|
|
|
Case Studies
|
| |
| The Azaria Chamberlain Case
On the 17th August 1980, the Chamberlain family
was camping at Uluru in Australia's Northern Territory, when at
around eight o'clock at night, they heard a cry from the tent where
their ten week old baby girl and four year old son were sleeping.
Rushing to the tent, the mother of the child, Lindy saw a dingo
near the tent's entrance and upon entering, realised with horror
that her baby daughter Azaria, was missing and all that remained
was a pool of blood on the floor. The police arrived and a search
was organized but no traces of the baby were found.
The Chamberlains were interviewed the next morning
and only some of the bloodstained items were removed from the tent,
with many being left behind. The family was interviewed again later
on that same day, by a different officer who thought the Chamberlains'
recounts of the previous night were suspicious. A week passed and
no new evidence was found, that is, until a tourist found Azaria's
vest and jumpsuit. But despite this new piece of evidence, the crime
scene was not sealed off and a full examination of the clothing
was never conducted. This lack of proper crime scene and evidence
analysis led the police to believe that Lindy Chamberlain was lying
about her story. The lack of dingo bite marks and saliva on Azaria's
jumpsuit and the fact that the baby's shoes were still tied inside
the jumpsuit while the vest was inside out, heightened the police's
suspicion even further. In 1981, it was however, concluded that
Azaria was indeed taken by a dingo, allowing Lindy and Michael Chamberlain
to at last get over the accusations after the tragic loss of their
child and move on with everyday life.
This was however, not to be the case, because
after a later analysis of the baby's clothing, it was found that
there was a bloody handprint in the shape of a women's hand, reopening
the case in 1982. Analysis of the Chamberlains' car also revealed
a pair of scissors, baby's blood and some experts claimed that the
rip marks on the baby's clothing were actually scissor stab marks.
And so it was with this new evidence that another court case was
held on the 2nd February, 1982. The case concluded for what was
thought to be the last time, when Lindy was convicted with murder
of her daughter and sentenced to life in prison. After serving six
years in prison, there was a turn in the case when baby Azaria's
jacket was unbelievably, found partly buried at Uluru. Just five
days later, Lindy was immediately released from prison, but to this
day, nobody knows the exact truth and we'll probably never know.
|
|
|
|
Jack the Ripper
In England, 1888, it was no longer safe to be walking the streets
of London's Whitechapel. A killer, given the nickname of 'Jack the
Ripper', was stalking and murdering prostitutes in the area - five
to begin with, between late August and early November, 1888, but
would eventually kill a total number of seven women. 'Jack the Ripper'
would murder the women, before partially dissecting them and leaving
their bodies to be found by passing people. This case was the first
case that psychological profiling was used in an attempt to catch
a serial killer. A police surgeon by the name of George B. Phillips
first noticed that each of the murdered victims had their organs
removed with precision that could only be achieved by someone with
training in the medical or butchery industry. Despite following
these observations and the fact that the police received several
taunting notes signed 'Jack the Ripper', the killer was never caught.
Some notable suspects that later investigations led to included
Walter Sickert, an Impressionist painter who released paintings
of murdered prostitutes 20 years later, Robert Stephenson, the army
surgeon/occultist/magician and another man by the name of Thomas
Cutbush. But to this day, the identity of Jack remains a mystery.
|
|
|
|
The Love Bug
One of the most destructive viruses ever created was known as 'The
Love Bug' and appeared in email inboxes with the subject line -
'I Love You' just several years back. Created by a Philippino man
by the name of Onel de Guzman, 'The Love Bug' attached itself to
every contact in the computer's address books and therefore was
sent all over the world in a very short period of time, spreading
through a chain reaction. Investigators were eventually able to
trace the virus back to its original creator through dissecting
the virus and discovering its code word, 'Barok'. At the time, Guzman
was attending AMACC, a computer college in the Philippines and it
was one of the professors that recognised the code word as being
the same one used in a program Guzman had created and submitted
as a term assignment. When police searched his apartment, they discovered
disks that proved he had helped create the virus. At the time, May
2000, there was no law in the Philippines against computer hacking,
but by June, a new law had been introduced, though by that stage,
it was too late to apply it to the 'Love Bug' case. The creator
of the most destructive virus in history got away with his crime
completely unpunished.
|
|
|
|
The Shirley McKie Story
In February 1997, a British policewoman, Shirley McKie, was accused
of perjury after testifying at a murder trial, stating that she
hadn't been in the murder victim's house, where her fingerprints
were later supposedly found. Shirley's house was searched and she
was taken back to the police station where she herself was strip-searched
and detained because of a controversial fingerprint that was found
at the victim's house. The Scottish Criminal Records Office, responsible
for the detection of Shirley's thumbprint at the crime scene, had
4 experts who certified the authenticity of the fingerprints that
they certified, definitely belonged to Shirley. However, Shirley
persisted her innocence with the matter and was acquitted during
her trial, saved from a potential 8 years imprisonment after two
American fingerprinting experts endorsed that the fingerprint did
not belong to Shirley. After much media activity, legal action and
controversy, Michael Russell, a member of Scottish parliament, successfully
requested different fingerprinting experts from around the world
to verify the ownership of this fingerprint and have had to date,
171 certifications from 18 different countries that the fingerprint
did not belong to Shirley. The main concern with the entire issue
was not only its affect on Shirley's career, but also because it
concerns the accuracy of the Scottish Criminal Record Office's earlier
assertions. A civil trial, expected to be 5 weeks long, is yet to
be held on the 7th February 2006, almost ten years after the beginnings
of the perjury case. The death of Marion Ross, the murder for which
Shirley originally testified against, remains however, yet a mystery.
|
|
|
|
OJ Simpson
On the night of the 12th of June 1994, Orenthal James Simpson's
ex-wife, Nicole and her friend, Ronald Goldman, were discovered
murdered at Nicole's Beverly Hills abode by her next door neighbour.
