Defrosting Cold Cases

Exciting times with a lot happening during the summer. Of course, I am thrilled to tell you that my post about the Penn State CSI Students’ opinion in the William Thomas Zeigler case has soared to DCC’s most popular and best read post spot! And, the post is being circulated around the blawgosphere! Some have [...]

Review of Zeigler Project During their final spring semester twenty five (25) undergraduate and five (5) graduate students from Penn State University (PSU) reviewed documents pertaining to the trial and conviction of William Thomas Zeigler. Mr. Zeigler was convicted in 1976 of murdering his wife Eunice Zeigler, his father-in-law and mother-in-law, Perry and Virginia Edwards, [...]

The Huffington Post brings the shattering news that Frank Bender passed away. “Bender used skulls from decomposed bodies as the basis for re-creating faces of unknown victims. Among his successes was the case of 18-year-old Rosella Atkinson, whose then-unidentified remains were found behind a city ball field in 1988. Police asked for Bender’s help, and [...]

It has been a while since I did a “Sum it Up“ post. They will still be numbered but will not appear weekly anymore. I have received many questions from DCC readers and others about Elizabeth Short’s case (the Black Dahlia). Because of the slow down during the summer months, I have decided to keep collecting [...]

A pretrial hearing begins coming Monday in Sullivan County Superior Court (NH) in the case of David McLeod who is accused of setting the 1989 fire that killed the Hina family. McLeod was indicted last year on four counts of murder, accused of setting the blaze that killed the Hinas. I am particularly interested in the forensic arson detection part [...]

Bernard Jackson was found guilty of 18 total counts of rape, sodomy, and robbery in the cases of four women dating back to 1983 and 1984. The prosecution built their case on DNA. Most victims were never able to give a 100% identification of their attacker due to the fact that they were blindfolded. Fingerprints left [...]

Please welcome my friend Ralph Ristenbatt! Ralph wanted his forensic science students to dig into a real case. Could I help? Of course, Vidster obliged! Students in the Penn State Forensic Science Program, in collaboration with the Zeigler defense team, have been the first in the USA to have had an exclusive look into the [...]

This themed chat was about the case of Elizabeth Short a.k.a. the Black Dahlia. A lot has been written about her case and obviously we cannot cover everything. We zoomed in on preserved evidence and possibilities for DNA and partial fingerprinting but of course, everything hinges on the availability of the evidence and how it [...]

Guest blog post by Susan Marks, Director of new documentary film, Of Dolls and Murder. Before we had CSI or DNA, we had dolls – an unimaginable collection of dollhouse crime scenes known at the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. The dioramas were created into the 1930s and 1940 by wealthy heiress, Frances Glessner Lee. [...]