everyoneneedsavoice
Verified Health Professional - Registered Nurse
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2008
- Messages
- 1,810
- Reaction score
- -2
I posted this in the afternoon trial thread; as I was sick of hearing this procedure being called "junk science". :waitasec:
Just wondering if the DT (or MSM) was aware of the Rachel Tolleson Case here in TX; where LIBS was used by Oak Ridge Scientist to identify chemical elements of tree wood, for the 1st time. Some of the same names have came up in Vass' testimony this morning; specifically the physicist.
Outcome: Guilty - sentenced to death
Same physicist who performed the LIBS on these wood logs; performed the LIBS on the carpet samples! (Madhavi Martin)
<snip>
In March 2004, a woman who had been missing for a week was found strangled and stabbed to death in a field in Collin County, Texas. Around her body lay pieces of partially burned logs. Her murderer apparently had tried to ignite the wood pieces in an attempt to burn her body. The attempt failed because the wood was too green.
Madhavi Martin, a physicist in ORNL's Environmental Sciences Division...had begun studies of the chemical composition of wood, using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy.
Martin was not told that, of the 14 logs she was asked to analyze, 10 were retrieved from the crime scene and 4 from another place the suspect had been. "I analyzed all 14 pieces and found they had an identical spectrum," she says. I examined the burned parts of the logs and the unburned parts. The data revealed that the wood pieces had the same elemental content.
LIBS is a technique that produces a chemical "fingerprint" of wood or any other material, based on heavy metals and other trace elements.
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/...rticle19.shtml
http://prc.utk.edu/martin.htm
<snip>
The scientists working on this technique were able to compare certain elements of each remaining log of wood from both the crime scene and the party. The Collin County Sheriffs Office was 99.99 percent confident the logs were identical, being from the same tree or at least from the same stand of trees. This resulted in the suspect being found guilty of capital murder. He is now on death row at the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/m...issue_id=12009
<snip>
The wood [from both fires] was from the same d*** tree! He says.
It was also the first time tree ring science had ever been applied to a murder investigation.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...www.google.com
PS - the defense in this case thought it was junk science too! :floorlaugh::floorlaugh:
Just wondering if the DT (or MSM) was aware of the Rachel Tolleson Case here in TX; where LIBS was used by Oak Ridge Scientist to identify chemical elements of tree wood, for the 1st time. Some of the same names have came up in Vass' testimony this morning; specifically the physicist.
Outcome: Guilty - sentenced to death
Same physicist who performed the LIBS on these wood logs; performed the LIBS on the carpet samples! (Madhavi Martin)
<snip>
In March 2004, a woman who had been missing for a week was found strangled and stabbed to death in a field in Collin County, Texas. Around her body lay pieces of partially burned logs. Her murderer apparently had tried to ignite the wood pieces in an attempt to burn her body. The attempt failed because the wood was too green.
Madhavi Martin, a physicist in ORNL's Environmental Sciences Division...had begun studies of the chemical composition of wood, using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy.
Martin was not told that, of the 14 logs she was asked to analyze, 10 were retrieved from the crime scene and 4 from another place the suspect had been. "I analyzed all 14 pieces and found they had an identical spectrum," she says. I examined the burned parts of the logs and the unburned parts. The data revealed that the wood pieces had the same elemental content.
LIBS is a technique that produces a chemical "fingerprint" of wood or any other material, based on heavy metals and other trace elements.
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/...rticle19.shtml
http://prc.utk.edu/martin.htm
<snip>
The scientists working on this technique were able to compare certain elements of each remaining log of wood from both the crime scene and the party. The Collin County Sheriffs Office was 99.99 percent confident the logs were identical, being from the same tree or at least from the same stand of trees. This resulted in the suspect being found guilty of capital murder. He is now on death row at the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/m...issue_id=12009
<snip>
The wood [from both fires] was from the same d*** tree! He says.
It was also the first time tree ring science had ever been applied to a murder investigation.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...www.google.com
PS - the defense in this case thought it was junk science too! :floorlaugh::floorlaugh:
