Latest / Real Crime with Adam Shand / Reconstructing Death: The Pathologist’s Eye | David Ranson

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Reconstructing Death: The Pathologist’s Eye | David Ranson · Real Crime with Adam Shand

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Appote production.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand I'm your host.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Adam Shand the idea of a perfect murder as long
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: fascinated people that someone could conceal a cause of death
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: from the forensic pathologists and the police, to make it
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: look like suicide or misadventure, or to so meticulously cleanse
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: a crime scene so that they could evade detection. He
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: either held his victims or washed them repeatedly so that
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: any trace DNA would be removed from their skin. An
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: old underworld contact of mine used to say that you
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: only get away with murder when you yourself have died,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: because there's always someone coming after you trying to solve murders.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Twenty three years later, DNA under a victim's fingernails finally
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: tied the killer to the crime. Because forensic science kept
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: catching up. The science of forensic pathology and DNA science
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: has come a long way, making the chance of getting
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: away with murder even more remote. And I wonder the
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: way it's going with science, whether there'll be any secrets
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: in the future.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: In another breakthrough, a new DNA tool is being used
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  Speaker 1: to revisit a nineteen ninety six murder testing evidence that
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  Speaker 1: technology couldn't crack at the time.
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  Speaker 2: I'm joined by one of Australia's most respected forensic pathologist,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: doctor David Ranson, to discuss this and other aspects of
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: the trade. Welcome David, Hello Adam, how are you very well? Indeed,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining me. Have you ever
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: seen a perfect murder? Well?
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  Speaker 1: No, I mean I think it's it's a great idea.
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  Speaker 1: And I do a lot of work with crime shows
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: and TV shows and films and writers, and they're all
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: looking for making murder harder and harder to detect. And
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: one of the challenges sometimes, of course, is they want
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: you to give them the perfect murder scenario that will
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: almost impossible to solve, and for various professional reasons, I
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: don't want to do that.
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  Speaker 2: How many murders did you cover doing your distinguished career
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: with the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine.
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  Speaker 1: Well it didn't start there. I started doing cases in
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  Speaker 1: the UK as a sort of an assistant, you know,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: holding the note sheet for my boss and following around
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  Speaker 1: seeing what they did. I went to my first murder
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  Speaker 1: I suppose in nineteen seventy eight actually, and I worked
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  Speaker 1: with various people in the UK and then did a
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  Speaker 1: few of my own casework in the UK before I
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: came to Australia in eighty eight. So during that ten
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: years I was studying further as a pathologist, generally in
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: hospital pathology and that sort of thing, and getting exposure
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: to forensic cases. Part time, I worked a bit as
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: a police surgeon or clinical forensic physician as well during
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: that era, looking at victims of crime, live victims of crime,
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  Speaker 1: and of course taking samples from offenders and things like that.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: So that broad background working with you know, coroners, were
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: with police things like that was something that I sort
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: of did throughout my professional postgraduate training and so when
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  Speaker 1: I came to Australia, I was able to sort of
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: step into that role reasonably quickly and easily because I
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: had that background. But you know, since nineteen eighty eight,
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  Speaker 1: it's hard to know the numbers, but it would be
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  Speaker 1: several hundreds of cases that I would have dealt with.
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  Speaker 1: Plus of course it's not just the cases that you've
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: dealt with. You know, forensic pathology is working as a
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: team and so you all discuss case work with your colleagues,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: you learn from each other, you get somebody's eyes to
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: look at something for you, you look at things for
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  Speaker 1: other people. So you build up a picture of many
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  Speaker 1: more cases than just the cases you've personally been responsible for. So,
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  Speaker 1: for example, we get around sixty seventy homicides a year,
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  Speaker 1: so over thirty forty years, haven't certainly haven't looked at
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  Speaker 1: all of those, but it's a fair number.
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  Speaker 2: Any of those were you unable to establish a cause
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  Speaker 2: of death. I think the actual cases where you don't
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  Speaker 2: get a cause of death, even if you take that
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: work generally across coroners are around five percent when it
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: comes to homicide. That's probably a bit less. Actually, you
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  Speaker 2: actually solve a few more in terms of the actual cause,
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  Speaker 2: the medical cause of death. But there are a whole
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  Speaker 2: range of cases where it's going to be almost impossible.
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  Speaker 2: You know, you get some you know, scattered bones that
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  Speaker 2: are washed up on a beach from someone who's been
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  Speaker 2: had their body disposed of at sea and it's been
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  Speaker 2: eaten by sharks and sea lies and kinds of things.
