of the Eastern State Penitentiary was one named Pep. He had reportedly been given a life sentence in 1924 by the governor of Pennsylvania, Clifford Pinchot, for having murdered his wife’s cat. Pep was imprisoned until he died during the 1930s. He was a black Labrador retriever.

That the Eastern State Penitentiary was a prime example of advanced form, and especially of advanced function, when it was opened in 1829 is dramatically evidenced by each cell having a small exercise yard attached to it and central heating, running water and a toilet in each cell. President Andrew Jackson was still trudging to and from an outhouse on the White House lawn.

December 7, 1971 was the day the Empire of Japan attacked the Pearl Harbor Naval Base in Hawaii. The following day was the day that, in a speech to Congress, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt referred to December 7 as “a date which will live in infamy.” He also asked Congress for a declaration of war against the Axis Powers, and it was delivered within an hour of the speech. The United States thus suddenly found itself in World War II.

Although a special limousine was available to transport FDR, now that the U.S. was at war, the Secret Service wanted an armored vehicle to transport him to give his speech to Congress at noon on December 8 and thereafter to prevent Japanese or German agents from assassinating him. Fortunately, just such a vehicle had been sitting for some time in a Treasury Department parking lot. Mechanics spent many hectic hours cleaning and checking all the features of the vehicle, and it was used to transport FDR until 1942. It was a 1928 Cadillac Town Sedan and was about as armored as a car could be. It weighed some 9,000 pounds. It also had the dark distinction of having been confiscated from none other than Alphonse Gabriel Capone. When told of the source of the car, FDR reportedly said, “I hope Mr. Capone won’t mind.”

Capone had his car outfitted with some 3,000 pounds of armor, bulletproof windows, a radio that scanned police frequencies, and flashing lights mounted behind its grill. It had also been painted black and green to emulate a Chicago police car. Pictures of the car can be found by Googling “Al Capone’s car.”

In 1942, the Ford Motor Co. bulletproofed a 1939 Lincoln convertible limousine for the president. To stay within stiff spending limits, the government leased the car for $500 per year. FDR nicknamed it the “Sunshine Special.”

Capone had a high-living lawyer named Edward Joseph O’Hare, known as “Easy Eddie.” In return for his keeping Capone out of jail and other rumored services, Eddie was well paid and given a mansion. He seemed oblivious to the horrific things being done by Capone and his underlings, but he always looked after his son, Edward Henry “Butch” O’Hare, providing him with everything he ever needed. He also tried to keep him on the straight and narrow. In an attempt to lighten the dark load that would be borne by his son because of his reputation, or possibly to keep himself out of prison, Eddie decided to testify against Capone and the Capone gang. As a result, in 1932, Capone was sentenced to eleven years in prison for income tax evasion. Easy Edie was murdered in 1939.

During World War II, Butch became a fighter pilot stationed in the South Pacific on the aircraft carrier, USS Lexington. While returning alone from a mission he had to abort due to an insufficient amount of fuel, he observed a squadron of Japanese aircraft about to attack the Lexington. After he had fired all his ammunition at the planes, he dove at them, trying to clip their control surfaces, until they finally turned away from the carrier. Butch destroyed five enemy planes and disabled another. His actions won him the honor of being the Navy’s first ace and its first pilot to be awarded a Medal of Honor. Unfortunately, a year later, Butch was killed during combat.

You might pay Butch another honor by remembering his name the next time you pass through Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. It was renamed in his honor in 1949. A substitute for Butch’s Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat aircraft was put on display at the west end of Terminal 2.

This essay might be of special interest to writers of detective and mystery stories who would like to enrich their stories by providing their readers with a gift of some extra details. It might also be of general interest to many other readers. The two opening, example stories are a bit outside the realm of forensics, but they serve as a preface to the communication technology involved in forensic situations, for example, terrorism, smuggling and assassinations, where secret communications over long distances play an important role.

* * * * * *

Martin’s hand trembled slightly as he removed a radio transmitter hidden beneath a floorboard in his apartment and began to tap out an encoded message. It was early winter of 1943, and he was an English secret agent sent to France to gather critical military information and radio it to a military receiver in England.

Vehicles having rotating, directional antennas on their roofs and being manned by German soldiers were prowling in the general area of Martin’s apartment, searching for radio signals. The antennas on three of the vehicles, each at a different location, had stopped while aimed in the direction from which the strongest radio signal was being received, that is, in the direction of the source of the message being transmitted by Martin. Imaginary lines extending in the direction pointed to by each antenna intersected each other at a point that was very close to the transmitter. Within minutes, the door to Martin’s apartment burst open, and he was faced by three armed men in German military uniforms. It was a long time before he saw his home in England again.

More recently, an American secret agent on a mission similar to Martin’s transmitted an encoded radio signal to a receiver in the United States from a location in an unfriendly country. He, however, used a directional antenna aimed at a location in the sky and his message had been prerecorded before being transmitted. Receivers placed in strategic locations by the unfriendly country to intercept such messages did so. The direction from which the signal had arrived at the receivers might have led to another door being burst open, but the transmitter of the message would not have been found behind it. WHY NOT?