The police were notified and arrived immediately at the horrific
scene to find Nicole's severed body almost decapitated and her friend's
body, evidently fallen victim to a hysterical stabbing attack. Upon
further investigation of the scene, a bloodstained left-hand glove
was discovered and her two sons were still inside the house, asleep
in spite of the night's events.
Homicide experts were called in and other officers made their way
to Simpson's house, a five minute drive away, where they then discovered
that he had taken a night flight to Chicago. The police noticed
blood all over Simpson's
car, which was parked outside the house. They also saw a trail of
blood drops leading from Simpson's car to the front door of the
house, where they discovered another bloodstained glove identical
to the one found near Nicole's body. Simpson was contacted by police
at his hotel in Chicago and although he sounded distraught about
his ex-wife's death, he didn't sound curious to find out what happened.
He caught the next plane home and the police interviewed him on
the same day. He had a bandaged hand which he claimed was cut some
time ago and the wound had reopened when he accidentally cut it
on some glass. His hand was photographed, blood samples taken and
fingerprints recorded, then after all of this, he was free to go.
The search of his house was videotaped and by the afternoon of the
same day, all of the evidence needed was removed, recorded and taken
to a laboratory along with evidence taken from Simpson himself.
Simpson was put on trial, one of the most highly publicised trials
in history, and all of the evidence seemed to point to him being
responsible for the murder. He had no alibi, DNA analysis showed
his blood was present on a sock found in Nicole's room, both gloves
were stained with blood from both his victims and the trail of blood
leading from the car to his house seemed to heighten all suspicions.
The case, however, was turned around with Simpson's expert lawyers
claiming that a certain police officer present at the initial scene,
was racist against black people and that the officer had plenty
of time to 'set' the scene up while Simpson was in Chicago. The
recorded tape of the investigation of Simpson's house also revealed
a large number of mistakes such as unsterile swabbing methods and
unnoticed vital
clues. Because of these claims from Simpsons laywers, the jury was
convinced that Simpson was innocent and after a nine-month trial,
Simpson was cleared of murder charges and that was that.
|
|
|
| Jon Benet Ramsey
On the morning of the 27th December 1996, Patsy Ramsey called the
police to report her 5-year-old daughter, Jon Benet Ramsey, missing.
The little girl had disappeared from her bedroom and a ransom note
demanding one hundred and eighty thousand dollars (exactly the amount
John Ramsay, her father, had received as a bonus at work just days
before), had been left behind. It was only hours later, that Mr
Ramsey found his daughter's strangled and battered body in the basement
of their home in Boulder, Colorado. Immediately after the accidental
discovery of Jon Benet's body, the parents fell under the suspicion
of the police, because a lack evidence was found that an intruder
had entered and killed the little girl. In fact, no proper search
was conducted when the Ramseys first reported the case and friends
were allowed to freely enter and leave the house.
The Ramseys hired an attorney, publicist and investigators to defend
their case, when they and their son, Burke (9 at the time of Jon
Benet's death), were interviewed by the police. In separate rooms,
all three members of the Ramsey family were interviewed. After the
interview, it was suspected that Patsy Ramsey wrote the ransom note
herself, as the note was written from pen and paper found in Patsy's
own writing corner. The evidence found in the basement however,
bore all the classic signs of a murder by an intruder, including
an open basement window, an unidentified boot print outside the
house, a hand made strangling device and a possible sexual assault
on the child.
At the time, police were confident that the case would be successfully
solved using the DNA as evidence, but almost nine years later, the
police have still not solved the case, no new leads have been found
and none of the members of the Ramsey family have admitted to the
murder. To this day, police are still attempting to find the person
responsible for the murder of Jon Benet and the case remains unsolved.
|
|
|
| Hitler's Diaries
At the end of world war two, the plane carrying Hitler's private
archives crashed, apparently destroying the archives for good. However,
it was never proven that all the archives were destroyed and that
some may have miraculously survived. It was this fact that lured
Gerd Heidemann to purchase the first volume of Hitler's diary from
a man who claimed he acquired them from an East German general trying
to smuggle the scripts over the border dividing the then, East and
West Germany. Heidemann's boss then offered to buy the volumes from
him for the equivalent of what would now be $3.7 million. The diary
entries were then published in a magazine and named as a 'historic
sensation', without even being checked for authenticity.
Debates began to arise between historians all over the world before
the diaries were finally analysed for their validity. Handwriting
analysis and a careful examination of the paper, ink and diaries
itself were undertaken. After the investigation, it was found that
the diaries had to be forged, as some of the entries were very close
to a book, written in 1962, called "Hitler's Speeches and Proclamations"
and curiously, the diary contained entries only for the dates in
the book. The labels on the diary, supposedly meant to have been
typed in 1943, were dated only to have been written 9 years earlier.
The diary's binding contained polyester threads which were not first
manufactured until 1953 and the paper also contained a type of fluorescent
brightener that was not introduced until 1954. The forger of the
diary and Gerd Heidemann were both sentenced to four and a half
years in jail for their part in the illegal creation of a diary
to one of history's most infamous figures, Adolf Hitler.
|
|
|
| |
|
|
