Forensic Sciences Newsletter Volume 2, Issue 1 Spring 2010 Chair’s Column: Our First Year at The Mount Vernon Campus We have finished our first com- ences as a research assistant. Inside this issue: plete academic year at the Prof. Moses Schanfield has re- Mount Vernon campus. On the ceived a summer research grant whole, things have gone well. from the Columbian College Faculty News 2 We share laboratory space in Facilitating Fund. the Acheson Science Center with chemistry, biology and The Dean of the Columbian geography. We are able to College was able to procure Alumni News 2 schedule laboratory work two tenure track positions for mornings and afternoons two the department: an associate or days a week and in the late af- full professor to serve as de- Dr. Walter Rowe, Chair, ternoon the rest of the week. partment chair and an assistant Forensic Sciences Student News 2 We have benefitted from having professor with a background in all forensic science classes in forensic molecular biology. The two adjacent buildings – rather faculty search for a department The Department than spread out in Foggy Bot- chair was unsuccessful this aca- The Psychic Detec- 3 tom from E Street to K Street. demic year but may be rein- submitted its appli- tive versus The There are still some challenges stated in the near future. The Forensic Scientists: ahead of us: Next academic year closing date for applications for cation for Forensic our courses will have to comply the assistant professor position with the Mount Vernon time was May 17th and the faculty Education Program AAFS 62nd Annual 7 bands which have evening search committee has begun to classes running 6:10 to 8:00 pm Scientific Meeting evaluate applications. Hopefully, Accreditation Com- and 8:00 pm to 9:50 pm. the search will be completed before the start of the Fall 2010 mission (FEPAC) Graduation 8 Ted Robinson has been able to semester. work out an MOU between the accreditation in University and the Office of the The Department submitted its DC Medical Examiner. Accord- application for Forensic Educa- February. Donors 10 ing to this MOU, sections of tion Program Accreditation ForS 256: Forensic Pathology Commission (FEPAC) accredita- will be taught at the DC Medical tion in February. When the Examiner‟s office by Dr. Marie- application is accepted the De- Lydie Pierre-Louis and her staff partment will have to submit a of pathologists. self-study and have a site visit. We have already completed Department faculty members most of the self-study. In order have had some success in ob- to meet FEPAC requirements, taining research funding. Prof. the Department has also made a Daniele Podini received a quar- number of changes to the pro- ter million dollar grant from the grams of study of the on- National Institute of Justice. campus concentrations. All This grant has allowed Daniele students will be required to to hire a PhD candidate in the conduct an independent re- Department of Biological Sci- search project. This project Page 2 Forensic Sciences Newsletter Chair’s Column, cont’ may be a research project gram: In their first semester pare a manuscript for publica- completed as a thesis, as a ForS and at the end of their degree tion; they will also prepare and 295 project or as a part of one program. The graduate semi- deliver a PowerPoint presenta- of the non-law courses. All nar will introduce the students tion on their research. All of research projects which stu- to the scientific method and these changes have been ap- dents want to be considered as critical thinking in science, to proved by the Dean‟s office and satisfying the independent re- ethics in forensic science and the Office of the Executive Vice search project requirement will to the professional literature in President for Academic Affairs; be evaluated by a committee of forensic science and crime they will take effect in Fall the full-time faculty. A new scene investigation. When 2010. course, ForS 292: Graduate students at the end of their Seminar, has also been insti- degree programs take the Student News: tuted. All students will be graduate seminar they will take required to take ForS 292 the data from their independ- Leo Rancier, Security twice during their degree pro- ent research project and pre- Management, received a the Marvin C. Beasley, CPP Memorial Scholarship, Faculty News from the National Capitol Chapter of the American Professor Walter Rowe Howland Will Case,” a paper in in Forensic Science” at the Society of Industrial the Last Word Society session. annual meeting of the Mid- Security, International In February, Professor Rowe The Howland Will case was Atlantic Association of Forensic (ASIS). attended the annual meetings discussed in an earlier newslet- Scientists at State College, of the ASTM Committee E30 ter. In April Professor Rowe Pennsylvania. and the American Academy of was an invited speaker at the Heather Charron, Forensic