Many of us have seen trails left by meteors (also known as shooting stars and falling stars) as they zip through dense layers of the Earth’s atmosphere, their passage resulting in their being heated to a point of incandescence. Fortunately, most meteors are quite small–comparable to the size of a grain of sand–so we need not wear helmets when we venture outdoors. Many, many more small meteors enter the atmosphere than do large ones; and even fewer are large enough to survive a passage through the atmosphere without burning up. Those that do survive and land upon the Earth’s surface are known as meteorites. Meteorites having a size between that of a sand grain and a boulder are sometimes referred to as meteoroids (meaning meteor-like).

Readers might remember that, in their natural state, atoms have an equal number of positively charged protons and negatively charged electrons, making them electrically neutral. The numbers of electrons and protons distinguish atoms of one basic element from atoms of all other elements. Gaining or losing electrons upsets the neutral balance of electric charge, leaving the atom in a state known as an ion. The passage of meteors knocks negative electrons from atoms, transforming them into positively charged ions and, as a result, leaves a trail as long as 12 miles of free electrons and ionized particles in their wake.

A radio signal usually travels in a straight line known as a “line of sight.”  Since the surface of the Earth is curved, the distances across which transmitted signals can be successfully received are limited.   Transmitting and receiving antennas are placed atop tall buildings and towers to extend such distances. Interestingly, meteor trails can also be used to extend the distances radio signals can travel between transmitters and associated receivers. Radio, television and radar signals of certain frequencies can be reflected by the electrically charged trails.  The trails are sometimes higher but are usually detected in the upper atmosphere, between 50 and 75 miles above the Earth’s surface. With reflectors at such heights, signals reflected by meteor trails can reach receivers more than a thousand miles away. 

Meteor trails occur sporadically, and their trails usually last for only a few seconds and rarely for a few minutes. so information is transmitted in short bursts. A message in Morse code, for example, can be recorded, sped up by a factor of about 200, transmitted and decoded after being received. An estimated 1,000,000,000,000 meteors (more than a ton) come to visit our atmosphere every day, thereby providing a significant amount of reflective trail material.

Regarding the second opening, example story, a result of a radio signal being reflected between a transmitter and a receiver is that, since the signal does not follow a direct, predictable path, the location of the transmitter could not have been accurately determined. This is why the transmitter would not have been found behind the aforementioned door.

Where there is satellite coverage, of course, messages can be more dependably relayed to receivers even farther away; but meteor burst communication provides a means of radio communication that can be used where no other means is available.

As a shuttle astronaut recently mentioned, human waste was jettisoned from shuttles to burn up in the atmosphere. As a consequence, that brilliant trail you might once have witnessed may have been the remains of something far less less exotic than a meteor.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

The advantages of meteor burst communications also include its inherent interception, detection, antijamming and nuclear survivability characteristics.

Atmospheric meteors move at a bare minimum rate of some 25,000 mph but can exceed 100,000 mph.

Some 50 tons of dust and meteorites are added to the estimated 6.58 sextillion tons of the Earth every year.

Meteor showers occur when the Earth passes through space debris. The showers provide fruitful viewing for several days. The dates of major meteor showers can be easily found on the internet. (See, for example, meteorshowers.com.)

For those interested, broadcasts of live meteor burst audio received at Roswell, NM are made available by Spaceweather.com at the following locations:\

http://spaceweatherradio.com/index.php

or
Space Weather Radio

This essay might be of special interest to writers of detective and mystery stories who would like to enrich their stories by providing their readers with a gift of some extra details. It might also be of general interest to many other readers.

Unfortunately, the tag referred to in the title is often one affixed to the toe of a dead body.

Until one early Sunday morning in July, Marion, 42, had never met Lamar, 16. Marion had just finished her night shift as a Chicago 911 police dispatcher and was driving home. Lamar had allegedly left a party where he had drunk vodka, smoked marijuana and taken ecstasy. He noticed a man paying for parking while leaving the engine of his Range Rover running, and he allegedly hopped into the vehicle and sped away.

According to police, Lamar had been stopped for having run a red light. When the police tried to question him, he suddenly backed the Range Rover, nearly striking two officers and ramming a squad car in the process. He than took off with police in vigorous pursuit. After having led the police chase for about a mile, Lamar ran through a stop sign. It was here that at least the vehicle driven by Lamar met that driven by Marion for the first and last time. The meeting smashed Marion’s vehicle and sent it spinning into a fire hydrant, causing Marion’s eventual death.

Lamar had not finished creating a swath of destruction. He sped off once more and rammed a parked car with such force that it left the car, off the ground, imbedded sideways in a brick wall. He then abandoned the Range Rover and fled on foot, but he was soon apprehended.

Lamar was subsequently charged as an adult with murder and lesser crimes and held under a $1 million bond. He had previously been sentenced as a juvenile to probation for having twice been found in possession of stolen vehicles. Surprisingly, Lamar was an honors student who excelled in two sports at a high-quality school that prepares boys for success in college.

Another sad incident occurred when police tried unsuccessfully to stop the driver of a Dodge Neon for having violated a traffic rule. While fleeing, the driver of the Neon, which turned out to have been car jacked, ran a stop sign and collided with a GMC Sierra pickup truck. Five children were in the truck. Four of them were killed when ejected by the crash, and the fifth died later at a hospital. Their two parents were hospitalized in serious condition. Three adults riding in the Neon were also killed in the collision.