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  Speaker 1: You know, the soft tissue is all gone. So if
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  Speaker 1: the cause of death lies in the soft tissues, then
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  Speaker 1: you're not going to see anything. So those are ones
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  Speaker 1: where you don't have what I call a strictly medical
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  Speaker 1: cause of death. You might find, you know, some bones
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  Speaker 1: in the bush somewhere and there's a what looks like
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  Speaker 1: a very deep, you know, knife notch cut in the bone,
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  Speaker 1: in the ribs over the heart. You might say, well, look,
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  Speaker 1: the chances are there's been a stab wound in the
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  Speaker 1: area of the heart, and that will be a satisfactory
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  Speaker 1: cause of death. But I can't absolutely medically prove it
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  Speaker 1: because the heart's not there.
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  Speaker 2: How much does intuition and experience play when you're looking
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  Speaker 2: at a corpse, I could, ever, and something strikes you
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  Speaker 2: as not quite right? Or is it really that? Mostly
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  Speaker 2: the cause of death is bleedingly obvious.
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  Speaker 1: Well, look, mostly in those sorts of cases, it is
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  Speaker 1: bleeding obvious. If you've got gunshot wounds and they're in
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  Speaker 1: areas of the body where a bullet going through is
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  Speaker 1: going to cause death straight away, heart, brain, things like that,
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  Speaker 1: then absolutely there are other parts of the body where
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  Speaker 1: you may survive for a period of time following a
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  Speaker 1: gunshot wound. So yes, a lot of cases it's straightforward.
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  Speaker 1: I always say that the most complicated forensic cases are
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  Speaker 1: not homicides. They're the complicated death associated with complex medical
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  Speaker 1: treatments that's gone in hospital. You know, scenario where there's
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  Speaker 1: overlapping of natural disease, overlapping of drugs, overlapping of trauma
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  Speaker 1: or coming together. You know, teasing that out is a
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  Speaker 1: real challenge and a lot of times people think that
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  Speaker 1: forensic pathology is about a cause of death. Actually it's
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  Speaker 1: not really. When you get to court, the cause of
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  Speaker 1: death issue is usually very very straightfought. The issue is
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  Speaker 1: how can forensic pathology help reconstruct the circumstances in which
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  Speaker 1: the death occurred. I mean, take your gunshot wound case.
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  Speaker 1: You know some of the shot in the chest. Well,
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  Speaker 1: that's a fairly straightforward cause of death. But where was
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: the victim position? How were they positioned? Were they lying down?
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  Speaker 1: Where they're standing up?
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  Speaker 2: There?
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  Speaker 1: Were they sitting down? Where was the offender? Were they
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  Speaker 1: above them shooting down? Where they below them shooting up?
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  Speaker 1: You know, all of those dynamics. Had there been a
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  Speaker 1: prior fight, were there situations where there's you know, drugs
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  Speaker 1: involved or something like that means the person wasn't adequately
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  Speaker 1: able to defend themselves.
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  Speaker 2: I mean did they themselves and.
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  Speaker 1: The bullets actually nicked through their part of their hand
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  Speaker 1: as they put their hand up, meaning that they were
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: certainly conscious and able to respond at the time they
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  Speaker 1: were shot. So all of these sorts of factors come
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  Speaker 1: together in this reconstruction of what were the circumstances surrounding
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  Speaker 1: the moment of death.
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  Speaker 2: Because the police and prosecutors come to forensic pathologists and say,
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: we believe that we have a suspect who's committed this murder,
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  Speaker 2: and they're trying to elicit evidence from you and data
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  Speaker 2: to support that.
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  Speaker 1: Well, yes, sometimes, I mean sometimes you genuinely have the
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  Speaker 1: body where there's literally no suspects, no even knows who
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  Speaker 1: they are, and that, of course you're starting and with
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  Speaker 1: that sort of methodical way of looking at it. And
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  Speaker 1: the reality is that whilst people talk a lot about
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: intuition and they talk about experience this context, a lot
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  Speaker 1: of it's about painstakingly following proper protocols covering all your basis. Certainly,
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  Speaker 1: the more experience you've got you see more things before.
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  Speaker 1: But that can both be an advantage and if you like,
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  Speaker 1: a blessing, but also a curse because you tend to
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  Speaker 1: see the case through your previous experience, and this might
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  Speaker 1: be novel.
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  Speaker 2: So you've just.
