Salon.com > Forensics

Trials and error in Canada

Wed, 08 May 2013 16:33:00 +0000

On a cold March night in 1998, volunteer firefighters found Leon Walchuk with traces of blood on his face, standing outside his burning farmhouse on the outskirts of Melville, Saskatchewan. Flames shot from the windows and the roof, and the fire lit up the prairie sky. His two small children, who had been staying with his parents nearby, had already rushed to the scene. “My dad came running out. He was all out of breath,” remembers Kimberly, five years old at the time. “We stood there watching the whole house burning.”

By the time the firefighters brought the blaze under control, much of the house was in ruins. Kimberly and her older brother, Steve, would soon discover that they had lost much more than their home. The body of their twenty-nine-year-old mother, Corinne, was found at the foot of the basement stairs, horribly burned, bruised, and beaten. Leon, then thirty-four, was promptly arrested, put on trial, and sentenced to life in prison two years later for setting the fire that killed her.

Can elder abuse be stopped?

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 20:30:00 +0000

Americans aged 65 and older are the nation’s fastest growing demographic group, according to the 2010 U.S. Census. And although crimes committed against the elderly are increasingly a matter of concern, advocates say too little is being done to address the problem.

“It’s the dirty little secret no one wants to talk about,” said Robyn Grant, public policy and advocacy director for the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care in Washington, D.C.

“We’ve got to give it the attention that child abuse and domestic abuse are given in this country.”

Fingerprints aren’t proof

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 12:30:00 +0000

Scientist Nancy Knight documented snowflakes in 1988 while studying cirrus clouds for the National Center for Atmospheric Research. During a Wisconsin snowstorm she found two identical sets of snow crystals – identical under a microscope, at least – giving lie to the old belief that no two snowflakes are alike. That aura of uniqueness also surrounds the arches, loops, and whorls at the tips of our fingers, and to this day most fingerprint examiners remain steadfast that no two fingerprints are exactly alike.

“Fingerprint examiners typically testify in the language of absolute certainty,” professor Jennifer Mnookin at the University of California Los Angeles has written. But like many other claims for forensic science, the assertion that fingerprints are unique lacked a solid scientific basis and now is viewed with new caution.