Reportedly, 85 percent of the more than 100,000 high-speed police chases in the U.S. every year involve nonviolent offenders. According to federal statistics, the number of persons killed every year during police chases hovers about 350. About a third of those are innocent bystanders. The numbers reflect only those deaths that are reported. The reporting of such deaths is not mandatory, however; and the actual number is thought to be much higher, perhaps by a factor of three or four. An academic expert in such matters estimates that from 35 to 40 percent of police chases end in crashes.

Many police forces have tried to reduce the number of tragedies by issuing rules governing when to chase and when not to chase. Risking lives by chasing someone who has committed a minor traffic infraction and simply panicked is not worthwhile, but a police officer usually has no way of knowing whether the driver is guilty of a minor traffic infraction or is a viscous serial killer. Reducing the number of fatalities, injuries and costly lawsuits to zero is probably impossible, but there is a recently developed technology that should result in a significant reduction.

John and his partner, Frank, were driving in a northerly direction in their police cruiser and had turned left behind a west-bound Ford Mustang. As they were beginning the turn, John had noticed a startled expression on the face of the Mustang’s driver when he recognized the cruiser. John had seen such an expression many times during his long career as a policeman, and it usually indicated that the driver was up to no good. He trailed the Mustang as Frank called in its license number. The number was reported to be that of a stolen car, and John activated the cruiser’s siren and flashing lights. The Mustang’s driver responded by accelerated away from the cruiser.

John closed the gap between the two cars, but traffic made forcing the Mustang to stop dangerous. Frank manipulated a few controls and John slowed the cruiser, allowing the Mustang to pull away. Thinking the police had abandoned the chase, the Mustang’s driver slowed. A few minutes later, he found himself boxed in by police cruisers. Having no viable alternatives, he surrendered with no further resistance.

The controls that Frank manipulated were those of a StarChase Pursuit Management System, which targeted the Mustang by aiming a laser at it . Mounted on the front of the police cruiser was a launcher that used compressed air to fire a tracking projectile at the Mustang after it had been targeted. The projectile comprised a global position system (GPS), a radio transmitter and a power supply. These components were embedded within a strongly adhesive compound that adhered the projectile to the Mustang.

The GPS transmitted the position coordinates of the Mustang to a dispatcher. The dispatcher was then able to track the Mustang on a digital roadmap such as depicted on television programs such as NCIS and direct other cruisers to a location where they intercepted the Mustang.

Thanks to the tracking technology, the stolen car was recovered; and there were no resulting injuries, fatalities or lawsuits.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Data from a StarChase Pursuit Management System can be downloaded and stored and is reportedly considered admissible evidence in court.

Very basically, GPS is a system that uses a mathematical analysis of the times it takes signals from a number of satellites to reach a GPS receiver to determine distances to the satellites and, from that information, the location and speed of the receiver. The signals include the time a signal is sent and precise orbital information. The accuracy of a position determination is proportional to the number of satellites engaged. Signals from three satellites provide a rough position. Signals from four provides more accuracy and can also be used to determine altitude if, for example, the GPS receiver is located in an aircraft. The system typically uses signals from four or more satellites simultaneously.

There are, of course, many military GPS applications such as precision weapon guidance, downed-pilot locating and patrol tracking. GPS satellites also house a variety of radiation sensors, and they actually represent a major portion of the U.S. Nuclear Detonation Detection System.

GPS time is based upon that of atomic clocks and is reportedly accurate to about 14 nanoseconds (14 billionths of a second). How does that compare with the accuracy of your watch?

Between tides, the water covering a reef was relatively still as a small pistol shrimp crept toward an even smaller shrimp. The pistol shrimp’s two claws had no pincers, but the larger of the two had a “pistol-like” device comprising two portions. A movable part was cocked like a hammer and then released to snap against a stationary part. The fast moving hammer caused a “tear” within a small volume of the surrounding water, causing the water to vaporize into a gas and create a tiny bubble, or cavity, in the water. The pressure of the surrounding water, then being much higher than that of the gas within the cavity, caused an immediate implosion of the cavity. The gas dissipated violently into the surrounding water, creating an acoustic shock wave that stunned the smaller shrimp. This allowed the pistol shrimp to secure what was to become lunch and drag it into a burrow it had made in the sand beneath the reef.

An hour later, the pistol shrimp was resting just outside its burrow and beside its constant, symbiotic partner – often referred to as a “watchman goby.” The shrimp’s antennae were resting upon the goby’s tail and body so that it could detect every movement of the fish. Having far better eyesight than its partner, the goby was the first to notice a large predator heading in their direction. Having no interest in exploring the inside of the predator’s stomach, the goby darted into the burrow it shared with the shrimp. Feeling the goby’s sudden movements, the shrimp assumed it had detected danger and ducked into the burrow with it. Their symbiotic relationship provided the shrimp with a lookout and provided the goby with a burrow in which to hide and to protect its eggs.

Tiny cavities are created in other situations when there are rapid changes in the pressures of small volumes of liquids. This is known as cavitation inception. When cavities are repeatedly imploded, they create impact stresses in contacting surfaces that result in wear of the surfaces. Such wear is known as cavitation. Cavitation processes come in two flavors: inertial (also known as transient) and noninertial. The process involving the pistol shrimp is inertial. Other inertial processes that include rapidly imploding cavities that produce shock waves commonly damage valves and boat propellers. In noninertial cavitation processes, a cavity is oscillated in size and/or shape, typically by an ultrasonic sound, when used in a cleaning bath. Cavitation may thus be understood to produce both beneficial and detrimental results.