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  Speaker 1: Got to be really careful not to say, oh, you've
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  Speaker 1: got all this huge experience and therefore you're going to
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  Speaker 1: more easily know the answer. Now, that's not the case.
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  Speaker 1: What really saves your bacon later on when you're being
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  Speaker 1: cross examined in court is being thorough and covering all
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  Speaker 1: your bases, even the ones that you think are probably
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  Speaker 1: unlikely to be relevant.
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  Speaker 2: Correct, because we have seen in recent years a tendency
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  Speaker 2: for the creation of expert medical witnesses who are paid
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  Speaker 2: well for their services, who sometimes can be accused of
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  Speaker 2: producing answers that suit their employers.
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  Speaker 1: Sure, I mean that's always the case really for all experts,
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  Speaker 1: all disciplines. In reality, whether you're you're an architecture expert
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  Speaker 1: or whether you're a drug expert or whatever, there's always
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  Speaker 1: that risk, clearly if you're an employee of government and
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  Speaker 1: a state government sort of organization where you've got a
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  Speaker 1: lot of independence, which is certainly a situation that we
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  Speaker 1: had in the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine. When I
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  Speaker 1: work there, people have sort of said, well, you could
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  Speaker 1: have this bias in this direction or that direction. Well, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: anyone could be biased of course they can, but there
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  Speaker 1: was really nothing in it for us. I mean, you know,
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  Speaker 1: it didn't earn any more money because you expressed a
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  Speaker 1: particular view. You didn't get any more particular cu dos
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  Speaker 1: because you expressed a particular view. And really what was
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  Speaker 1: valuable for me when I was practicing was the view
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  Speaker 1: of the judge in the case or the view of
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  Speaker 1: the defense barrister, because I think understanding where they were
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  Speaker 1: coming from in dealing with the case is really important.
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  Speaker 1: The other thing I think is really useful is even
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  Speaker 1: if you're doing most of your work within if you're
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: like the crown prosecution side of the equation, getting involved
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  Speaker 1: in cases involving defense work is really important. It's very
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  Speaker 1: grounding in understanding where the other people are coming from
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  Speaker 1: or alternative views. And once you understand what alternative views
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  Speaker 1: can be and how they can be relevant, it actually
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  Speaker 1: sharpens you up in the way that you're doing your work.
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  Speaker 2: How much do we have to blame CSI and shows
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  Speaker 2: like that for misinterpreting what the forensic pathologist actually does?
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  Speaker 1: Yes, look, I mean this is one of the topics
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  Speaker 1: I actually sometimes talk about, and I've given a few
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  Speaker 1: talks to U three A's and propos clubs and various
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  Speaker 1: community groups are around this, and it is really very
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  Speaker 1: interesting what those shows do. And I bring it down
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  Speaker 1: to what I call three condensations. The first condensation is
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  Speaker 1: the character sets. So most TV shows and so on,
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  Speaker 1: you can really only have perhaps a half a dozen
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: key characters doing the things that need to be done.
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  Speaker 1: An audience can't hold more than about six key characters
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  Speaker 1: in mind. In fact, it's probably a bit less than that.
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  Speaker 1: So what happens in the TV shows is you have
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: to have one character who does the job of fifteen
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: or twenty people in the real world, so you can
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  Speaker 1: have the audience identifying with that person. So you have
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: these ubiquitous forensic scientists who sort of cover every branch
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  Speaker 1: of forensic science, whereas in fact the real world there's
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  Speaker 1: you know, sort of three hundred out there, and they've
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: got little teams working in different areas, but they really
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: don't work in the other If you're a chemist, you're
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: a chemist. You're not a ballistics person. If you're a
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: blood spatter DNA person, you're not the same as the
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: motor vehicle examiner. Or so this is condensation, and that's
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: quite fun. The next conversation is about time. You know,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: your results have to come back at the by the
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: end of the TV show and usually after the ad break.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: That's been strategically placed to allow on a morphous period
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: time to go past. Whereas the real world it takes time.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: It takes time to get the science right, to not
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: only do the test, but then validated, have it audited,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: have it checked, and so on. And these are complex
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: processes to make sure that the evidence is reliable. But
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: you'll never see any of that in the sort of
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: in the TV show side of things. And finally, it's
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: a geography. You know, all these things sort of happen
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: in one multi center where all these tests are done,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: where the autopsy has done in this room and the
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: chemistry is done over there. Sometimes it's all in one
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: big room actually, whereas in fact specialist labs are very
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: specialist and they have their own areas, they have their
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: own places. It may not be unlikely to be the
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: same building. The moltuary might be here, the chemistry laboratory
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: for this aspect might be over there. There might be
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: a university department doing some analysis somewhere else. So it's
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: this it's bringing together and if you think of it
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: like an orchestra. You know, there's all these different sections
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: in the orchestra, and they each got their specialist role.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: They're each particularly relevant to the right sort of music.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: And for one piece of music, one group of instruments
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: might be really powerful important, but for another bit of music,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: it's a different group of instruments. But they're all working together,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: and the conductor is the person that's making it all
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: come together. Now, when it's a death investigation involving complex
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: medical issues, you know, the forensic pathologies is very much
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: the conductor in that process, but they're not the only
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: person giving the evidence or making the final result that's
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: relevant to the particular case.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: And also, I guess the other misconception that comes through
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: shows like CSI is that murders are always underworld related
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: or some high drama, when the sad reality is the
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: vast majority are domestic violence related murders.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm trying to think back to us the other day.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: That's absolutely right. I think the first case I ever
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: dealt with was a domestic violence between partners, and I
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: think the last one was the same thing, and probably
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: the majority of the cases in between have been that.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: How does that accumulate in your soul, your conscience?
