Gerichtsmedizin

GROUNDBREAKING!Two elderly, wealthy spinster sisters in Llano, Texas, die within a day of each other, and it is chalked up to an unfortunate coincidence and old age. After all, they were seventy-five and eighty-three years old, respectively. One month later, an elderly man in San Angelo, Texas, 130 miles from Llano passes away, and it is attributed to old age and poor health. But there would prove to be a couple of common denominators, Tim Scoggin and poison.This case proved to be ground-breaking in legal annals in the use of atomic testing of cremated ashes along with testing of hair for poison, setting a precedent for evidence in court.Since that time, there have been several cases where this type of evidence has been used. It was featured on Forensic Files on Court TV, with McKinnon being interviewed along with several other individuals involved in the case.Tim Scoggin remains in Texas prison. Prison officials say it is unlikely that he will ever be released. This is the story of how and why.

How did a conservative, simple-living, retired church custodian come to die from a gunshot wound to the head? Was it murder or suicide?On April 19, 1957, Ralph Wilson Snair was found dead in a rented vehicle at the side of Highway 50, two miles east of the small town of Walton, Kansas. On Ralph's lap lay an untraceable revolver, wiped clean of fingerprints, his hat sat backwards on his head, and all his pockets were turned out. Could he have been murdered? But if so, who killed Ralph and why?Ralph's great niece Susan McIver, an award-winning scientist and writer and a former coroner, investigates the mystery around his unsolved death six decades later. Combing through old postcards, newspaper clippings, notes, and police and autopsy reports for any clues as to what might've happened and why, Susan reveals an intriguing story-one of secrecy, stigma, and the pressure to conform.While untangling the mystery of her great uncle's death, in Long Time Dead, Susan McIver masterfully combines an in depth look at police procedure in criminal investigations and cold cases with changes in societal and medical attitudes over the past 150 years.

'Kate Winkler Dawson is an unbelievable crime historian and such a talented storyteller.' Karen Kilgariff, cohost of the My Favorite Murder podcast<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>'Heinrich changed criminal investigations forever, and anyone fascinated by the myriad detective series and TV shows about forensics will want to read [this].' The Washington Post<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>'An entertaining, absorbing combination of biography and true crime.' Kirkus<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>'Kate Winkler Dawson has researched both her subject and his cases so meticulously that her reconstructions and descriptions made me feel part of the action rather than just a reader and bystander. She has brought to life Edward Oscar Heinrich's character, determination, and skill so vividly that one is left bemused that this man is so little known to most of us.' Patricia Wiltshire, author of Traces and The Nature of Life and Death<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>Berkeley, California, 1933. In a lab filled with curiosities - beakers, microscopes, Bunsen burners and hundreds of books - sat an investigator who would go on to crack at least 2,000 cases in his 40-year career.<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>Known as the 'American Sherlock Holmes', Edward Oscar Heinrich was one of the greatest - and first - forensic scientists, with an uncanny knack for finding clues, establishing evidence and deducing answers with a skill that seemed almost supernatural.<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>Based on years of research and thousands of never-before-published primary source materials, American Sherlock is a true-crime account capturing the life of the man who spearheaded the invention of a myriad of new forensic tools, including blood-spatter analysis, ballistics, lie-detector tests and the use of fingerprints as courtroom evidence.

A botched homicide investigation unfolds in Long Beach, California in a climate of lies and cover-ups. Police reports, emergency-call transcripts and surveillance videos show evidence of murder. But homicide detectives claim the victim died in a freak yoga accident. They allow the harvesting of her vital organs at the expense of justice.