While the pistol shrimp was enjoying its lunch and resting outside its burrow, a thief named Bernie was busy stealing a legally registered, unfired pistol during a B&E and grinding off its serial number. Following a tip to the police, Bernie was arrested under suspicion of having committed the B&E. The gun was found in his possession, and it became an important piece of evidence that linked him to the B&E. Without the serial number, however, how could investigators be certain the gun was the one stolen during the B&E … and what did that have to do with the pistol shrimp?

A common denominator between the pistol shrimp and the pistol serial number is cavitation. A pistol shrimp can use cavitation to get a meal, and a forensic examiner can often use cavitation to get a serial number from a pistol from which the number has been removed. Serial numbers (and/or letters) are typically pressure stamped into the metal of firearms. This not only displaces metal to form numbers, it displaces metal located below and beside the impressed numbers, rearranging its structure. To reveal the numbers, the area of the firearm that contained them is immersed in a fluid that is ultrasonically vibrated. The vibration causes cavitations that wear away the displaced metal faster than the nondisplaced metal, leaving in its place a cavitation-etched likeness of the original serial number. This procedure is known as the ultrasonic cavitation method.

Another restoration procedure is known as the chemical and electrochemical etching method. A forensic examiner using the method coats an area that previously bore a serial number with an etching solution. The solution etches the displaced metal faster than the nondisplaced metal surrounding it, revealing the original serial number. As indicated by the name of the procedure, the process can be accelerated by directing an electric current through the metal as well as by applying a chemical etching solution.

Yet another restoration procedure is known as the magnaflux method. This involves magnetizing the metal of a firearm and spraying it with an oil having iron particles suspended within it. Magnetic lines of force associated with a magnetic field created when the firearm was magnetized course through the metal, following contours of the metal. The iron particles in the oil align with the lines of force. The shapes of lines of force passing through displaced metal will follow the contours of the displaced metal, and the iron particle disposition will provide a copy of the original serial number that is visible to an examiner. This method has an advantage of being nondestructive, that is, it finishes with all the evidence it began with.

The serial number restoration method applied depends on the type of material used to make a firearm in question, how a serial number was originally applied and what was done while attempting to obliterate the serial number. In addition to the three methods of serial number determination described, sometimes simpler methods are all that are required. These include optically scanning the area that previously bore a serial number, perhaps after applying chalk to accentuate any remaining portions, and observing the area using various light sources.

Oh yes, Bernie will not be grinding any serial numbers for some time.

ADDITIONAL FACTS:

The snapping sound created by a pistol shrimp has a duration of less than a millisecond; but it compares in loudness (reportedly 218 decibels, which is twice as loud as a chain saw positioned a yard away) to sounds made by sperm and beluga whales. This makes the shrimp one of the loudest animals in the sea. The pressure of a sound wave emitted by a pistol shrimp is reportedly powerful enough to kill small fish and break glass, and the noise made by groups of pistol shrimp is loud enough to interfere with sonar and undersea communications.

When a cavity implodes as described in the foregoing, the pressure within it can reach several hundred atmospheres; and the temperature within it can reach several thousand degrees Fahrenheit,

It is unlawful to remove or change the serial number of a firearm.

As indicated in the foregoing, firearm serial numbers are not all restricted to actual numbers. Some also include letters.

The serial numbers of firearms made by one manufacturer are all different, but the numbers used by one manufacturer are sometimes the same as those used by another.

This essay might be of special interest to writers of detective and mystery stories who would like to enrich their stories by providing their readers with a gift of some extra bits of detail. It might also be of general interest to many other readers.

What a woman living in Salem, Oregon thought would be just an ordinary day in the early summer of 1961 turned out to be anything but ordinary.  Her first clue was delivered by her dog when it returned home from its usual morning inspection of neighborhood shrubs and fire hydrants with a paper bag containing a human foot.  Her telephone call to the police brought detectives to investigate.  Her second clue came while the detectives were still at her house, and her dog brought home a human hand.  A subsequent area search revealed several more body parts.   The parts were determined to be that of a woman having recently been reported missing by her husband.  A witness had seen her leaving a bar with a man who was soon identified as Richard Laurence Marquette. A search of his home revealed more body parts in his refrigerator.

The Oregon governor requested help from the FBI in locating Marquette.  Marquette’s name was added to the FBI’s famous Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list (hereinafter referred to as the Top Ten list).  The list already included ten names, and Marquette had the sinister distinction of being the first felon to have his name be the eleventh name on the list. He was recognized by a citizen who had seen his posted photograph in a credit bureau and was arrested in Santa Maria, California the very next day.

The Top Ten list owes its beginning to an article written by a reporter who had requested a list of the names and descriptions of the “toughest guys” that the FBI wanted apprehended.  The subsequent article written by the reporter drew such a public response that, on March 14, 1950, the FBI implemented the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives program.  The program has been quite successful.  As of May 1, 2011, 494 persons have been listed; and 464 have been located.  Of the 464, 152 fugitives were located as a direct result of citizen involvement. Thus far, listed criminals have been apprehended in all states except Alaska, Delaware and Maine. Rewards for information can be as much as $100,000 if it leads directly to an arrest of a Top Ten fugitive. The reward offered by the FBI for such information concerning a fugitive named Victor Manuel Gerena might be as high as $1 million. More about Gerena later.