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: You know, it's funny. I mean, people talk a great
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: deal about the stresses of a job, and there's obviously
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: quite significant issues in people being traumatonized by the work
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: that they do, and people often say, well, how can
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: you cope with this? I actually think that coping with
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: death in the context of my work is a bit
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: easier than some of the work that you do as
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: a clinician. Dealing with patients who are alive, who are
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: struggling with medical issues, who have pain, who have you
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: limited lifespan because their illnesses, working with them their families,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I think is incredibly challenging, and I think much more
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: emotionally challenging than dealing with the deceased persons. That's not
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: to say that we don't talk to families. I remember
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: a case or quite a few years ago now where
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: I was up at the Supreme Court giving evidence in
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: a difficult again type sort of case, and I've finished
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: my evidence and I was away and are walking out,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: and the family of the disease came up to me
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: and said, you know, shook my hand and said, you know,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: thank you. But with something we've always wanted to know
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: we could never And I went off and had a
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: cup of coffee then with them and talk to them
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: about the death of their loved one. Nothing to do
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: with the case in terms of what happens on, but
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: just the experience. They wanted to know what their loved
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: one would have experienced and did they feel pain? And
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: those are really important conversations and they're critical sometimes. And
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: something that we did do a lot of at the incident,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: and we still do, is meet with families at families
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: request to take them through those sorts of issues. And
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: sometimes it's not just the immediate family, it might be
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: a more distant family. And often what you're doing is
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: you're giving the most intimate family member the language that
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: they can talk to their families and friends. People find
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: it very hard to talk about what happens to their
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: loved one, and family and friends will ask them and
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: they don't have the language to express it easily because
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: it's all strange and novel to them. If you give
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: them that language, it actually takes a great deal of
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: stress off them in those next weeks and months. And
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: I suspect from a point of view of a journalism
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: it's very similar you're giving people a language to understand
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: what's gone on so that discussions about it can be meaningful.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: As a journalist, if I was seeing a body in
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: the mortuary, looking at the injuries that suffered that cause
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: their death, I'd be wondering about that person their life, Yes,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: who were they? Yes?