Sciences in Seattle, 4th International Conference of Professor Moses Schanfield Crime Scene Washington. He gave two the Egyptian Forensic Medicine Investigations, and our papers: “The Implications of Authority, which was held in Dr. Schanfield received a new President of the the National Research Coun- Cairo. He gave two presenta- CCAS faculty grant. He also AFSS, was been awarded cil‟s Report Strengthening Foren- tions: “Current State of Foren- presented two posters at the a $1000 scholarship from sic Science In The United States: sic Science in the United American Association of Physi- cal Anthropology meeting in the Association of A Path Forward for Graduate States” and “Chemometrics in Albuquerque. Firearms and Toolmark Forensic Science Degree Pro- Forensic Science.” In May Pro- grams” and “Where There‟s a fessor Rowe gave a paper enti- Examiners (AFTE) Will There‟s a Way: The tled “Statistics and Probability Alumni News: John Crews (MS,„00), who took a number of the Department‟s courses as a part of his master‟s de- gree in genetics, was the subject of a profile in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences Newslet- ter (“For War Victims, GW Alumnus Finds Missing Pieces of the Puzzle”). John is chief of forensic genetics and laboratory director of the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala. J.D. Durick (MFS, 2010), co-published an article with Eric Fitterman titled: “Ghost in the Machine: Fo- rensic Evidence Collection in the Virtual Environment.” Digital Forensics Magazine, Issue 2, Spring 2010. Wesley P. Grose (MFS, 1984) was just elected President of the California Association of Crime Labo- ratory Directors. Bobbie (BJ) Spamer (MS, „04) one of our CSI graduates, is now Program Manager - Unidentified Per- sons at University of North Texas Center for Human Identification. Volume 2, Issue 1 Page 3 The Psychic Detective versus The Forensic Scientists: Peter Hurkos, Psychic Detective In his day, Peter Hurkos accounts, they were returning of Washington, between Fort was as well known a psychic as to their home in Apple Grove, Meade and Annapolis. Accord- Uri Geller and John Edward are Virginia, after a visit to Carroll ing Maryland Medical Examiner now. In the 1950s and 60s he Jackson's parents in Buckner, Russell Fisher, Mildred Jackson frequently appeared on TV Virginia. The trip should have had been severely beaten; shows where he liked to per- taken only half an hour but the Susan Ann had suffered a frac- form his signature shtick: Start- Jacksons never arrived. The tured skull. Although there ing stopped wrist watches by next day a relative searching was a stocking wrapped around Peter Hurkos thought projection (a mentalist for the missing family found Mrs. Jackson‟s neck, she had trick which digital timepieces their abandoned car on Virginia probably died as a result of have somehow rendered obso- Route 609 near Buckner. strangling on her own blood. lete). Hurkos claimed that his Ironically, mother and daughter psychic powers originated with A police search for the were buried near the site of Hurkos claimed a head injury due to a fall from a missing family turned up noth- another abandoned sawmill. ladder when he was working as ing. Speculation about their Police investigators would fruit- that his psychic a housepainter in Holland be- fate filled newspapers in Vir- lessly search for sawmill work- fore World War II. During the ginia and Washington, DC. For ers who had worked at both powers war his reputation as a psychic example, the March 4, 1959, sawmills. A former sawmill grew when he was imprisoned edition of the Washington worker would make a false originated with by the Nazis. He supposedly Evening Star reported that the confession to authorities. astonished his fellow prisoners Virginia State Police had re- a head injury by accurately predicting their ceived an anonymous letter An ultimately more fruitful fates. After the war Hurkos claiming that the Jacksons were line of investigation would de- due to a fall abandoned his career as a still alive. Unfortunately, this velop when police investigators housepainter for the more ex- letter was quickly shown to be saw a possible link between the from a ladder citing world of entertainment a hoax. The next day newspa- murders of the Jackson family and psychic detection. At one per headlines announced that and the murder of Mrs. Marga- when he was time he claimed to have solved the bodies of Carroll Jackson ret Harold in 1957. Mrs. Har- twenty-seven murders in seven- and his daughter Janet had been old and Army Master Sergeant working as a teen countries. Among the found roughly a mile and a half Roy D. Hudson were parked famous crimes he claimed to west of Fredericksburg, Vir- on a rural road a short distance housepainter in have solved were the theft of ginia, near the site of an aban- from the future site of the the Stone of Scone, the Boston doned sawmill.