To “qualify” for inclusion in the list, a criminal must have a history of having committed serious crimes and/or represent a present, dangerous public threat in view of current criminal charges. The names of candidates for the list are submitted from all 56 FBI Field Offices. Criminals already having nationwide notoriety from other sources are not included.

In addition to the list being posted in many places, the ABC Radio Network hosts a program named “FBI This Week”; and the Fox Television Network hosts a program named “America’s Most Wanted: America Fights Back.” The latter presents recreations of crimes plus photographs and video tapes of criminals. These programs have resulted in the apprehension of a number of profiled fugitives.

The list has included the names of only eight women. Ruth Eisemann-Schier’s name was the first woman’s name added to the list, and that was on December 28, 1968. She and her boyfriend had kidnapped a 20-year-old college student named Barbara Jane Mackle from a wealthy family, buried her in a box and demanded a ransom. The family paid $500,000, and the young student was safely unearthed. Life sustaining means had been provided by the kidnappers, but spending 83 hours in the box must have been a terrifying experience.

Eisemann-Schier was apprehended on March 6, 1969, served four years of a seven-year sentence and was finally deported to Honduras, her country of origin. The kidnapping was described in a book, “83 Hours ‘Til Dawn,” written by Mackle, and was the subject of two television movies, “The Longest Night” (1972) and “83 Hours ‘Til Dawn” (1990).

The name that has been on the Top Ten list for the longest period is that of previously mentioned Victor Manuel Gerena. His name has been on the list since May 14, 1984, some 27 years. Ironically, Gerena had been a security guard. In 1983, he robbed a security company of some $7 million. He reportedly forced two employees to accompany him at gunpoint during his getaway. He then reportedly bound them and injected them with an unknown substance to render them helpless. As mentioned previously, a reward as high as $1 million is being offered for information that leads directly to his arrest.

The name that was on the list for the shortest period from the time it was added until its holder was apprehended was that of Billie Austin Bryant. His name was on the list from 5:00 pm on January 8, 1963 until 7:00 pm on January 8, 1963, a total of two hours. After having robbed six banks and escaping from jail, Bryant unbelievably robbed a bank where he had been a previous customer. Two tellers recognized and promptly identified him. When three agents went to talk to his wife at her apartment, Bryant answered their knock, shot and killed two of them, and escaped by climbing down a tree growing near a bedroom window. A manhunt quickly followed the issue of a warrant for his arrest, and his name was added to the Top Ten list. A man in a nearby apartment building, who had learned about the shootings, became suspicious when he heard noises in an attic above his apartment. He reported them, and Bryant was promptly arrested. He is now serving two consecutive life terms with no possibility of parole.

Several well-known names have appeared on the Top Ten list. James Earl Ray’s name was one of six that appeared on it twice. Readers no doubt remember Ray as having been found guilty of shooting and killing Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 as King stood on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Ray was an early school dropout and had served in the U.S. Army in Germany. His first conviction was for a burglary in California in 1949, for which he was jailed for three months. He served two years for an armed robbery in Illinois in 1952, served time in the U.S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas for stealing and forging postal money orders in 1955, and was sentenced in 1959 to 20 years in prison for armed robbery in Missouri. In 1967, he escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary by hiding in a truck carrying bread baked in the prison. He roamed through a number of states and also spent time in Canada and Mexico.

Ray held a strong racial bias against African Americans, was a supporter of George Wallace and his segregationist platform, and spent time working in the Wallace campaign headquarters in Los Angeles. While in Los Angeles, he had a plastic surgery procedure performed on his nose. Two weeks later, he headed east to Atlanta, Georgia, where he checked into a rooming house. Ray then drove to Birmingham, Alabama, where, on March 30, 1968, he bought a rifle, a telescopic sight and 20 cartridges. He then returned to Atlanta, where, from a local newspaper, he learned of King’s planned visit to Memphis. On April 2, Ray headed for Memphis. Two days later, King was shot to death.

Ray’s name was added to the Top Ten list on April 20, 1968; and he was apprehended in London, England on June 8, 1968. During his trial, Ray admitted to having killed King and was sentenced to serve 99 years in prison. On June 10, 1977, with five fellow inmates, Ray escaped from Brushy Mountain State Prison in Tennessee. On June 11, his name was again added to the Top Ten list; and he was recaptured two days later. On November 9, 1979, Ray escaped again from the Brushy Mountain State Prison; but he was recaptured the same day—this time without the aid of the Top Ten list. After a number of additional escapades and questions about whether or not he had actually killed King, Ray died from a liver problem at 70 in 1998.

William “Willie” Sutton (born William Francis Sutton) is another name readers might find familiar. The public followed his exploits for decades. Because he often dressed and posed as a postman, messenger, maintenance man and policeman while “doing business,” he was also known as “Willie the Actor ” and “Slick Willie.” He is often remembered for having replied, when asked why he robbed banks, “because that’s where the money is.” Sutton made a career of committing an estimated 100 bank robberies and reportedly netted some $2 million. He was also a pretty fair hand at breaking out of prisons. He broke out of three.