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: And actually, in investigations into a death, it's very important
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: to get a concept of the person's life because what
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: you will see when you examine the body is, if
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: you like, the imprint of those years of life and
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: all the things that happen to them. So there will
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: be the old injury, the old broken arm, the old
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: disease that they've had and been treated for, and things
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: like that. Not that those necessarily explain the death per se,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: but they give you a framework about that person, you know,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: tells you something about that person's ability to do work
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: or to actually move simply and easily, you know, and
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: things like that, what's their vision like? You know, you
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: can't test these things after death, but you can sometimes
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: see the markers in the body, which would give you
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: some insight into what that person would be like and
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: what their abilities would be to do things. And that's
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: why we'd like any doctor. Where you go to see
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: the doctor, the first thing they're doing is taking a history,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: understanding you, understanding why you've come there, understanding what's important
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: to you. And it's those issues that help them with
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: their diagnosis and treatment. And it's exactly those same issues
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: that help you interpret what you see in the ceased.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: But also when you're looking at someone who may have
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: suffered unreported domestic violence over a long period, and the
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: police are trying to establish a motive and a history
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: behind a murder, so you can paint a picture through
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: previously unreported healed injuries through.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Well, that may well be the exactly so. But also
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: are we talking to the police and saying, well, look,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: I've seen some things here that tell me there's something
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: gone on in the past. What I think you should
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: do is find this person's gp, find out where they've
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: lived in various places. Find out where which hospitals they
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: might have attended if they got an injury. Let's get
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: the hospital records from these five or six hospitals when
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: they've moved around, whatever. Let's look at their admission history
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: for that hospital. How many times they come in with
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: broken ribs, how many times they come in with them fractures, skull,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: facial trauma or something like that. And I'll tell you
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: it jumps out at you very very quickly when you see.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: Those sorts of cases. This is sounding more like CSI
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: my faith is restored, or maybe that sort of investigation
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: going on, you.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Know, But that is part of the job. I mean,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: it is thinking about the possibilities. A lot of people
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: think forensic's all about introducing from what you see. The
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: reality is what you're doing is you're creating possible hypotheses
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: based on knowledge and experience for sure, and then testing those.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: If you can't conceive of it in the imagination, you're
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: probably not going to easily diagnose it.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Right. Fascinating. Let's get back to the future by going
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: to the past. Yes, you've had an amazing career. I
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: could pick out of all the things you've done from
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: identifying Warded in Kosovo MH seventeen, but one that I
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: want to talk about is twenty eleven. You were involved.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: You were the lead scientist in identifying the remains of
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Ned Kelly Well.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't told myself the lead scientists at all. This
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: was a team at Victornian's for forensic medicine where we
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: saw the opportunity, and it did. There was a bit
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: of a necessity to try and solve some of these issues,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: but we saw the opportunity of saying, well, how can
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: we apply modern forensic science to help resolve a historical issue.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: And the great thing about that is it's a real
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: test bed for all of the techniques you're doing. You know,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: how can we improve our ability to get DNA out
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: of bone samples, how can we improve our ability to
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: analyze remains radiologically and so on. So the opportunity is
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: that these sorts of activities reinforce the multidisciplinary team context
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: of what you're doing. So everyone gets together, they sit
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: in the room, they work out ways of doing this.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Who's going to do what first, let's triage this, let's
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: work out how we're going to do this. And you know,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: these are jobs that you know take place over months,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: and we've still got our day job to do. So
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: we get on with the day job, and those other
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: moments we sit down and we try to think about
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: other ways of doing these things and look at these
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: historical cases. And this has real application when you get
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: the bones of the wood, you know, the bones out
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: of the bush somewhere, the bones in a river somewhere,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Because you're applying these same sorts of techniques, and the
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: more the teams are integrated, work with each other, break
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: down those general communication barriers we have in all jobs
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: that we do. Then it's a powerful way of managing
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: resources and delivering them to the task in.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Hand because you're able back in twenty eleven to identify
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: those remains, Yeah, through examination of mitochondrial DNA. Yeah, so
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: explain what that is for, yeah, certainly.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: And Victoria and that in those earlier days of DNA
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: work was one of the first, well one of the
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: only places for a while in Australia that was able
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: to do a lot of much control DNA work at
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: that forensic level, and so we took cases from all
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the other states as well. So in our cell we
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: have nuclear DNA which is inside the nucleus of the cell,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: but out in the cytoplasma cell we've got loads and
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: loads of mitochondria. These are the little powerhouses of the cell.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: They make the energy if you like that they need
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: to keep the cell alive and operating. And each of
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: those little michochondria has a little bit of DNA. It's
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: only a tiny bit of DNA. But the interesting thing
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: about it, you only get your mitochondrial DNA from your mother,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: so it's an maternal line inherited. So you know, men
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: have the never pass on their mitochondrial DNA. They get
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: it from their mother and they don't pass it on.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: So we have to go back to find those maternal chains.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: And by doing those maternal chains, you can show a
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: potential linkage. Now, it's nothing like the refinement of and
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: detail that nuclear DNA will give you so often you
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: can't use it necessarily as an absolute identifier, but it's
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: a great excluder and that's a very powerful tool in itself.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: That was successful. You identified poor old ned. Still can't
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: find his head, by the way, we'll still outstanding. Yeah,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: we found a little bit, but.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: The actual skull, the remainder of the skull, is not
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: in what was recovered. And look, there's lots of good
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: historical suggestions from various reports at the time that the
