Defrosting Cold Cases

The request for further DNA testing in the case of William Thomas Zeigler was denied by Judge Whitehead March 12, 2012.  The hearing for that request took place last Dec 1, 2011, see here. Judge Whitehead had previously ruled that Zeigler should receive state-funding for a blood spatter expert to testify whether a new round of [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Autopsy, Ballistics, Capital Punishment, Crime Labs, Crime Scene, Death Row, Dennis H. Tracey. III, DNA, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Faulty Evidence, FBI, Finger Printing, Florida, Forensics, Gun Fire, Identification, John Houston Pope, Miscarriage of Justice, Paul Kish, Police, Prisons, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, William Thomas Zeigler, Witnesses, Wrongful Convictions

These photographs are courtesy of Teresa‘s mom who hopes that one day we will have answers. Please visit the memorial page for Teresa on Facebook maintained by a friend. It is filled with memories from old friends and pieces of newspaper clippings. “Tess” was found on August 4, 1973, face down on her bed under [...]

Tags: Autopsy, Crime Scene, DNA, Evidence, Forensics, Identification, Missouri, Police, Teresa Sue Hilt, Unsolved Homicide, Victim

    This is what came in after today’s #cclivechat. Let’s see if we can collect more newspaper articles and shed a light on Teresa’s case! GO!

Tags: Autopsy, Crime Scene, Evidence, Forensics, Identification, Missouri, Police, Teresa Sue Hilt, Unsolved Homicide, Victim

If you click on the link here you can see that the request for DNA has been denied. It states: “Denying Successive Petition for DNA Testing Pursuant to FLA.STAT. 925.11(1)(a).” NOTE: for some reason the page keeps changing. If you see the general search page, go to “all cases records search” and fill in Tommy’s [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Capital Punishment, Crime Scene, Death Row, DNA, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Forensics, Identification, Miscarriage of Justice, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, William Thomas Zeigler, Witnesses, Wrongful Convictions

So good to be back! Again, the hour moved fast and our friends on their mobiles had quite a struggle to keep up. But that does not matter. I am very glad they were all there. We discussed some DCC news and the “no progress” in the Zeigler case to move over to so many [...]

Tags: Alice Hawkes, Autopsy, Crime Scene, Finger Printing, Forensics, Identification, Missing Person, Nancy Grunwaldt, Police, Unsolved Homicide, William Thomas Zeigler

We had a very hot Cold Case Live Chat today with Andrew Wade who introduced us to fire investigations. Amongst the many questions Andrew answered a few issues stood out. Those issues feature in many arson cases on appeal right now. As I said before, a V-pattern does not necessarily point to the fire’s origin. [...]

Tags: Andrew Wade, Arson Detection, Cameron Todd Willingham, Capital Punishment, Crime Scene, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Fire investigations, Forensics, Identification, Miscarriage of Justice, UK

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Candace J. Beason scheduled an April 3, 2012, pre-trial hearing in the case of Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter a.k.a. Clark Rockefeller a.k.a. Christopher Chichester a.k.a. Christopher Crowe. Gerhartsreiter is acccused with the murder of John Sohus, his then-landlady’s son. John and his wife Linda disappeared in the mid-1980s. John’s skull and remaining skeleton were found [...]

Tags: Autopsy, California, Crime Scene, DNA, Evidence, Forensics, Identification, John and Linda Sohus, Missing Person, Victim

Blood Pattern Analysis: A follow up to #cclivechat of Feb 3, 2012, Part I (or, How I Punched a Side of Pork in a Sheffield Morgue) by Sue Carney ___________ In this week’s #cclivechat we focused on blood pattern analysis. The previous week we’d touched on the issues of whether it might be possible to [...]

Tags: Blood Pattern Analysis, cclivechat, Crime Labs, Crime Scene, DNA, Forensics, Identification, Sue Carney

It has been dubbed the most entertaining Cold Case Live Chat ever and the only thing I did was mention snot. He! We were talking about body fluids so it was not that far out, right? But seriously, we had an enlightening chat with Sue Carney about blood patterns, how they evolve, wet versus dry [...]

Tags: Crime Scene, DNA, Evidence, Forensics, Identification, Sue Carney

Forty-six years ago, Jim and Nancy Beaumont were confronted with a nightmare that has been ongoing ever since. Their beloved children, all three of their children, vanished without a trace. It broke their hearts, their hopes, and their marriage. Over the years, South Adelaide Police did investigate more leads. They checked into child serial rapist [...]

Tags: Austria, Beaumont Children, DNA, DNA Database, Evidence, Forensics, Identification, Investigations Division, Missing Person, Police, South Adelaide, Victim, Witnesses