Sutton was arrested for murder when he was 21 but was acquitted. He was arrested and jailed for safecracking and was released in 1927. In 1930, he robbed his first bank. In 1930, he found himself sitting in the maximum-security prison known as Sing Sing. In 1932, he found himself on a makeshift ladder, climbing over a wall and escaping from Sing Sing. After a few years of robbing banks and stores, he was caught and given a new place to sit in Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary. His five escape attempts from there strongly indicate that he didn’t approve of the the accommodations. He was eventually moved in 1945 to Holmesburg Prison, also in Philadelphia.

In 1945, Sutton joined eleven other inmates in escaping through a long tunnel that had taken some 18 months to dig and reinforce. He was caught within minutes just two blocks from the penitentiary. Not being one to give up easily, in 1947, Sutton and a few other convicts stole some guard uniforms and left the prison in search of surroundings that were more to their liking. Apparently, not all the escapees were satisfied with their new surroundings. Eight days later, one returned, rang the “doorbell,” said he was hungry, and asked to be let back in. Less than a week after Sutton escaped, room was found on the Top Ten list for his name. He was the eleventh person to have his name added. He was again collected in 1952 and sent to Attica Prison in New York.

Sutton denied having answered a question about why he robbed banks with the much-quoted statement that he robbed banks “because that’s where the money is.” In his co-authored autobiography, he said he robbed banks “because I enjoyed it. I loved it. I was more alive when I was inside a bank, robbing it, than at any other time in my life. I enjoyed everything about it so much that one or two weeks later I’d be out looking for the next job. But to me the money was the chips, that’s all.”

Sutton used a pistol and a Thompson submachine gun in his robberies but never killed anyone. He is reported to have said that “ You can’t rob a bank on charm and personality.” When asked if the guns he used were loaded during his robberies, he said that he never carried a loaded gun because somebody might get hurt. Whether the weapons carried by Sutton and his accomplices were loaded or not, they were never fired during a robbery. In fact, Sutton’s victims usually reported that he had been very pleasant and polite.

Being in ill health, Sutton was paroled and released on Christmas Eve, 1969. He later campaigned for prison reform and recommended antirobbery techniques to bankers. He also made a television commercial for a bank, promoting its new credit card that carried a picture ID on it. During the commercial, he briefly described the card and its advantages. Holding up a card bearing his picture, he then said, “Now, when I say I’m Willie Sutton, people believe me.” He died in 1980.

ADDITIONAL FACTS:

Topping the list of top ten fugitive apprehensions per state were California, with 59, and New York, with 40. Tied for third place were Florida and Illinois, each with 32.

The name, “Sing Sing,” derived from the name of the Sinck Sinck Indian tribe from whom the land where the prison was built had been purchased in 1685. It is located at Ossining on the Hudson River about 35 miles north of Manhattan—hence the description of an incarcerated criminal as having been “sent up the river.” Sing Sing houses approximately 1,700 prisoners.

A mob hit man who befriended Sutton in prison and later became a government witness stated that Willie Sutton made Jesse James and John Dillinger look like amateurs.

Willie Sutton’s longest stint of honest employment was only 18 months. He spent a total of 35 years behind bars.

This essay might be of special interest to writers of detective and mystery stories who would like to enrich their stories by providing their readers with a gift of some extra bits of detail. It might also be of general interest to many other readers.

When many persons hear the words “police dog,” they picture a German Shepherd. Actually, there are a number of breeds used in police work. The different breeds are chosen and trained according to their natural capabilities. As one might assume, the greatest number of different breeds are trained and used as public order enforcement dogs. These dogs earn their living by intimidating suspects so that they do not resist arrest or run and chasing, catching and holding suspects that do run. Surprisingly, to some, and probably of embarrassment to many, the list of order enforcement dogs includes poodles. Inmates caught by poodles would probably not want the name of the breed that caught them to become known by other prisoners.

Sniffer dogs (also known as detection dogs) are those that use their keen senses of smell to find persons and such things as blood, illicit substances, flammable liquids, explosives, weapons and even bumblebee nests, invasive quagga mussels and bed bugs. Sniffer dogs come in two flavors: a passive-alert canine, which is trained to sit or bark when it discovers something, and an aggressive-alert canine, which displays an alert by scratching. For obvious reasons, one would not want to use an aggressive-alert canine to find explosives.

Reportedly, dogs can identify scents between 1,000 and 10,000 times better than humans can. And they have the equipment to do it. Humans and dogs have scroll-shaped nasal membranes (turbinates) that contain scent-detecting cells. If unrolled, human turbinates would measure about one square inch. A dog’s would be almost as large as an 8-by-8-inch sheet of paper. Research has determined that the percentage of a dog’s brain involved in analyzing scents is some 40 times that of a human. Humans have about 5 million scent receptors. German shepherds and beagles have about 225 million, and bloodhounds have about 300 million.

Of course, no one dog can be trained as a one-nose-fits-all sniffer dog. Many dogs, however, have been trained to differentiate between as many as eight different scents; and attempts to hide one scent with another rarely succeeds. An example of a dog’s ability to differentiate scents occurred when a woman attempted to smuggle drugs hidden in a balloon placed within her bra into an Australian prison. The balloon had been smeared with substances including coffee, pepper and Vicks Vaporub to mask the scent of the drugs, but a dog still managed to alert its handler to the drug’s presence. An example of sniffer-dog sensitivity is a reported instance where a dog found a drop of blood on a wall. The wall had been scrubbed until the blood was but speck-sized in an effort to remove it. As the popular, canine, cartoon dog, Snoopy, once said, “The eye can be deceived, but the nose knows.”