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: head might have been used for various purposes and it
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: might have been sent off for particular examinations and things
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: like that. You know, those times, people still believed on
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: the you know, the phrenology and the bumps on the head,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and they used to make death masks of executed prisoners
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: in plaster and so on, And indeed there was the
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: mask in the old Melbourne jail. Number of these death
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: masks and they're there. There was a skull on displaying
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: the old Mobile jail was said to be mid Calis skull,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: but we proved it is not and was not his
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: skull turned out to be Frederick Deming. Well it was
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: once a Jack the Ripper. Well they didn't it didn't
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: turn out to be Fredrick. We actually thought it might be.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: And I was going over to the UK actually to
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: see family, and we made an arrangement to actually exhume
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Frederick Deming's brother while I was there. Interesting holiday occupation,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: but you know, we wanted to see whether that was
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: an explanation for where that skull in the old Melville
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Jail came from. Now, I mean, it was a very
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: difficult thing to do in exhumation that we needed to
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: talk to family, We need to get that approval, and
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: we actually had to go to the ecclesiastical court in
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: the UK to get permission. They weren't interested in it.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: From the pond of the scientific side of it. It
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: had to have a moral dimension in order to make
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: that exhumation reasonable, and there were certain moral issues here
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: in relation to what should happen to these remains, and
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: who should they be, what great should they go in,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: and things like that. So eventually we made that case
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: and got permission to do that. Unfortunately turned out that
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: the deer I didn't match that skull, so we don't
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: know whose that skull was. But the other interesting thing
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: we did, which I think is a fat aging and
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: a good example of modern forensic pathology, and it probably
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: represents the biggest single change in my professional lifetime in
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: the work of forensic pathology, is we were able to
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: use our molituary CT scanner. Now people may not realize,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: but every single death it gets reported into that forensic
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: and coronia process has a whole body CT scan. We
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: started that in two thousand and five, one of the
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: first centers to do that. And what we're able to
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: do was we took these death masks that were in
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: the old Welbourne jail, we set scanned, then we set
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: scanned the skull that have been on display and then
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: did a physical trigu or physical sort of chicksaw fit,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: does this skull fit inside the plaster head, And that's
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: where we came up with four or five that might
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: be the plaster castle of the skull and althose Frederick
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Demian was one of those sort of physical fits, but
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: there were others that could have physically fitted us well.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Fascinating because in the intervening years DNA science has come
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: forward in leaps and bounds. I was involved in a
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: case up in New South Wales where a jawbone washed
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: up on r Minor Beach. It was blackened, it had
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: been in some mangroves for a long period of time,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: but they could not connect it to any existing cases
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: partial recoveries of people, and in the end a new technology,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: forensic investigative genetic genealogy was used to the FIG system
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: to reveal that it was poor Henry George Coleman had
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: fallen off a cliff back in nineteen eighty and it
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: wasn't recorded that his jawbone was missing. So at the
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: end of all that that they discovered who it was.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: And by the way, we'd made all these podcast episodes
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: seeking information about this murder and abduction whatever it was
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: going to be, turned out it was much more every
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: day than that, and they were able to bury that
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: jawbone with his remain. Yes, and that's where I think
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: that sort of moral and ethical concept comes in. It's
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: really important, but those cases fascinating. I had a very
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: very similar case to that when I was actually in
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: the UK. I was sitting there as a lecturer in
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: pathology and police walked in one day with a jaw
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: that had been found in the in the estuary and
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: they showed to me and asked me to have a
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: look at it and you know, help them with this.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: And it looked as it had been there a long
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: long time. And I looked at this and it was
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: a very robust jaw, more much more robust than you'd
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: expect in a Caucasian and I thought, well, that's a
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: bit interesting. It looked almost Negroid sort of, you know,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: that very pronounced bone formation and structure. And I sort
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: of thought, well, okay, there's not much we can do
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: because DNA wasn't really talking about the early eighties, it
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: wasn't really in the same sort of usage at that time.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: So I took up went up to the anatomy department
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: at the university where I was working and found the
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: one of the older anatomy professors who did a bit
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: of work in the past for police and things like that.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: And I said, look, police have brought me this jaw.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: What do you think And he agreed with my sort
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: of initial thoughts. He said, you know, he said, that
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: reminds me we had a case. Oh, it would be
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: twenty years ago. I remember they brought me something they
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: founded the estuary. I don't find it. And he went
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: along to the next room. Since said old days of
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Native Department, we had all these collections and things. He
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: pulled a cardboar box off the shelf and inside this
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: car boxes is a skull and a smattering of different
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: very heavy bones, and we picked up this mandible lower
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: jaw and we just put it on the skull and
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: it was a perfect fit. So this was almost certainly
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: the jaw that had come from that that remains that
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: had been found.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: Twenty years ago.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: And you know, there was a bit of a story
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: to that, and so we were able to wrap that
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: case up really because of that physical fit. Now today
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: we would have gone on and done DNA and things
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: like that wasn't really available in quite that same way
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: at that time, but we were able to do dental matches,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: We were able to do a whole variety of things,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: which made that quite a reliable fit.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: Because you see the sibilities with the application of this technology.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: This FIG, which is literally Layman's terms high high level
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: DNA matched with family ancestry searching to create a list
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: of suspects or possible people human remains, and then you
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: can narrow it down to a using investigative. Now have
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: new investigative leads to find the answer. Will there be
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: no secrets in the future with this technology?