Illicit substance detection dogs are often stationed with their handlers in transit stations, such as airline, railroad and bus terminals, through which large numbers of persons pass. Dogs can detect drugs or explosives carried by passengers in their clothing or baggage without always having to be very close to them. It would take a human quite some time to check every passing person.

Tracking dogs are trained to follow a specific person’s path. An example would be a lost person or an escaping criminal. Tracking tasks fall into one of two types: wilderness searches and urban searches. Wilderness searches are the easiest from the standpoint of the tracking dog. There are fewer if any other human scents to confuse them, and natural surfaces tend to retain scents longer than do scents located on urban surfaces. Urban searches are more difficult. Scents don’t last as long on artificial surfaces, and the scents there include those left by many humans and even other dogs. Not only are the scents of many humans and other dogs to be found in an urban setting, many humans and dogs are also themselves present, and most of them are in motion. Urban noises coming from many sources can also be a distraction.

Tracking and trailing dogs are sometimes thought to be one and the same. Although they are used for the same purpose, they are a bit different. Tracking dogs work with their noses close to the ground, and trailing dogs track with their noses sometimes near the ground and sometimes with their noses raised while “air scenting.” Humans continuously emit microscopic particles bearing a person’s scent, and the particles can drift for considerable distances. Air scenting can be a life-saving talent because it enables a trailing dog to alert its handler if a suspect circles back to ambush the handler.

In addition to knowing a place to begin tracking, a tracking dog needs a scent sample bearing the scent of the person being tracked. Pillow cases and pajamas are good examples, but they must be uncontaminated by a family or search member. They should be picked up with pincers and placed in a Ziploc or a plain brown bag so that the scent will be only that of the person being tracked. Note that some waste bags are treated to alter odors and therefore should not be used for this purpose.

As their name indicates, disaster dogs are used to find persons and bodies in and under rubble usually created when buildings are destroyed by storms, earthquakes, tsunamis, explosions or fire. The earthquake in Haiti brought persons from all over the world to provide aide. From Manchester, England came a firefighter named Mike Dewar and his Labrador retriever, Echo. Readers might have seen pictures of a two-year-old girl named Mia Charlet, found by Echo, being pulled to safety from beneath what was left of a school. Within ten days, Echo performed 45 searches of collapsed buildings. The exertion in extreme heat resulted in Echo finally having to be treated for heat exhaustion.

Twenty-five percent of fires in Santa Clara County, California are reportedly of arson origin. One neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan suffered 17 arsons within one 4-day period. Finding the origin of such fires can lead to discovering the presence of an accelerant, for example, a flammable liquid such as gasoline, which strongly indicates that a fire was started intentionally. Visual clues, such as a V-shaped, charred portion of a wall can indicate that a fire started near the bottom point of the V. Arson investigation dogs (also known as operational accelerant detection dogs) trained to detect a number of flammable liquids have proved to be extremely adept at locating even miniscule amounts of an accelerant. One Labrador Retriever was reportedly able to detect a substance having a concentration of only one part per trillion and could detect a half drop of a flammable liquid in the charred remains of a burned structure.

Although it is not always necessary to have a body to prosecute a murder suspect, sometimes a body is needed just to prove that a crime took place. Decomposing bodies and body parts emit specific gasses, and cadaver dogs have been trained to find the sources of scents associated with the gasses. Such dogs are used to discover the locations of human bodies that have been decomposing at a temporary resting site, in a permanent gravesite or under rubble of a collapsed structure. Cadaver dogs that are air-scenting dogs can even trail a decomposing body that was carried to its burial site.

Some cadaver dogs are used as water search dogs to find bodies in or under water. Emitted decomposition gasses rise from a body through water and can be detected by a dog moving along a bank or riding in a boat. Since water and wind constantly carry scents away from their source, a diver usually accompanies the dog and its handler to check the area as soon as the dog alerts.

Although some police dogs are cross-trained to perform more than one function, those functions must not be ones that might result in an unwanted result. It was bad enough when a border patrol officer’s drug-sniffer dog, which had slipped his leash and run down a line of cars searching for drugs, returned – as would a trained retriever – to the officer with a package of marijuana taken from a then-indeterminable location. An even worse situation–one not too many handlers would enjoy–would be one where an officer ended up being chased by his or her confused dog that had fetched and returned with a bomb in its jaws.

ADDITIONAL FACTS:

According to an ABC newscast, a combat K-9 in body armor and trained to sniff out explosive booby-traps accompanied the Navy seal team during their raid on bin Laden’s place of residence.

Police dogs are commonly treated legally in much the same manner as are police officers. Accordingly, anyone who interferes with, injures or kills a police dog might be faced with a severe penalty.

Avalanche dogs have been used for some time to find persons buried under as much as 15 feet of snow.

Parasitic wasps can be trained in a half hour to detect a cadaver. Unfortunately, they live only a few days.

Police dogs are sometimes seen to be wearing a muzzle. Reportedly, this is not to keep the dog from biting but to maintain the dog’s focus and/or to prevent the dog from barking.

There have been some fascist countries wherein police dogs were actually trained to maim or kill.

A girl in Western New York State solicited contributions to provide a local police dog with a bullet-proof vest. Within a few weeks, enough money poured in to buy every police dog in three counties a vest.