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean the answer to that in the sense
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: is that it's almost hard to predict the future, but
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: absolutely will be much more refined over time about those
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: sorts of things. So one of the things you're doing
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: in FIG essentially is saying, we've got these remains, we
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: don't know who they are. Can we find a family
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: person linked to that person by looking at what people
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: have done when they've sent off their mouth swab or
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: whatever it is, to these various genealogy sites to find
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: out your ancestry. So they can use those big databases
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: of people and it may well be there's a remote
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: cousins somewhere who's on one of those genalogy databases, and
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: we can find links and open up the possibility of
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: identifying that person by now knowing a family contact, exploring
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: the genealogy of that family to see who this person
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: might be within that family's genealogy. So and what it does,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: as you rightly say, is it opens up opportunities for
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: further investigation. Doesn't solve the case specifically, But if there
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: may be a story and that family of you know,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: Uncle Fred who went missing and never returned home, you know,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: and that police never found out why went missing, and
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: so on, and all of a sudden, you've actually helped
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: that family understand what happened to Uncle Fred or whatever.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: So those are important.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: They've they've got a social context as well. However, there
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: are other techniques that are becoming important. The techniques where
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: you say, well, let's look at some DNA and see
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: what that DNA and this unknown body's remains is coding
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: for in terms of physical characteristics of the body. So
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: let's look at this piece of bone and look at
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: its DNA and say, well, is the is the person
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: likely to have had, you know, blue eyes or brown eyes,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: or blonde hair or black hair, or were they like
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: to be over six feet tall or less than six
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: things like that. Now, these are all very their guestimates
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: in a sense, they're not quite guesses, but they are
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: statistical analyzes. So it might be, well, the person's got
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: a seventy percent chance on our current databasis of having
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: this characteristic of blue eyes. Let's say whatever. Now that's
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: our current databases. What was the database as that relevant
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: to that might be twenty thirty, forty, fifty years ago,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: it might be slightly different. So precision is not possible
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: as yet, but it's likely that we will start to
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: get more and more precise about these things, and the
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: more data we have about the human populations, the more
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: acciate some of these analysis are likely to be. They're
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: not good enough yet, I think in criminal processes. I
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: don't think they're going to appear in criminal case work
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: for decades, but eventually I think there will be important
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: issues that you can get from some of these things,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: perhaps less about physical characteristics things like that, but perhaps
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: about diseases that the person may have suffered from. Now,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: is this person got markers for a particular type of disease? Again,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: it's not going to bee hundred percent of a match,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: but it can give you a link and you might say, well,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: if this person has a risk of getting this disease,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: let's look at people from twenty years ago in this
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: particular area. Let's look at the hospital records. Let's see
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: if there were people with that disease. And again, that
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: might help you narrow down the pall because that's what
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: detectives want all the time. You know, if a dead
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: body or person lying there could be anyone from multiple
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: generations going back, and that's millions of people. You just
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: need a way to start, So narrow that down to
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: a smaller and smaller subset. Searching for a car. You know,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: look at all the white vans. It's a nightmare. But
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: a white van with this brand of tire on it,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: with this particular tread. Wow, now you start to narrow
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: it down.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Because fig was used to uncover the identity of the
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Golden State Killer in America, Joseph James DeAngelo, who stopped
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: his offending, his murdering, and raping at a time when
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: he felt DNA was now starting to catch up on him.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: He was wrong because it was going to advance right,
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: and he was identified through that process. Do you see
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: a situation in Australia where we go from unidentified him
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: and remains being identified to criminal suspects being identified through this?