Beagles are used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to detect various banned fruits and vegetables and prevent their entry to the country. They have become affectionately known as the Beagle Brigade.

This essay might be of special interest to writers of detective and mystery stories who would like to enrich their stories by providing their readers with a gift of some extra bits of detail. It might also be of general interest to many other readers.

How many times have we watched an actor portraying a detective touch some suspected white powder with the tip of his finger, touch the finger tip to his tongue and say something like, “Yep, it’s cocaine alright”? Is s/he checking the substance’s flavor? Since cocaine is reportedly cut using such agents as cornstarch, baking soda, flour and sugar, its flavor would vary considerably.

Being an anesthetic, cocaine causes noticeable numbness when applied to a tongue. (No, I didn’t learn that from personal experience.) Apparently, there are persons who test for cocaine by employing a tongue numbing process. Since a poisonous substance is sometimes used to cut cocaine, however, placing an unknown substance on one’s tongue is certainly not recommended. An experienced forensic pathology worker stated that he had never—ever­––seen anyone test a substance for cocaine by putting a sample to his or her tongue.

There are much safer, chemical means for identifying cocaine and other drugs. Drugs are chemicals, and they change colors when exposed to certain other chemicals. Such color tests cannot always identify specific drugs, but they provide a way to categorize a substance as being a member of a particular class of drugs.

For example, a color spot test known as the cobalt thiocyanate , or Scott, test includes dissolving cobalt(II) thiocyanate in a mixture of distilled water and glycerin. The resulting solution turns blue when in the presence of powdered cocaine. Adding an acid such as concentrated hydrochloric acid results in a combined solution that turns pink when in the presence of cocaine. When a solvent such as chloroform is added and the combined solution is vortexed (spun) and then left to settle into layers, the chloroform layer will appear blue in the presence of cocaine. The test also indicates the presence of diphenhydramine and lidocaine.

Field kits are available that test for unseen cocaine left, for example, on a surface. These include wiping the suspected surface with a specially prepared paper and spraying the paper with a prepared liquid. The presence of cocaine is indicated by a blue area left on the paper. A similar test reveals the presence of marajuana by leaving a red area on a specially prepared paper.

Of course, substances brought to a well-furnished forensic laboratory can be analyzed by non-portable devices using chromatography and mass spectrometry that are capable of accurately determining elements present and their respective amounts. Comparing this information with the chemical makeup of various drugs reveals what drug or drugs are present in the substance.

As mentioned in the foregoing, one can zero in on the likely presence of cocaine in a suspected substance by using a cobalt thiocyanate color spot test. The likely presence of other drugs can also be determined by using other color tests. The following is a brief list of chemical spot tests and chemicals involved in inducing color changes when testing substances containing drugs that writers might wish to include in their plots. As with the described test for cocaine, they can be used only to identify drugs as being members of a class of drugs that react in a common manner.

A Dillie-Koppanyi spot test uses solutions of cobalt acetate in methanol and of isopropylamine in methanol. The presence of barbiturates will result in a color change to lavender-blue.

A Duquenois-Levine spot test uses solutions of vanillin and ethanol, of concentrated hydrochloric acid, and of chloroform. This results in a purple/black color in the presence of marijuana, hashish, hashish oil and cannabinoids.

An Ehrlich, or Van Urk, spot test uses a solution of p-dimethylaminobenzaldehyde, hydrochloric acid and sulfuric acid. This results in a purple color in the presence of LSD, a blue-grey color in the presence of psilocin and a red-brown color in the presence of psilocybin. The latter two substances are found in hallucinogenic (psychedelic) mushrooms. Such mushrooms are commonly referred to as “magic” mushrooms.

A Froehde spot test uses a solution of molybdic acid or sodium molybdate in concentrated sulfuric acid. This results in a pink color when in the presence of opioids.

A Mandelin spot test uses a solution of ammonium vanadate in concentrated sulfuric acid. This results in a brick-red color in the presence of ephedrine sulphate and in an orange turning to yellow or green color in the presence of mescaline.

A Marquis color spot test uses a solution of formaldehyde and concentrated sulfuric acid. The solution turns purple when in the presence of heroin, morphine and most opium-based drugs. It turns pink to purple in the presence of most opium derivatives and dark purple to yellow when in the presence of amphetamines and methamphetamines.

ADDITIONAL FACTS:

The term “club drugs” is often used to loosely categorize recreationally abused drugs associated with their places of use rather than by their pharmaceutical properties. Typical of such places include discotheques, dance clubs, raves and other places where persons gather to enjoy themselves.

An infamous example of drugs being identified in human bodies involved a doctor, a father of four, practicing family medicine in the U.K. His name was Harold Shipman. His patients reportedly loved him to death––their deaths, not his. In news accounts, he was often referred to as Dr. Death. The lawyer daughter of his last victim suspected him of murdering her mother and convinced authorities to have her body exhumed. Shipman had listed the mother as having died of old age, but lethal levels of diamorphine (heroin) were found in her liver and thigh muscles. Additional bodies were subsequently exhumed and were also found to have lethal drug levels in their bodies. Shipman was arrested in 1998 and was charged with having committed 15 murders. He was found guilty of each murder and was sentenced to 15 life terms in prison. A subsequent investigation of the Shipman case was ordered by the UK Government in February 2000. It collected some 2,500 witness statements. It was estimated that Shipman had likely killed several hundred persons.