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: It's certainly possible. The question is what's our happiness or
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: a comfort with that sort of analysis, because when you
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: start doing that, you're exposing vast numbers of people to
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: be incorporated within this sort of case, most of whom
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: will have nothing to do with it. So it's a
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: bit like you know, ID cards or having everyone's fingerprints
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: on record, or having everyone's DNA on record. I mean,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: in one sense, if you're saying we want to solve
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: more crimes and we want to solve it easier and cheaper,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: then that will be a great thing to do. But
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: of course you've got a whole heap of issues where
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: once all that's available, could it be used for another purpose? Well,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: sure it could, and then you're stuck with these situations.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: What is our comfort level as a society about having
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: all this public information, private information about a person sorry,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: out there within government agencies or commercial organizations and so on.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: And that's a real challenge for the community, you know.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: And that's a good point because in my experience, police
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: always want bigger guns and more powers and they never
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: give them back. Well, that's I think that's interesting.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: It's true because you know, having come from when I came,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: when I left the UK, you know police weren't armed
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: and a lot of general police are still not armed
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: to the UK. And once you do arm, you know,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: if you looked at, say some of the policy shooting
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: events that occurred, many of them would not have occurred
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: if the police weren't armed, and in fact there might
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: have been other ways to solve those instances. Now I'm
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: not saying that there's not a reason to have armed police.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: I mean they're really from a public safety body, and
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: given the changing world, there are times when that is
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: absolutely critical and it's important. I think that police are
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: trained and skilled in the use of controlled managed force,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: no question about that.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: But you do have to sort of look, you know,
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: recognize the fact.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: That once you get stuff out there, as you say,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: it's really hard to wind that back. We have very
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: good and tight legislation of Victoria which talks about what
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: could be on the DNA database and what can't be
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: left on the database and things like that, and they're
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: important balances, if you like, between individual privacy and public safety.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: And at some point, you know, government makes the call.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Government part of the legislation, and you know they advance
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: what they believe is the right thing to do in
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: the community and votes the men or votes them out.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: It's as simple as that. It'll be a fascinating discussion.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, one case that I've been intimately involved with,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: and you don't need to comment on its actual content,
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: but the mister cruel series of inductions that led to
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: the alleged murder of Carmen Chant and I discovered in
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: my research that there was two sets of DNA from
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: eighty five through to ninety one which police held, and
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: they did compare them back in the day and they
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: didn't match. So we have at least two offenders involved
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: in that spree. Do you see a situation where those
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: sort of samples that were taken back in those days
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: could be useful to identifying but also prosecuting a potential offender. Oh?
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Sure, And I think one of the interesting things about
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: DNA samples is their stability if they're kept in a
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: correct way. Now, those early days, DNA wasn't particularly widely
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: available for analysis and so on, we sort of imagine
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: it was always there because we have it today, but
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: it wasn't always there.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Forms.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: You need a lot of biological material to get a
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: DNA result in those very early days. Now you need tiny,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: tiny amounts of DNA to get a result. So even
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: with DNA results that failed years gone by could be
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: looked at again with more sensitive techniques and get a result.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: That The problem is when you were able to work
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: DNA on tiny, tiny samples, the risk of analyzing the
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: wrong bit of DNA is heightened. How was those how
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: are those samples stored? Who stored them, and you know
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: who handled them, and all those things then start to
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: become an issue. But absolutely we've you know, they're historical
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: and ancient DNA labs deal with mummy fied remains from
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: thousands of years and ago, and they can get good
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: DNA results. So the capacity to do that in the
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: future exists. It also will be strongly depended on how
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: well those DNA samples were kept and stored.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: So your message to any cold case murderers, sexual assaults,
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: and so forth is they should not be relaxing because
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: the future is coming to tap you on the shoulder
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: again one day soon in the future, it's certainly possible. Absolutely,
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: Thank you for your time today, Dr David Ranson. Thank you,
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: and that was Dr David Ranson. That's a fascinating area
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: this one, and I think listeners can get involved. They
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: can actually upload their DNA if they have a missing
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: person in their family or they're a victim of crime,
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: they can actually upload their DNA to jed match, look
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: it up and that could be something in the future
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: that could help resolve these cases. Thank you for listen.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: This has been real crime with Adam Shanned and if
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: you have any information, don't forget to share it with
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: me at Adam shand writer at gmail dot com or
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: if you want to go to crime Stoppers one eight hundred,
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: triple three, triple zero. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening
• 39:15
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